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“They weren’t supposed to be impossible crimes,” Miranda said.

“Each death was designed to tell a story. Kane is shot by Fairfax through an open transom. And then Fairfax, tormented by remorse, hangs himself in the lighthouse, closing the circle, sealing off the story. But the latch on the transom ruined the first story; if Kane hadn’t turned it partway down, if he’d left it unlocked after he opened it, we’d still be scouring the yard for a powerful crossbow vantage point.

But it wasn’t a crossbow from a distance, it was a speargun up close.

That latch ruined the first narrative, just as Fairfax’s short stature ruined the killer’s second carefully staged scenario.

What happens next? Wanda realizes that the killer is circling closer and she may be next.

She announces she is going to tell the police everything, but only on condition she is locked up inside the station for safety.

The killer has to move fast. If Wanda speaks, all is lost. But if she dies inside the cell , the story is again sealed off.

Wanda killed Kane and Fairfax, and then her heart gave out. End of story.”

There was that word again... sealed . Miranda’s brain was trying to tell her something.

“Wanda Stobol died alone in a locked jail cell. By every indication, it was heart failure brought on by the strain of events,” said Ned.

Miranda looked up suddenly. “Wanda Stobol wasn’t killed inside her jail cell, Ned.”

“What? She most certainly was.”

“How would the killer have reached her? It would’ve been physically impossible,” said Miranda. “And you know what they say: the impossible is only im-possible as long as it remains un-improbable.”

“No one says that,” said Edgar.

She flung back her scarf. “Wrong again! I just did.”

Ned said, “Okay, if not inside the jail cell, then where? Was she secretly taken out of the cell, murdered, and then moved back? That’s more ridiculous than ghosts.”

“She was murdered before she ever set foot in that cell .”

“We spoke to her in there, Miranda. Remember? I don’t know about you, but Wanda struck me as being very much alive when we were chatting with her.”

“She was already dead, Ned, even then. She just didn’t know it. She’d already been poisoned.”

“Forensics went through her medicine bottles.”

“Of course they did, and I can predict that none of the remaining pills were tampered with or had been replaced. I can also predict that the cotton was on top. The killer only had to plant a single pill. Wanda Stobol must have been agitated, would have swallowed a pill before she went in to the station. Ask forensics to check for a spike in adrenaline, or perhaps a deadly dose of concentrated caffeine. On Pastor Fran Investigates , I seem to recall we once killed someone with an overdose of nicotine.”

“I hardly think a TV show—”

“There are many ways to mask a murder as a heart attack. It was a slow-release death, Ned.”

“Not a sealed room?”

Sealed! That was it.

Miranda turned to face Sheryl Youngblut. “You’re the publicist. How did Fairfax DePoy sign his books?”

“He didn’t.”

“Exactly! He melted wax and then pressed it with a ring. Soft wax, gone missing.” She turned back to Ned. “Ask forensics to test for minute traces of beeswax in Wanda Stobol’s stomach. A poisoned pill, coated in a thin layer of wax that gradually melts...”

“It would be like a time bomb ticking inside of her,” said Ned.

The killer knew about the wax Fairfax carried with him, knew about Wanda’s ulcer-churning, pill-gulping tendencies, knew the layout of the bookstore, the placement of the grate in the reading room and the furnace below.

“Edgar, darling, when you asked for help identifying the purpose of that room, you posted the bookstore’s architectural plans, is that correct? Much like one might post notices in a magazine— Help Wanted , Upcoming Auditions , Rooms to Let —and so forth.”

“Online, yes.”

“Where anyone might find them? Is that correct?”

“Yep,” said Edgar. “That’s how it works.”

“Is that true, Andrew?”

When Andrew confirmed that this was indeed how things worked online (Andrew being much younger than Edgar, she deferred to him on such matters), Miranda turned to the impossibly cheerful Geri, of the tracksuit and fanny pack.

Miranda asked about the outdoor wooden platform, the one that had been added to the back of Hiram Henry House. “It runs the length of the second floor, yes? With steps leading down on either end?”

“As a fire exit,” Gerry explained.

“We had to do that, to get the property—”

“—up to code.”

If the killer were staying at Hiram Henry House, this escape route at the back offered a means to slip out of the building unnoticed. It also offered access to the other rooms via the windows.

The pieces were coming together. “Ms. Youngblut, you booked the accommodations for the authors?”

“SR Promotions did, yes.”

“But you are SR Promotions, are you not? You said, It might as well be my name . Why did you select Geri and Gerry’s establishment and not, say, the Duchess Hotel?”

“Well, it was in the name: the Better B Fairfax, so envious; Penny, so proud; Inez, so theatrical—and Ray, so duplicitous.

And then there is poor Cephus: anger, the final sin, that forgotten member of the Seven, the one who never made it, the one who showed up in Idaho because he wanted to meet real writers and maybe become one himself someday. You stole his life, Ray.”

“That’s what writers do,” said Ray. “They take people’s stories, make them their own.”

Wanda had made the same argument— That’s what authors do —and it didn’t wash any better coming from him.