Free The Corpse With the Golden Nose by Cathy Ace Page A

what was to turn out to be a very eventful evening. And not in a good way.

Gamay Noir
    THE “COCKTAILS AND CANAPÉS” LAUNCH event for the Moveable Feast wasn’t quite what I’d expected. For some reason, I’d imagined an elegantly attired gathering bubbling along wittily, in something akin to the great hall of an historic English manor house. What I got was a small, almost rag-tag group of people rattling around under the beautiful but yawning wood-beamed glass atrium of a very modern building in downtown Kelowna. To be fair, the organizers had installed drapes to contain about half the room, and had provided dim lighting instead of overhead fluorescent, but our voices floated up to the glass that arced above us, then bounced back. Most people tried to talk in hushed tones, as though in a cathedral.
    I declined a cocktail in favor of a glass of fruity gamay noir, one of Ellen’s, of course, which had a good body, but wouldn’t be too heavy to drink for an entire evening. And the canapés were exquisite: tiny little martini glasses filled with cold, savory soups—the strawberry and basil was particularly wonderful; tender local meats, marinated in tongue-tingling herbs or rubbed with nose-tickling spices, presented on pretty bamboo skewers; little pastry packages full of flavor that burst in my mouth with cheesy, fishy, or mushroomy delights. Oh, it was wonderful. I was sorry that I had to give my attention to the folks Ellen was keen to introduce to Bud and me.
    When I felt I’d taken the edge off my appetite a little, and had managed to grab a second glass of wine, Sammy Soul was high on the list of people I wanted to meet, but for personal reasons rather than murderous ones. He’d supplied parts of the soundtrack to my teen years with the string of hits from his San Francisco-sound band, Soul Rockers. His wailing guitar riffs had sounded wonderfully raw and dangerous to a young girl listening to her transistor radio under the sheets long after bedtime, in 1970s Swansea. I’d have recognized him even without Ellen’s notes, because he hadn’t changed a bit—except now he was in his seventies, was completely bald, had filled out somewhat, and was more ruddy in his complexion. Otherwise, it seemed that Sammy Soul had decided to ignore the ageing process and was still dressed in tight snakeskin jeans, with a magenta silk shirt—straining at its buttons—and more earrings than you would think is possible for the human ear to carry. The earring thing was helped by the fact that, as with most older men, his lobes had lengthened. It seemed he’d taken this as a sign to add even more gold hoops. My heart sank when I saw him: my youthful idol, now a pastiche of himself.
    After Ellen had introduced us, I reached out to shake his hand. When he replied with a peace sign and drawled “Yeah, man,” in a slightly nasal voice, higher-pitched than I’d imagined, my heart sank even further. And then, when he slapped Bud on the arm and added, “Ex-cop. Wow, man. Lost your wife? Downer,” I could have groaned out loud. Could this sad, pathetic figure, clinging to past glories, have wanted to kill Annette Newman? First I’d have to find a motive, and, surprise, surprise, his wife all but handed me one on a plate.
    â€œHey, meet the missus,” said Sammy Soul as he waved in the general direction of a woman’s back. “Hey guys, this is Suzie, my Soul-Mate . . . ha, ha!”
    I saw the back of a short, slim but curvaceous, beautifully coiffed long-haired blonde, wearing an immaculately cut, bronzy pantsuit, and leopard-skin Louboutin heels. Elegantly holding a martini glass, her perfectly manicured left hand was bedecked with umpteen carats of bling and sported long, curving nails encrusted with diamanté.
    When Suzie Soul turned, what I saw was a shock: the woman was in her sixties—you can always tell because of the