Free Almost Dead by Lisa Jackson Page A

decided to keep out of it for the moment. As lousy a husband as Jack had become, she couldn’t take away the fact that he loved his child. By no means was he a great father, and considering his upbringing that could be explained, but he did love Beej. He did try.
    She grudgingly gave Jack points for that, especially when she thought about her own childhood. For Beej’s sake she would try to pull herself out of the anger and pain caused by his betrayal and do the best she could to ensure that father and son had a decent relationship. It wasn’t B.J.’s fault that she and Jack couldn’t get along.
    He hadn’t chosen his father.
    She had.
     
    “Look who I found.” Janet Quinn, who had been searching the library on the second floor, walked down the stairs carrying a shivering little white dog. Paterno looked up from the floor, where he’d been studying the tiles where the body had hit. There was still blood everywhere, but the shell of what had been Eugenia Cahill had finally been hauled away.
    “Where was it?”
    “Cowering in a cupboard beneath a shelf containing first editions of Sherlock Holmes.”
    “In good company,” Paterno observed.
    “And scared to death. Literally shaking. I wonder who put her there. Eugenia? Or the killer? We are thinking homicide, aren’t we?”
    “Looks that way. Jefferson’s pretty certain.”
    “Who would want to kill a little old lady?”
    Paterno flashed on Marla Cahill. “Maybe her daughter-in-law?”
    “Pretty bold to come here right after an escape.”
    “Have you forgotten Marla Cahill? Brazen doesn’t begin to cover it.” He’d seen a lot of conniving, cold-hearted people in his time, but, as far as women went, Eugenia’s daughter-in-law took the prize.
    “She’s not stupid.”
    “Not at all.”
    “And she would have had to have known that we were watching the place.”
    “Well, someone called 9-1-1 before the granddaughter showed up here. I’m willing to bet whoever put in the call that pulled our guys off was involved. If we find out who that is, we might start making some headway.”
    Quinn nodded. “The caller was a male. I checked.”
    “Paid to do it. From a pay phone.” Paterno already had that much figured out from talking to the emergency dispatch operator. Squatting next to the bloodstains, he twisted his neck to view the landing as he had half a dozen times, replaying what he imagined had happened. It wouldn’t have taken Atlas to toss the little woman over the railing, but then again, Eugenia would have fought back. Unless she’d been drugged or had a stroke or heart attack. He’d know more once all the tox screens and blood work came back from the lab and the autopsy was complete. “I’ll start calling the staff,” he said to Janet Quinn. “You order phone records.”
    “Planned on it,” Janet said. She stroked the dog’s head, and it whimpered. “Do you know her name? The dog’s, I mean.”
    “Coco, the granddaughter said.” But he remembered the damned dog from the last time he’d been here years ago. Then, though, the dog had been younger and not traumatized. In fact, it had been feisty and yappy and a real pain in the butt. Now he almost felt sorry for the white mutt. “I’ll drop it off at her house. She was asking about it.”
    “ Her ,” Janet said. “Coco’s a female.”
    “Why do you think the dog was locked up? Did it get in the way?”
    “Maybe she was locked in there by accident. Sometimes my cat will curl up in a closet or in a room where I’ve closed the door, and I won’t find him for hours.”
    “This is a dog. And I remember it… her . She wasn’t exactly timid or quiet.” He glanced into the little black button eyes.
    “I’ll put her in your car, and you can take her to Cissy Holt’s place. I saw a carrier in the bedroom.”
    “We’re not done processing in there,” Jefferson said as she measured a piece of cracked, bloody tile directly under the balcony. “Just give us a second before you