Free A Talent for Murder by R.T. Jordan Page A

kill. “But I’m not here to tell you all the things that you probably already know about me, or can easily find on Wikipedia, or my personal Web site, PPstarz.com. I simply wanted to express how sorry I am that we’ve lost one of our friends to the Grim Reaper. He appears out of nowhere, doesn’t he? Mr. Reaper, I mean. One never knows when one will win the lottery ticket to heaven, or that other place.”
    “As in the case of Mr. Thane Cornwall,” Ped-Xing said with a surly curl of his upper lip. He stepped closer to Polly. “If you think any of us are sorry that he leftthe planet, you’re mistaken. If you ask me, his departure was delayed long enough.”
    Polly looked into Ped-Xing’s eyes. “I’d like to believe that, in time, once we got to know Thane Cornwall better, he would have grown on us,” she said.
    “Like a fungus,” Socorro said. “Thanks to Thane Cornwall, my entire family is being harassed and laughed at, in my own hood.”
    Polly shook her head. “I’d be upset too if I’d been nicknamed Taco Bell by a white man with an obvious prejudice against your lovely Mexican heritage. I agree, it was an insult, and Thane was extremely rude and heartless to call you that on national television. Not to mention that it’s a trademarked name, and you could get into tons of trouble if you started using it without permission.”
    Socorro made a face. “I wasn’t about to let that fool get away with it!”
    Polly tenderly touched Socorro’s shoulder. “Sticks and stones, and all that stuff.”
    Socorro shook off Polly’s hand. “I know you’re on his side, and you’re going to say something stupid, like ‘Thane may have been a self-absorbed, bigoted, misogynistic SOB, but nobody deserves the fate he got.’“
    “As a matter of fact …” Polly said.
    “Well, guess what, he did deserve his fate! I’m glad he got it,” Socorro said.
    “So am I!”
    Everyone looked at rock-star-skinny Danny Castillo, who wore his goth costume of a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black eyeliner, accessorized with black spiked hair, and a silver safety pin piercing his right eyebrow. “The dude had it coming,” he added. “I may not be the best singer in town, but he didn’t need to tell the worldthat my performance of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ stank more than a coop full of bird-flu-infected pigeons!”
    “True,” Polly agreed. “And how prophetic of you to tell him that his dead body would stink more than your wind.”
    Miranda Washington cleared her throat, then leaned in closer to Polly. “You had an on-camera snit with Thane Cornwall yourself, Miss Big Ol’ Think You’re Still a Star. So don’t go looking at any of us like we’re special or something.”
    I would never in a million years look at any of you that way
, Polly thought. “I guess there isn’t a lot of love lost between Thane and this dream team of rising stars. But you’re not alone, dears. Someone disliked him enough to send him to an early grave.”
    “That Someone should have planned her revenge a little better, bless her heart,” said Amy Stout. “When Thane suggested that I gargle with Drano to clean out my pipes, I knew exactly how I would have taken care of him.”
    “Any one of us could have done a better job of getting away with murder,” Socorro added.
    “Of course you could!” Polly said in her high-pitched squeal, which she had perfected in one of her most popular recurring variety show sketches in which she trips over Troy Donahue at the beach and goes berserk with excitement. Polly clapped her hands together. “Taco Bell, indeed!”

Chapter 6
    A s Tim piloted the car down Sunset Boulevard, en route back to Pepper Plantation, he chattered about Danny Castillo and his goth persona. “Even with that scary outfit, I think he’s sort of, kind of, um, adorable. You’ve got to admit his singing voice is definitely unique.”
    “In a chanting-requiems-to-Satan-during-bloodletting-human-sacrifice-rituals kind of