The Diva Wore Diamonds by Mark Schweizer

Author:Mark Schweizer [Schweizer, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Singers, General, Mystery & Detective, North Carolina, Fiction
ISBN: 9780972121156
Google: fm5JAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0972121153
Publisher: St. James Music Press
Published: 2009-06-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Choir practice was called off, of course. We spent the three hours securing the scene of Mr. Stafford’s untimely demise, first getting the children out of the park—not a difficult task, since their parents were picking them up, anyway—then making sure that Brianna was taken care of, and finally calling the ambulance to take his body down to the morgue for an autopsy. I didn’t think we needed one. It was pretty clear how Russ met his fate, but it was protocol in a murder investigation. We went over the crime scene several times, Dave taking pictures, and Nancy taking notes. Russ Stafford’s body had been lying just where we’d left him when the play concluded, stretched out amidst a good-sized pile of styrofoam boulders and one large, melon-sized piece of granite that seemed to fit perfectly into the indentation in Russ’ head. The stone matched the granite that had been used for the exterior of the new church, a left-over piece dropped under a bush or kicked behind a tree. Nancy took the murder weapon over to the police station and locked it up. Tomorrow it would go to the lab in Boone for DNA analysis and fingerprinting. After we’d finished, Nancy and Dave came up to the house at my invitation. Supper was at Meg’s insistence.

The three of us were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking beer and anticipating the shrimp pasta that Meg was putting together at the sink. Baxter was being scratched behind the ears by Nancy and, judging from the way his tail was thumping a back beat on the kitchen floor, had found true love.

“This is great,” Dave said, taking a sip and looking at the bottle. “Sprecher Black Bavarian Style Lager. Where do you get this stuff?”

“I have my sources,” I said smugly.

“Beer of the Month Club,” said Meg, putting the bowl of pasta in the center of the table. “Help yourselves. The bread’s coming out of the oven in a minute.”

We followed Meg’s directive and, in a moment, the four of us were digging into a delicious meal.

“Did you get Skeeter out of the clink?” I asked Nancy.

She shook her head. “Forgot all about it. I’ll go down there tomorrow morning. It won’t hurt him to stay there for another night.”

“I don’t suppose it was an accident?” said Meg. “Russ, I mean.”

“Nope,” said Dave. “That rock probably weighed twenty pounds. Hard to mistake it for styrofoam.”

“Well,” said Meg, “then I suppose the question is, who hated Russ enough to kill him?”

“It’s not always about hate,” I said. “Sometimes it’s about expedience.”

“Or justice,” said Nancy. “Or revenge.”

“Jealousy,” added Dave. “Greed.”

I nodded. “So the question we need to ask is not who hated Russ enough to kill him, but rather, who wanted Russ dead? Pass me a piece of that bread, will you?”

“Hmm,” said Meg, passing me the plate of bread. “Okay. Who wanted Russ dead?”

“Any number of people,” I said. “Russ was a singularly dislikable man with very little moral character.”

Meg looked at me expectantly.

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