Free 1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun by Lois Winston Page B

employees."
    Her slight smile blossomed into a sheepish grin. She spoke into
her lap. "And he really likes me."
    "I'm happy for you, Erica."

    She blew her nose in what was left of the tissue. "I guess I don't
have to hide my relationship with Dicky anymore. Now that
Marlys is gone."
    "Relationship? This sounds serious."
    "I guess you could say that." She averted her eyes; her cheeks
deepened to the shade of a cooked lobster. "We're living together."
    "Really?"
    "Does that shock you?"
    "Why should it shock me?"
    "Well, you being older and all..."
    Ouch! She made me sound like I had one foot in Little Old
Lady Land. "I'm only forty-two. Besides, your generation didn't invent cohabitation."
    "My father would disown me if he found out. Heck, he nearly
disowned me when I moved out of the house and got my own
apartment. He said nice girls live at home until they get married."
    No wonder Erica made the proverbial dormouse look like the
proverbial king of the jungle. The poor kid had grown up under
the thumb of some domineering nineteenth-century Neanderthal.
Then she had the misfortune to go to work for his twenty-first
century Amazon counterpart. Talk about jumping from the wok
into the inferno.
    "Dicky's the first good thing that's ever happened to me," she
said as if reading my thoughts.
    Of that I had no doubt. I raised my coffee cup in a toast. "Here's
to the first of many."
    Her eyebrows knit together. "I don't want many boyfriends. I
just want Dicky."
    "Of many good things in your life."

    She blushed. "Oh" Then she raised her coffee cup to meet mine.
    Before we could click Styrofoam to Styrofoam, a knock sounded
at the door. Batswin entered between my and Erica's simultaneous
"Come" and "in," catching us with our cups in mid-toast.
    "Celebrating something?"
    Erica cringed at the sound of Batswin's voice. Her hand shook
so hard, she nearly dropped her cup.
    "In a manner of speaking," I said, "but it's personal. Nothing to
do with your investigation."
    Batswin walked over to the coffeepot and helped herself to a
cup. "I'll be the judge of that," she said, her back turned to us.
    I glanced at Erica. Her features froze into a tense mask, but I
figured it was better to be truthful than to let Batswin assume we
had something to hide from her. "Erica has a new boyfriend."
    At the sound of new, the terror and tension melted from Erica's
face, and she offered me a slight smile. Poor kid. She didn't want
Batswin to think she was a loser, that she had never had a boyfriend before Dicky.
    Batswin lowered herself into one of the remaining chairs, directly opposite me, her large form appearing less than comfortable
squeezed into the cheap molded plastic seat. "Congratulations"
She raised her cup toward Erica before taking a long sip.
    "Thank you," mumbled Erica.
    "Is there something we can help you with, Detective, or did
you only come in for a hit of caffeine?" I asked.
    Batswin lowered her cup to the table and held it between both
her hands. She leveled her midnight eyes at me. I fought back the
shiver that threatened to claim my body. Wheels were turning behind those sharp black orbs, and I wasn't sure they were necessar ily the wheels of justice. At least not justice for me, no matter what
she said about believing I didn't kill Marlys.

    "I just spoke with the coroner," she said.
    Erica sank deeper into her chair, as if trying to become invisible.
I leaned forward, clutching my coffee cup. "You know who killed
Marlys?"
    "Not who. What"
    "And?"
    Batswin's stare grew darker, more pointed. "Marlys Vandenburg was killed with your glue gun, Mrs. Pollack, and the only
prints on it are yours."

     

I COULDN'T WRAP MY mind around the preposterous idea of my
trusty hot glue gun as a murder weapon. After all, a glue gun
wasn't the weapon of choice for most murderers. Didn't killers
tend to favor guns with bullets? You could get a pretty nasty burn
from a hot glue gun if you weren't careful, but that was