The Corpse With the Golden Nose by Cathy Ace Page A

for that?” I raised my eyebrow in query, and Ellen nodded. “Right, well, that means I’m going to have quite a bit of getting ready to do. I’d like to clean up a bit, and so forth, before I dress. Would it be alright if we meet you downstairs here at five thirty, in case we have any more questions before we leave? Could the cab wait?” I thought that my rapid exit strategy might be a bit abrupt, but Bud was raking his hair with frustration, looking worried, and seemed keen to get away. I knew I was.
    â€œOh, absolutely,” agreed Ellen with enthusiasm, and she bounced up out of her chair, put it back in its place and started toward the door. “This’ll be your room, Bud, and Cait’s across the hall. Unless you’d rather be the other way around. It’s just you two this weekend, so you’ll have the place to yourselves—well, except for Lauren and Pat, of course. They live in. Well, out back, in the double-wide. But that was in my notes, right? Yes. They won’t be a bother, though—they’ll be pretty busy getting things ready for tomorrow’s breakfast. Let’s get tonight behind us first. See you, ready to go, at five thirty, and we can clear up anything you need to know before we leave. Byeee . . . lovely to see you both and thanks so much for coming.” And she was gone.
    I sat down again, hard, having risen to accept her parting words. We sat there until, from my vantage point, I could see her walking out of the front door. Then I turned to Bud and said, “Having promised in the truck to hold off with my opinions until I’d met the woman—I have now met her, and she’s a nut job , Bud!”
    â€œAnd that’s your calm, analytical, professional psychologist’s opinion?” he replied, shaking his head.
    â€œSometimes, Bud, I revert to the vernacular so that non-psychologists like you can understand what I’m talking about. The full two barrels of vernacular assessment are that anal, she’s judgmental, she’s closed-minded, she’s small -minded. She’s poorly read, hasn’t been exposed to anything but a traditional, locally based way of life. She’s unused to male attention, might have had a boyfriend or two when young, but nothing serious—not for them, anyway, but maybe for her. She’s controlling, she’s passive-aggressive, she’s repressed—in every way. Do you want me to go on?”
    â€œHow about the fact that she’s grieving her dead sister and can’t see the wood for the trees?” asked Bud pointedly.
    I sighed. “You’re right,” I admitted. “I’m being too harsh. Too judgmental .” I smiled guiltily at him. “She’s operating under duress, and her sense of perspective is likely to be way off. This might be unusual behavior for her and then again it may not be. That’s part of the problem. Everything’s coming at us from her point of view, and we don’t know how true, or off center, that is.”
    Bud nodded. “Talking about off —what was all that about being a marketing professor? You could have given me the heads-up on that one.”
    I shrugged. “I made a split-second decision, Bud. It might be too late for you to be anonymous here, and, given what you’ve done for a living, it was always likely that it wouldn’t have worked anyway.” Bud nodded his agreement. “But there’s no reason for folks to know that I’m a criminal psychologist. That’s not the sort of person a murderer usually opens up to, so I thought it was better to be something that no one would bat an eyelid at.”
    â€œNearly got caught there though, eh?” Bud grinned.
    Again, I shrugged. “Yep, I never thought of that. I’ll be better prepared when I meet the other suspects. I’ll draw on my time back in London when I worked for that advertising agency, and waffle