Free The Oxygen Murder by Camille Minichino

stoop, a short flight up from street level. He was young and cute—but so was she. She’d at least give it a try.
    “Hey,” she said, mildly flirtatious.
    The cop had been shifting his weight from one foot to another, the keep-your-blood-moving dance of winter. When he saw Lori, he stopped and swung his club, like a baton, at his hip.
    Lori knew how to lift her dark eyebrows just enough to express intensely personal interest:
You have captured my attention,
they said. She knew she had the best haircut to show off her high cheekbones and delicate chin, and she took advantage of the new styles to accentuate her petite figure. The short black jacket and bright scarf she woretoday gave her a jaunty, sexy air she wasn’t above using to her advantage. Not exactly what Greer, Friedan, and Steinem advocated in her women’s studies texts.
    “Hey,” the cop said.
    Lori noticed the curly red hair under his cap, and how tightly his jacket fit across his chest.
    “Wow, that stick is awesome,” she said.
    The cop smiled and blushed.
Good.
    “How you doin’ today, ma’am?”
    “I’m great. Did you see the tree lit yet?” Lori couldn’t tell if he wore a wedding ring under his heavy gloves.
Please don’t let him show me pictures of adorable red-haired children.
    “Yeah, I was down there last night, on my trusty steed.” The cop straightened his shoulders and held his arms in position to hold the reins of an imaginary horse.
    “Wow, you’re a mountie, too?” Lori asked, fishing her keys from the front pocket of her tight-fitting pants. She moved closer to the door. The front entrance had been redone recently, with metal framing, and from the outside the rust-brown edifice looked like a doorman building, though it was far from it.
    “What floor?” the cop asked.
    Lori winked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She reached for the door handle.
    The cop stepped between Lori and the door. Still smiling, but not as malleable as Lori had hoped. “Actually, I have to know. Part of the building is off-limits.”
    Lori gave a hopeful look, though she felt it was a lost cause. “I’m on four.”
    Oops, why hadn’t she lied? It wasn’t as if she was the most honest person around these days.
    The cop shook his head and wagged his finger.
No go.
“New York’s finest are still working up there.”
    Lori put her hand on her hip. One last effort. “Just for one tiny minute?”
    The cop took off his hat and scratched his head. “You know I can’t do that.”
    At that moment, uniformed officers—an entire crew of them, it seemed to Lori—opened the door from the inside and marched out, carrying boxes of stuff. Her stuff, she could tell. She saw one of her flowered pillows sticking out of a carton.
    Her stomach rolled. It might as well have been her life passing before her, and then out of her hands.
    She wondered how carefully they’d go through everything. She could ask Uncle Matt, but she hesitated to bring up anything about the case, especially with his wife nosing around. Not that it mattered. The money was in plain view.
    “You can come back in an hour or so. Then maybe we can grab some lunch,” the redheaded cop said, jerking his head toward the lowend diner on the corner.
    “Yeah, maybe,” she said.
    “Some other lifetime,” she mumbled to herself, and walked down the steps to the street.
     
    Work was the only thing that would bring some sanity back into Lori’s life. Whatever else was going on, there were still ozone issues to deal with for her video, and maybe doing something that made a difference to the world would give her perspective. Wasn’t that why she started Pizzano Productions in the first place? She’d wanted her parents to be proud of what she did with the money they’d left her. If she couldn’t double or triple her inheritance, the least she could do was use it well.
    She’d thought of producing something more immediately profitable, like the exercise videos and food-show DVDs some of her