Broke:

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BROKE
, THE THIRD IMOGENE DUCKWORTHY MYSTERY
:

“
I loved it.
 
The series gets better and better.
”

—
E. B. Davis,
Short Story Writer, Avid Reader and Beach Bum

PRAISE FOR CHOKE:

"A total delight! Laugh-out-loud dialogue, adorable characters, and a truly original voice. Fresh, feisty and hilarious. More, please."

—
Hank Phillippi Ryan
 
Anthony, Agatha and Macavity
w
inning author

PRAISE FOR SMOKE

"A Texas-sized slice of murder and mayhem, makes for a fun, fast-paced read."

—Rhys Bowen, Agatha and Anthony-winning author of the Molly Murphy and Royal Spyness series.

"Kaye George knows how to write a fun mystery! She will make you laugh. Don't miss "Smoke."

— Sasscer Hill, Agatha and Macavity Finalist

BROKE

An Imogene Duckworthy Mystery

Kaye George

Kindle Edition

Copyright 201
2
Kaye George

Discover other titles by Kaye George at

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004CFRJ76

Cover Designer:  Karen A. Phillips

All rights reserved

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Dedication

~ 
To the best online writers' group
on the planet
, The Guppies
  ~

Acknowledgements

I've gotten help from my Austin Mystery Writers again, Kathy Waller and Gale Albright. What would I do without them? Paula Benson also kept me from making some legal mistakes.

As always, I'll thank the Guppies for helping me
along my way
and the Plothatchers, Janet Bolin (fellow Agatha nominee), Krista Davis (NY Times best selling author), Peg Louden (who doubles as
Peg Cochran and also as
Meg London), Janet Koch (who doubles as Laura Alden), Marilyn Levinson (multi-published young adult and mystery writer), and Daryl Wood Gerber (who doubles as Avery Aames). I'm honored to count these incredible writers among my friends.

The house in BROKE is fictional, as is its exact location. Wymee Falls is a mythical version of Wichita Falls, Texas, but every character in the book is entirely ficti
ti
ous and none are based on any of the wonderful people in the Wichita Falls and Holliday areas.

Chapter One

Imogene Duckworthy
was sure her boss would approve, but she
would have
to be careful how she worded her request.
Mike Mallet
t
, Private Investigator, had once fired her for taking too much time away from her job. She had been working on her own cases,
which she considered an aspect of job training,
but he seemed to take a dim view of that.

Immy
knocked on his open door.
"
Mr. Mallet
t
?
"

The
look
on his narrow face
was pained.
"
What
'
s with the Mr. Mallet
t
?
When you don't call me Mike, i
t
'
s usually trouble.
"
His raspy voice went with his rumpled white shirt, giving him a bit of a Columbo aura. Columbo was probably a lot taller that Mike Mallett though. Mike also never smoked a cigar.

"
My appointment is for four o
'
clock
," Immy said
.
"
It
'
s the only time she had available.
"
The eyes in his weasel face narrowed
.
"
My filing is all done and the bills are in my purse. I
'
ll mail them before I have my meeting.
"

"
Oh, all right.
"

She waved away some of the walnut scent from the candle on his desk.

"
But I need a full day from you tomorrow. I
'
ll be doing surveillance and I
'
m expecting a few calls.
"

Immy assured him she would be at her desk promptly at nine, grabbed her jacket
and
purse
, and skipped out.

Her car was parked in the next block since she
'
d gotten in a little late this morning and there had been no spaces in front of Mike
'
s office. She flew past the
display window of the
travel agency next door without even glancing
, as usual
,
at the posters
of Hawaii and the Caribbean
and longing to be somewhere warmer
than
chilly
northwest Texas in
autumn
.

She got into
her
Hyundai Sonata
. The
powder
blue car was
eight years old but
brand
new to
Immy
, her latest pride and joy. She
'
d saved for months to
get the two thousand dollars to
buy it
. Now she was
free from having to make arrangements to use the ancient green van she had shared with her mother for years.

Freedom.
She could come and go as she wished.

