Pouncing on Murder Read Online Free Page B

eh?”
    “True fact. I’d run it into the ground inside of a week if I took over.”
    “Frances Pixley is giving up the boardinghouse?” Chris pushed back his Detroit Tigers baseball cap and stared at me.
    From such conversations, rumors are born. “This is a purely theoretical discussion,” I said. “Aunt Frances can’t understand that I’m happy living on cold cereal for breakfast all summer long.”
    “Nothing wrong with that.” His feet went back up onto the counter. “Especially if it’s Frosted Flakes.”
    I squinted at him. “I always figured you for a Wheaties kind of guy.”
    “Too healthy.” He took a long swig from a can of soda, then said, “I got some news. You’re getting a new right-hand neighbor this year.”
    “Gunnar getting a slip out on the point?”
    Why the wealthy Gunnar Olson had ever rented a boat slip at Uncle Chip’s had always been a mystery to the regular marina renters. His massive boat dwarfed all the others in both size and price, and his flagrantly expensive lifestyle fit in more with the folks at the west end of Chilson.
    “Other way around.” Chris creaked back in his ancient canvas director’s chair. “He’s getting a divorce, and to pay off his wife he had to sell his boat.”
    “Oh.” A year ago the news would have made me smile. I would have felt bad about it later, but I would have smirked a little and thought it couldn’t happen to a nicer human being.
    Late last summer, however, the famously bad-tempered man had done me a favor out of the blue. It had made me look differently at a guy who, previously, had seemed to go out of his way to make his nearest neighbor—me—miserable. After that incident, he’d returned to his annoying “I’m the only one who matters” attitude, but I got to carry the knowledge that underneath the crusty exterior he did, in fact, care about things other than keeping his boat shiny and his drinks cold.
    I hoped that Gunnar and his soon-to-be ex-wife couldmake it through without too much anguish. “That’s too bad,” I said sincerely, earning a pair of raised eyebrows from Chris. Then a thought struck me. “Um, if Gunnar’s not coming back, what’s going to happen to my slip fee?”
    My ability to afford marina space and still eat out on occasion was due to the fact that no one else wanted the slip next to Gunnar. There was no way that my budget could easily absorb the full cost of a slip rental.
    I ran through some fast monetary calculations. If I bought the store-brand cold cereal, purchased Eddie’s food in bulk, stayed away from Cookie Tom’s, tossed out every single take-out menu in my possession, and slashed my book-buying budget . . . no, it still wouldn’t work. I sighed and looked up at Chris.
    Who was grinning.
    “Ah, don’t worry about it,” he said. “What Uncle Chip doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
    Relief and guilt washed through me in equal measures. “Chris, I can’t let you do that. Besides, what if your uncle Chip comes up North this summer? You know I can’t tell a lie for beans.”
    Chris nodded. “You’re the worst liar ever except for the dog I had when I was a kid. That mutt would look guilty if he so much as looked at the couch.”
    Being compared to a dog wasn’t exactly flattering, but I supposed it could have been worse. Somehow.
    “Tell you what,” Chris said. “Let’s see what the new guy is like. He may be worse than old Gunnar was.”
    Possible, but not probable. “What if he’s nice? What if he’s friendly and holds the best Friday night parties everand having the slip next to his would be a bonus and not a misery?”
    “Huh.” Chris rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Let me think on that.”
    I looked about the office. A calendar from 1996 was tacked to the far wall. “I could help around here. Do a little cleaning. Paint.”
    A horrified expression crowded Chris’s weathered face. “Don’t you dare. It’s taken me years to get the place looking this good.