Foul Play - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,33

any of your junk,” Veronica told him, tossing an armful of clothes out the window into the shrubbery. “You and your big ideas, telling me I was going to be a television star. Some television star. You had me playing straight man to a chicken. Now there’s no chicken, and you’re telling me I’m fired. Lulu the Clown didn’t have a chicken. Why do I need one?”

“Lulu the Clown had talent,” Turner said.

Veronica’s eyes narrowed. “You’re slime, Turner. You’re scum and gunk and doo-doo. You have no sensitivity, and you killed that poor chicken,” she cried. “You fiend.”

Amy’s eyes widened at the whirring recorder. “Son of a gun,” she whispered. All those hours watching crummy television shows paid off. She’d actually gotten incriminating evidence.

“Me?” Turner screamed. “I didn’t kill that Frank Perdue reject. I gave him his big break, and he blew it. You’re the one who killed him. Feeding him pizza and jelly doughnuts and keeping him up until all hours of the night watching David Letterman.”

“He liked the stupid pet tricks.” Veronica’s bright-red lower lip trembled. “And I didn’t kill him. What a rotten thing to say.”

Turner crawled through the azaleas retrieving socks and shirts. He found a black lace garter belt and stared at it for a moment. “This is yours,” he said, dangling the garter belt from one finger.

“You gave it to me,” Veronica sobbed, “and I never want to see it again.”

“Well, you gave me this tie.” Turner pulled his tie over his head. “Take it back.”

“Never. I don’t want a tie that’s been wrapped around your scrawny neck.”

Turner stomped into the apartment with the tie clutched in his fist. “I said take the tie back!”

“No, no, no!”

There was a deathly silence. Jake and Amy exchanged anxious glances. “You don’t suppose he’d hurt her?” Amy asked.

They crept to the open door and peeked inside.

“Holy cow,” Amy whispered.

“You were right,” Jake said. “Veronica Bottles doesn’t waste time on preliminaries.”

They backed away, quietly closing the door. “This probably isn’t a good time to question Veronica,” Jake suggested.

Amy slunk down in the passenger seat of the car. “I need a glass of lemonade.”

Jake grinned, putting the car in gear and heading for Amy’s house. “I’ve noticed squeezing lemons has a calming effect on you.”

Amy pressed the stop button on her recorder. “What do you make of that conversation? They accused each other of murdering Red, and then they both denied it.”

“I don’t think either of them killed the bird,” Jake said, disappointment obvious in his voice. “I’m having serious doubts about my theory.”

Amy listened to the recording. “They might not have killed him, but they obviously think he’s dead. Notice how they accuse each other of murder rather than bird-napping.”

“Uh-huh,” Jake said, cruising down the street, distracted by a van parked in front of Amy’s house. “Are you expecting company?”

Amy squinted at the van. “There’s someone in the front seat … with a camera.”

Jake pulled into the driveway and helped Amy from the car. The cameraman got out of the van and walked toward them. He was short and very young. His blond hair was tied back in a ponytail.

“Ron Grosse,” he said, extending his hand. “I’ve been sent by Local News to do a follow-up interview with Lulu the Clown. This is Dan Flyn …” He motioned to a second man, joining them from the van. “We do a Sixty Minutes-type show, except it only lasts twenty minutes.”

“I don’t think I feel like being interviewed today,” Amy said coolly. “I don’t have much to say about all this.”

“Aren’t you the veterinarian?” Dan Flyn asked. “This is a coup. We didn’t expect to find the two of you together. Are you … um, you know, an item?”

Jake leaned forward slightly, stopping inches from Flyn’s nose. “Excuse me? An item?”

Flyn stood his ground. “There had been rumors of this being an inside job, or at least a coverup.”

Jake set his jaw. “That does it. I’m going to rearrange your face.”

“No,” Amy shouted, grabbing Jake by the arm. “Lord, what will my neighbors think? Cameramen and vans and men fighting on my front lawn. You can’t do this sort of thing in suburbia. And besides, we just cut this grass, and now you’re standing on it and bending it. Shoo,” she said to the twenty-minute news team. She made go-away motions with her hands. “Shoo.”

She pulled Jake into the house. “Shame on you. Rearrange his face. Good grief.”

Jake locked the door and closed the drapes. “I’m pretty tough, huh?”

Amy rolled