3 Kill Me Over the Garden Gate (6 page)

Shroom blew on his nasty hospital coffee. "Take it easy, Ollie. It's only been a couple hours. I was in the hospital one time. They kept me waiting for a couple hours before they even saw me."

"Oh. Were you sick?"

"Knife fight." He was quick to add, "But I don't do nothin' like that no more."

Ollie looked away so Shroom couldn't see her smile. "Oh. Well, good."

Shroom left Ollie and strolled over to the other kids. "Whazzup, yo?"

They looked up and Pone grabbed his sleeve. "We were just talking. Bean is shot. Hunnicut is in jail. But there are a couple things bothering me."

"Like what? I thought we were done here."

Spaz spoke up. I swear Hunnicut did not have anything as big as a gun in his pocket before the lights went out."

"So? It was probably in the dresser."

"No. He was over by the door. He couldn't have moved that fast. It happened as soon as the lights went out."

"So, uh, what are you saying?"

"That uh, maybe Hunnicut didn't shoot Bean."

"Then who the hell did?"

Pone smiled. "That, my friend is the million dollar question."

"Did you guys tell the cops what you think?"

Pone shook his head. "Nope, not yet. But there is another thing."

Shroom groaned. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

Pone put a hand on his shoulder. "I think you're going to hate it."

"It's okay, dawg. What it be?"

"What happened to the dead girl in the compost pile?"

Shroom rolled his eyes and slapped his forehead. "Oh, crap."

"You can say that again!"

Suddenly the doors to the surgical ward flew open. A man in scrubs walked over to Bean's parents. They spoke for a few minutes. Bean's mom dried her eyes. She stood and came over to them.

"I thought you'd like to know he came out of surgery okay. He lost a lot of blood, so the next forty-eight hours are critical. He–"

A loud bell sounded and the overhead pager blared. "Hospital alert. Code Blue, Emergency Room, Code Blue, Emergency Surgery, please."

They all turned numbly toward the swinging surgical room doors as Bean's doctor hit them running.

Gale Borger
has been involved in law enforcement for over twenty years. This gives Gale an endless source of background material for her books. Growing up in a screwball household also gives her a sense for the zany and the bizarre. Gale writes what she knows, and she knows bad guys and funny stuff—but not necessarily in that order!

Gale lives in Southeastern Wisconsin with her husband and daughter, a
Dogue de Bordeaux
, two cats, about 1500 tropical fish, an African Horned Toad, a side-neck turtle, two dwarf hamsters, and a leopard gecko.

When Gale is not writing, she and her husband breed and swap tropical fish. Gale is also a Master Gardener and after work can usually be found in a flower bed up to her ears in weeds, or volunteering at a local gardening event.

Totally Buzzed
is the first book in the Miller Sisters Mysteries.

See what’s up with Gale at

www.galeborgerbooks.com

check out her blog at

www.galeborgerbooks.wordpress.com

or contact her at

[email protected]