Father’s Day Murder Read Online Free PDF

startled her.
    â€œSafe and sound.”
    â€œGreat! Hey, congratulations! That series you did on the fishing industry got an award.”
    â€œReally?” Lucy was delighted. “First place, second, honorable mention? What?”
    â€œDunno. They’ll announce it at the banquet. But you definitely won something.”
    â€œWow.”
    â€œDon’t let it go to your head,” cautioned Ted. “There’s no money in the budget for a raise or anything.”
    â€œI won’t,” promised Lucy. “Are you going to the hospitality suite?”
    â€œWouldn’t miss it for the world.”
    â€œI guess I’ll see you there, then. ’Bye.”
    Lucy carefully replaced the phone, then did a little victory dance around the bed. She’d won a prize. She was a winner! A prizewinning journalist. It was amazing. Fantastic. She was hot! No wonder the Reads had all been so nice to her. She was a star. A comer. A comet, blazing a trail of glory through the newspaper universe.
    Well, at any rate, someone to watch. Someone to be taken seriously. A reporter readers could trust. One who generally got things right more often than she got them wrong. Someone, she decided as she opened her suitcase, who needed to calm down and get control of herself.
    Now what exactly, she wondered, did you wear to a hospitality suite?
    Â 
    A short time later she was standing in the open doorway to the Pioneer Press hospitality suite, dressed in the polo-style shirtdress with the grosgrain ribbon belt she’d bought at the outlet mall. The saleslady had promised her it was a classic, but Lucy was beginning to think it was last year’s classic look. Nobody else was wearing anything remotely like it.
    â€œLucy! So glad you could make it!” Junior clasped her hand and shook it energetically, radiating good fellowship and bonhomie. “The bar’s in the corner and help yourself to the food.”
    Then he was gone. Lucy scanned the room, looking for Ted. Or someone she knew. Anybody. But except for Monica Underwood and Luther Read, she didn’t recognize a single soul. She didn’t feel as if she could presume on her slight acquaintance with them; besides, they were busy working the room, greeting important people. They seemed important, anyway, these tall men in their tailored suits and slicked-back hair with their reed-thin wives on their arms.
    The type was familiar to her from home. The folks who had summer homes on Smith Heights Road and belonged to the yacht club. The men played golf and the women belonged to the garden club and organized house tours to raise money for favorite charities. They didn’t mingle much with year-rounders like herself.
    Lucy decided a glass of white wine might help boost her confidence, so she headed for the bar. Then, glass in hand, she began a slow circuit of the room, looking for someone to strike up a conversation with. Most everyone was in a group, engaged in lively conversation punctuated with bursts of laughter, but she finally spotted another loner, a heavyset woman with a glum expression.
    â€œHi! Nice party, isn’t it?” said Lucy.
    The woman stared at her through thick glasses, as if she’d made an indecent proposition, then abruptly turned and clomped off.
    Oh, well, she’d done her best. She’d tried to be sociable, but now it was time for the prizewinning journalist to hit the buffet table. That was where Ted found her, stubbornly holding her own amidst the crowd of hungry journalists browsing among the platters of shrimp, cheese, and raw vegetables. There were also chafing dishes holding hot Swedish meatballs, bacon-wrapped scallops, and pigs-in-blankets.
    â€œSome spread, huh?” said Ted. “We probably won’t need supper after all this.”
    â€œI guess not,” said Lucy, attacking the platters with new gusto. “But what about dessert?”
    â€œThere’s a fruit platter on the other