Free Murder Between the Covers by Elaine Viets Page A

bed was covered with pale sensual linens, soft piles of pillows, and gauzy hangings. No woman should sleep alone in a bed like that, Helen thought.
    There was a man in Peggy’s bed. A rich man. He wore a suit that Helen could see was expensive, even from across the room. Sticking out of his well-tailored back was a cheap butcher knife.
    “Is he alive?” Margery said. Helen knew he wasn’t. That wasn’t poison gas she’d smelled, but death and decay.
    “Let’s turn him over to make sure,” Trevor said. He moved the body enough so they could see the face. It was obvious the man was dead.
    It was also obvious he was Page Turner III.

    What was a dead Page Turner doing in Peggy’s bed?
    He sure wasn’t there when the place was tented on Saturday. Helen could testify to that. She’d seen Peggy’s empty bed. She’d watched Trevor lock the door.
    Did Peggy know Page? Helen had never heard her mention his name. She’d never seen the man at the Coronado. So how did Page get in that apartment? Who knifed him in the back? It had to have happened this weekend, when the place was tented and pumped full of poison gas.
    Peggy’s door was double-locked. She didn’t have the key to open her own home. The only one who could get in the tented building alive was Trevor.
    Helen thought Trevor had acted oddly from the moment Page Turner’s body was found. While Margery called 911, Trevor whipped out his cell phone and called an attorney.
    “Now, that looks suspicious,” Helen whispered to her landlady as they waited for the police. “An innocent man wouldn’t need a lawyer.”
    “An innocent African-American man would,” Margery said. “This state has an impressive record of railroading black people.”
    “I can see him getting a lawyer if the police questioned him,” Helen said. “But I can’t understand Trevor having a lawyer ready unless he was guilty.”
    “You’d make a good cop,” Margery said. It was not a compliment.
    Helen counted six police cars, sirens blaring and lights flashing. “We’re going to have a swarm of police,” Margery said. “Page Turner was a big political donor. His pals are going to put pressure on the police to solve his death. They’ll turn this place inside out.”
    Helen was suddenly aware of the afternoon sun beating down on them. She felt dizzy. Peggy looked ready to pass out. Cal was sweating in a most un-Canadian way. Even Margery was wilted.
    Two grim-looking homicide detectives arrived and asked everyone to wait in their apartments, after their places had been searched. Search warrants materialized.
    “Do they suspect us?” Helen said, horrified.
    “They suspect everybody,” Margery said. “This will be quick. They’re making sure we don’t flush away any evi dence, or pull a gun on them, before they send us to our rooms.”
    The Coronado was armed to the rooftop. Floridians liked their firepower. Margery had a .38 police special and a permit for it. Madame Muffy had a neat little .22. The big surprise was Cal. He had a whopping Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. “For protection,” he said. “America has more crime than Canada.”
    Helen didn’t have any weapons. She wondered if that made her look suspicious. When Margery got the OK to return to her apartment, Helen started to follow her, but the two detectives would not let the women stay together.
    “I need to use Margery’s phone,” Helen said. “I’m working at Page Turner’s bookstore tonight. I have to call the manager and tell her I’ll be late.” She also wanted to tell the booksellers their boss was dead in Peggy’s bed.
    “Sorry, ma’am,” the detective said. “We’ll notify the bookstore that you won’t be in to work.”
    “I’m going to miss a whole night?” Should she sound more distraught over Page’s death? She couldn’t. Damn that man. She would not be paid for this lost time. Page Turner cost her another forty-six dollars and ninety cents.
    The cops meant business. Uniformed officers