Free Mistaken Identity by Diane Fanning

shock. Finally, she turned her head to face Lucinda without actually turning her eyes in her direction. “I thought the police department was trying to improve their image with the public.”
    “Could you tell me your name, please?” Lucinda asked.
    “I mean, really, if they are doing this big public relations effort to make cops our friends, then why do they send you out to scare people?”
    “Your name?”
    “Aren’t you going to answer me?” the woman said, her voice rising an octave and becoming shrill. “Aren’t you going to respond like a normal human being?”
    “Ma’am, as you’ve already pointed out, I am not a normal human being. And I am here to ask questions not answer them. First, what is your name?”
    The woman huffed then said, “Cynthia Littlejohn. Do I need a lawyer?”
    “Ms. Littlejohn, why would you need a lawyer? What have you done wrong – aside from violating a crime scene, which I am more than willing to overlook if you’d just answer my questions?”
    “Violated a crime scene?”
    “Yes, ma’am. When you ignored the tape blocking entrance to the Sterlings’ porch, you violated a crime scene.”
    “I was simply a concerned neighbor. I saw all of the ruckus over there and I wanted to check and make sure Jeanine was all right.”
    “You really thought that someone would be in the house with crime scene tape strung across the steps?”
    “Well, someone was. You were.”
    “But you didn’t expect someone would answer the door, did you?”
    “Well, I …”
    “You weren’t there out of neighborly concern, were you? You were there out of insatiable curiosity.” Lucinda paused in the realization that this was the wrong tactic with the woman. She changed her tone of voice and softened her expression. “If I hadn’t opened the door, I bet you would have gone round the house looking in windows, wouldn’tcha?” Lucinda grinned and, leaning forward, she whispered, “If it was my neighbor’s house, I would have.”
    The corners of Cynthia’s lips twitched. “It is my neighborhood. I do have a right to know what’s going on here.”
    “Of course you do,” Lucinda said, stringing her along. “Have you watched the news, read the paper?”
    “It was on TV and in the paper?”
    “Certainly was.”
    “Oh, my. Hank is out of town on business – I don’t pay attention to news unless he turns it on or tells me about a story in the paper. Boy, I missed out this time. Was my house on the news?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to watch much myself, but what did you think happened?”
    “Well, with all the corporate types getting in trouble these days, you can hardly blink an eyelash when a CEO’s house is searched by police, can you?”
    “You have children, Ms. Littlejohn?”
    “Yes, I do. A boy and two girls. They’re all away at camp this week. A pity. I know they’d love to meet a real detective,” she said and then looked at Lucinda’s face. “Oh, never mind. Maybe not you. You’d probably give them nightmares. No offense.”
    “Of course not,” Lucinda lied, stifling the urge to pistol whip the airhead. “Did any of your children play with Freddy Sterling?”
    “My boy did – well, he used to. That Freddy’s gotten to be just a little too much of a brainiac for normal kids to hang with. Erin – that’s my boy’s name – kept coming home from playing with Freddy and wanting help to look up words in the dictionary and asking all sorts of questions. I said to him, I said, “ Erin , what are you doing with Freddy, playing or going to school?” He said, ‘Mom, it’s different with Freddy. He’s real smart. He doesn’t play like other kids.’ And I asked him, ‘Is that your idea of fun? Being outsmarted by a geek?’ He said he never looked at it that way before. He moped around the house for a couple of days and then took up with the regular friends he’d been ignoring while he spent time with Freddy – which suited me just fine.”
    Oh, I