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  “And you don’t have any idea what he did with it?” Mitch persisted, watching her face.

  She turned and looked at him with weighty patience. “It was all in the last two or three months, which means that all the answers will be in the diary. Now can we talk about the diary?”

  Mitch grinned at her. “You are something else, Mabel.”

  She smiled back at him, and he forgot his place in the conversation. “Don’t you forget it,” she said. “What are you going to do next?”

  “Next?” Mitch blinked and came back to earth. “Oh. You’re going to drop me off at my garage so I can tell the people there to put a hurry-up on my new wheels. You drive like a woman, and it scares me.”

  “Wimp.”

  “Then, tomorrow, we’ll do the memorial, and then we’ll start looking for the diary.”

  Mae watched him, suspicion blatant in her eyes. “So you’re still investigating?”

  “Until you do something to annoy me.” Mitch sat up in his seat again. “Then I’m cashing Claud’s check. So, from now on, I want some respect from you. Could we get going now?”

  “You want my respect, earn it.” Mae put the car in gear and when they were out on the road again, she asked him casually, “So what did you say about my butt?”

  “To Claud?” Mitch shrugged, trying not to let his thoughts dwell on her rear end. “I told him it was adequate.”

  “You lied,” Mae said. “It’s magnificent and you know it.”

  “Everybody lies,” Mitch said.

  MITCH CALLED NEWTON as soon as Mae dropped him off at the garage. “I need you to check on a few things for me.”

  “I’m still checking on the other few things.” Newton sounded harried. “I’m still a stockbroker, you know. I’m still covering all your clients for you. I’m—”

  “There’s a beautiful woman involved here,” Mitch said soothingly.

  “I know, you told me. Mabel.”

  “Not Mabel. Mabel is not beautiful.” Mitch tried not to think about Mae’s big dark eyes and curving mouth. “Not technically. This woman is technically beautiful. Perfect. You should see her, Newton.”

  “Why?” Newton’s suspicion was palpable, even over the phone.

  “Because every man should see her. It’ll restore your faith in humanity. Her name is Stormy Klosterman, and she was Armand’s mistress. Supposedly he bought her a condo. Find out if he did.”

  Newton’s sigh was part exasperation, part resignation. “How?”

  “Seduce her.”

  “Me?”

  “She’s a redhead, Newton.”

  There was a long silence. “Just like Brigid.”

  “Better than Brigid.”

  “All right,” Newton said finally. “In the meantime, what are you going to be doing? Seducing Mabel?”

  Mitch swallowed. “No. Seducing Mabel would be hazardous to my health. And my sanity.”

  “You’re seeing a lot of her.”

  Mitch remembered Mae leaning toward him and the lush curves he’d seen when she had, and his breath started to go. Don’t even think about it, he told himself. “You don’t understand. She’s surrounded by homicidal men who watch her like hawks. Plus, this woman is so stubborn, she makes mules look indecisive. If her relatives didn’t get me, she’d drive me crazy in a week.”

  Of course, it would be one hell of a week. His mind went back to those curves, and his hands sliding up to cup those curves and then down to…no. He loosened his tie and shoved Mae out of his mind to return to the problem of Armand, making his voice brisk as an antidote to the thoughts that were making him choke. “I’m reading the most recent diary again tonight. Armand Lewis was evidently offloading some of his capital in the form of paintings and furniture and stock, and I want to see if I missed any mention of him having a garage sale. Oh, and here’s something else interesting—a woman named Barbara Ross says she’s married to Armand Lewis.”

  “She inherits half, then. Wives get half automatically.”

  “Another good reason not to get married.”

  “Her name is really Stormy?”

  “Find out. You’re the detective.”

  “And in the meantime, you’ll be doing what?”

  “I’ll be at Armand’s memorial.” Mitch sighed as he thought about it. “Watching all the people who are glad he’s dead.”

  Five

  When Harold answered the door at two the next afternoon, Mitch was in his best suit and his Frank Lloyd Wright tie.

  “That is the ugliest tie I’ve ever seen,” Harold said.

  “Nice to see you, too.” Mitch pushed past him and peered down the dim hall. “Where’s Mabel?”

  Harold closed the door. “They’re all in the dining room. Don’t pig out on the canapés.”

  “Thank you, Harold.” Mitch nodded at him. “That will do. You may go now.”

  Harold snorted, and then the doorbell rang, and he returned to his duties.

  Mitch ambled down the hallway picking up muted voices as he neared the second door past the library.

  The place wasn’t packed, but it was nicely filled with people who milled around sedately and chatted, obviously not overcome with grief for the departed. Mitch took a glass of punch from a tray that went by and drifted to the wall where he leaned on the edge of a sideboard and watched the people mingle. Then he saw Mae across the room and stopped with his drink halfway to his mouth.

  She was dressed in a short black dress that fastened with a row of tiny black buttons that curved all the way up the front to a collarless V neck. She looked round and healthy and fresh, and he gazed at her for a minute for the sheer pleasure of having his eyes on her. There was absolutely no trace of the pink-suited Brigid who’d been snotty all over his office two days before, and for the first time, Mitch wondered where she’d gotten the pink suit and high-rise heels that were definitely not Mabel couture.

  Then June swayed into the room carrying a tray of canapés, dressed in a pink suit and heels, and Mitch knew. She spotted him and rumbaed over, dazzling everyone in her path.

  “Mitch, darling.” She jabbed the tray at him. “Have a canapé. I’ll make you some real food later.”

  “Deep in mourning, I see.” He snagged a sliver of bread decorated with a shrimp and moved the tray away from his solar plexus with his drink hand. “That’s a nice suit you’re wearing. How the hell did Mabel ever get into it?” He crunched down on the shrimp.

  “We used a shoehorn.” June poked him with the tray again. “Take a couple more. I’ve got to keep circulating, and these people are like locusts. I had a pin on this suit, and I swear somebody ate it.”

  “Why did you use a shoehorn?” Mitch picked up another bread finger. “What was wrong with the dress she’s got on now?”

  “This one’s sexier. We were trying to seduce you into working for us.” June picked up another canapé and handed it to him, forcing him to eat the one he had in order to free his hand for the new one. “Try one of these. They’re Harold’s favorite.”

  “Why were you trying to seduce me?” Mitch mumbled around his mouthful of canapé. “The money was plenty.”

  “We wanted you to believe that Armand was murdered.” June surveyed the crowd and sighed. “I should just throw the tray in the middle of the floor and let them fight for it. Feeding frenzy.”

  Mitch swallowed his canapé. “June, would you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “I have no idea.” June moved back into the crowd, which closed around her like sharks around a tourist.

  “Kincaid, don’t tell me you were Armand’s broker.”

  Mitch turned to see his lawyer, Nick Jamieson, regarding him with horror. “No, and I’m Mitch Peatwick, so just go away. The last thing I need is a hotshot society lawyer blowing my cover. What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I worked for Armand once,” Nick said gloomily, as his wife joined them. “It wasn’t my finest moment but—”

  “Hello, Mitch darling.” Tess sli