Becklaw's Murder Mystery Tour (Jo Anderson Series) Read Online Free Page B

the house, and the sound of the screen door on the front porch slamming closed as someone in their haste to leave banged hard into it.
    Miss Bea stumbled out of her room, her head full of those pink cushiony rollers that my mother used to put into my hair to coax it into curls. Her eyes were bleary, and I could see right away that she had no idea what had happened.
    Derek came thumping down the stairs, a little unsteady in his slippered feet. His face was full of concern, and he looked ready to do battle with whatever forces of evil might be lurking about.
    ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, hands on his slight hips and a frown creasing his brow.
    Miss Bea turned to me, as did the rest of the troupe who now stood huddled together.
    ‘I have no earthly idea,’ I admitted. ‘Something woke me up, I came to see what it was, and then someone ran out of the front door.’ I looked from one face to the other.
    Derek spun on his heels, no mean feat in slippers, and marched to the front door. Without touching it, he used one foot to pull the slightly ajar door more fully open, then leaned out and scanned the verandah.
    ‘No one’s out there that I can see,’ he reported, then pulled his head back in the door. ‘Miss Jo, did you actually see anyone down here?’
    That flush I mentioned before, the one that gets blotchy sometimes? It appeared almost instantly, and I could tell by the alarmed look in Derek’s eyes that I looked a bit, well, unbalanced.
    ‘Hold on there, girl,’ he admonished, hands raised before him in a placating gesture. ‘I don’t mean that you imagined it, but …’ His words trailed off, not really apologizing but not admitting he was wrong, either.
    Nice. Between mouse issues and phantom noises in the night, I was rapidly becoming the troupe weirdo.

Chapter Four
    Somehow we all got back to our assorted rooms without a brawl breaking out. No one was thrilled about being awakened in the middle of the night for what might be a figment of my wild imagination. Leslie muttered and threw dark looks at me as we climbed the stairs, and even LJ showed his disapproval by stomping a bit more loudly than usual. Derek, as per usual, reserved comment.
    Apparently no one remembered the open front door.
    Breakfast was subdued, not much in the way of conversation but with a lot of eye rubbing and yawning. It was safe to surmise that this was the worst night since our arrival in Copper. Even Miss Bea, normally chipper and ready to rock no matter the time of day, seemed a bit under the weather. Her hair, normally just frizzy, was both curly and frizzy this morning. Her head looked like a Brillo pad had landed there and exploded, corkscrew curls fighting for autonomy amidst the requisite pins.
    I decided that someone needed to say something, and since I was Miss Jo, leader of the band, I voted on myself. It went a little like this:
    ‘So, has anyone bothered to check outside for the paper this morning? Or look for footprints of whoever was in our house in the middle of the night?’
    The response sounded like this:
    … Well, actually there was no sound to accompany the three glares from my fellow actors or the look of pity from Miss Bea. So, having been brought up in a house where you never say “never”, I tried again. This time I roused the troops and got an earful.
    Leslie went first, apparently since she was the one who shared the bathroom with me and therefore felt entitled to first dibs in telling me off.
    ‘Jo, I have no idea what you heard, or thought that you heard, only …’ – here a glance at the clock on the sideboard – ‘… five and one-half hours ago, but I can tell you that I heard nothing, saw nothing, and regret not having a full night’s sleep.’ Her glowering face told me that I might come to regret this as well.
    Next in line was Derek, his normally calm features rearranged into a look akin to disdain.
    ‘I’m positive the door was open when we went to sleep last night, Jo. I