Free Never Buried: A Leigh Koslow Mystery by Edie Claire Page B

lunatic didn't count on a bunch of crows picking them to smithereens before we woke up."
    Maura offered the empty box, but Leigh declined it with a grimace.
    "So what's next?" Leigh asked. "Is Vestal being charged with anything?"
    Maura's eyes narrowed slightly as she relived her annoyance with Leigh. "Vestal's legal problems are not your concern. Your safety is. We don't know what this perp is capable of. Perhaps you and Cara could move in with your parents for a week or so?"
    A cold chill ran down Leigh's spine. Back home? Horrors. And the lease on her old apartment had just expired. How had she gotten herself into this situation? Hi Mom! I'm unemployed again! Just as you predicted. What's for dinner?
    She shivered.
    Maura looked at her, eyebrows raised. Leigh decided that a truthful explanation would be a bad idea. Her friend had barely had time to mourn her father's fatal heart attack before her mother had started showing signs of dementia. After Mary wandered out of her house and into a neighbor's house a block away, interrupting a friend's husband during a bath and demanding to know where Chief Polanski was, Maura had made a decision. She had left her cozy apartment in town and moved back into the family duplex with her mother and two elderly aunts—waylaying her plans to make detective by taking the first available spot on the Avalon squad. Leigh could hardly expect sympathy for her own petty phobias.
    "I don't think our moving out is necessary," she said carefully. "The house has a top-notch security system." Maura opened her mouth to speak, but Leigh went on. "And besides, our best chance of getting out from under this threat is to figure out who's delivering it, and why. We have a much better chance of doing that in the house than out of it. If this guy is as big a moron as we think, he's going to get himself caught pretty soon."
    "What makes you so sure it's a he?"
    "I told you already," Leigh said impatiently. "I saw a man on the bluff the night the body appeared."
    Maura's expression turned serious. "What if I told you it was me you saw that night?"
    Leigh's eyes widened. Nonsense. Why wouldn't Maura have said something? "The figure was a man," she insisted. "It had broad shoulders, and—"
    "Yes?"
    Well, perhaps it could have been Maura after all. But why?
    Leigh's thoughts were cut short by a sly smile from the policewoman. "That's okay, Koslow, don't torture yourself. It wasn't me. But you've just proven that it could have been a woman."
    Leigh's face reddened.
    "You also said he or she was a moron," Maura continued, "what makes you think that?"
    Leigh sniffed. "What intelligent person that you know writes messages on dead fish and dresses corpses up in stupid-looking hats?"
    "A criminally insane one," Maura said heavily, "and there may be a method to his madness. Using the fish, for instance."
    Leigh looked at her blankly.
    "Fish? Paul Fischer?" Maura said slowly. "Get it?"
    Leigh hadn't. "Well, sure," she said quickly. "That much is obvious. But it doesn't prove this guy is really dangerous."
    "Of course not," Maura said. "It doesn't prove anything. That's my point. We don't know what this person is capable of."
    Leigh exhaled in defeat. "I understand what you're saying. But I'm telling you, Cara won't leave. And with the security system on and the police driving by now and then, I'm sure we'll be fine." She got up to leave. "But we have some detective work to do—"
    The glare aimed at Leigh could kindle a fire.
    "I mean," she backtracked, "we have some genealogical research to do. If Cara and I make a mission of finding out all about Paul Fischer's life and the history of the house, we're bound to stumble across something suspicious."
    Maura's eyes appraised Leigh carefully. "All right, Koslow. But let me tell you this. My official advice is for you both to get the hell out of that house. Sadly, I have no legal right to make you. That said, as far as doing library-type research on Paul Fischer and the