Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One: The Uninvited Mr. Todd

Chapter Two: A Treasure Trove of Books

Chapter Three: Legend of the Lost Manuscript

Chapter Four: A Low-Life Palooka Who Don’t Know Dollars from Donuts

Chapter Five: Case of the Missing Rope!

Chapter Six: The Cutthroats of Tillamook Bay

Chapter Seven: The Penny Drops! (In for a Visit)

Chapter Eight: The Shriek of a Thousand Banshees

Chapter Nine: The Locked Room

Chapter Ten: Tough Guys Don’t Last

Chapter Eleven: Deputy Andrew on the Case!

Chapter Twelve: Motives for Murder

Chapter Thirteen: The Telltale Toothpick

Chapter Fourteen: What Will Become of Us?

Chapter Fifteen: Luckless Lachlan Says Good Night

Chapter Sixteen: The Game Is Afoot!

Chapter Seventeen: The Fallen Clock

Chapter Eighteen: The Book That Matters Most

Chapter Nineteen: Return of the Idaho Seven

Chapter Twenty: Melvin “J”

Chapter Twenty-One: A Kill Shot from Below

Chapter Twenty-Two: Hiding in Plain Sight

Chapter Twenty-Three: And Then There Were Four . . .

Chapter Twenty-Four: A Formidable Woman

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Toss of a Coin

Chapter Twenty-Six: Hollywood Calling!

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Those We Worry About

Authors’ Acknowledgments

About the Authors

The Miranda Abbott Mystery Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

The Uninvited Mr. Todd

Miranda Abbott, star* of stage and screen, stepped back to admire the poster that the janitor had pinned up in the community events board outside the Opera House:

Middlemist Marketing & SR Promotions Present

THE FIRST ANNUAL HAPPY ROCK MYSTERY FESTIVAL!

featuring:

KANE HAMADY: two-fisted master of the hard-boiled detective story

FAIRFAX HUGHES DEPOY III: romantic historical mystery maestro

INEZ FONIO: Maven of Malice

PENELOPE “PENNY” FENLAND: Queen of the Cozies

RAY VALENTINE: Prince of the Police Procedural

WANDA STOBOL: beloved children’s author, creator of Compendium Cathy

LAWRENCE BLOCK: an up-and-comer with a lot of promise

hosted by “I Only Read Murder” bookstore

accommodations provided by BB&B (thanks G&G!)

From behind her came a strangely familiar voice. “Well, well, if it isn’t the movie star herself.” Enter: Lachlan Todd.

She didn’t recognize him when she first turned—pirouetted, really—with an insouciant fling of her scarf and breathy “Yes! It is I” on hearing those three magic words: the movie star! Though really, Miranda Abbott was a star of TV,* not movies, her foray into film having never captured the public imagination the way her TV detective character had. For better or worse, Miranda was still fixed, firmly, in the public eye as—

“Pastor Fran. It’s been a while.”

The miserable Lachlan Todd was wearing a ridiculous fur-lined cap with flaps pulled down over his ears, looking sallow-faced in a bulky coat three times too large. It was the sort of cold weather get-up LA types inevitably don when venturing north of San Fernando, not understanding that seasons, like life, come in gradations.

Miranda Abbott, in contrast, clad in layers of her trademark green—the better to set off her famous red hair, which came from a bottle these days, admittedly—had fully embraced autumn. A loose cashmere sweater and skinny jeans (not quite age-appropriate, but it worked) with a fling-able scarf designed for moments such as these, topped off with a classic wool overcoat. If only it had been a real fan stopping her in the street, not this contemptible blast from her distant past. Miranda knew she disliked Lachlan, though she couldn’t exactly remember why.

Early November and the leaves were falling, revealing towering evergreens behind, the Douglas firs and dark cedar that formed a backdrop to the community. Pearly skies and damp mist. Autumns in the Pacific Northwest were always so moist.

“It’s a long way from the Hollywood Hills,” said Lachlan with a disdainful backhanded wave to the harbor.

It is, she thought. It is, indeed.

“And your beau?” he asked. “Ol’ Edgar? He still hiding out here? Like a fugitive?”

Miranda straightened her shoulders. “Edgar loves this town. He loves Oregon. Loves Happy Rock. He even loves the weather.” What else he might love was up for debate.

The town of Happy Rock, Oregon, lay cradled in a saltwater bay. Its inner harbor boasted both the historic Duchess Hotel and the elegant alabaster presence of the Opera House, landmarks from the town’s days as a Victorian-era tourist destination. The morning sun had just broken over the hills, and a seaplane lifted off on a slowly spreading wake. Beyond the inner harbor, stretching out its rocky arm, was Laurel Point, with its candy-striped lighthouse.

A shrug from Lachlan. “Pretty enough, I suppose.” Everything he said sounded sarcastic. He had a sarcastic soul. “If you like that sort of thing.”

Miranda remembered Lachlan in the writers’ room at NBC pitching the most outlandish plots for her show Pastor Fran Investigates, plots that often employed trip wires, artfully placed mirrors, hidden magnets, and poisoned lariats. Whenever Miranda’s husband, Edgar, head writer at the time, balked at this, Lachlan Todd would snidely reply, Of course, I’m presuming a degree of intelligence in our viewers.

What would bring this sallow, sour figure to Happy Rock?

The answer lay in the very poster that the janitor had put up outside of the Opera House in the community notice board, behind a plexiglass sheet, the better to protect it from the sodden rains and sudden winds of Tillamook Bay.

Lachlan rummaged in his voluminous coat pocket and retrieved a single paper clip, which he untwisted and then used to turn the lock in the display case. Who carries paper clips with him? Miranda mused. The plexiglass front swung open, and from his other pocket Lachlan produced a Sharpie. On the poster, at the bottom of the list of authors that were coming for the mystery fest, he added a new name, replete with a superfluous flurry of exclamation marks: With surprise guest LACHLAN TODD! King of the Locked-Room Mystery!!!

He stood back to admire his handiwork. Even his smile was a sneer. “There. Fixed it.” Lachlan closed the display case, twisted the lock back into place. “You have a master, a maestro, a maven, a queen, and a so-called prince. A king completes the set, wouldn’t you say? Outranks a prince, certainly.”

He was referring to Ray Valentine, the Prince of the Police Procedural.

“Ray Valentine traffics in realism,” Miranda pointed out. She’d been introduced to his work at the bookstore: granular examinations of the plodding yet compelling nature of police work. “You, in contrast, create elaborate Rube Goldberg machinery.”

“The episodes of Pastor Fran Investigates I wrote were always among the most highly rated,” he reminded her. “You didn’t have any problem starring in those stories at the time. Bought you a house, as I recall.”

Ah yes. A house in the Hollywood Hills . . . So long ago as to be a dream.

Lachlan chuckled at the other names on the poster. “Edgar is up to his old tricks, I see.”

“What on earth are you referring to?”

“The authors. I’m assuming it was Edgar behind this volatile lineup? Cats and water. Oil and dogs. Edgar’s stirring the pot. Inviting Kane Hamady and that pompous twit Fairfax the Third? A murderous combination, right there. And I don’t mean their fiction. The two men hate each other.”

“Come, now. One could hardly assemble any group of writers without at least one pre-existing feud already in place. You know how authors are. They collect vendettas the way actors collect accolades.”

“Sure, but Kane vs. Fairfax? That’s a feud of a different order.” His smile had become a grin. “Twinkle, twinkle, Killer Kane. Kane broke his fingers, one by one.”

“What?!”

“And as for ‘beloved children’s author’ Wanda Stobol . . . Y’ever meet her?”

“No, but I read the Compendium Cathy books when I was a girl. I loved them!”

“Hide your booze, is all I’m saying. And any firearms you may have lying around. If nothing else, this entire gong show should be entertaining. I figure there’ll be at least one drunken dustup, several brouhahas, and possibly some fisticuffs during the course of said festival. A chance for me to stand out among the riff and raff of these lesser scribes, I’d say. Liven up the festival’s blathering author panels and mind-numbing readings and painfully awkward book signings.” Lachlan cast his lean and hungry look Miranda’s way. “And what is an erstwhile TV star of your stature doing out here in the boonies? I thought you and Edgar hit the reef years ago.”

“It’s . . .” Don’t say complicated, don’t say complicated. “. . . complicated.”

“Edgar and Miranda, back together again, huh? Edgar and Miranda, the Sequel. Well, I never met a tired franchise that someone didn’t try to reboot eventually, no matter how ill-advised.”

And it hit her, like a blow to the gut. Was that what this was? Her moving to Happy Rock from LA, taking a room in the attic of a B&B, running a bookstore with her former/current husband. Was this just an attempt at rebooting a dead show, flogging a horse that had long since met its demise?

Lachlan pulled his fur-flapped hat down farther. “The Miranda Abbott I knew was harried and hounded by paparazzi. The Miranda Abbott I knew was constant fodder for gossip magazines and scandal sheets. The Miranda Abbott I knew would never be seen in public without an entourage. Where are they?”

“My entourage? Here he is now.”

Coming down the harborfront toward them, enveloped in steam, was the trim and impeccably doffed figure of Andrew Nguyen, carrying two large cups of chamomile tea from the Cozy Café. He was in his navy Stefano Ricci overcoat with a plaid scarf arranged—like Miranda’s—more for style than warmth, and he was beaming. “They have the poster up at the café, too!” he said, calling out, his breath in cumulus. “The whole town is talking about it!”

This is what passed for “buzz” in Happy Rock: being the topic of conversation at the local café.

“Andrew, darling, come and meet the man who wasn’t invited.”

“A pleasure,” Lachlan said, though his smile suggested anything but.

Miranda fluttered a smile of her own his way. “Lachlan, I present to you my entire entourage—and dear friend—young Andrew Nguyen.”

“Personal assistant,” said Andrew, juggling the sleeved takeout cups to shake the other man’s heavily mittened hand. Andrew was in calfskin gloves. The only way he would ever wear mittens would be ironically. He had clean, streamlined features and a choppy hairstyle that belied the lack of a decent salon in Happy Rock.

“I used to work with Miranda back in her Pastor Fran days,” said Lachlan.

Andrew’s eyes lit up. “On her TV show? No kidding!”

As a kid, Andrew had grown up watching Pastor Fran Investigates with his family. His parents had learned their English from watching Miranda Abbott (aka Pastor Fran) karate-chop her way across their TV screens every week. Even now, his mom used words like dastardly and nefarious. (Our neighbor’s nefarious cat has been up to her dastardly tricks again, Andrew.) Meeting someone who was actually on the show was always a thrill.

“That’s exciting!” said Andrew. “Were you in the cast? Which episode? A villain, right? You played one of the villains?”

Not the insult it seemed. The biggest names in network television had guest-starred as one of the killers on Pastor Fran Investigates. Loni Anderson, David Hasselhoff, Jason Priestley, even Macaulay Culkin: they’d all been karate-chopped by Pastor Fran at some point.

“Not as an actor,” Lachlan said, voice dripping contempt. “I was a wordsmith, a writer, a crafter of tales, if you will. Lachlan Todd. I’m sure you’ve heard Edgar and Miranda talk about me.”

“Hmm. No, can’t say that I have. Wait—didn’t you write the first draft of Edgar’s movie of the week? The one that was supposed to be filmed in Happy Rock but, erm, fell through?”

“That was not Edgar’s script, that was my script. I was designated screenwriter on that project. Edgar merely ‘punched up my work,’ as they say. And anyway, as I recall, that particular MOW, like most of Edgar’s projects, never made it past production.”

Guilelessly, Andrew said, “Oh, but Edgar has retired from that. He runs a bookstore now. Says writing is for saps.”

The glee in Lachlan’s eyes was unmistakable. “So the mighty Edgar Abbott has hung up his spurs, or whatever the writerly equivalent is. Put away his thesaurus? Emptied his inkwell?”

“And you, Lachlan?” Miranda said, stepping in, crossing blades. “What brilliantly successfully TV series are you now writing for?”

“Showrunner,” he said. “Not writer. I’m overseeing the entire project, from scripting to casting to all the interlocking story arcs. It’s a big-budget, incredibly ambitious, proposed limited series on a major streaming platform.”

Ah. She’d caught the crucial word. “Proposed?”

In Hollywood, one could propose anything. You could propose casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as a leprechaun. You could propose re-animating Walt Disney’s frozen head for a cameo. It’s the most hypothetical place on earth. And yet . . . Miranda would be hard-pressed to say she didn’t miss it. The palm trees and insincere sincerity, the delusionary “Wouldn’t it be cool if!” nature of the place.

“Staying at the Duchess Hotel, I presume?” she asked.

“. . . No.”

The hesitation gave it away.

“At a B&B?”

“I’m at the Hideaway Motel.” His face burned.

“Ah,” she said. Only that. With a smile, she decided to exit, stage left, while she was still up a point. “It’s been lovely, Lachlan. But we must be going. There’s my ride now! Come along, Andrew, we’re off to the Murder Store! Ta!”

* * *

NED BUCKLEY WAS worried about the blood. As his patrol car crawled along the harborfront, he kept a wary eye on the brown-paper package on the passenger seat. How long before the blood would seep out? He didn’t see the regal woman in green until she stepped off the curb to raise an imperious hand at him as though hailing a cab.

Ned pulled over, rolled down his window as the lady in green approached. “Miranda,” he said with a weary sigh. “What have I told you about flagging me down like that? I’m not a taxi. I’m a police officer.”

“Chief, Ned. You are no mere functionary; you are the chief of police. One mustn’t be modest. What have I told you about bushels?”

“Not to hide my light under them?”

“Exactly! A bushel is just a dream that’s not allowed to shine! And one must shine, Ned. Otherwise, what are bushels for?”

Andrew Nguyen searched for his notepad to jot this down. He’d been collecting Miranda Abbott aphorisms. “Hey, Ned,” he said as he scribbled this latest bon mot down. “What’s up? Working on a case?”

“Not really. I was heading over to Bea’s.” A nod to the package on the passenger seat. “Fresh chinook from the fall run on the Nestucca.”

“How lovely!” said Miranda.

Miranda lived in Bea’s attic—in what was generously referred to as the Miranda Abbott Suite—and on those occasions when Ned brought over salmon, they dined like royalty.

Miranda slid into the back seat of the patrol car, scooting over so Andrew could join her. “To the Murder Store!” she cried.

Ned turned to face them. He tried to glare but failed miserably. He was a plump man, a pleasant man, and stern didn’t suit him. “Tell you what, Miranda. I’ll flip a coin. Heads, I drive you up to the bookstore. Tails, you walk.”

He pulled out his wallet, flipped it open the way cops always do, and extracted—not his badge, but a small, clear-plastic pouch yellowed with age. Inside was a single quarter. Ned extracted the coin and flipped it in the air, slapped it down on the back of his hand to reveal: “Tails!” he cried, triumphant.

Chapter Two

A Treasure Trove of Books

Ned dropped them off at the bookstore on Beacon Hill.

It wasn’t clear how Miranda could lose the toss and still have him drive them up there.

“It’s not that I lose coin tosses. It’s that I don’t not win them!”

On the way up, Miranda had said, more to herself than anyone, “I wonder if she remembers me?”

“Who?” asked Andrew.

“Penny Fenland. The author. She’s coming to the festival. She began as a script reader on my TV show, a glorified intern, really. I believe she even worked under Luckless Lachlan. She’s gone on to such great things since then. I wonder if she’ll remember me.”

“Of course she will,” Andrew said with a laugh. “You were the star of the show! How could she not?”

“I mean, will she remember me well. Will she remember me kindly. I know it’s hard to imagine, but I did have diva-like tendencies once upon a time.”

Andrew said nothing. Did? Past tense?

She looked out the window, watched the harbor fall away as the patrol car wound its way up Beacon Hill. “I remember her fondly. I can only hope she does the same.”

“Here we are,” said Ned as he pulled up in front of the bookstore.

Miranda, rearranging her scarf as she got out, said, “Thank you, Ned! A pleasure, as always. I shall telephone later, when I need a ride back.”

“I won’t answer,” he said.

“It’s 911. You have to answer.”

“About that—”

But she was already sailing forth toward the store.

Ned drove off with a disgruntled aside about the proper use of police vehicles as Andrew hurried to catch up to Miranda. He was always hurrying to catch up. Miranda Abbott didn’t walk, she glided—and when she glided, she glided fast.

“What’s with that quarter Ned keeps in his wallet?” Andrew asked, trying to keep pace.

“I’m not sure. Lucky coin?”

The establishment they were about to enter wasn’t officially named the Murder Store. That was the way locals referred to it. A bookshop specializing in mysteries and thrillers and general mayhem, I Only Read Murder was ensconced in a haunted-house-style building (technically: nineteenth-century Italianate) with a mansard roof and a widow’s walk. It had transoms over the windows and stained glass above the front doors.

Sitting as it did atop Beacon Hill, the bookstore had a postcard view of the inner harbor below. But before Andrew and Miranda could enter I Only Read Murder, with its creaky floorboards and threadbare carpets, its maze of rooms filled floor-to-ceiling with books both new and used, ranging from leather-bound limited editions to lurid pulp-era pocketbooks, a torrent of gold poured out, tail wagging, tongue lolling, rushing over. It was Emmy, Edgar’s golden Lab.

“Who’s a good girl? Who is?” Miranda asked rhetorically, as Emmy threaded her way between them, leaping joyfully, turning figure eights, almost knocking Andrew over.

Fortunately, the peripheral glimpse of a squirrel sent Emmy galloping off in new directions, through fallen leaves, woofing mightily, and Andrew was saved a full-on mugging.

Edgar appeared in the doorway with a scowl. “The caterers are here,” he said with the enthusiasm one might announce “The plague doctor has arrived.”

Edgar was clad in his usual workaday jeans and lumberjack plaids—a look he’d never sported during their LA days but was practically dress code up here. His walk may have slowed, but his back was still straight, his eyes still strong, his smile as yet sardonic.

Still handsome, thought Miranda. Still grumpy. “The caterers?” she asked as she entered the warm embrace of the bookstore.

He followed her in. “For tonight’s reception.”

As if on cue, they appeared. He was tall, with a broad grin and a balding pate; she was stout, with a bright perma-smile and a hairstyle that was almost a beehive. Lotta hairspray went into that do, Miranda figured.

“Hello!” they chimed.

Physically, quite different. But clad in matching jogging suits and fanny packs: his a shiny metallic blue and hers an even shinier metallic pink.

“I’m Geri—”

“That’s short for Geraldine. And I’m Gerry—”

“Not short for Gerald—”

“Everybody thinks that, but—”

“He’s just plain old Gerry!”

“Not short for anything. That’s me!”

Edgar looked like he wanted to stab himself in the eye with a salad fork. Andrew slipped away before he could be sucked into the vortex of Geri and Gerry.

“Miranda Abbott. A pleasure.” She extended her hand like a favor.

A squeal—from Gerry, oddly enough. Geri, in contrast, was rendered mute, but only momentarily. Only ever momentarily, it seemed.

“Oh my gosh!” she cried. “What an honor. We are such fans, aren’t we, honey?”

“We sure are! Loved you on T.J. Hooker.”

Miranda’s smile faltered. “That was Heather Locklear, darling. I was never on T.J. Hooker. I did briefly date Bill Shatner, though—in my youth.” Her voice dropped. “He’s quite a bit older than me. Smelled of maple syrup.”

Edgar turned to the caterers and asked with as much civility as he could muster, “And why are you here?”

“The reception, of course!”

“That would be the reception for the authors. The one that begins”—he checked his watch—“Seven hours from now?”

“You bet! No time to lose!” They disappeared down the hall to the kitchen at the back of the bookstore.

“Cute couple,” said Miranda.

“Define cute.”

“Well, sort of the opposite of us, I suppose.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Edgar. “I’m plenty cute.”

Cardboard boxes were stacked in the main room of the bookstore. Miranda counted eight of them, and when she checked the return labels, she noted they hadn’t been shipped from a publishing company or a book distributor or a discount wholesaler. They’d been sent from a private address.

“Who is Helen Ross?”

“She’s the recently widowed wife of the late great John D. Ross. Donated these to the bookstore, said her husband’s works should be out in the world to be read and enjoyed, to be bought and sold and given as gifts, not gathering dust in a private library or hidden away in storage.”

“A friend of yours?” Andrew asked, having rematerialized once G&G had gone.

“Not really,” said Edgar. “I only ever met her once. Had no idea she was going to bequeath me these books. I first read about it in the trades like everyone else: Helen Ross to donate a complete collection of her husband’s works to bookstore owned by former head writer on . . . etcetera.”

Etcetera meaning Pastor Fran Investigates, the TV show that Miranda had starred in and he had written, back when they were married. They were still married, true, but not in any real sense, and it made her heart ache to hear Edgar refer to that part of their lives as an addendum.

John D. Ross. The name was familiar. “We carry his books, don’t we?” said Miranda.

“Of course we do. He was a legend. They called him ‘Old Blood and Thunder.’”

“Didn’t they make a TV show?” Miranda asked.

Edgar sighed. “They made several. John D. Ross wrote one of the most successful detective series of all time, Miranda. If you’re going to pretend to run a bookstore—”

A flash of red-haired ire. “Not pretend, Edgar. I remind you, I am the owner of this establishment.” Then, hand up to stop him before he could say anything, “Co-owner. Majority co-owner.”

An error in calculations on the bank’s part had left her with 50.04 percent of the business to Edgar’s 49.96 percent, a minor technicality—a triviality, really—that Miranda rarely mentioned more than, oh, ten or twelve times a day. Want to move that sofa over there? Want to bring in a cappuccino machine? Sell scented candles? Put up paisley curtains? Perhaps we should ask the majority co-owner?

“We have twenty kinds of candles on sale,” Edgar grumbled. “You could at least know the name of one of our top sellers.”

“Pumpkin spice?”

“Not candles. Books. We are a bookstore, remember? We have an entire section dedicated to him.”

“Ah yes! Under D.”

“D?” said Edgar. He was patting his pockets, looking for something to open the boxes with.

“John D. Ross,” Miranda explained. “Alphabetically, of course.”

“R, you mean to say.” Edgar settled on his car keys, ran the edge along the top of the packing tape on one of the boxes.

Andrew helped him unpack them.

