“Is everything all right?” I asked, digging around in my purse for bills. I threw some on the table, not caring if I was overpaying or not.
“No, everything’s not all right,” she wailed. “The Louse has been murdered!”
Chapter 2The Stiff in the Study
I WAS GRATEFUL THE Flavel House had a burgundy carpet in the study. It made it harder to see the blood. And there was blood. Quite a bit of it. Some of it had splattered on the books lining the shelves and on the antique fire screen near the body. I winced inwardly. The body. I felt sort of badly for calling him “The Louse” now, but not too badly. The man had been a menace.
August Nixon was sprawled on the carpet, sort of crumpled like a rag doll in front of the grand fireplace. He’d been a pudgy man, balding and pale from too much time indoors and not enough sun outdoors. Typical Pacific Northwesterner. He was wearing a sweater vest in an unfortunate shade of beige. I could see dark stains around the collar. My stomach turned.
Next to the body lay a heavy, brass statuette of Eros. There was a sticky residue on one corner along with a few strands of hair. Obviously the murder weapon. I remembered seeing it gracing a hall table near the front door. Talk about abuse of artifact. The historical society would have kittens. It was obviously a weapon of opportunity. Did that mean the murderer hadn’t come here to kill Nixon? That it had been a spur of the moment thing? Maybe a crime of passion? Or perhaps the murder was planned, but the killer knew he’d have plenty of choices. No sense risking getting caught with a gun in your pocket.
“What happened?” I asked Portia, who was hovering in the doorway, purse still clutched frantically to her chest. Her usually alabaster skin had gone pasty white. She should probably be sitting down, but that might mess with the crime scene or something, so I shoved her out into the hallway and urged her down onto a red velvet loveseat.
“Ah, well, I headed home, like I told you, and as I passed the museum, I saw a light on.” Portia lived about three blocks up the hill from the museum in an ultra-modern condo building. It looked totally out of place in Astoria, but fitted her personality to a tee. “I figured I’d better check, just in case somebody forgot to turn off a light. But when I got here...” She shrugged as if what happened next should be obvious.
“You called the police?”
“Of course. Right before I called you.” I could see her hands shaking where she clutched her purse straps.
Fort George was only a few blocks from the museum. It had taken me about five minutes to walk it, which explained why I’d gotten there ahead of the cops. Something I doubted they’d be thrilled about.
“Did you touch anything?” It wouldn’t be good if her fingerprints were all over the crime scene. Though, of course, she worked there, so it wouldn’t be that odd.
“Of course not,” she snapped, voice going shrill. “It was obvious he was dead, and I’ve seen CSI.”
I heard voices out on the front porch. The police, no doubt. I quickly poked my head back into the study and glanced around the rest of the room. Besides the bookshelves, there were two large, comfortable-looking chairs with a table between them. On the table, a lamp glowed softly, and next to the lamp was a prosecco bottle and two empty glasses, one of them with a lipstick smear on the lip. Magenta, it looked like. I glanced at Portia. Her lipstick was a bright vintage red. I’d never seen her wear anything else. Besides which, Portia never drank anything but chardonnay. A woman had definitely been here, and I couldn’t imagine it had been long ago. There was still condensation on the bottle.
I slipped my phone out of my pocket and snapped a picture of the lipstick for future reference. Just in case.
The fact that Nixon would use the room and its priceless furnishings for some sort of assignation was repugnant. He was supposed to be protecting the historical building and its collections, not using them for his own ends. I guess they didn’t call him the Louse for nothing.
The tromp of masculine feet in the hallway jarred me out of my thoughts. It wouldn’t do to let the cops catch me hovering around the body. I darted back to join Portia on the loveseat and wrapped my arm around her waist, just in time for the police to arrive.
The first man was middle aged and dressed in a neat charcoal-gray suit with a plain white, perfectly pressed shirt and a blue and yellow striped tie. His black dress shoes were shined to high gloss. I recognized him immediately: James “Bat” Battersea. Although I’d grown up in Portland, I knew very well he was a big deal in Astoria. He was a hometown boy and had been a baseball star back in high school (hence the nickname “Bat”). Everybody thought he hung the moon and stars. He was a decent sort of fellow and did a lot of good things for the community, but I’d never run across him in a crime-solving capacity, so I had no idea of his experience with homicide.
The other two were uniformed officers, both male. Were there no women on the Astoria force? Seriously, this was the twenty-first century.
“Are you the ones that found the body?” Bat asked in a brusque, no-nonsense tone. The sort of tone that informed everyone that he was in charge and wouldn’t put up with any shenanigans. Well, tough. I was the Queen of Shenanigans.
Portia hesitantly raised a hand. “I did.”
He turned gimlet eye on me. “And you, ma’am?”
I tried not to glare. I hated when people addressed me as “ma’am.” I wasn’t that
