Today's Reading

Yanking the Dodgers blanket from the back of the couch, Claire dropped it over the dead man. She hustled to the entryway, stopping before the unlocked door. "Everything's OK, Connie," she said, raising her voice. "We were playing charades, and Barbara got carried away. You know how competitive she is."

Barbara blew Claire a kiss.

"Well, please keep it down in future, ladies. One of the residents passing by thought someone was being murdered."
 
Claire gave a weak laugh. "Only at charades. Atsuko and I killed Barbara and Daphne."

"I want a rematch," Daphne bellowed.

After getting rid of the condo manager, Claire opened the fridge and grabbed a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade. Opening a bottle, she took a long drink before returning to the others.

Barbara held out her hand. "I'll take one of those."

"Me, too," Daphne said.

Atsuko shook her head. "You're not supposed to mix alcohol and painkillers, Daph. I don't want you passing out on us. I'll have yours." Taking a swig, she pinned the D member of the group with her dark brown eyes. "Pray enlighten us as to why we can't inform the police that Claire killed this man in self-defense to save your life."

"I can't get into the details. It would put you in danger. I realize what I'm asking is out of the ordinary"—Daphne fiddled with her ponytail—"and I hate that you've been pulled into something I can't explain. But there are other forces at work here—ugly forces—and if the police get involved, it's not only me who is at risk—it's all of you. The less you know, the better. You'll just have to trust me."

The Alphabet Girls exchanged glances. Slowly, as one, they nodded their assent.

Claire stole a peek at the blanket-covered mound. "What about him?"

"Won't his family miss him?" Atsuko asked. As the reigning matriarch of her family, third-generation Japanese American Atsuko took pains not to interfere in her children's or grand-children's lives. But if one of them were to disappear, she would move heaven and earth to find them.

"He didn't have a family," Daphne said. "Other than a wife who divorced him years ago when he went to prison for murder."

Barbara gave her an appraising look. "Cagney," she said, using the nickname she'd assigned her pal from her favorite '80s TV show, "am I right in thinking you're the cop who put him away?"
 
"Yup. Something that didn't make me very popular with his buddies." She reverted to cop speak. "The deceased has some nasty friends. Ones I don't want you to meet. That's why we have to get rid of the body before someone comes looking for him." Daphne furrowed her forehead. "I just need to figure out where and how."

"We wrap him in the rug and blanket—they're both ruined anyway—and dump him in the middle of nowhere," Barbara said matter-of-factly. "The desert's always a good place, or a lake. A quarry or construction site could also work."

The girls gaped at her.

Barbara shrugged. "I watched The Sopranos, and my second husband was in the Mexican Mafia." Which was why, after the initial shock, Barbara had recovered enough not to be bothered by the dead man on the ground. This wasn't the first corpse she had encountered.

Daphne took charge. "We'll have to wait until tonight when everyone's asleep before we can move him. We'll take him to that construction site downtown where they're putting up a new office building. Some of the crew were at McDonald's last night. I heard them say they're pouring the foundation tomorrow morning."

"Perfect," Barbara said. "Concrete hides a multitude of sins." 

"You don't think they'll notice a body dropped in the hole before they pour the cement?" Claire asked.

"No, because we'll have dug down a few feet and buried him." Daphne scowled at her sling. "Correction. You'll have dug down a few feet. I won't be much help."

"You can be the lookout," Atsuko said.

"What will we wear?" Barbara eyed her Barbie-pink yoga pants, admiring her perfect thighs. "All black, I assume. I think I'll wear my black turtleneck and leggings." She frowned. "I'll have to buy a black beanie to cover my hair, though. You girls will need to get some too. Should we wear masks? I have a gorgeous Venetian mask from a costume party I went to a few years ago."

"The idea is to be invisible, B," Daphne said. "Not stand out."
Atsuko made a face. "Women over sixty are always invisible."

"Not when there's four of them all dressed in black, wearing matching beanies and outlandish masks," Claire said.

"Exactly." Daphne adjusted her sling. "Just wear dark clothes and rubber-soled shoes."

Atsuko wrinkled her nose at the blanket-draped mound. Having worked in her uncle's mortuary a summer when she was in college, dead bodies didn't faze her. But messes did. "I have some industrial-strength trash bags we can use so we won't drip blood all over the floor." Atsuko kept an immaculate house, the total antithesis of Daphne's condo full of bobble-heads, assorted sports paraphernalia, and empty takeout containers.

"Good idea." Daphne cast a sorrowful glance at the Dodgers blanket. "That was my favorite blanket. I got it after Gibson's historic homer off Eckersley in the bottom of the ninth in game one of the '88 Series."

Claire's eyes glazed over the way they did whenever anyone talked sports. "Sorry, Daph. I thought Connie was coming in, and I grabbed the first thing I could see to hide him."

"You didn't think she would notice a large mound on the floor?" Barbara said.

Claire cut her eyes to a messy pile of clothes in the corner. "Connie would just think it's more of Daphne's laundry."


This excerpt ends on page 12 of the paperback edition.

Monday we begin the book Guilt by Keigo Higashino.

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