Dim Sum Dead by Jerrilyn Farmer

Author:Jerrilyn Farmer [Jerrilyn Farmer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cozy, mystery, recipes, women sleuths
ISBN: 9780062013873
Google: o6Jd9oYqgREC
Amazon: B003JBI3BU
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The Wetherbee house was a work in progress. Wesley and I sat out on the large grassy lawn in back of the house in the shade of a California live oak. Two workmen walked in and out of the open French doors bringing out a chandelier and other lighting fixtures, bringing in pails and drop cloths. With the demolition nearly finished, they were getting a start on replastering.

The garden table was made of heavy white-painted iron, and its round glass top was covered with blueprints and computer printouts showing the layout of the house. Wes was connected to the Internet by wireless modem, and his laptop computer sat close by, atop the pile of renderings. All this was part of the fun of planning his remodeling project. He’d been working and reworking the plans for the master bathroom as we talked, playing with a pencil, tapping the eraser end against his straight teeth.

Birds sang brightly as the late-afternoon sun moved through the branches above, casting slowly shifting shadows over the paperwork and us and onto the old patio tiles beneath our feet. A leaf, curled and golden, fell onto the blueprint Wesley was studying, and he smoothed it away.

“So you won’t do anything dangerous, right?” he asked me.

“No, of course not. I’m not stupid. And anyway, if it turns out that Quita’s fall was an accident, there is no danger, right?”

“Right.” Wes looked at me with concern. “But you don’t think it was an accident.”

“You know, I wish I did.”

Wes leaned over and patted the top of my head.

“I’d feel better,” I said, “if I could be sure.”

“Of course you would.” He was never enthusiastic about my little investigations, but I had faced a few problems in the past and gotten through them all right.

“This is going to be useful.” I touched the edge of Dickey McBride’s antique rosewood mah-jongg case. It was back with us since the Santa Monica police had found too many smudged fingerprints on it and none they could identify. They hadn’t seemed surprised. In all, their manner had not encouraged our expectation, either, that they might continue pursuing this crime with anything mimicking vigilance.

“So how are you going to get in touch with Catherine Hill?” Wes asked. “I’m assuming she’s not in the phone book.”

I had this plan. It seemed to me that I would have more success talking to Catherine Hill, privately, than the police ever would if they tried to question her officially. And that was assuming the cops were interested in Catherine Hill. Which they weren’t.

But first, I had to figure out how to reach her. I knew she had a big house in Bel Air, but short of going out to Westwood and buying a Map to the Stars’ Homes from one of those boys on a street corner, I was stumped as how to talk to her.

“Remember Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?” Wes asked, starting to erase another line on his plan.

“The game? Of course.”

Several years ago, a bunch

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