Murder Plays House Read Online Free PDF

Hills real estate agent. Her trim body was encased in a chartreuse Chanel suit with large gold buttons and matching stiletto pumps. Her black hair was sprayed into a bobbed helmet, and her diamond earrings flashed in the sun. Her thin wrists were heavy with bracelets and bangles, and her lipstick was fire-engine red.
    Mrs. Lahidji blew by the detective as if she hadn’t even noticed his presence. “Katayoun! What’s happened here? Why are the police here? What have you done?”
    “What?” I asked, dumbfounded at the absurd accusation. I turned back to Kat, expecting her to blow up at this tiny, designer-clad, green goblin, only to see her close her eyes once again.
    “Katayoun! I’m talking to you!” the woman said sharply.
    By now the detective had caught up with her. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “I’m going to have to ask you a few questions.”
    She spun on one elegantly appointed heel. “One minute. I’m talking to my daughter-in-law!”
    “Mrs. Lahidji,” I interrupted. “I’m Juliet Applebaum, and Kat was showing me the house. I’m afraid we found a body in the guesthouse.”
    “A body!” she shrieked. “The house isn’t even on the market yet!”
    I was not quite sure what to make of that comment. Was it standard procedure to dump a body only
after
the house had an official MLS listing?
    The detective finally managed to refocus Kat’s mother-in-law’s attention on him.
    “Ma’am?” he said. “I’ll need to know your name.”
    “My name?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Nahid Lahidji. And who might you be?”
    The cop identified himself and asked her whether she knew the name of the deceased.
    She replied, “A woman? Blond? Fake boobs?”
    “Well, I, uh, I couldn’t make a definitive call about the breast implants,” he said, looking a little embarrassed. “But yes, a blond woman.”
    “In the guesthouse?” Nahid barked.
    He nodded.
    “Then it must be the owner’s sister. God knows there wouldn’t be any reason for another woman to be on the property.”
    “Do you know her name?”
    “Of course I do. This is my listing!”
    “Nahidjoon, please.” Kat whispered. Nahid paid not the slightest attention to her.
    “Ma’am?” the detective asked softly, almost tentatively. Why, I wondered, did the man seem so utterly cowed by this miniature tyrant?
    “
Felix
, like her brother. Her first name is Alicia. She’s an actress.”

Three
    I felt terrible leaving Kat in the clutches of her terrifying mother-in-law, but by the time the detectives released us I was desperate to get home. I’d called Peter and asked him to pick Ruby up from school, and had found out that Isaac’s stomach flu had returned with a vengeance. I hated the idea of Peter taking him out, even just to do a carpool run, but not even Al could convince the detective that I was needed at home. In fact, he didn’t intimidate the supervising detective anywhere near as much as the diminutive Nahid Lahidji did. It was Kat’s mother-in-law who got us sprung. After she had engaged in a conversation with the detective in which she’d asked as many questions as she’d answered, she turned to me.
    “Business card,” she snapped.
    “Excuse me?” I said. By then I’d become as silent as Kat.
    “Give me your business card. And your driver’s license, too.”
    I proffered the requested documents wordlessly.
    “Katayoun!” she said. Kat roused herself, reached into her purse, and handed Nahid her wallet. The older woman rummaged through it,
tsk
ing at the jumble of cards and bills until she found Kat’s driver’s license. She then reached into her trim gold purse and pulled out a sparking card case. She snapped it open, removed a thick business card printed on creamy ochre paper, tapped all the cards into a neat pile, and handed them to the detective.
    “Check the names against the licenses,” she said. “And then we’re leaving. My daughter-in-law and her friend need to get home. As you can see, they are both