Read Online Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly by Paula K. Perrin - Free Book Online Page A

my
hands.”
    “Okay, down the hall, first
door on the left after the lobby.”
    I headed down the hall.  Gene
pounced on me from a door on the right.  “Let’s talk,” he said. 
Dressed in his blue uniform, he wore his gun at his hip today.  His red hair
was carefully combed, his boots glossy.
    “In a minute.”
    “I haven’t got a minute to
spare this morning.”
    I held up my blackened
fingertips.  “I need to wash.”
    “It won’t kill you.”  He
pulled me into his office.
    “You’ve always been a
bully.”
    “No.  I was never a bully.  I
might have scared people because I didn’t do a great job of handling my temper,
but it was never with the intention of intimidating anyone.  You, on the other
hand, routinely bully people.”
    I pulled away and stared up at
him.  “Obviously we’re working with different definitions.”
    “See, you’re doing it
now—trying to intimidate with a raised eyebrow.  You ought to use your fists. 
That’s honest.”
    “Ah, the Neanderthal
mentality.  Fits you well.”
    He laughed.  “You just can’t
stop, can you?”
    The blood roared in my ears.  I’d
always hated him.  He and my brother George and the group of boys known as
“George’s Gang” always teasing, taking my dolls, my books, my
microscope, whatever they pleased, waiting for me to beg to have them back.
    When we were young, there’d been
occasional truces, mostly on hot summer afternoons when I was recruited for
games with a stern warning from George not to cry.  I never did, not through a
sprained ankle, black eyes, or the concussion that caused my mother once and
for all to forbid me to play with the boys.
    I wanted to walk out of Gene’s
office and keep on going, but after what Fran had said about the sequins from
Meg’s skirt, I had to appear cooperative.  Possibly Gene would tell me
something I could use to clear Meg.
    I took a deep breath and walked
over to one of the chairs facing Gene’s desk.  It had a tubular metal frame and
a green plastic seat and back.  It was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked.
    Gene surprised me by taking its
twin rather than the chair behind the desk.
    His lips stretched beneath his
moustache.  It was supposed to be a smile, but it looked like he was
contemplating where to sink his big white teeth.  “We’re cousins, we ought
to be friends.”
    “We’re cousins so far removed
that I’m more closely related to Darwin’s monkey than I am to you.”
    He snorted and shook his head,
“Jeez, Liz, you never make it easy.”
    I looked around, groping for a
conciliatory manner.  The office was nearly filled by the large, institutional
grey desk.  A computer screen and keyboard shared the desktop with a phone,
neat black in-and-out trays stacked with papers, coffee mugs, and a lush
piggyback plant.
    Off center, to the right on the
wall behind his desk, was a reinforced-glass door with a red alarm bar across
it.  Sunshine streamed in through the door, bathing the two red geraniums that
hung from the ceiling.  On the floor crouched wicked-looking cacti in terra
cotta pots, among them one as large as a man’s head with long, evil spines.
    “I take it you don’t use that
door frequently,” I said.
    “Never.  It got left there
when they remodeled.  If I did have to use it, I’d step real high.”
    I laughed.  “You have quite a
green thumb.”
    He said, “You can take the
boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farming out the boy.”
    “Last night you said you’d
shaken the shit off your shoes.”
    His lean cheeks turned red. 
“I believe I was a little more refined than that.”
    “Sorry if your efforts went
unnoticed.”
    His blue eyes glittered, and I
felt like smacking myself.  Getting him riled was no way to help Meg.  I took a
deep breath.  “Sorry.”
    He took a deep breath of his own
then asked me to tell him exactly what had happened from the time I arrived at
the high school last night.  He didn’t interrupt