Free A Pour Way to Dye (Book 2 in the Soapmaking Mysteries) by Tim Myers Page A

better home, but
he’s stayed in the place he’d grown up. There had to be something
sentimental about the man to want to do that. If I could find that
part of him and appeal to it, I might not have to sue.
    I couldn’t see a doorbell, so I knocked on
the front door. It yielded to my touch and swung silently open.
“Earnest?” I called out. “Are you there?”
    There wasn’t a sound from inside, and I
thought about just leaving. After all, he might shoot me and claim
I was breaking in, knowing how ornery the man could be.
    I’d just turned to leave when I saw flashing
lights behind me. Molly Mikes jumped out of her squad car with her
gun drawn. I instantly put my hands up in the air. True, this was
the same curvy brunette I’d taken to the Senior Prom, but it was
also an officer of the law drawing a bead on me. “Hey, it’s just
me.”
    “ What are you doing here?”
she asked as she approached.
    “ I’d feel a lot better if
you’d put that gun down,” I said.
    She shook her head. “Not happening. We just
got a tip that something bad happened here. Don’t follow me in.
I’ll be back in a minute.”
    I knew better than to try to argue with her.
I waited while she entered the house, her gun sweeping an arc as
she entered. There was nobody I’d rather have looking out for me
than Molly. She was smart and competent, and I’d heard from more
than one source that she was the best cop in Harper’s Landing.
    I must have held my breath the entire time
she was inside. Six minutes later I heard an ambulance approach,
and two men with a gurney rushed inside. I wanted to follow them
in, but Molly had been pretty clear about my instructions. She came
out a minute later and gave me a look I hoped I never saw again in
my life.
    “ Tell me what happened,” she
said in a flat, official voice.
    “ What’s going on?” I asked.
“Is somebody hurt?”
    She stared at me a few seconds, then said,
“Actually, somebody’s dead.”
    “ What happened?” I asked. A
thousand scenarios raced through my mind, none of them good for me
and my family, given the current state of discord between the
Perkinses and the Joys.
    “ I’m asking the questions
right now. Ben, I’m just going to ask you one more time. What went
on in there?”
    “ Molly, I swear I don’t know
what you’re talking about. I just got here two seconds before you
showed up. There’s no bell, so I knocked on the door. It swung
open, so I started to go inside, and then I saw your lights. That’s
all that happened.”
    She shook her head. “Did you touch anything
while you were inside?” she asked.
    “ No, not a
thing.”
    “ Then you’re staying out
here until we can process the scene.”
    Another car drove up, and a man I didn’t
recognize got out. He spoke to Molly briefly, and then walked
inside.
    “ Who’s that?”
    I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t sure
she wanted to tell me, but finally she admitted, “That’s the new
coroner. We can’t move the body until he gives us his approval.” A
woman outfitted with kits and cameras came up in a police van as
she spoke and went in, too.
    “ I can’t believe Earnest is
dead.”
    She snapped, “What makes you think it was
Earnest? I didn’t say anything about who it was, and to be honest
with you, I was kind of surprised you didn’t ask when I came back
out.”
    “ Come on, Molly, it’s his
house. Who else could it be?” Then I remembered my pretty public
fight with Andrew three hours earlier. “Oh no. It’s not Andrew, is
it?”
    “ Ben, I knew you all were
battling about that fence. Does this have anything to do with
that?”
    I said loudly, “How would I know? You won’t
even tell me who it is.”
    “ You were right the first
time. It’s Earnest Joy. And there’s a problem.”
    “ Just one?” I snapped. “I
can’t imagine what it could be.”
    “ You might want to save the
theatrics for someone who’s impressed,” she said. “It’s pretty
important you keep it all