Death on the Diagonal - By Nero Blanc Page 0,39

Angel—and then a still-swaying Chip—registered their sneers.

“How long do we have to sit around here, anyway?” he groused.

“It’s my understanding,” was Michael Palamountain’s didactic response, “that we’re expected to remain in situ until Detective Lever has had the opportunity to speak with all of us.”

Chip replied with an elongated groan. “In situ,” he muttered, dragging out the letters. “What an insight. May I cite your excellent use of Latin, Michael? And why stop there, old boy? Why not add intra muros, between these walls. On inter nos, between ourselves. Which we all know is how Daddy likes to keep things.”

But before anyone could reply to this barb, another voice broke in. “Anything you need, Mr. C?”

The speaker who’d just entered the room through a nearly invisible service door had a soft southern drawl and a similarly gentle air. “Coffee or juice . . . or some sweet rolls, maybe? Or I could make up a batch of those biscuits you’re so fond of.”

“Ah, Kelly, I didn’t know you were still here,” Todd said. “I thought you were going to the hospital to be with your husband.” Genuine concern echoed through the tone.

“I couldn’t leave you all like this, Mr. C. Not with what’s happened. I’ll get up there later. Don’t you worry. Anyway, Orlando’ll understand. I know he will.” Kelly gave him an uneasy smile. “Besides, I’m not altogether sure he even recognizes me.”

“But he is improving, right?” Fiona asked, although her voice lacked both warmth and compassion.

“He’s doing better, thanks. That’s what they’re all tellin’ me, anyway . . . C’mon now, who wants me to fetch something from the kitchen? It’s the least I can do, and I sure don’t enjoy rattling around out there on my lonesome while the police prowl hither and yon poking their noses into everything. C’mon gang. Speak up. Your wish is my command, as they say. How about it? You Fiona? Or Michael? Heather? Jack? Mr. C.—?”

“I could use a refill on this O.J.” Chip held out an empty glass.

“Without the vodka this time,” was Fiona’s acid addition to the request.

“That’s what a screwdriver is, sister dearest—or maybe you need Mr-Fix-It there to tell you,” her brother hissed while Todd’s voice thundered out:

“I won’t have it, I tell you! All this backbiting and sniping . . . My wife is lying up there dead at this very moment. Attacked. Stabbed! Murdered in this very house! And not one of you has the courtesy to remember that fact, or to consider what my feelings might be.” Then his angry speech suddenly faltered, and his shoulders slumped; and Belle watched the commanding and patriarchal figure diminish into that of an old and griefstricken man. Not vipers, she thought, they’re too cold-blooded for this lot. Maybe tigers is a more apt analogy. And one of them is a killer.

CHAPTER

15

“ ‘He who rides a tiger,’ as the Chinese proverb so aptly warns us, ‘is afraid to dismount.’ ” The statement was delivered by Bartholomew Kerr as he stood on Belle and Rosco’s front steps. “Of course, Sir Winston Churchill applied the same adage to the world’s dictators in his sterling work While England Slept, and then concluded with a customarily pithy: ‘And the tigers are getting hungry.’ ”

Bartholomew paused in his monologue only long enough to add a peeved, “I simply cannot believe I’m being asked—strike that: ordered—to write an obituary on Madame Ryan Collins! An obit, for Heaven’s sake, Dear Bella! As if I were no more than a snotty-nosed copyboy or a drooling features editor being put out to pasture.” He groaned in abundant self-pity. “Aren’t you even going to ask me in for a spot of morning sustenance? Sorry, I didn’t call in advance, and all that, but the dictator we call our beloved editor in chief is riding my striped and tortured back. Why else would I be up and about at the unholy hour of eight-thirty in the morning?”

Ordinarily, Belle would have happily invited Bartholomew in for a cup of his favorite jasmine tea, but she had a sense that this visit was less social than he was pretending. She’d seen Bartholomew Kerr in story-hunting mode many times before, and this was definitely one of those moments.

“Your darling hubby’s not around perchance, is he?”

Belle shook her head as she opened the door—which set off a ferocious amount of yapping from the two dogs, who raced around the corner and threw themselves at their diminutive friend.

“And how are the dear duchesses?” Bartholomew