Read Pouncing on Murder for Free Online

grateful for what you’ve been given.”
    Five minutes of silence ensued. When both dishes were empty, Kristen sighed. “Okay, I feel better now.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Took you long enough.”
    “Yeah, well.” She grinned. “It was a good winter.”
    “How much of that is due to Mr. Scruff?” I knew he’d visited Key West at least half a dozen times since Christmas and would be in town all summer running his father’s show.
    She winked at me and spooned up the last of her custard. “And how much of those rosy cheeks is due to the attentions of your doctor?”
    I scraped hard at the corners of the dish and licked a teensy bite of custard off my spoon. “Probably not a whole lot.”
    My boyfriend, Tucker Kleinow, known in Charlevoix Hospital’s emergency room as Dr. Kleinow, and I had been dating since last summer. After that rough patch when we’d realized he was horribly allergic to Eddie, things had smoothed out and had been going reasonably well until he’d accepted a short-term job downstate.
    “Still living with his parents, is he?” Kristen shoved our dishes to the side.
    I nodded. Tucker’s new job was a two-year fellowship position at the University of Michigan, and his parentslived less than an hour away from the university hospital. To save money, he’d chosen to move in with them instead of getting his own place. It made financial sense, but it also made my visits a little awkward.
    “Ah, it’ll all work out,” Kristen said. “And it’ll be easier this summer, when you’re on the houseboat instead of at your aunt’s boardinghouse. I mean, your aunt Frances is awesome, but it’s not the same as having your own place.”
    Many people had said the same thing to me over the years, with additional comments about the need to build equity and a solid credit record. I ignored them all. “Tucker’s taking his vacation up here,” I said. “Third week of June.”
    Kristen glanced at a wall calendar. “So you’re going downstate soon?”
    “Not that I know of.” Her eyebrows went rose dramatically, so I dredged up a quick explanation. “With the book fair and moving to the houseboat and . . . and everything, I’m just really busy. The bookmobile needs a good spring cleaning and . . . and . . .”
    “And you don’t get along with Tucker’s parents,” Kristen said, making it a statement of fact.
    I sighed. “I want to like them. I try to like them. But every time I go down there, I never know what to say.”
    Dinners were the worst. Tucker and his parents would talk about people I didn’t know and places I’d never been and I’d sit there with a polite smile on my face with absolutely nothing to contribute. I kept myself entertained by picking cat hair off my clothes, setting themfree one by one, and guessing where they’d land. Once, an Eddie hair had stuck to Tucker’s dad’s right sock and I’d laughed out loud, which had proven awkward since everyone else had been talking about the early demise of a neighbor.
    “Talk about books,” Kristen advised. “That will keep you going for hours, if not days.”
    But I was shaking my head. “The only bookshelves in the entire house are in the study, and those hold more knickknacks than books.”
    Kristen dropped her jaw, opening her eyes wide. “They don’t read? Sacrilege! Have you warned them what might happen to their brains? Give them a librarian’s citation. That’ll shape them up.”
    I smiled. Kristen was the best friend a person could have, a tremendously hard worker, a brilliant chef, an outstanding employer, and had a tremendous sense of humor, but she was not a reader. “They have a lot of cookbooks in the kitchen.”
    “Ha!” She thumped the table with her fist. “Just as I suspected. You are a book snob. You don’t think cookbooks are real books, do you? No, don’t deny it. I’ve known you too long. I bet you’ve never even read a cookbook from cover to cover, so how can you pass judgment?”
    She