Dial Om for Murder Read Online Free Page A

Florence, Colorado?”
    “I’m not a regular viewer,” she admitted primly. It was only too easy to picture just such an episode. “Anyway, Barbie seemed to believe that my decision was influenced by Nicole.”
    “Was it?”
    “No. Not at all. I mean, it’s not a secret that Nicole was scornful of Barbie’s . . . um . . . work. But I didn’t want a film crew inside the studio because it would be disruptive. I can just imagine what Aunt Di would have thought of that idea. Anyway, I tried to explain to Barbie, but I don’t think she really believed me. . . .” A.J. trailed off as a sudden thought hit her.
    Barbie had seemed to be part of the group leaving the neonatal Pilates session. Not one of her usual choices. Was that because Barbie had missed her regular Pilates class or could Mrs. Siragusa possibly be pregnant? Maybe A.J. needed to tune into Barbie’s Dream Life more often.
    “And?” Jake inquired.
    A.J. snapped back to the present. “And I invited her to come down to my office, but she declined and left the studio.” At about eighty miles per hour.
    “What are you not telling me?” Jake said in a resigned tone that indicated he knew that no one ever told him everything.
    A.J. made a face. “Well, before Barbie left she said that Nicole was dead to her.” Hurriedly, she added, “She didn’t say she was going to kill her.”
    Jake considered this without comment. Then he returned to his notes. “Okay. Let’s talk about this woman you saw leaving the house when you arrived. The woman who bumped into you.”
    “Shorter than me.” A.J., who was tall and lanky, gestured to her nose. “Petite. Spiky red hair, freckles. She was wearing a Kay Unger embroidered blouse, Billy Wildcat jeans, and red platform shoes with six and a half inch heels.”
    Silence.
    Jake said, “You can recall what she was wearing down to her six and a half inch heels but you didn’t notice her eye color?”
    “Blue, I think.”
    He nodded skeptically. “Had you ever seen her before?”
    “Maybe.” A.J. added apologetically, “She did seem vaguely familiar, but I’m not sure I’ve actually met her. I couldn’t place her. Granted, I only saw her for an instant.”
    Another nod. Another note.
    Into A.J.’s mind popped the image of wide blue eyes in a pert, freckled face. Yes, she’d seen that look before . . . like on the face of someone destined to be an alien hors d’oeuvre—or serial killer victim number two.
    “She might be an actress,” she said slowly.
    Jake’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, then he went back to looking noncommittal. It was a little annoying. She understood that he had a job to do, and that it was crucial to keep a professional distance, but . . . still. Irksome.
    “So the redhead runs out the door and Bryn Tierney, the PA, tells you Nicole is in her office. You walk in and . . . describe again for me . . .”
    A.J. described again walking into the room: the pounding music, the smashed ice sculpture, the phone off the hook—
    She broke off her narrative. Through the window she could see several uniformed men wheeling a gurney across the drive to the waiting vehicle marked Coroner . On the gurney was a black body bag.
    Following her gaze, Jake glanced at the window. He cleared his throat. “You said you tried calling Nicole before you left the studio.”
    A.J. blinked and turned back to him. “Right,” she said. She was relieved that he was picking up this point. No one else had seemed to think it was significant. “ The line was busy—now I realize that it was because the phone was off the hook. At the time it didn’t make sense to me because Nicole had specifically told me to call her right back, and I knew she was frantic about her phone.”
    “And this mysterious phone call she was waiting for.”
    “I don’t know if the phone call was mysterious. She said it was her producer.”
    “Why wouldn’t her producer call her house number?”
    A.J. had no answer for that; she had