Read Suicide King (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) for Free Online

sighed. “When I get it back, I’m going to get it back good.”
    “Sure, you bet you are, anything you say. It’s about that guy named Joe Richmond. The politician.”
    “Oh, yeah. The guy who bumped himself off in an ecologically sound manner. Something to do with a tree, I believe?”
    “That’s the one.” I explained what I wanted— information about the coroner’s report.
    “It was a suicide,” Hal said. “The guy hanged himself. Right?”
    “That’s what the cops think.”
    “And somebody with money to burn thinks otherwise.”
    “So do I.” At least I thought I did.
    “Well, I’ll see what I can get. When do you need it?”
    “It’s kind of important, but…”
    “Cute. I’ll try to get back to you this afternoon. I think I can squeeze it into my overloaded workday. If not, first thing tomorrow.”
    “Thanks, pal.”
    “Sure, buddy.”
    I was going to have to find some way to pay him back real soon.
    I took my half-can of beer and strolled up to the vegetable garden.
    I guess I’d better describe my lot. When I first bought it, there was a big unfenced front yard that consisted of a dirt driveway and a vegetable garden. Behind that were a couple of acacia trees and a 500-square-foot building that not even the realtor dared describe as a cottage. A previous tenant, a lover of plants but no lover of plants in pots, had let the Algerian ivy grow through the walls, roof, and floors. It was very pretty.
    Behind that was the front yard of what was called, by the real-estate agent, “the house.” This was a 600-square-foot stucco box made up of four tiny rooms and a pantry.
    There are some big differences now. The driveway is gravel. The front is fenced, to meet the neighbors’ fences on either side, and I put in some roses. There are two more trees and a lot more flowers— mostly geraniums, which I don’t like much but are easy to grow— back around the house. The house now has three rooms and a pantry, and a Franklin fireplace in the doubled but still small living room.
    I lucked out on the cottage. Among the prospective tenants who came to look at it— most of them turned pale even though I was practically giving it away “until the roof is fixed”— was Rosie Vicente. We struck a deal. She’d rebuild the charming, tree-and-rose-draped hovel for a big reduction in rent over the time of remodeling. Then the rent would begin to move up toward market. At first I was skeptical. I had never met a woman carpenter and wondered if she was strong enough to do the work. I wondered if she knew what she was doing. Rosie dated women instead of men and was good-looking enough to disturb my equilibrium, too. Could we be friends? Could we keep our deal? It turned out she was strong enough and knew what she was doing. The deal worked just fine. The cottage is still a little lopsided, because we decided not to replace all the walls, but it’s solid and it’s pretty and the inside is paneled with real pine and the sun shines in the skylights and the Franklin stove she installed heats the place perfectly all winter.
    And Rosie is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. So go figure.
    Anyway, I strolled up to the vegetable garden, a good place for rumination. For a couple of years, Rosie and I tried to be farmers. Here was this big plot of great soil, right? We grew everything we could think of. The cabbages went first, because the snails loved them so much. Then we tried to stop growing potatoes, because they took up too much room and we never got enough potatoes per plant. Tried, I say, because once you’ve grown potatoes, they’re there forever. Then we gave up the beets and the rutabagas because we didn’t eat them. Then the bell peppers. Then the onions, because why not buy them?
    This year, along with the potatoes, we’re down to zucchini, Italian beans, tomatoes, corn, a couple of jalapeño peppers, and brussels sprouts. Yes, brussels sprouts. If you can get them to grow, you can harvest for