“Even after his death, John D. Ross’s books sell really well,” Andrew said. “His Trevor Lucas mysteries are all still in print. That’s the name of his sleuth. We carry most of the Trevor Lucas mysteries: The Deep-Blue Hydrangea. White Daffodil of Death. A Purple Lotus for Dying. The Fearful Yellow Chrysanthemum.”

“And Penzler Publishers has just announced it will be relaunching the entire series,” said Edgar. “With new introductions by current masters in the field. Several of whom are coming to this mystery festival, in fact.”

This brought up a delicate matter.

“Edgar, dear, will the authors who are coming to this festival be staying at Bea’s B&B?” One of the posters was on display beside the cash register, and Miranda pointed to the line at the bottom: accommodations provided by BB&B. “Might get crowded if she tries to fit everyone in.”

With Miranda in the attic and Andrew in the pantry, Bea would only have four rooms available for visiting authors.

“They’re not staying at Bea’s,” said Edgar. “They’re staying at the new place. The other B&B.”

“That’s us!” said Geri, as she passed by carrying a plastic-wrapped tray. “G&G from BB&B!”

As Geri disappeared down the hall, Miranda whispered to Edgar, “Does she have a stutter?”

“That’s the name of their bed-and-breakfast. The BB&B.”

Edgar pried open the next box, took out the top book, a hardcover original of Heavy Lay the Hollyhocks. He whistled. “Wow. These are in mint condition.”

“There’s a new B&B in town?”

“Out by the lighthouse. The old historic Hiram Henry House. Geri and Gerry—the ones banging about in our kitchen—they bought it.”

Miranda’s opinion of them instantly soured now that she knew they were Bea’s competition.

“They cater as well?”

Edgar and Andrew were stacking the hardcovers on a display table. “They do indeed,” said Edgar.

“I’ll say!” said Andrew. “I took a peek at the menu for tonight. Trout croquette and goat cheese parfait.” He thought a moment. “Or maybe it was trout parfait and goat cheese croquette.”

“A gala!” Miranda exclaimed.

“A reception,” Edgar amended. “A modest reception.”

“A gala!” Miranda enjoyed nothing more than making a reluctant appearance at a grand soiree. “I shall have to ransack my wardrobe.”

“It’s nothing that fancy,” Edgar insisted. “Just some of the community supporters milling about, trying to make small talk with underpaid over-competitive loners. Authors, in other words. The main readings and book signings will be at the Opera House. I’m just the designated bookseller for the festival. Tonight’s get-together isn’t an opening night gala or anything. This isn’t LA, okay?”

But Miranda heard what she wanted to hear. “An opening night gala! Here in the store! I shall make my lemonade!” she proclaimed.

“No!” Edgar said, too quickly. “Your lemonade, it’s—it’s too good. You don’t want to overshadow our hosts.”

Andrew agreed frantically, his head bobbing up and down in whiplash-worthy nods. “Edgar’s right! No lemonade! You don’t want to show them up.”

She frowned. “That is true. One mustn’t outshine the stars when one shines out with the stars.”

Miranda’s lemonade was famous—or rather infamous—across the Greater Tri-Rock Area. She often threw in a fistful of salt at the end to counteract the many scoops of sugar she’d added to balance out the sourness of the glug-a-jug of extra lemon juice she included, which in turn was needed to counter the taste of the salt. A self-supporting Möbius strip of ingredients.

“But still . . .” Miranda was not entirely convinced. “People do talk about my lemonade.”

Oh, they do, thought Andrew. They do, indeed.

Saved by the bell! The one above the front door jingled, signaling the arrival of that most fickle of guests: a customer! First of the day.

Alas, it was only Owen McCune, the World’s Worst Mechanic. He let Emmy in as he entered.

“She looks pooped,” he said.

And she did. Emmy loped through to the back, where her doggy bed was laid out. Owen, meanwhile, quickly spotted the stack of boxes.

“New books come in?” he asked, wiping his hands on a rag as he approached.

One of the many unresolved mysteries of Happy Rock was how Owen McCune of McCune’s Garage could constantly be wiping his hands yet never getting them any cleaner. It was up there with the Mystery of Miranda’s Lemonade, which was, namely, Why the salt??

Owen McCune spent most of his free time in the bookstore, browsing merrily away, never buying anything. He’d read entire series in the store, would even lick his fingers to turn a page and would fold down a corner to mark his spot before putting the book back on the shelf. He left various oil stains as he went. The man, Edgar had said, was a walking Rorschach test. Owen sported massive, some might say magnificent, sideburns and wore baggy coveralls in an indiscriminate shade of blech. Instinctively, Edgar threw himself between Owen and the John D. Ross books.

“You’re not touching any of these. Not with those oily hands.”

“Not even a peek?”

“No! These are John D. Ross originals. Your greasy paw prints would only diminish their value, both monetary and spiritual.”

“Ross? Oh, that guy. The one whose hero is an alcoholic ex-cop with the NYPD who also works as a retired ex-Navy shore patrol investigator while living on a houseboat as a burglar?”

“Trevor Lucas,” said Andrew. “That’s the name of the character. In the books, he’s six feet seven and blond, so naturally he was played by Tom Cruise in the movies. Netflix has a new series based on him coming out next spring. It’s a cash machine, the entire series.”

“Never cared for him,” said Owen. “Ross, I mean.”

Edgar was aghast. “John D. Ross, modern master of the genre? The most influential mystery writer of his generation, often copied, never bettered. You don’t—quote—‘care for him’?”

“Nope. Not a bit. In one book, the houseboat has what I assume is a Cummins X15 diesel engine in it, and in the very next book, way it’s described, it’s clearly a GM Marine 350 V8! I mean, which is it? How the heck is that believable?”

“The part where he’s an ex-cop who is also a former Navy shore patrol, Korean War vet burglar for hire—that didn’t bother you. But the engines did?”

“Never cared for those books is all I’m saying. Thing is, Ross always puts the killer on the first page. Every dang time. It’s always one of the first characters the hero, Trevor What’s-his-face, meets. How is that a good mystery?”

“That can’t be right,” said Edgar, though his voice wavered. He did seem to recall the last John D. Ross novel he read having featured a person later revealed to be the killer who had appeared in the opening scene . . .

“Plus, he always goes outta his way to work the title of the book into the dialogue, so one of the characters will say something like, ‘Boy, those hollyhocks sure lay heavy on the soul.’ Or ‘Out here, the sunflowers grow on the grave.’ Or ‘It’s time for a stroll among the scarlet solidago.’ It’s annoying. Does he think we already forgot the title of the book we’re reading? He has to remind us? That, and the fact that he always puts the killer on the first page. Don’t care for him.”

Edgar took a steadying breath, a single deep inhalation, a chestful of restraint. Miranda knew that breath. It was a breath of barely contained exasperation, a sigh in lieu of a head exploding. She knew it from their days as a couple.

“Owen,” said Edgar, unnaturally calm. “Shouldn’t you be at work right now?”

The hours posted at McCune’s Garage were always more aspirational than real. “Nah, that’s the beauty of being your own boss. You get to make your own hours. You know what that’s like, Edgar.”

“Yes, except I don’t spend my time hanging out at your garage, flipping through your tire catalogs.”

“You should! Anytime you like. My door is always open, and I’m usually out anyway.”

“That would explain why it took you two weeks to fix a simple valve on my Jeep,” said Edgar.

“Prob’ly,” said Owen, who then wandered off in search of more mechanically astute mysteries.

Edgar opened the last box of books, lifted the flaps to reveal . . .

“Huh. Well, that’s unexpected.”

“What is it?” asked Andrew.

“A book.”

“How is a book unexpected?” Miranda wanted to know. “I should think a book is precisely what one might expect to find in a box filled with books.”

Edgar held up a thin hardcover, mauve and faded, with a cursive font on the cover that uncurled like a fragile ribbon—a wistful font, if such a thing were possible: How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun.

“Terrible title for a mystery,” said Andrew. “Maybe How Dangerous the Rain, How Murderous the Sun? Or, even better, Gun.”

“That’s just it. It’s not a mystery. It’s some sort of . . . literary novel.” The word sounded thick upon Edgar’s tongue, like an obscure term he was not used to pronouncing. He turned the book over in his hand as though it were an exotic bit of fauna long thought extinct. He checked the copyright page. “A small press. Published twenty years ago. Not credited to John D. Ross. The author is someone named Gertrude Gyilkos. Andrew?”

“On it.”

Andrew fired up his smartphone, did that magical thumb dance of his that always amazed Miranda, and reported back within moments.

“That’s the only novel the author wrote, apparently. There’s nothing on her—or the novel, really. I found a single copy on AbeBooks selling for two bucks. Another one for five. And that’s about it. It’s long out of print. No synopsis available online. Doesn’t show up on Goodreads or Google Books.”

“Hmm,” said Miranda.

It was the fate of certain novels to disappear like pebbles down a well, leaving scarcely a ripple in their wake. This was one such book, it would appear.

“So it’s not one of John D. Ross’s pseudonyms,” said Edgar.

“If it was, that would have come up.”

John D. Ross made Alexander McCall Smith look like a piker when it came to the sheer number of mystery series he pushed out the door. Prolific to the point of promiscuous, John D. Ross had been forced to use an array of pen names to avoid flooding the market under his own, pen names like Chip Tanner, Sheldon Shaw, and Stark Holt. But Gertrude was not among them.

No author photo, either. Just a pebble, dropped down a well . . .

“How peculiar,” said Miranda.

Speaking of peculiar.

“Oh! Before I forget. Edgar, you’ll never guess who Andrew and I ran into outside the Opera House today. Lachlan Todd!”

“Luckless Lachlan? What is he doing in Happy Rock?”

“He is under the impression that his invitation to the writers festival was lost in the mail.”

“The mystery is how that guy is still alive. He burns bridges like a pyromaniac who has a . . . a grudge against bridges. Okay, not my best simile. But you get the idea.”

Edgar returned his attention to the mauve book with the unsettling title. Opened it to a random page of text. Innocence is what remains after everything else has fled. On another page: We are the leaves that worship the wind, the straw that worships the pyre. Yes, this was most definitely literary fiction, not mystery.

“Helen must have included this by mistake,” Edgar said. He placed it to one side. “I’ll return it to her later. As for the rest of these—I’ll put the paperbacks out front, here in the main room, and I’ll store the hardcovers in the reading room.”

In spite of herself, Miranda shivered. The reading room was her least favorite area in the bookstore, second only to the groaning furnace and layered dust of its dungeon-like basement. Both places felt haunted to her, and she wasn’t wrong.

Chapter Three

Legend of the Lost Manuscript

There was something off about the reading room. Miranda could feel it every time she entered. An enigma in its own right, the narrow anteroom was across the hall from the former dining area. Too big to be a larder, too small to be a children’s room, and too closed off to be used for social functions. Edgar had dubbed it a “reading nook” and had rolled in a wooden swivel chair and side table, along with a standing lamp and escritoire desk, and some mismatched shelves that he filled with overstock. A heavy door closed it in.

He assumed this narrow room had served some purpose originally. But what exactly? Local history books contained black-and-white photographs of the building’s interior as a private abode: dour men in celluloid collars and women equally dour in their hoop skirts, looking ill at ease. Handlebar mustaches and brooches. A merchant family. A shipping magnate. A boarding house. The many iterations of the home on Beacon Hill before it became a bookstore were well documented. The building’s dining room and main hall appeared often in these photographs, but the more functional spaces were rarely included: the scullery and servants’ quarters, for example. Which is what Edgar’s reading room was eventually identified as: the staff’s dining area, where the char maids and butlers could hide out, muttering darkly about the lords of industry and plotting their revenge.

Edgar had been informed of the original purpose of this room only after posting detailed blueprints online with a note: Owner of a mystery bookstore looking for help solving a mystery. What was this room used for? He’d circled it on the architectural floor plans with the boiler room below. Maybe coal storage? Did people store coal on the main floor? Or was coal only ever piled in the basement? Several historians had pored over these plans online and had pronounced the room’s original purpose. But calling it “the former servants’ dining hall” didn’t have the literary cachet of a designated “reading room,” and thus a reading room it became and a reading room it stayed, a bibliophile’s hideaway and the one place in the bookstore Owen McCune was not allowed into—for obvious reasons. One didn’t want him pawing his oily hands through the books in there.

Along one wall of the reading room Edgar had placed an antique cabinet with etched-glass doors, a cabinet that acted as the reliquary for those rare and valuable collectibles as sometimes turned up in the book trade. First-edition Agatha Christies, limited-edition Gillian Flynns with the alternate ending (it was all a misunderstanding and the girl came back), a Sue Grafton with a typo in the title (B is for Burger), a leather-bound Highsmith, and even a pop-up version of The Bone Parade.

A narrow room with a door at one end and a window on the other. The window didn’t open, but the transom above it did, those slanting panes of glass that were used to circulate air before the invention of central cooling. A wrought-iron radiator squatted directly below the window.

With bookshelves along one wall and the “rarities cabinet” on the other, and the swivel chair and standing lamp squeezed in between, the room was both cozy and constricted, both comforting and claustrophobic. A secure room with one of the few working locks in the bookstore. Not that Edgar ever used the old-fashioned brass key to the room. He kept that hanging on a hook in the kitchen. As for the glass cabinet, it had a small decorative key of its own.

When Edgar first posted the layout of the room, one wag had pinged back, When an author describes a room in great detail, that’s usually where the murder occurs. When he’d shown Miranda this comment with a laugh, she’d gone pale, like she’d been given a premonition of what was to come.

Edgar began stacking the John D. Ross hardcovers on various surfaces in the reading room: the end table, the shelves, the small desk. He was as giddy as a kid at Christmas.

“What a windfall! I’ll keep the hardcover first editions in here until they can be properly cataloged and evaluated. Any rarities we come across, we’ll secure in the cabinet.”

They would sit along other rare birds that Edgar loved to display but was loath to sell, even if they would have fetched him the highest prices. One didn’t enter the book trade to make money, after all.

“As the legendary New York bookseller Alfred Goldsmith so famously put it,” said Edgar, “the book business is a very pleasant way of making very little money.”

Crowded in with Andrew and Edgar in the reading room, Miranda considered the strange novel with the mauve cover. “No author photo. Why would you ever publish a book without your photo prominently displayed?” As an actor, it was unfathomable, like starring in a play without posting your 8×10 glossy headshot in the lobby. “How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun. I wonder who this Gertrude person is.”

“It’s just a book, Miranda. Not everything is a clue.”

“Perhaps . . .” That was the problem with clues; they only looked like clues after the fact. “Still, I would think we should lock this one in the cabinet. To be safe.”

“Sure. You do that. I’ll return it to Helen later. It doesn’t go with the rest of the collection anyway.”

Miranda turned the small key that was in the cabinet’s lock and placed the slim volume inside. But the treasure hunt was not yet over.

From behind her she heard Edgar say, “Hello! What do we have here?”

At the bottom of the last box, under the last of the hardcovers . . .

“It’s a manuscript,” said Edgar. He pulled it out. A heavy block of pages, bound by a rubber band, it had a cover page that had been typed on an actual typewriter. “A Black Orchid to End With, by John D. Ross. Huh.”

“I don’t remember that one,” said Andrew.

A gleam came to Miranda’s eye. “Wait! It’s like that episode of Pastor Fran, ‘The Case of the Austere Author.’ Remember? The victim managed to touch-type his murderer’s name as he lay slumped across his desk, dying. But his fingers had slipped down and were on the wrong row of the typewriter keys—I mean, he had been hit in the head by a spiked flail, so it was perhaps understandable—and instead of typing the name ‘SAM,’ he typed ‘WQJ’ or some such. Do you remember that episode?”

“I wrote it, so, yeah, I remember it. I named the villains for studio execs. It was a metaphor for how they meddled with my scripts.”

“And?” she asked.

“They meddled with that one, too.”

“In fairness,” said Miranda, “that is in their job description: Producer slash meddler. Maybe the manuscript you’re holding is the late John D. Ross’s final novel, the one he was working when he died!”

“Could be, except it’s dated ten years ago.”

Traditionally, a manuscript cover page included four key elements: the title, the author’s name, the word count, and the date it was completed. This one’s date was from a decade ago.

“Hefty, too.” Edgar turned back the top corner of the last page without taking off the rubber band. “It’s 298 pages. If it is a lost manuscript, it definitely needs to be returned to Helen. This belongs in a public archive or on a publisher’s desk, not here.”

And so it was that Edgar handed the manuscript to Miranda, and so it was that she placed it inside the reading room cabinet next to the strange book with the mauve cover, and so it was that she once again turned the key on the cabinet, locking them behind the etched glass. And so it was that the most inexplicable crime scene Miranda Abbott would ever encounter, a crime worthy of Lachlan Todd himself, had been laid out before her without her realizing it.

She was about to pocket the little key when Edgar sighed and said, “This isn’t LA, Miranda. This is Happy Rock. Just leave the cabinet key in the lock. We don’t have any duplicates, and if you take the key with you, it might get lost.”

“Then what is the point of locking the cabinet in the first place?”

It was a perfectly reasonable question, but Edgar ignored her. He headed back to the main room instead to deal with the paperbacks that Helen had sent.

With a huff Miranda followed, leaving Andrew to close the door to the reading room behind them.

“Shouldn’t you at least lock the door to the reading room?” she called out as she came into the main room.

Edgar was standing, fists on hips like a general surveying the terrain, frowning. “We’ll have to move books around to make space.”

Running a bookstore was an ongoing game of Tetris. One was constantly rearranging, re-sorting, shifting things about.

“We can move some of the Ian Rankins aside,” Edgar said. “I mean, how many times can Detective Rebus be disillusioned?”

He took a box of the paperbacks to the R section of the main shelves in order to fit them in alongside the other John D. Ross novels—and stopped. He stepped back. What the hell . . . ?

“Our John D. Ross paperbacks,” he said. “They’re gone.”

* * *

NOT GONE, AS it turned out. Only hiding. Hiding amid the labyrinthine logic of Miranda Abbott’s mind.

“Oh, those?” she said with a sunbeam smile. “I reshelved them last night before I closed up. They were in the wrong place. I did it alphabetically! Under D, of course. It’s all about managing the details. What is it I say about details, Andrew?”

“Um, I don’t . . . I don’t remember.”

“Precisely!” She pivoted back to Edgar. “This is the part where you thank me for fixing your . . . well, I won’t say ‘slipshod’ methods, but they are shod and they do slip.”

Edgar followed the shelves backwards to . . . John D. Ross, whose books were indeed now shelved under D. As he looked about at the other names on the shelves, his face clenched.

“Oh my, that’s quite the facial twitch you’re developing,” said Miranda. “You should have Doc Meadows take a look at that.”

Trying to remain calm, Edgar began running his finger along the spines. “Miranda, why is Sherlock Holmes now located next to Miss Marple?”

“Alphabetical, my dear Watson! Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. Both are C’s.”

“I see. So that’s why Mary Higgins Clark’s novels are no longer in close proximity to John Dickson Carr’s. Or why Dorothy Salisbury Davis is no longer next to Carol Anne Davis, despite them both having, oh, I don’t know—the same last name!” That last bit came out louder than he’d intended.

“Well, Salisbury is S and Anne is A, so no, not together.”

“Which would also explain why James Lee Burke and Elmore Leonard are suddenly cuddled up next to each other—under L for Lee and Leonard—and, and, and . . .” He was starting to sputter. “. . . why P.D. James and J.A. Jance are not next to each other—with neither of them listed under J.”

“Exactly! P.D. James and J.A. Jance. Why on earth would their books be next to each other? Do you think Catherine Zeta-Jones is listed under J in the movie guides? Of course not! You will find her where she belongs, under Z.”

Edgar took another long, steadying breath. “I know what I will do. I will track down the clerk at the bank who forgot to carry the two, thereby granting you a controlling interest in this bookstore—my bookstore—and I shall beat him to death with his abacus.”

Miranda was spared further murderous scenarios, as imagined by Edgar, when the bell above the front door jingled. She turned to see a reedy man with an eager smile enter the store.

“Hullo?” he hazarded.

“Yes!” she said, arms wide, answering a question he hadn’t yet asked. “It is I!”

“It is! Pastor Fran. I mean, Miranda Abbott. Sorry, it’s just, I’m a bit tongue-tied. I heard you worked here, but I couldn’t believe it was true! Miranda Abbott, Hollywood superstar,* right here in Happy Rock, workin’ at a bookstore, no less. Who’d have thought!”

Her smile became strained. “Not working. Owning.” And before Edgar could say anything, “Welcome!”

“Jeez. That’s terrific. You got any of those Pastor Fran Investigates novelizations? From your TV show?” His face was flushed, but his upper lip was pale and beaded.

Miranda threw a triumphant look Edgar’s way. In his typically obstinate way, her husband-in-name-only had long refused to carry any of those cheap pocketbook Pastor Fran novelizations, partly because they were so cheesy, partly because they reminded him of those horrible days in network TV, but mainly because he was the one who had written them. Under a pseudonym, of course.

“Ah yes,” said Miranda. “The Pastor Fran Casebooks by Stone Rockwell. I know the ones of which you speak. We do carry them.”

When Edgar and Miranda had hit an impasse over whether to stock these books, she’d suggested they put it to a vote. Miranda had won by 0.04 percent. Since then, the novelizations had been selling regularly, much to Miranda’s delight and Edgar’s chagrin.

“The Stone Rockwells are housed in our second-hand section in the next room,” she said. “Beside H.R.F. Keating, naturally.”

Off he scurried.

Edgar glowered. Miranda gloated. And the customer reappeared soon after with a stack of used paperbacks, their creased covers featuring that familiar 3D-style lettering from the TV show—Pastor Fran Investigates—with airbrushed and highly idealized depictions of Miranda Abbott as Pastor Fran in her trademark and wholly inaccurate clerical collar, peering into darkened doorways, peering into darkened alleyways, peering into darkened laboratories, hands poised, karate-chop-ready, or racing a speedboat in a red bikini (clerical collar still inexplicably in place), or climbing the Alps in unduly snug lederhosen, or parachuting from the Concorde (dubious that last one, to say the least). The paperbacks had titles like The Case of the Hidden Blow Dart or The Case of the Secret Guillotine (which sort of gave away the ending) or The Case of the Cyanide Cigarette (ditto) or the one with the dental floss coated in poison, titled The Case of The Poisoned Dental Floss (most assuredly ditto).

