eb93c43e214c621f9157c05b4b6a6878

“She’s dead!” Agatha cried brokenly. “I arrived and the door was open, so I walked in and there she was. On the floor… blood everywhere… dead!”

“Who’s dead?” asked Chase, taking charge and escorting the woman to a nearby chair.

Agatha stared before her for a moment, the vision of the dead woman clearly prominent in her mind’s eye.

“Agatha? Who’s dead?” Odelia insisted.

“Astra,” Agatha murmured. “The knife… I felt for a pulse but… Oh, God!” And with a terrified scream she buried her face in her hands, rubbing blood all over herself.

“Better call the manager,” Odelia advised.

“On it,” said Chase curtly.

“Who’s dead?” asked Dooley.

“Astra Jacobs, apparently,” I said.

“But how? And where did all that blood come from?”

“Astra Jacobs,” I repeated. “Or so I gather.”

“Who’s Astra Jacobs?”

“An actress,” I said. “She used to play an important part in a show calledHearts& Roses, but then got into a fight with her costars and so she left the show.”

“Maybe she felt so sad about leaving the show that she killed herself?”

“It’s one possibility,” I allowed. “Though usually people don’t stab themselves.”

“She stabbed herself!”

“Agatha mentioned a knife,” I reminded him. “And where else would all of that blood have come from?”

At least now we knew why Agatha had left the room in the middle of the night: to go and pay a visit to Astra. But why? For a midnight chat?

Odelia must have been wondering the same thing, for she now asked,“Why did you go to Astra’s room?”

“She sent me a message to meet her,” said Agatha, looking up at Odelia with a haunted expression in her eyes. She looked terrible with her blood-streaked face. Like some kind of mass murderer who’s just returned from her latest massacre.

“What did she want to meet you for?” asked Odelia, who now got up and headed into the bathroom. She returned with a washcloth, which she used to clean the woman’s face and hands.

“She’s destroying evidence, Max!” Dooley whispered.

“I know.” It did seem like the humane thing to do, though. If the manager came barging into the room, with the police in tow, they’d take one look at Odelia’s charge and immediately snap a pair of handcuffs on her wrists and drag her off to the guillotine—if that’s what they still did in France. My knowledge of the French justice system might be out of date.

“I don’t know,” said Agatha. “I assumed she wanted to explain her side of the story. Maybe apologize for the role she played in the end of my marriage?”

“I see,” said Odelia, and gave the woman, who already looked a little less like a mass murderer, a heartfelt hug. Agatha sobbed and then seemed to calm down.

“He’s on his way up,” said Chase as he put the phone down. “Apparently he already knew all about it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Agatha, alarmed.

“Someone must have reported it.”

Agatha started to tremble again.“They’re going to think I did this. They’re going to think that… I murdered Astra!”

I could see that Odelia was doing some quick thinking herself.“Can you forward me Astra’s message? And maybe those pictures of her and your husband.”

Agatha sat looking numb for a moment, but suddenly a loud knock sounded at the door that jerked her back to reality. So she grabbed her phone and got busy.

And not a moment too soon, for just then, another knock made us all look up, and then the words,‘Police! Open up!’ were hollered through the thin pane.

CHAPTER 9

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

I found it odd that one would ask for the manager and instead the French police would show up, but then I guess that’s how they do things in Paris. Underpromise and overdeliver, I think it’s called. At any rate, the police officer who barged his way into the room looked like he meant business. He introduced himself as Inspector Daniel Giblet, though unlike his American counterparts he neglected to produce a shiny badge to back up his claim, and immediately homed in on Agatha, who had rocketed to her feet at the sight of the long arm of the law and now stood clutching Odelia’s arm, consternation written all over her refined features.

“Agatha Kinetic?” the policeman inquired gruffly.

Agatha nodded nervously.“Yes?”

“Do you recognize this?”

And from behind his back, like a magician, he spirited a clear plastic baggie, containing a pretty big knife.

The knife had smudges of a reddish substance, which I took wasn’t ketchup, and featured an intricately carved dragon on its handle. It looked really special.

Agatha’s jaw dropped at the sight of the knife. “But… where did you get that?”

The detective’s face worked. It was a sort of squashed face, and somehow he reminded me of a butcher. Or a boxer. Or a boxing butcher. Though of course he could have been a butchering boxer. But I digress. “From the body of Astra Jacobs, now deceased.”

“What’s going on here?” asked Chase.

Inspector Giblet whirled on Chase.“And who are you?”