Elaine Viets & Victoria Laurie, Nancy Martin, Denise Swanson - Drop-Dead Blonde (v5.0) (pdf) by Unknown (best classic books .TXT) 📗

``What is it about not having any money you don't under- stand?'' Deirdre snapped.

I looked over at Millicent and considered an idea for a long moment. Then I smiled when I had the answer, and said, ``Oh, I don't want your money, Deirdre. I'll just bet that all this publicity is probably going to work to your advantage, and once your name is cleared your fans are going to come out of the woodwork to support you. My guess is that the Hawaii retreat is still a go, so after you get through peddling ninety-eight of those one hundred BLIND SIGHTED 315 tickets to Hawaii, you're going to reserve the last two slots, free of charge, for my dear associate Millicent Satchel and her husband . . . uh . . .''

``Ernie,'' Millicent said quickly, excitement building in her eyes.

``Yeah, Ernie. And they'd better be first class tickets to boot. And while she's there you'll make sure her accommo- dations are the best and that she has plenty of food vouch- ers and coupons for her touring pleasure,'' I added.

Deirdre's own eyebrows lowered dangerously. I was ask- ing for the moon, and it must have irked her that I wasn't falling all over myself to help her out of her little predica- ment. ``Fine,'' she said flatly. ``But only if you find the mur- derer and I am completely exonerated.''

I nodded at Millicent, allowing her to make the decision.

``Deal!'' she sang sweetly. ``This is so exciting! I've al- ways wanted to go to Hawaii!''

``Okay, now that that's settled,'' I said, getting down to business, ``we can move on to identifying suspects. We've already done some of the preliminary work.''

Deirdre looked a question mark at me and asked, ``Pre- liminary work?''

``Yeah,'' I said smugly, ``I've already tuned in on the murder.''

``So you were already working on the case even before I came here?''

``Yup,'' I said allowing a small, ``nah-nah-nah-nah-nah'' smile to form on my lips.

``Great,'' Deirdre said rolling her eyes, ``just great. So tell me, what have you come up with?''

``Well,'' Cat said jumping in, ``Abby has been able to home in on several clues about the murderer, and from the very beginning she didn't think you did it.''

``Thanks,'' Deirdre said flatly to me, no real gratitude reaching her eyes. She then turned back to Cat and asked, ``What clues?''

Cat pulled out the piece of paper with my flashes of insight on them and ticked them off like a grocery list. ``Two killers--most likely they knew and betrayed Celeste. A reference to an apple tree, some poker chips, a calico cat, Little House on the Prairie, and basketball.'' 316 Victoria Laurie

Deirdre's face hung heavy with disappointment as she listened to the laundry list of odd clues and snapped, ``You have got to be kidding me.''

I couldn't help it; my dander kicked in, and I snapped testily back, ``They're metaphors, you know, like the type that come through a psychic message? Oh, that's right . . . you wouldn't know what that felt like, would you, Deirdre?''

Deirdre half stood at the insult, her upper lip curling menacingly, and Cat jumped in quickly. ``Ladies! Ladies . . . no reason to get upset here; we're all on the same team, after all, right?'' she asked, looking around at Millicent and me for support.

Deirdre collected herself with effort and sat slowly back down, glaring intently at me as I glared just as intently back, neither of us blinking or looking away from the other, but waiting it out to see where Cat would take us next.

``So let's try to work together on this, shall we?'' Cat said in a soothing tone. ``Deirdre, let's start with the first clue; do you know anyone who has an apple orchard or who likes apples, or even someone with that for a last name?''

``No,'' Deirdre said flatly, folding her hands together and tucking them snootily underneath her chin as she gave me a look of disdain.

I glared at her in warning, but Cat--ever the optimist-- persisted. ``I see. So how about poker? Do you know any- one who might want to kill Celeste who gambled or played poker?''

``No.''

Buzzzzz, buzzzzz, my intuitive phone rang. Shifting in my chair I homed in on the thought wanting to come into my head, and after a quick flash of insight I asked her, ``Are you sure?''

`` 'Am I sure' what?'' she repeated.

I scowled as I tried to make sense of the clue in my head, which insisted that Deirdre knew about a connection like Cat had just asked about. ``That you don't know some- one connected to Celeste who gambles?''

``I already told you I didn't'' she answered. Liar, liar . . . pants on fire.

I sighed heavily in frustration. Why wasn't she cooperat- BLIND SIGHTED 317 ing? She wanted to clear her name, didn't she? ``Deirdre,'' I began, trying to rein in my attitude for the sake of moving this train forward, ``you're holding something back on us, and I'm telling you that it's important that you come clean. If you want our help clearing your name--''

``I told you I don't know!'' Deirdre snapped, cutting me off and making several patrons look in our direction. Liar, liar . . . pants on fire . . .

I counted to ten and waved a hand at Cat to continue. This was going to get us nowhere, but what could I do?

``How about someone who owns a calico cat? Anyone you know who might want Celeste dead who owns a cal- ico cat?''

Deirdre shook her head and said, ``This is ridiculous! How the hell are we going to find the killer if all we have to go on are these idiotic metaphors?''

``We're doing our best,'' Cat