“You are in for a treat,” Miranda assured the blushing fan. “For the author of those books is with us today!”

Edgar’s glower was now a glare. He hated having attention, good or bad, called his way. In this, he was the exact opposite of the woman he’d married.

“I present to you, Mr. Stone Rockwell himself!” Miranda made a ta-da gesture, stepping aside to graciously let the (metaphorical) spotlight shine on Edgar instead.

“Do you think . . .” said the man, with a shy glance Miranda’s way. “Do you think I could maybe get them signed?”

With a sigh, Edgar reached into his pocket for a pen, but no—the fellow didn’t mean Edgar, and he didn’t mean Stone Rockwell, he meant . . .

“Would you? I mean, if it’s not too much trouble, would you mind?” He held out a pen of his own to Miranda.

“Of course,” Miranda said, taking the copy of The Case of the Twins Who Were Actually Secretly Triplets. She clicked the pen decisively several times. “And to whom shall I sign it? And how?”

“Maybe as Pastor Fran?”

The role of the karate-chopping church sleuth had defined her to such an extent that even her fans had trouble separating the two.

“Let’s make it Best wishes, from Miranda ‘Pastor Fran’ Abbott,” she said, signing with a flourish. As Miranda always said, an alter ego is not an ego altered.

* * *

AFTER THE CUSTOMER had exited the store, on a flurry of thank-yous and awkward farewells, Miranda tilted her head and said to Edgar, “I’ve met him before.”

“John D. Ross?”

“Not the author. That customer. The one who had me sign your books. The one with the weird upper lip.”

“You noticed his lip?” said Edgar.

“I’m an actress, darling. I am attuned to the traits and tics of others. I’ve seen that fellow before. I know it.”

“You have a lot of fans,” said Andrew. “Maybe on some red carpet, way back when?”

“Not in LA. More recently, and closer at hand.”

As Edgar struggled to rearrange the shelves to make space for the newly arrived John D. Ross paperbacks, a creak was heard in the floor above them. A loud and meaningful creak.

Edgar’s expression soured. He looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, for god’s sake.”

Another creak, then a thump, and a moment later, the pipes rattled and the rush of a flushing toilet could be heard.

Edgar, muttering: “I’m gonna kill him.”

The clumping of work boots coming down the stairs followed, loosey-goosey, and the clattering toenails of a dog on the hardwood halls.

“Well, Emmy likes him,” Miranda said.

“Emmy also likes rolling around in squirrel excrement and rabbit poop.”

Owen sauntered in. “Good haul?” he asked, referring to the books Edgar was now pulling and re-pulling from various places on the shelf.

“Owen, what have I told you about going upstairs?” Edgar asked.

“Not to do it?”

“I live up there, Owen. That is my home. The second floor is off-limits. The bookstore is located here, on the ground floor. I don’t want you going upstairs to use my bathroom. We have a small restroom for customers down here. There is no reason for you to go tromping through my place.”

Owen had the latest issue of the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine digest rolled up in one of his hands. “Yeah, but the toilet down here is so cramped. You can’t really stretch out and enjoy yourself.”

“Upstairs is off-limits,” Edgar repeated.

“But Miranda goes up there all the time.”

“That’s different, she’s my . . .”

Say it, say it . . .

“Co-owner,” he said. He turned his gaze to the rolled-up mystery magazine Owen was holding with a proprietorial lack of care. “Shall I have Andrew ring that up for you?”

“Naw, there’s no need. I finished it upstairs.”

Edgar, teeth gritted: “And how are we supposed to sell that now? Would you buy a magazine that has been taken into the can?”

Owen was confused. “Of course not. Like I said, I already finished it. Why would I buy it now? Anyways. I should probably skedaddle. I got a big to-do to go to. Later tonight.”

“A what?”

“A to-do to go to.”

With that, he ambled himself out of the room and down the hall. The bell jingled again as he left.

“Good riddance,” said Edgar. “At least he won’t be at our reception, scarfing down free food and wiping his hands on the tablecloth like the reverse Midas he is.”

A giant floral arrangement squeezed past them, self-ambulatory it seemed; only the shiny track-suited legs of one of the G’s could be seen. An autumn selection with golden reds and russets, tiger lilies and orange gerberas, acorns and pinecones and huckleberry clusters. Something Martha Stewart could only dream of.

“This will definitely be the fanciest in-store event we’ve had!” said Andrew.

At past book signings, Edgar would put out a selection of soon-to-be-expired discounted cheese cubes from TB Foods and various wines-in-a-box with plastic cups. Never mind a floral centerpiece. Or tablecloths. Or linen napkins.

“Can I lend a hand?” Andrew asked, and Geri (or was it Gerry? They even sounded the same) said they would be delighted.

Andrew practically danced his way to the kitchen to assist. Finally, something that didn’t involve cheese cubes!

Miranda joined him—in a supervisory capacity—leaving Edgar alone to face the conundrum of the scrambled bookshelves. How to reshelve them in proper order while a reception was being prepared?

Before he could tackle the problem, a shadow fell across the room and the world went black-and-white. Apt, because Kane Hamady had now entered the story—and nothing would ever be the same.

Kane stood, backlit in the hallway, broad of shoulder, large of stomach. Ill of temper. Twinkle, twinkle, Killer Kane . . .

With a terse nod thrown to Edgar, he stepped into the room. A full head of thick gray hair and a permanent five o’clock shadow. A man’s man, much like his fictional hero, Mick Hardy. As a hard-boiled detective—or “private dick”—Mick Hardy was constantly chugging from a bottle of cheap scotch he kept stashed in his desk drawer amid the riffraff of a sin-drenched city. Kane had no bottle of cheap scotch in hand, but like his alter ego, he could strut standing still. A two-fisted author known for holding grudges, not to mention vendettas, Kane swaggered his way into the main room, overcoat hanging loose, a red-tinted toothpick in his teeth, a trilby hat pulled down. The toothpicks were cinnamon, the hat was felt. And Kane, as authors are wont to do, immediately spotted his own books on the shelf. With no middle initial to gum things up, Kane Hamady’s were still filed under H.

H for hard-boiled. H for homicide.

Without a word to Edgar, he unabashedly began turning his novels face-out on the shelf.

As Edgar had often pointed out to Miranda, any author worth their salt can spy one of their own books a hundred paces away, across a crowded room.

“Flowers?” Kane said, and the distaste was evident in his voice. He was referencing the autumn centerpiece that G&G had laid out in a sheaf. He turned to Edgar. “Well-heeled joint, I see.” He held out his hand. “Kane Hamady, at yer service. You must be the goulash that runs this boneyard of books.”

“I’m the owner, if that’s what you mean.”

If Edgar expected a knuckle-crushing death grip of unadulterated manliness, he was surprised at how mild the handshake was, almost hesitant.

Kane’s expression shifted as he looked past Edgar to the hallway behind. “Say. Who’s the skirt?”

Chapter Four

A Low-Life Palooka Who Don’t Know Dollars from Donuts

Miranda Abbott had returned from the kitchen carrying scented candles for the display table, and Kane shifted the cinnamon toothpick in his mouth with a leer. Giving her the once-over, he addressed Edgar. “That’s a nice bit of calico, pal.”

Baffled, Edgar could only say, “Calico?”

“This dame with the swell chassis and the gams up to here.”

“I beg your pardon!” said Miranda.

“Don’t snap your cap, sister. I’m just saying, you’re a dish, a doll, a lulu deluxe, a beauteous broad, a real gal. A vexatious vamp, a moll, a kitten, a starlight vixen.” It was almost freestyle poetry, the way he said it. “A tomato, a dame, a canary, see?”

“So . . . a woman?” she said.

“If you want to get pedantic about it, sure.”

Edgar’s jaw had clenched. “Well, Mr. Hamady, this doll, this dish, this nice bit o’ calico happens to be my wife.”

Miranda tried not to grin. My wife, you say? Got ya! Deny it as much as you want Edgar, but we are still wed!

Kane whistled through his teeth. “Not the one and only Miranda Abbott,” he said. “Not Pastor Fran herself. Your wife? Go climb up your thumb! Haven’t aged a day, dollface. Still a bearcat, I see. A flame-topped firecracker. I always was partial to redheads.”

“Again, that would be my wife,” said Edgar, jaw still clenched as Miranda’s grin grew. She was enjoying this.

“And this is my husband,” she said. “Right here.”

“My least favorite kind of husband,” said Kane, ignoring Edgar and addressing Miranda. “Here.”

“Most people wouldn’t say something so rude,” said Miranda.

“I ain’t most people.”

“Too bad,” said Miranda. “I like most people.”

“Got quite the sting on you, sister. You’re like a scorpion dressed in green.”

Miranda smiled. “A gentleman would remove his hat when he meets a lady.”

“I ain’t no gentleman.”

“Are you suggesting I’m no lady?”

It felt like she was acting out a scene from her Pastor Fran days.

“Fair enough, sweet cheeks.” Kane pulled the traditional felt trilby from his head, stuffed it into his overcoat pocket. Had he kept his hat on, it would have been easier for Miranda to track his movements later—but how could she have known?

Miranda was enjoying Edgar’s discomfort. “Charmed,” she said, extending the back of her hand to Kane as though expecting him to kiss it.

He obliged.

Never let it be said that Edgar Abbott ever saw a pot he didn’t stir. “Kane, I couldn’t help but notice you turned Fairfax DePoy’s books inward while you were turning your own face-out. Still at daggers drawn with our English friend?”

“Fairfax? English? Don’t make me laugh. He’s about as English as French toast—and about as French as English muffins.”

“Meaning?”

“American cheese.”

Egged on by Edgar, Kane unpacked the story of the Great Feud of Fairfax DePoy vs. Kane Hamady. A battle of genres as well: fey historical romance vs. hard-boiled wonderlands.

“I hear you threatened to hurt him,” said Edgar.

“Hurt him? That fop? Don’t be a bunny. Entire tale is a bunch ’a bunk. Pure hooey, Louie. I never threatened to hurt him. Never.”

“You didn’t?”

“Naw. Threatened to kill him. Hurtin’ wasn’t good enough for the likes of him.”

Miranda remembered what Lachlan had said: Kane broke his fingers, one by one. Why on earth would Edgar allow these two men to attend the same event? What was Edgar possibly thinking? Was he even thinking?

Kane flicked the cinnamon toothpick onto the carpet, leveled his gaze at Edgar while still somehow eyeing Miranda.

“Your pal Fairfax is a crumb, a chump, a dope, see? A low-life palooka who don’t know dollars from donuts. I ran into him in the Windy City. I was comin’ outta a gin mill on the south side. Sure, I was drinkin’. I admit it. Was ossified at the time. What’s it to ya? I was on a bender, see? Bar-hoppin’ like a cricket on a tambourine, was sauced and sozzled, to say nothin’ of soused, and who do I run into? That fink, Fairfax. We had words. ‘Yer all wet,’ says I. ‘Best you take a powder, get outta my way.’ I tells Fairfax to button his lip, see? But he keeps yappin’. So I give him a bit of the ol’ chin music.”

“Chin music?” said Miranda, trying to keep up.

“I think that means a punch to the jaw,” said Edgar.

“Fairfax’s mouthpiece calls me on the horn later, threatenin’ hellfire and lawsuits, really puts the screws on me. It’s a bum rap, but I ain’t no stool pigeon. I ain’t no rat. What Fancy Boy Fairfax and myself get up to is between him, God, and my two fists.”

Andrew came in carrying a silverware serving tray and spotted Kane. “Mr. Hamady!” he cried, putting the tray down. “I just read your interview in Tough Guys Monthly.”

Miranda shot Andrew a look, one that said, Don’t get him started! We’ll be here all day, and we still have a reception to host and a wardrobe for me to select and a grand entrance to plan before the paparazzi descend upon us, so please, please, for the love of god, do NOT mention the feud!

“Quite the feud!” said Andrew, to an audible groan from Miranda.

Fortunately, Edgar was able to intervene before Kane could reel off on another tangent.

“First time in Tillamook Bay?” he asked.

“You kiddin’, pal? I’m like Hank Snow. I’ve been everywhere. Was up the Nestucca River when they hauled in that 38-pound trout.”

This immediately got Edgar’s interest. Miranda’s eyes glazed over. What was it about men and fish?

Geri of the shiny pink tracksuit and matching fanny pack reappeared, perturbed by Andrew’s lackadaisical approach to setting the slotted spoons and baroque flatware in anticipation of the banquet to come.

“Here, let me do that,” she said under her breath, relieving Andrew of his duties. Not that Andrew noticed. He was too fascinated by the presence and sheer legend of Kane Hamady.

“Did you really break the fingers of—”

“Fishing!” Miranda exclaimed. “Tell us more about fishing! I can’t get enough stories about fishing.”

She sent yet another sidelong look Andrew’s way, one that said, I thought I made it clear that we were not to mention the feud to Mr. Hamady under any circumstances whatsoever, so why, oh why, would you fail to realize this? (Miranda could say a lot with a single look.)

“Some young dolly bird pestered me into comin’ back to this backwater burg, and I thought maybe fishin’ was in store. Nothin’ doin’. Place is lousy with finger peckers.”

“Pardon?” said Miranda.

“Typists, word jugglers, hacks for hire. Authors. They fobbed us off at some fleabag flophouse, so I scrammed as soon as the gettin’ was good.”

“Flophouse?” said Geri, looking up. “You mean our four-star B&B? The Hiram Henry House? The boutique inn where everyone is staying?”

“Relax, sister. A turn of phrase, nothing more, like a turned ankle, meant to catch attention.”

“I don’t know if I appreciate that,” said Geri, who genuinely didn’t know.

“Upset the apple cart, did I? Shoot me through the heart with an arrow, why don’t ya? Aw, but you’re a good egg—and a foxy Frau to boot. Nice caboose. I megged that from here.”

“Thanks? I . . . think?”

He had a way of making compliments sound like take-downs, and take-downs sound like praise.

“Why’d I come to Sad Stone?” His clever take on Happy Rock. “No reason. My dance card was free, and I could use the lettuce.”

“Lettuce?” said Geri.

“Cabbage, hay, berries, dough, clams.”

“We . . . we don’t have clams on the menu. Or lettuce. Though we do have kale in the smoked salmon quiche.”

“Not food, you dizzy dame. Moolah, greenbacks, simoleons, a bit of scratch. I’m talkin’ lucre, filthy or otherwise. They promised me a payout for appearing. And I’m saying, I don’t get paid, I don’t play. Cash on the barrelhead, straight up.”

“You’re just doing this for the money?” Miranda had never done anything for the money. Fame, accolades, and love most of all. But money? That had never entered into her equations. It was always about the art. And the love. Mostly the love.

“Now you’re on the trolley, kiddo! Now you get it. If not for money, what else is there?” Then, as an aside to Geri, “The kale you mentioned? It’s organic and GMO-free, correct?”

“About your feud with Fairfax DePoy,” said Andrew, pressing on. “When you were breaking his fingers—”

“A drink! A drink, Mr. Hamady!” said Miranda. “Perhaps my assistant, Andrew, can leave and get you one.”

“Sure, dollface. I’ll have a snort o’ hooch, or maybe some java instead, some joe, a cuppa mud, some jitter juice, a caffeinated mug of—”

“Yes, yes,” she said with a sigh. “A coffee. I get it. Andrew, darling, can you take Mr. Hamady to our cappuccino bar in the back. A latte, perhaps?”

“Do you have low-fat almond milk?” Kane asked as he left the room with Andrew.

“That man . . .” said Miranda with an exasperated shake of the head.

“Why, I ought’a paste him one right in the kisser, see?” said Edgar.

Miranda laughed. “Mr. Abbott, I do declare you are jealous. Couldn’t stand to see him flirting with me. At least, I think he was flirting. It’s hard to say with the argot he wields.”

“Jealous? Of that guy!? Gimme a break, dollface.”

“Sure thing, ya big palooka.” Then, more thoughtfully, “Does he really need the money?”

“Three ex-wives, a gambling problem, a string of bad investments, and a chain of failed artisanal potpourri shoppes? I’d say so.”

“Three wives?”

“Yup. He says they were all impossible to live with. Every one of ’em.”

“But the appearance fees authors are paid are quite small, I imagine.* Or was he referring to something else? Some other source of potential income. I wonder.” Her inner sleuth was stirring. “It’s an act. All of it. False bravado.”

Miranda recognized the Stanislavski method when she saw it, “living” the role rather than imitating it.

“Kane?” said Edgar. “Yeah, it’s exaggerated.”

“Not exaggerated. False. He’s not an actor, but he is acting a role—or rather, inhabiting it.”

Geri looked at them with that same pained expression. They’d almost forgotten she was there. “Do you really think it’s a flophouse? Our B&B, I mean. It’s in a historic building. Hiram Henry was the founder of Happy Rock. We spent our life’s savings to move here and renovate it . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“I have yet to visit your fair establishment,” said Miranda, “but I do hear it’s lovely.” Not wanting to betray her dear friend Bea, who also rented out rooms, Miranda added, “There are, of course, many charming inns in Happy Rock, and yours is undoubtedly amongst them.”

Placated, Geri headed back to the kitchen.

Miranda turned to Edgar. “Did he really break Fairfax DePoy’s fingers?”

“Kane? He did—symbolically.”

“How does one break someone’s fingers ‘symbolically’?” she wondered.

“It started when Kane made an offhand comment at a Mystery Writers of America panel discussion, where he claimed that Jack Stryker—the romantic hero of Fairfax DePoy’s novels—was merely an Elizabethan version of Mick Hardy, his hero. Well, Fairfax took umbrage. Mick Hardy, for example, is described as 6’3” of hard, coiled muscle, whereas Jack Stryker is described as 6’6” of hardened, coiled steel. Fairfax DePoy’s novels drip with romance. In the Mick Hardy novels, it’s just one vulgar sex scene after another. Women are constantly slapping Mick Hardy, and Mick Hardy is constantly mashing his mouth into theirs in what is presumably a simulacrum of a kiss.”

“The old kiss and a slap,” said Miranda, with a tired sigh. A staple of Hollywood noir in its day.

“Kane got his revenge on Fairfax the old-fashioned way, in print. In his next novel, Myself, the Retribution, private dick Mick Hardy investigates a character named Shorty the Plagiarizer, an evil stump of a man who creates and sells fake documents to unsuspecting collectors. Mick Hardy follows the Plagiarizer onto a subway train, traps him against the window, and, one at a time, breaks the fingers on his writing hand. In his next novel, You, the Victim, he has Mick Hardy drown Tiny the Thief in an airplane toilet. Then, in We, the Preliminary Review Committee, a charlatan named Petit Pierre is fed through a leaf blower. In every book since, Kane has a diminutive character who gets in the way and is brutally dispatched by Mick Hardy. Fairfax DePoy is, of course, notably short in stature.”

Miranda’s head was spinning: every author seemed to have a character who acted as their stand-in—John D. Ross with his houseboat-living ex-Navy man Trevor Lucas; Kane with his tough-guy private dick; and Fairfax with the swashbuckling Jack Stryker. How utterly incomprehensible to confuse a character with one’s true self, thought Pastor Fran—er, Miranda Abbott.

“So, a literary feud,” she said. “Not a real feud.”

“Nothing writers do is real,” said Edgar, speaking as a reformed writer himself. “C’mon. It’s not a healthy way to make a living, huddled in a room all alone, making up conversations between imaginary people. Affects one’s noggin’, as Kane would say.”

An angry jangle above the front door brought a woman into the bookstore. A tall woman with blond bangs, Germanic or perhaps Icelandic in her features, she had a large bucket bag thrown over one shoulder and a smartphone in hand, with a peacoat and canvas pants that were halfway between gaucho and cargo. A striking woman, unduly attractive but existentially tired. She looked frazzled and overwrought. Having to deal with authors all day will do that to a person, for she was—

“Sheryl Youngblut, publicist at large,” she said, hoisting the bag back into place on her shoulder. “I’m with SR Promotions. I’m overseeing the authors.”

“The writer wrangler!” said Edgar. “We’ve been emailing back and forth. Nice to finally meet you in person. I’m Edgar Abbott, owner—co-owner—of I Only Read Murder.”

Miranda stepped forward with a smile. “And I’m Miranda, majority co-owner.”

Edgar, under his breath: “By 0.04 percent.”

“Still a majority, my dear.”

Sheryl was barely aware of the banter—or was it a bicker? Miranda was never sure. Thumb-texting in a flurry, the stressed-out young woman looked up and said, “I’ve lost one of my authors. The others arrived yesterday morning. I checked them in at the B&B, but Lawrence Block never showed up. He got lost changing planes in Minneapolis, apparently. Called me from Gladstone, saying he couldn’t find the place, and I had to explain we’re in Happy Rock, not Gladstone, and I asked, ‘Are you at least in Gladstone, Oregon?’ and he goes, ‘No, Gladstone, Missouri. Why, is that a problem?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, a little.’ Last I heard, he was hitchhiking west on the I-70. As for the other writers, I booked a tour of the lighthouse for them today. I just sent them off, but a couple of them skipped out beforehand. Just as well.” She sighed. “The tour seemed, how shall I say, a wee bit aromatic. Not the lighthouse, the vehicle.”

“Oh no. Those poor people,” said Miranda. “You didn’t— Tell me you didn’t. You didn’t book a local tour guide to take them, did you, dear?”

“I did. Melvin something-or-other.”

Edgar made a “yikes” face, and Miranda put a hand on Sheryl’s arm in sympathy. “Not Melvin Jacobson of S.J. Fertilizer Supply Company?”

“Fertilizer?” said Sheryl, as though that both explained everything—and muddied the matter further.

Edgar cleared his throat. “Melvin runs a manure transport company and Tillamook Bay Tours—out of the same vehicle. A former school bus with wire mesh in the back separating the passenger seats from the cargo area. What it lacks in suspension, it makes up for in lingering odor.”

“I believe he does hose it down now and then,” Miranda said, trying to put a positive spin on it.

Sheryl Youngblut sloughed her bag onto the table, almost upsetting the floral arrangements, and closed her eyes for a moment. “A manure tour? They’re going to kill me.”

“Who? The authors?” said Miranda. “Not to worry. Authors just write, write, write. They never do.”

