Wine, Dine and Christmas Crimes, Maria Swan [best short novels of all time .TXT] 📗

teacher like that, but my mother often mentioned her second-grade teacher, her name was Suor Maria Elena. Oh, wait, she was a nun-teacher. Different story.

“Monica, by upstairs I meant the top floor of the building, where the access to the rooftop patio and pool is located.”

“What was Leta doing up there? Plus, you need a special key to get to the pool, I know because I went up there. I mean, not the day of the party. I had to check out everything because of the listing, I mean, the condo. My boss asked me to mind the condo until the listing agent got back. She was in a skiing accident, you know, and...Oh, wait, Eve said there is another way to the pool, but I didn’t see that door. Is that what you’re talking about?” I finally came up for air.

“Who is Eve?” Officer Bob Clarke asked. Ouch. I had to explain, fully expecting horror to fill his eyes. Instead he laughed, told me Adam and Eve was a very clever way of keeping track of people. What a nice man. How come I always assumed he wasn‘t very smart? Well, I was wrong. He would make a good uncle, not that Brenda was actually my aunt, plus she’d already told me they were just friends.

“Monica, the door you’re mentioning is the one used by the service crew when they have pool parties. That’s also the corner of the room where they keep the ice machine and the trash chute. The detectives are trying to locate the victim’s clothes, and since they know that Leta, an outsider, was up there they are hoping she can describe what she noticed with clean eyes.”

“Clean eyes?” Never heard that before.

“It’s an expression, Monica, meaning you see something for the first time. Instead of describing familiar things, you describe what you saw. Do I make sense?”

I nodded. I was really, really liking this Bob Clarke and Brenda would be a better match for him than the widow across the street.

“Monica, what’s going through that active brain of yours? Don’t shake your head. I know you well enough...” Brenda was on to me.

“Nothing, I think this is all fascinating, but if you remember I was the one who found Miss Martin’s clothes in the condo where I was supposed to do open house.” Miss Martin? Get a grip, Monica.

“I heard about that, what you found were her working clothes, a uniform she wore while working at The Nest. Monica, you should read the article they had in the newspaper this morning. You must have missed it, and if you are that interested, why don’t you join Brenda tomorrow. I’ll let Reid know...oops, Eve. Detective Eve.” And this time he was mocking me. I could see it in his smiling eyes. I couldn’t care less. I cleared the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher faster than a slinky on a steep stairwell, and rushed back home to get hold of some kind of local news on Arizona Central.

The minute I set foot in my living room the sweet sight of the Christmas tree melted my heart. But the urge to read about the drowning at The Nest trumped everything. At least tonight. If Bob Clarke felt free to share all that stuff, it must be public knowledge. He said the clothing I found was part of her working uniform. He must be kidding. Kay’s maid wore a uniform? How come we never heard a thing about her maid? Okay, I had never heard a thing. Maybe Sunny knew about it. But why would she change her clothes in the condo for sale? And how did she get in? What if Double Wide let her in? He was a broker and would know the lock combination. But then he would also know that she was Kay’s maid. OMG!!

Maybe that’s what Kay meant that day up there about hiring a lawyer. Still didn’t make sense. If Double Wide didn’t go to Kay’s party, what was he doing at The Nest and why would it matter to him about the maid changing. Changing into what?

Maybe he was having an affair with the maid. That poor girl, she probably had to sleep with that sleaze to keep her job. Or maybe I watched too many old movies of young women forced into relationships to save the family’s manor, like Jane Austen’s romantic stories.

My phone interrupted my descent into pure fiction. I answered without checking ID, so totally submerged by decoding the life and death of Miss Martin, a complete stranger who died in a pool I’d never seen for a reason I didn’t know. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how she died.

“Isn’t it freaking disgusting the way that Chinese girl died?” asked the voice coming from my cell.

“Huh? Who’s...wait...Kassandra? Is that you? Sorry, I was thinking about the same thing.”

“Oh, you saw it on the six o’clock news also?”

“Oh, no, no. I was thinking about Miss Martin. No, just got back from dinner at Brenda’s, and Officer Clarke was there. No TV. Did she drown?”

“Drown? Nooo. Get this—and tell me it isn’t a shitty way to die—she choked on her own vomit.”

SEVENTEEN

NO AMOUNT OF tooth brushing could wash away the foul taste of death Kassandra’s call left in my mouth. She choked on her own vomit. Was that even possible? Could it have been a chemical in the pool water? Suddenly the blinking lights on the Christmas tree didn’t look so bright, and the safety of my home felt tainted. I went back to my computer and frantically searched for snippets regarding the death of this mysterious young woman.

But nothing in the news satisfied my questions. Why would she go swimming if she felt sick? Or did she get sick because she went swimming right after dinner? That was one of the big no-nos while I was growing up. No swimming or bathtub after a meal. What was it my nonna always told us kids? Three hours, we