Read He Done Her Wrong: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Eight) (Toby Peters Mysteries) for Free Online Page A

finish his goodbye.
    With the possible exception of Campbell, who didn’t seem to be a particularly good suspect, no one in the room really resembled the one who had tried to kill me two days earlier at Mae West’s party, but then again it was hard to know. The person might well be a woman, though there were some reasons to think it wasn’t.
    With the opportunity for the deerstalker gone till the next meeting, Lachtman turned to me.
    “Thank you for coming to speak to us tonight, Mr. Pastor. We’ve all learned a great deal about how a detective works.”
    His words and the response of the group had made it clear that they really didn’t care how a real detective worked and that I had, as many times before in my battered life, disappointed people who expected more from me.
    Margaritte Lachtman moved to her husband’s side as the crowd aimed for the door.
    “It was fun,” I lied. “Was this the entire group or were there some members who couldn’t make it?”
    “Everyone was here,” Lachtman said, looking at his wife for confirmation. She didn’t confirm.
    “Ressner,” she corrected. “Jeffrey Ressner.”
    “Yes, oh yes, Mr. Ressner,” Lachtman remembered, with a look on his face that reminded me of the time my brother had slipped me a worm at a Saturday matinee when I had asked for the popcorn.
    “What about Mr. Reesner?” I said with a small smile.
    “He hasn’t come in several years, though he called yesterday and said he was back,” said Lachtman, looking at the door. “He knows the Canon well and many other things, but—”
    “He is a bit difficult, or was in the past,” completed Margaritte, handing Lachtman his shopping bag.
    “Maybe it’s just too far for him to come,” I tried.
    “He doesn’t live that far, no farther than some members, somewhere in the valley with his daughter,” he said.
    That was as far as I could push. I should be able to find a Jeffrey Ressner in the valley phone books. Of course he might be living with a daughter under her name, and she might have a married name, and Lachtman would surely have an address for him, and I might have to come back and get it, but for now I had a lead.
    “It was good to meet you, Mr. Peters,” said Margaritte Lachtman, extending her hand. Maybe it was one Pepsi too many and an overload of caloric energy, but her hand felt like Anne’s and I didn’t want to let it go. She pulled away and moved toward Alvin Aardvark, who had passed out at the main table. Busboys and waiters were clearing up around him as I moved to leave.
    In the next room the salesmen masquerading as politicians were laughing, probably at the jokes of their boss. I didn’t laugh when Campbell swooped in front of me as I took a step into the hall.
    “You were asking about Jeffrey Ressner,” he said.
    I shrugged. “Not particularly.”
    “You were asking,” he insisted, pointing his cane at me. I considered taking it from him and playing a few Krupa tunes on his head. “I suggest you stay away from him. He is more dangerous than Lethal and Lightning.”
    “Lethal and Lightning?”
    “Yesterday at San Quentin,” he said softly between the peals of next-door laughter, “Robert S. James was hanged. He was a barber convicted of killing pregnant Mary Bush James, his wife, for twenty-one thousand dollars insurance. He drowned her after failing to kill her by forcing her to put her feet into a box that contained two rented rattlesnakes named Lethal and Lightning. A tale worthy of the master himself.”
    “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.
    With that Campbell made a move intended, I think, to give the impression that he had disappeared into the shadows behind a potted palm. Instead, he tripped over the scurrying, chunky little beagle of a waiter and fell with his cane clattering and his hand grabbing for fronds.
    “Drunken fart,” mumbled the waiter, hurrying on.
    I tried to pretend that I hadn’t seen Campbell’s failed exit and headed for the door and