The Pink Flamingo Murders by Elaine Viets

Author:Elaine Viets [Viets, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Detective and mystery stories, Women Detectives, Dwellings, Women Journalists
ISBN: 9780440613510
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1999-07-13T06:00:00+00:00

8

Caroline was screaming at Margie. Her sturdy face was distorted with rage. Her eyes burned with crazy anger. Her mouth was a black cave, filled with hate. Out of it came a scream as loud as a siren. It was a siren . . . several sirens . . . sirens. That’s what woke me up. What time was it? I glanced groggily at my bedside alarm clock. Six-oh-six in the morning. Why were the sirens screaming again? I looked out the window and saw a howling parade of police cars. I didn’t wait for the EMS ambulance, but I knew it would follow. They were all heading toward North Dakota Place.

Not again. Not . . . oh, no. This time it would be Margie. She was dead. I knew it. I knew that argument Margie had with Caroline last night would send the woman over the edge. I tried to put on some clothes, but I kept dropping things. I dropped my jeans. I got my arm tangled in my T-shirt. I couldn’t find my sandals. I looked under the bed for them and hit my head. I did not want to see Margie’s body, but I couldn’t stay away.

I ran all the way to North Dakota Place, but I seemed to move in slow motion, like one of those bad dreams where you run and run and get nowhere. Police cars and emergency vehicles were parked crazily up and down the street from Dale and Kathy’s all the way to Margie’s house, but the activity seemed to be centered around Caroline’s side yard.

I saw the neighbors huddled in a small, shrunken cluster. There was blond Dina, barefoot and lost in baggy shorts and and an inside-out T-shirt. Dale and Kathy were once again sharing pajama parts. Tall, lean Patricia looked scrawny and washed out. Even her startling blue eyes seemed dull and pale today.

I didn’t want to look at Margie. I was glad I couldn’t get near her body. The scene was blocked off with yellow tape and crawling with cops, some in uniform and some plainclothes. But I could see a woman lying on the grass, and she wasn’t moving. The medics weren’t making any effort to revive her. Even from where I stood I could see her skin was flat and gray-green, and I could see thick, dark blood on her head and chest. I remembered Margie yesterday, laughing and dancing with her pink plastic flamingos. Now one was stuck right in her body. Whoa! Was that right? I looked again. The skinny metal legs were planted in her chest. The flamingo implant swayed slightly in the breeze, looking horrible and harmless at the same time. My stomach gave a heave, and I almost lost it right on the lawn.

“She was killed by a pink flamingo?” I said.

“Flamingos don’t kill people. People kill people,” Dina blurted in a parody of the gun lobby slogan, and collapsed into shrill laughter. She laughed until tears ran down her face.

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