Lucky Dog

  How did this happen? Sparky. I shook Sparky off my ankle and turned back to the bar and the glasses were there. Which glass was the one with the poison? Was it the one on the left? But I was so sure—I could have sworn—

  Police Chief David O’Callaghan hung up the phone in time for Mac Faraday to come into his office. Gnarly jumped up into the chair across from his desk.

  David held up the autopsy report. “Lance Collins didn’t kill Kim Weathersby.”

  Mac’s eyebrow rose in surprise. “What did kill her?”

  “Congenital heart defect.” David handed the report to him. “She had a heart attack. The medical examiner talked to Kim’s family doctor. It was a hereditary condition. Killed her father. Kim knew about it, but kept it a secret. She didn’t want to be treated like an invalid. No one knew.”

  “And she was drinking vodka martinis?”

  David held up his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “That was her motto. Live fast, die young, and leave a gorgeous corpse. She went out the way she wanted.”

  Shaking his head, Mac lowered himself into the chair across from the police chief’s desk. “I could have sworn Lance killed her. I could see it in his face.” He reached over to where Gnarly was sitting in the chair next to his to stroke the top of his head. “Gnarly saw it. Didn’t you, Gnarl?”

  “The husband looked good to me, too,” David said. “But Kim Weathersby did die of natural causes. Her husband Lance Collins is chief beneficiary in her current will, right ahead of Sparky. Rightfully, he’s earned everything he’s got coming to him.”

  Laughing, Mac tossed the autopsy report back onto his desk.

  “That lucky dog.”

  The End