Body on the Bayou Read Online Free PDF Page A

apologetically. “It just fits better with my schedule on this trip.”
    “I get it. My friends and I have been power walking lately, and sunset is definitely our favorite time, too,” Maggie said. “We’re training for a cancer fundraising 10K that my mom’s sponsoring. We’d love to have you join us while you’re here.”
    “That would be great. But I have to keep a certain pace, and it can be tricky for other people to get in the rhythm of it.” Ginger shrugged her shoulders. “You know what I mean?”
    “Sure. Got it.” In the light of day, Ginger’s age was more apparent; she looked like a woman in her early forties who’d had some work done. The taut skin around her eyes and a lack of mobility in her upper lip area indicated a few Botox shots. Maggie berated herself for being so shallow.The designer worked in a highly competitive business. She wouldn’t be the first woman who felt the need to smooth a few years off her face.
    Ginger checked her fitness watch. “I better go. I’m only up to four thousand steps.”
    Ginger took off down the service road that ran alongside the plantation and then made a left onto an old, abandoned road that disappeared into the dense woods. It was eight thirty in the morning. Maggie did a little math regarding her own activity thus far. She guessed that if she counted looking for her sunglasses, she might have hit four hundred steps. She wondered if Ginger was a woman who inadvertently set the bar very high for herself and others. Or was it inadvertent? Maggie chastised herself for being so suspicious. That dream messed me up, she thought. Shake it off.
    *
    Maggie’s sessions with Vanessa and Rufus followed a pattern—an hour of the couple bickering with each other followed by a few minutes of criticizing whatever Maggie had created. She’d positioned them so that they were bathed in the sunlight flooding through the large windows of the old schoolhouse. Vanessa sat in a chair and Rufus sat on a stool slightly above her, with an arm draped around his bride-to-be’s shoulder. “This stool always digs into my butt,” he said as he pulled at his slacks.
    “That’s because all your pants are getting tighter,” Vanessa snapped at him. “Ow! You just yanked my hair.”
    “It was an accident.”
    Vanessa squinted and looked at him with suspicion. “I’m not so sure about that.”
    “Hey, you lovebirds,” Maggie intervened. “Time’s up for today. I’ve decided to take some photos so that I can alternate between them and actual sittings. It’ll make your lives easier.” And mine, she thought. She snapped a dozen photos with her digital camera. “Alrighty, we’re done for today.”
    “Good, cuz I gotta get to my anger management class,” Rufus said, throwing air quotes around the “anger management” part of the sentence.
    “Not sure what you need the air quotes for, Rufus,” Maggie said as she screwed tops onto her tubes of oil paint. “Nothing ironic about you taking that workshop.”
    Rufus snorted. “I’m only there cuz the acting chief wants to bust my hump. He’s making all these changes so that he looks like some kind of management genius and takes my job. I know the boys on the force, and all I can say is, it ain’t gonna happen.” Rufus gave Vanessa a desultory kiss on the top of her head and then glanced at Maggie’s canvas. “You gave me jowls.”
    “You have jowls.”
    “Doesn’t mean I want ’em in my portrait.”
    Rufus headed off, but Vanessa lingered. She made sure her fiancé was gone and then turned to Maggie. “Can I talk to you?” she asked.
    “Sure,” Maggie said. “What’s up?”
    “I’ve got a big problem with Ginger, and Rufus can’t know about it,” Vanessa confided, kneading her handsanxiously. “You know how she’s an interior designer and all? Last month she gave me some advice for decorating La Plus Belle. She did a couple of computer drawings and said they were a wedding present. But then she just