Death of an Aegean Queen by Maria Hudgins Page A

with his hand, a gesture I interpreted as meaning, “Please rescue me from this woman before I cut my own throat.” I pointed toward the door and kept walking.
    Sophie had tucked herself discreetly behind the open door to the hall, pulling me aside as I stepped out. “I can’t come in, Mrs. Lamb. I’m not dressed properly.”
    “You’re dressed fine, but Dr. Girard suggests we three meet in the library after dinner. Say about nine? Better make it nine-thirty,” I added, remembering that dinner last night had been a rather lengthy affair.
    “What is he going to do to me?”
    “Do to you?” I laughed. “He’s not going to do anything to you, Sophie. He’s quite harmless, I think. And by the way, call me Dotsy.”
    I joined Marco, who by this time had shaken off the squash-shaped woman, and together we located Ollie and Lettie. Willem Leclercq and Malcolm Stone were talking to them.
    Ollie took my elbow and turned me away from the conversation group. “I’ve asked Leclercq and Stone to join us for dinner. Is that okay?”
    “Why ask me? I’m not the social director,” I said. “But Kathryn Gaskill says she might join us, too. Do you think it will be awkward?”
    Ollie reddened. He paused for a minute. “She has as much right to that table as we do. We can’t ban her because her husband’s dead and she thinks I killed him. Either me or Leclercq or Stone. Wow. The victim’s widow and the three top suspects at the same table.” He paused and ran a hand over his bald head. “Maybe me and those two guys could take a different table. Make it seem like they invited me to their table.”
    “That’s not necessary.” I felt as if I should give Kathryn and the men credit for having some couth. “We’ll simply stay off the subject of what’s happened to George.”
    * * * * *
    When we entered the dining room, I saw Kathryn was already sitting at the table we’d had the previous night. She was decked out in widow’s weeds: black dress, black shoes, black necklace, and a little black bow in her black hair. Our waiter quickly grabbed two more place settings from his little service bay, but I whispered to him that only one more setting was needed since Mrs. Gaskill’s husband would not be with us. The poor waiter, just grasping the situation, backed away so quickly he sent a tray on the portable stand behind him skittering across the carpet. I managed to get Marco and myself seated on either side of Kathryn. Sort of like insulation.
    Since “How has your trip been so far?” and “What did you do today?” were forbidden topics, Lettie started us off with, “This is such a beautiful time of year to be in Greece. I’ve heard it’s horribly hot in mid-summer. I told Ollie, I said, ‘I’m glad you were able to take time off now,’ because he can’t leave town when he’s in the middle of a construction project.”
    Kathryn said, “For us it was a matter of finding time between surgeries. George has been having dental work done—caps and things—and he’s scheduled for bypass surgery soon after we go home.” Kathryn was still referring to her husband in the present tense. “You never know, do you? George told me he wanted to take this trip before his surgery because he’d always wanted to see the Greek islands and with heart surgery, you never know.” Kathryn’s napkin flew to her face as if she had just realized George wouldn’t be needing that operation after all.
    Marco changed the subject and directed a question to Leclercq and Stone about their search for antiques. Leclercq reminded us this was a buying trip for him because he was looking for furnishings for a wealthy client’s new home, and Stone’s job was to advise him about the purchases he hoped to make. A nice, safe topic. Good job, Marco.
    Lettie told us about Ollie’s buying every sponge on the island and Marco got us all laughing at his description of Lettie entering the urbane coffee house with a bag of sponges and two pelicans.