A Killer Closet Read Online Free PDF Page A

about one thing,” P.J. said as he pulled his pickup next to the curb in front of the Seligman home. “That building had been vacant for a long time. Then all of a sudden both women were bidding for the lease.”
    “Competitive bidding hardly seems a likely motive for murder.”
    P.J. turned toward her, and she could see his bemused expression in the dim light of the street lamp across the street. “I’m sure you know, Madam Prosecutor, that a motive for murder doesn’t have to seem likely.”
    “You think my mother would kill someone just to get a lease?” She hoped her dismissive tone sounded more confident than she felt. The police had asked her too many seemingly irrelevant questions about the lease on that building.
    “Not at all. I’m just trying to think like a cop, and I’m sure they know how prominent Mrs. Sellers was and that she had an interest in leasing the building. I suspect they even know she bid the lease price up well above the going rate before your mother won the battle. Maybe somebody wanted to stop the escalation.”
    Above the going rate?
Irene felt a stab of chagrin at those words. Adelle had told her she got an excellent rate because the building had been vacant for so long.
    “Well, if that was the motive for killing her,” Irene said, trying to keep her emotions in control, “doesn’t it seem odd that she would stash the body in the very same building she was trying to lease?”
    “Let’s hope the cops are smart enough to consider that.”
    Typical attitude for a defense lawyer,
she thought. They always liked to assume the cops were stupid. “And another thing,” she added. “That woman hadn’t been dead more than four hours. The blood had pooled, but the body was still rigid. I’d say she died at about five that morning, and Adelle was at home with me at that time. She was still in bed when I left the house at seven-thirty.”
    “So she has an alibi.”
    “It would seem so.”
    Was he thinking that, as a prosecutor, she would recognize that Adelle could have slipped out of the house before five o’clock that morning? She pushed the thought out of her mind. Adelle was hardly the type to get up before five o’clock for any reason, not to mention that neither was she the type to commit murder.
    “Thanks for the lift,” she said, and opened the door just as he made a move to open his own door, presumably so he could play the gentleman and help her out.
    “I’ll be in touch,” he called to her as she made her way up the walk.
    “No need,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll hire my own counsel.”
    The pickup made a chattering, erratic sound as P.J. drove down the street and away from the house. Nice of him not to roar and wake the neighbors. He really did seem like a nice person. Maybe she’d been too cold to him, turning him down. But one shouldn’t hire a lawyer just because he’s nice, she reminded herself.
    When she opened the door and let herself into the large entry hall, she saw Adelle in the dim light of a lamp in the parlor. She was seated on one of the velvet love seats with a blanket wrapped around her. Her face was stripped of makeup, and she was wearing fuzzy pink slippers.
    “You’re still awake?” Irene said. It wasn’t like her to wait up, not even when her daughter had been in high school. Adelle had been too self-absorbed to be the worried mom.
    “I couldn’t sleep. I’m just wondering what, exactly, it means to be a ‘person of interest’ and what people will make of it. I just know everyone will assume the police think you killed that woman. Otherwise, why would you be of interest to—”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Irene said, interrupting her. She switched the lamp up two more levels. She should have known. Adelle was still the same old self-centered Adelle. “I’m not a suspect. You won’t be disgraced.” She had no idea whether that was true or not, but there was no point in making Adelle worry. She even felt a stab of