As Judith gazed with compassion at Bruno’s lifeless
form, the familiar sound of sirens could be heard in the
distance. “The neighbors.” She sighed. “What will they
think now?” She paused, a hand clutching at the deep
neckline of her Roman gown. “The guests! What shall
I do?”
“Nothing,” Joe replied as the first of the sirens
stopped nearby. “Yet. I’ll get the door. You stay with
the stiff.”
Judith flinched. It was bad enough that she and Joe
were drinking Scotch and standing over a corpse. But
now her husband had reverted to his professional self,
hard-boiled, keeping his distance, just-part-of-the-job.
She, on the other hand, apparently had slipped into the
role of Joe’s longtime partner, Woody Price. Despite
her not infrequent confrontations with corpses, Judith
wasn’t indifferent to the body on the kitchen floor.
Surely Bruno had family who must be notified.
Winifred would know.
Joe returned with two familiar figures in tow. Darnell
Hicks and Mercedes Berger had been summoned to Hillside Manor before, when a mobster had been gunned
down outside of Gertrude’s toolshed. Over two years
later they still looked young, but not nearly so naive.
“What a shame,” Darnell said, gazing down at
Bruno. “How’d he get so soggy?”
Mercedes glanced at the sink. “What’d he do, stick
his head in there and couldn’t get out?”
Before Judith or Joe could respond, the medics and
the firefighters arrived. “Come on,” Joe said with a
hand on Judith’s elbow, “let’s retreat into the dining
room and give the folks some space.”
“To do what?” Judith asked, moving through the
swinging doors. “Oh, Joe, I can’t stand it! It’s got to be
an accident, right?”
Joe didn’t answer directly. “We’ll find out more
after the ME gets done. It may be tomorrow afternoon
before we hear anything. Saturday nights can be pretty
busy, especially on a holiday weekend.”
Darnell Hicks gave a tentative rap on the swinging
doors. “May I?”
“Sure,” Joe said, going back into the kitchen.
“What’s up?”
“We’re going to take the body to the morgue.” Darnell’s brown eyes seemed intrigued by the Flynns’ costumes. “Do you or Mrs. Flynn have any idea what
happened to the guy? Was this a Halloween party?”
As Joe started to explain, Winifred appeared in the
