Inherit the Dead Read Free

entire length of the living room and the terrace beyond. He caught a glimpse of a terrace dotted with evergreens and what looked like fragments of sculpture, a larger-than-life-size marble foot, half a toga-clad torso. Beyond that, the spires of Manhattan apartments, a swath of Central Park, and low-hanging clouds in an endless gray sky.
    “You have a magnificent view,” said Perry, taking a few steps closer.
    Julia Drusilla turned her head toward the glass then back at Perry. Her pale gray eyes caught the light, startling and beautiful, but with something hard and impenetrable behind them. “I suppose,” she said. “But one gets used to such things. I rarely notice.”
    “The sculpture—That foot . . . ”
    “There are a few others you can’t see unless you go out there, and more at my homes in Palm Beach and Aspen, though I rarely go to either anymore.” She sighed, a bony, perfectly manicured hand at her throat. “They’re all Roman, late empire. The early and mid period are impossible to find; the museums have greedily scooped them up. But I’m happy with the sculptures I have. They remind me that people die but culture lives on.”
    “Can I borrow that for my tombstone?”
    Julia Drusilla peered at him, her gray eyes narrowed. “Is that a joke?”
    “Sorry,” said Perry. “Not a very good one.
    “No,” she said, with a flicker of anger before she gazed back at the terrace. “You may go out there, if you’d like, to see the sculptures. I never do. I’m not a fan of heights.”
    “Then why—”
    “Live in a penthouse on the twenty-fourth floor?” She smiled for a half second, translucent skin tugging away from large, capped teeth. “It was my husband’s—my ex-husband’s idea—and I got used to it, but . . . ” She seemed lost for a moment then focused on Perry. “You’re not what I expected.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    “Another joke?”
    “ ’Fraid so.”
    Julia Drusilla frowned. “You’re younger and better looking. I imagined a private detective would be some sort of tough guy with a greasy little mustache and bad shoes.”
    Perry looked down at his old police dress shoes. They’d been good years back but not so good now, though they’d apparently passed some small test.
    He glanced up and past Julia at a large abstract painting. “Pollock?”
    “Yes,” she said, and cast a reappraising eye at him. “You really aren’t the typical private detective, are you?”
    “My mother was an artist. Well, sort of.”
    “How nice for you,” she said, brittle edging on bitter. “Mine was . . . ” She shook her head and looked back at the painting. “I bought it at auction, at Sotheby’s, just last week.”
    “Oh yes, I read about the sale.” Perry couldn’t remember the exact price, but it had been newsworthy. Front page. It had set a record for a Jackson Pollock painting, something astronomical, in the millions; the buyer’s name undisclosed.
    “You’re a very observant man.”
    “It’s my job.”
    “Good,” she said, giving him another look, this one impossible to read. “Would you care for something, Detective, coffee or tea?”
    “If you have coffee, sure. I can’t seem to shake the chill.”
    “Oh. It’s the air-conditioning. The illness raises my temperature, so I keep it on all the time. I’m afraid I hardly feel it.” She waved a hand at her face as if to cool it further. “You don’t mind, do you?”
    “No,” he said, stifling a shiver.
    “So, coffee . . . ” she said, a bewildered look entering her eyes. “Actually, I’m afraid my maid doesn’t come in until ten, and I’m lost without her.”
    “No then—please don’t. I’m fine.”
    “I don’t drink it myself. How about tea? I think I can boil water.”
    Next thing Perry knew he was on one of the low sofas, balancing a cup of something herbal and lemony on his knee; Julia Drusilla wassitting opposite, bony fingers tapping against a china cup that looked almost, though not quite, as