Dead at Breakfast Read Online Free Page A

promise I will speak to her as soon as she comes in. They swore that the dog never barks. Mr. Rexroth, would it help if I find someone to take Clarence on a good long walk this morning, while you get on with your work?”
    Mr. Rexroth paused and flapped his arms as if to say no, that won’t work, but he couldn’t think of why it wouldn’t. “It would have to be someone Clarence knows. Clarence is particular.”
    Gabriel suspected that like most people, Mr. Rexroth preferred almost anything to actually having to write, and was now inventing excuses. “Tell me who he likes.”
    â€œHe likes Chef Sarah,” said Mr. Rexroth. Of course he did. Sarah was a dog whisperer. She knew just where they most liked to be scratched, and she saved delicious table scraps for Clarence. But she couldn’t be asked to exercise the guests’ pets.
    â€œI’m afraid she’s busy with her class this morning.”
    A long pause. Mr. Rexroth said, “He let that little girl at the front desk pat him once.”
    â€œCherry Weaver?”
    â€œThe one with the hair like this.” He made a motion with his hands.
    â€œI tell you what, she just came on duty. I’ll take over the desk for her and she can take Clarence for a walk along the lake. I’m sure she’d enjoy the exercise.”
    Mr. Rexroth agreed, though as if with grave doubts, that that might solve the problem for the time being.
    â€œLet’s go talk to Cherry, then,” said Gabriel. Just to make himlook like a complete liar, the first person they saw coming toward them in the hall was Chef Sarah, with her handsome auburn hair pulled up in a bun, looking far from busy. There was something he wasn’t used to in her manner, though, as if she wasn’t feeling well, or had gotten bad news. She greeted Mr. Rexroth before saying, “Gabriel, could I have a word?”
    He looked at her a little wild-eyed, thinking, Damn, I hope this isn’t about Cherry. Cherry’s mother worked for Sarah in the kitchen, and neither one was a woman you wanted to piss off. He said, “One thing at a time. Come see me in the lobby in ten minutes, could you?”
    Sarah said, “Never mind. Come find me when you’re free.”
    The cooking class was on a visit to a local apple orchard. Because they were now too many to fit in the hotel van, Hope and Maggie had volunteered to follow in Hope’s rental car. It was another gorgeous day, sweater weather but warm in the sunshine, and although it was early for the full autumn leaf panoply, there were blazes of scarlet and of bright ochre in the hardwood stands along the road.
    At the orchard, the farmer, a young woman from Oregon who talked a good deal about “slow food,” had laid out samples of different varieties of heritage apples, neatly sliced and labeled Maiden Blush, Pound Sweet, St. Edmund’s Russet, and Whitney Crab. There were ten little notebooks and ten sharp pencils with the name of the farm on them ready for the class to make their “tasting notes,” as if they were sampling wine. Teddy Bledsoe and Margaux, who arrived last because they had detoured to see if the Concord grapes in the arbor were ripe, were taking their notes on the backs of deposit slips Margaux had found in her purse, since the flossy blond newcomers to the group betrayed no sense that it was they for whom no notebooks had been provided.
    The taller of the blondes looked at the rather gnarled slice of the Whitney Crab apple she was holding. She showed it to her sister and the corners of their pretty pillow-lipped mouths turned down.
    â€œWhat is this black stuff,” the taller one asked the farmer. She held out her apple slice and pointed.
    â€œOh that—excuse me, what’s your name?”
    â€œGlory.”
    â€œThat’s a little sooty blotch, Glory. It won’t hurt you.”
    Glory had returned her untasted slice to the plate and was sorting