3 Requiem at Christmas by Melanie Jackson Read Free Book Online

brushes. Shall we be off?”
    “Did you want to see more of the fair?” she asked. “There is
a bagpipe competition starting in about ten minutes. Or Clan Buchanan is giving
a demonstration in the use of medieval weapons—claymores, bows and arrows, and sgian dubhs .”
    “I so rarely use medieval weapons anymore. I blame Eliphalet Remington. And I wouldn’t dream of tarrying here when
I can tell you have something else in mind.”
    “I was thinking of
dropping in on Harrison and seeing how rehearsals are going. I am very glad
that there was an understudy for the tenor. I know how important this
performance is to him.”
    “Let’s head for the church then,” Raphael said agreeably. “I
haven’t seen it yet and I am told it is an architectural masterpiece.”
    “The pictures are gorgeous. I guess the acoustics are tricky
for recording, but Darby sounded like they had figured it all out.” Juliet
realized she was chattering about things he already knew and made herself stop.
    Saint Clair Church was all that Darby had said it was and
more, though the chalet-like outside gave little hint of the visual treasure
within. Some people like their churches filled with art, but nothing could
match the majesty of the view from the giant windows. Postcards could not do
full justice to the scale of the building, the warmth of its wood beams, or the
beauty of the giant windows that looked out on the snowy woods and the
mountains beyond.
    Raphael and Juliet stayed to the back of the hall since
rehearsals were in progress and various technicians were doing something complicated
with wires. The sound was lovely, but Juliet found her eyes passing over the
people in the audience instead of resting on the singers. The day had been
lovely, a holiday paradise, but she had not forgotten that a member of the
choir had been murdered the day before and they had no idea why.
    A man in the fourth row caught her eye. He was sitting
sidewise, his face in profile. Something about him seemed familiar, though
after a moment Juliet realized that it wasn’t specifically his face she was reacting
to so much as his type.
    From her old job, Juliet knew a bit about politicians and
crooks of other stripes. Some men—the rich or powerful, but usually men who
were both—seemed to be the center of a lot of orbiting bodies. Their
satellites’ paths weren’t always elliptical and they could alter course at a
look or a nod from the dark star who hired them. They might travel around in expensive
cars, hover in doorways obstructing routes, or move down dark alleys in the
small hours of the night with God only knew what lurking in their hearts. The
orbiters almost always carried guns. Almost always. There seemed to be an exception for the money men—the clever accountants who
did math like nobody else—and of course for the lawyers who used other kinds of
weapons to defend their clients.
    She had only vague notions of what made up the modern mafia
since her attention had usually been turned to threats outside the nation’s borders
and what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas, at least as far as her department
was concerned. Still she recognized the outlines of an individual who was
living outside the law and in the spiritual homeland of greed and nonpolitical
power. It got her hackles up.
    One of the orbiters turned to study her and Raphael. Juliet
smiled vapidly and did her best to look like a harmless older lady as the man
in the fourth row with the blue jowls, thick wrists, and fingernails that
gleamed like diamonds also turned and looked her over with dead eyes. Raphael
got no more than a passing glance. Men in wheelchairs weren’t anything to worry
about, his gaze said. Which only went to show that this creature wasn’t very
bright, or, as her boss used to say, “He could probably count to six but only
if he was masturbating.” How dare he just dismiss a man who had ten times their
integrity and a hundred times their combined talent?
    “It’s for