Read Online A Nose for Death by Glynis Whiting - Free Book Online

realized that he was jealously hoarding the little time they’d have together.
    â€œHow’s the reunion going? Did you and Roger make up?” Betty was asking out of courtesy, not any real concern. In retrospect the incident with Roger had been so stupid. Two middle-aged men letting their tempers flare. Gabe decided not to alarm her. He’d tell her about Roger’s death when she was back in Elgar. He should have patched things up with Roger, apologized for threatening to arrest him last week. Now he’d never have the chance.
    â€œJust be careful on the highway,” he warned. “It’s supposed to rain all weekend.” He hung up and headed for the shower. He’d left instructions that everyone who had been at the reunion, guests and staff, should be asked to congregate at the high school gym at ten. He’d be surprised if his officers were able to get everyone there. There was no record of where his former classmates were staying. There was the hotel and Riverside RV Park; they’d also have to match attendees to relatives in the phone book. They couldn’t order witnesses to stay in town. Pretty soon people would start spreading like buckshot. When that happened, the chance of solving Roger’s homicide would become exponentially more difficult. They had their work cut out for them.
    There were patches of blue peeping through the clouds as Joan walked from the motel to the new high school. “New” was a relative qualifier since it had opened almost twenty years ago. The sprawling complex served the vast surrounding region of logging towns and the nearby nickel mine. Madden was also the regional seat of provincial government. The school served a cross-section of blue- and white-collar families. Her old school was diminutive in comparison. Those grounds had been turned into a pretty park, and the sign in front of the old red brick building identified it as the Madden Cultural Centre and Day Care. It was much smaller than Joan remembered.
    A small group of smokers congregated outside the new school. Thirty years ago they would have been laughing and posing. Now they huddled in social banishment. She heard a shout from behind her.
    â€œJoan!”
    Even after decades, she recognized the warm contralto voice. She turned and grinned at Hazel, who was moving toward her with open arms. Except for forty extra pounds, her old friend hadn’t changed much. Her dark hair, flecked with grey, was in the same Beatle bob that it had been thirty years before, and her heavy-rimmed glasses had been replaced with a frameless pair. She wore a straight silk shift that hung to her ankles and Joan was certain the pattern of bright tangerine and teal swirls was an original hand-painted design. They fell into each other’s arms and Joan felt herself pushing back tears again. It was either pre-menstrual or pre-menopausal, this constant urge to cry, compounded by the stressful night. There was comfort in the incensed silk shoulder. She held Hazel at arm’s length.
    â€œIt’s quite a shock, isn’t it?”
    Hazel nodded. Her eyes were swollen red, as though she’d been crying for hours. She took the tissue that Joan offered and wiped the tears from under her glasses. “He’d been unhappy most of his life, Joannie. Maybe now he’s found peace at last.”
    This seemed a strange reaction to Roger’s murder. Hazel was a minister, and even when they were kids she’d been the rational one, but it was a placid position in the face of such violence.
    The crowd was filing into the school. Hazel took Joan’s arm and they entered together.
    The gymnasium stink rushed at Joan. A hundred windbreakers, rain jackets and sweatshirts, a hundred pairs of running shoes, rain boots and loafers crammed into close, airless quarters permeated the room, along with variations of soap, shampoos, and colognes. The worst, though, was the smell of sweat pouring from