Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery - By Judy Clemens Page 0,41

was waiting on a table of two elderly couples. When she’d gotten the order she came over. “Well, who’s this?” She eyed Eric up and down.

Casey stiffened. “A friend.”

“Eric.” He held out his hand.

Bailey took it, cocking her hips and shoving her chest a little more forward, as if that were possible. She leaned toward him, keeping a hold on his hand. “I’m Bailey. And I didn’t know Casey had any friends. Especially ones I’d like.”

Eric slid his hand from hers. “Nice to meet you.”

Bailey giggled, and flung her hair over her shoulder, pulling her shirt collar farther open.

Death laughed. “Whew! She’s something, isn’t she?

“So, Bailey,” Casey said, “can we talk to the guys?”

Bailey smirked, as if she knew exactly what she was doing to Casey and to Eric. “Let me make sure Karl’s busy in his office. He’d say you couldn’t be back there because of regulations. Yeah, I know. As if this place is big on that. Give me a minute. I’ll be right back. Eric.” She smiled and flung her hair again as she spun in a slow half-circle and meandered away, hips swinging.

“Well,” Eric said when she was gone. “At least one woman around here likes me.” He gave Casey a half-smile.

“That’s your opening to say you like him, too,” Death said.

“Well,” Casey said, “I never would have expected Bailey to have good taste in men.”

Eric’s smile grew, but he ducked his head, like he was embarrassed.

Casey looked around at the tables in the dining room. Mostly they were empty, with dirty dishes and cups of melting ice, surrounded by greasy, ketchup-ridden plates. But there were still a few tables with customers—mostly older couples, not exactly the blue-collar crowd Alicia had avoided and Bailey depended on. Maybe they would be willing to talk about Alicia.

Casey stopped by the first table, but the couple there hadn’t known any of the waitresses other than Bailey. The next group, the two couples Bailey had been serving when Casey and Eric had arrived, remembered Alicia, but didn’t have anything to say other than that she was polite and efficient and always kept their coffee hot.

“Um, I think someone over there is trying to get your attention.” Eric gestured to a group of five women, none under the age of eighty. They waved her over from across the room, eyes glistening, red lipstick smudged from breakfast.

“I don’t know,” Eric said. “It looks a bit dangerous.”

“We’re living on the edge.”

They made their way to the women, who sat around three two-person tables that had been pushed together. Death had taken the sixth chair, and was trying to avoid the dirty plates and crumpled napkins piled in the empty spot.

“Honey.” The woman in the nearest chair clutched Casey’s wrist with a bony, bejeweled hand.

Casey’s first instinct was to twist the woman’s arm behind her back and shove her face onto the table, but she had enough control to realize that would have been over-reacting. And she probably would have snapped that frail old radius right in half. Instead, she swallowed her defensive response and forced a smile.

“What are you going around talking to everyone about?” Ring Lady said. “There’s nothing boring old Pearl and Ethan over there know that we couldn’t tell you ten times more about. It’s a group effort here, you know, with centuries represented. Sort of like those groups of really smart people who all try to figure out how to make the world a better place, or stop it from ending, or whatever—what are they called?” She flapped her hand at the others.

“A brain trust!” one hollered.

“Mensa!”

“A consortium!”

A tiny woman with tortoise-shell glasses winked at Casey. “Librarians.”

The first one let go and patted her arm. “So what was it you wanted to know about, sweetie-pie?”

Death poked a finger at some congealing eggs. “Other than why they’re here eating in this dive when it’s obvious they could afford higher class cuisine?”

“There was another waitress here before,” Casey said. “Alicia McManus. Early thirties, brown hair, pretty.”

Several tongues clicked, and there was general shuffling around the table.

“You mean that poor girl who got…killed?” Ring woman leaned in like it was a secret.

“Yes. Did you know her?”

“Of course we did, dear.” This was a woman across the table. She wore a bright red hat, and the hair Casey could see was pure white. “She was our waitress whenever the other girl wasn’t here, ever since early summer.”

They looked at each other, their eyes shifting back and forth between their friends and the back