Scratch the Surface by Susan Conant

Felicity’s apartment building, the jackhammer hadn’t stopped her from writing. She had worked despite the ends of love affairs, the pain of a broken wrist, and the discombobulation of the move from Somerville to Newton Park. The alternative was a return to classroom teaching. She had written two pages this same afternoon. “Well, if that happens, I’ll file a civil suit against the murderer and retire on my settlement,” she said.

    “Can you do that?”

    Felicity was about to say that one could indeed file such a suit when she noticed the object Janice had just picked up. “Janice, put that thing down! ” The thing was the mummified foot, which Janice was absentmindedly fondling. Sounding like Naomi, she said, “You could catch something from it!”

    “It’s dry. Actually, it looks like it’s been varnished. Bacteria grow in warm, moist environments.”

    “Janice,” said Sonya Bogosian, “you aren’t supposed to touch the exhibits. And that thing is disgusting. I don’t know why you’d want to touch it, anyway. Hi, Felicity. How’s your murder coming along?” Felicity had returned Sonya’s call, but had had to settle for leaving voice mail. Bogosian was Sonya’s married name. Her coloring was Scandinavian. Her long, naturally blonde hair was secured in a bun at the base of her neck, and, as usual, she wore so many layers of loose, flowing garments that her appearance suggested a well-scrubbed bag lady. “You know, if you don’t mind my asking, I have a little professional curiosity about something. The blood. Would you say it looked like ketchup? Or more like red paint?”

    “Sonya, it’s going to depend on whether it’s congealed,” said Hadley O’Connor, who’d joined the little group. Hadley was Felicity’s junior by ten years and almost ridiculously handsome, with wavy brown hair, bright blue eyes, and hard muscle. Five years ago, when he’d moved to Boston and begun attending Witness meetings, Felicity had had a brief fling with him that she’d ended as soon as she’d belatedly sampled one of his books. She occasionally read private investigator novels, especially hard-boiled mysteries so undercooked as to be barely coddled, and had wishfully supposed that Hadley’s novels would suit her palate. Ten pages of gore and sadism had disillusioned her. She had, however, remained on cordial terms with Hadley. In fact, she went out of her way to be pleasant to him, mainly because the contents of his mind frightened her senseless.

    “There wasn’t any blood.” Felicity made the admission with a sense of shame and inferiority, as if she’d had the bad luck to get a third-rate corpse. A first-rate one would have been mutilated, maybe even decapitated. Decapitation was hot these days, wasn’t it? Second-rate would’ve been gory: brain matter and blood. The little gray man had been third-rate: He’d been just plain dead. Still, the duct tape counted for something, didn’t it? “His mouth was sealed with duct tape,” she hastened to add, lest anyone think that her very own corpse had simply had a heart attack after being frightened to death, a method favored by Isabelle Hotchkiss. “But the police have asked me not to share the details with anyone.” Except hair stylists, who were clergy of sorts. Thank heaven for freedom of religion!

    Her eyes eager, Janice asked, “What did he die of then? Asphyxiation?”

    “No one knows yet,” Felicity said smugly. “When the results are available, I’ll be among the first to know. Obviously. I mean, this was not some random crime, although how it connects to me is, if you’ll pardon the expression, a complete mystery.” To Hadley, she said, “There was a cat left with the body. In my vestibule. I think I’m allowed to tell you that.”

    “Dead?” he inquired hopefully.

    “Alive! She’s with me now. Well, not here and now, but at my house. She was horribly traumatized, but she’s beginning to recover. And she’s just as sweet