Flo Charts
Page 9
She smiled up at him. “No thanks, Roger. But I appreciate the offer. I think Agnes and I are going to run out to the pasta place up the road. Do you want us to bring you something?”
He shook his head. “Tonight’s meat loaf and lime jello. You couldn’t blast me out of here with dynamite.”
They shared a smile and then Roger bent closer, stooping his tall, gangly form so he could look into her eyes. “I’ll see you later then, doll.”
Flo nodded, watching him amble from the room. He didn’t get far before several other men, all shapes, sizes and ages, caught up with him and the whole wad of trouble slipped into the elevator and disappeared.
Flo glanced at Agnes, who was stuffing cookies into her purse. “Come on, Agnes. You’re going to ruin your appetite.”
Her friend shook her head but turned away from a nearly empty table. “Not a chance. I have a heaping plate of spaghetti and meatballs in my future.”
“How can you eat so much?” Flo moved past her and started for the hall.
“I have a lot of muscle. Muscle burns more calories.”
“Mm-hm.” Flo realized with a start that the man with the magazine was still in the chair. She squinted at the magazine. “Is that copy of Better Homes & Gardens upside down?”
Agnes slid the man a look. “Yeah. It looks like it is. Huh. Maybe that’s why he’s asleep. He got bored looking at all those strange letters on the page.”
Flo stepped closer. “I don’t see his chest moving.”
“You sure?”
Flo frowned. “Sir?”
The man didn’t move.
Flo stepped closer, Agnes right behind her. “Um, sir. Are you all right?”
Nothing.
She looked at Agnes, her eyes going wide. “I think he’s dead.”
Agnes took a step back. “That’s not possible.”
Flo lost patience. When she was stressed she had very little of the stuff. And realizing they’d been sitting and chatting and eating next to a dead body for over an hour made her very stressed. “Of course it’s possible, fool! Do you not watch the show?”
Agnes’s jaw tightened and her face formed into a familiar belligerent look that didn’t bode well. Flo’s stress level was about to go higher. “Agnes...”
But her friend had already stomped past and approached the man with the magazine. She reached out and touched his shoulder. “Hey, mister. You need to wake up now.”
He didn’t wake up. Agnes glowered down at him.
Seeing the next few moments playing out in her head, Flo took a step closer, her hand stretched toward Agnes. “Don’t...”
But it was too late. Agnes gave the man’s shoulder a shake and he finally moved. Or rather tipped. Straight out of the chair and onto the footrest a few feet away. He landed on his head with his butt up in the air.
Agnes jumped back with a squeal. “He’s dead, Flo!”
Flo crossed her arms over her chest. “Ya think?” She moved closer, and stood looking down at him. “I should check his pulse.”
Agnes took a big step back and motioned toward the corpse. “I’ve got your back.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Expelling a long breath, Flo sidled over to the body and reached for the arm that was curved in front of him, the magazine still clutched between his fingers. “Looks like rigor’s set in,” she told Agnes. She placed her fingers on the man’s wrist and felt nothing. “Yep. Dead.”
Drawn by an incorrigible curiosity, Agnes moved closer, peering past Flo. “What do you suppose killed him?”
Flo shook her head. “I don’t see any holes in his body.” She tipped sideways and tried to look at his face. “I can’t see if there’s any foam around his mouth...”
“Foam?”
She straightened. “Don’t you watch the cop shows? That means he was poisoned.”
Agnes shrugged. “Or he could have rabies.”
“Yeah, Agnes. He probably has rabies.”
“Don’t get all uppity with me Florence Irene Bee. I’m just throwing out helpful suggestions.”
“Yeah. That was very helpful.” Flo put a hand on her hip and eyed the dead guy. “We should probably call the police.”
“We can’t. Not until we know what killed him.”
“What are you talking about, Agnes?”
“Once they take the corpse we won’t be able to get any information. If we’re gonna solve this murder we need to get as much information as we can before they cart him away.”
A familiar spark of excitement fizzled in Flo’s chest. “You mean like in TC’s books?”
Agnes grinned. “Yeah. Why not? If TC can solve crimes on paper we can solve them in real life, right?”
