“I was just standing here,” I said. “You crashed into me. It’s okay, accidents happen, but don’t go saying it’s my fault.”

  “Now you’re getting smart? Calling me a liar? Calling me a clumsy oaf?” He got up in my face so close that I could see the silver fillings in the back of his teeth and smell the onions he ate for lunch.

  “Uh, no?” I said. This was getting really weird, really fast. Possibly dangerous. Horace was wearing his tool belt, from which dangled several heavy blunt objects. The sort perfect for bludgeoning. “Sorry for bumping into you.” I tried to hurry down the aisle, but Horace stomped after me.

  If only I had still been in my Canadian Mountie disguise.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” he shouted. “I’m not done talking to you!”

  I didn’t know Horace, but I didn’t think he was a crazed, violent jerk.

  Was Hortensia right? Was the cursed book working its slow, insidious magic throughout the town? A different poison that worked on the sanity of its victims?

  Horace reached out and grabbed my arm. The pendant at my neck flared. I felt the icy nothingness of the voidmagic flow through my veins. The magical energy was building up, and I was a little frightened of what was going to happen.

  “What’s going on here?”

  It wasn’t Rend, but one of his officers, Bertulf. He was on duty, which meant he was wearing only fatigue-style pants tucked into combat boots. The hair on his chest did little to hide the thick knots of muscle across his chest and shoulders.

  Horace let go of me and shrank back, but the werewolf strode toward him, putting himself between the crazy plumber and me.

  Instantly, the energy from the void receded and the pendant at my neck went still. Crisis averted.

  “What did you do now, Francie?” Bertulf hissed at me.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said. Bertulf just looked at me. He restrained Horace and put cuffs around the plumber’s wrists.

  “You were minding your own business and he started to attack you?” Bertulf asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I somehow doubt that,” he said.

  “Is it standard policy to blame the victim?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “But I’ll make an exception for you.” He stormed off, taking Horace with.

  “Horace is unhinged,” I called after him. “I don’t know what his problem is.”

  Although, I was afraid that I did.

  Horace Dinklesmith, the mild-mannered middle-aged plumber, had been recently reading a forbidden, evil book.

  Chapter 16

  Sophie came in from the patio with cherry tomatoes threatening to drop between her fingers. They’re the only thing I can grow without killing, and even then it’s a dicey proposition.

  “What do you want me to do with these?” she asked.

  Before I could answer, Kong said, “Wash them and then slice them in half.”

  I’d changed clothes, torn between something halfway elegant and my usual after-work at-home outfit of jean shorts and t-shirt. I didn’t dare ask Kong or Sophie for advice. I split the difference and went with jean shorts and a blouse. The blouse had a musty smell because it had been unworn in the closet for a long time, so after ten minutes, I returned to my room and exchanged it for a fitted tank-top instead. Then when Sophie said, “Hubba-hubba!” I returned once more and changed into one of my Academy Alumni t-shirts.

  Kong narrowed his eyes at me but said nothing. If he had his way, everyone would be in tuxedo and tails and ball gowns at all times.

  “Sophie, for the love of all that is holy, what are you doing?”

  “Slicing the tomatoes?” she said. “Like you asked me to.”

  “That’s a bread knife!” Kong said. “Francie, I understand you are not the girl’s mother, but as her guardian, you are responsible for her moral instruction. A bread knife!”

  “Next thing you know, she’ll be eating her cereal with a soup spoon. Then using a fish fork for her salad and her salad fork for oysters. Where did I go wrong!”

  “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything,” Kong said. He walked across the kitchen counter, carefully choosing his steps to avoid stepping on the bottles and plates and bowls strewn about. Watching him was like watching a soldier walk through a minefield. He showed Sophie the proper knife to be using and went back to the stove to tend to the chicken.

  “And Francescza, would it kill you to get bone-in chicken once in a while? You lose so much flavor when you go boneless.”

  “It’s easier to eat,” I said. “And cooks faster.”

