Free Free Draw (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 2) by Shelley Singer

room at the bottom for the residents’ cars. What that meant was that their homes would have become useless, valueless cabins in the sky. The residents couldn’t have continued to live there conveniently and it would have been impossible to find anyone foolish enough to buy.
    But Mary, who had lived there a very long time, had always had some vague idea that, for some reason, the lot could not be sold legally. She had formed a committee of two— asking Han Martin to help her— and had begun a search of the records, racing against time to prevent the sale.
    They had soon found what they were looking for, Mary said: a turn-of-the-century ruling, wherein the county had agreed that the land was to be held in common by canyon homeowners. Forever.
    Most of the neighbors nodded knowingly, as though they’d already heard about the committee’s success. Only Artie and Julia looked pleasantly enlightened by Mary’s announcement.
    “We’re nearly finished with our report and we’re probably going to submit it tomorrow,” Mary concluded. “If it’s accepted, there can be no more prospective buyers.”
    “Is there any question that it will be accepted?” Charlie asked.
    Mary shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. There could be some loophole we don’t know about yet. A later ruling, perhaps. But at least now we have time to deal with that eventuality.” Mary, it turned out, had checked the day after the murder to be sure the dead man was the James Smith they had been trying to stop.
    “Damned good thing, too,” Han growled.
    “Yes,” Mary agreed, not in the least disturbed that Martin had just implied a man’s death was a damned good thing. Jim was looking almost happy. Charlie was nodding cheerfully, and Martin was actually smiling. Nobody had the bad taste to applaud, but I could tell that most of them wanted to.
    Everything had worked out well for them. Someone had solved their immediate problem— Smith— and barring some as-yet unknown obstacle to their legal rights, the lot was safe. But what if that unknown obstacle existed? And what if another buyer showed up tomorrow? I had a fleeting picture of corpses bobbing down the spillway like logs from a lumber camp.
    Again, it looked as though the grapevine had done its work before the meeting. Only Artie and Julia had looked surprised to learn that the murdered man was the prospective buyer. But then, the Perrines had been busy with family problems.
    Julia also looked shocked. “Listen, all of you, the man was murdered. And they think Alan did it. And he didn’t. And every homeowner in this canyon had a motive for killing him.”
    That really sobered them up. Jim shrugged, Eric sighed, and Hanley Martin said, “Oh, pig pellets.” I guessed the expression was related to “horse pucky” and “dog doo-doo,” and felt as though I’d gotten a whole new perspective on his personality. The more you knew him, the worse he got. “The cops,” he continued, “don’t care diddly squat about motive, especially not a silly motive like that. They’re into physical evidence. Besides, the ruling will stand.”
    “Of course it will,” Mary agreed. “I’m sure he would have been prevented from going ahead anyway. But Julia does have a point. The man is dead. I’m sure the police won’t suspect any of us, but perhaps we can celebrate the survival of our canyon without celebrating a murder too. Let’s just be glad we have a good chance to win and time to fight if we have to.”
    They were also glad, I was sure, that someone outside their immediate group had been charged with the murder.
    “Well,” Charlie said, “quite a few of us haven’t had a turn at the tub. Let’s take a recess and get back to this.” I wasn’t happy about the interruption. I had been hoping they’d really start arguing, and maybe reveal a little something about themselves. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. After a bit of “Oh, no, really, I’ve been in long enough”