Free Framed For Murder (An Anna Nolan Mystery) by Cathy Spencer Page B

donate their clothes to charity when they don’t want them anymore.”
    “I guess I’m just too lazy to bother,” she said, twisting her fingers together.
    “Why didn’t you just throw them in the garbage, then? Why go to all the trouble of burning them? Unless you’ve got something to hide?”
    Amy laughed nervously. “Don’t be ridiculous, Anna. I have nothing to hide.”
    I bent down to pick up the shirt, revealing a pair of men’s white briefs underneath.
    “Hey!” Amy shrieked, snatching the underwear off the pile, only to expose a pair of men’s black dress socks.
    “Amy Bright, either you’re a cross-dresser or you’re the worst liar in the world,” I said. “Who do these clothes really belong to? Or, should I say, who did they used to belong to? You were seeing Jack, weren’t you?” Amy gasped, and I pressed my advantage. “These were Jack’s clothes, weren’t they? What are you doing with them, and why are you burning them?”
    Amy’s eyes darted around the yard as if she was afraid someone was spying on us from the shadows. She stepped a little closer to me. “Please, Anna, don’t tell anybody,” she said in a low, urgent voice. “Yes, these are Jack’s things. The last time he came over, he asked me to do some laundry for him so that he wouldn’t have to go to the laundromat. I told him that I didn’t mind.”
    “When was that, Amy?”
    Her voice got even quieter, as if she were a small child confessing to a transgression. “Last Thursday, the day he died. He followed me home after we were finished shooting and stayed for the afternoon. I barbecued him a steak for supper. Only, no one knows that Jack was here, and I was afraid to say so in case I got in trouble. That English police sergeant was over here today, asking about Jack. Please don’t tell him about the clothes, Anna – he might get the wrong idea.” Amy looked at me beseechingly, her big blue eyes looking scared.
    “Look, Amy,” I said, “maybe we should sit down and talk about this. Sergeant Tremaine has been asking me about Jack, too.”
    Amy smiled. “Oh, I’d like that, Anna. I’ve been so nervous since Jack died, I didn’t know what to do. It would be nice to talk to someone else about it.”
    I gestured toward the deck. “Shall we?”
    “Okay,” she said, leading me to a table and some chairs. I was excited, feeling in charge of the situation for a change. I had finally found someone who was more afraid than I was. I took a deck chair while Amy perched on the bench beside me.
    “How long did you know Jack?” I asked.
    “Not long, just a few weeks. We met on the movie set. He was really nice to me. We used to talk about acting while we were waiting for our scenes. Once, he even took me to a party for the actors and the director at an expensive restaurant. I mean the actors with big parts, not us extras. After that, Jack came over a couple of times for drinks. He said my house was real homey and he missed having a woman waiting for him at home. Jack was lonely, you know.”
    “Yeah, poor Jack,” I said. She nodded, not noticing my sarcastic tone. “How long was he with you last Thursday, Amy?”
    She closed her eyes to remember. “Let me see. He came to the house around three o’clock after he was done for the day. He parked his car in my garage so that no one would see it in the driveway. Jack said that we should keep our friendship secret because the director didn’t like the actors dating each other. ‘That kind of thing can cause trouble on the set,’ he said.”
    More likely, he didn’t want to be spotted around town in case word got back to me.
    “We had a couple of beers, and one thing led to another – you know. Later on, we had supper, and he left around 6:20 to take care of some business. I know that it was 6:20 because I had a 6:30 hair appointment and I was watching the time. And that was the last time I ever saw him.” A tear slid down Amy’s cheek, and she wiped it away with