Free 1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun by Lois Winston

repellant in January-in Siberia.

    Besides, I don't think the court appoints representation until
after a person's been formally charged with a crime. So far, at least,
I was lucky in that respect. Although my current predicament had
driven my normally rational and focused brain to digress into the
land of irrelevant minutia.
    But if I had refused to speak before consulting an attorney,
wouldn't Batswin and Robbins take that as an admission of guilt?
Or at least that I knew something I wasn't telling them?
    I asked the question I dreaded hearing the answer to. "Do I
need to call a lawyer?"
    "Do you?" asked Robbins.
    The man had a maddening habit of answering my questions
with ones of his own. My entire body, let alone my voice, quaked
like the California coastline after a seismic shift of the San Andreas
Fault. "Are you going to charge me with Marlys's murder?"
    Batswin shook her head. She removed a sheaf of papers from a
beat-up leather satchel sitting on the chair next to her. "Not for
now. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to believe you, Mrs.
Pollack."
    Instead of taking comfort in her statement, the blood in my
veins turned as cold as a Slurpee. Her not for now hung ominously
in the air above me like a craft knife suspended by a frayed strand
of embroidery floss. Any moment the strand would break, and the
knife would fall. Piercing one of my vital organs.
    Detective Batswin spent the next eon rifling through the pages.
Then she glanced up and trapped me with her nearly ebony eyes.
"My gut suggests you're telling the truth, but that could just be the
tasty memory of last night's tequila and enchiladas."

    Several of the frayed floss fibers split, and the knife dropped
lower, dangling precariously above my heart. I saw through her.
She expected me to drop my guard. Make a mistake. Then she'd
swoop in for the kill. Or in this case, the arrest. But I had no guard
to drop. I didn't murder Marlys.
    "I'm curious," said Robbins. "Since you've already admitted
you intend to pay off this Ricardo, where did you plan to get the
money?"
    I told them about renting out the apartment over the garage.
"If I can't get him to leave me alone, I'm hoping he'll allow me to
pay off the debt over time."
    Robbins and Batswin exchanged incredulous expressions, their
eyes nearly rolling out of their heads. "And you really believe he'll
go for that? Accepting a grand or two when he's owed fifty? And
what about interest? Have you got any idea how much loan sharks
charge?"
    I hadn't thought of that. "I'm showing good faith."
    Robbins slammed his hand on the table, rattling the coffee tray.
And me. "What you're showing is two tons of stupidity, Mrs. Pollack."
    My voice strangled in my throat as it rose several octaves. "Damn
it! He threatened to hurt my kids."
    Batswin steepled her hands in front of her on the table and
spoke in a modulated, unemotional tone that set off alarm sirens
inside me. "Most likely, you're dealing with organized crime. Loan
sharks around here are usually connected to the mob. They don't
want to hear excuses."

    "Show up with only partial payment," added Robbins, his voice
as grim as his words, "and you'll be wearing cement mukluks before the day is out."
    Suddenly my shoes felt much heavier than the pair of Nine
West black pumps I had slipped into that morning. I fought back
an uncontrollable urge to check my feet. I knew Batswin and Robbins were serious, not just trying to scare the shit out of me. This is
New Jersey where cement shoes come in all styles and sizes.
    "We can help you," he added.
    "How?" And what would they want in return?
    "We'll put a tap on your phone. When this Ricardo creep calls
to set up a drop, we'll nab him."
    "I don't live in this county. It's out of your jurisdiction, isn't it?"
    "You let us worry about the details," said Batswin.
    It sounded so easy, so simple. And that's what scared me. "But
what if something goes wrong? What if he gives you the