Digging Up the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

Carver.”
    Dressed in a low-cut taffeta gown that matched her hair, with layers of ruffles around the hemline, she swayed forward enough for Tosca to detect liquor on her breath. The woman over-corrected herself, leaning back.
    “How do you do? I’m Tosca Trevant. Very pleased to meet you.”
    “Do I detect an accent?” The word came out ‘assent.’
    “Indeed, yes,” said Tosca. “I’m from Cornwall.”
    “What’s that? Some new state we just added on? I can’t even remember the names of the twenty-seven we already have.”
    “Cornwall is in the United Kingdom, at the bottom, below England. I’m from St. Ives. It’s on the left, if you look at a map.”
    Charlotte gaped and tottered off toward the bar, leaving Tosca to inspect the other guests. She looked around the room and was delighted to see that a few of the women wore calf-length, tight black skirts with slits up the sides and black stockings with seams running up the back, reminiscent of the 1940s fashions in Fuller Sanderson’s books. Three of the women wore little, flat, pancake-style hats tilted to one side, recently made popular again by the Duchess of Cambridge.
    Two red velvet wing armchairs, missing most of their brass nail trim, were occupied by a couple of women in gold and scarlet caftans and thick platform shoes with ankle straps. Bloomsbury fans, Tosca mused, thinking of the group of London intellectuals, artists and writers who had been famous in the early 1900s.

 
     
     
Chapter Eight
     
     
    Sitting on the tattered peacock-blue sofa facing the chairs was an elderly man squeezed between two Downton Abbey-style dowagers, their hair fashioned into styles of the era.
    Tosca’s gaze swung to the worn beige cotton rug against the far wall where a group of hippies with unkempt hair and in frayed denim cutoffs and T-shirts lounged on the floor. They were whispering among themselves and breaking into occasional laughter. Friends of Karma, Tosca assumed. Off in one corner on a loveseat sat a woman who appeared fast asleep, her head on her chest, curled over like a hedgehog.
    Arlene came to Tosca’s side, asking what she thought of the crowd, the cottage and the party in general.
    “I’m having a wonderful time,” Tosca said. “The whole experience is fascinating. Who’s that woman in the slinky leopard-print dress slit all the way up her thigh? The one with the young man wearing a cravat. Mother and son?”
    Arlene giggled. “No, Tosca. They’re a December-April item.”
    “Oh, you mean she’s a jaguar.”
    “Jaguar?”
    “Yes, older woman, younger man. Don’t you have that expression here?”
    “You must mean cougar.”
    “Ah, cougar, is it? At least they’re all from the same cat family.”
    “Time for you to have a cocktail,” said Arlene, taking her friend’s arm. “Let’s go and get a drink.”
    The most popular spot was an oak table that served as the bar, its surface almost completely covered by two large trays of liquor. A bottle of Tanqueray gin stood between three stately bottles of Grey Goose and the more pedestrian Absolut. Whiskey, sherry and several liqueurs, including Kalua, Chambord and Tia Maria, crowded out the cocktail, wine and lowball glasses. A bucket of ice held a carton of heavy cream wedged halfway down in the midst of the cubes. In the center of the table was a large photo of Fuller Sanderson holding a cocktail glass filled with a cream-colored liquid.
    “His favorite drink, a White Russian,” murmured Tosca to Arlene as they approached the bar.
    “Would you like one?” asked a voice behind her.
    Tosca turned to the young woman who had been playing the guitar, taking in the gypsy-style dress and the several long strands of beads that festooned her neck, among them a large crystal pendant. Tosca judged instantly that this was Karma and must favor her mother because she had none of the Sanderson side of the family’s fine, almost delicate, features.
    Karma’s long face appeared even longer