A Motor for Murder (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

clouds consumed any moonlight, and I tried not to stumble head-first in the dark down the slope slicked with water, as I stomped out of the bright shiny world that George Ellis used to inhabit into the rainy cold of a northwest night.

4
    Till morning I slept a fitful sleep that seemed to be populated by shadows and black figures dressed as in a masquerade. They were jumping up from balconies, zig-zagging in the air and flying away like crows, using their capes as wings, and screaming like crows.
     
    The door bell rang Sunday morning at 11:30 am. Having come home so late the previous night – or, rather, the same morning from the ill-fated house-warming, – and not getting much rest during the night, I was still yawning into my breakfast when I heard the door bell noise. Bitty, who already finished her morning meal and was angling to stick her nose into my plate, jumped down from the table, went into the hallway and paused. I followed her. There was a short stocky man in a dark coat and pants standing on the porch.
    “Detective Davis, Bellevue Police Department.” He said through the door. I recognized him as one of the police from the night before. He put up his badge against the glass in the door and I read it. “I want to ask you a few questions.”
    “What about?”
    “George Ellis's death.”
    “Ah OK. Please come in.” I opened the door.
    “This shouldn't take long.”
    We walked in to the kitchen. I indicated a chair and sat down opposite, moving my half-eaten breakfast to the side and scoping up my little cat into my lap.
    “We are investigating George Ellis's death, that occurred last night”. He repeated.
    I nodded. “He fell out of the window”
    “He was pushed out of the window. We know that now, from examining the body.” The detective looked at me unblinkingly as he said it.
    “On purpose?”
    “Yes, most definitely.”
    He paused to let that sink in.
    “So someone killed him, someone at the party?”
    “Yes.”
     
    Oh. I was involved in a real-life murder. Someone had killed someone else, on purpose, when almost a hundred people were nearby. When I was practically in the next room. The person killed had been maybe 5 or 7 years older than me... I felt tears in my eyes as I thought of Rita. Finding out that your husband has been killed, seemingly intentionally, has got to be worse than finding out he died tragically in an accident. I swallowed my tears. The detective waited a moment and continued.
     
    “We are talking to everyone who was at the party. Do you have any info about the death, in the light of what I said?”
    “I am not sure. What kind of info?”
    “Did you perhaps know of someone arguing with George?”
    “... Yes, I think Caitlin was.” I told him what I've overheard of their conversation. Detective Davis listened and wrote things down in his notebook.
    “That's when you were sitting outside by the outdoor fireplace?” I nodded.
    “And where else were you during the party?”
    “Oh, all over the place. It was a big house, and Rita was proud of showing it off. We went on a tour. Then I went to the balcony, and then I used the bathroom too, and went back to the kitchen I think... I talked to a bunch of people.”
    “Can you please give me their names?”
    I concentrated, to name everyone I've met that night in chronological order. I closed my eyes and played the beginning of the evening over in my mind, mentally moving from room to room in the Ellises' new house. “I met George. John and Teresa, both lawyers. Vinay, he’s a software entrepreneur and George's golf buddy. Roger, Rita's brother. Oh, and Wayne, who is in that exotic car club. The bartender, Tim, just to get a drink. Sam Greenwich, he does some sort of investments. And Kevin Moody, who said he was the general contractor on the Ellises' remodel. And then Paul, who's the neighborhood HOA president, apparently. That is everyone.”
    He noted the names down as I spoke.
    “How did you learn of the