Read If Dying Was All for Free Online

here in our little orchard. I’ll ring her up and see if she’s home.” She moved to the switchboard and plugged in a jack. “Mary Jo? This is Mom. No, I can’t right now. Dad’s still out with the cleanup boys.” She smiled at Easy. “I have a nice detective from Los Angeles here trying to help poor old Mr. McCleary, and he’d like to come over and talk to you. Well, maybe he can help.” She broke the connection. “You look to be trustworthy, Mr. Easy. Mary Jo seems to be having trouble with a zipper in her Columbia the Gem of the Ocean costume. Could you help her and then ask your questions?”
    “Sure.” Easy started for the door.
    “I’ll ring up over there every few minutes to see how things are going.”
    “A wise precaution.” Easy grinned at her and left her office.
    The night wind was warm and the sky clear. He strolled through the courtyard and then down a rosebush-bordered lane. Six separated tile-roofed cottages were scattered back here, surrounded by a small apple orchard. The door of cottage 15C was half-open and soft yellow light was spilling out.
    A slightly plump, blonde girl looked out as Easy approached. She was pretty and wide eyed, wrapped in several yards of spangled white and blue silk. “Are you the private eye.”
    “John Easy,” Easy told her.
    “Come on in, Mr. Easy. Sit down in that chair there. Oh, wait, don’t sit yet.” She backed and snatched a pointed tin crown off the leather and wood chair. “My Columbia the Gem of the Ocean crown.”
    “I figured as much.”
    Mary Jo licked her upper lip. “I’d be very glad to help you, Mr. Easy. First, could you lend a hand with this son of a bitch of a zipper?”
    Easy turned the girl around and took hold of the zipper tab she’d pointed to. The zipper ran from midback to the top of her buttocks and was stuck just below a patch of tiny brown freckles. “You work in the Manzana post office?”
    “Yes. Every damn day of the week, except Sunday. Is that what you want to talk to me about?”
    “Yeah.” Easy jerked the zipper up and then down and it unclogged and opened. “There.”
    “Last year I was Betsy Ross in the parade. There wasn’t this much trouble.” The phone rang and Mary Jo moved to answer it. When she picked up the receiver she let go of the top of her spangled gown. The costume dropped away and she said, “Hello?” wearing only a pair of flowered panties. “Yes, Mother. Yes, he’s here.” She nodded in Easy’s direction, kicking the fallen costume away from her feet. “Yes, he helped with the zipper.” She motioned at a robe hanging over the edge of a closet door.
    Easy tossed the red silk robe to her.
    “I’m going to answer his questions in a minute, Mother. Yes.” She hung up and shrugged into the robe. “That was Mother, checking up.” She gave a gentle snort. “I’m sort of embarrassed about my Columbia the Gem of the Ocean getup falling off. Not that I’m basically against being seen undressed. If you’re certain of your identity, after all, naked or clothed doesn’t matter. My hang-up is I’m still not adjusted to my defect and I’m sorry you saw it.
    Easy had taken the chair and was watching the pretty, plump blonde. “Defect?”
    “You’re polite to pretend you didn’t notice.” Mary Jo touched the cradled phone and then sat on the edge of her quilt-covered bed. “My unawareness of my body isn’t quite complete and so I’m still sensitive. What do you think?”
    “I didn’t notice anything especially wrong.”
    “You really didn’t see them?”
    “Them?”
    “I mean all the funny looking freckles on my left …” She started to open the scarlet robe.
    Easy lifted one hand in a halting motion. “Whoa. I’m a real private investigator, not a fictitious one. I only want to ask you some questions, Mary Jo.”
    The blonde girl flushed slightly, closed her robe, shrugged, smiled left-sidedly. “Probably the best thing. We’d have a tough time doing anything much in