Choreographed Crime (Miss Demeanor 3) Read Online Free Page A

I’m just doing my job and someone is dead. Don’t you want to know if Floriano was murdered?”
    He nodded. “Yeah. I do want to know.”
    “Then help me do my job.” A group of six customers lined up behind Maile. Lama scribbled his address on a napkin. “Come by at six o’clock and we’ll talk.”
    What could she say? It wasn’t fair to try to interview Lama at work. “See you later then.” She walked back to her Jeep and decided to go talk to someone at Floriano’s apartment building.
    The building manager shook his head and said, “Look, lady. The cops were here right after the fellow with the tights arrived. They already asked me a bunch of questions.”
    “I understand you already talked to the police—”
    “Yeah, like I said, right after I let the guy with the tights in the door.”
    “Do you remember the name of the guy in the tights?”
    “Eddy or Edwin, maybe.”
    “Edward?”
    “Yeah, maybe Edward. He asked me to open the door and let him in because Garcia didn’t show up for his dance lesson or something. I told him I couldn’t do that and he handed me a donation.”
    “So you let him in. What did you see when you opened the door?”
    “Look, lady, I’m not saying another word.” He thrust his hands in his jeans pockets.
    Maile reached in her purse for her billfold and dropped a twenty on the sidewalk. “Oops.”
    He bent to retrieve it and stuffed the bill in his pocket.
    Maile cocked her head. “Let’s try that again. What did you see when you opened the door?”
    “Nothing. The living room and kitchenette looked fine. Then I heard Eddy cry out from the bedroom and I ran in there. There was Garcia sprawled out on the floor, bare-ass naked.”
    “What next?”
    “Eddy said “he’s dead” and started to cry like a baby. I called the cops and they called the coroner and in about four hours they all called it a suicide and got out of my hair.”
    “Did you see anybody you didn’t recognize come in the building the night before Mr. Garcia died?”
    “No, but I don’t monitor all that. Evening is my own time.”
    “Are there any other entrances to the building?”
    “Yeah, the back door, but you have to have a coded keycard, like this, to use it.” He reached in his pocket and held up a navy blue card with a mountain scene in the background. “Almost no one uses the back door. Too far from the parking lot.”
    “Are there security cameras?”
    “Nope. Too expensive according to the owner.”
    “Mind if I take a walk around the building?”
    “Knock yourself out.” He put his hands back in his pockets.
    “Thank you for your time.” Maile walked to the back of the three-story brick building. She didn’t see any way someone could have scaled those walls, so if someone murdered Floriano, the killer either walked in the front door or had a keycard to the back door.

Chapter Seven

    Later that day, Maile drove to Lama’s place. He lived across the bridge over in Ballard in a two-story apartment building. The address he gave her was the number on the ground level. Maile noticed the empty brown stalks in the flower boxes and wondered what kind of flowers they were and if Lama had grown them.
    She rang the doorbell and fidgeted while she waited for Lama to answer the door. She checked the address again to make sure she had the right place. Then she saw Lama pull into the attached garage with his food truck. He joined her on the front steps in a few minutes and apologized for being late.
    She pointed to the flowerbeds. “Are you the gardener?”
    “Yeah. I like to grow some purple and pinks in the summer. Brightens up the place.”
    He opened the door for her and she entered a tidy large room with a bicycle parked in the hallway and a variety of large soup pots stacked on the kitchen counter. A large gray tabby peeked from behind the couch.
    “What’s your cat’s name?”
    “Queen Lili.”
    “Like Liliuokalani?”
    “Yeah. Gentle, smart, and gets treated like