Stain of the Berry by Anthony Bidulka Read Free Book Online Page A

lean, athletic looking with angular, attractive features and short hair styles. Tanya, however, was blond, with slanted, sharp eyes the colour of chestnuts-cat's eyes. The other girl's hair was softer looking, tar-black, and she wore a wide, generous smile in most of the pictures whereas Tanya's mouth stayed a straight, serious line above a pointed chin. On the back of one of the photos was a notation: Tanya and Moxie. I was betting Moxie was Tanya's best friend. Best friends are a detective's best friend when trying to find stuff out. I'd need to find Moxie. The second thing was Tanya's address book. She either wasn't very good about recording phone numbers and addresses for family and friends or else she simply didn't have very many people in her life that fell into those categories. But, it did include information for a Moxie Banyon, so I stuck the address book and one of the photographs in my shorts pocket for later use.
    The third and fourth interesting things were sort of related. One was under her bed: a baseball bat. The other was a fifty-by-sixty-five centimetre impression on the carpet in front of the front door, as if something very heavy had sat in that unlikely spot either for a long time or very recently or both. Not far from the front door was a battered piece of wooden furniture, about waist high, which looked about the right size and shape. I tried to move it and was stopped by its great weight. I supposed I could have moved it if I'd really wanted to, but not without plenty of effort. I knelt down in front of the thing, opened the cabinet doors and found inside an upside down, antique sewing machine. I knew the type: my mother had one at home. You open the doors, flip up the machine, swing out some hidden drawers, and voila, a sewing machine, the kind with a foot pedal and torture-chamber-looking pulleys and thingamabobs. The sucker weighed a ton, yet Tanya Culinare, who as far as I knew was not a heavyweight wrestler, had, at least once, moved the beast in front of her door. But why? Why the bat, why the barricade against her door? Sure, I know different people take different precautions depending on who they are, where they live, if they live alone, if they're male or female, but in an eighth-floor, cushy apartment in a safe part of town? Did it make sense? Was Tanya Culinare frightened of something or someone in particular? Or just paranoid?
    I closed the curtains, took one last look around and left.
    I knew given the time of day that my chance of finding neighbours to talk to was not great, but I gave it a whirl anyway. And indeed all the eighth-floor doors I knocked on were answered with silence until the last.
    "Who is it?" came a faint male voice.
    "Hullo?" I called through the door. "My name is Russell Quant. I'm investigating Tanya Culinare's death-your neighbour? I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."
    A second or two, then, "Just one moment please."
    And indeed I waited an entire moment. What was he doing in there? Laying carpet?
    The door creeped open ever so slowly with a bit of a creak and finally produced the apartment's resident, a slender man in his seventies, with a black, pencil moustache and silver hair severely greased back a la Clark Gable (although he more closely resembled Mr. Furley, the Don Knotts character from Three's Company). He wore a paisley, black-collared smoking jacket over a white shirt, black pin-striped 26 of 163
    3/15/2011 10:56 PM
    D: BOOKS/Anthony Bidulka - Russell Quant Mystery/Anthony B...
    pants and gently worn house slippers.
    I held out my hand. "I'm Russell Quant."
    The man arched a thin eyebrow astonishingly high on his forehead, tipped his head to one side and slightly forward, and pursed his freshly Blistexed lips all at the same time. He offered me his hand, palm down as if he wanted me to kiss the large ruby ring on it, and said, "My, my, yes you are. Welcome to my home, Mr. Quant."
    I shook the hand-passed on the ring-kissing-and gave him a