Free Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner Page B

with no surprises. The ME would start in on the girl after lunch.
    Finally, she had a message from Chip, the almost-got-laid accountant, wondering if D.D. wanted to try dinner a second time around.She did, but given the way the morning was going, Chip was going to have to be a very patient man.
    “Okay,” D.D. declared half a loaf later, trying to check surreptitiously for olive oil dripping down her chin. “We spent last night with one crime scene and the morning with two neighbors. You’re the professor—what d’ya think?”
    “Will there be a quiz later?” Alex asked mildly; he’d also been checking messages. Now he put away his phone and reached for the bread basket.
    “Please. This case was supposed to be wrapped up five hours ago. You’re gonna have to start detecting a lot quicker if you wanna roll with my squad.”
    He arched a brow, seemed amused. He was a good-looking guy, D.D. decided. The charcoal-colored suit worked with his dark blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. A good-looking guy with good taste in restaurants. Hmm.
    “Let’s review the basics,” he said now, his deep baritone sounding very much like the teacher he purported to be. “We have a crime scene with four stabbed and one shot, close contact to the head. Blood evidence tells us the victims were taken out one by one. The pattern would at first blush appear to be a murder-suicide, with the head of the household, Patrick Harrington, stabbing his entire family before shooting himself in the head.”
    “At first blush,” D.D. agreed.
    “Now, we’d love Patrick’s take on this, but so far he’s one step above a vegetable in the ICU, so that’s not going to happen yet.”
    “Darn convenient for him,” D.D. groused, then went for more bread.
    “Which brings us to impressions of the family by friends and neighbors. We have the lovely Miss Patsy—”
    “Very lovely,” D.D. interjected.
    “Fabulous iced tea,” Alex agreed. “Though a little heavy on the breakable figurines.”
    “Don’t sneeze in that house; it’ll cost you.”
    “Miss Patsy likes Denise and Patrick very much. Considers them stand-up parents, good Christians, and all-around nice neighbors,who did have a lot on their plate but were holding up well enough. On the other hand, she is not a fan of their adopted son, Ozzie, who has a history of creepiness.”
    “Licking the blood off his hand …” D.D. shivered.
    “Now, the second neighbor, Dexter Harding, had a bit to add to that puzzle. Economic situation was a bit more dire than Miss Patsy understood from Denise. According to Dexter, Patrick considered them down to their last two months of operating income. Not a good place to be.”
    “Ah, but according to Dexter, Patrick had a plan,” D.D. countered. “Patrick believed he was just two weeks from finishing the second floor. Say he gave himself six weeks to get it rented, asking for first and last month’s rent, plus deposit. That would be a significant cash injection due in the next two to eight weeks.”
    “So we have a family in a tense economic condition, but not hopeless. Few things go according to plan, they could pull out of it.”
    “Which suggests,” D.D. commented, “that Patrick has reason to be stressed, but perhaps is not yet suicidal. I mean, why go postal now? You’d think if he’s gonna lose it, it’ll be eight weeks from now when he can’t find a renter, doesn’t get the money, etc., etc.”
    “Logically speaking, yes,” Alex agreed. “But he’s still stressed, the wife’s still stressed. Maybe someone said something last night at dinner. The daughter charged too much at the mall, the expenses for the older son’s football uniform were higher than expected. All you need is a trigger. Things unfold from there.”
    “Patrick can’t stand the thought of his family ending up homeless, his kids becoming wards of the state …” D.D. filled in. “All of a sudden, Patrick convinces himself that killing his own family is the