“Is it true?” asked Sheryl, snapping her eyes open, her voice suddenly, unnaturally calm. “Did the bookstore really receive a collection of John D. Ross first editions? I read about it in the trades.”

“We did,” said Edgar. “And one of his earlier unknown manuscripts.”

“Which is locked away in a secure room,” Miranda quickly added. Edgar was always so lax about these things. What if it was a lost work? Shouldn’t it be better protected than in a cabinet with a glass front and a key that was left in the lock.

“What’s this about a manuscript?” said a hard-boiled voice from behind.

He’d snuck up behind them like a gorilla in soft-shoe (to use his sort of phrasing). Kane Hamady, freshly toothpicked, was considering Ms. Youngblut with a sardonic gaze. “Hello, dollface.”

“You!” said Sheryl, not even attempting to disguise her hostility. “You were supposed to be on the lighthouse tour with the others. What are you doing here?”

“Avoiding my fellow scribes, mainly,” he said. “What’s it to ya, dollface?”

“You call me ‘dollface’ one more time . . .” she said, a flare of anger behind her ice-blue eyes. “I’m your publicist, not your moll.”

“Not my publicist,” he said, shifting his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. He looked at Edgar. “A manuscript, you say? An unpublished John D. Ross, is it? What’s the lowdown, the inside track?”

“I’m returning it to Helen.”

A pause. “Helen?” Kane said. “Who’s Helen?”

“His widow,” said Edgar. “I thought you knew John D. Ross.”

“Oh, right. His wife. Helen, was it? Yeah. We knew each other, John D. Ross and I, back in the day.”

Kane Hamady looked away. Far away.

You’ve got to toughen up your prose, Kane. You’re too sensitive. Try writing from your gut, not your heart.

“Yeah, we knew each other. Back in the day.” He shot a stabbing glance Sheryl Youngblut’s way. “This book festival of yours is practically a class reunion, I see.”

A class reunion from hell, as it turned out.

Chapter Five

Case of the Missing Rope!

Back in the kitchen, Gerry was bustling about among the various pots and pans and a horn o’ plenty’s worth of ingredients spilling across the counter that they must have brought with them. (Edgar owned an electric kettle, an array of mismatched utensils, a couple of coffee mugs, pre-chipped, and an aluminum frying pan. Miranda had installed a cappuccino machine with espresso cups in the back, and even then Edgar had complained about her “gentrifying” the place.)

Andrew was attempting to mince mint leaves on a cutting board, much to Geri’s disapproval.

“Small chopping motions,” she said with a rictus smile. “If you saw the blade back and forth like that, you’ll shred the leaves. We don’t want shredded leaves, we want minced leaves.”

She was relieved when Miranda interrupted.

“Andrew, darling, I must pull you away from here, I’m afraid. I need to get back to my suite at Bea’s to ready myself for tonight’s performance.”

“Not a performance,” said Edgar as he entered the kitchen. “A reception.”

“One and the same, Edgar. Life is a performance!”

Edgar hung the key to the reading room on the hook in the kitchen.

“You locked the door to the reading room?” said Miranda, impressed.

“With the overly enthusiastic interest Kane and that publicist showed in John D. Ross’s lost manuscript, I figured, yeah, maybe it’s more valuable than I thought. Figured I should keep it locked up until I can get it back to Helen Ross, especially when all the guests get here.”

Andrew was wiping his hands, having thoroughly shredded the mint into a pulpy, wet mulch. “All done!”

“Andrew, please call Ned Buckley and arrange a ride for us back to Bea’s.”

Edgar intervened. “No. Don’t. Miranda, you have to stop using 911 for that. Here.” He tossed Andrew the keys to his Jeep. “You can run her nibs down.”

Andrew stammered, “But—but I can’t.”

“Don’t worry. I’m here for the rest of the day. Won’t be needing the Jeep.”

“No, I mean—I can’t. I’m not good with standard drive.”

But Edgar waved this aside. “You’ll be fine. It’s downhill most of the way. Worst case, you can coast if you have to.”

Which is how Miranda Abbott found herself being jounced about in the herky-jerky of a stop-and-go, gear-grinding misadventure, as they wound their way down, down, down through the trees along Beacon Hill, past the hotel to the harbor below, with Andrew white-knuckling it the entire way, shifting gears up and down, more or less at random, to loud protests from the engine.

“You’re doing wonderfully well,” Miranda assured him as he lurched the vehicle onto Harbor Road in a series of fits and near stalls. Andrew had driven regularly in LA; Happy Rock with a stick shift was much more nerve-wracking.

They arrived at Bea’s cottage by the water on an agonizing internal screech (both from the car and from Andrew) and a final pop of the clutch.

“Whew!” said Andrew.

“Strange, isn’t it,” Miranda mused, “how ‘standard drive’ is no longer standard. Just as ‘common sense’ is increasingly uncommon. I remember when I first learned how to drive a standard on my TV show. A Jeep, in fact. Just like this one. I was undercover as an army cadet, you see.”

“Wait. What?” His hands were only now relaxing on the wheel. “You can drive a stick?”

“Of course! One of my many hidden talents.” She scooted out the side.

“You could have told me!” he shouted through the car window. “I would have let you drive.”

“Nonsense, how else would you have learned? When Pastor Fran went undercover as a toreador, they put me straight into the ring with a cape and a young bull. Not an aggressive bull, but a bull nonetheless. One must plunge into life from the high diving board, not splash about in the kiddie pool. Come along, Andrew!”

Another life lesson from Miranda Abbott: to play a toreador, become a toreador. A lesson Kane had attempted, but failed at.

* * *

MIRANDA LIVED IN the attic suite of Bea’s B&B, a clapboard cottage painted in faded blues. Miranda in the attic. Andrew in the pantry. An economical arrangement, as neither of them paid room, only board.

Like Miranda, Andrew was nursing a heartache of his own. When his “almost husband” had ended things in LA, he had followed Miranda north to Happy Rock, and she often thought, if you fall off the edge of the earth, perhaps Happy Rock is where you land. There were worst places, but still . . .

Every time she entered Bea’s cottage, Miranda felt a twinge of regret. It was so far from Burbank, so far from the Hollywood Hills, so far from the person she’d once been. If only I’d have stayed in LA one more year, maybe—just maybe—Hollywood would have taken me back into its fold.

Bea Maracle, Miranda Abbott’s self-described “biggest fan,” was a smile-creased woman in her middle years with gray hair in a sensible cut. She was also the love of Ned Buckley’s life, even if she didn’t see it.

Bea was wearing an apron that read Love is the loveliest happiness of the heart (phrasing that baffled even Miranda), and she was pulling warmed peach cobbler out of the oven as Andrew and Miranda came in.

Bea’s peach cobbler was as celebrated throughout the region as Miranda’s lemonade was notorious. The aroma of the cobbler embraced them in a sweater-hug of warmth.

“It’s for the big to-do at the Murder Store tonight,” Bea said.

Miranda often wondered if Bea Maracle hadn’t opened her B&B primarily for the company. After her husband died, Bea had retreated into a world of Pastor Fran Investigates reruns and high-school yearbook memories. Bea and her husband, Bob, had gone to school together in Happy Rock, and after they’d married they’d been devoted fans of Miranda’s TV show. Even now, Bea had the entire series on VHS, Miranda Abbott as Pastor Fran looking much younger and far more agile.

Miranda thought about the trays and trays of elegant food that Geri and Gerry were preparing up at the bookstore, including a full selection of artisanal desserts.

“Bea,” she said, “about your cobbler . . .”

But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t take that from Bea as well. The fact that Bea hadn’t been asked to host any of the guests stung enough. Why had they shoehorned everyone into the old Hiram Henry home anyway? Surely they could have put, say, Fairfax DePoy at Bea’s? Miranda knew that Bea read his historical romance mysteries; she recognized the breathless covers with the open-shirted smoldering men and bosom-heaving women.

“I’ll send some SunnyD up to the reception, too,” said Bea, “just in case Edgar runs out of beverages.”

“And I shall focus on preparing myself for the Grand Ball. Andrew, my wardrobe awaits! I was thinking something green . . .”

“You’ll have to narrow that down,” Andrew pointed out.

“Something in green satin.”

“Again . . .”

“Shouldn’t you be at the store, helping your husband?” said Bea, dropping that last word unnecessarily hard. As much as she loved having her idol as a guest in her attic, Bea had long thought Miranda’s place was not in the B&B, but with Edgar.

“He’s not my—” Miranda caught herself. “It’s . . .” Don’t say complicated. “. . . complex.”

“I see,” said Bea, but of course she didn’t.

Although best known as the karate-chopping church pastor she’d played for six years on network TV, Miranda Abbott was a classically trained actor who had trod the boards at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis before being discovered by Hollywood. As such, she was well versed in the actor’s craft: movement, voice, dance, diction—and swordplay. She knew a thrust from a parry, and she countered Bea’s unstated suggestion with one of her own. “And what of you and Ned Buckley?”

Bea was instantly on the defensive. “What do you mean?”

“Come now. Ned practically lives here!” It was true. Happy Rock’s finest was so often at Bea’s that the locals referred to it as HRPD Station Number Two. “Why can’t he move in here, save himself the drive back every night to that sad little basement he rents behind the flower shoppe?”

Bea, blushing to the bone, said, “Ned and I are friends. Old friends. We went to school together. He was Bob’s best friend.”

She’d managed to say “friend” three times in one breath.

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much!” said Miranda.

Andrew, however, was on Bea’s side. He said softly, “I don’t know. Sometimes moving in with someone can ruin everything. Too much of a good thing.” He looked away. Far away.

Three bruised souls. Three hearts in search of love.

“Hey, everybody. Where’s the funeral?”

It was Ned Buckley, in uniform as always. Was he ever out of uniform? Miranda wondered. He’d popped into Bea’s unannounced, as was his habit.

“Why so glum? Usually this place is full of chatter. Hey, is that peach cobbler I smell?”

Bea’s mood brightened with his arrival. It always did. “I made it ’specially for the do tonight.”

“I saw Edgar’s Jeep out front,” said Ned, pulling up a chair.

Andrew perked up. “I drove!”

“Good on you,” said Ned.

“Working on a big case?” Andrew asked, fascinated as always by Ned Buckley, the small-town cop of lore.

“Could say that. Some rope went missing from behind Owen’s garage.”

“How would anyone know?” asked Miranda. “Owen’s garage is a heaping pile of discarded parts. It’s practically on the tour route. The Teetering Mountain of Happy Rock.”

“That’s what I said when I went to investigate. I said, ‘Owen, how would anyone ever know?’ and he said, ‘I know every spare part and every tool on my lot and where I threw them, and I’m telling you, Ned, some son-of-a-gun—though he used saltier language, naturally—has walked off with a coil of my best rope.’ Says he’s going to put an insurance claim in for it. Says he bought it second-hand on a handshake deal for twenty-six dollars, and I said, ‘Heck, the legal fees alone are gonna cost you more than that.’ But you know Owen: once he gets a notion into his head, you can’t shake him off it.”

Andrew was thoroughly charmed. “The Case of the Missing Rope,” he said. Small-town crime! You couldn’t beat it.

“Some grease went missing, too,” said Ned. “Which is to say, we may have a serial thief on our hands.”

“Oh! Or it could be an orangutan.” Bea had a way stopping conversations in their tracks.

“An . . . orangutan?” said Ned.

“I read a locked-room mystery where the culprit was an orangutan. With a razor.”

“Um, sure, Bea. Could be a primate on the prowl, I suppose. Though I would think poor inventory management would be the more likely solution.”

Miranda remembered a similar twist in a Pastor Fran Investigates episode. One of Lachlan Todd’s screenplays, where the murder happened inside an orangutan cage and the killer was a human dressed as an ape, who was in turn dressed up as a human. What was he doing lurking about Happy Rock anyway, our Luckless Lachlan?

“Before I forget,” said Ned. “Don’t fill up on food at the bookstore tonight, okay? I brought salmon over earlier. Isn’t that right, Bea? We’ll have a late supper after the hobnobbing is complete. So go easy on the cheese cubes!”

How to tell him? Miranda thought. How to tell her? There would be no boxed wine and cheese cubes at I Only Read Murder tonight. The magnificent spread that Geri and Gerry were preparing was a feast in everything but name. It would be a challenge to leave any room for salmon.

“I’ll swing by tonight,” Ned said to Bea, “pick you up. We can run the cobbler in.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll be going,” said Bea. “I’ll send it with Miranda.”

“You’re not coming?” said Ned.

The hurt was evident in Bea’s eyes. “I’m just so busy with everything.”

She had no guests checked in. She wasn’t busy. She just wanted to avoid G&G from BB&B. Not a single author had been placed at her B&B. How could she face the town, knowing that?

“Do come,” said Miranda. “It will be fun! I promise.”

But the former Pastor Fran failed on both fronts. Bea stayed home and the reception was not fun—it was murderous.

* * *

DRIVING THE JEEP back up that evening—in heels, no less!—Miranda wore a flowing satin evening gown with a tasteful V-neck under her fall coat. (She had to hike up the gown to reach the clutch.) Andrew, meanwhile, had caught a ride to the bookstore with Ned Buckley, who admonished him, “Don’t touch the siren this time, okay?” The last time Ned had let Andrew sit up front in the patrol car, he’d regretted it. “What does that button do?” Whoop-whoop!

Ned pulled in behind the Jeep as Miranda was parking, and they entered the bookstore through the back door, where they were greeted by a “Hiya!” from Geri so loud Miranda thought for a moment a karate chop was coming.

“Hello, dear,” said Miranda.

Even more than before, the kitchen was a welter of activity. Geri was whisking something manically as Gerry ran trays of food out, along with even grander floral arrangements—or were those appetizers? The artistry of the food trays and the florals were equally striking, and Miranda wouldn’t have put it past the hospitality juggernaut of G&G to have come up with edible bouquets.

“You can drive,” said Ned, voice flat, the accusation evident.

“Of course I can drive,” said Miranda, leading them down the hall to the main room, which had been transformed into a reception area. “I drove all the time on my TV show. I even drove a tank at one point.”

Edgar was sulking to one side like a spectator at his own party, muttering darkly about his store being taken over.

“Our store,” Miranda corrected.

“We had to move more of the books to one side,” said Gerry as he put another tray down. Stage whisper: “They were sorta in the way, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, it is a bookstore,” Edgar grumbled.

Emmy had been locked upstairs to avoid having her wolf anything down when no one was looking, and Edgar could hear the occasional pitiful whine, which didn’t add to his mood. Grumble, mutter, moan. Such a lump, thought Miranda. We’ll have to address staff morale at our next meeting, she decided.

“You know how to drive a car,” said Ned, not letting it go.

“Yes, yes. We’ve gone over that already. Edgar, dear, maybe straighten out the aperitifs a tad before Geri comes back. Perfect!”

“Can’t help but wonder, then, why you keep getting me to run you places,” said Ned. “In my police vehicle.”

“Not a mystery, Ned. I can drive—but I do not have a license to do so. It lapsed long ago. Edgar, darling, maybe move the flowers just a touch to the left . . . The other left. Stage left. Thank you!”

“You drove the Jeep without a license?” said Ned.

“Poor Andrew was having such trouble with the stick shift, I thought it best.”

“That’s against the law, Miranda.”

“Law! Which law?”

“The law that says you have to have a license.”

“Oh, that law. We’ll just have to agree to disagree, I’m afraid. Remember, a dis-agreement is just another form of agreement.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Exactly! You disagree, and I agree with you on that. Therefore, we agree to disagree.” Through the window, she spotted another vehicle pulling in. “Oh look! Tanvir and Harpreet are here. Do you think she brought jalebi? I hope she brought jalebi.”

“Miranda, you do realize I am an officer of the law, and operating a motorized vehicle without a license is a flagrant—”

“Let’s put a pin in that for now, shall we? Harpreet!”

Miranda’s friend came in carrying a Tupperware container filled with her famously sticky sweets.

Harpreet Singh, proprietor and tireless promotor of Singh’s Things, Happy Rock’s finest fabric store, was renowned for her fashion sense, and she did not disappoint. Clad in deep-orange hues, layered in stylish sophistication, she wore a headscarf, artfully draped, and a flowing tunic. Ornate, but never ostentatious. Accompanying Harpreet was her husband, Tanvir, his beard streaked with gray and head adorned in a rich blue dastār—as the turbans were properly known—with a matching necktie and breast-pocket handkerchief. Harpreet had clearly chosen Tanvir’s outfit for tonight.

“Left to his own devices, who knows what he would wear!” Harpreet had once confided.

Tanvir Singh owned the town’s hardware and bait store, and he was attending the reception in an official capacity as head of the local Chamber of Commerce. He too had a large Tupperware container, filled with various packets and what looked like a small chemistry set.

“I’m going to make chai,” Harpreet said. “Where is Bea? She asked me to show her the next time I prepared it.”

“Bea’s not coming.”

Harpreet instantly understood. “The new bed-and-breakfast? I saw they were providing both the lodging and cuisine for the writers. Poor Bea.”

Miranda nodded and, as though conjured forth, Gerry arrived in shining tracksuit and matching fanny pack, beaming at Tanvir.

“Mr. Singh!”

“Please. Just Tanvir.”

“Thank you again for the welcome baskets you sent from the Chamber of Commerce when we first opened our doors. The cheese cubes were nice. Rubbery, but nice.”

Tanvir brushed this aside with the largess befitting his station. “Welcome to Happy Rock. We were just pleased someone fixed up the old Hiram Henry House. It stood vacant for far too long.”

They returned to the kitchen, where Tanvir began to unpack Harpreet’s ingredients and copper pan onto the crowded counter.

“Hiya!” said Geri.

Miranda, proud of her friend, said, “Harpreet is going to prepare chai!”

Geri’s smile faltered. “But we already have a selection of Lipton teas on offer.”

“That?” said Harpreet, with a gentle bobble of her head. “That is not tea.”

Miranda explained, “Harpreet makes the best chai.”

Only modesty prevented Harpreet from acknowledging this self-evident truth. “Oh, it’s nothing. Truly, it is a very simple recipe,” she said, as she arranged the items. “Just some fennel, ajwain, jaggery sugar for desired sweetness, crushed cardamom, a star anise, also crushed, and a clove—not crushed.” This last item was a bone of contention in the Singh household. “Our daughter, Karendeep, who is studying medicine in Portland—”

“Medicines,” Tanvir said, using the plural. “She’s in pharmacy.”

Harpreet gave Tanvir a disapproving look. “Medicines, medicine, it’s the same. Karendeep agrees that the clove should not be crushed, but she does crack it, which is wrong. Likewise, she will sometimes swap molasses for the jaggery.” The way Harpreet said this, it was clearly a venial, if not mortal, sin. “She also uses coffee cream, not milk, which makes the chai too heavy or, in Tanvir’s words, ‘delicious,’ to drink.”

Working like a magician, Harpreet boiled the milk and spices, added a tea bag—hey, presto!—then boiled it up again, removed the head, and brought it back to a boil. In Harpreet’s words, “It should be as red as a rambutan, but not as dark as an eggplant.” She moved through the steps so quickly Miranda had trouble keeping up. The foam-up-and-cool-down process alone was repeated three more times. “Like I said, it’s very simple.”

The final drink was heavenly.

“This is so good!” said Miranda. “Maybe we can swap. You can teach me how to make chai, and I’ll teach you how to make my famous lemonade, a secret recipe, mainly intuitive.”

“An excellent suggestion!” said Harpreet. “How lovely!”

Tanvir, panic-stricken, tried to throw desperate hints Harpreet’s way, but his wife either missed them or chose to ignore his wide-eyed look.

“It is a deal!” she said, and they shook hands on it, to Tanvir’s dismay.

Chapter Six

The Cutthroats of Tillamook Bay

The local supporters of the festival arrived first, ahead of the authors. Happy Rock’s stammering attorney Atticus Lawson, with his crippling fear of public speaking, was there, as was Doc Meadows, the imaginatively nicknamed town doctor.

Unreasonably tall and impossibly handsome, Doc was wearing a dress shirt with a vest embroidered in an intricate Salish n̓ty̓tyix salmon pattern. His hair was beautifully braided. The men were so neatly turned out, thought Miranda. Tanvir in his dastār and Doc in his braids. Even Atticus had made an effort, his usual clip-on necktie having been replaced with a knotted polka-dot bow tie. But Edgar? Same ol’ flannel and jeans. He wasn’t even wearing his good hiking boots, she noted.

She smiled. “Hello, Doc.”

“Hey there, Miranda. Lookin’ good.”

A little part of her heart always melted when Doc smiled at her. An ever-so-slightly sardonic twinkle, gentle and teasing, it was everything you could want in a smile. If only he wasn’t married . . .

She caught herself. She was also married.

But was she, though?

“Psst, Miranda? Is Captain Fantastic around?”

It was Officer Holly Hinton, the second half of Happy Rock’s finest. She was on duty and in uniform, and was looking around furtively, trying her best to avoid her boss (aka Ned).

“I’m on call at the station, but thought I’d slip out. Has she arrived yet?”

“Who?”

“Who else, Einstein? Wanda Stobol, that’s who. The greatest author who ever lived. The woman who created Compendium Cathy. She’s the reason I became a police officer. Because of her, I thought solving crimes would involve knowing the median buoyancy of coconuts and the relative position of constellations in the southern hemisphere vs. the northern, instead of, y’know, writing traffic tickets and investigating missing bits of rope from behind Owen’s garage.”

Although she was roughly the same height as Miranda (which is to say, short), Officer Holly seemed much taller, much bigger, more daunting. Hair pulled back, she was a robust presence in her police blues and duty belt: handcuffs and holster, sidearm and taser. She was carrying a canvas bag filled with . . . books?

“Okay, Big Eyes,” said Officer Holly when she caught Miranda trying to take a peek. “You got me.” Officer Holly pulled out a stack of well-thumbed, well-read, and much loved children’s books from her youth. The titles were punctuated with exclamation points: Compendium Cathy: Girl Detective! Compendium Cathy Solves the Case! Compendium Cathy to the Rescue! Compendium Cathy Discovers the Median Buoyancy of Coconuts! Each cover featured an illustration of the plucky, befreckled nine-year-old sleuth. Officer Holly had twins—ankle biters that were the terror of Happy Rock—whom she’d named George and Nancy after the leads in the Nancy Drew series. If they’d been triplets, the next name in line was Cathy.

