Read Elizabeth Zelvin - Bruce Kohler 04 - Death Will Save Your Life for Free Online Page A

Melvin.”
    “Barbara, slow down!” Jimmy said.
    “Cut it out! I’m not even speeding, I’m going only seven miles over the limit which means I’m barely keeping up with traffic, and please remember that I’m the driver at the moment, so why should I?”
    “Because,” Jimmy said, “an unmarked vehicle with flashing red lights has been clinging to your tail for the past five minutes.”
    Barbara cursed and braked hard.
    “Thank you, God, for anti-lock brakes,” Jimmy muttered.
    “I got excited,” Barbara wailed. “I was enjoying the conversation. So maybe my foot got a little heavy on the gas. And I totally forgot to check the rear view mirror.”
    “And when we were wrong, promptly admitted it,” Jimmy quoted. Step Ten. “But please, petunia, not to the cops.”
    They let the siren wail until Barbara pulled over onto the shoulder. The unmarked car stopped behind us, lights still flashing. Barbara sat very still with her head bent and her shoulders hunched, as if to present the smallest possible target. Jimmy was too big to shrink, but a marble statue couldn’t have been more rigid. I was glad not to be the one in trouble for once. I peeped out the back window.
    The police car driver’s door swung open, and an ominously booted foot emerged.
    Jimmy muttered the Serenity Prayer a couple of times. The cop clumped toward us. He looked about seven feet tall as he loomed over the Toyota. Barbara rolled down her window.
    “Well, well, well.”
    It was Callaghan.
    “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Jimmy muttered. I didn’t think any of them fixed tickets. But it was no time to be a smartass, so I kept the thought to myself.
    “What did I do?” Barbara’s constricted throat produced a husky squeak.
    “License and registration, please.”
    Detectives doubled as traffic cops? Small force for a small town. So much for our low profile. Jimmy handed Barbara her bag without looking at her. Her hands shook as she fished around for her wallet.
    “Are you aware that you were doing seven miles above the posted limit?”
    He really had clocked us. He slapped at Barbara’s license and registration with his fancy rollerball pen. If he was going to give her a ticket, I wished he’d just go ahead and do it.
    A second cop emerged from the other side of the unmarked.
    “Cal! For God’s sake!” we heard him say. “You’re not a traffic cop any more. Why don’t you just relax and enjoy your promotion?” Nice to have one mystery solved.
    Callaghan stumped back to the cop car. The seconds ticked away. Here in the country, even on the highway the air smelled good. A trilling bird call drifted through the window.
    Jimmy was still muttering the Serenity Prayer. I doubted he knew he was doing it. I joined in under my breath. It couldn’t hurt.
    Finally Callaghan returned. He stuck his arm stiffly through Barbara’s window, handing back her license and registration.
    “This is your last warning.” He glared impartially at all three of us. “And I don’t want any monkey business from any of you.”
    “Thank you,” Jimmy breathed, poking Barbara.
    “Thank you,” she mumbled.
    “Detective!” Jimmy called out as Callaghan strode away. “Can you tell us when we’ll be allowed to leave the area?”
    Callaghan turned. A grin, the first we’d seen, spread over his face.
    “When I say so.”
    “Could have been worse,” I said brightly. “Glass half full!”
    Barbara might have murdered me, but the seatbelt restrained her, and the cops were still watching.

    My feet dragged as Barbara herded me up the hill to Shangri-La. She said all I had to do was lie on a bench and get hot. And here I thought a sauna involved going to Scandinavia and rolling in the snow.
    “Do I have to strip and socialize with nekkid people?” I whined.
    “You can wear a towel if you insist,” she said.
    “Will you wear a towel too?”
    “Why, do you want me to?” she asked.
    “Yes, please,” I said. “Have a little mercy.”
    Ten minutes