Free Sketcher in the Rye: by Sharon Pape

have shot out of any printer: “Leave police work to the police.”
    Zeke vanished and was instantly seated on the step above her. “What have you got there?” Rory held the paper up for him to see. “Since when do cops send threatenin’ notes?” he asked.
    â€œTechnically it’s not threatening. There’s no ultimatum, and there’s no mention of retribution if I don’t comply. And why are you assuming a cop left it?”
    â€œWhy would anyone else write a demand like that?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she murmured.
    â€œAny chance this is Leah’s attempt to keep you out of harm’s way?”
    â€œNo way. The note isn’t just telling me to stay out of the murder investigation. It’s telling me to steer clear of all criminal investigations. There’s no way Leah would ever ask that of me. Besides, if Hobo had seen Leah out there, he wouldn’t have been barking like that. He adores her.”
    â€œWhoa there, darlin’. Don’t go makin’ the mistake that the person who left this note is willin’ to stop at advice.”
    Rory knew he had a point, but she wasn’t going to close up shop and sit in the house trembling with fear about what might come next. If nearly losing Hobo during the dognapping case hadn’t made her change careers, the note didn’t stand a chance. She stood, and without waiting for the marshal to move aside, she continued on her way up the stairs. Her leg missed clipping his elbow by no more than an inch. She was feeling bulletproof.
    â€œYou do know advice isn’t the same thing as a dare, right?” the marshal muttered, following her up the stairs like any ordinary person. Rory chose not to reply. She went into the study and sat down at the computer. The marshal planted himself sidesaddle on the front edge of the desk so he could still see her. “With the limited information we’ve got, it’s my hunch your friend Cirello wrote the note,” he said, not waiting for an answer. “We already know Gil filed a police report about the damage to his climate gizmo; it’s possible Cirello caught the case.”
    â€œI know he’s the obvious one,” Rory said, “but it’s hard for me to imagine him sneaking around to stick a note in my mailbox. He’s too much of an in-your-face kind of guy. If he wanted to say that to me, he would do it in person in that snide tone of his that makes me want to rearrange his features.”
    â€œNot very ladylike,” Zeke observed dryly. In spite of the disapproving tone, his moustache was twitching with a barely suppressed grin. “You sound like a gangster on a TV show.”
    Rory brought up her online checking account. “I’m not the least bit interested in sounding ladylike.”
    â€œMy apologies—I keep forgettin’ that callin’ a female a ‘lady’ these days is considered an insult.”
    Rory filled in the amount she owed the electric company.
    â€œIf not Cirello, then who?” he asked.
    â€œThe saboteur,” she said, doing the same with her phone and credit-card bills.
    â€œWhy would he care? He’d still have the police after him.”
    She hit “submit” and logged out of the account. “Because we’ve had a better success rate,” she said, looking up at him with a smirk. “Maybe he,
or she,
thinks they stand a better chance of getting away with the crime if we’re not involved.”
    Zeke clucked his tongue at her. “You’d best watch out there, darlin’; my mama was always remindin’ me that pride goeth before the fall.”
    Rory looked up at him with a mixture of amazement and interest. The marshal had never once mentioned his parents—or any other family members, for that matter. “Your mother was a Bible thumper?”
    â€œNot really, but she did have her favorite passages, and she never tired of