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Chapter Eleven

Deputy Andrew on the Case!

B ack in the main room of the bookstore, the captive guests were getting restless. Word had spread of the death of Kane Hamady.

Ned entered, holding up his hands for calm. “I’m going to need everyone to give statements. Where you were, what you saw. I would also ask everyone to provide fingerprints and contact information before they leave. Officer Holly will take care of that.”

This was thrilling for the locals. We went to a boring old reception, and then someone got murdered and we got fingerprinted! Less so for the authors.

“You have no right to do that!” said Wanda Stobol. “Not without a warrant or an arrest.”

Penny Fenland nodded. “She’s correct, I’m afraid.”

It was a room full of mystery authors. They knew how this worked, had written around it numerous times.

Eyes turned to the only lawyer in the room: Atticus Lawson.

“I mainly do real estate and, erm, divorce papers,” he said. “But, um, yeah, from watching my share of Perry Mason reruns, I’d say you’d need some sort of court document to compel anyone to, er, y’know, give you their prints.”

“You are correct,” said Ned. “I cannot compel anyone to have their fingerprints taken. But there is a dead body, and I’m asking everyone here to provide their prints voluntarily to Officer Holly. We won’t keep them on file longer than the investigation takes.”

“Ha! That could take years,” said Wanda.

The studious-looking Ray Valentine, he of the rimless glasses and salt-and-pepper hair, said, “If you aren’t guilty, Wanda, you have nothing to fear.”

“Spoken like a true cop,” Wanda sneered. “A soulless, calculating, cold-hearted—”

“Enough,” said Penny. “I’ll go first.”

Officer Holly went to her patrol car to retrieve the fingerprint kit from the trunk and returned feeling very much like Compendium Cathy, even if the creator of the child sleuth was having none of it.

Wanda crossed her arms over her barrel chest. “Not doin’ it,” she said.

“Entirely your prerogative, ma’am.”

Officer Holly pulled up a pair of chairs and made space at one of the tables. “Cathy’s on the case!” she said, blurting out Compendium Cathy’s favorite catchphrase before she could stop herself, then, instantly embarrassed, growled, “Let’s go, people! We don’t have all night.”

Ned looked at the crowd, took a steadying breath for what was coming next. “Okay,” he said. “While Officer Holly takes care of that, I will need a volunteer, someone I can deputize to help with the—”

“Ooh! Ooh!” Andrew’s hand had already shot up.

Ned pretended not notice. “Edgar? How about you?”

“Pass.”

“Bea?”

She declined as well. “I’m so sorry, Ned. It sounds like fun, and I do like to help, but it’s already late. And you know how my thoughts get jumbled up as the day goes on. I wouldn’t do a good job.”

A warm smile from Ned. “Fair enough, Bea. How about you, Mabel?”

“I ain’t no snitch.”

Andrew’s hand was now waving frantically, like the keenest kid in kindergarten, with a desperate pick me! pick me! look on his face.

“In that case... how about...” Ned scanned the room, fastened his gaze on the young reporter. “You, Scoop. Up for it? You’re a writer, I figure you’ll be perfect to interview people, record what they have to say.”

Scoop Bannister may have been an earnest young woman, and she may have been relatively new to the biz, but she was nobody’s fool.

“I can’t,” she said. “If I was deputized, I wouldn’t be permitted to write about any of this.”

A flicker of respect from Ned. “Well spotted. You’re right, Scoop. I was thinking I could kill two birds with one stone: obtain the necessary statements and manage the press.”

He said “manage” but meant “muzzle.”

Andrew had almost passed out by this point. “Me, Chief Buckley! I’ll do it!”

Ned was considering tossing the coin he kept in his wallet to decide, but in the end simply said, with a resigned sigh, “Okay, Andrew. Repeat after me...”

With a perfunctory declaration of oath, it was done.

“Consider yourself deputized.”

“Cool! Do I get a badge?”

This was met by another sigh, even more resigned than the last. “We’ve been over this before, Andrew. You don’t get to have a badge when you’ve been deputized. It’s your civic duty, not a formal title. You can start by taking down people’s statements.”

Deputy Nguyen, instantly in control!

