Free 'Til Dice Do Us Part by Gail Oust Page A

reason for marital discord in the Ledeaux household? What if Lance was seeing another woman? Namely a dark-haired woman who drove an expensive automobile. Their clandestine rendezvous had taken place behind a Dumpster at the Piggly Wiggly. And if I was any judge of body language, they had appeared to be arguing.
    Darn, darn, darn. There it was again, that nasty M word—motive. Not only was Lance robbing Claudia blind, but maybe, just maybe, he was seeing another woman on the side. What would the sheriff make of all this? I wondered. He’d have motive galore for murder. Claudia would be arrested and never again see the light of day. I had to do something. But what? I couldn’t sit by and let my friend rot in prison.
    In case my malfunction theory didn’t pan out, perhaps I could conduct an investigation of my own. It couldn’t hurt. Always be prepared . The Girl Scout motto still rang in my head even after all these years. Problem was I didn’t know diddly-squat about detective work. But I wouldn’t let that stop me—not with Claudia’s life on the line.
    Tossing aside the throw, I hopped off the sofa and padded down the hall to the home office at the front of the house. I knew where Claudia kept her laptop, and my computer skills were growing by leaps and bounds since I had joined Geeks and Nerds, Serenity Cove’s computer club. As soon as the laptop booted up, I clicked Internet Explorer and was surfin’, surfin’ USA .
    It didn’t take long to find exactly what I was looking for. I typed in private investigating on my favorite book site and up popped hundreds of titles. The first one caught my eye. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating. Just what I had in mind; it seemed perfect. Not that I’m a complete idiot, mind you, but at times I’m dangerously close. With a twitch of the finger, the book was on its way. Feeling much better now that I’d taken action, I switched off the computer and returned to the sofa.
    And slept like a baby.

Chapter 10
    The phone rang at precisely nine o’clock the next morning. I stumbled to answer it before it woke Claudia. Tammy Lynn Snow, Sheriff Wiggins’s girl Friday, informed me her mean ol’ boss wanted to see Claudia in his office and take her statement. I reminded Tammy Lynn that my friend had been advised not to speak without her attorney present during questioning. I felt proud of myself for remembering this. My brain’s usually a bit fuzzy until my second cup of coffee kicks in.
    I heard Tammy Lynn sigh all the way from Brookdale. “I’ll call Mr. Davenport’s office and set up a time.”
    She called back minutes later. We agreed that I’d drop Claudia off at the sheriff’s office at noon. After finishing up in court, “Bad Jack” Davenport would meet her there. That settled, I refilled my coffee cup, sat down at the kitchen table, and pondered my next move.
    Claudia was in one heck of a fix. Lance was dead, and she’d pulled the trigger. There was no way to pretty up the facts. It was time to rally the Babes and see whether we could put our heads together to come up with some sort of plan. I reached for the phone. As I always say, twelve heads are better than one.
    Pam, my true blue best friend, was first on my list. Thanks to the grapevine, which thrives better than kudzu, she already knew the gory details. Kudzu, as I discovered upon my move from Toledo, is also nicknamed the “foot-a-night vine,” the “mile-a-minute vine,” and the “vine that ate the South.” Compare our grapevine to run-of-the-mill kudzu, and you get an idea of how fast gossip travels here in Serenity Cove. Pam insisted I need worry only about getting Claudia up and running. She’d man the phone lines and round up as many of the Babes as she could on short notice. Armed and dangerous, we’d meet for a showdown at noon at the Koffee Kup, the local diner and coffee shop.
    Getting Claudia moving took prodding, cajoling, and a gallon of high octane French roast.