Page 89 of Killer on the First Page

Chapter Twenty-Three

And Then There Were Four...

“I’ll run you and Andrew back to Bea’s,” said Ned, after handing off the copy ofHow Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sunto the CID detective.

With the motive for the murders coming into focus, the investigation would be zeroing in on the Idaho Seven—or what was left of them. Miranda thought of the janitor at the Opera House, those angry X’s drawn over faces. His dire yet gleeful prediction:Penny is next.

They climbed into the patrol car to Ned’s pre-emptive admonishment to Andrew: “No sirens this time. So don’t even ask.”

“You confirmed his alibi for last night?” Miranda asked.

Ned pulled out from the bookstore as Andrew pouted, and headed down the hill to the harbor and the hotel. The afternoon sun was lighting up the town in an autumnal glow.

“Whose alibi?” Ned asked.

“Cephus. The phantom of the Opera House.”

“I did, and he was indeed on custodial duty at the local Ladies Cultural Society shindig. Mind you, many of those ladies were several sheets to whatever wind was blowing, so I will be going over their testimony carefully to make sure he couldn’t have slipped away, fired an arrow into Kane and hoisted Fairfax over the rafters by the neckbefore beating it back in time to lock up and chase out the last of the ladies. Seems unlikely, though.”

“You won’t come in?” she asked when Ned dropped them off.

“Can’t. It’s gonna be another long night in Happy Rock. Give Bea my best.”

“I shall,” said Miranda.

“What does that button do?” Andrew asked disingenuously.Whoop-whoop!

“Out! Now.”

They entered Bea’s to find Ray Valentine cornered at the kitchen table by a cluster of well-meaning fans who were intent on giving him “ideas” for his next novel. This is something authors really enjoy.

Doc Meadows was there, as were Tanvir Singh and Owen McCune. They were finishing off the last of the peach cobbler.

“I have this terrific idea for a mystery,” Doc said, crowding in to Ray. “The hero is this handsome Salish man” (Doc Meadows was Salish) “who’s also a doctor” (ditto) “and the villain is his annoying brother-in-law, who works for a lab.” (Doc’s brother-in-law worked for a lab.) “And the twist—wait till you hear this!—is that the villain secretly requisitioned a preventive cardiac catheterization for a coronary microvascular, instead of a functional coronary angiography.” Doc grinned. “Pretty darn clever, no? You can use that if you want.”

A wan smile from Ray. “Ah. Thank you.”

Tanvir Singh said, “I myself have always thought a splendid hero would be that of a handsome hardware store owner whose friend, a mechanic, is continuously mooching off him, and one day...”

On it went. Miranda and Andrew watched, bemused.

“And what about you?” Ray said with weary resignation, turning to Owen of the oil-stained coveralls. “What do you figure would be a good idea for my next novel? Some sort of mechanic-centered story, I imagine?”

Owen thought a moment and said, “I figure a good one would be about a fellow who’s friendly and smiling on the outside but is filled with a clawing emptiness inside, doubting the choices he’s made in life, who has trouble getting out of bed some days because he’s so overwhelmed by the gnawing lonely nature of his existence.”

There was a pause.

“What is the, uh, mystery?” Doc asked.

“I guess the mystery would be,What is the point of any of it?”

A beat.

“You okay, Owen?”

“Couldn’t be better. Why?”

Bea Maracle, meanwhile, had an idea of her own: “It’s silly, I suppose, but I always thought a good murder mystery would be about an innocent-looking lady no one suspects, who poisons her guests with peach cobbler.”