High Heels Are Murder by Elaine Viets Page A

and got a little information. It’s not good, Josie. It’s just not good.”
    “I don’t even know how Mel died,” Josie said. “I haven’t seen anything about it in the paper.”
    “George says when the police arrived, they first thought Mel Poulaine had been drinking and was killed in a fall down his stairs. Then they realized he’d been murdered. Something about the blood-spatter patternsbeing too high. Someone hit him on the head and tried to make it look like an accident.’
    “The police think it was Cheryl?” Josie said.
    “Yes. The police have a witness who saw her in that Mel person’s house the night he was murdered. They found Cheryl’s fingerprints on a wineglass. There are just smudges on the other glass. It has traces of some kind of drug in it. They’re saying Cheryl bashed in Mel’s head and tried to make it look like he died of a fall.”
    Josie winced, but said nothing.
    “The police took some of Cheryl’s clothes and shoes, but they didn’t find any blood on them.”
    “What was the murder weapon?” Josie said.
    “The warrant said it was ‘a heavy, rounded object, possibly a paperweight.’ The housekeeper told the police there’s a heavy blue Tiffany paperweight missing from a hall table. They searched Cheryl’s house, but they didn’t find it.”
    “So there’s no murder weapon or bloody clothes connected to Cheryl. What do they have?” Josie said.
    “Nothing else. Cheryl admits she was in Mel’s house. She says she was a good customer and he invited her for a cocktail. She had one drink and left. Mel was alive and well when she left.”
    Mrs. Mueller said that last part a little too quickly. Josie was pretty sure that Mrs. M ranked unchaperoned drinking right after murder in her personal list of sins. Josie didn’t mention Cheryl’s little slip about Mel lying at the foot of the staircase. She’d save that if she had another talk with Cheryl.
    Josie was surrounded by another long silence. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
    Mrs. Mueller heaved a great sigh. “The police found forty-eight thousand dollars in Cheryl’s closet.”
    “She kept that much cash in her closet? Where?”
    “In her shoe boxes,” Mrs. Mueller said.
    That explained all the shoes on the floor, Josie thought.
    “Cheryl won’t tell me where she got the cash, but the police found the dead man’s fingerprints on the boxes and the paper bands around the money.”
    “Are Mel’s prints on the money itself?”
    “I don’t think so. My nephew George says you don’t usually get prints off money. It’s handled by so many people, it’s one big smear of body oils. But it doesn’t look good with that Mel person’s prints on the money bands.”
    “Why would Mel give Cheryl money?” Josie said.
    “I don’t know. Maybe she was holding it for him, keeping it safe. You must help me find out why,” Mrs. Mueller said. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
    Josie knew there was no explanation that any mother would want to hear.
    “Cheryl won’t talk to me or her lawyer,” Mrs. Mueller said. “I can’t help her until she does.”
    Josie wanted to say, “What about her husband?” but she knew the answer. How could Cheryl tell Tom she’d been drinking with another man while he’d been working late? She didn’t even ask for him when she was being arrested.
    “I’d like to help, Mrs. Mueller, but Cheryl won’t talk to me, either. She threw me out of her house today.”
    “I know,” Mrs. Mueller said. “She says she doesn’t want anyone’s help, but that is when my girl needs it most. I know you can help her, Josie. You’re the same age. You grew up next door. You were school chums.”
    “We weren’t real close,” Josie said. We hated each other’s guts, she thought.
    “Cheryl’s back home now,” Mrs. Mueller said. “You don’t have to talk to her. I want you to follow her for the next three days. Find out where she goes. Find me a reason. I’ll pay you a