No Way To Kill A Lady Read online

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  Blackbird Sisters Mystery Series

  How to Murder a Millionaire

  Dead Girls Don’t Wear Diamonds

  Some Like It Lethal

  Cross Your Heart and Hope to Die

  Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too

  A Crazy Little Thing Called Death

  Murder Melts in Your Mouth

  Mick Abruzzo’s Story (e-book only)

  “Slay Belles” in mystery anthology Drop-Dead Blonde

  NO

  WAY

  TO

  KILL

  A LADY

  A BLACKBIRD SISTERS MYSTERY

  Nancy Martin

  AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Nancy Martin, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Martin, Nancy, 1953–

  No way to kill a lady: a Blackbird Sisters mystery/Nancy Martin.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-59308-0

  1. Blackbird Sisters (Fictitious characters)—Fiction. 2. Socialites—Fiction. 3. Philadelphia (Pa.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.A7267N6 2012

  813'.54—dc23 2011053174

  Set in Bembo

  Designed by Ginger Legato

  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.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  For Nancy Curry

  AUTHOR THANKS

  I owe many thanks to people who have helped me create this book: Friends Lu and Molly Taleb always bring the best dishes to the block party. Scott Krofcheck from Pennwriters provided just the right information at the right time. Lisa Cataropa, a fellow pig enthusiast, had great suggestions. Ramona Long is my “great friend” and the best first reader any writer could ask for. My daughters, Cassie and Sarah, always provide research, common sense and lots of laughter. Ellen Edwards and Meg Ruley are the dream team behind the scenes. Everyone at NAL/Penguin is a pleasure to work with, including Kara Welsh, Claire Zion and the incomparable sales, publicity, marketing and production teams. My mother, Barbara Aikman, is still the smartest person I know, and I’m telling everybody right here. Not everyone gets to have two mothers, but I do. Nancy Curry has been an inspiration and a source of great fun all my life, even when she took my petticoat to clean up my little brother after the spaghetti dinner incident. My dear writer friends and backbloggers at the Lipstick Chronicles were the community I checked in with daily while writing this book. Oh, how I miss you! Just saying. And Jeff, of course, remains my hero.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books in the Blackbird Sisters Mystery Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  When a long-lost relative bequeathed us a fortune, I found myself locked in an epic battle with the most fearsome adversaries any woman can face.

  Her sisters.

  “It’s not as if I’m going to buy breast implants with my share of the money,” my sister Libby said over brunch at a sun-splashed table at the Rusty Sabre in early November. “I’m blessed in that department already, of course. But I need investment capital, Nora. I have a plan.”

  Our great-aunt Madeleine Blackbird had died at the age of seventy-five or eighty-two, depending upon whose story you believed, and not at her Bucks County mansion in the mahogany cannonball bed Ben Franklin had given to the family for reasons best swept under the rug of history. No, she died during an Indonesian volcanic eruption that blew her luxury tepee off the side of a mountain—according to the obituary page of the Philadelphia Intelligencer.

  Libby said, “And I promise I won’t run off to some exotic island with a cabana boy. Although nobody would blame me if I did. My children are driving me bonkers, and the best cure for motherly frustration is an exciting new relationship, right?”

  My biggest fear for my sister Libby was that she was going to end up featured as the lead character in a tabloid sex scandal. I was pretty sure it was an item on her bucket list.

  My sister Emma had been the lead character in a scandal, but the NFL hushed it up to save one of their players from looking very silly. Nowadays, though, she was looking less like a sex bomb than usual. She sat across from me at the table in grubby riding breeches, muddy boots and a large sweatshirt that strained over her pregnant belly, not caring if the other, more civilized restaurant patrons cast disapproving glances at her disheveled appearance. Her short auburn hair stuck out at all angles, as if she’d just rolled out of bed.

  Deadpan, Emma said, “You’d probably kill a cabana boy, Lib.”

  “Well, yes, endurance is key.” Libby had taken her compact out of her handbag and was checking her plump décolletage in the mirror. She wore a low-cut red paisley frock that gave her the look of a Playmate on her way to a royal wedding. “I need somebody strong, but sensitive, too. I have very complex needs. All my followers say so.”

  The sisterly bond may be the most trying one that a woman can have with another human being. There’s love, of course—the kind that ties you together for eternity and certainly while washing mountains of dishes after Christmas dinner. But if there’s a sister alive who has never supp
ressed the urge to bash a sibling over the head with a Barbie doll or the Rusty Sabre’s fresh fruit plate—well, she’s not related to me.

