Dead Body Language by Penny Warner Page B

doormat beneath my feet.
    The door opened to a cozy foyer, where Beau Pascal, the current owner, had added a rolltop front desk. I tapped the summons bell, then placed my palm on the desk to feel the vibration. I’d once rung a doorbell for fifteen minutes before the occupant opened the door by chance and told me the bell had been disconnected.
    I was studying a wall display of miners’ picks, pans, and assorted tools when a wad of sticky paper, like a giant spit ball, bounced off my head, followed by another, and another.
    “You’ve got a serious termite problem here, mister,” I said, looking toward the assault weapon’s point of origin. Leaning over the upstairs railing was a slim, slightly balding man in a Bloomingdale’s T-shirt. Upside-down, his thinning hair hung in delicate wisps like spider webbing.
    “Hey, Connor. How you doin’?” I’m not entirely sure that’s what he said, since he was hanging upside-down over the balcony. Talk about a lipreading challenge.
    I met Beau when I’d first arrived in Flat Skunk. Needing a place to stay until I fixed up my own place, we’d struck up a bargain. He’d just reopened the inn andcould use some publicity to get started, so he’d given me a cut-rate room in exchange for discount advertising in the
Eureka!
    Beau bounded down the stairs in a kind of two-step manner. The man never seemed to run out of energy. I suspected a coffee addiction.
    “Finally ready to give up that Diner From Hell you poured your life savings into, Connor? Want to move back here ’til those condos are built over in Whiskey Slide?”
    The catty remarks about my home were part of a running joke between us, the old my-house-is-better-than-your-house routine. He was currently hanging new wallpaper, which gave him the lead for the moment.
    “The offer is tempting, but I’m not leaving the diner without a proper fight. And so far I’ve beat the electrical, the plumbing, and the dry rot.” I looked down at my knees. The stinging felt like a multiple needle attack.
    Beau followed my glance. “Whoa! Looks like you’ve lost the latest fight, Connor! What happened? Finally take a header on that bike of yours? I told you to keep your hands on the handlebars. But you have to be a show-off!”
    He pulled out a small first-aid kit from beneath the desk, made a close-up inspection, and grimaced.
    “Some idiot pulled out of your parking lot right in front of me as I was riding home.”
    “Well, looks like I’m gonna have to amputate,” Beau said, brandishing a mean pair of scissors and a reckless, evil grin. “The pants, that is. Hope you got them on sale.”
    Thirty minutes and several snips later I was wearing a pair of fifty-dollar cutoffs with dark red fringe. Beau had me sitting on the toilet seat with my legs propped up on an antique chair, while he performed surgery in the bathroom. A small pile of tiny rocks lay on a piece of paper toweling on the counter. The Mercurochrome covering my knees hadn’t kicked in yet, nor had the liquid anesthetic Beau had offered from the minibar disguised as an old mining cart. My knees hurt like hell, not to mention my hands, my elbows, and my right shoulder.
    “You should have been a nurse,” I told Beau over a second glass of freshly squeezed orange juice when the surgery was over. I took it with another shot of whiskey for the pain.
    Beau grinned. “Always wanted to be a plastic surgeon. Then I could do a little surgery on myself and change my nose every time a new look comes along. Hope you don’t mind but I gave you a little knee-lift while I was digging out those boulders. Michael Jackson, eat your heart out.”
    As I finished my spiked juice, Beau and I talked about Lacy Penzance’s death. Of course he had heard about it—it was the topic of the hour, which reminded me of something the sheriff had said earlier.
    “Beau, Sheriff Mercer mentioned that Lacy had a business card from the Mark Twain in her purse. Did you give it to