Digging Up the Dead Read Online Free Page A

Maybe some of the guests will be crime writers or in the publishing industry, so you’ll feel right at home.”
    “Not sure if my kind of reporting qualifies,” said Tosca, grimacing. “Everyone here knows me as that Brit gossip columnist who’s always snooping around and cussing in the Cornish language.”
    “Mother, if you hadn’t been digging around in the professor’s garden, we’d never have known he was a murderer. Everyone read about the island killings you solved. Don’t be so modest.” She came closer to Tosca and scrutinized her face. “Thank goodness you’ve left off that awful blue eye shadow. You look a lot younger without it. You could pass for, oh, maybe forty.”
    Tosca grinned, her blue eyes sparkling. “ Meur ras! Thank you. I’ll take that, since my fiftieth rolls around next month, as you keep reminding me. And I’ll return the compliment. You look about eighteen, not twenty-eight. ” She walked into the kitchen. “Where’s that mead I’m bringing to the party? It’s the last jug of gooseberry I made with Acacia blossom honey, but I suppose this anniversary of Fuller Sanderson’s death merits it. I hope Karma will realize its significance. I read that her grandfather devoured gooseberry pie every chance he got when he visited England.”
    “Quite a difference between the pie and your mead,” said J.J., “but do you think you should you even be taking any, considering what happened to the last lot you gave to our neighbor?”
    “Not my fault that murderous excuse for a musician deliberately laced the mead with poison and died in his cell. Must have ruined the taste. Oh, gollywobbles, look at the time.” Tosca picked up the heavy jug. “See you later.”

 
     
     
Chapter Seven
     
     
    Holding her high-heeled pumps, Tosca stepped carefully down the wooden staircase that led from J.J.’s Dutch door to the front gate of the house, glancing again at the windows of the ground-floor apartment as she passed. She wondered when it would be rented. J.J. had said the owners were very fussy about tenants, and so far no one had qualified.
    Tosca put on her shoes and walked to Karma’s cottage. Arlene had told her that the address was two blocks south and to look for a bright green bungalow with purple window frames. It was, thought Tosca as she reached it, only too easy to spot, despite being almost hidden between the two-story homes that towered over it on each side. Isabel Island was famous for its eclectic architecture styles that ranged from modest bungalows to several marble mansions totally out of place at the beach.
    The main street was filled with restaurants, boutiques, ice cream parlors, cafes, a post office and the firehouse, and it ended at the seawall and Newport Harbor. Those who wanted to cross the bay to the peninsula took the old ferry, which held three cars and several dozen passengers.
    Karma’s front yard was strung with red and yellow Chinese lanterns, their flickering candles mere pinpoints in the darkening sky but managing to cast shadows on the miniature palm trees leading to the open front door. Tosca tried to place the guitar music she heard from inside and determined it was the final chords from Rodrigo’s haunting “Concierto de Aranjuez” composed as a tribute to his young daughter after she died.
    Almost immediately Tosca heard the mournful opening chords of the Berceuse from Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite.” She couldn’t figure out which instruments the musicians were playing. Definitely a guitar, and not an electric one, but what on earth was that other weird sound? She hurried through the rickety garden gate to satisfy her curiosity.
    Arlene had mentioned that some of the guests would be Newport Beach socialites who were underwriters for Orange County’s Performing Arts Center, where a massive sculpture of a Firebird hung above the main lobby. No doubt Karma was hoping her musical nod to their choice of décor would persuade them to write