  Emma looked up from her ricotta-stuffed French toast with sliced peaches and whipped cream. “Your followers? What, are you running a cult now?”

  “My followers on PitterPat, that new social media thingie.” Libby put her compact away and dug into the clutter of her enormous handbag to come up with her new cell phone. “My followers are all wonderfully supportive now, in my time of need.”

  I refolded the obituary page and put the newspaper on the tablecloth. “Your time of need?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m devastated about Aunt Madeleine. She was an inspiration in my formative years.”

  “Only because she had a lot of affairs,” Emma said. “Remember that Norwegian man who always had candy in his pockets?”

  “Lemon drops, covered with lint,” I recalled.

  “Yeah, him. Gave me the creeps.”

  “He was Russian, not Norwegian,” Libby said. “But he knew wonderful nuances of Scandinavian massage. Always rub in the direction of the heart. Did you know that? Preferably after a hot sauna. It’s wonderfully sensual.” When we stared at her, she blinked at us. “What? I was mature for my age! Aunt Madeleine’s lovers always intrigued me. Which is why I’m devastated now. I identified with her.”

  “If anyone should be devastated by Aunt Madeleine’s demise, it’s Nora,” said Emma.

  “Me? I barely knew Aunt Madeleine,” I said. The last thing I wanted that morning was to be dragged into another disjointed argument with my sisters. Those always ended with somebody getting offended and me getting stuck with the check.

  “But Aunt Madeleine loved you.”

  “She had a funny way of showing it. Despite her Madcap Maddy reputation, she scared the bejesus out of me.” The frustrations of the morning boiled over, and I said, “Really, Em, if you’re going to eat like a lumberjack, the least you could do is share the coffee.”

  “Who lit your fuse this morning, Crankypants?”

  If I had a fatal flaw, it was probably that I was too polite—too unwilling to rock the lifeboat of social harmony even as the waves of disaster crashed over my head. I longed to push Emma’s face down into her peaches. But I refrained.

  “She’s missing That Man of Hers,” Libby guessed. “Not to mention Lexie Paine. Have you heard from dear Lexie, Nora? Has she settled into the pokey, now that she’s been sentenced?” Abruptly, Libby jumped, and she dropped her cell phone. “Ow! Emma, stop kicking!”

  Emma gave her a meaningful stare. “We’re not going to talk about Nora’s situation, remember? We’re just going to be supportive this morning.”

  I’d spent the past week embroiled in the hearing of my dearest friend. Lexie Paine had pleaded guilty to a horribly publicized charge of voluntary manslaughter. Despite a parade of character witnesses—including me—the judge had sentenced Lexie to four years in prison for pushing a man out a window. If he hadn’t been threatening someone at the time, she’d have been accused of first-degree murder, so there was something to be thankful for. I was still reeling for her. And for our lost friendship. She might never forgive me for the role I played in her loss of freedom.

  I looked down at the ring on my left hand. The diamond my sisters called the Rock of Gibraltar reminded me that although I was also physically separated from Michael at the moment, at least I knew he still loved me. And he wasn’t going to spend the next several years in prison, as Lexie was. His sentence was considerably shorter.

  Libby glared back at Emma. “I wasn’t going to bring up anything upsetting. And you’re not helping the least bit. We could die of starvation while you stuff yourself. Why aren’t you as big as a house? I used to swell up like a hippo as soon as I conceived. Aren’t you seven months along now?”

  “Seven or eight, depending on which doctor I see at the clinic.” Emma splashed coffee into my cup. “I don’t get it, either. I eat like a horse, but never seem to gain any weight—except for Zygote here.” She patted her distended belly, which stretched her faded sweatshirt to its limit.

  I tried to suppress the twinge of jealousy that sprouted in the back of my mind at the mere mention of Emma’s impending arrival. For ages, I’d been hoping for a family of my own. It was hard enough that Libby already had five children—despite their homicidal tendencies, they were a lovable lot—but Emma’s accidental pregnancy made me feel even more like a failure in the motherhood department. Two miscarriages had shaken my firm belief that I’d soon have a brood of my own.

  But I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind to fester with all the other unpleasantness of late. There was no sense in wallowing in the swamp of my own maternal shortcomings.

  Libby said to Emma, “At least now you’d be able to afford to keep that child in potato chips, if you decide to keep it. Don’t you think it’s terribly exciting we’re the ones to inherit Quintain? I’ve hardly been able to sleep since we heard the news!”

