S. L. Viehl - Roomies

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Roomies

by Lynn Viehl

"You don’t really want this place," Betty-Ann the property agent told me.

"Let me show you that pretty little townhouse I was telling you about, over on

Royal Palm."

"That’s okay." I looked around the estate cottage one more time. Two

rooms, five windows, completely furnished, no neighbors. Writer heaven. "This is

perfect."

"You don’t understand." Her thready soprano dropped to a less annoying

octave. "The last tenant who lived here died suddenly. He was sitting right

there on that couch reading, then he just keeled over. Poof. He was gone."

"Better than dying slowly." I reached in my purse and pulled out my

checkbook. "First, last, and security, right?"

She shook her head, and her sprayed, tinted hair bounced like a loose

helmet. "I shouldn’t say this, my new boss will kill me if he found out." Her

eyes moved right, then left. "Mr. Noble, the tenant before, well, some people say

he was murdered."

I glanced around the floor, but no sign of bloodstains or brains. Not

even so much as a hint of a chalk outline. "How did he die?"

"They just found him on the floor, dead." She sounded like he’d done it on

purpose, to ruin the lease value. "No apparent cause, it said in the papers."

I wanted to write my check and start carrying in boxes. "Maybe it was old

age."

"That’s just it, he was only forty." B-A gave me a troubled look. "And he

was a detective. A real one."

The facts and the name suddenly clicked. "Devin Noble?" When she nodded,

I grinned. Life generally stinks, but sometimes, it tosses up a little

well-deserved revenge. "Now I

have to have it. How much?"

She told me, then added, "You still want to move in? Knowing he died here

and all?"

"Devin Noble was presumptuous egotistic bastard who had about as much

charm as a diseased hyena. I’ll bet some client he swindled did the world a

favor and smothered him in his sleep." I started filling in the check.

"Oh, my goodness." Betty-Ann managed to look both horrified and impressed.

"You knew him?"

"No." I ripped off the check and handed it to her.

"Then how . . . ." she made a helpless gesture.

"He sent me some fan mail." In which he’d told me, repeatedly, that I knew

nothing about real detective work and should stop writing mysteries - not that

I was going to tell B-A that. I smiled. "I kept every letter he wrote." And had

used each one to line the cat’s litter box.

"Well." Betty-Ann folded the check in half and tucked it in the date book

she carried. "I hope you’ll be happy here."

In the place where my severest critic had met an untimely death? "I’m

crazy about it already."

* * *

Faust shot out of his carrier the minute I opened the little mesh door,

took one look around, and hissed.

"What’s the matter, baby?" I asked as I put the empty carrier in the

closet. "Can you still smell the big fat jerk who used to live here?"

My cat gave me a disgusted look and stalked off to patrol the premises.

It had taken me a couple of hours to transfer everything from my truck

to the cottage, but I was almost done. My computer was set up, my suitcase was

stowed, and the books I couldn’t live without were stacked neatly on the shelf

above Devin Noble’s desk.

My desk, I thought as I ran my fingers over the glossy mahogany surface.

He’d rented the cottage, too; there was no reason to assume all this stuff had

been his.

A cool breeze rushed in through the window I’d opened, and I shivered. It

was March in South Florida, but a cold front had moved in and the temperature

was supposed to drop to an icy forty degrees by night. As cold as New York when

I’d left it. I decided to make some tea to warm myself up and then get right

to work.

As I prepared the kettle, I thought about the rather weird series of

events that had brought me to this cottage. After the horrors of 9/11, I didn’t

feel safe in New York anymore, and I was tired of the cold weather. Florida had

always been one of my favorite vacation spots, but I couldn’t afford to make

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