Read We All Killed Grandma for Free Online

absorb for one afternoon. Thanks a lot.”
    “Not at all, Rod. Come back, anytime, often.”
    I went back next door and Mrs. Trent said Arch hadn’t come yet and hadn’t called. But just as I was going down the steps of the front porch his Chevvie convertible drove up and parked in front of the house. He saw me coming and waited behind the wheel.

CHAPTER 3
    H E said, “Hi, anything special on your mind?”
    “It’s still an aching void,” I told him, “but I’m beginning to put things into a few of the corners. Right now I’ve misplaced a Lincoln coupe somewhere. Can you enlighten me?”
    “Oh, Lord, did I forget to mention
that
?”
    “You forgot to mention. What happened to it? Or have I still got it?”
    “You still have it, but there’s some repair work being done. Listen, it might be ready by now. Get in and we’ll find out.”
    It was good to know I still had a set of wheels to roll on, whether or not they were available at the moment. I walked around Arch’s convertible and got in.
    You’d never guess to see us together that Arch and I are half brothers. There may be a slight facial resemblance, but you’d have to look for it. Aside from that, no resemblance at all. He’s heavy, stocky, built like a wrestler, and I’m on the wiry side. He has blond hair to my dark brown, and he wears his cut short and sticking straight up. He still—at thirty-three—dresses like Joe College and he has a baby face and big eyes that make him look five years younger than I instead of five years older.
    He started the engine and said, “Sure, Rod, you’ve got a coupe—and I’m sorry I forgot to mention it. So much other stuff to tell you. It’s around at Berkley Motors; we’ll see about it right now.”
    “What happened to it? Did I wreck it?”
    “No, you weren’t even in it—somebody sideswiped it when it was parked at the curb about a week ago. Dented the door and crumpled a fender and took off some paint. No damage to the car itself, just some body work—and you decided instead of trying to touch up the paint where it was scraped off, you’d have a whole new paint job. I think you told me it was going to take about a week, and it’s about that now.”
    “Did I know the guy who sideswiped me? Did he stop and report it?”
    “No. Hit-run. But you’re insured, so all it’ll cost you is the difference between what touching up the paint would have cost you and the all-over paint job you decided you wanted. Sorry I forgot to mention it—damn it, I still just take for granted that you know things, until they come up and I realize you don’t. Who mentioned it to you?”
    “Robin,” I said.
    We were stopped, waiting for a street light; he turnedto me and frowned. “Rod, you shouldn’t have seen her. I told you that. You’re just going to make it bad for both of you. You were so God damn broken up when she left you—the fact that you forgot her is the only lucky thing about your amnesia, and now you’re like as not to try to start it all over again. And if it didn’t work once—”
    I said, “If it didn’t work once, it won’t work the second time. But don’t worry, she’s a complete stranger to me. And she was polite but cool.”
    “She’s a wonderful girl. It’s just that—I’m thinking of your sake, Rod.”
    The light changed; he let out the clutch too fast and almost stalled the car. I hoped that he was a better playwright than he was a driver.
    He turned in at the driveway of a big garage a few blocks farther on; he stopped by a gas pump inside. A little redheaded man with a faceful of freckles walked over toward us with a wide grin. “Joe,” Arch told me. “You know him.”
    So I said, “Hi, Joe,” and shook the hand he stuck out. His grin got wider. “Rod, you know me. The way I heard it—”
    “Sorry, Joe,” I told him. “Arch briefed me. I didn’t even remember I had a car here. How’s it coming?”
    “Fine,” he said. “Better than new. All done, and you could