Free How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams by Dorothy Cannell

breathless in the study. Thank God the twins appeared whole and healthy. They were seated onthe floor watching entranced as Mrs. Malloy and Gerta faced off against each other in front of the telly. Gerta was the one doing the screaming, in German, or Swiss, from the guttural sound of it, and when the two of them turned to see me in the doorway, she scuttled towards me with hands locked in prayer.
    “Frau Haskell, you come not too soon a minute.”
    “Whatever is the matter?” I looked from her to Mrs. Malloy, whose face was a thundercloud of righteous wrath.
    “I bring the children in this room because they want to watch
What the Dino Saw
on the television”—Gerta struggled to speak calmly—“and I ask Mrs. Mop if we bother her dusting—”
    “To which I says, if memory serves me right”—Mrs. Malloy’s black taffeta bosom inflated to mammoth proportions as she addressed herself strictly to me—“that if it was all the same as made no mind with Frau Goatherd here, I’d appreciate being allowed to watch the upcoming interview with the man of my dreams.”
    “You don’t mean …?” Clasping a hand to my tumultuous heart, I came close to swooning and was forced to steady myself by grabbing hold of the desk. “You can’t mean … 
Karisma
?”
    “That was his name!” Gerta evinced relief that I was as shocked as she. “They show the picture of him on the screen before I turn off the television, snip, snap, stop! It is not right, I tell Mrs. Mop, for the munchkins to see this black leather man with too much hair on his head and none on his chest. I read about this Karisma in
News of the World
. He gives the bad ideas to women. He makes them think he is the Prince Charming.”
    “And what’s wrong with that?” Mrs. Malloy folded her arms, thus inflating her bosom still further.
    “Frau Haskell”—Gerta’s plaits were unravelling along with the rest of her—“perhaps I was wrong to scream, but I cannot make her turn off the television and I know you’d not want for the little Abbey here”—she pointed a trembling finger to where my daughter sat on the floor happily hitting her brother on the head with a plastic brick—“to grow up thinking the prince will come along one day and pick her up on his sheet-white horse.”
    “No, of course I don’t want Abbey to be reared with that sort of mind-set,” I said stoutly. “But what would be so bad about her Prince Charming galloping up in a Rolls, if—that is, he were to let her drive?”
    Gerta could not hide her dismay. Her face fell like a soufflé taken out of the oven too soon.
    “Look, ducky”—Mrs. Malloy mellowed sufficiently to bestow a kindly smile on her vanquished opponent—“it stands out a mile you’ve had it up to the eyeballs with men. But Karisma’s not like the rest of them. He’s as close to human as the buggers get. Go on, see for yourself.”
    So saying, she switched the telly back on; and I had to sit down before my knees gave way when the cover of
All Passion Spent
flashed before my dazzled eyes. An off-screen female voice informed us that for this novel Karisma had posed as an Apache brave, standing on a solitary rock with his marvelous hair cascading over the woman draped in languorous delight over his bronzed arm. Did the announcer think we were blind? Did she think the likes of Mrs. Malloy and I needed a tour guide in order to appreciate this Marvel of Modern Male?
    “Pretty man!” Abbey proved herself my daughter by her delighted squeal, but I was not without the makings of responsible parenthood.
    “Perhaps it would be a good idea,” I suggested to Gerta, “for you to take the children outside. This really isn’t suitable viewing for them.”
    “What Mrs. H. means,” Mrs. Malloy kindly interpreted, “is she doesn’t want the kiddies to see her like this with tears rolling down her flushed face. As for me, I don’t usually get this emotional”—she wiped her eyes—“over a man’s bare