Some Like it Lethal Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Praise for Nancy Martin’s Blackbird Sisters mysteries

  “Nancy Martin writes about Philadelphia high society like no one else. With romance, humor, sex and money. What more could a debutante want?”

  —Sarah Strohmeyer

  “Sing a song of suspense, a pocket full of wry, Nora’s funny Blackbirds make you laugh until you die.”

  —Mary Daheim, author of The Alpine Obituary

  Dead Girls Don’t Wear Diamonds

  “If you’re looking for a light, comic mystery with a touch of romance, Dead Girls Don’t Wear Diamonds fits the bill.”

  —Romantic Times

  How to Murder a Millionaire

  “Welcome the Blackbird sisters, Philadelphia aristocracy, born to money, now widowed and strapped. . . . How to Murder a Millionaire is clever, good-humored and sharply observed.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer.

  “A Main Line Philadelphia backdrop, a self-deprecatingly funny former debutante, and a cast of wonderfully quirky characters combine for a thoroughly entertaining mystery that also provides some red-hot sexual tension between the heroine and her tough-guy protector. Can’t wait for the next installment in this smart and sophisticated new series.”

  —Jane Heller, bestselling author of The Secret Ingredient

  “Nancy Martin has a rich, engaging, and funny hit in How to Murder a Millionaire. With a scandalous mystery, hot romance, and the delightful to-the-manor-born Blackbird sisters, Martin also treats us to a rare peek into Philadelphia’s exclusive high society where all is not Grace Kelly. It’s a book to curl up with and savor. You won’t want it to end!”

  —Sarah Strohmeyer, author of Bubbles Ablaze

  “Martin has a way with quirky characters, and this first in the Blackbird Sisters series promises treats for readers.”

  —Amarillo Globe-News

  “If you’re not hooked by the end of the third paragraph . . . you have neither a sense of whimsy nor humor. . . . And if you’re not smiling when you finish the book, you are no true fan of cozies. . . . What scandal for high society, but what fun watching Nora figure it out.”

  —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “Murder with Style: My definition of escapism is ‘well-dressed, well-spoken people misbehaving.’ Throw in a fast-paced whodunit, and you have a perfect page turner, How to Murder a Millionaire by Nancy Martin. [The author] has turned her talents to creating a Philadelphia former debutante who dresses in Grandmama’s couture classics to cover Society events and uncover a Society murder while dealing with her parents’ delinquent tax bill, her eccentric sisters, and an Italian stallion who is as gallant as he is studly. Grab your cozy slippers and another hot chocolate.”

  —Pittsburgh Magazine

  Other Blackbird Sisters Mysteries

  How to Murder a Millionaire

  Dead Girls Don’t Wear Diamonds

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,

  London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road,

  Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

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  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads,

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, April 2004

  Copyright © Nancy Martin, 2004 All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09952-0

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  This book is dedicated to my hero, Jeff Martin. For twenty years, you were the best thing that ever happened to me. And the last ten haven’t been too bad either. Luv ya.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  Thanks to the wonderful people at Malice Domestic, who know how to make a newbie feel welcome.

  Chapter 1

  After my newly widowed sister Libby gave birth to her fifth child, she decided to become a goddess.

  “It takes effort,” she advised me when I went into her bedroom to shake her awake one cold November morning. “But it’s just what you need, Nora.”

  “I’m too busy taking care of your family,” I said, passing her the squirming body of her newborn son. “When you finish transforming yourself, could you make some peanut butter sandwiches for the kids?”

  “I can’t,” she said, taking the child. “I’ve given up peanut butter as a sacrifice to Placida.”

  “Who?”

  “My goddess within.” Libby began unlacing the ties on one of her exquisitely embroidered nightgowns in preparation of feeding her frantic son his overdue breakfast. “Placida is the deity of tranquility, sexual adventure and weight loss.”

  I sighed. “Libby, you had a baby just five weeks ago. And you can’t expect to lose weight without getting out of bed once in a while. Giving up peanut butter is a good start, but if you quit watching all those episodes of Trading Spaces and get some exercise—”

  “You don’t understand the goddess process, Nora.” Libby plumped the lacy pillows around her voluptuous figure and sat back with a beatific smile as the baby clamped on to her breast like a starving Yorkshire piglet. “You must open yourself to the possibilities so the goddess may flow from within you. It’s a mental path to all kinds of fulfillment. Why, just last night I had an erotic dream about Dr. Phil.”

