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“About my blood pressure. It’s off the charts, which makes me worry, which is why I drink, so I can forget, which causes my ulcer to flare up, which raises my blood pressure, which causes me to drink.

Quite the conundrum, ain’t it? Ought to put my snotty-nosed, nine-year-old sleuth on it, see if she can crack the case. ”

Officer Holly chimed in with “ If anyone can, Cathy can!” This was the motto written in crayon above Compendium Cathy’s clubhouse detective agency. “She’s the best! The way she handles Bugsy McGregor and his gang of—”

Again, the hand went up. “Compendium Cathy is just a character, y’know that, right?

A pint-sized detective running a pint-sized operation.

It’s not even a viable business plan: 25 cents a day!

No case too small. Who could pay the rent on that?

I pitched the idea for a Compendium Cathy story where it’s revealed that the reason she can afford to charge so little per case is because she is secretly embezzling from the school principal.

Publisher nixed that one, and my follow-up idea, where she is blackmailing the adults in the town with photos of their ongoing infidelities.

Ended with a knife fight under a bridge.

Publisher vetoed that, too, said it would—get this—‘sink the series.’ Like that was a bad thing. ”

Wanda Stobol finished the last of her chewable antacids, took out a fresh pack from one of her flannel shirt pockets, struggled with the top. “Damn childproof lids.”

But now someone else caught Miranda’s eye: a miserable figure in a jacket two sizes too big, lurking near the back with a lean and hungry look. Lachlan Todd.

Sigh.

Before Miranda could intercept him with a withering And you were invited by whom exactly? (a well-placed whom being more scathing than a mere who , syntax be damned), the person next to her scoffed. “Luckless Lachlan, in the flesh.”

It was Ray Valentine, Prince of the Police Procedural. He was staring hard at Lachlan Todd, and for a moment Miranda was caught between the two men like hapless townsfolk caught between gunfighters squaring off on Main Street.

Lachlan came over. He’d heard Ray’s snorted comment and did not appreciate the moniker that had dogged him since his third pilot was canceled.

Luckless Lachlan! the trades chortled. Always a bridesmaid, never a showrunner!

It rankled, how this nickname had stuck to him all these years like gum on the bottom of his shoe.

“My name is Todd .”

“Duly noted. So why’re you here, Luckless Todd?”

Another feud? thought Miranda. What a nest of vipers these authors were! They were the only people on earth who could make actors look copasetic and well-adjusted.

“Funny,” said Ray. “I didn’t see your name on the poster.”

A mild smirk from Lachlan. “Like I said to Pastor Fran here, my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.”

“You know each other?” asked Miranda.

“Lachlan wrote the infamous Red Herring Episode on Parrot P.I.! ”

“The murder weapon was an actual red herring,” Lachlan explained with no small amount of pride.

(Much like Miranda, Lachlan tended to hear infamous as famous .) Addressing an objection no one had raised, he added, “The fish was frozen. That’s why the killer could bludgeon someone with it.

Then, after it thawed, the mystery became ‘How could someone be killed by something so floppy?’ I don’t claim it was a work of genius.

..” But the nuance was clearly that it was a work of genius.

Much like Inez Fonio’s contempt for cozies, Ray Valentine had little regard for Lachlan’s outlandish plots. “I write police procedurals. They’re grounded in the real world, not propped up by elaborate scaffolding.”

“Oh, I’m aware of your work,” said Lachlan. “The Master of the Locked-Room Mystery, John Dickson Carr, described such stories as ‘very probable and real, where all they do is run around showing photographs to people.’”

Ray bristled at this. “I’m a cop. My father was a cop. His father before him. I write what I know.”

He left and Miranda sighed. She was stuck with Lachlan now, but at least the two men hadn’t come to blows.

“He’s no cop,” Lachlan muttered.

Doc Meadows snagged a handful of Brie and fig prosciutto shortbreads as they sallied past on Geri’s silver tray, much to Geri’s annoyance.

“It breaks up the pattern when you grab it from the tray,” she muttered.

Like the guest soap in a bathroom, Geri’s culinary arrangements, Busby Berkley dance numbers of fanned cold cuts and petal-cut radishes—ham origami, as it were—were meant more to be admired than consumed.

Doc tossed one of the hors d’oeuvres into his grinning mouth, gave Miranda a wink—which only melted her more—then turned to the miserable-looking fellow in the too-big jacket. “Here for the book festival, are ya?”

