Read Death of a Toy Soldier for Free Online

to prop the door open, I dutifully entered the code.
    The alarm. That thought niggled in my mind and wouldn’t stop niggling, like some alien parasite. My mind had been on spin cycle, powered by pure adrenaline, ever since I discovered a dead body in the aisle of the shop. Why hadn’t the alarm sounded when the intruder entered?
    I rubbed my temples, trying to play the scene in my head. The intruder had broken in. Maybe he had only come to the shop earlier in the week to “case the joint,” as they say in old movies. Only, in his attempt to steal from us, he made some noise and woke my father. Dad must have confronted him. They struggled, and Dad grabbed the lawn dart and struck in self-defense?
    Stop. Rewind. If the intruder had broken in, the alarm would have gone off. I recalled the light switch not working,and I glanced up at the alarm panel. When the power is cut to the alarm, the alarm company calls. If nobody responds, they notify the police.
    I fished my cell phone out of my pocket—I’d put it there when Chief Young reluctantly let me leave the scene to change out of my Tweety Bird pajamas—and dialed the number on the decal attached to the alarm panel. After being shuffled to about half a dozen different people and holding during the slowest and dreariest rendition of “Away in the Manger” I’ve ever heard, someone on the other end of the line confirmed that the power-loss signal had been registered during the night and that a call was attempted.
    “I never talked to anyone,” I said. “We had a break-in during the outage.”
    “We have a record that the call was made and answered,” said the woman. “Please hold and I’ll confirm.”
    I held for what seemed like forever. Police officers wandered about the shop and voices hummed from upstairs. My stomach gave another lurch.
    “I listened to the conversation myself,” she said. “The responder didn’t remember the alarm code but did correctly answer both security questions.”
    “You have the call recorded? Can you play it for me?”
    Soon I heard my father’s voice try the old alarm code, and when that didn’t work, he answered both security questions, calmly adding that there had been a power outage on the street but that everything was fine.
    That blew my first theory. No intruder had disabled the alarm.
    I closed my eyes and reset the mental images. No intruder awakened Dad. He was already awake. Maybe he had been in the shop when the power went out. He’d assumed it was an outage and answered the call when it came in. That made sense. Then he’d encountered the intruder. They fought . . .
    Before I could get too relieved, I recalled that police had restored electricity by popping the breaker. So unless the victim was a ninja, or one of those Mission Impossible –style intruders with a backpack of thin cable, lasers, and assorted high-tech whatchamacallits and doodads, the breaker was pulled from inside the shop, and the alarm company appeased before the victim entered.
    Dad had pulled the breaker. Why? My mind fished for other explanations. I gave up when I got to “the intruder climbed in through a secret tunnel dating back to the Underground Railroad.” While the Underground Railroad did convey a number of escaped slaves through Western New York on their way to Canada, it was too Scooby-Doo to be truly plausible.
    There was no intruder. The only explanation that fit was that Dad had pulled the breaker and then fielded a call from the alarm company, all while I slept.
    I allowed my gaze to trail up the stairs to the closed door. Dad, what were you up to?
    ###
    Eventually the apartment door opened. To my relief, my father wasn’t being led away in handcuffs.
    While Dad walked down the stairs, Chief Young called to me. “I can take your statement now.”
    Dad put his hand on my upper arm. “Just a formality, Lizzie. Tell him the truth, and you’ll be fine.”
    My feet were lead when I climbed the steps. Chief Young waited at