Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) by Angela M. Sanders Read Free Book Online Page B

sideboard. He gestured to a towering wedding cake adorned with melting clocks of fondant. “Plenty of cake, too.” He sighed. “Gluten free.”
    ***
    Chef Jules had been adamant not only that he didn’t make sandwiches with shellfish, but that he didn’t even know what clam dip was. Maybe what Clarke thought was clam dip was something else. She’d check, look at the sandwich again. Joanna mounted the two flights of stairs to Wilson’s tower room.
    She opened the door and stopped cold. In the past half hour, the room had been transformed. The tumbled shoes and socks Joanna had seen earlier were put away, and the window was cracked just enough to give a crisp edge to the air against the heat from the now crackling fire. Daylight bounced off the snowbanks, through the whirling flakes, and filled the room, supplemented by the glow of a dozen candles set on the hearth and desk and nightstands. A fresh white sheet, creases still showing, lay over Wilson’s body.  
    Next to the hearth sat Bette.
    Joanna’s gaze shot to the bedside table. “What did you do with the sandwich?”
    “That half-eaten thing? Burned it.” Bette was pulling bright yellow stems of orchids from one of the vases flanking Wilson’s bed and setting them to the side, perhaps to give the arrangement a more masculine feel. She had changed into a new caftan, this one Stevie Nicks cream.  
    “Bette, you shouldn’t have. It might be what killed him.”
    “It had some kind of seafood in it. It was going to smell up the place, so I tossed it in the fire.” Her lower lip protruded a fraction of an inch, just as Penny’s had this morning when she wanted to try on the Tears gown. “We couldn’t just leave Wilson like that.”
    “He was allergic to seafood. We needed that sandwich to show the police.” Joanna exhaled in frustration. “What else did you burn?”
    “Nothing. Just that.” Bette eased into the chair behind her. “I shouldn’t have, I guess. I’m so sorry. I just thought, you know, Wilson was going to be my son-in-law. And Penny was so upset. I wanted to make his last earthly home nice for him.” Her eyes began to moisten. Joanna tensed, but unlike the histrionic scene that morning, Bette’s tears were soft. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Bette said. “I’m not myself. I’m sorry I—I lost it this morning.”
    Keenly aware of Wilson’s body a few feet away, Joanna sat in the armchair across from her. “I’m sorry I slapped you. I guess I wasn’t myself, either. I didn’t know what to do.”
    “That’s all right. I was kind of going off the rails.”  
    “We’re going to have to close off the room for the police, you know. We don’t know how Wilson died, and they’ll want to examine everything,” Joanna said gently. “We’ll need to tell everyone to stay out of the room. No more logs in the fire.”
    Bette’s gaze softened. “Penny will want to say her goodbye.”
    “I’m so sorry, but she’ll have to wait until Wilson’s services. We need to keep the tower room like it was first thing this morning.” She glanced at the massive bouquets now flanking the bed, flowers Bette must have brought up from the great room. “If the medical examiner can’t easily pin down how and why he died, there’ll be an investigation that will bother Penny a lot more than waiting a few days to see Wilson. Where is Penny, by the way?”
    “Sleeping. Reverend Tony made some kind of herbal tea, but when he left I gave her something that will really help her relax. Poor darling.” Bette dabbed her eyes with the sleeve of her caftan. “Can we stay here just a minute longer? I can’t hurt anything that way, can I?”
    Joanna leaned back and closed her eyes. “I guess not.”
    Just across the coffee table lay the corpse of a rock star. Downstairs was a Dali-esque wedding cake and several hundred puff pastry canapés. The bride was drugged. Outside the snow whirled like sparkling buckshot. This wedding wouldn’t be