  Our great-aunt Madeleine Blackbird had been a great beauty who—like most of the Blackbird women—was widowed more than once. She had been luckier than most of us and inherited two fortunes along the way. Her great wealth enabled her to indulge in her pleasures and travel to exotic locales. Madcap Maddy sent lavish gifts and brought home colorful friends from St. Petersburg and various cities that had all but disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. She even rode camels along the dunes of the Sahara before finding her bliss on a faraway mountain. But after word came around the globe that an Indonesian mountain blew its top and took our aunt with it, we were even more stunned when her lawyers announced she had bequeathed her Pennsylvania estate . . . to us.

  Specifically, her will read, “To Eleanor Blackbird and her sisters.”

  Nothing could have astonished us more.

  Mind you, we were no strangers to luxury, my sisters and me. The Blackbird family had come to Philadelphia with William Penn and substantial wealth in their travel trunks. Once in the new world, our ancestors parlayed their small fortune into a large one with smart investments in railroads and safety pins. My sisters and I had grown up going to boarding schools and spending our holidays in places such as Paris and Bermuda. Along the way, I learned many gracious skills, including a ladylike calligraphy and the art of arranging a seating chart for a successful dinner party. After a spectacular family downfall, though, those skills enabled me to function in no other paying job but the one I had luckily landed—that of a newspaper society columnist. Libby had been a painter before she started marrying. Emma spent her youth riding horses—the kind that leaped Olympic-sized hurdles and flew first class to international competitions—and she continued to work in horsey circles as an adult. But I attended parties.

  Good thing we’d found our respective callings, because our parents were known for throwing lavish galas with orchestras and cases of expensive champagne they couldn’t pay for. Our mother loved jewelry and was famous for impulsively taking off her necklaces and clasping them around the throats of surprised friends—long before she’d paid the credit card bill from the jeweler. Our father adored luxury cars, but tended to borrow them from friends and then promptly drive them into ditches. Their share of the family money therefore evaporated in no time, but Mama and Daddy continued to live the high life on “loans” from unsuspecting acquaintances who might as well have thrown their money into the ocean.

  Eventually, though, our partying parents were forced to pack up their evening clothes and run off with our trust funds. Now they happily spun around the dance floors of South American resorts.

  My sisters and I had said reluctant good-byes to our comfortable years in the rarefied social world where we grew up. We’d all married, lost husbands and survived. These days, we struggled a bit to stay ahead of foreclosure, but we were afloat. I actually enjoyed working for the newspaper, which paid me a salary just big enough to keep the wolves from my door.

  These days, I didn’t mind the change in ou
r circumstances. Not too much, anyway.

  But inheriting Quintain might change everything again.

  There were complications, though.

  Emma speared a peach with her fork. “I’m just glad I can stop looking for a nice stable to deliver in. I was banking on three kings coming to my rescue. Anybody know what frankincense is? Would a pawnshop accept it for cash?”

  Libby came out from under the table, where she’d found her cell phone. “This windfall comes at a perfect time!” she cried as she dropped the phone into her handbag again. “It’s karma. And my latest brainstorm is going to put me in clover. I just need the seed money to plant the garden.”

  “Are you planning to spread the manure yourself?” I asked. “Or will you hire a handsome gardener to do your dirty work?”

  “Yeah,” said Emma. “You’ve kept us in suspense long enough. What exactly is your new scheme? You’re not getting back into the sex toy business, are you, Libby?”

  “Alas, no. As diverting as it was, that venture turned out to be nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. Don’t you hate it when women prey on one another instead of being supportive? Now that the police have given back all my samples, I’m left with a garage full of boxes of sensual products that I can’t even give away to my more adventurous friends. There’s quite an odd smell coming from some of them—the expiration dates on lotions are coming due, I suppose. No, I’ve decided to devote myself to nurturing my son’s gifts. He’s going to make enough money to support me in high style.”

  I smiled. “Really? What’s Rawlins up to?” Libby’s eldest child was one of my favorite people in the world. Now that he’d given up most of the jewelry he wore in his face and discovered that not every adult was his enemy, he was very good company. “Has he decided which colleges to apply to?”

  “It’s not Rawlins who’s going to make me rich. It’s Maximus!”

  After a puzzled silence, Emma said, “Max is one year old. What kind of gifts does he have already?”