Killer Riff by Sheryl J. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page A

hostess walked me up. She thanked the hostess and looked at the chair, waiting for me to deposit myself in it. “Please, sit down, Ms. Forrester.”
    She was more delicate in person than in photographs, a porcelain-skinned blonde with a long neck, willowy hands, and fine features. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, emphasizing the patrician oval of her face. She looked far more at home in this grand setting, with its huge windows, towering indoor trees, and blue-blood clientele, than I felt. We were the same age, but she exuded a more mature air. I couldn’t tell if it was a product of her profession or her money.
    “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Elliott,” I said as I sat down.
    “Don’t you want to reserve that judgment until you’ve talked with me for more than a few minutes?” she asked breezily, tenting her long fingers under her chin.
    Was I being analyzed or tested? I decided to play along. “No, because if I change my mind in five minutes, it will still have been a pleasure to meet you, but not much fun getting to know you.” I unfurled my napkin, rerouting it into my lap.
    Olivia permitted me to see a flash of brilliant white, perfectly straight teeth. “Excellent point.”
    “I wasn’t planning on this interview being adversarial, were you?” I asked.
    “Not at all,” she said, “I just like people to appreciate the weight of what they say.”
    “Occupational hazard of being a therapist?”
    “I think of it more as a requirement of being an intelligent human being.”
    “Do you mean what you say when you suggest your father was murdered?”
    This time, the smile was genuine, but sad. “Unfortunately, yes.”
    “Have you shared your concern with the authorities?”
    She nodded. “I’ve been told there’s no evidence to support my assertion. But all that means is, they aren’t looking hard enough.”
    “What do you think they should be looking for?”
    “Claire Crowley’s fingerprints. She killed my father.”

3
    I had to give her credit: Olivia Elliott seemed fully appreciative of the weight of what she had said, even giving me a delicate scrunch of the nose and mouth so I’d understand how terribly awkward she knew all this was for everyone involved.
    But where she was cool and unflappable, I was decidedly flapped. I paused a moment, expecting the entire restaurant to fall silent and a few stuffed shirts to explode. But everyone kept talking and cell phones kept ringing and Olivia kept smiling as I made sure I understood exactly what she was saying.
    “You think Claire Crowley killed your father,” I said, dropping my voice a few decibels and hoping she’d follow suit.
    “I know she did,” she said firmly but a little more quietly.
    “Even though his death was accidental.” I’d thought that her belief in a murder scenario might have grown out of her refusal to believe he’d overdosed, but if she was presenting me with a suspect, she’d given the matter rather specific thought. I wondered if there was some emotional component to what had happened for which Olivia held Claire responsible—for instance, that Russell had been depressed and Claire had noticed but not brought it to anyone’s attention.
    But again, I was a step behind. Olivia had something much more literal in mind. “An accident? That just shows you what people in this city will do for Claire. She’s wrapped herself so tightly in Micah’s shadow that people think they love her just because they used to love him. She’s rehabilitated herself and gone from home-wrecking, coke-sniffing queen bitch to St. Claire, rescuer of the oppressed. She Who Must Be Fawned Over.”
    The waiter stepped up to ask us for our order, and I deferred to Olivia. I wasn’t sure how she was going to eat or that I even wanted to. But she readily ordered the crabcakes and an iced tea, and I nodded; it would give me something to look at besides her blazing eyes.
    “Aren’t you going to ask me, ‘Why Claire’?”