Free The Pink Flamingo Murders by Elaine Viets Page B

for the front when he couldn’t get the back door open. By that time smoke inhalation got him. Most burn victims die of smoke inhalation. I found soot in his trachea, so he was alive when the fire started. If he were dead before the place was set on fire, I wouldn’t find that soot.”
    “Do you remember where that drug dealer lived in my neighborhood, so I can check out the location?” I asked.
    “Yeah, sure, it was a weird name,” Katie said. “He lived on Ratley Street. I don’t remember the address,but the house should be easy to find. It was badly burned.” A fire in my neighborhood. That explained the haze and the burned smell this morning and the sirens in my sleep. They weren’t dreams. They were real.
    A little cart driven by a little blonde in little shorts headed toward us. “It’s Bev Cart!” Mitch and Katie said together and started laughing, although I couldn’t see what was so funny.
    “That’s a beer wench dead ahead,” Katie said. “They are mostly college women, who drive around the course in little carts, selling beer and other refreshments and flirting outrageously with the male golfers. We were at this course where one golfer kept calling the beer wench Bev. The beverage cart had the license plate Bev Cart, and he thought Bev was her name. This is one area where golf needs to improve its treatment of women. We need more male beer wenches.”
    “A male wench?”
    “Okay, a beer stud, or a beer hustler. I want to see cute college guys in tight shorts riding around selling beer and flirting outrageously with me for big tips. Buying beer is one of the great golf rituals, and we women are denied participation in it by our fellow women.”
    I thought I knew what she meant. “You watch now,” she said. “Little Bev here will act like I’m invisible.”
    Bev the beer wench looked more like a beer cheerleader. The word “wholesome” was made for her, from her blunt-cut hair that was almost natural blond to her bouncy little body. Bev pulled up in her cart and giggled at Mitch. “I bet you’re thirsty,” she said. “I have beer, Powerade, bottled water, and soda.”
    “I bet she never asks me,” Katie muttered.
    Bev got Mitch a beer and asked about his game. Finally Bev said, “Oh, does she want something?”
    “Respect,” Katie shouted. “Equal time. I’m a doctor just like he is. My wallet is as big as his.”
    “She’ll take a Bud,” Mitch said. “Can I get you anything, Francesca?”
    “See,” Katie said to me. “We need male beer wenches. Beer studs, if you will.”
    “It would definitely improve the view,” I said. “The average golfer here is about the same as the temperature—somewhere in the high seventies.” Mitch snorted again.
    Male beer hustlers would give me something new to watch. We weren’t even to the third hole yet, and I’d seen more grass and trees than I wanted. Now I saw some kind of commotion up ahead. Katie broke into a lope and Mitch moved pretty fast for a fifty-something guy. I brought up the rear. Soon we were close enough to see three middle-age guys flapping their arms and a fourth one lying motionless on the ground. Even from this distance he looked unnaturally white and clammy. One of the standing and flapping guys was yelling “Is there a doctor on the course?”
    “Shit, Mitch, look at that guy in the fairway,” Katie said. “I bet he’s had a heart attack. We’d better check him out and see if he’s still alive. He could be gone by the time EMS can get in here.”
    Gee, I thought, that was heartwarming.
    “God, I hope he’s not dead,” Katie said fervently. “I’m on call. I’d have to cut him up on my day off.”
    My freshly warmed heart chilled pretty quick. But I saw a chance for escape. I had almost all the information I needed, anyway. “Listen,” I said magnanimously as she and Mitch galloped along the pathway, “if this is an emergency, I’d just be in your way. I can walk back to my car.”
    “Good idea.