“How are the kids?” Miranda asked.

“Grandma Moses is watching them,” Holly said, meaning her mom, who was neither an artist nor named Moses, but was a grandma, so that was enough in Holly’s mind to justify the nickname. “She’s the one who bought me these books when I was little, so she’s at least partly to blame.” Officer Holly looked past Miranda to the front hall. “Ms. Stobol hasn’t arrived yet? I thought maybe she could sign these for my kids. When they get older, I figured I’d—Dammit!” She ducked down, but it was too late.

“Officer Holly? What are you doing here?” It was Chief Buckley (aka Captain Fantastic). Wide of girth, warm of eyes, stern of face. “You’re supposed to be on duty.”

“I am, sir. Securing the perimeter, sir.”

“Perimeter means ‘outer edge.’ You’re inside.”

“Yes, sir. I’m securing it from the inside.”

He frowned. “You’re supposed to be at the station.”

She dropped any pretense of deferring. “Relax, Ned. I hung a Back in Five Minutes sign. I won’t stay long, I promise. Toss that coin of yours if you like, see if I can stay.”

Andrew, passing by with a laden tray, overheard this. “The coin? You mean the quarter, right? The one you always carry with you?”

“I’m not tossing a coin, Holly. You can stay, for now, but keep your radio on. Okay?”

“Aye, aye, Captain Ahab.”

But before Ned could move on, Andrew cut in, asking way too eagerly, “Can you tell me about it? The story behind your quarter?”

“What’s to tell? Lucky coin.” And, as gruffly as he could, Ned left.

Miranda gave Andrew a dour look. “You shouldn’t pester Ned like that. Luck is two sides of the same coin,” she reminded him. And the damnedest thing was, it sort of made sense . . .

* * *

THE POLICE CHIEF and his officer, a former TV star, the town doctor. The only thing missing was—

“Uh-oh. Paparazzi,” Miranda warned, sotto voce. “Nine o’clock.”

Confused, Andrew checked his watch. “But it’s only . . .”

“Hi, Miranda! Hi, Andrew. Are the authors here yet?”

It was Jane “Scoop” Bannister, crack reporter with The Weekly Picayune. Young and dogged, dogged and young, Scoop was, as per her beat, on assignment to confirm whether or not—this was the crucial part—a good time was had by all. This was the heartbeat of local news reporting. Be it bake sales, high-school art shows, town picnics, or the annual Snow Fest, it wasn’t enough that a reasonably good time was had. And it wouldn’t do that a good time was had by most or by many. No, it had to be by all. Anything less would be a scandal.

Wary of the press, Miranda deflected Scoop Bannister’s question. “The authors? I have no comment on that.”

“They’re still taking a tour of the town,” said Andrew, “last I heard.”

“Loose lips,” Miranda hissed under her breath.

Her assistant could be so indiscreet when it came to journalists. True, Miranda herself had once given a forty-five-minute interview with Barbara Walters outlining in exact detail every single thing the producers of Pastor Fran Investigates were doing wrong, which did not endear her to them and may have been a deciding factor when they chose to cancel her show as soon as the ratings faltered—but that was different!

Not that it mattered, because Scoop’s question was answered a moment later when the front door opened and a subtle waft of manure appeared. The school bus had rolled up outside.

The authors had arrived!

Melvin’s Manure Transport & Tour Company dumped them off unceremoniously at the front of the bookstore, and they filed in, dazed and nauseous from their exhaustive—and exhausting—tour of the local sites. They’d been to see the historic grandfather clock in the historic lighthouse keeper’s historic quarters, a clock that didn’t even work and had remained inside the lighthouse mainly because it was too big to move. As Melvin had pointed out, “No historical significance, but it is big. Fourth biggest grandfather clock in the Greater Tri-Rock Area,” he’d added with pride. He had then proceeded to spend forty minutes explaining the history and inner workings of the clock. But when asked about the actual light on the actual lighthouse, he said, “Not sure. Automated, I think?”

The authors entered the bookstore on a tumult of complaints: “I swear to god, he was trying to hit every pothole.” “That smell is never coming out of my clothes.” “I’ll tell you one thing, I owe Virginia Woolf an apology. There is something more tedious and mind-numbing than a hypothetical journey to a lighthouse: an actual journey to a lighthouse.” “And how the hell does a converted school bus manage to go sooo slow—and yet so fast, at the same time!”

Coming as she did from the livelier performative arts, Miranda Abbott had been expecting a star-studded gallery of literary celebrities to swan in. She was greeted instead by a disheveled, disgruntled mob of chronic complainers. Authors, in other words. Lawrence Block, meanwhile, had last been seen near Gladstone, Nebraska (pop: 8). But the rest were mostly on hand, and among the first to enter was Ray Valentine, Prince of the Police Procedural.

Studious-looking, with salt-and-pepper hair and rimless glasses, Ray Valentine could have been a mildly engaging college professor from a mid-size city, except he also wore Under Armour tactical police boots under his Dockers. He was a Cop, with a capital C, and he greeted Ned with a brothers-in-arms salute.

“Officer,” he said.

“An honor to meet you, Mr. Valentine,” said Ned. “I’ve read quite a few of your books. I’m Chief of Police here in Happy Rock, though that doesn’t really compare with your time at the LAPD.”

“We’re both part of the same Blue Brick Wall,” Ray said, deftly referencing the title of his best-known work.

“I wondered about that. Bricks aren’t usually blue, are they?”

“Thank you for your service,” said Ray, and he moved on.

Following Ray in, and diminutive to the point of diminishment, was Fairfax Hughes DePoy III. He wore tweed and an ascot, with traditionally cuffed trousers. Only a pipe was missing, or maybe a monocle, to complete the picture. His sartorial sangfroid aside, there was something clammy and uncertain about him, Miranda felt. He had mouse-like features, with eyebrows too thick and a chin too weak, and had brushed what little remained of his hair back and upward in a (failed) attempt at appearing taller. Miranda had recognized it in his gait as soon as he entered: he was wearing lifts. She had been the right height for most of Hollywood’s leading men, meaning not tall enough to make them feel insecure. But several of them were still shorter than her, and they’d be forced to wear, ahem, “height-enhancing insoles.” Their gait when wearing them was heavy, yet tentative. Fairfax had that gait. Even in his lifts, he could barely look Miranda in the eye.

Harpreet Singh swept in as soon as Mr. DePoy entered, eyelashes fluttering from forty paces. She latched herself onto the romance writer with a beaming “Mr. DePoy, so wonderful to meet you. I am the president and CEO of the local Jack Stryker Fan Club.”

Left unsaid was the fact that there were exactly two members of the Happy Rock Jack Stryker Fan Club: Harpreet, CEO and president for life, and Bea, secretary-general in charge of snacks when the two of them had their book club meetings. Peach cobbler, chai—and romance.

“I have consumed all of your books,” Harpreet said, and then, voice dropping, “I keep them by the bedside table.” And the way she said it, it sounded naughty.

Edgar would later ask Tanvir, “Does it bother you? The way Harpreet rushed in as soon as Fairfax DePoy entered, smiling and sashaying like that?”

“Not in the least,” said Tanvir, with a cheerful equanimity. “Truly, Mr. DePoy may be famous and wealthy and pursued by fans. But I have something he doesn’t.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

A smile. “I have Harpreet.”

* * *

AS HARPREET’S ONE-WOMAN appreciation society continued to lavish adulation on an inattentive and agitated Fairfax DePoy, Miranda remembered: “Mr. DePoy, my dear friend Bea Maracle is an avid and abiding fan of your work as well. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to make it tonight, but I was wondering if you might perchance sign a copy of your latest Jack Stryker novel, Boudoir of the Bourbons, to her.”

Harpreet threw a look Miranda’s way. “Duvet of the Plantagenets, you mean to say. Boudoir of the Bourbons was the previous one.” A true fan would know such things. Then, fluttering her gaze back in Fairfax’s direction, Harpreet sighed, “Coverlet of the Capulets was my favorite.”

But the celebrated historical romance mystery maestro was barely listening. He kept throwing nervous looks over Harpreet’s shoulder, watching the front door like a skittish rabbit awaiting a fox. Keeping an eye out for the dreaded two-fisted Kane Hamady, Miranda realized.

His feud with Kane Hamady may have sold a lot of books, and may well have raised the profile of both authors, but it hardly seemed a fair fight to Miranda. Fairfax DePoy’s door-stopping novels, which Miranda hadn’t read but had been told about in great length and detail by Harpreet, were bodice-ripping tales of murder set in fifteenth-century England, featuring Jack Stryker, known to friend and foe alike as “Jack the Striker,” a veritable giant of a man who could smite these aforementioned foes with a single blow of his enormous fist, a man who rode into battle with a crossbow in each hand and the reins between his teeth, regardless of the implausibility or impracticality of this, a hero who was always described as “towering above other men.” Oh, and he was chronically short of buttons, to go by the open-shirted garb featured on the covers. And fifteenth-century rovers also waxed their chests, apparently.

“First time in Happy Rock?” Miranda asked.

“What? Oh. Right.” Addled and no doubt distracted by the impending arrival of his archnemesis, Fairfax, barely able to keep up his end of the conversation, said something about the “cutthroats of Tillamook Bay,” which Miranda construed to be a reference to the cutthroats in his novels. But Tillamook Bay? How did that fit in?

“A record. I was there for that,” he murmured by way of explanation, which only added to her confusion.

The bell above the front door jangled, and Fairfax DePoy locked sights on the figure coming down the hall toward them: Kane Hamady.

“Keep me away from him,” Fairfax whispered to Harpreet.

* * *

FAIRFAX NEEDN’T HAVE worried. Scoop Banister intercepted Kane before he could get halfway across the room, and Fairfax shrank away like a violet in a John D. Ross novel. (The Shrinking Violet of Cowardice, perhaps. Or Vile is the Violet of Violence).

“I don’t readily fraternize with the ink-stained crowd, sweet cheeks,” Kane told the reporter.

“The, uh, ink-stained crowd?”

“Newshounds and their ilk, the scandal merchants and tabloid trash such as yerself.”

“It’s not really a tabloid,” said Scoop. “It’s our local paper. The Weekly Picayune?” She said it as though he might have heard of it.

He hadn’t.

“The Weekly Whatchamacallit? What’s a smart cookie like you doin’ in a boondock burg like this? But if you got questions, shoot. Can’t stand here flappin’ gums and crackin’ wise the livelong day, toots.”

“It’s not ‘toots,’ Mr. Hamady. The name is—”

“Call me Kane, hon, as in ‘raising’ or ‘candy’ or ‘six of the best on the backside.’ All the gals do.”

Cookie, toots, gals. She took a deep breath. Better to start over. “I’m Scoop Bannister. I’m with The Weekly—”

“Your name is Scoop?”

“Uh, that’s what’s on my byline.”

“You know what? I love that. Can’t be your real name, though, right, Chuckles?”

Chuckles? “No. It’s not Toots or Chuckles or—”

“Don’t bust my chops, dollface. I’m just razzin’, see. No need for a rhubarb. You got moxie, kiddo. I’ll give you that. Can see you’re on the level.”

“Jane. My actual name is Jane.”

“I love that, too: Jane Bannister, ‘Plain Jane,’ girl reporter gettin’ the scoop. Great idea for a character.” He patted his pockets, looking for a piece of paper and a writing implement of some kind. “I should write that down . . . Nah, I’ll remember.”

“Now then, Mr. Hamady, before I get to the gist of the matter—whether or not you think a good time is being had by all—I wanted to ask about your ongoing issues with Fairfax DePoy and whether—”

And again he cut her off. Did he ever let a single woman finish a single sentence?

“Better youse talk to that toffee-nosed tosspot yourself,” he said, with a snide nod to the corner of the room where Fairfax was now cowering behind a fern.

Changing tack, Scoop said, “I noticed your latest Mick Hardy novel, uh”—she checked her notes for the title—“Me, the Judgment, is quite a bit shorter than the previous seventy-five books in the series.”

“Is it?”

“Oh yes. The first one you wrote”—back to her notes—“I, the Vengeance, was almost four hundred pages long. The latest one is barely two hundred, and the plot is not as complicated, so I was wondering if this is because Mick Hardy has suffered marked cognitive decline over time due to TBI.”

“TBI?”

“Traumatic brain injury. I’ve noticed he’s always getting hit on the head and knocked unconscious. Once or twice a novel, in fact. The ability to withstand repeated head injuries without suffering any apparent ill effects seems to—”

“Interview is over, Snoop.”

“Uh, it’s Scoop.”

“Right, a skirt named Scoop . . .” He patted his pockets absentmindedly. “I really should write that down.”

“Also, he seems to get shot in the shoulder an awful lot. By my count, he has at least fourteen bullets in his left shoulder alone. Does he have really broad shoulders, or are the villains just really bad shots?”

But by that point Kane Hamady, toughest writer in the room, had stomped off in a pouty snit. A hard-boiled hissy fit.

Chapter Seven

The Penny Drops! (In for a Visit)

As Miranda watched Kane leave the room in full snit, a voice behind her cried out joyfully, “Miranda!”

She turned with one of her patented pivots and a breathy “Yes! It is I.”

A statuesque woman in bright floral patterns was pushing through the crowd like the prow of a ship. For a second, Miranda didn’t recognize her. When she’d known her, Penny Fenland had been a socially awkward girl with aesthetically awkward glasses who’d been brought on to Pastor Fran Investigates as a “lady reader,” to give a much-needed female perspective on the scripts the all-male writing staff were churning out. None of Penny Fenland’s suggestions had made it to air, though, and she soon left TV entirely, moving to Canada to pursue a career in writing fiction. Her novels Over the Footlights and Behind the Backlights and Cast Up by the Sea! were international bestsellers. The gawky string bean of yesteryear was gone. The Penny of today radiated confidence. Acclaim, plus shoulder pads and laser eye surgery, will do that. Even her stride was confident. Success became her!

“Penny, it’s been too long.”

“It has!”

She embraced Miranda, not in that fake mustn’t-smudge-one’s-makeup cocktail manner of Hollywood, but in a full bear hug. So tall, so strong, she almost lifted Miranda off her feet.

“So tell me,” said Penny Fenland. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m the co-owner. We’re hosting the reception.”

“I don’t mean the bookstore, I mean this town. It’s so quaint, it could be the setting of one of my novels.”

Miranda laughed. “I can’t imagine anyone setting a mystery series in Happy Rock.”

Smiling warmly, Penny said, “I never thought I’d see the day! The great Miranda Abbott, retiring from acting.”

“I haven’t. Not exactly. I’m taking a sabbatical, as it were, away from the hubbub.”

A gleam came to Penny’s eye. “So you could be tempted back?”

“I can resist anything,” said Miranda, quoting Wilde, “except temptation.”

Penny glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “These other authors. What a circus of posers! I skipped out on the manure tour, and from the sounds of it, I made the right call. There was manure aplenty, in every sense.” She didn’t have patience for pretense. “I took Edgar’s advice to heart: never take yourself too seriously. Your work, yes, and your craft, certainly—but not yourself. We make up fairy tales for a living. Hardly out there saving lives or making the world a measurably better place. We’re scribblers, Miranda, even the best of us.”

Penny Fenland was royalty among other authors, yet she seemed refreshingly down-to-earth.

“When you were young and working on our show, was I . . . was I kind?” Miranda asked, trying not to sound fretful. It was something that gnawed at her.

“You were a holy terror—with the men! The executives cowered at your ire. But for those few women on your show, especially the younger women, you were a ball-kicking ballerina.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Miranda. “You know, after my show was canceled, no one called. My so-called friends simply . . . evaporated.”

“Screw ’em,” said Penny. “If your friends weren’t there for you when times were bad, they weren’t your friends. I have something exciting to tell you! You know how my novels have always defied adaptation?”

Penny’s beloved detective, Knowlton Le Gnash, a gruff but caring French-Canadian investigator, had been optioned several times over the years by studios big and small, near and far, to no avail.

“I think this time it’s really going to happen!”

But before Penny could expand on this news, she was interrupted by the icy voice of a vampire.

“Penelope.”

Penny turned. “Hello, Inez,” she said, as pleasantly as possible under the circumstances.

* * *

SHE HAD MATERIALIZED out of the air, it seemed, the way frost might emerge on a window pane, the crystals an omen of coldness to come.

Raven-black hair and a stark white dress with black shawl, black lipstick, and powder-pale skin, she was a study in monochrome, with clothes so voluminous it was impossible to make out her actual location. She seemed to float inside them. She had bird-like features and what looked like a teardrop tattooed under her left eye. It was actually a tiny rendition of the Eye of Osiris, protection against evil, though it made her look like a gang member who’d shanked someone in prison—apt, considering the famously morbid interest Inez had in all things gory and morose.

Other writers trafficked in murder, but none with so glum an outlook as Inez Fonio, the anointed Maven of Malice. She, in turn, had dubbed Penny Fenland “the Queen of the Cozies,” in a backhanded manner, and the nickname had stuck.

“The Pastor and the Queen,” said Inez in a flat monotone, referring to Miranda and the stately Penny Fenland.

Penny, looking down on the petite, anemic figure in front of her, said, “We’ve known each other for years, Inez. You know I don’t care for that term. I write detective novels, not cozies.”

“Puzzles,” said Inez. “Puzzles with no realistic depictions of violence. Puzzles that shy from showing the cruel finality of death. That’s the very definition of a cozy.”

But Penny refused to take the bait. “The consequences of murder are portrayed in my novels, too. I don’t shy away from it, even if I don’t revel in it like some.”

Thrust and parry.

As majority co-host of the party, Miranda decided to temper the rising tempers. “Ms. Fonio, your latest novel, The Frankenstein of Murder, is very clever. Where do you get your ideas from?”

Edgar had warned her that this was a question that irked authors, though Miranda couldn’t fathom why. Ideas had to come from somewhere, no? Truth be told, when she’d tried to read it, Miranda had thought Inez’s novel a hodgepodge of previous works. The hero was a monster sewed together from other sleuths: it had the brain of Sherlock Holmes, the eagle eyes of Auguste Dupin, the artful fingers of Arsène Lupin, the girth of Dr. Gideon Fell, the mustache of Hercule Poirot . . . basically any attributes of public-domain detectives.

When there was no immediate response, Miranda went for a compliment. Always a safe move in moments such as this. “I like your pendant,” Miranda said, referring to the small glass cylinder hanging around Inez Fonio’s neck. “Is that topaz?”

“Blood,” said Inez. “It’s a vial of human blood. A reminder of our mortality.”

Miranda swallowed. “Blood? Whose?”

“Mine, of course. Why would I wear someone else’s blood around my neck? What an odd woman you are.”

And with that, Inez floated off to haunt other conversations.

“Do you think . . .” said Penny, after the ethereal Inez had departed. “You know how authors will do something unusual at their signings. Fairfax DePoy, for instance, signs his books with a wax seal instead of a signature, as befits his historical bent. Ray Valentine draws the shape of a police badge around his signature. Well, I wonder if . . . Do you suppose Inez signs her books with her own blood?”

With anyone else, it would have been a preposterous suggestion. But Inez?

“Who knows?” said Miranda with a laugh. But inside, she was seething: Edgar, what were you thinking?! Inviting a ghoul like that into our home. Er, store.

* * *

IT WOULD LATER become known as the Reception of Death, but before the murders began it had been a fairly pleasant, if somewhat mundane, evening.

Pulled away from Penny, Miranda had moved about, topping up glasses and encouraging people to eat. Many of the guests seemed reluctant to, intimidated by G&G’s bravura culinary arrangements—it would have been like plundering a work of art. And as she moved through the crowd with feigned laughter and air-kiss greetings, Miranda spotted a vaguely familiar face among the crowd. It was the bookstore customer from earlier, the one with the weirdly pale upper lip, the one who’d purchased the Pastor Fran novelizations. Oh joy! A fan! But his demeanor had changed. His eyes had grown flinty. His expression, cold. Miranda now received only a terse nod, barely perceptible, to her warm “Yes! It is I!” greeting.

Who invited him? thought Miranda.

Officer Holly Hinton, meanwhile, usually sardonic and tough as nuts, had been reduced to a giggling schoolgirl by the presence of the Great Wanda Stobol.

“Compendium Cathy was my hero! Honest!” Holly was clutching her cloth bag of books, waiting for the right moment to ask. “Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking, but especially Compendium Cathy. They were my inspirations—are my inspirations. Honest!”

A weary sigh from Wanda. “Yeah, you mentioned that. More than once.”

She was eyeing the rest of the room, looking for an exit. Of the authors there that evening, Stobol was the one who fit in the best, fashion-wise, with the aesthetic of Oregon’s Pacific Coast. She sported 501 jeans, a red checked flannel shirt, and Blundstone boots. What would be considered semiformal wear in Happy Rock. As wide as she was tall, Wanda Stobol had two deep lines etched on either side of her mouth, like parentheses of disapproval.

“Honest! At Halloween, I always went as Compendium Cathy!” gurgled Officer Holly. “Granted, that mainly meant carrying around a magnifying glass and saying, ‘Aha! It all fits together now!’”

This was Compendium Cathy’s catchphrase, and the author must have heard it quoted to her many times, because she held up a hand as if to say “Enough.”

Miranda parlayed that into an offer to top up their wineglasses, as Wanda stuffed handfuls of antacids into her mouth. She chewed them noisily.

“Stomach issues?” asked Miranda.

“Ulcers. From worrying.”

“Worrying?”

“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.

* * *

“YES, 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.

Chapter Eight

The Shriek of a Thousand Banshees

“Doc,” said Miranda, “do I belong here?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well, you are co-owner.”

“I mean, in Happy Rock. Do you think I belong here, on this bay, in this town?”

“Sure you do. For better or worse, this is your home.”

But was it? She couldn’t help noticing that Doc had inadvertently referenced a wedding vow. For richer or poorer, for better or worse. If home was where the heart was, where did Miranda’s heart lie?

