Designed for Death Read Free

have some scotch.”
    I hated scotch. “Make it a double.”
    Simon hurried out to the kitchen and came back with a half-filled tumbler and handed it to me.
    “Chivas,” he said. “Best sipping scotch around.”
    “Wonderful.” I downed it in one gulp. For an evil-tasting fluid, it spread heavenly warmth all through me, and I could feel myself relax.
    “None for you?” I leaned over to put the empty on the coffee table.
    “Not now. I need to think straight. They’ll be here soon,” he said, pacing around.
    As he added wear to the Berber, I kept my gaze riveted on him. He looked to be about forty, dark haired and rangy in well-tailored slacks and a blue oxford cloth shirt.
    From a distance, getting closer by the second, I heard the siren call of the Naples police. When they roared onto the Surfside tarmac, Simon hurried out to the walkway.
    Loud voices floated in through the open door, but I stayed put, a sloshed lump, waiting for the cops to find me.
    In seconds, Simon returned, followed by an officer who shoved his big belly and his wide shoulders through the open doorway. He was so huge, at first I didn’t notice he had a partner behind him, a petite woman in a brown Naples P.D. uniform. She held a laptop and nervously tapped a pen on her thumbnail. She was packing a gun in the holster at her waist too. So maybe she wasn’t just a glorified secretary for the big guy. I sniffed. You never know. Still a man’s world.
    The big guy wasted no time. “I’m Batano. This here’s Hughes. You reported a homicide,” he said to Simon. It wasn’t a question.
    Solemn and still a little pale, Simon nodded and pointed next door. “In there. The bathroom.”
    “We’ll be back,” Batano said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
    “No problemo.” I’d chugged half a pint of scotch and could barely move.
    “You all right?” Simon eyed me warily. “Maybe I had a heavy hand with the Chivas.”
    “I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”
    He blew out a breath. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
    The two cops had no sooner left than Dick Parker came rushing in, his tool belt banging against his thighs. “What’s this all about, Simon? They wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

    In a matter-of-fact voice, as if murder were a daily event, Simon said, “The woman next door’s been killed.”
    “Treasure?” Shock loosened all the muscles in Dick’s face. His jaw went slack, revealing the silver fillings in his molars.
    “How?” he asked, his baritone no louder than a whisper.
    “Her neck was snapped like a soda straw. Devalera found her.”
    “Oh, God. That must have been hell, Deva.”
    Dick came over and knelt by my chair. He wrapped his arms around me, pressing a screwdriver against my side, but I didn’t care. Dick was a touchy-feely kind of guy, and usually I kept him at arm’s length, but for once I welcomed his invasion of my private space. Either the Chivas had over-relaxed me, or I needed all the comforting I could get. Probably a little of both.
    While he knelt there, hugging me with one hand and patting my back with the other, a shadow fell across the floor, and a drift of Obsession swirled around us. Dick’s wife, Marilyn, a sheer pareo tied over her blue bikini, hovered in the doorway.
    Like a young lover, Dick leaped up and, tools clanking, rushed to her. My moment of comfort had ended, but I hadn’t expected it to last long, anyway.
    “Honey, you shouldn’t be here,” he said, enfolding Marilyn in his arms.
    She glanced over at me and frowned before looking up at him, letting her eyes ask the question.
    “It’s Treasure, honey. Something’s happened to her. But you don’t need to get involved. Why don’t you go back to the pool? I’ll be down as soon as I can.”
    I fought a stab of envy. That was what husbands were for. To comfort their wives in times of stress. Not the neighbor ladies. No wonder Marilyn had shot me a dark look.
    Dick kissed her cheek. “Go now, honey. This is no place for you.”
    She