A Star is Dead by Elaine Viets

Author:Elaine Viets [Viets, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448303748
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-10-21T23:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

I slept until almost ten o’clock the next morning. I didn’t have to work today, so I lingered over my toast and coffee. The local paper nearly ruined my morning. The Chouteau Forest Gazette’s front-page headline blared CUBAN HAIR STYLIST CHARGED WITH MURDER OF SUPERSTAR JESSICA GRAY.

Mario was an American citizen and a respected businessman, but you’d never guess it from the story. The paper made him sound like a Castro-planted assassin. Bail was denied. The Forest was up in arms that Jessica Gray, an international star, had been killed in their town by a Cuban. A gay one, too.

Naturally, Greiman took all the credit for the arrest. He was grinning on the front page, posed in front of the cop shop. Across from him was a glamorous photo of Jessica, smiling her approval. Mercifully, there was no photo of Mario or his salon.

I couldn’t read any more. My broken cell phone was on the kitchen table, staring at me like a dead eye. I had a hard time prying open the back to take the battery out, but I finally did it, took out the battery, then put it back in, and tried to start it. Nothing. So much for Katie’s tip. To make myself useful, I packed up the remains of Clare’s Bavarian cream cake. I’d stop by to check on Clare and see if she still wanted me to take it to a lab for analysis. The layer cake, capped with white mounds of whipped cream and oozing cherry sauce, looked too luscious to waste. But I wasn’t about to eat it. Not after what happened to Clare.

It was a chilly gray morning, with a weak sun trying to push through leaden clouds. I shivered in my heavy coat. My car door creaked in the cold and the car started reluctantly.

Clare lived in a white stone Edwardian mansion on an estate about two miles from the Du Pres spread where I lived. Her formal rooms were virtually unchanged since her grandmother’s day. Clare and her husband had held soirees and musical evenings in her salon, and dinners for twelve in the dining room. Since his death, Clare rarely gave parties, except for her family.

Now Clare spent most of her time in the sunroom at the back of the house, an informal light-filled room comfortably furnished with overstuffed couches and needlepoint pillows, and lined with bookcases and clouds of white orchid plants.

Clare was sitting propped up on a fat navy-blue couch, wrapped in a red plaid blanket, watching TV. Her color was good and her snowy white hair was in its customary chignon. A Spode tea service was on a table next to the couch.

‘Welcome, dear,’ she said. ‘Join me for a cup of tea. Cook made her famous lemon cookies.’

It was a command, and I obeyed. She used a silver bell to ring Cook for an extra cup and it was quickly delivered. The tea was a smoky lapsang souchong, and the tart, fresh-baked cookies were a good compliment.

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