A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2) by Jonni Good Page B

with me, instead. Did you learn anything when you went out with your hound?”
    “Not a whole lot, I’m afraid. But I got a chance to spend time with the boy, and he talked. That’s good, I think. He’s real worried that he’s going to end up in foster care. I don’t know what the rules are when a mother dies and there isn’t anybody else in the family except a soon-to-be ex step-dad. Do you?”
    “No. But if Gavril Constantin can’t take him, Emma is his nearest relation. She’s a good person, and kids love her. She’s acting a little strange today, but her sister just died. We can’t expect her to be at her best right now.”
    “But Mort said she’s only interested in the baby. He said Mildred and Emma didn’t show much concern for where Gabe will go after all this is over.”
    That was true. And Mort also considered Emma a likely suspect. I laid my cheek back down on his shoulder and we sat there, watching snow swirling around the mammoth. The dire wolf sculpture in front of us seemed to be grinning at us in the murky light.
    “Did Mort tell you about our talk with Carol Kramer?”
    He nodded. Then he said, “I remember when Carol and Gwyneth stopped speaking to each other. When the friendship ended, Carol was pretty upset about it. I don’t doubt that Harold is the kind of guy who would stop his wife from having a friend, and I can see why she’d lie to him. But I’m surprised that she thought she had to lie about it to—well, to other people.”
    He sat quietly for a moment, watching the clouds. Then he leaned down he kissed me on the forehead. “It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”
    I remembered the luggage, covered with snow in the back of the truck.
    While we walked to the front of the building, I said, “Last year, after my owl mask was stolen, Josie wanted you to do a smudging to get rid of the bad vibes in the museum. I don’t remember you doing it, though. Did she ask you?”
    He raised one shoulder, and let it fall. “I begged off. I tried to learn about the old ways to make my gran happy. It didn’t work. I’m just a town boy. I guess it’s kind of like you, not being Catholic, even though your mother was raised in the church. You probably couldn’t do an exorcism very well, either.”
    “No, I don’t think I’d be very good at that.” We both chuckled at the thought.
    He wiped a bit of dust off the nose of the American cheetah with his glove as he passed by. “You know, after my gran passed, your mother really stepped in and filled that hole. Josie means a lot to me—I hope she knows that.”
     
    The wind was blowing even harder when we walked back outside, and the cold stung my cheeks. We looked across the street at Sonje’s SUV.
    Sam said that according to the old bloodhound, Sonje left her car, went to the front door of the diner, and tried to get inside. Angie polishes the glass on the door every morning, but Molly definitely said that Sonje touched the door up high, as if she was knocking or banging on it.
    “The palm of the hand has a lot of sweat glands,” he said. “Molly could tell it was her.”
    Then Sonje headed south towards the river instead of back to her car. The farther she went, the more erratic her path. There were a few places where Molly stopped and snuffled over a larger area, where the woman may have fallen. The bloodhound finally stopped where I’d found the body.
    “It was a miracle that she didn’t stumble over the bank and into the river,” he said. Although, in the end, it didn’t matter very much.
    Molly found Sonje’s coat about fifteen feet from the body. There was a little silver flask in one of the big pockets.
    “The way she was stumbling around, it looked like she was drunk, or drugged. But she didn’t get drunk off the whiskey in that flask. It was still full. I put it back in the pocket and we brought the coat back here. A deputy drove by and picked it up while you and Mort were out talking to Carol. Gabe says she liked to have a