Talking to Penny had brought it all back: the table reads and last-minute rewrites, the stunt doubles and walk-throughs, the energy and excitement of throwing together a show, week after week. They were so much younger back then. Penny, suggesting in her awkward way that perhaps they should take better advantage of Miranda’s talents. “She is a classically trained actress.” But no, it was all speedboats and bikinis, with the occasional pious reflections on the homilies of St. John thrown in for good measure, right before she karate-chopped another celebrity guest star into oblivion. The memories were flooding in. Hollywood was calling, softly, softly . . . Maybe Miranda could try again? Un-fire the agent she’d un-rehired in a spate of anger, look for small roles, try to get a foot in the door? It’s not like Edgar would miss her. And she could always summer back in Happy Rock once she’d made it big again. Didn’t Clooney have a cabin on Lake Como? A twenty-four-bedroom cabin with its own helipad, true, but still. Maybe one didn’t have to choose between Happy Rock and LA. Maybe one could have both?

But Miranda knew that once she went back to LA, she would stay. If only there was a sign, something—anything—to tell her what to do, to solve this dilemma, to help her decide once and for all whether to stay or to go. Hollywood beckoned, with its glamor and pizzazz, but if she left Happy Rock, Miranda knew she would miss the calm, relaxing nature of—

The door at the end of the hallway blew open on a blast of cold air, and the most horrendous shriek imaginable filled the air like the wailing of a thousand banshees unleashed upon the world.

It was Mabel and her accordion.

Whenever an honored guest happened to grace Happy Rock with their presence, it was important to present the town in its full pomp and splendor. Thus, the Great Imperial Master of the Tillamook Loyal Order of Joyous Igneous & Cretaceous Bricklayers would enter the authors’ reception in full ceremonial gravitas.

LOJIC, as the lodge was known, was an elite, secretive society that required prospective members to answer a single skill-testing question in order to join, that question being “Do you want to join LOJIC?” Almost everyone in Happy Rock was a member, either lapsed or active. At the annual LOJIC parade, there were often more people in the parade than watching the parade. Normally, the Great Imperial Master (“Grand Bricklayer,” to use the proper title) would be piped in ceremonially, but trained bagpipers were thin on the ground in Happy Rock, so it fell instead to Mabel Greene and her accordion.

Mabel (one half of Myrtle & Mabel, who ran the local café) was a small but determined woman, older than most, stronger than many, with a firm jaw and an accordion that was as large as she was. The fingernails-on-chalkboard pitch grew higher, more strident—even occasionally hitting recognizable notes along the way—as the guests crowded in to witness the spectacle. As well they might. Many of them thought someone was throttling a cat (though less melodiously) and wanted to get a good look.

“Never had a lesson, our Mabel!” said Doc proudly.

In she marched in her tartan kilt with sweatpants underneath, leading the way for . . .

“So that was the big do he had tonight,” said Edgar.

Owen McCune, carrying the Staff of Office with a tasseled sash draped across his shoulders, followed Mabel in. He stopped splendiferously, raised his hand in greeting on behalf of the lodge. A powerful effect, undone only by the fact that he was still in his grease-stained coveralls from earlier. A smattering of applause, more bemused than amused, greeted Owen as the last of the accordion notes died a long and agonizing death.

Miranda thought of the many red carpet events she’d attended in her day, the Golden Globes, the Emmys, the People’s Choice Awards. The barrage of flashbulbs, the frenetic waving of microphones. Ms. Abbott! Ms. Abbott! and sometimes the slip-up: Pastor Fran! There had been no accordions. No bewhiskered mechanics in sashes. No friends. Just fame. Speaking of which . . .

Creeping in shyly in Owen’s wake was—

“Bea! You came!”

“I thought you might run out of SunnyD,” she said, proffering a large jug of the stuff.

“Wonderful! I’ll run it into the kitchen. Did you bring your copy of the Boudoir book? The author is here! He can sign it for you.”

“Oh, I must have left that in the B&B.” Then, confiding in Miranda, Bea whispered, “To be honest, I’m not such a fan. They’re a little risqué for my tastes. But I do enjoy spending time with Harpreet. She was so excited when she started her club, I signed up right away.”

“Your secret is safe,” said Miranda, making the classic locking-my-lips-and-throwing-away-the-key gesture.

As they made their way down the hall, they passed the floral arrangements and arrays of food on offer, and Bea said, “Oh my. Very artistic.”

When they entered the kitchen, Bea came face-to-face with her archnemesis: Geri.

“Hiya!”

Miranda made the introductions.

“So you’re Bea! It’s a real pleasure to finally meet. Our B&Bs practically face each other across Tillamook Bay. We’re in Hiram Henry House, on the road to the lighthouse. That nice police chief dropped off your peach cobbler earlier, thank you so much for that.” Geri looked around the cramped kitchen. “We’ll just need to find something to display it in.”

“It was already in a tray.” Bea had spent time arranging her cobbler just so in her finest Tupperware. “Plus there were plastic forks. Did Ned bring the plastic forks? He was supposed to bring the plastic forks.”

A frozen smile from Geri of the silverware implements. “Of course. How quaint. We shall put your peach cobbler out with the assorted desserts.”

She referred them to a carefully prepared schedule her husband, Gerry, had posted on Edgar’s fridge: sliced almond mini crepes with Castelvetrano olives, to be served at 7:59 p.m.; desserts (assorted) to be served at 8:16 p.m. Bea’s cobbler would be included under the catchall “assorted.” At precisely 8:16 p.m.

Miranda didn’t know it at the time, but G&G’s tightly scheduled timeline would prove fatally important to at least one guest later on!*

Speaking of which . . .

* * *

PERHAPS IT WAS the silk sash with its fancy tassels, perhaps it was the lofty title of Grand Bricklayer, or maybe it was Owen McCune’s naturally dignified air, but Inez Fonio of the black lipstick zeroed in on him immediately.

“Your aura!” she exclaimed, rushing to his side. “It’s as pure as crystal. As warm as wool.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Do you have an interest in bondage?”

Miranda, passing by at that exact moment, almost tripped. She caught a surprised look from Penny, who shook her head and moved to the other side of the room.

“The bondage that holds souls to their bodies,” Inez explained to Owen. “The pulleys and ropes that bind and befuddle us. Socially.”

“Oh, those ropes.” Owen was thinking about his own ongoing complaint regarding the stuff that had been stolen from behind his garage. “You mean symbolic ropes. Not the kind people can take. Gotcha. I’m Owen McCune, by the way. I’m the—”

“Wait!” she said. “Don’t tell me.”

She proceeded to “read” him by employing the techniques and uncanny deductive skills that come from creating a creature with the brain of Sherlock Holmes.

“Your eyes,” she said. “Gray! Haunted. You squint, but not to a distant horizon, like a sailor or a farmer, but in the manner of someone who works . . . indoors, in darker corners. Your sideburn whiskers suggest focus and form, but the lack of maintenance of said whiskers suggests you are single. No partner would allow you to leave home in such a rugged state. Your shoulders are broad, but not too broad. They suggest physical labor, yet are slightly stooped, suggesting the weight of responsibility pushing down on you, the sort of pressure one might experience as the owner . . . of a . . . construction company—no! Your hands! Your hands are exquisite. Let me see them. Yes! They suggest strength and dexterity. An automotive garage. You are the owner of a garage!”

“Wow! That’s amazing,” he said. “You could tell all that just by looking at me?”

“It’s a gift,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “And a curse.”

The fact that Owen was wearing mechanics coveralls with a logo sewed on the chest that read McCune’s Garage, Owen McCune, sole proprietor helped, I’m sure, thought Miranda.

“You got something on your cheek,” Owen said, licking his thumb and trying to wipe away the tiny tattoo under Inez’s left eye.

Rather than recoiling as any sensible person would, she leaned into it. “You would need to rub deeper than that to rid me of this,” she said. “’Tis the Eye of Osiris.”

“Oh, I get it! Like the All-Seeing Eye of LOJIC. We have the same sort of thing. Though we don’t tattoo it on our faces. We just have a pin.” He patted himself down. “Dang. I’ve gone and lost mine.” He grinned. “Maybe I should get a tattoo. I can’t lose that, right?”

“You can’t,” she breathed. “You can only lose your soul.”

Yikes, thought Miranda.

Now that Owen’s resplendent arrival as Grand Bricklayer was complete, all of the evening’s guests had assembled. Miranda herded everyone into the main room, locals and authors alike, for a champagne toast, raising her glass and commanding silence by her sheer presence. The chatter grew quiet.

“Hello, everyone. Yes, you are quite correct. It is I! Miranda Abbott! Welcome to I Only Read Murder. As the owner of this bookstore—”

A voice from the back: “Co-owner!”

“I welcome and embrace each and every one of you. And please give a round of applause in appreciation to Sheryl Youngblut, who has done such a splendid job arranging the authors’ travel and—” Miranda caught herself and didn’t mention the accommodations, not with Bea in attendance. “As I always say, a job done well is a well-done job indeed! If you have any questions or concerns, do let me know. Otherwise, enjoy the rest of the evening!”

She’d forgotten to thank the authors, but that was okay. Authors were used to that.

Before the guests could resume chatting among themselves, the raspy voice of Wanda Stobol rang out.

“Hey! I got a question. Is it true the bookstore received a wealth of John D. Ross books? The original editions, I mean. I didn’t see any of them on the shelves. Where are you hiding them?”

The question took Miranda by surprise. She’d been expecting something along the lines of “Ms. Abbott! Who are you wearing tonight?” or “What was Bill Shatner really like?” or even “Will you stay in Happy Rock forever? Or will you be going home to Hollywood?” But a question about those dusty old boxes of books? She wasn’t expecting that.

“Oh. You know John D. Ross?” Miranda asked. She meant know of, but the look on Wanda’s face suggested something closer to the heart.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice dropping so low it was almost a thought. “I knew him.”

Problem is, you don’t have enough to say to fill a book, but too much for a short story. It’s the length of your mysteries that’s tripping you up. They’re too short. You can’t sell a 30,000-word novel. Unless you’re writing children’s books. Not all of the Idaho Seven can be adult authors.

Wanda snapped back at Miranda, “Did I know John D. Ross? Sure I did. We all did. Some people sleep their way to the middle, some people claw their way to the top, some of us can’t even do that. John D. Ross liked to play with people’s lives like they were characters in one of his ridiculous novels. I was glad the old fart finally died. Asleep in his bed, no less. Lucky bastard.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

Miranda, not sure what to do, threw a cue to her co-star, a common enough trick among actors. “Edgar, dearest? There you are, way at the back. Perchance you might be able to answer Ms. Stobol’s query regarding the works of John D. Ross?”

“We did receive a stack of first editions, yes. Hardcover and paperback. Plus a manuscript.”

A pin dropping would have echoed like a gong.

“A manuscript?” someone asked. “A complete manuscript?”

“Far as I know. Didn’t read it. Didn’t recognize the title, either.”

“Something about an orchid? A black orchid?”

“That’s right. You know it? Because I couldn’t find that title listed in any of his bibliographies. It may have been one that he abandoned. Was probably included with the books by mistake. I’m shipping it back to Helen tomorrow.”

“Helen?” said Ray.

“Who is this Helen?” Inez wanted to know.

“The widow.”

“Ah,” said Wanda. “So that was her name.” Then, to Ray: “Didn’t you spend your summers at Cape Cod with John?”

“I did. Don’t recall his wife’s name, though. Old Blood and Thunder mainly talked to me about police work. We exchanged tales from our days on the force. Manly tales.”

Look, Ray, you’re a writer—a good writer, maybe a great writer—but you’re soft. You need a persona. Make one up, or take it if you have to. But don’t be you.

“Would we be able to see the books you got?” Ray asked, turning to face Edgar from across the room. “Tonight?”

“Don’t see why not. I’ll take you in after we’re done the next course. The manuscript and the books are locked up in the reading room.”

“The reading room?” said Fairfax DePoy. “Oh, right. Where you keep your rare editions. I saw it on your website.”

“We have a website?” said Miranda.

“Andrew set it up,” said Edgar. Then, in an attempt to get back to the point of the night’s event, he announced loudly to the other guests, “Don’t forget! We sell books! We have the latest works by the authors in attendance tonight. For sale. Because we’re a bookstore. So, y’know . . .”

A pregnant pause followed. Trying to get people to actually buy books at a book event was always a hurdle.

Miranda added, “I’m sure the authors would happily sign and personalize any copies you purchase tonight.”

Books by the authors attending the festival were displayed on a separate table, and the authors, as always, had been obsessively comparing their books to the others in agonizing detail: the size and/or prestige of the publisher (the two did not always overlap), the quality of the paper, the number of blurbs vs. the value of the blurbs (one Janet Evanovich was worth three P.K. Pennington’s, for example), who was thanked in the acknowledgments and who was not. Author and guest alike had been milling about, manhandling the stock, and this too would prove fatal, for each and every book was now covered in fingerprints . . .

“Before we adjourn,” Miranda said, “are there any questions for the esteemed authors we have in attendance tonight?” Then, with a laugh, she added, “As long as it’s not ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’”

A cold voice in back: “I have a question for Ray Valentine: Where do you get your ideas from?”

It was the customer from earlier, and in that moment, Miranda realized where she knew him from. The Opera House.

“My ideas? What do you—Who said that?” Ray tried to locate the person who had asked the question, but the man was gone.

A gust of cold air revealed that the back door had been opened, though who had entered or slipped out was not clear.

Edgar announced, “I’ll take the authors into the reading room to see those John D. Ross first editions.”

Glances were exchanged among the authors. Dark currents were moving below the surface; as an actor, Miranda recognized subtext when she saw it. She grabbed Edgar as he passed by. “There is so much tension in this room. What is going on?”

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t invite these authors. I’m just the book guy.”

As events spun out of control, this would become something akin to a mantra from Edgar: Don’t blame me, I’m just the bookseller. An alibi worthy of a headstone: Hey, we just sell the books. We don’t actually murder anyone.

“If you didn’t choose the authors, who did?”

“Middlemist Marketing, I presume. They’re the ones who contacted me, asked if I’d be the designated bookseller and maybe host an opening night reception. That’s it. You want more answers, talk to Sheryl Youngblut, the publicist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a room to unlock and some John D. Ross novels to present.”

But Miranda wasn’t done. “That man—the one who asked Ray Valentine that question. Who is he, and why did you invite him?”

“I assumed you invited him,” said Edgar.

“I did not.”

“Well, maybe he’s someone’s plus one.”

“He was alone. He came alone, left alone. I don’t know his name, but I recognized his face. He works at the Opera House. He was the one who put up our poster.”

“The janitor? Nah, I’ve seen that guy. He has a huge handlebar mustache.”

Miranda gave Edgar an arched-eyebrow Really? look.

“Oh, right. People can shave their mustaches. That would explain the pale upper lip . . .”

“Whoever he is, he certainly seems to have unnerved Mr. Valentine with his question.”

A raspy voice, as abrasive as it was insistent, returned. Beloved children’s author Wanda Stobol was growling at Edgar. “What’s the goddamn holdup? Are we going to see those goddamn books or not?”

The other authors had practically queued up behind her, eager to get in, and Edgar called across to Andrew: “Can you grab the key to the reading room? It should be hanging on the wall in the kitchen.”

Andrew let the authors in. They shoved past him, into the narrow confines of the reading room, and immediately started going through the stacks of John D. Ross novels as though it were a Black Friday event. The excitement grew with each volume. “The first Trevor Lucas story! Mint condition, too. You know how hard that is to find?” “Look! The one where they misspelled his name on the cover page.” “That’s right! John D. Rose. A rarity!” “Appropriate, given his relentless flower-themed titles, I’d say.” “Here’s the one with the cover Joan Collins modeled for before she became famous, Green is the Geranium of Envy.” “Are germaniums even green?” “Creative license, give it a rest.”

But what they really wanted to see was—

“The manuscript,” Kane Hamady demanded. “Where is it?”

The hard-boiled author had been unnaturally quiet throughout the evening, had barely swaggered or thrown an intimidating look Fairfax’s way. He seemed almost to be holding back, waiting to see what Fairfax would do. If it was a feud, it struck Miranda as very much performative, the way celebrity marriages often were.

“The manuscript?” said Edgar. “Oh, that’s locked in the cabinet.”

And immediately they were pressed up against the glass like urchins at a shop window.

“Can we—can we look at it?” asked Wanda.

“Ponder its mysteries?” said Inez.

“Enjoy its prose?” said Penny.

From the doorway, Miranda called out. “Edgar, it’s cold in here. Close the transom. You’re letting the heat out.”

Grumbling, Edgar picked his way past the knot of writers. The transom above the window was indeed open a crack, letting in a thin slice of cold air. Reaching up, he pulled it in, closing the latch with a firm, loud click. He checked the radiator below the window as well, since he was there.

“No heat,” he complained. “What are we paying Melvin for?”

Melvin Jacobson, he of the guided tours and manure emporium, was also the local furnace cleaner and serviceperson.

“I mean, we signed up for his elite package, right? Furnace is still groaning and the heat just dribbles in.”

Edgar fiddled with the radiator setting, cranking the knob one way, then the other, then giving up. When he turned around, he caught Inez trying to turn the cabinet key to access the manuscript while several of the other authors apparently ran interference. Ray Valentine, for one, seemed to be trying to block Edgar’s view.

Annoyed, Edgar went over to them. “That’s enough. Out we go.”

As he shooed the urchins from the shop window, the publicist, Sheryl Youngblut, hung back. She waited in the hallway outside the reading room while Edgar locked the door behind them.

“Mr. Abbott, I understand why you wouldn’t want writers going through an unpublished John D. Ross manuscript,” she said. “Plagiarism pitfalls abound. But as a marketing tool, that manuscript would be a godsend.”

“You’d have to talk to Helen Ross.”

“I have talked to her—I mean, I tried to. She’s sweet, but you know how she is once she gets an idea in her head.”

“I don’t, actually,” said Edgar. “I only met her the one time.”

A tight smile from the publicist. “Well, you must have made quite an impression on her.”

Miranda would remember that smile, one of sadness more than ire, of envy more than anger. A smile of someone neglected.

* * *

MIRANDA MADE HER way back to the reception. Writers! So exhausting! she thought. Geri was serving the mini crepes with Castelvetrano olives, meaning Bea’s peach cobbler would be next in line. Finally!

Kane Hamady passed by, sidestepping the tray of crepes like a toreador. “Watch it, sister.”

Edgar had left to return the key to its hook and check in with Andrew, who was minding the book table. When Edgar returned ten minutes later, he had a sour look on his face.

“Andrew said we didn’t sell any books,” he told Miranda. “People do know this is a book event, right? Not just a chance to scarf down free food.”

“Scarfing down free food? I think that is the definition of a ‘book event,’” Miranda said.

Sheryl Youngblut again sidled up to Edgar. “The door to the reading room. It’s locked.”

“I know it is. I just locked it.”

“I know. But the key to the room—it’s missing,” she said.

“I hung it on the hook, just now.”

The young woman’s voice grew strained. “The hook is empty. The key is gone.”

Miranda, instantly on guard, wanted to know how the publicist would know this. “What reason would you have for going to the kitchen to look for that key?”

“I just wanted to make sure it was still there. The manuscript. You wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands! Who knows what it contains. I wanted to check on it, make sure it was safe, but when I went to the kitchen, the key was missing.”

“Did you try the junk drawer?” asked Edgar. “Maybe I threw it in there by mistake.” He was apparently unperturbed by what Ms. Youngblut had just confessed.

“You were going to break into a room in our house?” Miranda asked, aghast.

Edgar, more conciliatory, said, “If you want a look at that manuscript so badly, I’ll take you back in. I must have stuffed the key in the drawer.”

“It wasn’t there, either!” Sheryl said, alarm creeping in. “I checked the drawer. It’s not in any of the drawers. And”—her voice dropped to a conspiratorial level—“I think someone is inside.”

“Inside the reading room? With the door locked?”

“Yes! Hurry—we have to stop them.”

“Stop them? From what?” Miranda wanted to know.

“From reading that manuscript!”

How odd, thought Miranda. Sheryl wasn’t afraid of someone destroying the manuscript, or stealing it, or setting it on fire. No. She was worried they might read it. There was something in the manuscript that the frazzled young publicist didn’t want people to see. Something she feared.

Chapter Nine

The Locked Room

It happened in a panic-stricken blur. Edgar pounding the door. Andrew scrambling about in the kitchen, unable to locate the key, and then running back breathlessly. “It’s gone! The key is gone.”

They could hear someone inside, trashing the reading room. Thumps and crashes and curses.

“Open the door!” Edgar shouted, as he began throwing his shoulder against it.

“It’s just me,” a muffled voice on the other side replied.

“Kane?” said Edgar. “Kane Hamady? What are you doing in there? Please, just open the door.”

They yelled back and forth as Miranda watched, pondering the publicist’s warning about the manuscript only moments before: You wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands!

Finally, the commotion on the other side ended. The handle on the door began to turn and then—stopped. This was followed by a thwack and a gurgled voice. And then, silence.

Edgar flung himself at the door harder now.

Ned Buckley poked his head around the corner, asking, “What’s up? Some sort of hullabaloo?”

Happy Rock’s Chief of Police was not a fan of hullabaloos—or brouhahas, for that matter. And certainly not kerfuffles. And that’s what this was fast becoming: a veritable brouhaha of a hullabaloo of a kerfuffle.

“Quick! Fire a bullet through the lock!” said Andrew.

“I’m not firing my gun inside a building with somebody on the other side of a door,” said Ned. “What exactly is going on?”

Edgar, winded from flinging himself against the door to the reading room, gasped, “It’s Kane Hamady. He’s locked himself inside. I could hear books flying about. Those are first editions in there!”

“Andrew’s right,” said Miranda. “Ned, you should shoot out the lock. On Pastor Fran Investigates, police officers would often fire a round into a—”

“This isn’t a TV show, Miranda, and this certainly isn’t a gun-firing situation. Did you ask him to unlock the door?”

“Of course!” shouted Miranda and Edgar in unison.

“Did you ask him politely?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, so he’s in there throwing some books around. If they’re damaged, you can charge him with vandalism. If not, no harm, no foul. You’ll just have to wait till he unlocks the door and comes out.”

“That’s just it,” said Edgar. “He started to. We could see the knob begin to turn, then there was a pause . . . followed by a thwack and an almighty awk!”

This instantly raised Ned’s radar. “A thwack AND an awk? In that order?”

Tanvir Singh had now appeared. “What is going on? Is this a kerfuffle?”

