Double Booked For Death
- Автор: Брэндон Али
- Серия: A Black Cat Bookshop Mystery #1
- Год: 2011
- Язык: английский
- Год: Penguin
- ISBN: 0425244970
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Double Booked For Death». Краткое содержание книги:
Darla considered the offer a moment and then shook her head. “Normally, I would, but Detective Reese is supposed to stop by later to discuss a few things. I probably should clean the apartment a little before he arrives.”
“Ah.”
The old woman’s knowing smile made Darla blush despite herself, but she figured any protest would only add fuel to the fire. Cripes, couldn’t she have a casual chat with a good-looking guy without people trying to read something into it?
With a glance out the shop window, she deflected that subject and instead said, “Looks like Sunny and Robert are gone, so I’d better duck out now while the getting is good. Too bad there’s no connecting door between your place and mine, so I wouldn’t have to go back out onto the street in case another news van drives past.”
The other woman chuckled, and pointed to a display of wide-brimmed, beribboned women’s chapeaux, saying, “If you want, you can borrow a shawl to wrap around your head, or one of those big picture hats.”
“No, I’m good.”
That last was said with just a tinge of regret. Another time, Darla wouldn’t mind trying out the black straw number with a matching veil . . . the one sitting rakishly atop a mannequin head that sported a painted bob the same red color as her own dark auburn hair.
Bidding Mary Ann farewell, she slipped out the shop door and made hasty tracks to her own stoop. She couldn’t tell from a glance at the basement apartment if Jake had made it home yet, but she’d catch up with her when Reese showed up. In the meantime, Darla took the lipstick letter she’d snagged from the store trash, tucked it carefully into a clear sheet protector, and then headed upstairs to give her place the once-over.
Hamlet was waiting at the door when she let herself back into the apartment. The timbre of his meow indicated displeasure with something she’d apparently done . . . or not done.
“All right, Hamlet, spit it out. You’ve got food, fresh water, and I even took your side on this whole note thing”—she waved the plastic-wrapped flier in his direction—“when Jake laughed at us. So what more do you need? And, no, you’re not getting my sandwich.”
By way of response, the cat padded over to the front window overlooking the street below. He reared up onto his hind legs, just as he’d done with the bookcase earlier, stretching so that his front paws were on the windowsill. Black nose pressed almost to the glass and tail twitching, he meowed again.
“What is it, fellow?”
Frowning, Darla tossed the sandwich into the fridge and made her own way to the window. In the short time that they’d shared space together, she had never seen Hamlet demonstrate interest in the activity on the street below. He preferred things up close and personal, be it in the store or underneath her feet. A glance outside at the mountain of flowers showed little change from the scene she’d left only a little while earlier. A new group of mourners was busy paying their respects, a few dressed much like Robert and Sunny, and the rest in the classic teen uniform of jeans, tops, and jackets.
“Just your typical Haunted High fans,” she muttered. So what was it that had attracted the cat’s attention? She shrugged and started to turn away, when abruptly she found herself staring just like Hamlet.
One of the jean-clad teens stood slightly apart from the rest, holding what appeared from Darla’s vantage point to be an oversized card. Her black hair was well below shoulder length, and so straight that Darla guessed that she must use one of those ceramic flat irons on it. Something about her posture, the way she tilted her head, looked oddly familiar. Darla squinted, her own nose a bare inch from the glass, trying for a better look as she struggled to recall where she might have seen the girl before.
As she watched, the girl bent and propped her card on a pile of black carnations alongside a lit red pillar candle. The action sent the shawl-like black scarf she wore sliding forward, momentarily hooding her features. The sight sparked an even stronger sense of familiarity, and Darla frowned.
And then it came to her.
“Oh my God, it’s the Lone Protester!”
TWELVE
“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, DARLA. YOU CHASED A strange girl because your cat gave her a funny look?”
Reese was giving her a funny look of his own, and Darla bit back a frustrated groan. She knew her instincts had been right. The problem would be convincing Reese.
The detective had shown up on her stoop not long after she had dragged herself, sweating and gasping for breath, back to the store after a fruitless sprint down Crawford Avenue. Her quarry had looked up from the wall of flowers just in time to see a determined Darla advancing on her.
Either the girl had recognized her, or else she’d seen the purpose in Darla’s expression. Either way, she had promptly fled the scene with Darla in hot pursuit, but had managed to put sufficient distance between them long enough to catch one of the borough’s few cabs and make good her escape.
Watching the taxi speed off with the girl inside, Darla had made an immediate vow to join a gym and get back into shape.
Now, back in her apartment, she was fortifying herself with a tall glass of sweet tea as she related the details of her missed encounter to the detective and Jake. Both were perched on the prickly horsehair couch while Darla paced impatiently about the small room. Reese had exchanged last night’s head-to-toe black for a fashionably tight and faded pair of jeans topped by a short-sleeved, navy Henley. He’d stripped off the black motorcycle jacket that he’d walked in wearing—a jacket that looked like it had seen the asphalt at some point—giving her a good look at the bulging biceps she recalled from the previous evening. Remembering, too, that she was still ticked at the guy for his attitude last night, she made a point of not paying attention to said muscles, or the fact that this vaguely retro look suited him.
To her credit, Jake hadn’t yet cracked a smile over the situation, though she was surveying Darla with a tolerant expression that spoke volumes. She set down her own tea glass on the coffee table and propped her Docs-clad feet beside it.
“All right, kid, let me catch up here, since I came to the party late,” the older woman began. “You say you saw this girl from a third-story window half a block away, but you’re sure she’s the same girl from the other day who you also saw only from a distance. No offense, but that’s pretty thin as far as eyewitness testimony goes. How could you be sure it was her?”
“Right,” Reese interjected, jabbing his pen in the air for emphasis. Though technically off-duty, he had whipped out a notebook and was scribbling in it as she described her encounter. “I was there last night and saw the same girl, too—except I didn’t really see her face, because she was wearing some sort of hood. No way could I pick her out of a crowd. Jake’s the only one who actually ever talked to her, as far as I know.”
“I know it was her,” Darla insisted. “I could tell from her body language, from the way she stood.”
When the pair merely looked at her expectantly, she shook her head.
“Look, back in high school I had a friend who was nearsighted. She couldn’t wear contact lenses for some reason, and she was too vain to wear glasses. But it didn’t matter. She told me she could see someone clear down the hall and tell who it was, even though they were blurry, just by the way they moved. Same principle here. Besides, isn’t it telling that the girl took off running when I tried to talk to her?”
“Uh-huh.” Reese flipped his notebook shut. “Which is what I’d do if I had a crazy woman chasing after—ouch!”
Clapping a hand to his neck, he swung around to glare at Hamlet. The feline lay sprawled atop the sofa back, conveniently within paws’ reach of the man but with both those appendages neatly tucked against his chest.