Murder At Murder At the Mimosa Inn, The Read Online Free

was not yet one-thirty. I opted to reconnoiter the scene of the crime so that I would be equipped with a mental map when the crucial moment arrived. The scouts and I would be prepared.
    The croquet court was a recent addition to the landscape. It consisted of a large rolled surface edged with boards buried in the turf. The wickets conformed to whatever arrangement was demanded by the rules, about which I had no theories. A cart with mallets and balls had been wheeled
near one corner, but no one had availed himself of the equipment. Nor did I; I was on a mission.
    I strolled down the slope to the edge of the lake. Several bodies lay on beach towels in the grass, but none of them looked like victims of anything more dire than incipient sunburn. A few heads lifted, a few eyes studied me from the safety of dark lenses. Which one was the murderer? I decided that a plump woman in a bikini deserved some form of painful death for exposing white, undulating ripples of fat, but left that mean-spirited conclusion unspoken.
    A boathouse sat at the edge of the cove, surrounded by a minor armada of sailboats and rowboats. I continued past it to follow a graveled path through a rose garden. In the middle I found a stained marble statue of a chubby urchin with a pitcher on his shoulder. It had been a long time since any water had dribbled down his tummy, but the effect had potential.
    As I came out of the garden, I saw three shingled bungalows in a line, separated by shrubs. Shutters were fastened across the windows. They were used only during the busy season, I deduced brilliantly. I stopped in front of the first one and cupped my hands on the pane of glass in the door. I ended up with a circle of dirt on my nose. The interior of the bungalow was, quite naturally, dark.
    “Very suspicious,” I murmured aloud, savoring the feel of the words. They would be my motto for the weekend, my watchword whenever approached by anything or anyone even remotely inexplicable. Champagne had the same effect on my nose as ragweed, but I did like the idea of it. Festive, triumphant champagne. It was unfortunate that scotch did not carry the same connotation; it certainly was more agreeable to drink.
    It was nearing lecture time. I followed the path back to the boathouse, where I discovered that the bodies on the beach had vanished. “Very suspicious,” I practiced as I went to the porch, “very, very suspicious.”

    The ladderback chairs from the dining room had been brought to the drawing room and arranged in rows. Eric waved from. a corner, intent on a slide projector. Nickie Merrick stood behind a podium at the front of the room, his expression somewhat pinched as he faced a group of twenty or so people vying for the more comfortable chairs.
    Overachiever that I have been since the first day of nursery school, I took a seat in the middle of the front row and smiled at Nickie. “Stage fright?”
    “No, I’ve done quite a bit of acting.” He stared over my head, absently tugging at his mustache. “A minor problem has arisen, I’m afraid. Mimi’s more than capable of dealing with it, but she was hoping that things would go smoothly. Now it seems that—”
    “Sherry?” brayed an incredulous voice from the dining room. “Sherry is for puppeteers and little old ladies with blue hair! Bring me a bottle of scotch, sonny boy!”
    A plate crashed on the floor.
    “Now, you feeble-minded, pimple-nosed excuse for a human being! Now!” the voice continued. It sounded as though it were being amplified by a bullhorn, static and all. A second plate hit the floor. Several other voices joined in, none of them jolly.
    All of us turned around to stare at the interior of the dining room. Eric, I noted out of the corner of my eye, had frozen in the act of fiddling with a knob; his mouth was white and his fingers curled like talons. Gradually, his hand relaxed, but his frown did not. The pipe between his teeth was in danger of bisection.
    The busboy scurried