Free The Boy With The Painful Tattoo: Holmes & Moriarity 3 by Josh Lanyon Page B

“Excuse me.”

Chapter Six
     
     
    E mmaline stood on the porch holding a casserole dish.
    She raised the large white dish like a priestess offering the gods their main entrée, and the delicious fragrance of ham, onions and paprika wafted up. “Scalloped potatoes and ham. Don’t worry, I won’t come in,” she said. “I saw you were back and I thought you’d probably be in the mood for a home-cooked meal about now.”
    “No, please come in,” I said. “Please.”
    “But I know you must have—” She gave up as I tugged her through the doors and into the hall. “Oh my!” She stared at the obstacle course of boxes in all shapes and sizes.
    “I know. But I am making progress.”
    “Is your partner h—” She broke off as I shepherded her down the hall and into the kitchen where she spotted Jerry.
    “This is Jerry. He was just going,” I said.
    “No, no. Not on my account,” Emmaline said. “I can only stay a minute.”
    Jerry smiled, shook hands and sat back down at the table. I put my hand to my eyebrow to stop the incipient tic.
    “You look familiar,” Emmaline said. “Have we met?”
    Jerry thought Emmaline looked familiar too and they began to bounce theories on prior acquaintanceship back and forth. I watched, mesmerized.
    “Where did you go to school?” Emmaline asked finally.
    But no, that wasn’t it either. I was about to drop my head on my folded arms and cry myself to sleep when Emmaline suddenly wearied of the chase and turned to me.
    “I saw on the news that the dead man you found was a notorious art thief.”
    “As crazy as it sounds, that seems to be the case,” I admitted.
    “Elijah Ladas,” Jerry supplied. “Just that name sends a shiver down your spine.” I must have looked surprised because he added, “It sounds foreign.”
    “Oh?”
    “Sinister.”
    I nodded noncommittally.
    Emmaline asked, “Do the police consider you a suspect?”
    “No.”
    Jerry said grimly, “You can’t be sure about that. The police could be trying to lull you into a false sense of security. SFPD are completely corrupt.”
    I resented that on J.X.’s behalf, although I had no idea if it was true or not. “What false sense of security? I had nothing to do with his death.”
    To Emmaline, Jerry said, “The dead man was in the crate Christopher’s china should have been in.”
    “Isn’t that something,” Emmaline said politely, having already heard this from me the day before. “Then where’s your china, Christopher?”
    I shook my head. “Somewhere in the middle of the desert a coyote is probably serving brunch.”
    Jerry guffawed.
    “That cute little girl on KAKE was saying Mr. Ladas was a suspect in a murder,” Emmaline said.
    “Certainly a victim.”
    “I told Christopher he should offer to consult with the police,” Jerry said.
    “Oh, I didn’t realize,” Emmaline said. “I thought you and your partner were authors.”
    “We are. And no, I don’t consult with the police.” Like all honest people I preferred to avoid the police as much as possible.
    “But you should,” Jerry said. “You have a brilliant criminal mind.”
    I tried to hang onto my smile, but it was probably looking frayed around the edges. “I’m not even sure what that means, Jerry.”
    Jerry smiled fondly and then he and Emmaline proceeded to rehash the meager facts of the case. When no solution was forthcoming, she departed.
    Jerry was still sitting in the kitchen when I returned, and I prepared to become extremely inhospitable.
    Whatever Jerry read in my face had him smiling cheerfully. “She’s just like Miss Butterwith. She’s exactly like her.”
    “Well, she’s not exactly like her.”
    “She’s exactly how I picture her.”
    Of course, Jerry had a right to picture Miss Butterwith however he liked. That’s part of the pleasure of reading versus watching a film or TV show—the reader is free to exercise his own imagination. But he was wrong. Emmaline was not exactly like Miss