Free 1 In For A Penny by Maggie Toussaint

the words were out of my mouth, I realized my folly. If Jasper Kingsland had indeed murdered Dudley, and if he suspected I was onto him, I was endangering myself. For all I knew, Jasper had a gun tucked in one of these dusty gray file cabinets back here and he’d murder me on the spot.
    I wasn’t ready to die. I had girls to raise, a Mama to take care of, and a dog that had already been traumatized once this week.
    Why wasn’t I some feminine bombshell that could infatuate a man by merely blinking my lush eyelashes? If I had Marilyn Monroe’s allure and Kathleen Turner’s deeply sensual voice, Jasper would have trouble remembering his name in my presence. I definitely needed male befuddlement if Jasper was the killer. It wasn’t like I could get up and hightail it out of here.
    I was in no position to defend myself with anything other than the small ice bag on my ankle. My only other weapon would be turning him in to the Internal Revenue Service for a tax audit.
    I’m sure something questionable could be found in his taxes if the IRS nosed around a bit. Silently I practiced my lines if he came after me. Stop! Or I’ll sic the IRS on you.
    Not exactly blood-tingling suspense but it was the best I could do on short notice. I sat very still and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible.
    Jasper kicked the daylights out of the file cabinet in the corner, and it scared me so much I almost fell out of my chair. The man had a very short fuse.
    “Do you remember that news story about the teachers’ pension fund that was drained?” Jasper asked and I nodded. “My mother had her life savings in that fund,” he continued. “She worked her entire life and for what? So some crook could skim all the money out of her account.”
    I tried to make some sense out of what Jasper said, but in my mind I was already running out of this room. At the same time, I watched him to see if he would suddenly pull a gun from a hiding place, or decide to kick my chair out from under me. If he shot me at this close range, I’d be a goner. “But Dudley worked at the bank. He didn’t have anything to do with the teachers’ pension fund.”
    “You’re wrong.” Jasper’s thick eyebrows drew together in one long unibrow. “He was the only one on the Teacher’s Fund Advisory Board that had the insider knowledge to pull off a job like this. The rest of the folks were just ordinary Joes like me.”
    Jasper wasn’t making any sense, but he’d finally quit pacing around the office. I thought about his accusation and couldn’t reconcile Dudley the swindler with the Dudley who used to vacation with me. Jasper’s story just didn’t ring true. “I don’t get it. If Dudley was involved, why wasn’t his name mentioned in the paper?”
    Jasper picked up a broken golf club shaft and whacked it against his dark brown slacks. I think I wet my undies. I definitely didn’t like being stuck back here in Rafe’s office, but my ankle throbbed too much to stand. Why weren’t there any golf clubs within my reach?
    “You’re kidding, right?” Jasper asked. “Dudley had connections. He hushed this up so no one even knew he was involved. I’m thinking he poured all that stolen money into that White Rock boondoggle. Dudley Do-right was definitely Dudley Do-wrong in my book. Every time I saw the man I wanted to whack him with my five wood.”
    That was an odd choice. The driver was the largest club in a golfer’s bag. If I was going after someone and wanted to do serious damage to them, I’d whack them with my driver. “Your five wood?” I repeated lamely.
    Jasper snorted and tossed down the broken shaft. “Hell yes. He’s not good enough to hit with my driver. I paid four hundred dollars for that club. But my five wood, it’s solid enough, but best of all, I never use it, so I wouldn’t miss it when I broke it on a low-life scumbag like Dudley.”
    In my estimation, Jasper didn’t seem to be homicidal, just mad. He was talking about doing