Tickled to Death Read Free

been known to narrow into unattractive slits when he’s perturbed. Lately, our relationship had become as tempestuous as my daughter on a bad day. I wasn’t sure if the source of tension lay in his muted but never absent arrogance or my unwillingness to make a commitment that would result in a division of closet space.
    We also had intermittent confrontations when I went out of my way to assist the police when they were being bullheaded and blind. Peter, when caught up in his position as a lieutenant in the Farberville Criminal Investigation Department, takes exception to my invaluable contributions to truth and justice. He’s been known to accuse me of meddling and threaten me with incarceration. Once he’d had my car impounded out of what I felt was nothing more than spite. Such things are not conducive to a harmonious relationship.
    He accepted my offer of a beer, begged quite charmingly for a sandwich, and sank down on the couch. I provided him with said sustenance and then sat down at a marginally civil distance.
    “My mother,” he said with melancholy, “hasdecided she wants to spend at least a week of her final days on a cruise ship. If I allow her to go alone, they may well be her final days. She’ll fall off the end of the ship within hours. I’ll be stricken with remorse for the rest of my life.”
    “So go with her.”
    “I don’t want to go with her. She’ll pick up some pudgy condo salesman in the bar the first night, and then parade around with him as if they were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.”
    “I thought you said she was going to fall overboard, not in love.”
    “Maybe it’s one and the same,” he said, no doubt thinking himself quite the cryptic. He gave me the opportunity to ask what he meant, but I looked incuriously at him and then at my watch. “I don’t suppose you want to come along and help me chaperon my white-haired seductress?” he added. “She has enough money to buy the ship. Surely she’ll spring for a ticket so that her beloved son won’t sulk in the bar while she plays roulette with her boyfriend.”
    “You suppose correctly. I’ve developed claustrophobia in my old age.”
    “Are you talking about a cruise ship or a relationship?”
    “I’m too tired for profundities,” I said as I finished my drink and again looked at my watch. “You’d better run along and call a travel agent. Your mother’s getting older by the minute.”
    To what I suspected was mutual relief, he gaveme a passionless kiss on the cheek and left. It was possible I was as crazy as Luanne, I thought as I tidied up the living room. I’d just turned down a Caribbean cruise with a man who had never been suspected of murdering an ex-wife, having opted for a routine divorce. He met all of Luanne’s criteria: good-looking, rich, sensitive, virile…and available. I doubted he could sew on a button or whip up a batch of pesto, but stress had never affected his performance in the sack. Peter was a man of many talents; regrettably, his most pronounced one these days was his ability to irritate me.
    I heard from no one of any interest over the next few days, and on Saturday morning I was diligently dusting the window display (and sneezing explosively) when the telephone rang. My accountant had mentioned my second quarterly payment only the week before, and I was leery as I picked up the receiver.
    Luanne bypassed the customary pleasantries. “Claire, I need your help! The most terrible thing has happened, and there’s no one else I can turn to. I couldn’t stop pacing last night, much less get any sleep, and now I—”
    “What’s wrong?” I asked in the voice that slows Caron down when she’s describing Rhonda Maguire’s latest incursion into perfidy.
    “Captain Gannet came to the house at midnight and took Dick away for questioning. I called this morning, but all I got was a runaroundfrom a simpering idiot who can’t be old enough to shave, much less be issued a weapon. He told me not