“We have someone trapped inside a locked room,” said Ned. “Perhaps in distress.”

Tanvir studied the brass plate below the handle. “That is a brass tumbler system. You do not see those in newer homes. It is a classic keyhole. You can peek through them just like in the movies.”

Miranda was on this instantly, her eye scrunched up to the opening. How many keyholes had she peered through during her time as Pastor Fran?

“I can’t see anything,” she said. “Something’s blocking it.”

“Most likely the key,” said Tanvir. “In these antique arrangements, the key can be used on either side of the door, can be used to lock it from the inside or outside. If it is locked from inside, there is not much one can do. Have you tried asking the person inside to turn the key?”

Edgar, exasperated, said, “Yes, I asked him to open the door.”

“But did you say ‘turn the key’?”

Edgar, trying not to snap at his friend, said, “That was implicit in the request. And now he’s not answering. Something’s happened to him.”

“Do you have a drill handy?” Tanvir asked.

“I do. Cordless. Under the sink.”

More and more people had gathered around the door to the reading room, crowding the corridor and offering such helpful comments as “What’s going on?” and “Is there a problem?” and “Have you tried the handle?”

“His voice,” said Miranda. “It changed.”

“Sure,” said Ned. “An awk.”

“Before that. When Edgar was pounding on the door, Kane yelled, ‘It’s just me.’ The more we pounded on the door, the more we heard him crashing about and the more frantic he became, shouting, ‘Won’t be but a minute! Terribly sorry!’ It was like . . . the timbre of his voice had changed.”

Miranda Abbott had studied voice and dialect, the stress, pitch, and rhythms—and something had shifted in Kane’s voice. It was still Kane, but it wasn’t.

“I’d imagine the door muffled much of it,” said Ned as Tanvir returned, drill in hand.

“Perhaps.” But she remained unconvinced.

The metallic sound of a drill going through the lock was the audible equivalent of chewing tinfoil.

As Tanvir drilled, the dessert trays appeared, right on time, and the crowds followed them down the hall excitedly, swooping onto the trays as soon as Geri put them down. (Gerry was apparently busy back in the kitchen, loading the next tray.) Ned looked wistfully down the hall, but duty beckoned and he stayed at the door instead of grabbing a china saucer and making a beeline for the peach cobbler.

On a final shriek of metal on metal, the door to the reading room popped open. It swung inward, revealing Kane Hamady with his overcoat fanning out behind him like a cape, jaw slack, eyes gaping. He was flopped back in the swivel chair, facing the glass cabinet. The John D. Ross first editions Edgar had so carefully stacked on the end table and shelves had been flung about violently, in a rage, as though he’d been searching frantically through their pages. More gruesome still was the open book that was now skewered to Kane’s chest—by an arrow. The standing lamp was no longer standing, having been knocked over, and the bulb overhead cast a yellow glow over this macabre tableau de la mort.

Ned stepped into the room, hand on his holster. Edgar, faced with a dead body, reeled to one side, almost as though he were trying to hide behind the door, looking like he might get sick. Miranda, however, was drawn to the corpse. She leaned in, peered closer—not into the dead man’s eyes, not even at the shaft buried in his chest, but at the open book pierced by the arrow. The title at the top of the opened page revealed that it wasn’t a John D. Ross novel that had been speared into Kane Hamady’s heart, but one of his own books: Me, the Judgment.

You, the dead, thought Miranda.

* * *

HAPPY ROCK’S CHIEF OF POLICE, hands on his snug utility belt, stood in the middle of a baffling crime scene alongside the owners of the property, Edgar and Miranda Abbott. Everyone else, aside from Doc Meadows, had been pushed back.

Doc was checking for vitals, even though they knew Kane Hamady was dead. Ned had shouted to Officer Holly to “secure the perimeter!”

“From inside, sir?”

“Yes. From the inside. No one leaves this building.”

Ned had squeezed past the body to check the window. The window itself couldn’t open—the panes were set in place—but the transom above it could. But the latch on the transom was down partway, meaning it was effectively locked from the inside.

Doc noticed Ned looking through the glass of the window to the dark yard beyond and said, “Good idea. Guy might’ve left tracks. Get on it, Ned. You’re a regular bloodhound. ’Member when we were kids playing hide-and-seek in the bush? You always were the best one at finding us. Man, the number of times you spotted me hiding behind a twig.”

“Well, you were six feet tall by the time you were twelve, so it wasn’t that difficult. You were easy enough to spot. And anyway, that arrow couldn’t have come from outside. The window is sealed shut and the transom above it is closed and latched. Musta been a booby trap, but I don’t see how. The killer had to have been inside the room with Kane, but if he was, where’d he go?”

“Vanished?” said Doc.

“Like a ghost,” said Ned.

Andrew, giddy with excitement, was hopping back and forth in the doorway like a kid needing to go to the bathroom, asking repeatedly, “Can I come in? Please? I can help with the investigation.”

“Just stay back, okay?” said Ned.

“Actually, there is something you can do, Andrew,” said Miranda as she marched out of the room. “Come with me.” Then, under her breath, “Doc may be on to something.”

Miranda and Andrew passed Officer Holly in the hall as she was trying to corral everyone into the main room.

“On orders from Ned!” said Miranda, and Holly waved them past. It wasn’t entirely a lie. Ned had told them to “stay back.” And the backyard was as back as you could go.

“C’mon, you bunch of lookie-loos!” Officer Holly was shouting. “You bunch of Yertle-the-turtles. Stop stackin’ up. Into the main room of the bookstore, all of you! And stay there!”

Outside in the crisp night air, Miranda and Andrew circled around the building, across the grass, toward the square of light that marked the reading room window. Through the window, they could see Ned and Doc inside with the dead body and Edgar off to one side, looking queasy.

“Don’t!” said Miranda, before Andrew could step any closer. “Don’t tread on my flower bed.”

Wet soil, smooth and undisturbed, lay directly beneath the window.

“Your hypothetical flower bed, you mean to say.”

“A flower bed is a flower bed regardless,” she said.

“But—it’s just dirt. You didn’t plant anything. You said you were going to plant petunias and poppies and peonies, but you never did.”

“That’s the point! It’s the lack of flowers we must protect.” She crouched down to examine the soil. “Hmm,” she said. “No footprints.” Miranda looked across the yard to the shed on the other side. “Do you think someone could have shot an arrow from on top of that?” she asked.

“Across the yard and in through the window?” asked Andrew. “I don’t see how. The arrow would have had to pass through solid glass. The transom above the window was closed, remember.”

“I thought perhaps the killer might have fired the arrow when the transom was open, and then used fishing wire or something to pull down the latch from the outside afterwards. Alas, there are no footprints in the flower bed, and no fishing wire dangling from the transom. Which is to say, there was no one lurking outside the window. At least, no one corporeal. Perhaps Ned and Doc are right. Perhaps it was a ghost that killed Kane Hamady . . . Don’t blanch like that, Andrew. I was probably kidding.”

The two of them went back inside, past the kitchen and down the hall to the reading room. Along the way, Miranda snatched the serving schedule that G&G had posted on the front of the fridge. “Exhibit A!” she said, and Andrew had absolutely no idea what she meant.

“Where’d you two go?” said Ned as they came back into the room.

“I was checking for footprints in my flower bed,” said Miranda. “Alas, no such clues were revealed.”

“The transom was locked from the inside. Look right there. You can plainly see the latch is halfway down. That latch can only be turned from this side, and only Kane was in here.”

Doc Meadows stood above the body, palms up. He recited a Salish prayer, one that ended with “L’a’ma’thut cun,” meaning “safe journey.”

Ned waited till his friend had finished the rites, then asked, “So what do you figure, Doc? Time of death?”

“Lemme see.” Doc checked his phone, which he’d been using as a dictating device. “Death was pronounced at 8:21 p.m., by my watch. Actual time of death was before that, but not by much. Five or ten minutes. He had no pulse, pupils were dilating, but the body was still warm, blood still flowing from the wound, not yet coagulating.”

“Cause of death?”

“What do you think, Ned? I’ll give you three guesses. First two don’t count.”

“C’mon, I’ll need it for my report.”

“Okay. If you want to get all CSI on us, my initial conclusion: rapid exterior myocardial rupture. What we in the medical profession call ‘an arrow through the heart.’”

Ned took out his notepad, jotted this down. He turned to Edgar next. “And when did you first notice that Mr. Hamady had entered the room?”

“No idea,” Edgar croaked.

“He entered the reading room at 7:59 and was killed at 8:14 p.m.,” said Miranda.

The others—Ned, Doc, Edgar, and Andrew—stared at her.

“That seems very specific,” said Ned.

She held up the paper she’d taken from the front of the fridge. “Kane left the reception just as the crepes were being served—that was at 7:59, by Geri’s schedule—and he was already dead by the time Bea’s cobbler was brought out, to judge by the loud thwack of an arrow we heard a few minutes before that. Bea’s cobbler was served at 8:16, so I would put the time of death at 8:14 p.m., give or take thirty seconds either way.”

“A fifteen-minute window,” said Ned. “Someone had to move fast.”

“That tells us when,” said Andrew, who had successfully sidled his way in next to the police chief and was standing beside him with arms suitably crossed and face all frowny, “but it does not tell us how.”

“The latch!” Miranda cried. “I distinctly recall Edgar turning it all the way. I heard a loud click! But now the latch is only turned halfway. It’s still locked, but not as tightly or in the same manner as before.”

“Edgar, is that true?” asked Ned. “Did you turn the latch down farther than it is now?”

“I dunno. Maybe?” He was still avoiding looking at the corpse. Considering the number of murders Edgar had written—and sold—over the years, he was unusually skittish in its actual presence, the way some people were with love.

Miranda was puzzled. “So Kane started to unlock the transom . . . but then changed his mind, stopped halfway. Why?”

“Maybe he saw the killer standing outside the window?” said Andrew.

“But that doesn’t really solve the main conundrum,” said Ned. “Even if the killer was outside looking in—while somehow leaving no footprints in the flower bed—the transom above the window was still closed, whether the latch was halfway down or not, and the window itself doesn’t open. So how does an arrow pass through solid glass to hit someone on the other side?” Ned looked to Miranda. “You know what this means.”

She knew what this means.

“We appear to have an impossible crime on our hands,” said Ned.

Chapter Ten

Tough Guys Don’t Last

“I only see three points of entry,” said Ned. “This door over here, that window over there, and the furnace grate in the floor back here, behind the door. Hang on a sec. Edgar, what’s that?”

Ned had noticed a circular piece of tin about the size of a saucer that had been attached to the wall at roughly eye level, next to the glass cabinet, and held in place by finishing nails. The tin had a faded image of a fish painted on it, a crimson carp, perhaps?

“I took it from an old cookie tin. Scarlet Sturgeon was the brand, I think. It covers a hole in the wall where a stovepipe used to be,” said Edgar.

“I see. No secret passages? Behind the cabinet or the bookshelves?” Ned wasn’t joking.

Edgar shook his head, still unnerved by the presence of the dead man sprawled on the chair in the middle of the room. “When I renovated this room, I stripped it down to the studs. The exterior is solid brick, but the interior is hardwood and plaster—no cavity walls with gaps between the bricks, no hidden chambers lurking within. Just good old solid eighteenth-century craftsmanship.”

Era-appropriate paisley wallpaper and a pressed tin ceiling had been added to preserve the room’s Victorian feel, but those were embellishments added later.

“It was originally the servants’ dining hall. I turned it into a reading room.”

“Didn’t think to paper over that hole?” Ned asked, still looking at the tin circle pinned on the wall.

“I was going to install a traditional potbellied stove to warm the room with firewood rather than the radiator. But in the end, it was too expensive.”

“The arrow could also have come through that hole in the wall. It’s a straight line from that to the chair Kane died in, nothing in between.” Ned fiddled with the tin covering, trying to see if it would move. “Could someone have replaced the tin after shooting an arrow through the hole, and then pulled the nails in from the other side?” he wondered.

Ned tried each finishing nail in turn, but none jiggled; none were loose.

“The hole is only on this side,” said Edgar. “When I redid the wall on the other side, I papered it over. I’d given up on the idea of adding a wood-burning stove.”

“Not a point of entry, then,” said Ned. “How about the vent?” He bent down with a creak of the knee to examine the heavy iron grate embedded in the floor next to the door. “Heat vent?” he asked.

“Ventilation,” said Edgar. “The furnace heats the water in the radiators, pumps it out, and then separately draws air in through these ducts.”

“Right,” said Ned, as though he should have known better. “Not forced air. Radiators.”

The slab of iron on the floor was an ornate arrangement of curlicues and geometric patterns. Ned worked his fingers into the gaps, tried to lift, but couldn’t. He looked closer. “What the heck? The edges have been painted over. That your handiwork work, Edgar?”

Sheepishly, “Yeah.”

“Next time, maybe hire Tanvir,” Miranda said to a loud silence from Edgar.

Upstairs, they could hear the clatter of his dog pacing back and forth. “My dog is getting agitated,” said Edgar. “Can we wrap this up?”

“Can’t rush these things, Edgar. Have to figure this out. The door was locked when Kane was killed. No sign of a bow. The transom is closed, the hole in the wall is papered over on the other side, and the grate is too heavy to move, and even if it could be, it’s been sealed shut by Edgar’s finesse with a paintbrush—no offense.”

“None taken,” said Edgar, though his eyes said otherwise.

“Kane was in this room, alone, with no way for anyone to enter or escape. So who fired that arrow?”

Even more baffling was the position of the body, with the book splayed open on his chest—the pages facing out—and skewered into his heart. It looked like a macabre joke, a dark comment on authorial vanity. Pinned by his own words.

Ned scratched the back of his neck, looked to Doc for help. “What do you figure, maybe he fell backwards into the chair? He’s slumped in the chair facing the cabinet now, but I don’t see how the arrow could’ve been fired from inside the cabinet. His body must have hit the chair and then slowly turned—swiveled, in fact.”

“That part makes sense,” said Doc.

“So,” said Ned, trying to visualize it. “Kane is here at the door. He starts to unlock it. Stops. Turns around, holding up a copy of his book for some reason. He couldn’t have been standing in front of the door when he was hit, though. If he was, he wouldn’t have fallen into the chair, he would have fallen against the door. The only place it could have come from is the transom above the window. Except the transom is latched down. And even if the killer could figure a way around that, he still had to slip away without leaving any footprints in the flower bed outside the window. Even with those gaps, as a general hypothesis, does that work for you, Doc? An arrow from the transom?”

“Not so sure about that, Ned,” Doc Meadows said. He was considering the angles involved. “You’d have to figure an arrow that was shot from the transom would’ve had to have been pointed downward at the target. But the arrow that’s buried in this fella’s chest seems to have gone in at a perfectly straight angle. No downward trajectory, so to speak. Hey, Edgar, you’re about my height.” Doc called him over.

Edgar joined them beside the body, reluctantly it must be said, as Doc Meadows raised his arm out straight and pointed a finger directly at Edgar’s chest.

“Bang,” he said. “I know that’s a gun, but I don’t know how to make an arrow sound. Y’see?” Doc stepped closer, keeping his arm perfectly straight. Brought his pointed finger to Edgar’s chest. “The arrow went in straight, like this, like how I’m holding my hand, not from a higher position.” Doc then tilted his hand to show them how it would have looked if it had come in through the transom. “That’s how it should have gone in. But that arrow went in parallel to the floor. Couldn’t do that from outside.”

“Which means the killer would’ve had to have been inside this room with Kane,” said Ned. “Squared off, facing him directly, firing at close quarters.”

They couldn’t help it. Their eyes darted around the place. But there was nowhere in the room for someone to hide.

“When we first rushed in, could the killer have been hiding behind the door?” Miranda asked, “then sneaked out in the confusion?”

Edgar answered this one. “No. When I saw the body, I immediately veered over here, by the door. If someone was hiding behind it, I would have seen. There was no one else in the room when we came charging in. Just Kane.”

Doc said, “Could still be from the transom. Maybe the victim arched his back violently just before he was hit by the arrow. That might account for the fact it entered his chest at 90 degrees. You’d have to talk to forensics in Portland about that, Ned.”

He nodded. “I’ll get Officer Holly to photograph and tag the scene. We’ll call Portland, get them to notify the Criminal Investigation Department, though I doubt they’ll send anyone till tomorrow. We’ll have to hold the fort till then.”

Edgar was horrified. “His body is going to stay in my bookstore overnight?”

“Our bookstore,” Miranda corrected.

“It is called the Murder Store,” Doc pointed out, but Edgar found no humor in this.

“Why did I let a bunch of writers into my life?” Edgar moaned. “All they do is cause problems. They’re almost as bad as actors.”

Miranda, taking the high road, decided to let that slide.

“We’ll move the body eventually, don’t worry,” said Ned.

Doc assured Edgar that he’d have it transported to the town morgue as soon as Officer Holly was done tagging the crime scene. None of them realized that the nightmare was only beginning. When the early hours came, the body would still be there. And they would have worse things to worry about.

“Jessica,” said Miranda. “Fletcher. Remember, Edgar? The woman who handled the weapons on Pastor Fran Investigates. The fletcher. Jessica Smith, I think her name was. She was always making sure the feathers—or ‘fletchings’—on the prop arrows were done correctly.” Miranda nodded to the arrow that was stuck inside Kane. “Those fletchings look far too small. Barely there. It’s like they’ve been trimmed down. What do you think?”

But Edgar had no intention of approaching the body,

Ned had no such qualms, however.

“The fletchings?” he said, looking closer. “The feathers, you mean. They do seem disproportionately small for the size of the arrow. They could’ve been altered to fit a different type of bow, I suppose. I’m not an expert on such things.”

“And why the open book?” asked Miranda. “A gruesome souvenir? Some grim poetic justice at play? If Kane was reading the book, or even flipping through it, the pages would have been facing toward him and the arrow would have gone in through the back of the book. But it didn’t. It was speared with the pages facing outward.” She stepped closer. “We know Kane was facing his attacker, because the arrow hit him in the chest. But why would Kane be holding the book up in such a way? And why one of his books? His books weren’t even in the reading room; he’d have had to bring it in with him.”

Doc said, “Maybe he held it up like a shield, in a desperate act, instinctively, like in a panic when he saw the killer taking aim. Fear does strange things to people’s minds.”

“Or maybe he was presenting the book,” said Miranda. “Holding it up to show the killer something.”

“A panicked attempt at protecting himself makes more sense,” said Ned. “Why would he be showing the killer”—he stooped over the body to check—“Page 100 of his own book. Hey, guy with an arrow pointed directly at me, check this out! Look what I wrote!”

Miranda leaned in to read from the page that had been pierced to the author’s heart. The shaft of the arrow acted almost like a bookmark, holding it open. “‘Tough guys don’t last,’ said Mick Hardy as he regained consciousness.” Kane’s blood had soaked through the paper, was trickling between the pages, only now starting to thicken.

She stepped back. “Hmm.”

“Seems sorta random to me,” said Ned.

“Random is never quite as random as you might randomly think!” she declared.

The book was the key. It had to be. It couldn’t be mere chance that it was one of Kane’s own novels he’d died with. It had to explain how the murder had occurred. Miranda was sure of it, even if she didn’t know how.

“Four,” said a voice from the doorway. “You missed one, champ.”

It was Lachlan Todd, leaning against the side of the door with his usual snigger of a smile, smarmy as ever.

“Stay back,” said Ned. “This is a crime scene.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your ‘crack’ police work.” (The air quotes were evident in his tone.) “I was listening to your theories with mounting amusement, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that there are actually four points of entry. You missed one.”

“And which one would that be, friend?” said Ned.

“The radiator below the window!”

“The radiator? How is that an entry point?”

“That’s a hot water radiator, I presume? Which are known to be—mark this!—hollow. One could snake a flexible dental mirror up from below, through the steam pipes, having earlier removed the radiator cap, and then turn the mirror once it emerges until the light from the standing lamp bounces off it and focuses the beam onto a thin flammable thread tied to the cabinet door, wherein a booby trap lies hidden! The heat burns through the thread, which then springs open the cabinet door. Shocked, Kane naturally holds up the first thing he can find to protect himself—one of his own books, as chance would have it—and the arrow fired from the booby trap stabs through him like a literary shish kebab. Meanwhile, the booby trap that fired the arrow, being cleverly constructed from tightly rolled flash paper, the kind that magicians use, flares up and disappears in an instant. The dental mirror is then withdrawn through the radiator—which is hollow, remember!—as the cap is screwed back into place using a high-powered magnet from below, after which a second stronger magnet is then used to partially unlock the latch on the transom as an act of cunning misdirection. Radiator, dental mirror, magnets. What could be simpler? You want your culprit, look for the nearest dentist!” Lachlan’s eyes narrowed. His attention was now focused specifically on Doc Meadows. “Which leads to my final question.” He was building up a head of steam for his big Aha! moment. “Exactly what sort of ‘doctor’ are you, Mr. Meadows—if that really is your name?”

“Me? GP and obstetrics, mainly. I’m not a dentist, no. And yup, Meadows is my real name. Ned can vouch for me, seeing as how we grew up together.”

“Oh,” Lachlan said. “Not a dentist? Well, there goes my theory. Carry on.”

He traipsed back to the main room to antagonize his fellow writers with further theories of magnets and mirrors. It might have been risible were it not for the fact that Lachlan Todd, as was later revealed, was absolutely correct in one aspect of his suggested solution. In among the verbiage was a cold hard nugget of truth.

“The scripts Lachlan used to hand in for Pastor Fran Investigates were equally convoluted,” Edgar complained, like the former head writer he was.

“If the arrow was fired at Kane from the transom, and if he did fall backwards into the chair, he must have crossed the room, past the chair, to be thrown into it when he died,” said Miranda. “Otherwise, as Ned pointed out, he would have fallen against the back of the door instead.”

She studied the body sprawled out in the chair facing the cabinet. Something was wrong, something about the ankles . . .

“Oh my god,” said Edgar. “I was so distracted by the John D. Ross first editions Kane was flinging about that I forgot about the manuscript!” He stepped over Kane’s feet, avoided looking at the corpse itself, and peered inside the cabinet. He breathed a sigh of relief. The glass door to the cabinet was now open, but the manuscript was still there, still safe.

“Untouched,” he said.

“Not quite,” Miranda noted.