  He shook his head, apparently too disgusted for words.

  “When’s your boyfriend getting here?” Sophie asked.

  “We went on one date,” I said. “Maybe in middle school, that constitutes a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, but adults are more… cautious.”

  “If only you approached your poultry with the same sense of patience as you approached your men,” Kong said.

  “He’s mostly coming over to discuss the murder,” I said. “There have been a few developments.”

  “Sure,” Sophie said.

  “You don’t need to take guff from someone who uses a bread knife to slice tomatoes,” Kong said.

  “Yeah, what he said,” I echoed.

  Fintan arrived right when Kong was wilting the spinach.

  I opened the door and let him inside. “Cream!” Kong yelled to Sophie.

  “You weren’t joking,” Fintan said. “I don’t know if I ever had dinner cooked by a cat before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I said. “Besides, he’s a better cook than me, so it’s really for the best.”

  “Where do I put this?” Fintan said. He held up a chilled bottle of white wine in one hand and a pink bakery box in the other.

  “Kitchen, come on,” I said. I was dying to peek inside the bakery box, but restrained myself, as not to appear as unrestrained as a child.

  “It’s a frozen cheesecake,” Fintan said. “Probably not up to Kong’s high standards.”

  “Sounds great,” I said. “No such thing as a bad cheesecake.” Kong wouldn’t be happy about Fintan’s choice of dessert, but we shouldn’t take guff from someone who defecates in the neighbor’s azaleas either.

  “Where’s the corkscrew?” Fintan asked. I got it from the silverware drawer and handed it to him while I got two glasses from the cupboard.

  “Ahem,” Kong said. “Forgetting someone.”

  “Are you going to get surly?” I asked him.

  “I have never gotten surly in my life,” he said. “And a full-bodied red would complement the rich tomato sauce better. Something acidic, without oak influence.”

  “Is the cat harping on my choice of wine?” Fintan said, pouring us each a glass.

  “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  “Then I better not tell him that the only reason I picked this bottle was because it was three dollars off with my grocery store club card,” Fintan said.

  “Sophie, now is the time to get the bread knife and slice the loaf that’s on the dinner table,” Kong said.

  “Yes, my Lord,” Sophie said.

  “Finally, some respect,” Kong said.

  He finished the creamy Tuscan chicken and directed me to plate it. He stood on the counter the entire time, exhorting me to reposition a tomato or spinach leaf for a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement. When I got everything just so, and spooned the sauce over the chicken, I carried the plates to the dinner table and we all began eating.

  Kong is a taskmaster, but he is an excellent chef. There was not much in the way of conversation until our plates were clean and all the bread was used to mop up every drop of the delicious sauce.

  Fintan topped off our wineglasses, except Kong’s, who insisted that one glass at dinner was plenty for him.

  “So,” Fintan said. “You said you’ve made some headway on the murder investigation? That wasn’t just a trick to lure me over to your house?”

  “Please,” Kong said. “The offer of my cooking is more than enough for that. Come now, Sophie, we must attend to the dishes.”

  Sophie gathered the plates and took them to the sink.

  “Who do we have on our suspect list?” Fintan asked.

  “Patrice,” I said. “For sure.”

  “She hired the private detective to spy on her husband,” Fintan said. “And he might have been cheating with a young blond woman?”

  “There’s no proof that he was cheating with that young woman,” I said. “But the report said he was meeting with her. Oh and guess who else is young and blond? His personal assistant.”

  “They could have been having an affair,” Fintan said. “And if they were, then maybe his wife found out and poisoned him. Or maybe the personal assistant was sick of being strung along and poisoned him.”

  “Honestly,” Sophie said. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she passed a plate to Kong so he could rinse it and put it in the dish rack. “If it was the personal assistant, she would have been more likely to poison the wife. Get her out of the picture so she could have Walter all to herself.”

  “You have a devious mind, young lady,” Kong said.

  “I like it,” Fintan said. “I can see smarts runs in the family.”

