A Crazy Little Thing Called Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

built his father’s corner drugstore into a pharmaceutical conglomerate worth at least the value of a moderately prosperous Caribbean island. Always focused on the family business or having a good time, he’d dismissed his famous sister, Penny, as unimportant. Now, it seemed, he didn’t take her death to heart, either.
    I smiled and considered asking him flat out how he knew his sister was really gone this time. I might have tried if we’d been alone. “I’ll catch up with you later, Potty.”
    He gave me a clumsy, cousinly hug, beaming. “Let’s catch up later! I want to tell you what my girlfriend said about me last night. I was a tiger! Ha-ha!”
    To put some distance between myself and my randy cousin as quickly as possible, I stepped around the open tailgate of an ancient Mercedes station wagon. And found myself abruptly face-to-face with Crewe Dearborne, the restaurant critic for Philadelphia’s finest newspaper. He had a messy sandwich in one hand and was trying to wolf it in private while awkwardly keeping the drips from his tie.
    “Crewe,” I said. “Is that a cheesesteak?”
    He froze, and his eyes widened as if he’d been caught committing a crime. Around his mouthful, he said, “Nora, I’ll pay a king’s ransom for your silence.”
    I laughed and plucked the paper napkin from the breast pocket of his natty blue blazer. “Be careful what you say, Crewe. I owe a fortune in property taxes, you know.”
    “But you have a very kind heart.” He swallowed his mouthful. “You won’t give me away, will you?”
    I used the napkin to mop the juice from his chin. “I’m tempted to out the city’s most finicky foodie. Who knew you enjoyed a secret cheesesteak now and then?”
    “I’m a native son. How could I not love our local cuisine?”
    “I read your review of Le Betard last week. Could you have possibly been more insulting?”
    “The soup was congealed grease, the fish overcooked, and the custard—well, Nora, I’ve eaten better desserts at McDonald’s.”
    “And you despise poor service.”
    He sighed. “The waiter poured a perfectly good pinot noir into my water glass.”
    Crewe, with a pedigree every bit as aristocratic as my own, was the son of a very rich, famous hypochondriac and her even richer, philandering husband, who was now dead. Both his parents had been snooty types, but Crewe was anything but. He had sandy hair with a high forehead that gave him more of a distinguished air than his not-quite-forty years should allow. His intelligent eyes and rarely bestowed smile had made many women weak in the knees, but he was still single. The fact that he could cut an arrogant restaurateur down to size with very few words made him a fun cocktail-party guest. I’d hate to find him sitting down at my dinner table, though. His culinary standards were dauntingly high.
    Today Crewe wore a pair of flannel trousers, and a crisp white shirt with rep tie beneath the standard-issue Brooks Brothers blazer—a uniform for any wellborn Philadelphian. But it was unusual to find him so ordinarily dressed. Better known for the elaborate disguises he donned to prevent wily restaurateurs from recognizing him, Crewe had been spotted in everything from hippie beads and false whiskers to an Arab kaffiyeh meant to confuse an unsuspecting waitstaff.
    I, of course, remembered him from our teenage years, when he wore jeans and T-shirts like everyone else, and had a taste for good food even then. He had carefully created a ranked list of the best pizzas, and for Best in the City chose a pie with fresh mozzarella over heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil from a Little Italy kitchen he had sussed out all on his own.
    He took another healthy chomp out of the cheesesteak.
    I said, “Who dared to serve you something less than caviar and champagne today?”
    “My sister’s playing hostess,” he admitted after a swallow. “It’s all the Saks personal shoppers she loves so much. They’re here to show off their