Mom Zone Mysteries 02 Staying Home Is a Killer by Sara Rosett Page A

stay warm. “Did something happen on that flight?”
    “Nothing but flying.” He ducked his head and focused on the grain in the wood railing.
    Water dripped from the icicles and plinked onto the deck. “But something happened,” I insisted. “Rory acted funny when I asked him about it and he’s been bragging around the squadron. Did it have anything to do with Penny?”
    “No. We just flew,” he insisted in a tense whisper I had to strain to hear over the swish of the sliding glass door as it opened.
    “Yeah,” a slurred voice came from behind us. “Aaron-boy there can really fly!” Will walked with a sailor’s rolling gait and braced himself against a deck chair. He had returned from the funeral, and apparently he was still trying to drink his sorrow and guilt away. “Aaron, man! He can fly by the seat of his pants!” Will jabbed the air with his can of Bud on the last word.
    I glanced at Aaron and then looked closer. He was blushing!
    “Or should I say by the seat of his unther—unther—by the seat of his boxers!” Will shouted the last word and leaned over the deck chair laughing.
    Will had left the glass door open. The people in the kitchen froze like someone had hit the PAUSE button on a remote control. Jeff came outside and patted Will on the shoulder. “Come on, buddy. Time to head home.”
    “No, you don’t understand. We flew naked.” Will leaned over, laughing again. Aaron pushed away from the rail and strode quickly through the crowd that parted to let him through.
    Zeke said, “Will, come on in. You’re confused.”
    “Nope. You were there, too. You did it, too. I’m not going down by myself. Did everyone hear? We flew naked.” Will shouted the last line as Jeff maneuvered him inside. Voices, music, and laughter surged into the void of silence.
    I found Mitch at the buffet, piling another helping of lasagna on his plate in the dining room. “Where’s Livvy?”
    “Downstairs watching Winnie the Pooh .”
    I grabbed a dinner roll. “Did you hear Will?”
    “Yes.” Mitch glanced around the room, and I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it in the middle of a crowd. He picked up his plastic fork and I grabbed some napkins. We settled on the deserted steps leading to Abby and Jeff’s finished basement.
    “When do you think they flew naked? It couldn’t have been that Monday because Will wasn’t on that flight.”
    “No,” Mitch agreed. “And he’d been gone TDY before that.”
    I tried to mentally reconstruct my list. “Wait. Didn’t you tell me Will hopped on a flight after he got back—on the Friday the week before Penny died?”
    “Yeah. That’s right. He hopped on at the last minute. It must have been that flight and then he told Penny over the weekend.”
    “So what could happen to them for flying naked?”
    Mitch took long enough between his bites to whistle softly. “Stupid thing to do. I sure wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. They were out of uniform. They might get an LOR.” At my puzzled look, he said, “Letter Of Reprimand, or worse. It depends on what Briman decides.”
    “Will said Penny was upset about one of his flights. If she knew that they flew naked, she wouldn’t like it, but there wouldn’t be any reason for one of the crew to kill her. An LOR is bad, but it’s not the end of a career. So that lets the crew off the hook.”
    I broke off part of the roll. Clarissa looked like a better suspect all the time.

    I hesitated a moment before I picked up the phone. Then I shook my head and reached for it. Just because someone had called and hung up a few times, I didn’t need to worry about answering my phone.
    “Turn on the TV,” commanded Abby.
    “What?” I dribbled a few Cheerios onto Livvy’s high chair tray and went to get her milk.
    “I know you never turn it on in the morning. Put it on channel 2, quick.”
    Still holding the milk, I clicked on the TV in the living room and found the channel.
    A solemn brunette with short,