Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead. Livia J Washburn

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СКАЧАТЬ was still crying, but she wasn’t sobbing loudly and wailing anymore. She dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief while the two young women who had helped her in from the garden stood by rather awkwardly. From time to time one of them would reach over and pat her on the shoulder in a feeble attempt at comforting her in her grief. The other people who worked here all looked pale and shaken, too. They would have known the dead man pretty well, I thought. My clients were sympathetic, of course, but I got the sense that some of them were also annoyed that something like a murder was threatening to interrupt and possibly ruin their tour.

      Nowhere among any of them, though, was Elliott Riley, and that was downright odd.

      I couldn’t very well go looking for him; the deputies had told us all to stay put in the ballroom. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find him, anyway. I hadn’t liked him to start with, and I liked him even less now.

      A stocky, gray-haired man in a brown suit came into the ballroom. His tie was loosened, and he had a weary expression on his face, as if this were a long day that was about to get even longer. He was followed by a couple of men and a woman, all wearing polo shirts that had the sheriff’s department logo on the front and the words CRIME SCENE on the back.

      The people with all that forensic stuff Luke had been talking about earlier had shown up.

      The gray-haired man, who must have been a detective, led the investigators through the ballroom and into the garden. He closed the doors firmly behind them, making it clear that he didn’t want any interruptions. That left the rest of us cooling our heels inside as time dragged. Within fifteen minutes, both Augusta and Amelia were whining about wanting to go to their rooms. I made an effort to hold on to my temper, even though it wasn’t long before they were getting on my last nerve.

      The wait stretched to forty-five minutes. Even though a couple of deputies were standing in front of the French doors now, from time to time I caught a glimpse of camera flashes going off in the garden as the crime scene folks photographed the body and its surroundings.

      Finally, the paramedics came out through the ballroom, were gone for a couple of minutes, and came back wheeling a gurney between them. That quieted down the buzz of conversation in the big room, but absolute silence fell a short time later when they reappeared. A long, motionless shape shrouded in a black body bag lay on the gurney now.

      Rhett Butler would never run the blockade or return to Tara again.

      CHAPTER 7

      The gray-haired man came back into the ballroom a few minutes after the paramedics removed the body of Steven Kelley. He was trailed by a couple of deputies, one of whom asked in a loud voice for everyone’s attention. When he had it, the gray-haired man stepped forward and spoke.

      “My name is Timothy Farraday. I’m an investigator for the sheriff’s department.”

      That confirmed my guess about him being a detective.

      “I’m sorry for any inconvenience, but my men and I will be taking statements from all of you before you’ll be allowed to return to your rooms this evening.”

      One of the actors—I think he was supposed to be a Tarleton twin—said, “That’s fine for them.” He gestured toward the guests who had come there on the tour. “But what about the ones who just work here? Can’t we go home?”

      Timothy Farraday shook his head. “Not yet. Sorry.”

      He didn’t sound particularly apologetic. The irritated, impatient muttering that greeted his answer didn’t appear to bother him, either.

      “Everyone just be patient, and we’ll get to you as soon as we can.”

      Farraday headed for Maura Kelley, the murdered man’s wife, and led her out of the ballroom. Her face was pale and her eyes were red, but she appeared to have stopped crying. In fact, she had that overly calm look that said the shock was really beginning to settle in on her. While Farraday was doing that, two of the other deputies picked someone else to question, and the others kept an eye on the rest of us.

      “They’re going to fingerprint us,” Amelia said. “I just know they are.”

      “It’ll be fun,” Augusta said.

      “If that’s your idea of fun—”

      “That’s enough,” I said. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to let either of the girls be interrogated unless I was there. They were minors, after all.

      Luke whispered to me, “I bet they do fingerprint us. You know they got some latents off that knife.”

      I looked at him. “Latents?” I knew what he meant, but his use of the technical term surprised me.

      “Yeah…Hey, I watch TV, Miz D. I know all about that kind of stuff.”

      He wasn’t the only one. I’d read that, because of the popularity of forensics-based police procedural series, people thought they knew so much that it was making life difficult for real-life detectives and prosecutors. Juries expected a ton of forensic evidence, all of it as conclusive as what they saw on TV, and when they didn’t get it, they were less inclined to convict a defendant.

      One thing about TV, though: no matter how realistic they make the corpses look these days—and they’re usually pretty dad-gummed gruesome—when you’re watching it there’s a part of your brain that always knows it’s just a TV show. You can tell yourself it’s not real, that it’s just make-believe, an actor made up to look dead.

      Well, Steven Kelley had been an actor, but there was nothing make-believe about the blood on his clothes or the pasty, fish-belly look of his skin or the sightless, staring eyes. The real thing always looks different from what you see on the screen.

      The angry muttering in the ballroom grew louder as more time went by. The hour was getting kind of late. The fancy dress ball would have been over by now, and the guests would have all retired to their rooms for the night. The people who actually lived here, like Edmond Ralston and possibly his daughter, would have gone to their own quarters, and the actors would be on their way home.

      Instead, the burly deputies made sure that no one left the ballroom, even the people who had already given statements. Timothy Farraday obviously thought there was a good chance the killer was still here—a reasonable assumption, I suppose—and he wanted to make sure that he didn’t let a murderer slip through his fingers.

      Eventually, he got around to me, coming across the ballroom and saying as he walked up, “Ms. Dickinson?”

      “I’m Delilah Dickinson,” I told him.

      “Would you come with me, please?”

      I hesitated and made a motion toward Augusta and Amelia. “These are my nieces.”

      Farraday smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “And they’re lovely young ladies. Would you come with me, please?”

      “They’re minors. I don’t want any of your men questioning them while I’m not there.”

      His eyebrows rose. “And why is that?”

      “Yeah, Aunt Delilah,” Augusta said. “Why’s that?”

      I suddenly СКАЧАТЬ