Authors: Linda Barnes

Steel Guitar (28 page)

She plucked a nail from between her teeth. “I thought you meant just with offensive stuff.”

“This is not offensive?”

“What? You're with the National Endowment for the Arts?”

“Just because it has vegetables in it doesn't make it a still life,” I said. “What the hell is that man doing with that carrot?”

“You don't like it?”

“Roz, this is not only my home, it's my office. Clients come here. People who might otherwise consider hiring me.”

“Hang it someplace else, huh?”

I nodded my heartfelt agreement.

“Should I yank the other nail out, or try a different painting?”

“Depends on the painting.”

“I've got more vegetables. Acrylics really groove with vegetables.”

Whenever Roz needs subject matter, her first target is my refrigerator.

The telephone interrupted a promising aesthetic argument.

“Should I answer it?” she asked.

I nodded. “Stall while I get orange juice.”

I grabbed the carton from the fridge and raced back in time to hear Roz, in the nasal twang she deems secretarial, report that I was currently taking a foreign call on another line.

“It's okay,” I said. “Geneva hung up.”

She glared at me. “Ms. Carlyle will be right with you.”

“Speaking,” I said crisply.

“Hi. Maybe you remember me. I'm the psychiatrist in the brown triple-decker two doors down.”

“Sure,” I said, “umâ”

“Keith Donovan.”

Maybe he'd had his trash stolen too. Maybe he wanted me to trace it for him. “What can I do for you?”

“You've been receiving photos in the mail.”

“Baby pictures. Kid pictures. Yes.”

I could hear him breathing. I wondered what he was waiting for. He exhaled again, inhaled. “I have a patient who's been sending them. I'm sorry. I'd mentioned your nameâas someone who wouldn't be, um, a threatening presence, if she decided to investigate a certain matter â¦”

“And?”

“She's having trouble making a decision, and she thought she'dâI don't knowâprepare you in some way, in case she decided to seek your counsel.”

“Is she in your office now?”

“Yes,” he said. “She knows I'm speaking to you.”

“Does she want to see me, make an appointment or something?”

“Can you hang on a minute?”

“Sure.”

I could hear indistinct muffled voices. I couldn't make out individual words. I tried to remember what he looked like, this Keith Donovan. I remembered the name from some Homeowners Association meeting. Was he the pudgy guy who always complained about the neighborhood dogs? The area I live in, within spitting distance of Harvard Square, is thick with psychiatrists.

“Ms. Carlyle?”

“Yes.”

“Sheâmy patientâwonders if you might see her now? I would come along.”

“I don't usually have a consulting shrink present.”

“Is it out of the question?”

I reviewed my caseload. Tracking down the garbage thief was not going to earn me a fee.

“Come on by,” I said.

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About the Author

Linda Barnes is the award-winning author of the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries. Her witty private-investigator heroine has been hailed as “a true original” by Sue Grafton. Barnes is also the author of the Michael Spraggue Mysteries and a stand-alone novel,
The Perfect Ghost
.

A winner of the Anthony Award and a finalist for the Edgar and Shamus Awards, Barnes lives in the Boston area with her husband and son. Visit her at
www.lindabarnes.com
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“Among School Children” by W. B. Yeats reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from
The Poems of W. B. Yeats: A New Edition
, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1928 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed 1956 by George Yeats.

“Old Friends” Words and Music by Mary McCaslin. Â© Folklore Music / ASCAP. Reprinted by permission.

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1445-8

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com