Larceny and Lace Read Online Free PDF Page B

in time to see my father reach the playhouse, where the fire looked worse. “"Wooly knobby knits, if the fire doesn’'t get him, smoke inhalation will!
    Dad, don’'t go in!”" I shouted, but it was too late. If he heard my warning, he ignored it. Eve and I crossed the street, looked up at the death trap’'s top floor, bright with fire, and followed my father in, if only to get him the Hermèes out.
    Right away, I heard him shouting for Mr. Sampson, and I followed the sound upstairs, while Eve started searching the main floor.
    “"Madeira,”" my father shouted when he saw me, “"I have everything under control. Get out of here.”" One set of mile-high drapes burned while Dad was pulling down a set that wasn’'t. “"Go see if you can find Mr. Sampson on the main floor,”" he shouted over the fire’'s roar.
    “"Eve’'s looking there. I’'ll check the basement.”"
    “"Be careful!”" we both shouted as I sprinted down the stairs to the faint scream of fire trucks in the distance. I ran through the basement maze calling Sampson’'s name and passed a rack of prized vintage costumes. I checked the rest of the basement, but found no sign of Sampson. Then I took a half minute to throw the costumes into laundry carts, roll them out the door, and awkwardly drag them one by one, up the half dozen or so steps that led to the sidewalk.
    I left them in the ATM lobby of the bank next door, and by the time I got back, red lights swirled around me, men shouted, the moment surreal and ghastly. Gathering my wits, I ran back to the playhouse and followed the sound of raised voices. When I reached them, I stopped dead.
    My heart hammered as I wiped my sweaty palms against each other and examined the faces around me: Dad, Eve, with tears in her eyes, Detective Werner, my nemesis, and half a dozen sooty firemen.
    Tunney, the meat cutter, had blood on his apron and a meat cleaver in his hand, as usual.
    Even when I was a kid and Tunney used to get down on all fours and pretend to be my pony, he’'d worn a bloody apron. But he’'d never looked this scared. I forced myself to follow everyone’'s gaze to the floor and worked hard to resist retreat.
    Broderick Sampson looked like he was sleeping.
    I shuddered. He couldn’'t be—--I gazed at my father seeking hope. “"He’'ll be okay, right? Dad?”"
    “"In on this one, too, Ms. Cutler,”" Detective Werner said. “"And only home, what?
    Two hours?”"
    This one what? I retreated inside myself where it was safe.
    “"Looks like foul play,”" Werner said. “"We don’'t know yet if anything is missing.”" My father hugged my shoulder. “"Mr. Sampson’'s gone, honey.”" My stomach lurched. “"Not murder. Not again.”"
    Tunney looked at his cleaver, stood, opened his hand with effort, as if it had stiffened into a death grip, and he let the knife clatter to the floor.
    “"Was Sampson stabbed?”" I asked, staring at the cleaver with disbelief. “"He doesn’'t look injured at all.”"
    I’'d heard that even Tunney, our beloved butcher, had been loud and angry at the
     
    town meetings, but he didn’'t have a violent bone in his body. He made kids flowers from butcher paper, for pity’'s sake.
    He wouldn’'t harm a bird . . . except that he did.
    Tunney Lague was a big old teddy bear . . . who chopped animals into edible pieces for a living.
    Eight Little black dresses first began to appear around 1918-1920 and I have the feeling they came out of the mourning look of World War I.
    —--KARL LAGERFELD
    Broderick Sampson lived around the corner from us in Mystick Falls, a widower rattling around in a big old place alone, until his younger sister showed up to keep house for him. Gossip is that Sampson and his sister didn’'t get along and that she showed after the planned sale of his playhouse to a world-class department-store conglomerate made the headlines.
    Sampson hadn’'t grown up in Mystick Falls, so no one knew the sister, but he’'d been here long enough for