  “What if she meant to poison the wife,” Sophie continued, “but then Walter got the donut and ate it instead. That would be a good one. Not a good one. You know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “And that’s a good observation. I followed the personal assistant to the bank and learned something interesting.”

  “Do tell,” Fintan said.

  “She was moving money into an offshore Cayman Islands account,” I said. “Maybe she was having an affair with Walter.”

  “Not for love,” Fintan said, “but to get his money. And when she got enough, she fed him the donut.”

  “I like that better,” I said. “He was seventy. That’s a pretty big age gap.”

  “Okay,” Sophie said. “But you guys are assuming they were having an affair. They probably weren’t. Not if he’s seventy and she’s in her twenties. That’s just too gross.”

  “People will do crazy things for money,” Fintan said.

  “Either way,” Sophie said. “The bank accounts are real. Focus on that. The whole affair thing is speculation.”

  “Good point,” I said. “She could have been embezzling from Walter. She had access to all his accounts. She could have made up phony invoices and expenses and siphoned off the money from him into a hidden account.”

  “And when her larceny was discovered,” Fintan said, “she poisoned him.”

  “Suspect number one, wife. Because he was cheating or maybe just because he was a jerk and hard to live with,” I said. “Suspect number two is his personal assistant. Maybe because of an affair or embezzlement.”

  “What about the guy?” Sophie said.

  “Pay attention to the dishes,” Kong said. “You missed a spot of tomato sauce right here. Less talking, more scrubbing.”

  “Phil Towersmith?” Fintan said.

  “Him too,” I said. “Bitter that his own real-life stories in the Rogue Rangers were turned into successful books…”

  “And because he had no legal recourse when Walter stole his stories for book material,” Fintan added.

  “I meant the other guy,” Sophie said. “At the retirement home.”

  “A resident?” Fintan said.

  “No, Romulo Holt,” I said.

  “The writer?” Fintan asked.

  “You recommended him to teach the memoir class,” I said. “He’s pretty good, actually. But he was also at Saguaro Estates the morning that Walter was killed. He gave Walter the first few chapters of his novel. Walter read the manuscript and… let’s just say Walter’s criticism was not kind or constructive.”

  “Ouch,” Fintan said. “That can hurt big time.”

  “I saw a copy of Walter’s comments. They were harsh.”

  “Like what?” Fintan asked.

  “Nothing I should repeat in front of a child,” I said.

  “Hey,” Sophie said. “I’m thirteen.”

  “And his comments were definitely rated-R,” I said.

  “I’ve had more than a few bad reviews in my day,” Fintan said. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fantasize about getting revenge on the reviewer.”

  “One nurse at Saguaro Estates had a run-in with Walter too,” I said.

  “My, he’s a popular chap,” Fintan said.

  “He sure is,” I said. “He asked her to give him a sponge bath and then threatened to get her fired when she said no.”

  “So she’s suspect number five?” Fintan asked. “We’ve got the wife, the personal assistant, Phil, Romulo and the nurse.”

  “The nurse was school friends with Romulo,” I said. “They could have joined forces.”

  “Romulo could have poisoned the donut,” Sophie said. “And the nurse gave it to Walter.”

  “Yeah,” Fintan said. “Receiving a donut from another man… that’s kind of intimate.”

  “Intimate?” I said. “You’re kidding.”

  “A little,” he said. “But I’m also halfway serious. A crotchety old man like Walter? What would he say if another man gave him a donut?”

  “Get that frilly thing away from me, loverboy,” Kong said in a pretty good impression of Walter’s voice.

  “But if a pretty young girl gave it to him?” Fintan said.

  “Hey baby, if this donut is half as sweet as you, I’m going to enjoy it,” Kong said.

  “You think the killer’s a woman?” I asked. Now that Fintan had mentioned it, it made sense. A woman probably had given Walter the donut.

  “Not for sure,” Fintan said. “But if I had to put money on it, yes.”

