saw stars at the time.”
Hands on hips, Judith stared at her husband. “You
mean this is all our fault?”
“Yes,” Joe said in a weak voice. “We may have
killed Bruno Zepf.”
NINE
“THAT’S RIDICULOUS,” JUDITH declared. “How is it
our fault that Bruno bumped his head on an open
cupboard door? Maybe he opened it himself.”
Joe gave Judith a bleak look. “The door was broken. That’s negligence. That’s our fault.”
“My God,” Judith moaned, “we could be ruined!
If they find out about that door, they’ll sue, they’ll
take every cent we have!”
Joe’s expression turned grim. “What’s the insurance for guests?”
“Substantial,” Judith said, agitated. “I mean, adequate under normal circumstances. But not for
something like this, if we’re shown as being negligent and a big Hollywood celebrity gets . . . Think
of the publicity! It’s one thing to have a guest murdered by someone else, that can’t be helped,” Judith
went on, her usual sound logic working in strange
ways, “but an accident caused by the owners’ carelessness?” She put her hands over her face. “Oh,
Joe, I can’t bear it! I feel sick!”
“Well, you can’t throw up in the kitchen sink,”
Joe remarked, a touch of his characteristic humor
surfacing.
Judith took a deep breath. “I’m in shock. And that
poor man—if it’s our fault that he’s dead . . .” Her nausea remained though she pressed her hands against her
face as if trying to subdue the sensation.
“Hang on.” Joe put an arm around his wife. “We’re
not licked yet.”
Judith peered between her fingers. “What do you
mean?”
“I mean,” he said quietly, “that we don’t know for
sure how Bruno ended up unconscious in the first
place.”
“You mean . . . Someone may have hit him with a
different object?”
“No, there were slivers of wood and maybe varnish
in what was left of Bruno’s hair,” Joe said. “Cairo was
so busy giving me a bad time that the facts were a little
hard to piece together.”
Judith was still puzzled. “But what’s the official verdict?”
“Death by misadventure. That means,” Joe explained,
pouring himself a cup of coffee, “that there’s no evidence of foul play, but an investigation will continue.”
“What about the guests?” she asked. “Are they free
to go?”
“I suppose so,” he said as the front doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it.”
When Joe reappeared moments later, a tall, balding