  As she nursed her perfect baby I looked at my demented sister, with her beautif
ul skin glowing and her hair in a vixenish sort of tangle and her body all soft and glamorously flaunted, as if ready to be ravaged at Versailles by a Bourbon king. The Blackbird white complexion and auburn hair—which had been passed down through the generations, along with a very peculiar family crest and a seventeenth-century Blackbird blunderbuss—looked demure on me but distinctly more erotic on Libby. After childbirth, women weren’t supposed to look as if they’d been airbrushed by Playboy ’s most gifted photographer, but here was Libby looking divine while I felt as if I’d been beaten with a shovel.

  I said, “If I strangled you with your own nursing bra right now, it would be justifiable homicide.”

  “I’m re-centering my life!” she cried. “Don’t rush me! I must gather my cosmic resources, prioritize my most primal joys and learn to validate my sacred inner magic so I can evolve into the goddess of my mysterious potential. Such a powerful psychological makeover takes time.”

  “Well, the kitchen floor needs a makeover, too. How about using a mop while I’m out?”

  She sat up and widened her eyes in pretty dismay. “Where are you going? Good heavens, you’re not having clandestine morning sex with That Man, are you?”

  Although clandestine sex might tempt me I knew I shouldn’t leave Libby’s children alone in her custody for any reason whatsoever. Sixteen-year-old Rawlins had taken to suspiciously disappearing late at night with a group of friends who collectively had enough body piercings to start a surgical supply store. The thirteen-year-old twins Harcourt and Hilton were closeted in the basement, making a Santa Claus movie that involved bloodcurdling screams every three minutes, and five-year-old Lucy had invented an imaginary friend who graffitied the living room walls with grape jelly when I wasn’t vigilant. The baby, who still had not been bestowed with a name by his goddess mother, couldn’t bear to be anywhere but in my arms, except when he was trying to deplete his mother’s milk supply.

  To top everything off, Libby was lactating with more volume than a dairy cow, so one of my jobs was bottling and freezing the overflow to contribute to a breast milk bank at a Philadelphia foster child agency. Which meant there were even more children who depended on me while Libby lolled in postpartum splendor, dreaming of talk-show hosts and cockamamie deities.

  I had no time for anything, including clandestine sex.

  “That Man,” I said, “is fishing in Scotland.”

  She settled back against her pillows and muttered, “Yeah, sure.”

  I turned in the doorway. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Libby smoothed the fair hair on her baby’s head. “Honestly, Nora, if you believe your mob-boss boyfriend has gone fishing, I’m marching straight out to find a bridge to sell you.”

  “Oh, not that again.”

  “Do I need flip charts to explain it? Michael Abruzzo is a dangerous man mixed up in so many shady businesses—”

  “Name one.”

  “That new chain of gas stations,” Libby said promptly. “Gas ’n’ Grub? They’re popping up all over the place.”

  “What’s wrong with selling gasoline and sandwiches? Besides the indigestion?”

  “They’re cash businesses, Nora. Even you must know what that means.”

  “He’s making a living?” I said, tartly, bringing up a sore subject, since my parents blew the last of the Blackbird fortune and sailed off to a tax-evader’s paradise where they spent most of their time rehearsing for the weekly mambo contest.

  Libby covered her baby’s ears lest he learn about high crime at such a tender age. “Michael Abruzzo is laundering money.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud—”

  “The papers say he’s under investigation.”

  “He’s always under investigation. Because of his family, not himself.”

  “Well, this is a new one, and he’s the star of the show. I heard it on the news last night. It’s probably why he’s fled the country.”

  “He hasn’t fled! He’s taking a vacation.”

  “Think about it, Nora. If you had ill-gotten gains, you’d want a place to pass the dirty money to an unsuspecting public in small batches. That’s why he started Gas ’n’ Grub. Vanity Fair had a big article about money laundering last month. Pizza shops: now, those are a gold mine for criminals.”

  “Michael is not a criminal.”

  Which I believed most of the time.

