Free The Deer Leap by Martha Grimes

out her silver cigarette case (which she watched them appreciate) while Carrie stood there, saying nothing, contradicting nothing.
    Watching, thought Regina de la Notre, the world go by. Regina could have told the Brindles that Carrie was sister to Prince Rudolf of Ruritania and Floss would still simply have been a monkey’s.
    Of course, the richer the bird, the harder the fall when the Brindles brought it down with buckshot.
    â€œThat makes us some kind of relations-in-law.” Joe winked.
    â€œNo, I don’t think so.”
    He slid down in his chair, squinted up at the ceiling as if the price of one Carrie Fleet were printed in its spidery cracks, and said, “A course, Carrie puts bread on the table. Good girl, is Carrie. What’d you make today, luv?”
    â€œSix pound. Pounds,” she corrected herself. The Baroness Regina had noticed that Carrie Fleet’s accent bore no resemblance to either of the Brindles’, one East End, the other vaguely Northern.
    â€œJesus, you do better than them down t’the Sailor’s Mate,” said Flossie, swigging her ale.
    The Baroness did not stroll her imagination down to the Sailor’s Mate, where she imagined Flossie strolled often enough.
    â€œIt will also be one less loaf,” she reminded Joe and Flossie.
    He looked puzzled. “What’s’t?”
    â€œMouth to feed, Mr. Brindle.”
    Flossie stopped curling her hennaed locks and looked a bit sharper at the Baroness. “You don’t mean you’d just take the girl away without no renumeration.” She leaned forward. “Listen, we been seein’ to Carrie here for five year, five. ”
    The United Kingdom had been seeing to Carrie Fleet. Itwas obvious they were all on the dole. The giant color television and video machine would have attested to that. Extra money for the poor little orphaned girl.
    â€œRe mun eration, of course. I shouldn’t think of taking away your chief means of livelihood.”
    Brindle had his eye so hard on his mark that he didn’t even get the insult. “How much were you thinkin’, then? Not, a course, we’d want to lose Carrie. Means a lot to us, Carrie does.”
    â€œA thousand pounds perhaps?”
    He pretended to think it over. Looked at Flossie, whose finger was frozen in midcurl. Slapped the arm of his horsehair chair and said “Done!” Then quickly added, unspilt tears choking him, “Meanin’ if it’s okay with you, Carrie. She could give you lots more than we ever could.”
    Carrie looked around at all of them and when she spoke, her breath might have frosted the April air. “Maybe.”
    The Baroness was ambivalent in her feelings toward that reply.

    The Brindles wasted no time the next morning in handing over Carrie Fleet. Flossie’s hand was busy with a wadded hanky at her eyes, but since that took only the one hand, she had one left over for her can of Bass Ale.
    Joleen, the girl who had been snoring on the couch the day before, appeared either sad or simply cross to see Carrie leaving. The other children — stairsteps of two, three, and four — did not appear to comprehend the solemnity of the affair and were chalking graffiti on the sidewalk.
    Only the animals seemed upset. Carrie said good-bye to each one.
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    Breaking her vows of silence, Carrie remarked as they drove across Waterloo Bridge, “You could’ve got me forless.” There wasn’t a touch of pathos in her voice. Or humor, either. It was simply matter-of-fact.
    The Baroness twirled a cigarette into a carved-ivory holder. “No doubt. A case of whiskey and several of Bass would probably have done it.” She glanced at the shiny, battered hatbox Carrie was holding on her lap. There were air-holes stuck in it. It seemed quiet enough. “A three-legged cur wasn’t part of the bargain, however.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t want me to