Death in Paradise Read Free Page A

lover. The garter belt still held up one sheer black stocking, that foot still sported a scarlet spike-heeled shoe. The other shoe was on the floor beside the bed; the other stocking was knotted tightly around her neck. Her eyes were open, protuberant, and staring from a grotesquely purple face.
    In my shock, the absurd, awful thought raced through my head that the advice our mothers gave us about clean underwear ought to be expanded to include not wearing anything we wouldn't want to be caught dead in.
    The security man stepped past me, reached out a cautious hand, and touched the bare leg. "Cold," he said. "She's dead."
    I shuddered, glad I hadn't had to touch her. I closed my eyes but the image was just as vivid, just as grotesque, and I saw it just as clearly. The lingerie ad from hell. I had not liked this woman. That was no secret. But I had admired her. I wanted to remember her good qualities, her talents, her strengths, not this. Not this wrinkled, bony, middle-aged woman got up like a young vixen, sprawled indecently across the bed, legs spread, exposing graying pubic hair, old silvery stretch marks, and most of one small breast, strangled with her own stocking, her gaping mouth still slick with scarlet lipstick, lipstick on her teeth, a bit of swollen tongue protruding.
    Please, God, I thought. Let me die in bed in my own flannel nightgown. And then, because my nature is always to be moving on to the next task, the next chore, and because anything was better than thinking about this, I remembered the hundred and eighty people who were expecting Martina's speech at breakfast. "Oh, hell," I said aloud. "I guess it will have to be me."
    The security guard was staring, his hand on the butt of his gun. Did he think I'd just confessed? "I'm sorry," I said quickly. "We're running a conference together. She is... was... supposed to give the breakfast speech... now I'll have to do it." His look said more plainly than words that he found my reaction almost as shocking as Martina's death. He clearly expected me to be more like Rory. To run and scream and fall apart. I can run, but screaming and falling apart aren't generally in my emotional vocabulary. I try to be open-minded, but I'm quite intolerant of people who fall apart. Still, I didn't want him to get the wrong impression. I was plenty shocked, I just wasn't given to hysterics. If he expected a fragile female, I would do my best to oblige. Just because I didn't scream and thrash didn't mean I wasn't shaken.
    I closed my eyes, turned my head, and reached out a groping hand for his sleeve. "I think I'd better sit down," I said. "In the other room..." I wanted to run downstairs, pack my stuff, and get the hell out of there. By the time he'd escorted me to a chair, my distress was genuine. I couldn't run on these shaky legs and I'd begun to feel sick and dizzy. I buried my head in my hands. I couldn't pack up and leave anyway. Someone had to run the conference now. Damn Suzanne. Suzanne, my partner. The one who was supposed to be here schmoozing and speechifying instead of me. Suzanne was at home with pneumonia. I would have taken pneumonia over this any day, but when it comes to violent death and its violent consequences, we are rarely given any choice. I was going to be the Jill-on-the-spot for the National Association of Girls' Schools conference on death in paradise.

 
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    Chapter 2

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    Eventually, the room filled up with people. First it was just a uniformed officer, there, as he told me, to "secure the scene." That evidently meant securing me, as well. He was followed by a crowd who didn't seem to want to have anything to do with me, but each time I tried to leave, a large, scowling man in a badly fitting jacket who hadn't bothered to introduce himself told me to sit down. I sat for a while, fretting about the passing time and longing for the coffee I'd left downstairs. Too bad the beverage of Martina's feast was Champagne. Had it been coffee, I would