Free A Candidate For Murder (Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries Book 2) by LYNN BOHART

with her hands on her hips. “Really?” she sniped. “And you were worried about me making too much noise. You guys are like the Keystone Cops.”
    Rudy got up stiffly and flicked something off her sleeve. “Let’s get this done. I’m soaked.”
    Doe rolled off the recycling bin with a groan and got up, while I picked myself up off the street, wiping grit and dirt off the palms of my hands.
    I struggled up onto the curb and righted the trash can and flipped open the lid. The pungent odor of rotting tuna from empty cat food cans wafted over me, making me gag.
    Dana had a cat. Who knew?
    Doe and Rudy righted the recycling bin and rolled it down the walkway and off the curb to the back of the van. I reached into the garbage can and grabbed two full plastic bags and turned for the van, leaving the cat food cans behind.
    As Doe and Rudy tipped the recycling bin and unloaded it, a light went on in the house.
    “Hurry up,” Blair ordered.
    I quickly tossed in the two big bags of garbage. Rudy and Doe finished emptying the contents of the recycling bin into the van. They dropped it back onto the pavement, while Blair daintily placed her one bag of trash on top of everything else and closed the doors.
    And we were off.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    I drove like a mad woman back to the Inn, and not just because the interior was quickly filling up with the gagging smell of rotting food. I imagined a boogey woman named Dana following us like a banshee.
    I parked the van in the garage. Rudy’s sleeve had filled the van with the aroma of beef and onions, so that by the time we got the doors open, we were all coughing and hacking.
    “God,” she said, climbing out of the van. “I’m throwing this coat away.”
    “Sorry, Rudy,” I said, apologizing for the accident. “Let’s leave everything until tomorrow.”
    “Copy that,” Rudy said. “I think my arm’s starting to putrefy anyway.”
    Rudy grabbed her purse and hurried out of the garage. Doe and Blair murmured their goodbyes and followed. I closed up, stealing glances around me, hoping no one was watching.
    Back in my apartment, I took a shower to wash off make-believe Dana cooties and to warm up before getting ready for bed. When I stepped out of the shower, I was surprised by the smell of rose water trapped in the small confines of the bathroom, along with a cold blast of air that raised goose bumps on my skin.
    I jerked my head from side to side.
    It had to be Elizabeth, the wife of John St. Claire, the original owner of the house. Although she was long dead, her favorite fragrance still followed her around, and she seemed to like to make appearances in my bathroom.
    Elizabeth had died in the fire that also killed her eldest son Fielding, her daughter, Chloe, and their dog, Max. While Elizabeth, Chloe and Max continued to haunt the house, no one had ever seen Fielding. I suspected he was still there, perhaps just shy.
    All of us had seen Elizabeth at one time or another. She was often seen strolling through rooms on the ground floor, or coming down the stairs. Once, she’d passed right through Mayor Frum when he and I were talking in the living room. Mayor Frum hadn’t seen her, but reacted as if someone had just poured ice water down his back. Since we were alone, I allowed the moment to pass without comment.
    For whatever reason, Elizabeth had attached herself to me. I thought it was because, like her, I was the woman of the house. She would occasionally show herself to me in my apartment, even try to communicate with me. After Martha died, she had struggled mightily to inform me through a bizarre game of charades that Martha had been poisoned. She kept wrapping her ghostly hands around her throat and gagging.
    A few times she had left cryptic messages scrawled in the steam left behind on my bathroom mirror after a shower. As I watched now, I was rewarded with the beginnings of another message, and my heart rate stepped up a notch as I wrapped a towel around me.
    A line