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looking for something for Julia
to do with her life besides sit at home writing poetry. When she had the idea
for The House to Die For series, she bought the first house and set Julia up
to oversee the renovation. But Julia is a poet, a sensitive soul. If some idiot
connects the water heater to the septic system, you're supposed to scream at
the fucker to fix it, not agonise over the nicest way to tell him he made a
mistake. So Nora went out and hired someone who can kick serious ass. Marisol.'
    'What
about Jo? Is there anybody you can think of that's involved with the flip house
that had a beef with her? Some guy who maybe had the hots for her, and she told
him to screw off?'
    'No.
Nothing like that. A lot of these guys are illegals. There's no way they're
gonna make a move on some white woman whose husband is a cop.'
    'They
knew her husband is a cop?' I said.
    'Everyone
knows we're married to cops. We make a point of telling them. Plus we usually
make it sound like you guys are trigger-happy psycho coppers like Dirty Harry.'
    Quiet
Cop couldn't keep quiet any longer. 'What about the partners?' Terry said. 'Did
they all get along with Jo?'
    'No,
Terry. We all got together and decided to kill her. What kind of a stupid
question is that?'
    'Hey,'
he said, 'we're down to the stupid questions, because we asked all the smart
ones, and we're still looking for a motive why anyone would want to kill this
woman.'
    'Could
we not talk about this anymore?' Marilyn said.
    'Fine
with me,' Terry grumbled.
    'This
is going to sound dumb,' Diana said, 'but as long as we're down to the stupid
questions, can I ask one?'
    'Sure,'
Marilyn said. 'Fire away.'
    'These
houses that you renovate, they sell for a lot more than the market value,
because Nora makes them famous. Am I right?' 'Right.'
    'And
how does she make them famous? She makes them the scene of some fictional
murder, right?'
    'That's
the concept.'
    'OK,
here's the dumb question,' Diana said. 'Do you think the price of the house
would go up even higher if there were a real murder connected to it?'
    'Wow,'
Marilyn said.
    'That's
pretty interesting,' I said. 'I can't wait till you come up with a smart
question.'
    'You're
saying that somebody might have wanted to drive the price of the house up, so
they killed someone connected to it,' Terry said.
    'I
don't know,' Diana said. 'It's just a weird thought I had.'
    'So
maybe this has nothing to do with Jo,' he said. 'They just picked her at
random. They could've killed any one of the...'
    I
couldn't stop him, and by the time Terry stopped himself it was too late. The
idea that the victim could have been any of the partners hit Marilyn hard. She
bolted from the table. 'I'm going to be sick,' she said, and ran toward the
ladies room. Diana ran after her.
    Terry
put his hand to his forehead. 'I must be an idiot.'
    'It
was like watching a train wreck,' I said. 'I saw where you were going, but I
couldn't stop you.'
    'She'll
be OK,' he said. 'In the meantime, if Diana is right about the motive, that
would narrow down the list of suspects. There's not too many people who would
benefit if the house sold for more.'
    'Nora's
loaded,' I said. 'I can't imagine she'd kill anyone for money. So that leaves
Julia and Marisol.'
    'Don't
forget about that redhead who's puking her guts out in the bathroom,' Terry
said. 'Never did trust her.'

Chapter
Eleven
     
     
    Traffic
on the 101 is cake if you leave for work at five thirty in the morning. We had
to wait till a civilised hour before we could make house calls, so we spent the
first chunk of our day going over Reggie Drabyak's recent cases. At 9:00 a.m.
we headed for Nora Bannister's house.
    Nora
is a cop groupie. She used to drop by the station under the pretence of
visiting her son-in-law, Charlie Knoll, then spend the next few hours chatting it
up with any homicide detective she could corner. Terry and I were her favourite
targets.
    Eventually,
she stopped pretending and would call in advance to schedule a