Flo’s gaze slid back over the corpse. She thought about Agnes’s proposal for a minute and then nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Agnes rubbed her meaty hands together. “Great! What should we do first?”
“We need to get a look at the guy’s face.”
They both eyed the upside down dead guy for a moment before Agnes suggested, “Maybe we should tip him back up.”
“No. We can’t disturb the crime scene.”
“Technically tipping him back up would be more like preserving the crime scene, since he kind of fell over when I touched him ever so gently.”
Flo lifted a brow. “Mm-hm. You’ve done enough damage to my crime scene, Agnes Willard. We’re not moving him again.”
“Your crime scene!” Agnes crossed her arms. “Okay, then what do you suggest, Miss CSU?”
Flo eyed the dead guy up and down and then dropped to her knees. “I’ll just crawl under him and take a gander at his face.” She glanced up at her friend. “Bring that lamp over here and shine it under him so I can see better.”
Flo got down on her back and scooted until she was underneath the dead guy.
Holding the small table lamp down so it illuminated the ground beneath the corpse, Agnes bent double and moved closer. “Can you see anything?”
Flo blew on the magazine page resting on her face. “Houston, we have a problem.”
“Here, let me,” Agnes reached under and tugged on the magazine. Something cracked really loudly.
They both stilled.
Finally, Flo said, “Did you just break his wrist?”
Agnes shrugged. “Not unless he’s made out of matchsticks. Hurry up before somebody comes.”
Flo scooted nearer the man’s head. “Hold the lamp closer.”
Agnes shoved the lamp underneath the body. “How’s that?”
“Good. I think I see...”
“What in the world is going on here?”
Agnes jumped, clocked the corpse on the head with the lamp and knocked him off the footrest. He dropped to the ground with a meaty thud and Flo shrieked as the magazine pressed against her face, held there by the weight of the dead guy. She started flailing around, legs kicking and arms shoving ineffectually at the corpse.
A moment later he flew away and crashed against the small table between the chairs. The table wobbled a beat and then started to tip, the lamp on its smooth surface sliding toward the dead guy.
Flo jumped to her feet, spitting dead guy spores out of her mouth and watched in horror as the lamp landed on the guy’s head, the shade sitting atop his lifeless cranium like a drunk guy’s hat.
She slowly looked up into TC’s horrified gaze. “Oh, hey, TC. You came back.”
The younger woman’s gaze was locked onto the corpse. “Is that guy dead?”
Agnes smirked. “If he wasn’t before he is now.” She and Flo chuckled with embarrassment but TC did not look amused. “What were you two doing to him?”
Flo wrung her hands together. “I was looking for petechial hemorrhaging.”
“Peteeky whaty?” Agnes asked.
TC moved closer. “Has he been dead this whole time?”
“I’m pretty sure he has, yes.”
TC reached down and gently lifted the shade. “How’d he get out of the chair?”
Flo and Agnes shared a look. They both shrugged. “Agnes tried to shake him awake.”
TC’s eyebrows flew north. “And threw him halfway across the library?”
Agnes chuckled nervously. “I might have been a bit enthusiastic.”
TC shook her head. She pulled out her phone. “I’ll call the police.”
“Wait!” Agnes put her hand over TC’s phone. “We need to figure out what killed him first. So we can solve the murder.”
“We need to call the police, Agnes. And they aren’t going to be happy. You two are like a geriatric tsunami washing through their crime scene.”
“But how do we even know it’s a crime scene,” Agnes argued reasonably. “Maybe he died of natural causes.”
TC lifted her phone and started punching numbers. “Then the police will figure that out and all will be well.”
Agnes started to reach for TC’s phone again and the younger woman jerked it away from her with a frown. “Please don’t call them yet, TC. We just need a little more time.”
Glancing at the corpse on the floor, Flo’s eyes widened and she took a step back, horror sliding icy fingers along her spine. She stared at the dead guy, her finger coming up to point as she backed away. “Never mind, Agnes. I know what killed him.”
The two other women turned to look where Flo was pointing and found the object of her horror.
Tolstoy was perched happily upon the dead guy’s hip, licking his paws with his short tail whipping the air behind him.
VISIT THE Dose Vidanya book page on Sam’s website for more information and purchase links!
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