Murder Can Ruin Your Looks Read Online Free

relationship, either. I do know they met at Harrods—the department store. Mary Ann was working there, and this Roger was in London on vacation. I guess he was pretty well off, because he extended his vacation to be with her, and after that he flew back and forth a lot.’’
    ‘‘When was all this?’’
    ‘‘I think they started going together about six or eight months before Mary Ann moved to New York, which is where the family was from originally.’’
    ‘‘Meredith came here at the same time as her sister?’’
    Peter nodded. ‘‘When Mary Ann first started making the
    arrangements, Meredith’s husband was still alive, although he was already pretty sick. Mary Ann felt really guilty about leaving her like that, but Meredith insisted. Mary Ann was engaged by then, see, so she pretty much had to make the move.’’ If Peter felt any jealousy about his fian
    ceé’s previous involvement with another man, you couldn’t tell by his voice. He was relating the information calmly and impersonally, as though it had all happened in another lifetime. And I suppose, in a way, it had.
    ‘‘But then Meredith’s husband died,’’ he continued.
    ‘‘Right before Mary Ann was scheduled to leave. So Mere
    dith got it all together in a hurry and came with her.’’
    ‘‘Okay, so Mary Ann comes to this country intending to marry Roger, but . . . ?’’
    ‘‘But almost as soon as she got here, she found out the guy had had two previous wives he never considered worth mentioning.’’
    ‘‘So she broke it off.’’
    ‘‘So she broke it off,’’ Peter echoed.
    ‘‘I don’t suppose the breakup was very amicable.’’
    ‘‘No. I have a pretty good idea this Roger got a little nasty, although Mary Ann never said much about it. I guess the only reason she brought the whole thing up at all was because she thought she should. But I could see she wasn’t anxious to go into detail, so I didn’t pursue it.’’ Peter
    MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS
    21
    glanced at his watch then, so quickly that I could tell he didn’t mean for me to notice.
    ‘‘Do you have an appointment somewhere else?’’
    ‘‘It’s not that. It’s just that I’m anxious to get back to the hospital. But if there’s anything else you need to know . . .’’
    ‘‘No, you get going.’’ I was pretty much questioned out. Besides, the place was beginning to fill up, so any minute now we could expect the manager to start giving us the fish-eye. ‘‘I’ll talk to you soon,’’ I promised.
    Looking back, I realize something that at the time I wasn’t ready to acknowledge: The questions I put to Peter that day were at least as much about uncovering the killer as they were about discovering the identities of the victims. Chapter 3
    I waited until after nine that night to call my niece Ellen. (Ellen’s an assistant buyer at Macy’s and she works until eight-thirty some nights, but I can never remember which ones.)
    The phone rang six times before she picked up, and when
    she did, she was breathing hard. ‘‘Hello?’’ she said, making it sound like a question.
    ‘‘What’s the matter? Did you just get in?’’
    ‘‘Aunt Dez?’’ she asked, still trying to catch her breath.
    ‘‘I heard the phone just as I was putting my key in the lock. I was sure whoever it was would hang up before I could get to it.’’
    ‘‘I was ready to. Listen, I’d like to talk to you about something; it’s kind of important. Do you want to call me back after you’ve had a chance to take off your coat? Or, if you want to grab a bite first, call me when you’re through.’’
    ‘‘No, no. I can get out of my coat while we talk, and I ate earlier. What’s up?’’ I was trying to decide how to put things, so this was followed by a worrisome pause. Worri
    some for Ellen, that is, who happens to be the world’s champion worrywart. ‘‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’’ she demanded. God only knows what she was