Mother introduced her clients.

“Guess you won’t want this house after today,” Jack Burns said genially. “Ole Tonia Lee looked pretty bad. I’m sure sorry you all ran into this, you being new and all.”

“This could have happened anywhere,” Martin said. “I’m beginning to think being a real estate agent is a hazardous occupation, like being a convenience-store clerk.”

“It certainly does seem so,” Jack Burns agreed. He was wearing a hideous suit, but I’ll give him this much credit-I don’t think he cared a damn about what he wore or what people thought about it.

“Now, Mr. Bartell, I believe you touched the deceased?” he continued.

“Yes, I walked over to make sure she was dead.”

“Did you touch anything on the bed?”

“No.”

“On the table by the bed?”

“Nothing in the bedroom,” Martin said very definitely, “but the woman’s neck.”

“You notice it was bruised?”

“Yes.”

“You know she was strangled?”

“It looked like it to me.”

“You have much experience with this kind of thing?”

“I was in Vietnam. I’ve had more experience with wounds. But I have seen one case of strangulation before, and this looked similar.”

“What about you, Mrs. Lampton? You go in the room?”

“No,” Barby said quietly. “I stayed on the landing outside. When Miss Teagarden opened the doors, of course I saw the poor woman right away. Then my brother told me to go downstairs. He knows I don’t have a strong stomach, so of course it was better for me to go.”

“And you, Mrs.-Queensland?”

“I came up the stairs just after Aurora opened the bedroom doors. I actually saw her swing them open from downstairs after I started up.” Mother explained about the Thompsons and her delegation of me to open the house for the Bartells. “Excuse me, Mr. Bartell and Mrs. Lampton.”