Let Slip the Dogs of War: A Bard's Bed & Breakfast Mystery #1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

from the nostrils.
    “What?” I admit I thought his was an extreme
reaction to my intellectual musings.
    “Why in the bloody hell do you have to
speculate to the point of confusion? You can’t just come up with
one solution and check it out. Oh, no! Miss Jane Marple here has to
come up with a dozen theories, so that we are pulled in so many
directions, we waste precious time trying to pick the right one!”
Boy, he was really hot under the collar. I was going to suggest he
unbutton that top button and take a chill pill, but he had that
ugly look on his face that told me he was close to blowing a
gasket.
    “Which means we don’t know why Philippe came
here or what he plans to do,” I decided.
    “Hell, the girl could have died accidentally.
They could have been planning a romantic tryst and it got out of
hand. We just don’t have enough information to make a logical
conclusion, Bea!” he snorted. “Why do you always have to throw the
baby in with the bathwater when I’m trying to clean out the
tub?” You can tell we’ve been at the Bard for some time. Ben is
actually the guy who scrubs the porcelain.
    “Fine!” I snapped in response. “What do you
want me to do? Not consider the possibilities?”
    “I want you to stop and think before you
start spewing theories,” he replied, his words carefully measured
and dispensed through clenched teeth. “Not everything is a bleeding
conspiracy of evil! Sometimes a black crayon is just a black
crayon!”
    “You’re saying this isn’t a murder? Just
because she died, it doesn’t mean someone killed her, Ben?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m saying. She could
have accidentally overdosed. We don’t even know what was in the
injection.”
    “Right. Except for the fact that she’s not
covered with signs of intravenous drug use on a regular basis,
which means the injection was probably not a normal thing for her.”
One step closer to admitting it was a murder. Ben looked like he
was feeling guilty for sneaking that miscreant into the Bard Bed
& Breakfast, and he was hoping his error in judgment didn’t get
that poor girl killed. I believe the technical term for his
reaction is called denial. A glance at my watch told me we still
had some time before we left for the airport. “What are we doing
next?”
    “We get Uncle Edward and Lorna out of the
way, I drop the body over the railing, and you grab it below. Then
we get in the car, drive to the drop-off, and then head to the
airport to pick up Mr. Williams.”
    “Why can’t you catch the body?”
    “Because I have to hoist it over the parapet,
my love, and lower it down to you. I cannot be in two places at
once.”
    “Don’t you have a pulley or a zip line you
can use? I’ll hold the rope and lower it down after you get it set
up.”
    “Beatrice, there you go again, not thinking
it through. We have a dead body,” he said, speaking slowly, as if
to a dull child. “We need to move the dead body from this room to
the garden below. The weight of the dead body on the pulley would
require you to hold it fast for the length of time that I would
need to run downstairs and out to the terrace, around to the garden
and under the balcony.”
    “Can’t you just tie the rope to the bed? I’ll
untie it when you get into position.”
    “You would have us do all of that extra work,
not to mention risk the stability of Uncle Edward’s antique bed,
all because you are squeamish about catching a dead body that is
double-wrapped?”
    “Oh, fine!” I snapped back. “I hate it when
you’re right. Thank heavens you’re not right on a regular basis.
That would be unbearable.”
    “Meaning you are?”
    “More than you,” I replied proudly,
defiantly.
    “Hardly. Grab the feet. We’re going to move
her to the balcony.”
    We dragged the unfortunate girl out through
the narrow French doors and carefully rested her on the cold
wrought iron railing. The white shroud stood out against the sharp
black metal, and I was