  “He looks like a criminal,” Libby declared. “A sexy criminal, I’ll admit, with, okay, a sort of fallen-angel magnetism that some women find attractive, but—”

  “I’m leaving now,” I said before she could go into her riff about consorting with the devil. Somehow I wouldn’t mind so much if I actually enjoyed a little consorting, but lately I’d been stuck refereeing her children. “I’ll be back in two hours.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I told you. I’m covering the hunt breakfast for the newspaper. And Emma’s riding, remember?”

  Neither of us had quite gotten the hang of my employment yet. Before I was widowed, I’d spent my adult life being married to a doctor and devoting my time to good works and the Junior League, so when the family fortunes evaporated on tropical breezes, I didn’t have a respectable resume for job hunting. But an old family friend who owned a Philadelphia newspaper had found me a position as an assistant to the society columnist. The job required me to attend parties and report on clothes, guest lists and the details of so-called high society entertaining. It was work for which I was singularly suited, having been brought up in a tax bracket where the oxygen was very thin and party planning was an art form. I wasn’t going to earn a Pulitzer any time soon, but the job helped me pay down the heart-stopping tax debt on Blackbird Farm.

  This morning’s assignment was the hunt breakfast at an exclusive fox hunting club just off the Main Line. And I needed to be there shortly after sunrise.

  Libby eyed me. “Are you going to talk to Emma?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “Maybe I should come along.”

  “I think I can address Emma’s situation in a calm and rational manner on my own.”

  “Are you implying that childbirth has rendered me incapable of rationality?” Libby asked. “I’ll have you know there are actually studies that prove motherhood makes you smarter. So you have something to look forward to.”

  My sister Libby had plans to make everyone’s lives perfect. She decided that I only needed children to reach a state of serenity, and she rarely missed an opportunity to remind me of the maternal rewards that awaited me if I paid closer attention to the expiration date on my ovaries.

  “After five weeks in the household from hell,” I said, “I’m having second thoughts about having a family of my own.”

  Libby appeared not to hear me. “I think I will go along with you this morning.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “We should present a united front. Yes, I’ll definitely come. I have an invitation around here somewhere.” She disconnected her son from his food source and began to burp him while she imagined the party. “It might be a nice reentry into the world for me, too. All those handsome men on horseback!” The look in her eye reminded me of a pyromaniac lighting a match.

  “Don’t start, Libby.”

  “Don’t start what?”

  “Chasing unsuspecting men as if they were helpless rabbits doomed for the stew pot. You’re in a hormonal fever right now. You’re a danger to society. I’m not taking you with me. Besides, my car will be here in five minutes, and you’ll never be ready.”

  “I’ll follow you later,” she said. “Run along.”

  “What about the baby?” The idea of my lactating sister descending on an early morning party made me fear for the safety of my fellow guests. “And the rest of the kids?”

  She waved me off. “There’s plenty of my milk in the fridge, so he’ll survive. I’ll call a neighbor girl to keep an eye on the mayhem. I want to see you in action. You’re always stumbling into
excitement, and Placida thrives on exciting events. See you there!”

  My driver, Reed Shakespeare, was waiting in the driveway in the predawn darkness when I went tearing outside. He worked for the limousine service Michael owned—one of his many businesses—that had been hired by my newspaper to deliver me to assignments. A part-time college student and barely out of his teens, Reed took his job very seriously. Now experienced with my various moods, especially when I was escaping one of my sisters, he calmly handed me a paper cup of tea—skim milk, no sugar, just the way I liked it—along with the morning newspaper for me to read in the backseat. He opened the rear door for me. He hadn’t decided to allow me to sit up front yet, and I was determined to prove myself worthy. But it obviously wasn’t going to happen this morning.

  “Good morning, Reed. Look, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to take the puppy along.”

  Reed looked pained.

  A small pointed nose poked out of my handbag, and an unholy growl rumbled from the depths of the leather Balenciaga.

  Reed said, “You used to say you didn’t want a dog. You were really firm about that.”

  “I couldn’t refuse your mother, could I? When you think about it, Reed, you’re the reason I have Spike in the first place. You have nobody but yourself to blame.”

  “You could have refused.”

  “Refuse your mother? Reed, get real.”

  Rozalia Shakespeare, a woman of awesome inner strength and a voice perfectly suited to belting spiritual hymns to the highest church balconies, had pushed the puppy into my arms not long after Reed was released from a hospital stay. The bullet that had put him there had been my fault, although his mother felt otherwise. I couldn’t refuse her gift.