A Killer Closet Read Online Free PDF

pity for her. Seeing her now in the bright light without her makeup, Irene thought she looked every day of the seventy years she’d lived. “Everything’s going to be all right,” Irene added. “They just wanted to ask some more routine questions.” No point in telling her she could be a suspect herself. But maybe a little warning…“I imagine a lot of other people will be called in for questioning,” she added.
    “Other people?” Adelle’s voice was unsteady. “What other people?”
    “Oh, some of Loraine’s acquaintances. People who may have seen her recently. Her husband. I’m certain he’s already been contacted, wherever he is in—”
    “Acquaintances? I’m an acquaintance, but surely they won’t question me. I don’t know anything about this. They won’t be asking me, will they?” She reached one of her slender hands toward Irene in what struck her as a pleading gesture.
    Irene took her hand. It felt small and bony, and she realized how infrequently she’d held her mother’s hand, or her mother had held hers. “Don’t worry, Adelle. If you’re questioned, all you have to do is remain calm and answer truthfully.” How often had she given others that stock advice?
    “But if I’m called in for questioning, doesn’t that mean they think I—”
    “It doesn’t mean anything. Nothing for you to worry about.” Irene’s patience was beginning to wear. “It just means the police are trying to get to the bottom of this. Now get some sleep.” She turned her toward the stairs.
    “How can I possibly sleep when the police think I know something about this dreadful business?” Adelle protested, but she at least allowed Irene to lead her upstairs. At the top of the landing, she stopped suddenly and turned toward Irene. “You said they’d question acquaintances. Do you suppose that means Susana and Harriet?”
    “It’s possible,” Irene said.
    That possibility seemed to comfort Adelle a little. It was as if she wouldn’t be quite so disgraced if her friends had to testify, too. She allowed Irene to lead her to her room and help her into bed.
    “Good night, Adelle,” Irene said as she closed the door. Once she was alone in the hallway, she breathed a sigh that was half relief and half weariness. Adelle really did need her help, she realized. She was the kind of woman who had always depended on others, and Irene had been perfectly content to leave that duty to any and all of Adelle’s various husbands. Now that it was her turn, she could see that it wasn’t going to be easy. Adelle must have felt the same way about her at one time. It had been easier simply to leave her care to various babysitters and nannies and boarding schools and finally to Teresa. Now they were stuck with no one but each other.
    It took a while for Irene to get to sleep. She kept remembering P. J. Bailey and his offer to help. Remembering how she had repaid it with her own rudeness. She knew that finding a murder victim in her closet could make her a person of interest in a crime, but she couldn’t stop wondering just how far the police would take it.
    —
    When the alarm sounded the next morning, she could barely drag herself into wakefulness. She’d forgotten how the seven-thousand-foot altitude of Santa Fe could do that to a person. The thin, oxygen-starved atmosphere had a way of leaving one’s brain in the doldrums until a little movement, coffee, and a few deep breaths revived it. Adelle was still asleep when she left to open Irene’s Closet.
    It was still a little early for customers, except for a handful of curious tourists who still hadn’t adjusted to the two-hour difference between Santa Fe time and Eastern Daylight Time. That gave her a few minutes to straighten and conceal the disarray left by the police investigation.
    She’d sold an Ellen Tracy jacket and a Herve Leger dress as well as a Louis Vuitton handbag she would have liked to have kept for herself when a summer thunderstorm scared all the