The Mansions of Cadiz

An excerpt from The Mansions of Cadiz

Mrs. Gilliard swirled her gown around behind her and turned back to him. "Mr. Foster, I hope you aren't suggesting that my son had anything to do with Madelyne's death."

Foster came a little closer. "I'm not suggesting anything, Mrs. Gilliard. I'm just collecting the facts." He looked into her eyes for signs that she suspected it too. Instead, he found only defiance and a kind of noble beauty.

She set down her high ball on a marble-topped table and came close. Her fine features were like a statue's: slender, refined, bloodless.

"Madelyne had several lovers, Mr. Foster; any of them may have become a jealous maniac. She was a lovely girl, but she'd slept with half the graduating class of Princeton. My Reggie is no saint, but he's loyal...and he's no murderer." She believed it. Her thin lips were set firmly; her eyes were like daggers.

"How about you, Mrs. Gilliard?" he asked quietly. She seemed strong enough to knife a girl to death and dump her body in a pond.

She relaxed, smiled slightly, looked at him now with heavy-lidded eyes. "Why yes, Mr. Foster. I have several lovers also." Foster swallowed hard. She kept looking at him with those bedroom eyes. "Come to my room tonight," she said. "You can interrogate me all you like."

With that, she turned away and swept thru the French doors and into the garden party. The band played spritely chamber music about a thousand years old.

Foster wiped his forehead and picked up her forgotten drink. He admired the heavy crystal glass for a moment and then downed the last of her high ball in one gulp. This was the Goddamnedest case he'd ever seen.