the ME can tell us for sure how this guy died.” He gave
Joe an even darker look. “You know better, Flynn—
why didn’t you tell them to hold their horses?”
Joe stared up at the ceiling, looking innocent in his
choirboy costume. “I’m retired, I’m old, I forgot.”
Cairo grunted. “If you say so.”
Joe said nothing.
But his former colleague wasn’t giving up. “Hey,”
Cairo urged with an expansive gesture. “Share your
thoughts with us, for old times’ sake. Reach out. We’re
listening.”
“I never speculate,” Joe said quietly.
“No kidding?” Cairo gazed at Joe with feigned
shock, then swore as the faulty cupboard door swung
open and rested gently against his right ear. “What’s
with this thing?” the detective demanded. “Ghosts?”
Judith shook her head. “The spring is sprung. Or
something. It does that often.”
Cairo glared at Joe. “Can’t you or your slave here
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fix the damned thing?” He gave the door a vicious
slam, rattling china and glassware in the cupboards.
Judith gritted her teeth.
But Cairo’s gaze was now on the spider above the
sink. He turned to Judith. “What about you, Mrs.
Flynn? Is that scary tarantula wannabe one of your
Halloween decorations?”
“No.”
“Oh?” Cairo grew curious. “Then who put it there?”
“I’ve no idea,” Judith replied. “I didn’t see it when I
was in the kitchen before . . . before Mr. Zepf died.”
Cairo nudged Dilys. “You hear that, young lady?
Mrs. Flynn doesn’t know how that nasty old bug got
there. What’s your idea?”
Warily, Dilys looked up at the spider. “Are you sure
it’s not real?”
Cairo reached up and gave the spider a spin. “Definitely fake.”
Dilys gave a nod. “So maybe . . .” Her small voice
trailed off.
“Yes?” Cairo urged. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe”—Dilys swallowed hard—“someone put
the spider up there to frighten the deceased. You know,
like a practical joke.”
Cairo frowned at her. “Come now, isn’t that pretty
far-fetched?”
Dilys was blushing furiously. “Ah . . . maybe, but—”
“She could be right,” Judith put in, unable to watch
the young woman suffer further. “The deceased—Mr.
Zepf—was superstitious about spiders. They terrified
him. Someone had already tried to scare him by placing one of these phony tarantulas in his bed.”
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“No kidding.” Cairo moved his frown to Judith.
“You sure about that, Mrs. Flynn?”
“Absolutely,” Judith replied. “There were several
witnesses. Not to mention that Mr. Zepf became frightened by a very small but very real spider out on the
back porch. I saw that with my own eyes.” To Judith’s
satisfaction, Dilys had slipped behind Cairo and was
making bunny ears above his head. Maybe, she
thought, the young detective wasn’t quite as cowed as
she pretended.
At that moment Angela La Belle and Ben Carmody
appeared in the hallway that led from the back stairs.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked, looking sleepy.
Joe turned to the pair. “Didn’t Ms. Best tell you?”
Ms. Best hadn’t. “What’s to tell?” Angela inquired.
“Bruno’s dead.” She was wearing a paper-thin wrapper
over a sheer, short nightgown. “Are there any truffles
left?”
Cairo’s dark eyes were bugging out from underneath the black brows that grew together. “Now who’s
this, I might ask?” He leered at Joe. “Another one of
your slaves?”
“This is Angela La Belle,” Joe said woodenly, “and
Ben Carmody. They’re part of the movie company that
came here with Bruno Zepf. You do have a list of possible witnesses, don’t you?”
“Ah!” The question was ignored as Cairo beamed
and put out a pawlike hand. “Celebrities! I’m thrilled.”
Despite the grin, it was obvious that Cairo would have
preferred meeting a pair of real tarantulas.
Dilys, however, was goggle-eyed as she stared at
Angela La Belle. “Ohmigod! I saw you in your first
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big movie, that musical— Enjoy Your Pants! You have
such a beautiful voice!”
Angela was scanning the kitchen counters, apparently for truffles. “Thanks. It was a small part. My
voice was dubbed.”
“But the dancing!” Dilys enthused. “Looking down
from way up high on you with all the spinning and
leaping and twirling and—”
“That was a double,” Angela said, opening a couple
of plastic containers. “I’ve got two left feet.” She
looked at Judith. “So they ate all the truffles?”
“I guess so,” Judith replied. “Eugenia Fleming
seemed especially fond of them.”
“Bummer.” Angela took in the official yellow tape
that Stone Cold Sam Cairo was putting up between the
kitchen and the dining room. “Oh,” she said with mild
interest, “is this a crime scene or what?”
“Bruno couldn’t have drowned,” Ben Carmody remarked. “Win must be wrong. He probably had a heart
attack. Not that I blame him after what happened
tonight.”
Cairo whirled around with surprising agility for
such a thickset man. “And what was that, young fellow?”
Ben gazed incredulously at the detective. “The premiere. What else? Bruno bombed. Big time.”
“Ah, yes.” Cairo rummaged in the pocket of his
navy-blue raincoat. “What’s it called?” He peered at a
small notepad. “The Gasbag?”
“It might as well be,” Ben said with a heavy sigh.
“It’s The Gasman, ” he added, emphasizing the final
syllable.
“So,” Cairo said, stuffing the notepad back inside
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his raincoat, “the deceased had suffered a big disappointment, had he? Did he have a history of heart trouble?”
Angela and Ben looked at each other.
“Ulcers, maybe,” Angela said.
“High blood pressure?” Ben suggested.
“Ask Win.” Angela pulled the folds of her wrapper
more tightly around her body. “Win knows everything,” she added with a sniff.
Cairo nodded sagely. “Let’s have a word with this
Win. That would be Winifred Best, correct?”
“Right,” Ben said. “Come on, Angela, let’s go back
upstairs.”
“But no further,” Cairo called after them. “We don’t
want any of you fancy birds to fly the nest. Har, har.”
Angela, who had started down the hallway, turned
around and glared at the detective. “What do you
mean? Are we stuck in this place for some weird reason?”
“That’s right,” Cairo said with a sharp shake of his
head. “You’re stuck until I unstick you. Surely you’re
enjoying the company of Mr. and Mrs. Flynn here.”
Angela managed an ineffectual smile. “They’re
nice, but . . .”
“We’ve got meetings to take, lunches to do, people
to . . .” Ben began in a not unreasonable voice.
“In due time, my lad, in due time.” Cairo waved the
pair off with a faintly sinister smile.
They had just disappeared up the stairs when someone knocked at the back door. Judith and Joe stared at