Death Will Extend Your Vacation Read Free Page A

leave.”
    “How long is a while?” Barbara demanded. “Who are we waiting for?”
    “Detectives.”
    “Will there be an autopsy?” Jimmy asked.
    The word added more grim images to my inner gallery of portraits of Clea.
    “It’s Sergeant Wiznewki’s call,” the cop said.
    “How long does that take?” Barbara asked.
    The cop shrugged.
    “It’s a holiday weekend.”
    “So after the detectives interview us,” Barbara said, “will you let us go home, I mean to the house?”
    “Sorry, miss, no can do.”
    Barbara scowled. She didn’t like being called “miss” either.
    “Since you’ve all informed us that the deceased is a resident of your house, that will be secured as well. You won’t be able to enter until we’re through there too.”
    “The whole house? But— but we hardly know her. We just arrived yesterday. We hardly know any of them. It’s a group house.”
    “Group houses are illegal throughout the Town. But that’s between the Town and your landlord.”
    That was news. I’d never paid any attention to the Hamptons, but Jimmy and Barbara knew dozens of people who’d had shares. I guess renting to a group was one of those crimes that homeowners committed without a second thought, like what Arlo Guthrie called “litterin’.” Could we get kicked out? One problem at a time. First, we needed to find out whether we were knee, thigh, or waist deep in a murder.
    We watched as Mike, still staking and taping, made his way back toward where we’d left our things.
    “If you’re through with us for now,” Jimmy said, “can’t we wait back at our blanket? We’d be out of the way and much more comfortable.”
    Frank thought about it.
    “You can accompany the officer,” he conceded. “But your effects are also part of the scene. Mike, you make sure it’s not contaminated before the team gets here.”
    “We can’t even put on a pair of socks?” Barbara asked as Mike herded us back toward our blanket, stopping every twenty-five feet, maybe, to stake and tape. “Or drink our coffee if there’s any left?”
    “Once the CS guys are done,” Mike said. He added, “You knew the deceased. You found the body. We have to check everything in the largest possible area that could give us information.”
    “What if we’d found her floating?” Barbara asked. “You can’t put yellow tape around the ocean.”
    “That would be an entirely different set of procedures.” His face cracked in about a quarter of a grin. “This is a lot easier on the Town budget.”
    That was the last explanation we got for a while. The detectives who arrived shortly questioned us a lot more thoroughly than Frank had. Wiznewski was the sergeant, a guy in his forties with the long face of a basset hound, sleepy eyes with droopy pouches under them. He wore a hairpiece as brassy as his gold shield, but I bet nobody teased him about it. The regular detective was Butler, a stocky woman, maybe ten years younger than Wiznewski, with raw umber skin, a very firm jaw, and close-cropped hair so nappy it made a political statement. She nipped in the bud my attempt to charm her without wasting a word.
    They didn’t let us touch anything, not so much as a Styrofoam cup we’d already used for coffee. The whole beach between our car and blanket and the place where we’d found Clea was part of the secured area. The cops kept not calling it a crime scene, but it was hard to remember there was a difference.
    Officer Mike escorted each of us in turn up over the dune to the parking lot. They made us sit in a police car. Another cop car, lights flashing, blocked access to the lot and to the beach beyond it. Since this was the nearest beach access to the spot where we’d found Clea, the road from this point was hardly more than a sandy track running parallel to the dunes. That was taped off. They used a ton of yellow tape. The only part they left alone was the piping plover nesting area, which was already taped off, though not with crime