Death of the Office Witch by Marlys Millhiser Read Free Book Online Page A

never before been murder.
    Charlie also wondered why Lieutenant Dalrymple kept checking her reactions to everything. Did he suspect her above most? Because she looked in that garbage can this morning?
    It was obvious why he wanted them all together now, though. Now, before they could get their stories straight with each other by talking on their own. Now, when they could trip each other up. Charlie disagreed with Dorian. This police detective knew what he was doing.
    By the time he let them go, the phone lines were flashing. Tracy and Larry worked to steer calls where they were needed. That’s why Charlie took the one from McMullins directly.
    When she hung up, she let out first a single yip and then a series of them. She could hear Larry’s answering howl from the front desk and knew he’d stayed on the line. Charlie met him halfway.
    Everyone, including David Dalrymple and two uniforms, converged on them just as she and her assistant high-fived, Charlie leaping up and down on stockinged feet, having slipped out of her heels the minute she’d placed them under her desk. Dalrymple’s prosaic expression reminded her how ridiculous she must look and that murder had happened here just over twenty-four hours ago.
    It was so easy to get carried away in this business. Most of the time it was pie-in-the-sky hopes and dreams that petered out after great amounts of fantasizing, energy, and planning. But every now and then something jelled, sometimes something grand, producing the same kind of juice that probably kept an Irma Vance going to Las Vegas once a year.
    â€œSo? So?” Richard Morse peered into her face, then into Larry’s. “You want to share this? Do I have to beg? Do I have to tell you who it is who works for who around here?”
    â€œWhom,” Dalrymple corrected and was ignored.
    â€œHell, you’re acting like the Alpine Tunnel deal went through,” Dorian said. “What’s up?”
    â€œIt is the Alpine Tunnel , isn’t it?” That lazy, knowing smile lighted Maurice Lavender’s face.
    â€œI thought that was dead long ago,” Luella said.
    â€œThey turned it down cold last October,” Richard told her. “What, Charlie, what? You do not have my permission to do this to me.”
    â€œMcMullins talked the author’s estate into reconsidering Ursa Major’s offer.”
    Now it was Richard Morse dancing Charlie around the crowded confines of the hall until they waltzed up against Dalrymple’s expression. “Lieutenant, this is special, you know?” Charlie’s boss gave a triumphant hoot. “We’re talking history in the making here. We’re talking another Gone with the Wind , another Dances with Wolves .”
    Dalrymple did not look impressed. But Charlie floated through the rest of her day. She did get partially caught up on her phone log, checking the progress of some of her writers. But she wasn’t able to get hold of Keegan Monroe to return his call, although she did make it back to Long Beach in time to pick up buffalo steaks and three bottles of Dom Perignon. If no one could come to her last-minute victory party, she and Libby would eat what they could and freeze the rest. It was that kind of triumph.
    As it turned out, everybody came. Mrs. Beesom brought her renowned pasta salad, Jeremy Fiedler his veggie stir-fry and an airhead named Connie. Maggie brought fruit compote. Libby brought droopy Doug Esterhazie. Tuxedo brought one of Mrs. Beesom’s wild birds, dead. And very nearly ruined the celebration.
    This weekend, she decided, when she wasn’t doing the yard work or the housework, Charlie had to find a way to get rid of that goddamned cat—something she’d been threatening to do for almost a year. She turned from the older woman’s stricken face to her daughter’s unconcerned one. “This is it, Libby. I’ve had it.”
    â€œMo-om, that’s what cats do.