Free Better Off Dead by Katy Munger Page A

But there's a
reason why I live alone—and that's so I can be by myself whenever I
damn well feel like it. Besides, I wasn't even going to be home for
the foreseeable future, and there was no way I was leaving Burly
alone in my apartment to poke through my private life. I had an
entire drawerful of objects with uses so specific that there was no
way I could come up with a cover story for why I had them, no
matter how far ahead I tried to think of one.
    I confessed to Burly that I was staying at
my client's house, along with Bobby D, Fanny and the scariest
mother since Joan Crawford picked up a coat hanger.
    "Cool," Burly said. "I want in on it. We'll
make it Crime Central."
    "We will?"
    "Sure. I'll get Weasel to help me bring my
stuff over and we can work on the case twenty-four hours a day.
I'll dig up stuff on that professor you would not believe. I'm
telling you—it's scary what you can find if you know where to
look."
    I wondered briefly if Helen Pugh had
envisioned this when she gave me the go-ahead to "do what I had to
do" to get the job done.
    I agreed dubiously, then remembered the
front steps. "You're not going to be able to get inside the
house."
    "I'll crawl up the steps if I have to," he
proclaimed confidently. "And once I get there, I'm not going
anywhere."
    Weasel, who was eavesdropping in the
background, interjected loudly to point out that he had carried his
pal many a time when Burly was too drunk to wheel himself to his
van. I knew then that I was outnumbered, so I gave them Helen's
address and hung up.
    It wasn't a bad idea, just a half-bad idea.
If Burly could do even a fraction of the things he claimed, he'd be
able to cut down on my computer time considerably, leaving me free
to get out there and do some old-fashioned dogging of the
professor. By the time I drove out to Helen Pugh's house, I had a
plan in mind.
    It would all hinge on Fanny.
     
    Whatever worries I'd had about so many
people descending on Helen Pugh's house evaporated when I saw my
client. She was sitting at a table playing cards with Fanny and
Bobby, her face more animated than I had seen yet. After greeting
me happily, she resumed concentrating on her game.
    "What are you guys playing?" I asked.
    "Hearts," Helen explained, dropping a six of
hearts onto the top of the pile and laughing as Bobby grumbled and
raked in the hand.
    I had never heard Helen laugh before. It was
a contagious trip up and down the scale so unlike anything I had
heard from her before that I stopped short in surprise. If this was
what the rape had robbed her of, she had paid a high price
indeed.
    This good mood was apparently
contagious—though it was late morning, Helen's mother was lounging
on the sofa in the room next door, dressed in a floor-length silk
gown. She was watching an old Deborah Kerr movie and muttering at
the television screen. Smoke filled the air and cigarette butts
filled the ashtray, their scarlet-stained tips explaining why
Miranda's industrial-strength lipstick had worn off in the middle,
leaving a small O of withered lip to anchor the center of her
overstretched face.
    I did not bother to bid her good morning
since she did not bother to acknowledge my presence. I simply
opened a window to let fresh air into the house before we all
asphyxiated.
    Helen's gardener, Hugo, was in the side
yard, spreading peanuts on a slab of wood near a sycamore. If I
didn't know any better, I'd think he was actually feeding the
squirrels. This suspicion was confirmed when a bushy tail twitched
into view on the far side of the tree trunk. A small gray head
popped out on the opposite side, then the squirrel lifted its nose,
sniffing at the air. It scampered down the bark and crept toward
Hugo, standing on its hind legs to accept an offering. It held the
peanut between two paws and regarded Hugo with dark eyes as it
munched.
    Now, there are some people in the South who
would have followed this touching scene by whipping out a frying
pan, conking the squirrel over