Free Criminal Intent (MIRA) by Laurie Breton Page B

one at random and began emptying it. The silverware, stored in its protective case, went directly into the kitchen drawer. But the glassware—plates, cups, bowls—all had to be washed before she could put them away. She carefully unwrapped each piece, discarded the crumpled newspaper, then loaded them into the dishwasher.
    The job kept her busy until ten-thirty, when she switched on the dishwasher, poured a cup of hazelnut coffee into a ceramic mug, and went downstairs. Estelle was just climbing out of a blue-and-white Ford 4x4 pickup. The man behind the steering wheel eyed Annie through mirrored sunglasses, revved his engine a bit, and leaned to kiss Estelle goodbye. Then he wheeled the truck around, and with a roar of his engine and a squeal of his tires, he pulled out onto the highway and left her standing on the Twilight’s crumbling pavement.
    “My boyfriend, Boomer,” Estelle explained with a roll of her eyes. “He’d sleep with that freaking truck if he could figure out how to fit it into the bedroom.”
    What kind of mother, Annie wondered, would christen her child with a name like Boomer?
    When Estelle went on to explain, “His real name’s Maurice,” giving the word the proper French pronunciation, she wondered for an instant if she’d spoken the thought out loud. “His dad started calling him Boomer when he was a baby,” Estelle said, “always falling down and bumping himself on the furniture. It just sort of stuck. And with a name like Maurice, Boomer seemed the lesser of two evils.”
    Maurice Chevalier notwithstanding, Annie was with her all theway. “Thanks for coming in early,” she said. “I know it makes a long day for you.”
    “No prob. I’m past the tired stage. I have so much energy these days that sometimes I forget I’m pregnant.”
    They spent the next ninety minutes going over details of the video rental operation. Annie familiarized herself with the day-to-day operations and took a quick look at the books, which she intended to go over in more detail later. Estelle seemed smart and capable, and Annie decided she definitely needed to give the girl a raise. Estelle was basically running the entire operation, with a minimum of part-time help, for a wage so low it was embarrassing.
    At noon, Estelle opened the shop for business, and Annie went back upstairs. When she walked into the apartment, Sophie was standing at the refrigerator, her hair uncombed, dressed in the ubiquitous black T-shirt over navy running shorts. Staring balefully at all that gleaming white emptiness, Sophie announced, “I’m starving, and there’s nothing to eat.”
    “We can fix that,” Annie said. “Go comb your hair and put on a pair of shoes. We’re going shopping.”
    Fifteen hundred miles away, Sheriff Luke Brogan sat on a hard wooden bench in a small riverside park and watched his granddaughter, Annabel, chase a female mallard across the lawn. It had been a dry summer so far, and the blistering sun had done significant damage to any greenery that wasn’t protected by a sprinkler system. The duck waddled comically across the withered grass, and Annabel’s delighted laughter floated back to him. Behind the little girl, past the small pleasure craft that crowded the bank, a massive oil barge slowly worked its way upriver. “You stay away from the riverbank, you hear?” he shouted to Annabel.
    She paused, turned that exquisite little blond head of hers, and gave him a heart-melting smile. “I will, Grampa.”
    Besidehim on the bench, Louis Farley popped open the briefcase that rested on his lap and took out a slender blue binder. “Here’s your report.”
    Brogan took the binder without comment. Farley had come highly recommended. But with his manicured nails, his prissy suit and his rimless glasses, Louis Farley looked more like some pansy-ass attorney than a private investigator. Still, Brogan knew that the tough-guy P.I. image made famous by Hollywood was little more than a fictional