by Carol Brener
I have just made my debut as a cover corpse. I did once have a death mask made, but that was small potatoes. Now, on bookshelves across the country, I lie with a large kitchen knife sticking up out of my blood-drenched blouse. I am smartly dressed, befitting the model murdered in Octagon House, one of three classic Cape Cod mysteries of the thirties by Phoebe Atwood Taylor being reissued in paperback by Foul Play Press ($4.50 each). When I asked who killed her/me, I was told, “Many people had reason.” I have since read the book, and I/she deserved it.
The other two corpses in the series are artist Edward Gorey and Dilys Winn, founder of Murder Ink. (the bookstore that I now own) and Edgar winner for the best-selling Murder Ink, the Mystery Reader’s Companion.
Gorey was “stabbed” with an elegant silver dagger while in a rocking chair. Dilys has tumbled to the bottom of the cellar steps, a neat puddle of blood beside her head. I repose on a level garage floor. (I was fairly comfortable: A heater was nearby, and I sleep on an extra-firm mattress.)
Lew Merrim, our cheerfully macabre photographer, made “my” murder weapon by sawing a kitchen knife off at an angle and soldering it to a flat metal plate, which was taped in place on my chest. My genuine 1930s blouse was then slit to fit and slipped over the knife and the area bloodied up with paint artfully splattered to cover any sign of the gray tape. In the interest of authenticity, I wore a bra and full slip, garments consigned to the back of a drawer some years ago; an innocuous gray skirt; period seamed stockings bought specially for the shooting; and my pet black pumps. I was not pleased to hear Dilys chirp, “Where did you get those dreadful shoes?”
The three Taylor books, with their cover corpses, are lined up smack at eye level in my store, but no one recognizes me or my cohorts. Elma Lipscomb, however, who cleans my apartment, knew me the instant she saw the cover. I am told she carries the book on all her jobs. No one messes with Elma these days.
