Free The Goodbye Body by Joan Hess Page B

Bibi had preferred Scarface and Bugsy over Shakespeare.
    With Madison hovering behind me, I sat down at the desk and began to open drawers. I found a thick manila folder and removed it. “Utility bills, all local,” I said, flipping through the contents. “A contract with Manny’s PerfectPools, another with the security-system company. A receipt for work done on her car. A warranty for a food processor. I don’t see a contract with a cell phone company.”
    “What about telephone bills?” asked Madison, literally breathing down my neck.
    I retrieved several of them. “No long-distance calls.”
    “Everybody makes long-distance calls, so that proves she has a cell phone. The credit card receipts have to be somewhere. Keep looking.”
    I tried to recall when I’d last made a long-distance call that hadn’t involved a publisher and a 1-800 number. Clearly, I needed to reach out and touch someone more often. When I felt Madison’s fingernails dig into my shoulders, I said, “Back off and I’ll keep looking. Otherwise, the folder goes in the drawer and we wait for Dolly to call us.”
    The fingernails receded. “Sorry, Ms. Malloy,” she said in a voice meant to convey penitence. Petulance overshadowed it. “It’s just that we’re like a couple of private detectives hot on the trail. Uncle Bibi used to read that kind of book all the time.” She stopped for a moment. “I still can’t believe he’s really dead. Nobody knew he had this terrible heart condition, except Dolly and his doctor. When my father called to tell me, he was so choked up that he could barely talk. The family had a wake after the funeral, but it was like a scene from a movie or stage play. My godfather made a toast that left us all in tears.”
    “I’m sure he would have been pleased,” I said for lack of anything more insightful to say. I returned my attention to the papers. “Here are five months’ worth of bank statements. All the checks are local, however, and the cell phone bill isn’t paid by bank draft.”
    “What about credit card bills?”
    I found those at the bottom of the stack. “Purchases at local shops and stores, including mine. A couple of orders from candy and fruit catalogs. A donation to the NPR station. Other than those, nothing.”
    Madison plucked them out of my hand. “It’s like she has no life outside the city limits. That’s ridiculous. Surely she stayed in contact with a few old friends. There has to be another folder!”
    I opened the bottom drawer and stared not at an innocuous manila folder, but at a large, shiny handgun.

Chapter Four

    “Is it loaded?” I asked, mesmerized by the gun.
    “What’s more useless than an unloaded gun?” Madison picked it up as if it were no more lethal than a box of cookies. “It’s a little bit dusty, so I don’t think it’s been handled lately. It must have belonged to Uncle Bibi. He kept one in his bedside drawer, and another at his office. I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept one in his glove compartment, too.”
    “Would you please stop playing with that? Just put it back where we found it.”
    She gave me a wounded look as she replaced it. “It’s just a little Beretta, Ms. Malloy. Everybody should have one for self-defense. I mean, what are you going to do if somebody comes in your store and demands all the money in the cash register?”
    “I’d hand it over, apologize, and offer to write a check. I don’t understand why Dolly feels the need to keep a loaded gun in her house. This is Farberville, not some city teeming with armed robbers. Besides, she has the whole house wired so that no one can break in without causing a major hullabaloo.”
    “If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it. Dolly just feels safer with a gun, that’s all. Did you find any personal correspondence?”
    I looked through the remaining drawers. “No, nothing. She hasn’t lived here long enough to acquire much clutter. I guess I’d better go back to the bookstore. Please