Dying to Retire by Jessica Fletcher Read Free Book Online

meeting you, Mrs. Fletcher. I’ll have something good to tell my wife at dinner. She’s always complaining that I never talk about my work.”
    “Glad to be of service,” I said.
    “Will you be staying long?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “If you plan to stick around Foreverglades for a few days, I could bring you one of my wife’s books and you could autograph it for her. Would you mind?”
    “It would be my pleasure. My friends and I came down for the funeral together. We’re all staying at Foreverglades, number twenty-three. I’m on the top floor, two B.”
    “I’ll try to get over there, but if I miss you, you have a good trip back north.” He smoothed down his dark hair, damp from the heat, put on his baseball cap, and trotted down the steps.
    “Thanks,” I called after him.
    Portia’s friends stood talking in small clusters in the courtyard of the chapel. Helen waved me over and introduced me to Sam’s wife, Minnie Lewis, and to Amelia Rodriguez, who worked in Helen’s beauty shop. Amelia was younger than her companions, and wore her ebony hair in an elaborate style, partly pinned up with wispy curls around her face. Apparently another customer of the cosmetics counter at Weinstein’s Pharmacy, she was heavily made up, but with a far more deft hand than Monica Kotansky’s more obvious efforts with eye shadow and mascara.
    “Can you believe how hot it was in there?” Helen asked. “If I hadn’t used half a can of hair spray on Olga Piper, her beehive would have been tilting to one side.”
    “My hair held up pretty well,” Minnie said, patting the back of her head. “You did a nice job.”
    “Thanks,” Helen said, turning her friend around so she could inspect her work. “It still looks good.”
    “Never mind hair. Did you see who was inside?” Amelia asked, a frown on her face. “What cojones, if you’ll excuse me for saying so. I don’t know how he has the nerve to show his face.” She spoke in rapid-fire English with a distinct Spanish accent. “If Portia was alive, she’d drop dead all over again, seeing him here.”
    “Who are you talking about?” I asked.
    “DeWitt Wainscott,” Minnie said. “He’s a real estate developer.”
    “He’s trying to build on the property between Foreverglades and the bay,” Helen said. “Portia was spearheading our opposition to the project when she died.”
    “That’s him over there,” Amelia said, pointing to a man in a dark gray suit talking to a stout woman I’d seen somewhere before. He was of medium height with a paunch hanging over the waistline of his trousers. He wore a light green bow tie, and when he pushed back the side of his jacket to pull a handkerchief from his pocket, I spotted a set of chartreuse suspenders with little flowers embroidered on them. “I don’t know how my sister-in-law can stand working for the man,” she added.
    “Is that your sister-in-law he’s talking to?” I asked.
    She nodded. “ Sí, that’s Marina, mi cuñada .”
    Amelia’s sister-in-law was as tall as her boss, her red hair neatly pinned in a bun. She wore a gray suit, and held an open briefcase from which she handed him a sheet of paper.
    “How long has she worked for him?” I asked.
    “Too long. Look at her. She even dresses like him. He built Foreverglades. That’s how we came here. We lived in Miami before, but he promised my brother a job on the construction site, and then he hired my sister-in-law as his secretary. He tried to hire me, too, but I wouldn’t work for him.”
    “What did he want you to do, style his hair?” Minnie laughed.
    “He’s barely got any left to do a comb-over,” Amelia said, giggling.
    “It sounds to me like he’s been good to your family,” I said.
    “Good? This is a man who makes all kinds of promises and never keeps them. The only one who ever earns any money when he’s around is DeWitt Wainscott. My brother has been laid off so many times, his head is spinning. But now that Marina works for