Read Online Died with a Bow by Grace Carroll - Free Book Online Page A

what Vienna had said about Geoffrey, plus the possible other men in her life and her roommate as well as her fractured family life would give him some suspects other than me to work on, but as usual he hadn’t shown his gratitude in a very demonstrative way.
    I felt invigorated when I left the pool, and as soon as I turned on my cell phone, I saw I had a text message from Dolce to call her. At last she’d surfaced. I was so afraid of how she’d react to the news about Vienna, I went to a coffee shop, ordered an espresso and a blueberry scone, and found a quiet corner to call her after I’d fortified myself with the food and caffeine. Swimming always made me ravenous.
    “Rita,” she said. “I just got a call from the police. I don’t believe it. Is it true? What happened?” She sounded hysterical.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I only know that I found Vienna this morning when I went to return my dress to the shop. She was lying on the floor in her dress with the pink bow. It was awful.” Now it was my turn to fall apart. I started crying. It took me many minutes before I finally got hold of myself. All the while Dolce was trying to comfort me, but she was in no shape to be the comforter. What a pair we were.
    “Where are you?” I asked when I caught my breath.
    “I’m at home. I couldn’t believe it when I saw that yellow crime scene tape across the entrance. There was an officer at the front door. I had to show my ID before they’d let me in.”
    “That’s terrible,” I said. “They told me they’ve finished with it now, thank God. And I have the name of the company you should call about the cleanup.” I gave it to her, then I told her I’d tried to call her right after I found Vienna.
    “I stayed at the hotel overnight,” she said, “and had brunch this morning in the Garden Court.”
    “I’m glad you were able to enjoy it. I hear it’s fabulous. Sushi, dim sum, crepes…” I was glad Dolce hadn’t known about the murder or she’d never have been able to eat a bite of the delicious food in that beautiful room with the sun streaming in through the stained-glass windows.
    I wanted to ask if she’d spent the night with the pilot and if so, had she had brunch with him too. But I held my tongue. She’d never pried into my personal life, and I certainly shouldn’t pry into hers.
    “The Palace Court was even more beautiful this morning than last night,” she said wistfully. “I wish you could have been there.”
    “I wish I’d been there too instead of stumbling across Vienna’s body in our great room.”
    “How awful for you.”
    “I’m the one who called the police.”
    “It must have been an accident,” Dolce said.
    “The police don’t think so,” I said. She’d find out sooner or later they were treating it like a homicide.
    “They don’t know everything. They don’t know what a sweet girl she was. Nobody would have wanted her dead.”
    I couldn’t say, “But somebody did.” Why spoil Dolce’s memory of her protégée? I’d let Jack give her the bad news. He’d certainly want to talk to her.
    In fact she hung up to take a call on her other line, a call I thought might be from Jack. He’d just want to ask her a few questions, like where she was last night and who had a motive to kill her assistant. Jack would see right away that Dolce had absolutely no reason to kill Vienna. Of all the people in Vienna’s life, Dolce had to be number one on the list of nonsuspects. The question was, who was number one on the list of suspects? Me?
    By the time Dolce called me back, I was at home on the edge of my seat. Literally. I grabbed the phone and sat back down on a wooden chair in the kitchen because my living room was full of boxes waiting to be unpacked.
    “Oh, Rita,” she said. “You were right. The police do think it was murder. They asked me all kinds of questions.”
    “Was it Detective Wall?”
    “Yes, that’s right. I can’t believe he wanted to know where I was