Well, not quite
exactly
as she wished. There was the job. And there was Hortense, her mother. And, most importantly, there was Nancy Drew Duckworthy, her beautiful four-year-old daughter
, usually known as Drew
.

Immy
drove the half mile to
Shorr
'
s Real Estate. The office was in a strip mall, flanked by a dollar store and a coffee shop. Garish red and blue signs in the window proclaimed:
"
Houses Galore with Shorr
"
and
"
Open the Door with Shorr
.
"
She pushed the glass door open and waited near it, politely, for the woman at the metal desk to finish her phone conversation.

The woman
slammed
down
her desk phone and stood.
"
You
'
re Imogene Duckworthy?
"

Immy nodded, wondering how she could tell. Maybe because she had only
one
four o
'
clock appointment.
"
And you
'
re Ms. Shorr?
"

"
Call me Jersey.
"

Jersey Shorr, thought Immy. Where have I heard that?

The woman
stepped from behind her desk to greet Immy with a firm handshake.
S
he wasn
'
t tall, about Immy
'
s
medium five-four
height, but she
was
built like a model, sleek and taut. Her smooth brown hair was pulled into a severe knot at the
nape
of her neck and her beige suit fit just right. Immy pushed her own straight, brown hair behind one ear and tugged at her stiff, new blue jeans. There was something wrong about the way they fit, but Immy couldn
'
t decide what it was.

"
I
'
m sorry,
"
Jersey said,
"
but that was the owner of one of the places I wanted to show you. No go.
"

"
They won
'
t show it to me?
"

"
They don
'
t want to take a chance on your pet pig.
"

"
My daughter
'
s pig, really. And he
'
s very nice.
His name is Marshmallow.
"

"
Yeah, yeah,
"
she waved a manicured hand, then gathered
her purse and coat
.
"
Most people don
'
t want pigs in their houses,
even if they're nice ones
.
We have four
properties
we can look at.
That surprises me, actually.
"

Immy followed her out
of the office
, climbed into
t
he
agent's
pristine black
Beemer, and they drove to the first
property
.

***

Two
and a half
hours and three houses later, daylight was failing, along with the hunt for a
place to live
. Immy had had such high hopes and was now getting discouraged.
Maybe she wouldn't be able to find anything in her price range
in all of Wymee Falls, Texas
.

She loved
her mother, she just didn
'
t want to live with her any more. A twenty-two-year-old with a child and a job, she thought, should be independent, out on her own. Her first steps toward steering her own course in life had been getting the PI job and buying her own car.

It wasn
'
t really a PI job,
if she were honest with herself. I
t was more of a support job, a desk-work job. The actual job description was file clerk, but Immy
never thought
of it that way. She was studying hard to become a real PI so she could assist Mike with his cases. She
'
d even solved a few of her own, she was proud to say.

But the
three houses, bland, brick things
,
that
she and Jersey Shorr had just seen were no places to brin
g Drew. She didn
'
t want her
daughter
breathing
all those
fumes from the gas station next to the first one. The second one faced one of the busiest streets in Wymee Falls and Immy would worry about Drew and Marshmallow
running into the traffic
. The third was too close to Allblue Unit, the prison. What if an escaped convict ran to the house and took them all hostages? Immy shuddered thinking about it.

Besides, all three were
so
expensive
i
t would be a stretch for Immy to make the payments.

"
This is the last one.
"
Jersey stopped the car before a crumbling mansion,
like
something out of Poe
, or maybe
an Alfred Hitchcock movie
.
Immy
loved both Poe and Hitchcock.
A crow cawed from a tree next door.

"
What
'
s the rent?
"
Immy asked
eagerly
.

It was substantially less than the other three.
The house looked
even
better now.

Jersey put her hand on the car door handle, but didn
'
t get out.
"
There
'
s something I should tell you. Some people say this
place
is haunted.
"

Immy
decided she
liked it. It had character. She
'
d always wanted to meet a real live ghost. Or maybe
that would be
a real dead ghost.