Charlaine Harris - Three Bedrooms, One Corpse

I looked at Mackie’s dark neck as he turned his face politely to the speaker. His date beyond him was picking at her nails, though she, too, was keeping a courteous face turned in the right direction. Across the room, Eileen was dabbing her lips with her napkin. Beside her, Terry, in a dark blue dress with big fake diamond buttons, was listening to Bubba with a skeptical lift to one corner of her mouth. Mark Russell and his wife were sitting with the practiced posture of those who listen to many speakers; his partner, Jamie Dietrich, a lanky man with a huge Adam’s apple, stifled a yawn. Patty was all attention, though her date was doing something surreptitious under the tablecloth that brought a tiny secret smile to her face. Even young Debbie Lincoln, more beads woven into her hair than I would have thought possible, was turned to Bubba and trying to pay attention, though her date was openly, elaborately bored. Conspicuously alone, Donnie Greenhouse had deliberately left an empty chair beside him to remind people that he was a brand-new widower. Somehow I’d known he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to star in a public drama, even if he had to point it out himself.

Close to Lizanne, my mother inclined her head regally to one side, her resemblance to Lauren Bacall especially pronounced. John was resting his arm on the back of her chair. John looked ready to go home. Across the table from Martin, Miss Glitter appeared riveted. Franklin was listening with slightly drawn mouth, his long, thin hands arranging and rearranging his cloth napkin.

He pleated it, unpleated it. I returned my eyes to Mackie’s neck, prepared to plunge back into my fears and my dreadful burden of love. Then my attention shot back to Franklin. He pleated, unpleated. Then he folded the napkin into neat triangles, triangles that got smaller and smaller but never less neat. His long white fingers smoothed the napkin out. Then he pleated it. Then again, the triangles. Meticulously neat triangles. Where had I-?

His eyes began to turn toward me, and I instantly looked forward, my heart thumping.

Through no great feat of ratiocination, I, Aurora Teagarden, had solved a mystery.

Franklin Farrell was the murderer.

He was folding and refolding his napkin in the same curious way Tonia Lee’s clothing had been treated. It was as unmistakable as a fingerprint.

Franklin Farrell.

I COULDN’T jump up and scream and point to him. I had to force myself back down in my seat. I gripped my hands together, willing them to be still.

Charming, handsome Franklin, who’d had so many conquests they must have become boring and routine by now. Franklin, with a house we all entered only once a year for his annual party, a house that could be full of things stolen from homes he was showing.

Franklin could have had Tonia Lee just by crooking his finger, and his legendary charm could have persuaded lonely and shy Idella to do something she must have known was incredibly suspicious. How had he persuaded her to return the key to the key board, or to give him a ride from Greenhouse Realty to his house? He must have told her that he had arrived at the Anderton house to find Tonia Lee already dead-though what explanation he could have given her for going to the Anderton house at all I couldn’t imagine.

Maybe he’d told Idella that putting back the key would lessen the chances of his being suspected of something he hadn’t done, but Idella couldn’t stand up to the heavy secret she carried, the guilt she felt. I remembered her crying in the bathroom of Beef ‘N More, the day of her death. And Franklin, of course, could tell Idella was cracking. Even if she couldn’t face the fact that Franklin was almost certainly the murderer, she would feel terribly conscious that she had lied to the police. And to her employer.

“Roe? Roe? Are you all right?”

“What?” I jumped.

Martin was leaning toward me, his incredible light brown eyes full of concern. His innocent light brown eyes, I thought with a swelling heart.

“Um, as a matter of fact, Martin, I don’t feel too well.” People were getting up, chatting. Time to go.

“Let’s get you home, then.”

Martin retrieved our coats while I sat at the table, afraid to look up for fear I’d meet Franklin’s eyes. He and his date were still sitting across from me.

“Let’s leave, honey,” she was saying.

“Want to stop at The Pub for a drink?” he asked, his voice warm and inviting as a crackling fire on a freezing night.

“Sure. Then we’ll see after that,” she said teasingly.

There wouldn’t be much to see, I thought. It was already a case of my-place-or-yours. And, my mind raced, I was willing to bet it would be hers. Franklin probably still had the vases from the Anderton place in his house. Somewhere. He’d be afraid to sell them in Atlanta, surely, with the case still so fresh. On the other hand, I argued with myself, keeping the vases in his house would be so dangerous! His car would be an even riskier place, though…

I slipped into my coat without even thinking about Martin, who was holding it for me.

How could I get the police to search Franklin’s house?

Martin’s arm was around me. “Are you going to make it to the car?” he asked, concerned.

“Martin, I’m thinking,” I told him. He looked at me oddly.

“Honey, I’m going to get the car. I’m worried about you. I’ll bring it around as quickly as I can.”

I nodded absently, and was only vaguely aware when he left.

“It was so nice to meet you,” a voice at my elbow said with routine courtesy.

I looked up at Miss Glitter. “Enjoyed it,” I said automatically. I tried not to look at Franklin, standing at her elbow. Terry Sternholtz and Eileen came up, Terry looking very pretty in the dark blue, her curly red locks tamed into a striking hairdo. It felt strange to realize that Terry had dressed up as much for her date with Eileen as I had for my date with Martin.

“I’ll be late Monday,” Terry told her boss. “I have an early appointment with the Stanfords.”

“I’ll be in Atlanta all day,” Franklin said casually. “I’ll see you Tuesday.”

But as Eileen, Franklin, and his date walked away, I gripped Terry’s arm. I must not have been gentle; she looked surprised as she asked me what I wanted.

“Terry. Do you remember saying, when we were at the Greenhouse’s, that a self-defense course wouldn’t have helped Tonia Lee? Because she had been tied up?”

Terry groped in her memory. “Sure,” she said finally. “I remember. So?”

“Do you by any chance remember who told you Tonia Lee had been tied?”

“Oh. Yeah, it was Franklin, next morning at the office. I get sick at grisly stuff like that, but Franklin gets into it.”

“Thanks, Terry. I was just curious.” Terry looked at me doubtfully, but then Eileen called her impatiently from the door, and she left, giving me a suspicious glance.

Donnie Greenhouse’s stupidity had maybe saved his life. He’d heard Terry make the comment about Tonia Lee’s being tied and realized its significance long before I did-well, maybe he wasn’t so dumb after all. He’d probably been plotting some elaborate revenge against Terry, never thinking to ask her where she’d gotten that damning piece of information. All the time, it had been secondhand.

I stood lost in thought until I realized Arthur had taken my hand. His wife was across the room talking to my mother.

I was eager to tell Arthur what I’d seen; okay, napkin-folding can’t be used as evidence, but at least I’d get a message to Lynn surreptitiously, an indicator that the police should look Franklin’s way very quickly.

But Arthur had his own agenda, and in a particularly maddening gesture I remembered vividly from our relationship, he raised his hand when I started to talk.