Free Death Runs Adrift (The Gray Whale Inn Mysteries) by Karen MacInerney Page B

much Derek had been paying to live here, but I hoped it wasn’t much.
    An old recliner with half the stuffing leaking out of it in yellow clots sat in a clearing not far from the front door, accompanied by two card-table chairs that had had better days. The dirty tips of hand-rolled cigarettes littered the ground; evidently this was where Derek had kicked back and enjoyed a smoke. Had Tania spent much time here? I couldn’t imagine it being very appealing.
    I clutched the container of cookies intended for the Abingdons as I stepped past the rotting recliner and reached up to knock on the peeling front door.
    The door swung open when my knuckles hit it, and I jumped back, startled. Nobody was there, though; the door had just been slightly ajar. The smell of stale beer wafted out, and I wrinkled my nose.
    “Hello?” I called—not that I expected anyone to answer, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
    When nobody answered, I glanced over my shoulder and took a step inside.
    I stepped on a piece of stale pizza with my toe and knocked over a beer can as I crossed through what I suppose could be called a living room. A formerly overstuffed and now half-stuffed couch of indeterminate color was in the middle of the room, festooned with dirty clothes. In front of it, an upturned crate doubled as a coffee table—or a beer table, if the number of cans lined up on it was any indication. An overflowing ashtray was tucked in between the cans, adding a stale smoke aroma to the spilled beer and spoiled food scent. Housekeeping had evidently not been a priority for Derek Morton.
    By the time I got to the kitchen, I decided “messy” didn’t really do it justice. “Filthy” was closer to the mark. Tania’s description of the house as a “bachelor’s pad” was an understatement. The sink overflowed with bowls and plates, and a pot with what might once have been ramen languished evilly on an electric burner. I swallowed back nausea and retreated down a short hall to the house’s one bedroom.
    I reached in and flipped on the light, then surveyed the room, which resembled the kitchen, only with more clothing. I could make out the general shape of a mattress on the floor among the piles of dirty clothes. A poster of Jimi Hendrix hung lopsidedly from the dark paneled walls. I knew the police had been here, but the jumble looked just like the rest of the house. Evidently Derek’s mother hadn’t gathered the courage to come and collect her son’s things—either that, or she’d decided nothing was worth picking up.
    I stepped into the dead man’s bedroom with trepidation. There were flannel shirts and T-shirts, none of them clean, and a stack of dog-eared magazines. If he’d had a cell phone or computer, the police had taken them; there was no sign of electronics here. I rifled through the piles of clothes, but either the police had taken everything of interest, or there was nothing here. A suitcase lay in the corner; I searched its compartments carefully, but found nothing. I was about to give up when something gleamed in the corner. I bent down and picked up a light bulb. It was an odd color—blue instead of white—but didn’t look suspicious. A moment later, I noticed a slip of paper poking from the back pocket of a pair of jeans on the floor. I retrieved a folded piece of notebook paper, on which were scrawled what appeared to be a series of dates and times. Three of them were in the past, but one was scheduled for the coming week, and one the following. Perplexed, I tucked the paper into my back pocket and looked through the rest of the jeans pockets. There was one other piece of paper, folded so many times I almost didn’t recognize it as paper.
    I sure recognized the intent of the note written on it, which was scrawled with a heavy hand in thick pencil on a creased piece of notebook paper.
    Stay away from her or I’ll kill you.
    I had just tucked the note into my back pocket when I heard a sound. Someone was at