Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle Pauline Jones (the red fox clan txt) 📖

kind of Baptist checks out an unconscious man? My mother had raised me to be Fundamental, not elemental.

Mike laid bare the wound. He looked up, his face grim. “This is a bullet wound.”

I tried to look surprised. I don’t think I succeeded.

“You’re telling me you didn’t know?”

I avoided his gaze. “I didn’t see him get shot, though I am aware people were shooting at him.”

“Oh. And that makes a difference?”

“No.” I shook my head, feeling an attack of profound coming on, but I was in no condition to stop it. “Life is just too weird. I mean, little tiny things, like a simple phone call can just send your life spinning right off the track.”

“What?”

I stared at him owlishly. “Do you know that if Mrs. Macpherson hadn’t gotten the flu, we’d both be snug in bed right now and—” And I would never have met Kelvin Kapone-with-a-K. Funny how that seemed worse than getting shot at.

Mike’s expression lightened. “Snug in bed…together?”

I gave him the Look.

“Or did you mean the boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Darn it.

He looked pleased. “So what is he?”

“What is he?” My eyes widened, my mouth opened, I hesitated, and then shrugged, trying to act casual. “He’s Kelvin…” It didn’t seem wise to mention the Kapone-with-a-K part. Mike would probably have the same reaction to the name I’d had. “…my friend. Kelvin. That’s who. My friend…”

“…Kelvin,” Mike finished, looking suspicious.

I didn’t blame him. “Yes. He’s my friend.”

I tried to look innocent, but it didn’t work either, so I turned and picked up the bloody suit jacket Mike had tossed on the floor. The fine dark wool was as soft as baby skin and gave off a faint whiff of something exotic, as if it routinely went places I could only dream about.

“Do you really know this guy?”

“I don’t know him well.” I felt as defensive as if he were my mother. “It’s just that, well, I met him recently, after choir practice. Church choir practice.”

When being deceptive, it’s better to be truthfully deceptive.

I gave the coat a hearty shake, releasing a tiny shower of white cards. Business cards? I knelt down, swept them into a tidy pile and gathered them up.

“So what does this guy do, when he’s not getting shot?”

The cards fanned across my hand. They all bore the name Kelvin Kapone. It really was with a “K.” But each card seemed to be for a different business or job. Import-export, travel agent, engineer—

“Portable toilet sales?” I let the words out involuntarily. In the corner was a sketch of a little tiny outhouse. “Potties-Are-Us?”

Mike looked surprised, then pleased. Maybe it was a guy thing, a vet being higher on the pecking order than a toilet salesman. I shoved the cards back in the pocket, folded the jacket and lay it across a metal chair, my gaze returning to the man lying still on the table. It didn’t take that many brain cells to know the one thing he wasn’t was a portable toilet salesman. Whatever I’d gotten mixed up in, it had nothing to do with bodily functions. At least not that kind.

He was pale. A piece of his hair had fallen forward and now curled, appropriately enough, into a question mark. I wanted to smooth it back and take his hand, but I didn’t have the right or the necessary nerve.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“It looks worse than it is. The bullet just raked the surface of the ribs.” Mike was quiet for a moment, then burst out, “I can’t believe I’m saying this! This man was shot!”

“I know, I can’t believe it either.” If we’d made it into the hospital, I’d be trying to explain all this to a policeman and I didn’t have a clue what all this was about. And now I’d involved Mike, too. “I suppose you have, like some hypo—whatever oath to report this?”

“Vet’s don’t take the Hippocratic oath, but I do have to file a report if he has rabies.”

I gave him another Look.

“We’re both culpable if we don’t report a crime!”

“I know that. I just think he should report his own crime. He knows more about it than I do. I’m Jane Innocent Bystander here.”

Mike stared at me, then gave another one of those robe popping sighs, but he was behind the table so I didn’t have to avert my gaze.

“Then I’d better get him fixed, hadn’t I?”

I couldn’t help myself. “Fixed? Isn’t that a little drastic?”

“Why don’t you go do something?” He tried to sound annoyed, but I could see the twinkle creep back into his eyes.

“Like mop up Rosemary’s car?”

“Please.”

There was a flashlight in the glove compartment. It even worked. I used it to give the outside of the car a once over. It was easy to see the scratches in the dusty surface of the car, impossible to tell if they went through to the paint. I found at least one bullet hole, low on the right side, just above the bumper. I knew there had to be one, maybe two or more. Inside, it was even harder to assess the damage. The upholstery was dark, so how was I supposed to tell which spots were snow water and which were blood?

It was cold and my hands were turning numb. I pushed the seat forward and scrabbled around until I found my hat and gloves on the floor on top of my purse. My purse? I hadn’t brought my purse, just shoved my driver’s license into my pocket.

I bent to push the purse under the seat. It was an open invitation for theft and I didn’t need to have a smashed window added to my list of car crimes. But when my hand slid across the cheap plastic surface, I hesitated. Rosemary had traded up from plastic years ago. And it was too maroon and small to be my mother’s. On one side was a jagged tear.

I undid the clasp. There was no ID inside, just a shopping list and some coupons, an