Free Death Come Quickly by Susan Wittig Albert Page A

spoke.
    â€œI guess that’s no surprise. About the vehicle, I mean. There must be quite a few like it in Pecan Springs.”
    â€œA late-night assault with no witnesses,” I said thinly. “Could be hopeless.” I glanced at Sheila. “How about the phone call Felicity mentioned to you? The one her mother got before she went to the mall. Any leads there?”
    Ruby passed the bread sticks and Sheila took one. “The call came on the landline. The carrier is checking and we might have something tomorrow.” She made a face. “Or the next day, or the day after that. I don’t know why the phone companies can’t respond any faster. But maybe we’ll have better luck with the call Kitt taped.” She began munching on the bread stick. “This is good.” She peered at it. “What are these little green bits? Rose leaves?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “Rosemary and thyme.” Smart Cookie can be forgiven for failing to learn the fine points of cooking. She has her hands full with the police department.
    â€œThe call to Kitt”—Ruby sipped her iced tea—“have you listened to it yet?”
    I had told Ruby about the previous night’s conversation with Jake, and Amy’s friendship with Kitt gave her an extra interest. As if she needed one. In her dreams, Ruby is a Girl Detective, a cross between Nancy Drew and Kinsey Millhone.
    â€œI had a couple of emergencies this morning, but I’ve made arrangements to meet Kitt as soon as I leave here.” Sheila picked up her fork and began on her salad. “Before I talk to her and Gretchen, though, I want to know more about this documentary they’re filming. What’s the story?”
    â€œKaren usually has several master’s students under her supervision,” I said. “As their thesis project, they film a documentary, which is shown to the public. This summer she’s supervising Gretchen and Kitt, as well as three or four other teams.”
    â€œBoth Gretchen and Kitt are smart young women,” Ruby put in. “Talented and dedicated. I was impressed by the way they handled their equipment, the cameras and mikes and lights and stuff like that. They’ve got an interesting project—interesting locally, anyway. And they know what they’re doing.”
    Sheila took out a notebook and a pen, flipped to a new page, and dated it. “What
are
they doing, exactly? I’ll get the story from them, too. But I’d rather you clue me in first.”
    Ruby nodded. “They’re filming a human-interest documentary about the murder of Christine Morris and the trial of the guy who was accused of killing her—Dick Bowen. It’ll also be about Pecan Springs, something like the episodes of
City Confidential
. Have you seen that TV show?”
    â€œYes. True crime, usually a murder, with a focus on the setting where the crime took place.”
    â€œRight,” Ruby said. “So the film will start with a segment about the town—its history and so forth. Then there’ll be a segment about Christine Morris and the way people saw her—neighbors and people who knew her. A segment about the murderer, too, and people’s opinions about him, good and bad.” Ruby raised her fork, about to dig into her salad. “The
accused
murderer, that is. In this case, the jury decided he wasn’t guilty. So we don’t know—officially, that is—who killed Christine Morris.”
    Sheila finished writing, put her notebook beside her plate, and went back to her salad. “You haven’t seen any of the footage?”
    Ruby shook her head. “Kitt said they were planning to get the rough cut done in a few days. Their deadline is the end of the month.”
    â€œYesterday,” Sheila said, “you implied that people didn’t much like Christine Morris—and that it was her fault. You said something like, ‘She made a