Free Unholy Matrimony by Peg Cochran Page B

strange, Donna was dead, and the police were trying to blame her. A tear dribbled down Lucille’s cheek and landed in the sugar bowl. She stuck a hand in her pocket. She always seemed to have at least one crumpled tissue stashed on her. She was forever forgetting to remove them before doing the laundry and Frankie was always complaining that his black socks came out of the dryer with bits of white lint on them.
    There was a tissue in the pocket, and something else as well—something hard and square. Lucille pulled out the object and stared at in disbelief. It was Donna’s cell phone. She’d picked it up to call 911 and had forgotten all about it. When she realized that it made her look even guiltier, she jumped and dropped it onto the floor like it was some kind of red-hot coal. The back popped off and slid under the refrigerator and the glass on the front splintered like a piece of ice.
    “Coffee ready?”
    Lucille looked up to see Frankie standing there in his boxers and T-shirt, his hair rumpled in that way that always got to her. But right now all she could think about was Donna DeLucca’s phone. She didn’t want Frankie to see it. At least not until she’d figured out what she was going to do. She managed to push it underneath the overhang of the cupboard with the toe of her slipper. Frankie wouldn’t notice it there—he sure never noticed the clumps of dust, bits of onion peel or other morsels of food that suggested he might get out the vacuum and give it a pass around the baseboards.
    Lucille poured out a cup of coffee, added two spoons of sugar and a splash of milk—just the way Frankie liked it—and slid it across the table to him. He stirred it absentmindedly and reached for yesterday’s paper that had been left on one of the chairs.
    Lucille turned her back to him and, after a quick glance over her shoulder, eased the cell phone out from under the counter. Her back gave a loud crack as she bent to retrieve it, but when she looked, Frank was engrossed in yesterday’s sports stories.
    Now to find the piece that had disappeared under the fridge. Lucille got down on her hands and knees—her knees giving an even louder crack than her back had—and felt underneath the refrigerator. Nothing. Well, not nothing, there sure was a lot of dust under there. Lucille blew it off her hands and stifled a sneeze as it rose in the air.
    She couldn’t reach no further like that so she got down flat on her belly and swept her hand as far under the fridge as it would go.
    “Whaddya doing, Lu?”
    Lucille looked up. “Nothing,” she said and was relieved when Frankie grunted and went back to his paper.
    Her fingers touched the edge of the cell phone back, and she teased it out slowly. She clasped it to her chest and heaved herself onto her hands and knees. She grabbed the edge of the counter and pulled herself to her feet. Frankie was still engrossed in the paper, and she managed to shove the two pieces of the broken cell phone into her pocket.
    She was about to open the refrigerator to get out the eggs and fix Frankie some breakfast when she changed her mind. He could make something himself. She had plenty on her plate already—decide what to do with the cell phone, find Taylor Grabowski, and figure out who might have wanted Donna dead.
     
    • • •
     
    Lucille wanted to go straight to the Grabowskis’ residence and grab Taylor by his slightly-too-long designer-cut hair and drag him in front of the altar with Bernadette, but she was scheduled to work at the church that day. It was just part-time, but she knew that Father Brennan counted on her. Besides, she was worried about him and wanted to make sure he was okay.
    It turned out Father Brennan was fine, but he was obviously worried about Lucille. She could tell by the way he kept coming out of his office to check on her, staring at her with those watery blue eyes of his that put her in mind of a pair of underdone fried eggs.
    Lucille spent the time working on