Free Three-Day Town by Margaret Maron Page A

tomatoes?”
    “Cheese,” Sigrid said firmly, and when Roman brought out a hunk of something with an odd color, she emended it to, “Cheddar cheese.”
    Sighing, he returned his first choice to the refrigerator and exchanged it for the familiar orange wedge.
    Sigrid poured herself a cup of coffee. “I don’t suppose the paper came?”
    “Actually, it did. At least there’s a plastic bag wedged in the snowbank inside the gate.” He broke two eggs into a bowl and gave them a brisk stir with the whisk. “I suppose you should get it before it’s completely buried.”
    Sigrid smiled. Despite his bald dome and portly size, there were times that Roman reminded her of a large fluffy cat. He had a cat’s aversion to strenuous exercise and to the cold and wet. Snow might be beautiful, but that did not mean he wanted to walk across their small enclosed courtyard in it.
    “If you go out for it, do you think you could manage to walk backwards?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “It’s for my book. I want to see if a killer could make it look as if he only came in after a snowfall. Not that he went out .”
    “It wouldn’t,” she said flatly. “Sorry. It’s not just the shoe tracks. Snow this deep will show which direction the legs were moving.”
    Sigrid had first met Roman through one of her mother’s impulsive charitable acts. Due to an improbable set of circumstances, he had wound up camping in her tiny guestroom, and when her building went condo, he took it upon himself to find her a new apartment. Several frustrating fiascos later, he had brought her to this house built onto the side of a commercial building near the river on one of the shortest streets in Greenwich Village. The half-furnished rooms formed a sort of flipped L shape around a small courtyard with a high fence. The kitchen, utility room, and maid’s quarters were on the short segment, with a master suite on the long segment, along with a living room, dining area, and guestroom. The eccentric space was much too big for one person, yet the rent he quoted was quite reasonable.
    “What’s the catch?” she had asked suspiciously.
    “I have to live here, too,” he confessed. “It belongs to my godmother. Some of the furniture has been in her family for four generations, and I seem to be the only person she’ll rent the house to. I’ll live in the maid’s quarters and I promise I shan’t get in your way. You’ll hardly know I’m here.”
    That had not proved even remotely true, but Sigrid found that he was less intrusive than she had feared, and there were times that she was even grateful he was there. When Nauman’s death sent her into a deep depression, Roman’s constant presence and determined badgering had helped bring her out of it.
    He had a magpie curiosity about everything that crossed his path and was entranced to learn she was a homicide detective, because he wanted to write mystery novels and thought she would be a handy resource. She could not convince him that most of her cases were open and shut and came with very little mystery attached. All the same, she could and did clarify points of police procedure for him, and she was quite touched when he dedicated his first book to her.
    He had now written four books, and they were moderately successful. None had made the New York Times bestseller list, but they did sell well enough to pay his share of the rent, rent he now paid to her.
    Buying this house was her only big indulgence after Nauman’s death, and his robe still hung in her closet. It no longer held the scent of his mellow pipe tobacco or aftershave, but merely touching it once in a while comforted her in ways she would not try to analyze.
    There was a snow shovel in the utility room, and by the time she had cleared a short path out to the newspaper and made sure the gate could be opened, Roman had sautéed peppers, onions, and tomatoes for his own omelet and was ready to lay the plain cheese one on her plate.
    She shook the snowflakes