Dying to Please Read Free Page B

make do with cellular service. The burglar alarm had a battery reserve, so she had to assume the thieves had also done some damage there, or at least been smart enough to bypass it. Either way, the security people needed to check out everything. Probably the sliding glass doors would need to be replaced, too, but that could wait until morning.
    With her list prioritized and firmly in mind and cell phone in hand, Sarah dialed Alabama Power to report a disruption in service. A good butler memorized all such pertinent numbers, and Sarah was a very good butler.

CHAPTER 2
    IT WAS AFTER TWO IN THE MORNING WHEN THE RADIO alerted him to
the call on Briarwood. Thompson Cahill was on his way home, but the call sounded a lot more interesting than anything he had waiting for him there, so he turned his pickup truck around and headed back up Highway 280. The patrol officers hadn't called for an investigator, but what the hell, the call sounded like fun and he could use a little amusement in his life.
    He left 280 and got on Cherokee Road; at this time of morning there wasn't any traffic to speak of as he snaked his way through the quiet streets, so in just a few minutes he was on Briarwood. The address wasn't hard to find: it was the house with all the vehicles with flashing lights parked in front of it. That's why he was an investigator; he could figure out things like that. Duh.
    He clipped his badge to his belt and got his sport jacket from the hook behind the seat, slipping it on over his faded black
T-shirt. There was a tie in the pocket of the jacket; he left it there, since he didn't have a dress shirt to pull on over the T-shirt. He'd have to go for the
Miami Vice
look this time.
    The usual assortment of uniforms were milling around: cops, firemen, medics, ambulance attendants. The windows in all the neighboring houses were ablaze with lights, and occupied by onlookers, but only a few had been curious enough to leave their houses and gather in the street. After all, this was Briarwood Road, and Briarwood meant
old money.
    The shift supervisor, George Plenty, greeted him. “What are you doing here, Doc?”
    “Good morning to you, too. I was on my way home and heard the call. It sounded like fun, so here I am. What happened?”
    George hid a grin. The general public had no idea how much fun police work was. Parts of it, the parts that could drive a cop to drink, were grim and dangerous, but a lot of it was just damn funny. Plain and simple, people were nuts.
    “The two guys were smart; cut the power and phone lines, and disabled the alarm system. Seems they thought only one old man lived here, so they figured he'd never even wake up. Turns out, though, he has a butler. The smart guys were busy carrying out a big-screen television when she tripped the one in the lead. He fell, the television fell on him, and for good measure she sucker punched the other one in the head as he was going down and knocked him cold. Then she tied him up with telephone cord.” George chuckled. “He's come around, but he still isn't making a lot of sense.”
    “‘She'?” Cahill asked, not certain George had his pronouns straight.
    “She.”
    “A female butler?”
    “So they say.”
    Cahill snorted. “Yeah, right.” The old guy might have a woman living with him, but he doubted she was his butler.
    “That's their story and they're sticking to it.” George looked around. “Since you're here, why don't you give the guys a hand with the statements, get this thing wrapped up.”
    “Sure.”
    He ambled into the huge house. Battery-powered lights had been set up in the hallway ahead, the spill of light—and the congestion of people—leading him to the scene. Automatically he sniffed the air; it was habit, a cop checking for alcohol or weed. What was it about the houses of rich people? They smelled different, as if the wood that framed the walls was different from the ordinary wood used to build ordinary houses. He detected fresh flowers,