Read A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2) for Free Online Page B

she’ll remember. She got real excited when he put her harness on.”
    I looked at Molly, who was inspecting a knot on the wide plank floor. She looked exactly like she always did, with ears dragging on the floor. A string of slobber slowly descended from her lips. She didn’t look very excited to me, but I don’t speak bloodhound. Sam gave me a peck on the cheek. Then he and Gabe left the building with Molly.
    Jocko wanted to go, too, but I made him stay. Molly didn’t need his kind of help.

 
     
    SIX
     
     
    I went back to the apartment and up the stairs to look for my old jacket. I rummaged around in the back of the closet until I found it, a sheepskin-lined tan jacket that looked way too much like the one Sam wore every day when he went to work. His jacket looked a lot better on him than mine did on me. However, it was warm and it wasn’t in the washing machine, so it would have to do.
    I went back downstairs. Mort already had his coat on, and he was waiting for me.
    Josie asked where we were going.
    “We told Wally we’d go tell Mildred what happened,” Mort said. “It’s best for her to hear it from people she knows.” He walked over to the couch and leaned over to give his ‘girlfriend,’ as he called my nearly seventy-year old mother, a peck on the forehead.
    “You’re doing more than that,” she said, pushing him away. “You’re investigating, aren’t you? And Sam’s helping, too. It’s a terrible idea. It’s not right.”
    I said, “We need to go see Carol Kramer, too, because she may have been the last one to see Sonje McCrae alive. Conrad probably can’t help us, but we should talk to him anyway. And there was someone else at the diner. I still can’t remember who—”
    “I’m telling you it’s not a good idea,” Josie said, forcefully. She stood up and started walking up and down between the table and the couch, as Mort and I looked at each other, and shrugged.
    “Why not?” I said.
    “It’s not your job,” she said. “Let the sheriff handle it.”
    Mort walked up to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and planted a wet kiss on her lips. “It will be fine,” he said. “I promise we won’t get into any trouble this time.”
    He turned, gave me a wink, and we walked out through the door into the museum.
     
    Jocko came with us, but as soon as we were outside I regretted letting him come. There wasn’t room for both Mort and Jocko in the passenger seat of my little Ford Ranger. Jocko would have to ride in back, but my truck bed was filling up with a mini-drift of blown-in snow.
    I pulled my brown wool hat down over my ears and turned to put Jocko back inside the museum, but Mort held up a ring of keys and jingled them. Then he swept the canvas cover off Sam’s snowmobile and stowed it under the hinged seat. It’s a two-seater, with a short cargo platform attached to the back. Sam got it in trade for a big remodeling job he worked on, but he rarely uses it.
    When Jocko figured out which machine we were riding on, he jumped onto the cargo platform, probably because it reminded him of the platform on the back of Mort’s golf cart. He thought riding around in blowing snow would be great fun.
    “I don’t know,” I said, loud enough to be heard over the wind. “He might fall off.”
    “Oh, come on. Sled dogs ride these things all the time.” Mort was already straddling the front seat, and he called Jocko. My dog jumped down from the platform and came around to the front. When the old man patted the small space on the padded seat in front of his big belly, Jocko jumped up in front of him and sat, pointing forward between the handlebars. He looked like he was ready to drive the rig. I was still not so sure.
    “We’ll go five miles an hour,” Mort promised. I believed him, because that’s about how fast he drives his golf cart all over town during the summer.
    Reluctantly, I climbed on behind him. I should have said ‘no,’ but Mort and Jocko were having so much