Read Online Amy Patricia Meade - Marjorie McClelland 02 - Ghost of a Chance by Amy Patricia Meade - Free Book Online Page A

you said there was nothing else in the hotel room?”
    The detective shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

    “What about the fair? What did you turn up there? Did anyone
actually witness Nussbaum’s murder?”
    “Not a soul. People saw Nussbaum get on the Ferris wheel, but
after that, they draw a blank. No one seemed to notice anything suspicious. There was, however, a strange woman seen lurking around
a nearby booth directly before the time of the murder.”
    Creighton narrowed his eyes. “A `strange’ woman? Strange how?”
    “Well, Mrs. Hodgkin, the woman in charge of the booth, described her as tall, slender, and dressed in a long-sleeved white wool
suit”
    “Wool? It was probably eighty-five degrees yesterday.”
    “Exactly. Witnesses also claim she was wearing kidskin gloves.”
    Creighton rubbed his chin meditatively. “How old was this
woman?”
    Jameson shook his head. “No one knows. Mrs. Hodgkin was the
only one to get a good look at her, and she said anywhere from her
late twenties to her early fifties.”
    “Could she be more vague?” the Englishman cracked.
    “The woman was wearing dark glasses and a hat with a veil, so
no one really saw her face too clearly.”
    Tall and thin? An idea popped into Creighton’s head. “What
about her hair?”
    “What about her hair?” Jameson returned the question.
    “What color was it?”
    “Black,” Jameson replied, then cracked a knowing smile. “Hoping it was red?”
    “Just a thought. You must admit Mrs. Nussbaum wasn’t too broken up over the death of her husband. Add to that the fact that she
was packing to leave town and… “

    “Yeah, the thought occurred to me, too. But, just because the
woman at the fair was seen with black hair doesn’t mean it was her
own. She could have been wearing a wig. And Josie just happens to
own a trunk full of wigs and other costumes; Noonan found it during his search.”
    “Well, being a-how should I say?-an `entertainer,” it wouldn’t
be unusual for Josie to have those sorts of things lying about.”
    “Mmm. That’s precisely why I said we didn’t find anything out
of the ordinary in the Nussbaum’s hotel room.” Coming upon a slow
speed zone, the detective shifted the car into a lower gear. “But we do
have yet another clue to this woman’s identity. She was a smoker.”
    “Oh good, that should make it a lot easier,” he joked. “Hardly
anyone smokes nowadays.”
“
    I know, I know. It’s nothing big, but hey, every little bit helps.”
    “Does it? For all we know, this mystery woman just has an abnormally low body temperature. She could have absolutely nothing
to do with the murder.” He glanced at the rearview mirror again; the
jalopy was gaining on them. “Are we sure she was the only stranger
at the fair?”
    “The `only’ stranger? Are you kidding? The fair is a big to-do.
There were scads of people from towns as far as ten, twenty miles
away. The Hartford Bus Company even added extra buses to Ridgebury just for this weekend. My men are wading through dozens of
descriptions, right now, trying to see if the same person or people
appear in more than one eyewitness account.”
    “Any luck so far?”
    “As a matter of fact, yes. There were two men-business typeswho rode the Ferris wheel right before Nussbaum did. Same exact
car too.”

    “What did they look like?”
    The detective shrugged. “All we can get out of anyone is that they
stood out because they were wearing suits. Expensive suits, welltailored. Not the type of thing a guy wears to a church fair with lots
of sticky-fingered kids around. Apart from that, they were average
looking, clean-cut.”
    “An average appearance is a criminal’s best friend,” Creighton
commented.
    “Humph,” Jameson grunted in response. “Ain’t that the truth.”
    “And what about Nussbaum?”
    “What about Nussbaum?”
    “You mentioned the bus company adding extra buses to their
schedule. But