Free Death Takes Priority by Jean Flowers Page B

whatever the question, I’d be on my laptop clicking around the various online-pedias for information, specious or otherwise. Why hadn’t I rushed to perform this search? I could only guess that I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. I quit stalling and went for it.
    An hour later I was no closer to the truth about my lunchdate. Pulling a Scott James out of the more than half a billion hits was hopeless, as I’d expected. Too bad I wasn’t trying to find the songwriter or the snowboarder at the top of the list. It occurred to me that I was bumping against a deliberate play by the man—choosing a name that made it impossible to single him out.
    Isolating a Quinn Martindale wasn’t much easier, however. I scrolled through the first of only half a million options, many of them female. I flopped back as far as I could on my rocker, nearly slipping off, headfirst.
    Another washout was my search for Scott’s mother, the murder suspect in San Francisco. If I’d even heard correctly, that is. I scrolled through stories of ongoing investigations, but neither victims nor suspects in homicide cases were identified. Was Scott’s mother the woman who was accused of shooting a neighbor in a South San Francisco brawl? Or the woman arrested in a case called the Road Rage Murder on a freeway out there? Without at least one other fact, like the date of the crime or the arrest, or the weapon, I had no way to narrow my search. Not even the San Francisco newspaper site was helpful, reporting only the most recent incidents. The crime I was interested in might have happened last week or ten years ago.
    I closed my laptop. The evening stretched before me.
    I needed a hobby. In college, I’d given knitting and crocheting a shot, but I was hopelessly impatient to do well at either one. One dropped stitch or twisted loop, and I gave up.
    Oddly, I’d never tried stamp collecting, but I ruled it out quickly. A friend at one job I had was a collector and wasin a constant state of stress over whether he could afford to acquire a triangular issue, or how much his Falkland Islands sheet was worth. When I’d asked, “Shouldn’t a hobby be relaxing?” he’d given me a strange look.
    Hobbyless, I settled for a large bowl of ice cream and the opening scenes of a crime drama on television to distract me from the insurmountable task of learning anything concrete about my newest almost-friend. On the television screen, the heroine of the drama, a prosecuting attorney who’d received a threatening phone call, walked into a dark, deserted parking garage late at night, her high heels tapping on the pavement, ominous music in the background. I clicked the remote. OFF.
    I got up and paced my small house. Picked a dying leaf from a houseplant that Aunt Tess had nurtured. Put a load of clothes in the washer. Checked the locks on the windows. (Cheesy as it was, the creepy music had gotten to me.)
    In Boston, entertainment had surrounded me. I simply had to walk out the door to a concert, an exhibit, a club, a ball game, or a gala sponsored by any of a number of organizations. Why had I even bothered to pack my little black dresses, some sleeveless, to show off the small rosebud tattoo on my left shoulder, others meant to hide it? In North Ashcot so far, I’d gotten by with my uniform during the day, sweats in the evenings and on weekends.
    Now I might have to create my own diversions. Maybe Sunni’s quilters would take me in. Or maybe I could learn gourmet cooking. Or any kind of cooking.
    I had a flashback to a chat with Adam last year.
    â€œYou should take cooking lessons,” he’d suggested.
    â€œWhy?” I’d asked.
    â€œSo we’ll be able to hold our own with important parties once I’m launched . . . Why are you laughing?”
    â€œI’m picturing Old Ironsides in the Charlestown Navy Yard. You know, launching a big ship.”
    He’d frowned, an