Dearly Departed Read Free

one.”
    â€œWe’re not doing anything with horses, alive or dead.” It was a fourth voice, and for a moment Amy couldn’t tell whose side it was on. Fanny Abel had stepped around the ficus, pasting on a smile that was broad, artificial and, to Amy at least, frightening. She was nearly a foot shorter than her daughter and weighed perhaps a few pounds less. “Sorry to interrupt—Donna and Daryl, hello—but it’s probably easier, sweetie, to tell them the truth.” She paused now, running her fingers dramatically through her auburn pageboy. “We are being sued.”
    â€œSued?” All three of them said it at once, although Amy tried to hide her surprise.
    â€œYes.” Fanny adjusted her smile to look apologetic. “I’m afraid the victim’s family has slapped an injunction on all future mystery tours. Cease and desist. Something to do with intellectual property and how another tour would do irrevocable harm to the victim’s reputation.”
    Donna’s fleshy face contorted. “That doesn’t make sense. First off, being killed has nothing to do with your reputation. Plus, Amy has every right to do another mystery. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any mystery games at all.”
    Fanny held up a red polished fingernail. “Then there’s the suit from the accused’s lawyers, saying how another mystery tour would be prejudicial to their defense case, since the real-life case mirrored a mystery game in which their client was involved. Did I say one cease and desist order? I meant two.”
    â€œBut that makes even less sense,” Daryl said.
    â€œWell, don’t look at me,” Fanny shot back. “I’m not a lawyer.”
    Amy allowed herself a crooked smile. She was in safe hands. Fanny, bless her, was definitely on her side. And that gave Amy an advantage of about 1,000 percent. No one could beat her mother in a fight like this, especially when she only half understood the argument and was making things up as she went.
    By the end of five more minutes, the Petronias had beat a confused, ignominious retreat, and the check lay torn in the bottom of a rattan wastebasket. Fanny had even had an extra minute at the end to fill the electric teapot and bring out the Earl Grey.
    â€œI’ll take care of the other cancellations,” Fanny said. “To tell you the truth, I kind of enjoy it, except for the money part.”
    â€œI don’t know what got into me,” Amy said as she watched her mother push aside her keyboard and arrange the bone china she kept stored in the bottom right of the file cabinet. “I know we need the money.”
    â€œI’m the one who should apologize.” The words sounded strange coming from Fanny’s lips, unexpected and foreign, as if she had learned them phonetically. “I shouldn’t have pushed you to do another mystery rally. But that’s all my readers on TrippyGirl wanted to talk about.”
    TrippyGirl was the blog Fanny had started shortly after her daughter’s European escapades, a combination of a little fact and a lot of fiction that followed a girl nicknamed Trippy, loosely based on Amy, and her adventures around the world.
    â€œI thought I could do it,” said the real Amy. “I did. But the idea of getting up every day and facing vultures like Donna and Daryl and treating death as some form of entertainment, which it is, of course—between books and TV and the news . . .”
    â€œBut you’ve had to face the real thing, dear, more than once. You know what? I think you should forget about murders. Don’t even read those cozies you’re so fond of. It’s not good.” The tea bags were in the cups; the pot was whistling. Amy watched, the calmness growing inside her, as Fanny Abel eased the hot water over the bags.
    Amy’s Travel was the name on the door. Her first impulse had been to name it Amy and Eddie’s Travel,