Page 75 of The Body in the Backyard

“Mrs. Penny,” Riley said.

“Present!” the woman barked.

“Detective Weber would like to have a word with us.”

Mrs. Penny heaved herself off the couch and straightened to her full five feet, two inches. “Lawyer.”

“You’re not under arrest. Yet,” Weber added.

“Lawyer,” she repeated with unnecessary enunciation. “Me and my pal Riley here won’t talk without a lawyer present. Fortunately for you, mine is already on his way.”

“He is?” Weber, Riley, and Nick all said together.

“Yeah, so you can either shut your trap and have a cup of coffee or cuff me, copper,” Mrs. Penny said.

“Honestly, it’s probably just easier if you go for the coffee,” Riley said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Fine. Whatever,” Weber said wearily.

Riley led him into the kitchen and programmed a cup of coffee in aJasmine Patel Attorney at Lawmug. “Still hungover?” she asked, sliding the mug in front of him.

“It’s like I got six cases of the flu at the same time. Everything still hurts, and I don’t remember what normal feels like,” he complained.

She was just beginning to feel sorry for him when Mrs. Penny strutted through the swinging door with a young man in an ill-fitting suit and a dinosaur tie. On closer inspection, he wasn’t just young. He was a teenager.

Nick brought up the rear, looking smug.

“I don’t get paid nearly enough for this,” Weber muttered into his coffee.

“Meet my attorney, Billy,” Mrs. Penny said. “Billy, meet the five-oh trying to trample my civil rights.”

“Detective Weber, is it?” Billy asked, holding out a hand that was nearly covered by the sleeve of his suit jacket.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Weber asked. “You’re twelve.”

“Actually, I’m seventeen. I just have a young face,” Billy said.

“He’s one of them there genius prodigy kids. Graduated high school at nine. College at eleven. And law school at fifteen,” Mrs. Penny said proudly.

“I took a gap year and went to med school for a little while,” Billy said humbly.

“And he’s about to lawyer your ass,” Mrs. Penny said gleefully.

Weber looked at Nick, who shrugged and grinned. “I’m just here to make a sandwich.”

“Fine. Whatever. Why should any of you care about a murder?”

“Kind of hard to care when the victim spent his life terrorizing others,” Nick pointed out. “But again, I’m just here to make a sandwich.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Weber said. “Everybody sit down.”

“So to clarify,you didn’t see or hear anything besidesThe Price Is Right?” Weber repeated, sounding as if he’d be willing to give up his pension if someone told him he could just go home.

Mrs. Penny had just gone on an eight-minute tangent about the price of toaster ovens. Nick had eaten his sandwich and was now noisily crunching his way through one of the bags of chips that had survived the happy hour snack massacre. Burt sat at his feet, patiently waiting for the first casualty of gravity.

“It’s kinda hard to hear someone get murdered in the backyard when that Drew Carey is such a hottie,” Mrs. Penny said.

“My client is not saying she ignored a crime in progress. She is saying she had no knowledge of the crime being committed,” Billy interjected.