Sisters in Death

Shortly before 11:00 p.m, 24-year old heiress Leila Welsh and her boyfriend Richard Funk stepped into Kansas City’s swinging Hotel Phillips. They walked across the palatial lobby into the Tropics Room, a tiki bar fitted with sounds of thunder, flickering lights, paper-mache palm trees, and a rainstorm behind the bar. Richard sipped on his usual rum collins and Leila on her usual Coca-Cola. Just two miles away, Leila’s mother Marie Welsh awoke from her half slumber. She checked the clock. Leila should have been home by now. The moon was dim, and the darkness out­side looked impenetrable to her.