  “They say women are more likely to be poisoners,” Sophie said.

  “That’s true,” Fintan said. “At least statistically. Men are more likely to strangle and bludgeon and stab.”

  “Lovely,” I said. “Now, who’s in the mood for cheesecake?”

  “Me!” Sophie said. She turned off the faucet and dried her hands. She brought the box to the table and opened it up.

  “Women are also genetically predisposed to enjoy sweets more than men,” Fintan said.

  “It’s nice to see science excusing at least one of my bad behaviors,” I said, helping myself to a slice. “What about you, Fintan?”

  “I am ashamed to admit I have a bit of a sweet tooth,” he said.

  “Not that,” I said. “The investigation. Have you got any good information?”

  “One piece,” he said. “I got on the Quill’s good side.”

  “How did you manage that? He was ornery when we visited Patrice.”

  “Ah,” Fintan said. “I used my powers of investigation. I found out why the Quill was upset. He wanted a girlfriend.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “I wish I was,” Fintan said. “I got a nice turkey feather from my uncle’s farm, cured the shaft and whittled the tip and brought it to him.”

  “Is it, um, alive?” I asked.

  “No, it’s just a feather,” Fintan said. “The Quill needs to get the hotel to animate it for him. Anyway, he was so pleased, he would have done anything I asked. We accessed the hotel’s memory and no one went to Walter’s room. His wife left, just as she said, but no one went up.”

  I let that turn over for a moment. “That means he got the donut at Saguaro Estates,” I said. “Because I was with him the whole time after we left there to go to the hotel.”

  “Exactly,” Fintan said. “The killer was there at the retirement home that morning, for a fact.”

  “Congratulations,” Kong said. “You’ve narrowed it down to about a hundred people. We’ll start the perp lineup tomorrow morning.”

  “Hey,” Fintan said to Kong. “You said you wouldn’t get surly.”

  “He’s not surly,” I said. “He’s always like this.”

  “Be careful, Francescza,” Kong said. “Or I’ll tell him about how you changed outfits three times before he got here.”

  “Three times?” Fintan said. “All that for me?”

  “Oh boy,” I said and poured myself another glass of wine.

  Chapter 17

  Sophie had been so pleased to stay up with the adults and talk about the murder investigation that it was like pulling a tooth to get her in a pair of pajamas and off to bed. After she retired to her room (with many grumbles) I sent Kong outside to prowl the town. In actuality, I just wanted him to do his business out of doors. He’d said nothing about it yet, but I could tell that the Jibbleson Sisters’ Mega Perfect-o Feline Excretion Mineral Media 9000 was not up to par.

  Fintan stayed for another half hour while we talked about things that didn’t involve murder or death or arsenic. He left at about ten and I was ready for bed myself. It had been a long day, and I was full and sleepy from the cream sauce, half a loaf of soft French bread and the bottle of discount wine. Fintan must have been full and sleepy too, because as he got up to leave, we parted ways with a lukewarm kiss on the cheek.

  I was slightly disappointed at such a chaste goodbye until I twisted the deadbolt, turned around and saw Sophie peeking into the living room.

  “Go to sleep,” I said.

  “I just needed a glass of water,” she said with faux innocence dripping off every word.

  “Teenagers,” I said. “How do my sisters do it?” It must have been like Hortensia’s analogy of the frog boiling in the pot. One day they’re running around playing with toys and talking to imaginary friends, then the next thing you know, they’re sneaking around trying to spy on you.

  “Mom says cuteness is our survival mechanism,” Sophie said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I missed out on most of your cute years, so I’m more immune than she is. Go to sleep.”

  She turned around down the hallway and went back into her room. Without the glass of water she allegedly so desperately needed.

  I tidied up the living room and kitchen, taking the wine glasses to the sink and putting the empty bottle in the recycling box. I was about to get into my own pajamas when there was a knock at the door. It was past ten thirty by now. Who would come to the door right now without calling first? Had Fintan left something behind?

 

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