Free Denial: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page B

dress. Michael and Susan had both boxes open on the dining room table and were reaching for pizza slices.
    “You’re late,” Sally said quietly.
    “Someone tried to kill me,” I said, low enough so the kids couldn’t hear me.
    “Well,” she said. “I just got here a few minutes ago myself and I don’t have as good an excuse as you.”
    “I’m not making a joke,” I said.
    “I know,” said Sally with a sigh. “What’s it about?”
    “Kyle McClory,” I said.
    “Tell me about it later,” she said, touching my cheek. “I’ll get drinks out of the fridge. You grab some plates and napkins.”
    I had plenty of time. I had almost seven hours before I had to pick up Ames to break into the Seaside Assisted Living Facility.
    There was no point in asking Michael if he knew Kyle McClory. They were the same age, but a culture and school apart. Michael went to Riverview. Kyle had gone to Sarasota High. The schools were ten minutes, endless space and a meaningless rivalry apart.
    After the pizza was gone and crumbs cleared away, Susan said she wanted to play a card game called B.S. Sally said she was tired. I said I didn’t want to learn anything new. Michael said he would play if Susan
did the after-dinner cleaning up by herself. She agreed.
    “Please,” Susan said, looking first at Sally and then at me. “I’ll teach you. It’s real easy.”
    Sally said, “Well …”
    “I beseech, supplicate, implore and plead,” Susan said.
    I couldn’t resist the display of vocabulary.
    We played three games. I won two of them. Susan finally said, “I can’t tell when you’re lying. You always look the same.”
    “I’ll try to be more obvious when I lie,” I said. “Look for twitches, eye movement, finger movements, scratches.”
    “You have those?” Michael asked.
    “No,” I said. “Tone of voice helps.”
    “You always talk the same,” Susan said.
    She put her cards down and stepped in front of me. There was determination in her eyes.
    “Susan,” Sally said with what may have been a gentle warning.
    “I said I’d do it,” Susan said, meeting my eyes.
    “Do it,” said Michael.
    Susan reached over with both hands and began to tickle me under my arms. I forced a smile; at least I thought it was a smile.
    “You’re not ticklish,” Susan said after about fifteen seconds of trying.
    “No,” I said.
    Susan stepped back.
    “You are strange,” she said.
    I shrugged.
    Michael collected the cards and put them away and went to the bedroom to watch the end of an Orlando Magic game. Susan hung around a few minutes longer and then followed her brother.
    When they were gone, Sally got up from the table, saying, “Who tried to kill you?”
    I told her about the threatening telephone call and the car that almost hit me in the parking lot at the mall.
    “I’m not going to say it,” she said.
    “What?”
    “That you have to do a better job of taking care of yourself,” she said, moving into the kitchen.
    “You just said it.”
    “Let’s call it a night. I’ve got a report to write,” she said. “In addition to which, I’m tired and cranky.”
    “I’ve got something to do too,” I said, rising.
    “Besides going to your room and watching an old movie?”
    “Yes. I’m going to a friend’s house and we’re going to bake a pineapple upside-down cake,” I said.
    “No.”
    “I was lying.”
    “I could tell,” she said.
    “How?”
    “You looked me in the eye and said it without blinking or smiling. Besides, I can’t come up with an image of you in a kitchen at night mixing batter.”
    “I don’t think you want to know what I’m going to do,” I said.
    “Help somebody,” she said. “That’s what you do.”
    “It’s what you do too,” I said.
    We were moving toward the front door in the living room.
    “We’re a match made in heaven,” she said and kissed me. “Put your arms around me and mean it,” she added, her face inches from mine.
    I could feel her breath, smell her