Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,87

writers were in danger, and you'd still be in danger if he hadn't run off after killing Sylvia."

More gasps. "Why'd he kill Sylvia?" Amanda called out. "She wasn't a romance writer."

"She used to be! Years ago. She wrote under the name Elizabeth Hampton and was making quite a name for herself until Gabriel Fox reviewed her work and said things so scathing, her confidence shattered, and she never wrote another word. He ruined her writing career! But she kept that part of her life a secret, so he never knew the reason she despised him so much."

"If that was the case, how come she didn't kill him?" Lucille Rassmuson objected. "If a fella ruined my career, that's what I'd want to do."

Nods. Whispers of assent.

"If she killed him, she wouldn't be able to antagonize him anymore, and I think making his life miserable was one of her greatest pleasures. On the other hand, by killing her, he'd be eliminating another person who was promoting the romance genre, and that's exactly what he wanted to do. Sylvia would never stop selling romances to Philip Blackmore if she lived, and Philip Blackmore would never stop shoving every last one of them down Gabriel's throat. He probably thought he had to kill her."

"How did he kill her if he was in Pisa?" Brandy Ann questioned.

"He did the same thing I did yesterday. He took the train back to Florence and caught her unawares last night."

More nods. Soft chatter. Less fear.

"Did that Fawkth fella kill Philip Blackmore and make it look like an acthident too?" George inquired.

I shook my head. "Philip's fall really was an accident. I saw the whole thing."

"So you think we'd be safe if we continued the trip?" a blonde woman asked in a tentative voice.

"I know you'd be safe," I assured her. "How could you not be safe? They've caught the killer." I smiled at the relief on the faces before me and felt a modest surge of pride that my sleuthing efforts might have saved the trip from a premature end. Was I getting good at this job or what? Alice Tjarks stood up and aimed her camcorder at me.

"Folks back home might be interested in how you figured out what's been happening here, Emily. You want to go through the details again so I can get it recorded? I bet the fellers at KORN radio might even want to interview you when we get home. They could make you out a real hero."

I blushed at the suggestion and felt my neck grow warm as a few scattered claps erupted into a round of enthusiastic applause. Oh, wow. I smiled, and bowed, and curtsied, and blushed some more. This was just like being onstage. Only this was a lot better because I wouldn't have to wake up to any bad reviews in the morning paper.

"Tell us how you figured everything out," Dick Teig urged when the applause died down. I heard a little whir as Osmond adjusted the zoom lens on his camcorder.

"You really want to hear all that?" I asked.

"Speech!" yelled Dick Stolee.

"Speech!" yelled Alice Tjarks.

I gave my shoulders a humble shrug. "Okay, if that's what you want. Um, I first started to become suspicious --"

"The word's just in from the surveillance tapes," Duncan interrupted as he came up behind me. He listened intently to the person on the other end of the line, then uttered a few words of Italian into the phone and held it away from his ear before announcing, "Jeannette Bowles wasn't pushed from the top of the Duomo."

Murmurs. Muttering. Gasps.

"The tape shows that she was backed against the gallery railing, shooting a picture of something above her head. Those of you who climbed to the top know it can be pretty windy up there, and the weather conditions proved fatal for Jeannette."

The wind blew her off? Oh, man, there should be signs warning about that.

"Some of you may have noticed that she was wearing a scarf around her neck two days ago. The video shows a wind gust ripping the scarf from her throat and carrying it over the rail. When she spun around to catch it, she found herself immobilized because the back of her dress was snagged on the railing. But she lunged for the scarf anyway and was too off-balance to stop herself when she leaned too far over. It all happened in a matter of seconds. She didn't even have time to scream."

My breath caught in my throat. Jeannette