“You could say so.”

“One of the writers?”

“You could say that. I used to work on Miranda’s TV show.”

“No kidding!” (chomp chomp) “Bea Maracle—friend of mine, runs the B&B by the harbor?—she hosts Pastor Fran Fridays every Wednesday. Has the whole entire TV series on tape, every episode. You should come. I’ve been to a few, always good fun, though it does bother me how the doctors on that show are always evil, injecting air into IVs, eyes darting around.

I mean, if you’re going to inject air into someone’s IV, you could at least not dart your eyes back and forth when you’re doing it.

And I only ever remember one Native American character on the entire show, played by some Italian guy with high cheekbones.

He never said much, just stood silently to one side, staring into the wind.

Why would anyone stare into the wind? Makes your eyes water.

” A thought occurred. “Hey, maybe that’s why Native Americans always have a tear rolling down their cheek in those old shows.

The directors kept making them stare into the wind.

I tell you one thing, if I’m ever in charge of a TV show, first thing I’d do?

Tell the actors, face away from the wind.

” Doc tossed the last of the shortbread into his mouth.

“Anyways. What did you do on Miranda’s show? Play one of the bad guys?”

A patronizing smile from Lachlan. “Not quite. You remember the episode where Pastor Fran rode a Jet Ski with a ticking time bomb through a burning hoop of fire? That was me.”

“That was you on the Jet Ski? No way!” Doc was genuinely impressed.

“No—I mean, I did that.”

“You lit the hoop on fire?”

“No—I mean, I was the writer.”

“I thought Edgar was the writer.”

“Head writer.”

“Oh, so he was like your boss.”

A long pause. Lachlan moved away. Doc shrugged, grabbed another whack of hors d’oeuvres when they moved past.

As Miranda topped up Doc’s glass, she withheld a smile. By her count, it was Lachlan Todd: zero, Happy Rock: one.

* * *

“Y ES, YES, I suppose a good time is being had by all. Do you have any other questions?”

Scoop Bannister had scored an exclusive one-on-one interview with Fairfax DePoy as Harpreet listened in, hanging on every word.

Miranda, flitting past, had stopped to eavesdrop, curious what reaction Scoop would get this time. The diminutive author, unsteady on his lifts, was struggling to maintain eye contact with the young reporter, and he proved as baffled by Scoop’s queries as Kane Hamady had been aggravated.

“Mr. DePoy, in one of your earlier novels, Headboard of the Hanovers —”

“Ah yes, Book Four of my Tudor Trilogy.”

“Your hero, Jack Stryker, a master of the two-handed crossbow, saves the life of William Shakespeare.”

“He also has a passionate affair with Anne Hathaway. The romance is just as important as the action in my novels. Perhaps more so.”

“William Shakespeare died in 1616—”

“I think I know where you’re going with this line of inquiry.

However, Bill Shakespeare was born in 1564.

I googled that personally. The adventure and the romance of those novels—never forget the romance!

—takes place before William Shakespeare became a famous playwright, when he was as yet a young and fallow fellow. ”

“But 1564 is the sixteenth century. Your books take place in”—she consulted her notes—“The fifteenth century.”

A long pause. “Yes. Well. Dramatic license. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Height?”

“Sorry?”

“Your height,” said Scoop. “Your website says you are ‘just shy of six feet,’ but that must be a typo. And your place of birth—”

At which point Fairfax was rescued by Harpreet the Superfan, who cut in, asking, “Mr. DePoy, is it true your next novel will feature a romance between Jack Stryker and Cleopatra?”

“Sorry, Harpreet. I just have one more question for Mr. DePoy,” said Scoop. “You studied creative writing at the Idaho Writers Retreat, is that correct?”

“I didn’t.”

“But you did.”

“I did not.”

“The Idaho Writers Retreat, the one headed by the late John D. Ross? You were one of his pupils.”

“I was not.”

“But you were. You studied there. I mean, under your real name...”

The look on Fairfax’s face hardened—and softened at the same time.

Memories of the Great Man: You want to write historical mysteries?

Go ahead. But don’t spend too much time in the library.

Research is overrated. Fairfax DePoy, sitting at the feet of the master, grateful for any crumbs that fell his way. ..

Snapping out of it, his eyes narrowed. “This interview,” he said, “is over.”

In the background, Kane Hamady was watching.