A Mew to a Kill by Leighann Dobbs Page A

behavior.
    Father Tim nodded. “He did, but he’s done quite well this year, really pulled himself up and now he is in the halfway house across the street. He’s in room five over there if you want to go over.”
    The halfway house was across from the church. It was an old colonial that was now used as a halfway house. I eyed the peeling paint warily as we approached.  
    “I hope this isn’t a mistake,” I said.
    "Of course it isn't," Pepper replied as we approached the door. "It's run by the church."
    Right. What could possibly happen to us across from the church?
    I knocked.
    “Come in, it’s open!”  
    We shrugged at each other. Pepper opened the door and we stepped into a living room that had clearly been furnished with hand-me-downs. Probably cast-offs donated to the church. On one wall was a big sign with a list of rules—no food in your room, no pets, no fighting. Despite the dilapidated appearance of the outside of the house and the worn furniture, the inside was neat and orderly.  
    “Pepper!” A pimple-faced twenty-something with glasses wrapped Pepper in a hug.
    My right brow flew up and she laughed at me. “Willa, this is Barney … he’s a house monitor from the church.
    “Hi.” I shook his hand, wondering if his enthusiastic greeting and happy attitude had anything to do with the tea Pepper routinely brought to the church.
    "The church takes the halfway house very seriously so they have monitors like Barney who volunteer to spend time here and make sure everyone is following the rules. It's important for the success of the program," Pepper explained to me, then turned to Barney. “We’re here to talk to Kenny Brown. Is he in?”  
    “Sure. His room is right over here.” Barney led us down a hallway to a door that had a black and gold number five stuck on it.
    Barney tapped on the door. “Kenny! Someone here to see you!”
    A scuffling sound came from the other side of the door and it cracked open. I looked up into a thin face to see brown eyes clouded with suspicion. “What?”
    “Hi. I’m Willa and this is Pepper. We’re friends of your sister. We came to see how you were doing,” I ventured.
    He frowned at me, then glanced back into the room behind him, closing the door even more so the crack was smaller. Apparently, Kenny was not going to invite us in. “You were? I never saw you with Paisley.”
    “Umm, well … we were fellow shop owners on Main Street.”
    “Yeah, so?” He slipped out through the crack in the door, closing it behind him and standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. He was lanky and stood a good six inches taller than me. As tall as Neil Lane and just as thin, but much younger.
    “We just wanted to come by and pay our respects,” I said.
    “Oh, really? What do you know about what happened to her?” Did he sound scared? No, it was more of an accusation than anything.
    “Us? Nothing?” I noticed the freckles sprinkled across his nose. He was just a kid. Could he have killed his own sister?
    “Right. Aren’t you one of the judges in that art contest?” He glared at me.
    How did he know that? “Umm, yeah. I was.”
    “You were one of the ones that didn’t want her in it?” He glanced over his shoulder at the door as if there was something in his room he was protecting—something he didn’t want us to see.
    “Well … I … “ I wasn’t sure what to say.
    “You voted against her, didn’t you? She said some people voted against her. Her feelings were really hurt. As if that wasn’t enough then someone goes and kills her.” His eyes misted, but when he leaned toward me, his voice turned threatening. “And I wonder just what you know about it.”
    I backed up. “Me? I don’t know anything about it.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He scowled at me, then at Pepper. All traces of the freckle-faced kid I’d seen a few seconds earlier disappeared with the angry look on his face. “Well, I don’t need your condolences.”