 Penguin presents Live Bait by P. J. Tracy, read by Sarah Borges. CHAPTER ONE It was just after sunrise and still raining, when Lily found her husband's body. He was lying face up on the asphalt apron in front of the greenhouse, eyes and mouth open collecting rainwater. Even dead he looked quite handsome in this position, gravity pulling back the loose, wrinkled skin of his face, smoothing away eighty-four years of pain and smiles and worries. Lily stood over him for a moment, wintzing when the raindrops plopped noisily onto his eyes. I hate eye drops. Morrie holds still. Stop blinking. Stop blinking, she says, while she pours chemicals into my eyes. Hush! It's not chemicals. Natural tears, see? It says so right on the bottle. You expect a blind man to read? A little grain of sand in your eye and suddenly your blind big tough guy. And they're not natural tears. What do they do? Go to funerals and hold little bottles under crying people? No. They mix chemicals together and call it natural tears. It's false advertising is what it is. These are unnatural tears. A little bottle of lies. Shut up, old man. This is the thing, Lily. Nothing should pretend to be what it's not. Everything should have a big label that says what it is so there's no confusion. Like the fertilizer we used on the bedding plants that year that killed all our ladybugs. What was it called? Plant so green. Right. So it should have been plant so green, ladybug so dead. Forget the tiny print on the back you can't read. Real truth and labelling, that's what we need. This is a good rule. God should follow such a rule. Morrie! What can I say? He made a big mistake there. Would it have been such a problem for him to make things look like what they are? I mean, he's God, right? This is something he could do. Think about it. You've got a guy at the door with this great smile and nice face and you let him in and he kills your whole family. This is God's mistake. Evil should look evil. Then you don't let it in. You of all people should know it's not that simple. It's exactly that simple. Lily took a breath, then sat on her heels. A young posture for such an old woman, but her knees were still good, still strong and flexible. She couldn't get Morrie's eyes to close all the way, and with him open only a slit he looked sinister. It was the first thing that had frightened Lily in a very long time. She wouldn't look at them as she pushed back the darkened silver hair the rain had plastered to his skull. One of her fingers slipped into a hole on the side of his head and she froze. Oh, no. She whispered. Then rose quickly, wiping her fingers on her overalls. I told you so, Morrie. She scolded her husband one last time. I told you so. CHAPTER II April in Minnesota was always unpredictable, but once every decade or so it got downright sadistic, fluctuating wildly between tantalizing promises of spring and the last angry death throes of a stubborn winter that had no intention of going quietly. It had been just such a year. Last week a freak snowstorm had blustered in on what had been the warmest April on record, scaring the hell out of the budding trees and launching statewide discussions of a mass migration to Florida. But spring had eventually prevailed and right now she was busy playing kiss and makeup and doing a damn fine job of it. The mercury was pushing seventy-five. The snow-stunned flora had rallied with a shameless explosion of neon green. And best of all, the mother-load of mosquito larvae was still percolating in the lakes and swamps. Giddy, Sun-starved Minnesotans were out in force, cherishing the temporary delusion that the state was actually habitable. Detective Leon McGotsey was stretched out on a decrepit chase on his front porch, Sunday paper in one hand, a mug of coffee in the other. He hadn't forgotten about last week's snowstorm, and it was pragmatic enough to know that it wasn't too late for another, but there was no point in letting cynicism ruin a perfectly beautiful day. Besides, it was a rare thing when he could practice the sloth he'd always aspired to. Homicide detectives' vacations were always contingent on murderers' vacations, and murderers seemed to be the hardest-working citizens of the country. But for some inexplicable reason, Minneapolis was enjoying the longest murder-free spell in years. As his partner, Geno Ro... Sample complete. Ready to continue?