Murder on Parade Read Online Free

pleased as punch that the Grand Marshall was dead. She would be seeing his death as a judgment upon him for denying her a chance to read her ghastly poem. By tomorrow she would have her sorrowful expression fixed in place, but tonight she would have her claws all sharpened and be ready to tear the dead man to shreds, and as her maid of honor I was deemed the proper audience for her verbal dismemberment.
    And I couldn’t face it. All I felt up to was soothing my sharpened appetite, which had come on with a vengeance when I started browning meat and onions. I chose not to answer the phone. My cup of woe had already overflowed for the day. I told myself that the greater good would be served by not answering and therefore not yelling at my cousin three days before the wedding.
    “Chocolate?” Alex asked, bringing a gold candy box into the kitchen. He didn’t pick up the phone either. We had checked with Dad on the way back from the hospital and the animals were all safely moved and Mom and Aunt Dot were home from the parade. Aunt Dot had snuck out when Althea wasn’t looking. Alex’s aunt, Mary Elizabeth, was in Seattle with friends so we didn’t worry about her.
    I took one of the glossy brown balls and enjoyed every guilty mouthful of chocolate and cherry. Dad was drowning in chocolate cherry cordials. They were available from the Kandy Kounter only at Christmas and his addiction to them was an open scandal. Friends slipped him boxes on the sly so my mom wouldn’t know that they were contributing to his gastronomic delinquency. Some of those boxes were passed along to me. I kept them hidden in case Mom stopped by but Alex had ferreted them out his first day at the house. The man is a bloodhound when it comes to sweets.
    Alex hadn’t asked why I had them hidden. He is fairly smart and he has been around my family enough to understand the dynamic. Mom has high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Dad and I do not. Mom and Dad are separated and I live on my own, but as far as Mom is concerned we are still family and this doesn’t excuse us from following the same high fiber, low fat, no fun diet she does. Alex, until such time as he actually married me, was exempt from criticism but he tried not to flaunt his chocolate addiction in front of her.
    I was just glad that I had hidden the chocolates in the coffee table drawer instead of where I usually stash small things. I’d had Grandpa’s violin restrung for Alex for Christmas and it was waiting for a big red bow in the back of my closet. He would love it. The thought made me smile for the first time in an hour.
    Alex poured us some wine which I had planned to mull, but which was lovely right out of the bottle. I put down some spaghetti for Aphrodite (plain) and for Blue (with sauce), but none for Apollo since he doesn’t like pasta. Blue woofled appreciatively and dove right in.
    “Chloe,” Alex asked as we took our places at the table. “You don’t think that there was anything funny about Marshall Dillon’s death, do you?”
    By ‘funny’ he meant suspicious, not ha-ha that was so amusing.
    “I… don’t know. There’s nothing obvious that makes me think of murder.”
    He relaxed when I said this. Alex solves cyber crimes and is very good at it, but he had also been dragged into some violent crime cases since he had started dating me. Alex didn’t care for violence, especially if got anywhere near me.
    “Good. We can forget all about it then. And you can teach me to make gingerbread,” he said, brightening further.
    I nodded, but there was something weird about the Grand Marshall’s death and I couldn’t entirely shake off the feeling that there would be consequences if I didn’t figure things out and quickly. I hoped I was wrong and that the only outcome would be another dreadful poem from Althea, but my subconscious had logged the problem of the missing coat and gardenia perfume and it kept chewing on it even as I ate my delicious dinner.

Chapter