Read Online Larkspur by Sheila Simonson - Free Book Online Page A

"Poor old duffer. Heart gave out for good."
    I cleared my throat. "Had he suffered an earlier heart attack? I know he was on
digitalis."
    "Angina, my dear," Lydia said sadly. "For his age he was remarkably healthy. Poor, poor
Dai. Someone will have to tell Ann."
    "Mrs. Peltz?" Jay had been standing silently by the big fireplace.
    "I was thinking of her mother," Lydia murmured, "but Angharad, too, of course."
    At that point the telephone rang, and Jay went off to answer it looking thoughtful.
    Bill scribbled, Lydia poured herself a cup of coffee, Janey and I sipped and looked at
each other. When Jay came back I could tell from the taut on-the-scent look that his suspicions
had been confirmed. It was murder.
    He waited until he had caught everyone's eyes then said, without preamble or
explanation, "I want to talk to everybody who was here last night before you leave for home.
Mrs. Huff, if you'll wake Denise, Lark can walk over and let the Peltzes know. At nine. That'll
give you all time for breakfast and packing."
    Janey and Lydia gaped at him. Bill frowned. "What the hell, Dodge? Aren't you taking a
lot on yourself?"
    "Police business. I have some questions to ask you, and I might as well do it while you're
still here in one spot. Lark?"
    I stood up. "What do you want me to tell them?"
    "That Llewellyn is dead, and I want to question them." That was going to go down really
well with Ted Peltz.
    "All right. Will you come with me, Janey?"
    Janey nodded, eyes wide.
    Janey was very quiet. About halfway along the path she stopped and addressed a
manzanita bush. "There's something fishy, isn't there--about Dai's death?"
    I wondered what to say.
    "Was it the Campari?"
    I sighed. There are limits to discretion which, in any case, is not my middle name. "Jay
thinks he was poisoned."
    She looked at me. "Murdered?"
    I nodded.
    She closed her eyes. "And the Peltzes are prime suspects."
    "They do have a motive."
    "No wonder you didn't want to come over here alone."
    I bristled then wilted. "I needed a bodyguard and you're it--she."
    Janey covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. "Oops. God, I'm sorry. It's not
funny, just crazy. The whole thing's crazy. Dai wasn't murdered. He was an old man who took
digitalis for angina and had a heart attack on a hot day."
    "Maybe." I was pretty sure not.
    "Well, let's get going." She set herself in motion.
    Nobody was up chez Peltz. I knocked at the front door, a varnished slab of
timber with no window. No answer. I knocked again. And again. Finally Angharad undid the
latch and the door creaked open.
    "Whaa...?" She slept in a long tee-shirt that said Property of the 49ers.
    I delivered Jay's message.
    Angharad blinked. Her hair hung down in apricot witch locks. "You mean Uncle Dai is
dead?"
    "That's right."
    She was wide awake now. She bit her lower lip, and her eyes narrowed. "Ted!" she
yelled over her shoulder, "Ted, wake up..." and shut the door in my face.
    "Nine o'clock," I yelled back at the unresponsive door. "Be there."
    Janey and I looked at each other.
    When we got back to the grounds of the lodge, Jay and Miguel were making a barricade
of lawn chairs and rope around the patch of grass we'd been sitting on the night before.
    I don't think I tasted breakfast, though I ate a lot. I'm sure it was as exquisitely prepared
as our other meals at the lodge, though. Domingo, impassive, seemed determined not to admit
that anything had changed.
    Miguel kept sighing and watching us all with dark, reproachful eyes, as if he knew who
to blame. His grief rang true, but I didn't know exactly what it meant. He was a very handsome
young man. Pretty, even. But he had called Llewellyn " patr?n " and, unlike Ginger, I had
seen no sign of flirtation between them. Miguel was good at his job, too--quick, thorough, mostly
unobtrusive. It was possible he was exactly what he purported to be--chauffeur and
houseboy.
    Or he could have been Dai Llewellyn's Abishag.
    Denise did not come down to breakfast. Lydia had