Always Kiss the Corpse Read Online Free Page B

practical nurse.”
    â€œHave you talked to the police?” Noel asked.
    â€œA State Patrol officer. The one who told me Sandro was dead.”
    Noel leaned toward her. “What’s the person in the coffin supposed to have died of?”
    â€œThey say he was a drug addict. They say he overdosed.” Maria took a fresh tissue from the box on the coffee table. “Which again proves it wasn’t Sandro. He had no use for drugs.”
    â€œDo you know Sandro’s friends on Whidbey?” Kyra asked.
    â€œNo.”
    Noel asked, “Who was at the viewing?”
    Mrs. Vasiliadis shrugged. “My brother-in-law came. Andrei Vasiliadis. He might remember some names. Sandro’s taking courses at Skagit Valley College.”
    Noel said, “What we can do is explore the situation on Whidbey. Could you give us Sandro’s home address?”
    Mrs. Vasiliadis pointed to a little black book on the phone table. Noel got up and brought it to her. She thumbed through and read an address.
    Noel wrote it down. “Did you try going to his house?”
    She looked stricken. “I couldn’t.” She dropped her face to her hands. “When they said he was dead, I couldn’t. Yesterday, Andrei—My brother-in-law went. The house was locked and silent.”
    â€œHave the police been there?” An easier question.
    She lifted her head but didn’t look at him. “I don’t know.”
    â€œDo you have Mr. Schultz’s address?”
    â€œAnd your brother-in-law’s,” Kyra prompted.
    She read from her book.
    â€œA woman at the viewing told Andrei she had his house key to feed his cats,” Mrs. Vasiliadis remembered. “And that she was a nurse too.”
    â€œWe’ll talk to them all,” Kyra reassured her as she stood. She gave Mrs. Vasiliadis a pamphlet explaining Triple-I’s fee structure.
    She glanced at it, and set it aside. “Andrei will take care of that.”
    â€œWe’ll be back to you very soon.”
    â€œDon’t get up,” Noel said. “We can see ourselves out.”
    â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆ
    Dr. Lorna Albright could feel that the day would test her elasticity. Some mornings she woke with a sense of the hours ahead; other mornings while still half-asleep she’d already solved a couple of upcoming problems. The night gone by had been of the second sort.
    She dressed. She lined her eyebrows, her only concession to the cosmetics industry. A plump person in her early fifties doesn’t need makeup. But she did have very thin eyebrows. She chose the small silver clamshell brooch and pinned it to her suit jacket. She poured a glass of orange juice. The telephone rang. Dawn, from the clinic: Stockman had asked for a meeting. Gary and Richard were busy till three o’clock and four o’clock respectively, was late afternoon possible for Lorna? She checked her daybook. Nothing at four. Still, irritating. Luckily Tuesday was her day at WISDOM anyway, not at the lab. She ate a bowl of cereal.
    On Tuesdays she didn’t see Terry Paquette, her research team partner and Richard Trevelyan’s wife. Terry, who ran WISDOM’s lab, was as close a friend as Lorna Albright had. Often when Lorna was at the lab they went out for lunch.
    She hoped the meeting wasn’t about the Vasiliadis death. A shame that, but they had to move on. She locked her front door, started her car, headed onto the island highway. Ten minutes later she parked in her space. WISDOM’s home was a low cedar-sided building fronted by grass, a bushed-in garden in back, and shrubs that flowered in their seasons. From behind the counter in the reception area Dawn greeted Lorna. Dawn Deane, now in her late thirties, had been part of WISDOM, the Whidbey Island Sexual Definition Management clinic, for twelve years, and was definitely a team member. They’d hired her as a redhead. Three years later she became a blonde, then