The Design Is Murder (Murders By Design) by Jean Harrington Page B

across his bedroom and all color drained from his face. “Where did you find it?”
    “Under your bed,” I told him.
    He pointed to his chest. “Under my...” His eyes widened and if anything he grew more ashen, and then like the day he discovered Connie Rae’s body, he passed out cold, toppling over like an axed redwood right across the struggling python.
    “The snake! Get him off the snake,” Tony yelled. Mike dropped the python’s front end and, grabbing Stew’s feet, yanked him across the carpeting.
    The movement woke Stew, who came to with a shudder. He sat up and aimed a shaky finger at the python writhing in Tony’s grasp. “You telling me I slept with that thing under my bed?”
    “Looks that way,” Mike said cheerfully, picking up the python about a foot down from the head.
    “How long?”
    “When did he escape on you, Tone?” Mike asked.
    “You ought to know,” Tony retorted, disgust clear in his tone. “You let him loose.”
    “I didn’t let him loose. The boys in Jake’s Diner wanted to see him. I just forgot to relock his cage is all.”
    “How long was it out?” Stew asked. “How long?”
    “He got loose two days ago,” Tony said. “Thanks to this bonehead. It never should have happened. You’ve got my apology, Mr. Hawkins.”
    “Hmmph,” was all Stew could muster, and from his position on the floor, he watched in silence as Tony and Mike hustled the snake out to a cage in the truck.
    I spent the rest of the afternoon on damage control. Back in the great room, stretched out on the couch with a damp dish towel on her forehead, Teresa let me play nursemaid. Ditto for Stew, collapsed on a club chair. He refused a dish towel but gulped down a double scotch on the rocks.
    Even though Tony vowed the fifteen footer was the only one missing, Stew had him search every room in the house to make certain no other pythons lurked in dark corners. In less than an hour, Tony declared the property snake free, and after all, he ought to know, he was the best snakeman in the business. Too bad he’d let Mike so carelessly manhandle the fifteen footer.
    Once the house was again safe, Stew insisted that Tony and Mike drive “the damn snake off my property.” The two men left for the day with promises to return tomorrow.
    Stew waved them off with a weary hand, and when Tony’s Tiles backed out of the driveway, he said, “I’d tell them to get lost for good, but I want that pool job finished. A couple more days should do it.”
    With my two patients resting comfortably, I felt free to leave as well. Before I could, and as much as I didn’t want to, I had to return to the master bedroom to retrieve my portfolio. My car keys and wallet were in one of the side pockets.
    For all the earlier excitement, the bedroom was now a calm if somewhat gaudy pink retreat, the dust ruffle still tossed over the mattress like a skirt hiked waist high. I flipped it down and made a mental note to dispense with a ruffle on Stew’s redo. His new bed would be platform style with no space underneath where critters could hide. I think Stew would appreciate that. At the very least, it would save him—or Teresa—from checking under the mattress every night before they went to sleep.
    The pile of Connie Rae’s clothes covered the bedspread, ready to be packed into the shipping boxes. Topping the pile was a pretty lilac-flowered notebook, the kind a young girl might scribble in. Connie Rae’s journal? I picked it up and skimmed through a few pages. Had Connie Rae confided all of her secrets to this book, secrets she wouldn’t want her momma to know? For some reason—pity for her untimely end, perhaps—I wanted to protect the girl’s memory and her family from further hurt.
    Not to be hypocritical about it, I was curious too. What
had
Connie Rae confided to this pretty flowered notebook?
    Nothing much. Disappointed, I glanced through several pages, reading girlish confidences about manicures and haircuts and how she