Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery R.M. Wild (inspirational books .txt) 📖

and made a cheesy swing at an imaginary jaw. “Gotta pay all those crazy bills, right?”

“Exactly.”

I turned for the door and opened it. “You want this open or closed?”

“Closed,” he said.

“Thank you again,” I said.

“My pleasure.”

I stepped into the hallway, gathered myself for a moment, and then turned around and went to close the door.

“Oh Rosie? On second thought, there is one way you could pay me back.”

“What’s that?”

He grinned.

13

Back in the house, I grabbed the leftover ear from one of the dismembered chocolate bunnies. Whatever weight I had lost in the hustle of treading water to keep the business afloat was going to pop right back onto my thighs like a little pop-up word balloon that said, Moooo!

I tried to remind myself that exhaustion often masquerades as hunger and I didn’t really need to eat any more chocolate, but my emotions called BS on that. Logical reasoning always took a backseat to comfort.

Facing the reality of dwindling guests, I had turned down the heat to save a few pennies and now the house was cold enough to make my teeth chatter. I didn’t have the drive to start a fire, so I went upstairs, yanked the comforter off my bed, and dragged it downstairs, not caring about whatever filth it swept up along the way.

I plopped into the armchair, dangled my legs over the side, and wrapped myself up in the comforter. Finally, while comfort eating chocolate and burying myself in a comforter, I turned to greatest comfort I could think of: escapism.

I opened up a dog-eared copy of The Great Gatsby.

It didn’t work.

Every time I pictured Gatsby’s yellow roadster, it suddenly burst into flames. I tossed it aside and tried reading The Grapes of Wrath, but all the jalopies caught on fire too.

For some reason, my subconscious was equating Phyllis’s death with vehicle fires. Maybe it was because I still couldn’t compute the fact that every time I had driven her Apache on an errand, I had never realized that it was the very same vehicle in which my father, my real father, had picked me up after Eldritch’s hearing.

I finished gnawing on the ear of chocolate and licked my fingernails. With no guests, I needed something else to distract me, something more cerebral. I grabbed a legal pad from under the chair and tried to do some writing. After all, my business was sinking faster than the Hindenburg—Lord, another vehicle that went up in flames—and I needed to figure what kind of a business proposal I was going to make to Peter Hardgrave.

I stared at the dark, fire-less fireplace.

Dear Dad…

I crossed it out.

Hi Peter…

I didn’t even know what I was supposed to call him.

My phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Are you busy?”

I stared at the scribbles on my legal pad. Then I tore out the page and balled it up and tossed it into the fireplace. The ball of paper rebounded off the blackened bricks, bounced around, and landed in a pile of ash.

“Not really,” I said. “What’s happening?”

“Can you come and get me?” Mettle said. “I don’t have a car. It’s still at your place.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the barracks.”

“They’re letting you go?”

“Yeah. I had a long chat with the chief. He settled the charges by taking disciplinary action. I got suspended. One month. No pay. No badge. No gun.”

“And Herrick agreed?”

“Apparently.”

I made a victory fist. Kendall had come through.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that, Matt. It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “I would do it again in a heartbeat. It felt good to slug that thug.”

“Maybe next time, you should be a little less punchy.”

“Nope. If I were to change anything, I would break Herrick’s teeth so he had to speak to the judge with a lisp. That would have been pretty funny. My biggest worry is that I won’t have access to the gym. How am I gonna feed the pythons?”

“I could use some help around the house.”

“No way,” he said. “They don’t make aprons in my size.”

“I beg to differ.”

“You coming to get me or what?”

“Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Oh, and Casket? I need you to take the cruiser. I’m not supposed to drive it. They took my keys.”

“Then how—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through it. Besides, having that thing sit in your driveway isn’t going to be good for attracting any customers. Not unless they think breakfast is a big bag of donuts.”

He was right. A cop car sitting in my driveway might have slowed the traffic, but it sure as heck didn’t entice anyone to stay for the night.

“Open the driver’s side door,” Mettle said, still on the phone. “I always leave it unlocked to improve my response time.”

“That doesn’t sound like procedure.”

“The best cops improvise. As we say, if ain’t directly stated, then the state don’t care.”

“That sounds like a recipe for suspension,” I said.

“When you’re suspended, you don’t have to follow the rules.”

I wasn’t sure I bought that logic. “No, but you still have to obey the law.”

“Stop stalling,” he said.

“I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. I’ll guide you through it.”

I switched my phone to speaker and lay it on the front seat. Given what I was about to do, I had an urge to go back inside and grab a ski mask.

“Isn’t this cruiser the property of the state?”

“You are trying my patience, Casket. Nobody else is going to drive this car while I’m suspended. That’s like wearing another man’s jock strap. If we’re gonna make any headway on your sister’s disappearance, we’re gonna need a lot more horsepower than your crappy import.”

“Fine, what do I do?”

“You got the drill?”

“Yes,” I said. I had found a box of tools in the shed. I had no idea what Phyllis had used them for.

“How big is the bit?”

“The what?”

“What is the diameter of the metal shaft with the corkscrew grooves that sticks out of the head of the drill?”

“A little smaller than a pencil.”

“Good. Go to the ignition—”

“Is that where you put the key?”

“Yes.