Free Frosted Shadow, a Toni Diamond Mystery: Toni Diamond Mysteries by Nancy Warren Page B

have a Lady Bianca makeover yesterday. She put her name on the customer card as Violet Hunter. What do you make of that?”
    “ The Adventure of the Copper Beeches ,” the first woman said with a fond smile. “Not Conan Doyle’s greatest work, perhaps, but always a favorite of mine.”
    “The fact that she chose a name out of a Holmes story makes this conference a likely bet. When do you expect everyone to have registered?”
    “Not until tomorrow sometime.”
    “Any way of finding out who came in early?”
    “Yes. Everyone who registered used a special code to get the conference rate with the hotel. The front desk should have that information.”
    “Thanks. Mind if I look around?”
    “Of course not, Detective. And if you care to purchase any of the books, in most cases the authors are here at the convention and would be happy to sign them for you.”
    He nodded and turned to check out the readers milling around the book-laden tables. What kind of people came to a conference like this? He’d always loved mysteries but he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to hang out with other people who read them. He’d never considered reading a group activity.
    He’d assumed a book club was a commercial enterprise that sold novels at a discount -- until a former girlfriend had set him straight. Thursday nights once a month were sacred; her book club night. And he soon learned that the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday leading up to the Thursday night were sacrosanct too, since she was always behind and had to read the book in a hurry ready to discuss it.
    It seemed the book club had gone a step further. Now there were entire conventions devoted to mystery reading. He wondered how many books these poor suckers had to cram before they got here.
    “Is that disdainful smile directed at me, young man?”
    Something about the voice made him straighten and wipe the smirk right off his mouth. “No, ma’am,” he said, and found himself confronting an elderly woman who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. Her ample bosom stuck out from her chest like a shelf, and he imagined her resting her novel there while she was reading.
    She had a thick head of red curly hair that had to be a wig, and wore clip-on earrings of cascading fruits that reminded him of Carmen Miranda’s head dresses. Her lipstick was bright red, but a different red than the hair, and under turquoise eyelids that looked as though they’d been painted on by a toddler with a crayon a pair of sharp gray eyes snapped with humor. “You here for the conference? You don’t seem the type.”
    “No. I’m not. Are you?”
    She cackled with laughter. Big teeth stained with nicotine and coffee. “Yes, I am, and I’m exactly the type: an old spinster without enough to do.” She had the raspy tones of a smoker. He bet her doctor had been nagging her for years to quit.
    She’d been eyeing his badge and sidearm but he still told her he was a cop and pulled out his wallet ID before she could demand to see it. Somehow he knew she would. She studied it carefully before asking what he wanted.
    He showed her the photograph and once more was disappointed after she studied it carefully, pulling on the reading glasses hanging around her neck to do so, and then shaking her head..
    “What kind of people do come to the conference?” he asked her.
    “Folks like me. Teachers or retired teachers. Writers, of course, and people from every walk of life who love the genre and want to know more about it. We get some young people, but most of us are middle aged or older. We’re the ones with the most time to read and the most money to spend indulging our whims.”
    “Were you here last night?”
    “No. I flew in this morning from Boston. Just got here an hour ago and came down to register – and browse the books.”
    Her gaze strayed behind him to a stack of shiny new hard covers. He turned to follow her gaze. “Perfect Murder,” he read aloud. “A novel?”
    “No. Non-fiction.