Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

Smith demanded. “Do the police know?”
    Penny Ann shook her head. “They’re coming back with a search warrant and some detective from New York.”
    Wetzon couldn’t take her eyes from the array of weapons. “Penny Ann, how many guns are missing?”
    Penny Ann shrugged. “A rifle, I think. The other two were handguns.”
    “Three? Who took them? You’ve got to tell us.”
    “I don’t ... know.”
    “When did you notice they were gone?”
    Penny Ann started crying again, sobbing horribly. They could barely hear her choked-up words. “After ... Tabitha ... ran away.”

49.
    “B EING A DETECTIVE makes me ravenous.” Smith’s eyes sparkled. She rubbed her hands together gleefully and fastened her seat belt.
    “You’re hungry because it’s after one o’clock and we haven’t eaten lunch.” Wetzon felt irritable. She set the box of sticky buns down at her feet, Smith having snatched it back with a “She’ll never even notice it’s gone,” on their way through Penny Ann’s kitchen.
    “Is that not the dimmest woman you’ve ever met? Can you believe a child running around with three guns?”
    The motor purred, and Smith drove back on the narrow driveway. Burnished leaves floated off the trees into their path. Wetzon wondered idly how often cars had to back out because there was no way for two cars to fit.
    “That child was three months pregnant.”
    “How do you know that?” Smith was obviously annoyed.
    Wetzon’s smile was cheerless. “Trust me,” she said.
    “Humpf.” Smith put her foot on the gas, and they spurted forward.
    When they came out onto Lonetown Road, Smith pulled over to the side and stopped. “See what’s inside the mailbox.”
    Wetzon looked across the road at a red mailbox that said “BOYD” in big white letters. She hesitated. “I think that’s against the law.” A car drove by just fast enough to make the dry leaves spin.
    Smith gave her a withering look. “Just look. We aren’t going to take anything.”
    Wetzon rolled her eyes and slipped out of the seat belt. She waited for a station wagon and a truck to drive past, then crossed the street and opened the mailbox. It was stuffed with magazines, bills— lots of them—a bank statement, financial reports, a statement from Bliss Norderman, several of what appeared to be sympathy cards. A smudged envelope without a return address. She fingered the envelope for a moment, ducking her head when a car drove by. No, she thought, and shoved everything back into the mailbox, closed the box, just as quickly opened the box, found the envelope again and took it out, weighing it in her hand. The address was handwritten, the ink smeared. The handwriting was a tentative, almost childish scrawl, and the envelope was calling out to her loudly, Open me.
    “What are you doing?” Smith fretted. “Snap to it.”
    Oh, shut up , Wetzon thought. She stuck her nail under the flap, which was slightly detached, and eased it open the rest of the way. She pulled out a sheet of yellow lined paper and read:
Ma,
I didn’t kill Brian. I was going to meet him, but I was to scarred. I want my baby. Rona said she’d help. Please don’t be mad any more. I left everything with Dr. J.
Love, Tabby .
    A Mercedes tore past, kicking up gravel. Wetzon slipped the letter back in the envelope and checked the postmark. The morning after Tabitha was murdered. She must have slipped it into a mailbox on her way to Lincoln Center. Wetzon shivered. She licked her finger and reglued the flap with what was left of the stickum. After slipping the letter back in the box, she waited for another car to pass and crossed the road.
    “Well?” Smith asked eagerly, starting the motor. “What took you so long? I saw you reading something.”
    “Magazines, bills. And a letter from Tabitha. Judging by the postmark, probably mailed just before she died.”
    “What did it say?” Smith waited for an entry space in the line of slow-moving cars on Lonetown Road, and was rewarded by a woman in a black BMW, who stopped and waved them in. She pulled out onto the road just as a maroon police car came into view, coming toward them. As it passed them, Wetzon saw Ferrante sitting in the back. She watched the police car pause at the mailbox while the skinny deputy reached in and pulled out the mail. A curve in the road took them out of sight.
    “That she wants to keep her baby, that she’s scarred—but I think she meant scared—that Rona’s going to help her, and