“Everyone! Listen up! I want complete, honest answers and nothing but! Full disclosure. Capiche? ”

“Andrew, darling, don’t say ‘ capiche ,’” Miranda tutted. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Ned was already regretting his choice. “Interview the locals first and then let them leave. Where were you from 7:30 to 8:30 this evening? Did you notice anything or anyone acting suspicious? Did you see anyone leave and return to the reception during that time? Make sure they review and sign off on their statements when they’re done.

Always ask if they have anything to add; they always do.

As for the writers, keep them here.” He leaned in, whispered, “If there is a killer among us, odds are it’s one of them. ”

Bea was first in line to be interviewed, wanting to get back to her B&B, with Tanvir and Harpreet right behind her.

As two queues formed, one for the interviews, the other for the ink pad, Penny Fenland came up alongside Miranda, having given her fingerprints to Officer Holly. She was cleaning her fingers with a wipe as she spoke: “The selection of authors for this festival. Did Edgar choose them?”

“I think Middlemist arranged it. That’s the marketing company that put the event together and then hired Sheryl to promote it. She’s overwhelmed, poor thing. This will only make matters worse. From a PR point of view, how does one ‘spin’ a murder?”

A pause from Penny. “Middlemist. That’s a type of flower, isn’t it?”

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason. It’s probably nothing...” said Penny.

From her Pastor Fran days, Miranda knew that “probably nothing” meant “almost certainly something.”

“And where is Inez, anyway?” Penny asked. “You’d think the empress of gore would be tickled pink to be in proximity of a real corpse, even if it is in the next room.”

But Penny Fenland was only partly right about Inez. Tickled, yes. Pink, certainly. But not from murder.

The answer to Inez’s whereabouts came, quite literally, from above. Edgar was glaring at the ceiling. “Unbelievable,” he said.

Directly above them, Miranda could hear the creak of floorboards and the heavy sound of footfalls.

No one should be upstairs right now, yet two pairs of feet could be heard, along with the sound of Emmy skittling about excitedly.

Then came the thump-thump-thump of footsteps tromping down the stairs.

A moment later, Emmy came rushing out, tail wagging like mad, ecstatic at discovering so many people (or “mobile ear scratchers and tummy rubbers,” as she thought of them) gathered on the main floor.

“Dammit, Owen!” Edgar rushed over to corral the golden Lab, as Owen McCune blundered through, whiskers uncombed and the silk sash over his coveralls askew, a grin plastered on his face.

“Sorry, Edgar, I was just showin’ Ms. Inez around the place.”

“ My place,” Edgar snapped, getting a grip on Emmy’s collar. “You were showing her my place.”

Inez floated in behind Owen like an airy, ethereal black-and-white cloud. “There seems to be much ado down here,” she observed. “Murder most foul?”

“Kane Hamady,” said Edgar, as he sought to calm his dog down, “is dead.”

The Maven of Malice’s eyes did indeed shine, though Miranda wondered if it may have been something else that was making Inez glow.

Her Pale Highness even had a touch of color in her pallid cheeks.

Stranger still, Owen McCune sported a soot-like smear across his lips.

Coal dust? No. Oil from his garage? Not that, no. It was lipstick. Black lipstick.

Inez brushed her hand along Owen’s shoulders as she passed, turning as she went. Miranda could see two distinct handprints planted on the backside of Inez’s white dress. One on each cheek.

Well, thought Miranda, if nothing else, that was one set of prints Ned wouldn’t need to take.

News of the murder might have electrified the crowd, but Inez handled it easily enough. Owen, however, was dumbfounded.

“A murder?” he said. “ In the Murder Store? ”

Okay, when he put it that way, it didn’t sound quite so improbable, Miranda acknowledged.

Owen turned to Inez. “That musta happened after we, uh, snuck upstairs.”

Inez said, loudly, “Of course it did. We were nowhere near that room when he died.” She fired a look Miranda’s way. “We are each other’s alibi.”

“Who said anything about an alibi?” Miranda asked sweetly.

“I write murder for a living,” Inez replied with a haughty sniff. “And alibis are de rigueur in such situations.”

Alibis... alibis... Miranda turned this over in her head.