Read Nobody's Sorry You're Dead: A Hadley Pell Cozy Mystery for Free Online Page A

around just to pay the bills, clean the house, and keep his kitty dish full of food and his litter box emptied.”
    “That cat can’t be as bad as that,” Maury said.
    “Obviously,” Hadley said, “you’ve never owned anything but dogs.”
    “Give me a hand with these lawn chairs, Maury. I need to get them out of the sun. I’m afraid if I don’t, they’ll be so dry rotted we’ll end up with grass stains on our behinds the next time we try to sit in them.”
    Hadley and her sister folded up the lawn chairs, laying them against the side of the house.
    Hadley wanted to ask Maury if Bill had said anything about Singlepenny’s death. She would never ask outright because she knew if Maury gleaned any interesting tidbits, she would either keep them to herself or swear Hadley to secrecy under the penalty of death. Maury had not mentioned death penalties, so Hadley decided to keep quiet.
    Depending on which side of the bed Bill got up on any given day, the sheriff might rankle at his sister-in-law’s meddling. Hadley knew she was prone to go off half-cocked on wild goose chases, and her inquisitive nature often overruled her common sense. Her curiosity had gotten her into more than a few pickles, but it was those pickling spices that made life interesting.
    At least from Hadley’s point of view.
    She needed to stay on Bill’s good side though and not push her luck. Whenever she found herself in a sour situation, pickling spices or not, it was her brother-in-law who came to her rescue.
    This was especially true since Harry passed. Bill was a busy man, and the sheriff’s duties for the whole county kept him hopping. But snooping and nosing had always been one of Hadley’s true passions. Kind of like entering contests.
    It wasn’t her fault if she was observant and had a sixth sense for reading in between the lines. This knack enabled her to reach conclusions that others often missed. And she had a nagging feeling that there was something she was missing.
    Something. Something. Something.
    It was driving her crazy.
    She only wanted to help.
    Singlepenny’s death was annoying her like an itch that drives you up a wall. One of those irritating annoyances that won’t stop and that you cannot reach.
    And then, there was Eustian’s habit of constantly suing one neighbor or another in the small town. No doubt he held a world record for the number of lawsuits heard in the county courthouse.
    As if tormenting Ruth Elliot wasn’t enough, Eustian decided to up his game a notch by suing Maggie Miller’s oldest son, Sandy. One lawsuit wasn’t enough. Eustian felt litigating two at one time would be even better. Hadley stewed. These cases really bothered her. There wasn’t much gossip about Ruth’s case. According to Lou Edna, Sandy had done some work for the old man on his old tractor. After the job was completed, Eustian claimed valuable property was missing from one of his barns. Eustian blamed Sandy Miller. Sandy denied any wrongdoing.
    Sandy’s mother, Maggie Miller, was one of Hadley’s oldest friends. Maggie was going through heck, and Hadley knew it. The charges Eustian had brought up against Sandy were silly but serious.
    Nobody who really knew him thought for one minute Sandy was guilty. But suspicion and doubt started hanging over Sandy’s head like a black cloud, and it was a classic case of one man’s word against another. Eustian was a dumpster of trouble, and like any good garbage receptacle, he was very good at stirring up a bad smell. His accusations were tarnishing the Miller name, not to mention wrecking the business at Sandy’s metal shop.
    Suddenly, no one wanted to do business with a man they’d known all his life because he just might be a thief. It was ludicrous! But if things didn’t turn around soon, Sandy might have to close the doors. That shop was Sandy’s life. It was proving more than Maggie could bear.
    During all this uproar, Hadley had not been able to do one thing to ease Maggie’s