Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,5

Mother enumerated, “a country club, all the major automobile dealerships, though I’m afraid you’ll have to get the Mercedes repaired in Atlanta.”

I heard Jack Burns shouting down the stairs. He wanted the fingerprint man to “get his ass in gear.”

“Lawrenceton is practically a suburb of Atlanta now,” Barby Lampton said, earning her a hard look from my mother. Most Lawrencetonians were not too pleased about the ever-nearing annexation of Lawrenceton into the greater Atlanta area.

“And the school system is excellent,” my mother continued with a little twitch of her shoulders. “Though I don’t know if that’s an area of interest—?”

“No, my son just graduated from college,” Martin Bartell murmured. “And Barby’s girl is a freshman at Kent State.”

“Aurora is my only child,” Mother said naturally enough. “She’s worked at the library here for what—six years, Roe?”

I nodded.

“A librarian,” he said thoughtfully.

Why was it librarians had such a prim image? With all the information available in books right there at their fingertips, librarians could be the best-informed people around. About anything.

“Now she’s thinking about going into real estate, and looking for her own home at the same time.”

“You think you’d like selling homes?” Barby said politely.

“I’m beginning to think maybe it’s not for me,” I admitted, and my mother looked chagrined.

“Honey, I know this morning has been a horrible experience—poor Tonia Lee—but you know this is not something that happens often. But I am beginning to think I’ll have to establish some kind of system to check on my female realtors when they are out showing a house to a client we don’t know. Aurora, maybe Aubrey wouldn’t like you selling real estate? My daughter has been dating our Episcopalian priest for several months,” she explained to her clients with an almost-convincing casualness.

“Episcopalians have a reputation for being generally liberal,” Martin Bartell remarked out of the blue.

“I know, but Aubrey is an exception if that really is true,” Mother said, and my heart sank. “He is a wonderful man— I’ve come to know him since I married my present husband, who is a cradle Episcopalian—but Aubrey is very conservative.”

I felt my cheeks turn red in the cold room. I ran a nervous hand under the hair at my neck, loosening the strands that had gotten tucked in my jacket collar, and tilted my head back a little to shake it straight.

Thinking about Tonia Lee Greenhouse was preferable to feeling like a parakeet that is extremely excited at the prospect of being eaten by the cat.

I thought about the loathsome way Tonia had been positioned, a parody of seductiveness. I thought about the leather thongs on Tonia’s wrists. Had she been tied to the ornate wooden headboard? Old Mr. and Mrs. Anderton must be turning in their graves. I thought about Tonia Lee in life— tall, thin, with teased dark hair and bright makeup, a woman who was rumored to be often unfaithful to her husband, Donnie. I wondered if Donnie had just gotten tired of Tonia Lee’s ways, if he’d followed her to her appointment and taken care of her after the client had left. I wondered if Tonia had been overcome by passion for her client and had bedded him here in the invitingly luxurious master bedroom, or if she’d had an assignation with someone she’d been seeing for a while. Maybe the house-showing had been a fictitious cover to let her romp in one of the prettiest houses in Lawrenceton.

“Mackie brought her the key yesterday,” I said suddenly.

“What?” asked my mother with reproof in her voice. I had no idea what they’d been talking about.

“Yesterday about five o’clock, while I was waiting for you in the reception room, Tonia Lee called your office and asked for the key. She said she’d been held up—if anyone was getting off work, she’d be really obliged if they could drop it off here; she’d meet them. I handed the phone to Mackie Knight. He was leaving just then, and he said he’d do it.”

“We’ll have to tell the police. Maybe Mackie was the last one to see her alive—or maybe he saw the man she was going to show the house to!”

Then Jack Burns was in the doorway, and I sighed.

Detective Sergeant Jack Burns was a frightening man, and he really couldn’t stand me. If he could ever arrest me for anything, he’d just love to do it. Luckily for me, I’m very law-abiding, and since I had come to know Jack Burns, I’d made sure I got my car inspected right