The thick stack of papers had been turned over inside the cabinet. They now lay face down, and the rubber band that had once been around them was now gone. It would later be found inside Kane’s overcoat pocket, alongside his trilby hat.

Ned Buckley warned Miranda away. “Don’t touch anything!”

“You touched the grate,” she said.

“That’s different. I’m a police officer.”

“Chief,” said Miranda. “You are the chief, not a bushel. One does not hide one’s light in such a manner, remember? Live bushel-free, Ned! Bushel-free.”

She inched closer to the cabinet, but Ned stopped her.

“We should at least check that the entire manuscript is there,” Edgar said, his curiosity overcoming his discomfort at sharing a room with a corpse. “The last page, Ned. Can you check? Does it say fin—or The End or something—at the bottom?”

Ned checked. “Nope. The typing runs right to the end of the page, cuts off in mid-sentence.”

Edgar and Miranda crowded closer, but Ned shooed them back.

“Hey. Don’t jostle the body,” Doc said.

“The page number,” said Edgar. “What’s the number of that last page in the manuscript?”

Ned checked. It was 297.

“There’s a page missing!” said Edgar. “When the manuscript arrived, there were 298 pages. You said the typewritten text goes to the very end of the page. What does it say?”

Ned read the last lines out loud. “Trevor Lucas, the world’s most lethal ex-Navy shore patrol Korean War vet turned burglar for hire, stared at the woman across from him. ‘You want to know who was behind it? Every one of the killings? Every one of them, right from the start? I'll tell you who, and I’ll tell you now. It was—’”

And there it ended.

Chapter Eleven

Deputy Andrew on the Case!

Back 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.

From her days as Pastor Fran, Miranda knew that alibis could be chronological or physical. That is, an alibi via eyewitness accounts could place a suspect away from the scene of a crime at the time it occurred. If, at the moment of the murder, one were hobnobbing with supermodels, say, as was often the case with the villains on Pastor Fran Investigates (nice guys never hobnobbed with supermodels, only bad guys did; that was a fundamental rule of network TV; ditto with champagne glasses: anyone seen swirling a champagne glass at a reception was a de facto villain), it precluded one from having taken part in said murder. Likewise, if someone were attending an auction for orphans (not auctioning off orphans; an auction for orphans), as the wrongly accused so often were on her show (to go by Pastor Fran Investigates, there were more charity auctions per orphanage than there were actual orphanages), that fact might allow them to elude false arrest. Those were examples of chronological alibis. But physical clues could also provide either an alibi or proof of guilt. A parking ticket in one’s jacket, time-stamped miles away while the murder was occurring, for example. Or if one’s leg were in a cast and the murder required leaping from a building. These were examples of physical evidence providing an alibi. Of course, such evidence could also incriminate a person. How many telltale discarded matchbooks had Pastor Fran come upon over the years? Half the suspects on her show seemed to be either exonerated or incriminated by discarded matchbook covers. (Men of that era were just dropping matchbooks everywhere, apparently.) But could a lack of physical evidence provide an alibi? A lack of footprints, for example. Could that eliminate a suspect?

The absence of evidence did not prove evidence of absence! Miranda Abbott knew this (it was practically axiomatic), but just as equally, absence of evidence did not indicate absent evidence by its lack of presence! And if the absent was present, then the presence itself was not!

Where was Andrew, anyway? He really should be writing this down, she thought.

Oh, right. Her newly deputized personal assistant was taking statements from the locals and then ushering them toward the front door, where they gathered their jackets and assorted accoutrements.

How can you shoot an arrow through a closed window?

The answer? You can’t.

Pastor Fran Investigates had employed its fair share of locked-room mysteries over the years. Were any of those applicable? Penny Fenland had waded through many of those scripts during her time as a reader for the show. Perhaps she would recall something similar.

Miranda waited until Penny had finished giving Andrew her statement, then called her to one side. “Penny, dear. About the show . . .”

Penny’s eyes widened. “You know?”

“Know what?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. I was going to tell you after the reception, just the two of us toasting our good fortune over a bottle of wine, but then—well, this incident does put a damper on things. Is it wrong that I’m excited anyway? Should I still be excited when one of my fellow writers has just been killed? Am I a bad person?”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Miranda asked.

“The show.”

“Yes. Pastor Fran Investigates. My show.”

“Oh, I thought you meant . . . my show.”

And that was how the news came out, inadvertently and suddenly, like an avalanche. Earlier, Miranda Abbott had been searching for a sign, an omen, and one had just been delivered.

“Netflix is all in. They’re going to mount a full production of the Eastern Township Mysteries! But we’re swapping out the genders of the two lead characters this time, making Inspector Le Gnash a woman and Sergeant La Flamme a man. Le Gnash was always my alter ego, and you know how stumped I’ve been, trying to adapt him for the screen. Once I swapped that out, everything made sense. Everything worked.”

“How wonderful!” said Miranda, missing the point.

Penny gave her a Don’t you see? look, and when Miranda still didn’t clue in, she said, “We want you to play the lead. A female Inspector Le Gnash. You’d be perfect for the role.”

“Oh. An audition?”

“Not an audition, an offer. I’m one of the executive producers, so they have to run the casting past me. You were one of my conditions. If we make Inspector Le Gnash a woman, she has to be played by Miranda Abbott.”

“Oh my.” Miranda felt flushed. “The lead role? In my own series?”

“A pilot, followed by an initial order for twelve episodes, with an automatic pickup for a second season if all goes well, to be filmed in LA.”

“LA?”

“The exteriors would be shot in New England, standing in for Quebec. Everything else would be in LA. Burbank, more specifically.”

“So I would have to leave Happy Rock?”

“Of course!” Penny looked around her. “I Only Read Murder is a remarkable place, Miranda. It is. But in the end, this is really Edgar’s bookstore, isn’t it?”

Miranda’s voice went quiet. “I’m the . . .” But she couldn’t finish the sentence. Like her marriage, Miranda’s co-ownership of the bookstore existed more on paper than in fact. A technicality. A rounding error.

“We’d be working together! You can move back to Hollywood and be famous again.” Penny caught herself. “Not again. Still. But now even more so. You get the picture.”

“I do. Fame, as I’ve always said, is two sides of the same coin.”

Escape velocities . . .

Edgar would later ask her, “What were you and Penny talking about?” and Miranda would say, “Nothing.”

But they hadn’t been talking about nothing; they’d been talking about everything.

And she would ask Edgar, “If I stepped back from my life . . . in the bookstore. Would it make things easier for you? Or harder?”

But Edgar would deflect. “Nothing ever gets ‘easier’ in the book trade. You know the joke about the owner of a bookstore who wins the lottery. They ask him what he’s going to do with all the money, and he says, ‘Oh, I suppose I’ll just keep running the store till it’s gone.’”

In some ways, Miranda had won the lottery. The only question was whether she would cash in and cash out. Or carry on.

Meanwhile, tensions were rising in the room. The locals were getting antsy. The authors, surly. Wanda Stobol was shoveling chewable antacids into her maw, Lachlan Todd was pacing like a caged ferret, Ray Valentine was watching everyone with a hostile eye.

The ever-intrepid Scoop Bannister, meanwhile, had pinioned Inez Fonio in one corner, notepad out and pen at the ready.

“So your new character is essentially just Sherlock Holmes?” said Scoop.

A glare from the black-lipped one in her stark white dress. “Not in the least. My cadaverous creation, my hellacious creature of the night—Detective Frankenstein!—has been assembled from the greatest fictional characters of our times. He has the eyes of Dupin, the hands of—”

“Yes, but the brain is from Sherlock Holmes, so . . .”

“My detective has the girth of Poirot, the—”

“But the brain of Holmes. Your character is basically just Sherlock Holmes in a mismatched body. That’s what matters, right? When it comes to being a detective. The brain?”

A look of doubt had crept into Inez Fonio’s eyes. The tattoo under her eye began to quiver. “I wanted to write about vampyres again, but my agent said vampyres are passé, so . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Owen comforted her with a squeeze of the shoulder. “Frankensteins are way cooler than vampyres, if you ask me.” He shot Scoop a glance. Why are you hounding her with your relentless queries?

“Thank you,” Inez whispered.

“Rice,” Scoop said brightly.

“Rice?”

“Your name, Fonio. It’s sort of a type of rice. Right?”

“No, it’s completely different!”

(Later Scoop would note that Penny Fenland’s surname was simply a variation of “Marsh,” and would receive a similar response: “No, it’s not the same. A fenland is far edgier than a marsh.”)

“And wasn’t Frankenstein the name of the doctor, not the monster?” Scoop asked.

“Can you wrap this up, maybe?” Owen asked.

“Sure thing. Finally, Ms. Fonio—and don’t feel you have to answer this if you don’t want to—but, in your honest opinion, would you say, before the murder happened, of course, that a good time was being had?”

“A good time?”

A dangerous question, to be sure! Owen whispered frantic advice in Inez’s ear.

“Um, yes?” she said.

“Excellent.” Scoop wrote that down. “By all?”

“I suppose.”

“Perfect!”

Scoop Bannister had got her story.

Chapter Twelve

Motives for Murder

When your mind is vexed by questions imponderable—questions such as “Should I return to Hollywood in triumph to become a celebrated TV star, working in the craft I love and longed for, to resounding acclaim and adulation, or should I run a bookstore in Happy Rock, Oregon?”—sometimes the best thing to do is to distract yourself with other, equally perplexing questions, such as “How can someone be killed by an arrow inside a locked room?”

Miranda’s thoughts returned to the shed on the far side of the yard. The transom in the reading room could have been rigged to close after the fact, some sort of time-release mechanism, no doubt. But that didn’t answer the problem of the flower bed and the lack of footprints outside the window.

Unless . . .

“Edgar, dear,” she said. “Andrew is busy and I need an assistant.”

Edgar, still shaken by the body in the reading room, said no, until she explained that this would involve going outside.

“I’ll clear it with Ned,” he said, grabbing his corduroy jacket.

I swear to god, thought Miranda, that man is single-handedly keeping the corduroy industry afloat.

The air outside was a balm, cooling and calm and clean. You won’t get air like this in LA! But Miranda shook the thought free, focused on the task on hand instead.

“Shed is locked,” said Edgar as they crossed the yard. “I locked it today, in fact. After Owen’s rope went missing, Ned put out an emergency alert warning of a possible serial stealer on the loose. Of course, if he knew murder was on the menu . . .”

“‘The Case of the Counterfeit Chef’!” she cried. “I loved that episode. We spent five days at a culinary school shooting that one. Oh, the desserts!” Not as good as Bea’s, though! But again she shook her mind clear.

The shed was very much still locked. No ladder lying about. No sign someone had climbed onto the roof with a crossbow.

“Edgar,” said Miranda. “Look.”

There, in a muddy patch in front of the shed, was a single footprint. A man’s shoe. Size: small. A man’s shoe with a heavy, unnatural heel, the type of print made by someone wearing lifts.

“I do believe our diminutive mystery author, Mr. Fairfax Hughes DePoy III, has been creeping around our backyard,” said Miranda. “I shall need to speak with Mr. DePoy to find out why.”

“Ask Harpreet,” Edgar said. “She was mooning over him all night, barely let him out of her sight.”

Miranda hurried back inside, catching up to Harpreet just in time. Harpreet was at the front door, pulling on a quilted coat with the help of her husband, Tanvir.

“Wait,” said Miranda. “Harpreet, I need to ask you about Fairfax. I don’t see him anywhere.”

Tanvir rolled his eyes, almost audibly. “That fellow,” he muttered. “Very rude. He did not even try my wife’s chai, and her chai is the best chai of all the chais in the Tri-Rock Area.”

Miranda stumbled on this. “Chai?”

Harpreet tried to brush it aside, but her feelings had clearly been hurt. “His chai went cold.”

“Cold?” This was beyond venial. Letting your chai get cold was a mortal sin.

“The chai I prepared. I made it especially for Mr. DePoy. He left it on the counter in the kitchen and never even tasted it. I wanted him to try it with Bea’s cobbler. A good combination. But it was not to be.”

“You haven’t seen him since?”

“It is fine,” she said. “I do not need his praise. I have something better than Mr. DePoy. I have Tanvir.”

With beaming hubby in tow, Harpreet departed into the night.

“Why do I think it’s going to be a romantic night at the Singh house tonight?” Miranda mused.

Bea Maracle was now pulling on her own down-filled jacket.

“Bea, have you seen Fairfax DePoy tonight?”

“Only from across the room earlier. Harpreet kept telling me ‘You’re the secretary-general of our fan club, Bea. You should bring him a serving of your peach cobbler in person!’ But I couldn’t find him anywhere. He had already gone.”

“Gone by 8:16 p.m.?” Miranda said. Right when the murder occurred. Had a literary feud finally turned deadly?

Bea pulled on her mittens. “Do you have your keys?” she asked, ever the concerned landlady.

“We do, thank you. Andrew and I may be back late, so please don’t wait up for us.”

Bea looked past Miranda to try to catch Ned’s eye to say good night, but he was preoccupied with the investigation.

“I won’t bother him,” she said. “Thank you, Miranda. It was a lovely evening. Except for the dying.”

That single footprint across the yard, facing away from the house. Miranda needed to confront Fairfax DePoy. But where was he?

She asked everyone she passed if they’d seen him. No one had.

“I think he was talking to Ray Valentine,” the publicist suggested, but Ray denied that.

“I didn’t see him. Ask Wanda.”

But Wanda sent her to Penny, and Penny sent her to Inez, and Inez sent her back to Sheryl Youngblut.

The mood in the bookstore was growing crankier by the moment.

“How long you gonna keep us cooped up here?” Wanda wanted to know as she shoved ever more antacids into her mouth, chasing them with a fistful of pink pills, which she then washed down with a glug of booze from the bar table.

She’d practically polished off an entire bottle of ouzo on her own, was now fighting with the cotton wad in a freshly opened pill container. Miranda deftly slid the liquor out of her reach, felt a tingle on the nape of her neck. Was Wanda as drunk as she seemed, or only as drunk as she pretended to be? There was something going on here beyond ulcers. Fear, perhaps. Or knowledge. Guilty knowledge.

Happy Rock’s Chief of Police, meanwhile, was deep in discussion with his newly appointed deputy over the quality of the statements his deputy was providing.

“Andrew, you have to be objective. No editorializing. Just write up what they said and have them review it and sign off. It’s not rocket science.”

“Who’s editorializing?” Andrew wanted to know. “Everything in those statements is true.”

“Come on, man. Look at this: STATEMENT: ‘I did not see Mr. Hamady exit the main room. I was waiting for the peach cobbler. Then I was eating the peach cobbler,’ he said nervously, his small, beady eyes darting back and forth, lips twitching suspiciously. VERDICT: HE’S LYING! That’s called embellishing. You can’t do that, Andrew.”

“But he was nervous!” Andrew protested. “And his eyes were darting back and forth.”

“You know full well that Atticus gets anxious in any situation that involves questioning. Plus, police witness statements don’t normally include a verdict at the end.”

Andrew’s voice dropped. “He’s hiding something. I know it. He was perspiring.”

“He’s always perspiring! It’s Atticus. Have you ever seen him in court? It’s even money whether he faints.”

Miranda pulled Ned away. “You have to come quickly. Fairfax DePoy has escaped.”

“Escaped?” said Ned.

“He has fled! Pursued by the most dogged hunter of them all.”

“Someone is hunting him? Who?”

“Guilt!” she cried. “He is being harried by his own conscience! Fleeing a veritable miasma of remorse over the murder of Kane Hamady.”

Ned looked at her blankly.

“A veritable miasma of remorse! I don’t know how I can put it any more clearly. Come, come. I will show you.”

She dragged Ned out the back door and across the yard to that single footprint in the mud.

“Whoever it was, looks like they were heading to the lane behind the shed,” said Ned. “Maybe down the hill, into town.”

“The guilty flee when none pursue!” said Miranda. “Fairfax’s flight is an admission, Ned.”

“If it was Fairfax.”

“The heavy heel, the small shoe size, the fact that Fairfax is the only author now unaccounted for. Who else would it be, Ned?”

He rubbed his neck. “You got me there. Let’s see if he went skulking anywhere else.”

They circled the bookstore slowly, entering from the front this time, having seen no other footprints on the perimeter. Not that it told them much: the yard was grass; the lane was packed gravel. If Fairfax hadn’t cut past the shed, he might have disappeared undetected.

“I could take one of our cruisers,” said Ned. “Search for him, try to flush him out. Problem is, this town of ours is a rabbit warren of lanes. And at this time of night, the headlights will tip him off. It would be like playing hide-and-seek blindfolded.”

As they entered the bookstore, Mabel Greene was departing, jacket on and accordion in hand. She growled to Ned as she passed, “Rein in yer deputy, captain. He all but accused me of covering up the screams of a dying man with—in his words—‘the unworldly wail’ of my instrument. Harrumph. Next time he stops by the Cozy Café, I’m charging him double and giving him half.”

“Andrew is just a bit keen,” Ned said as Mabel stormed past them into the night.

An interesting word, keen. It could cover up a myriad of other motives. Geri was keen; so was Gerry.

“How well do you know them?” Miranda asked. “That new couple from Portland, the ones who run the B&B at Hiram Henry House?”

“How well does anyone know anyone?”

“It’s not an existential question, Ned.” She was an actor; she knew about existential questions. Whether she was playing Irina Prozorova in Chekhov’s Three Sisters or a karate-chopping, bikini-wearing church pastor on network TV, existential questions spoke to the crux of a character’s motivation. “It would appear that the overtly gregarious Geri and Gerry have inserted themselves into this author festival rather forcefully.”

“Naw. They’re just enthusiastic.”

“Keen?”

“Exactly so. The same way Andrew is keen to help me, they’re keen to be part of the community.”

“You do know they are Bea’s competition?”

Ned turned and looked at Miranda. “Competition? No one is Bea’s competition. Bea is one of a kind. I’ve known her since—”

“Yes, yes. Since you were in middle school together. I know, I know. I’m only saying, between the two of them, Geri and Gerry practically had the run of the place this afternoon. No one was tracking their movements.”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you saying, Miranda?”

“It’s probably nothing,” she assured him. “Unless it isn’t.”

Ned changed the subject. “Here’s a question. If you were on the run, at night, in a town you didn’t know, where would you go? What would be your first instinct?”

“Where would I go? That’s an excellent question, Ned. I imagine the first place I would head to would be my room, to gather up my belongings and run.”

And now it was Ned who was running, or as close to that gait as he ever came. He barreled down the hall, hollering, “Officer Holly!”

“What is it, Ned?”

Having fingerprinted everyone, Holly was now taping a large X across the closed door to the reading room. The room—and the body inside—were now officially off-limits until further notice.

“Grab yer gear,” said Ned. “We gotta go!”

As they swerved out from the bookstore in their patrol cars, lights flashing, Andrew Nguyen—Deputy Andrew Nguyen!—unexpectedly found himself in charge.

The vacuum of silence that followed was palpable.

The locals had mostly gone. Mabel, Bea, Harpreet and Tanvir. Doc Meadows had left for the morgue, to fill in paperwork and arrange for collection of the body. Owen had departed with a vaudevillian wink and eyebrow-bobbing grin thrown Inez’s way. As subtle as a bag of cement dropped from the fourth floor, our Owen. But Geri and Gerry were still there, cleaning up. Scoop Bannister was hanging back, notepad at the ready, and the tongue-tied attorney Atticus lingered on.

The rest were out-of-towners: the four remaining authors from the festival (the macabre Inez Fonio, the professorial Ray Valentine, the statuesque Penny Fenland, and the formidable—and formidably drunk—Wanda Stobol), plus the gate-crashing Lachlan Todd and the perpetually frazzled publicist Sheryl Youngblut.

Trouble began almost immediately.

“Where’s Fairfax DePoy?” Ray demanded. “How come we’re stuck here and he’s not?”

“Yes,” said Penny. “Where is Fairfax?”

“Who knows, who cares?” mumbled Wanda.

Inez asked, “Can we see the body?”

Andrew: “No.”

“Not even a peek?”

“Why would you want to see the body?” Andrew asked.

“To read his dying aura,” she explained, as though this were the most natural thing on earth. Why else would one want to see a dead body? “Perhaps clues to his death are present in the shimmering afterglow of his soul’s departure.”

“No one is reading anyone’s aura,” Andrew insisted. “You heard what Ned said.”

Before he’d left, Happy Rock’s police chief had told everyone to sit tight. “Any questions, Deputy Nguyen will handle them.” But as a whispered aside to Andrew, he’d added, “We can’t hold them here indefinitely. If they get querulous, stall.”

“Deputy, are you detaining us?” Ray Valentine wanted to know.

“Don’t have to answer that,” said Andrew, erroneously.

“I’m sorry, but that is a fair question,” said Penny Fenland. “Are we being detained?”

Channeling his inner Miranda, Andrew straightened his shoulders, raised his chin, and said with abject confidence, “We are not not detaining you. And you are most certainly un-free to not go.”

Miranda beamed at her protégé. “You are doing wonderfully well, Andrew.”

Wanda, loud on medication and martinis, said with a raw guffaw, “Get Compendium Cathy on the case!”

“Our Chief of Police and his able officer Holly Hinton have things well in hand,” Miranda assured them.

Edgar was more worried about his golden Lab. He’d taken Emmy back upstairs, complaining all the while about the undue excitement, and had come back down with a sour look.

“Trapped in a bookstore with a bunch of disgruntled authors,” he said to Miranda. “One of Dante’s levels of Hell, I’m sure.”

Even worse, no one had bought any books.

Leaning to one side to better eye the co-owners, Lachlan Todd curled his mouth in what was presumably meant to be a smile. “A long way from the writers’ room in Burbank for you two,” he pointed out.

Do I tell him? Miranda wondered. Do I tell him, Actually, darling, I have been invited back—to LA, to Hollywood! Do I tell him that solely to score a point? The old Miranda would have twisted the stiletto in Lachlan’s side. But Happy Rock Miranda was more understanding of people’s foibles. This was, after all, a town inhabited almost completely by eccentrics. A former locked-room mystery writer who shows up uninvited to a party? That hardly registered. Plus, what would Edgar think when he found out about Penny’s offer? She wasn’t ready to know.

With Fairfax AWOL and the police having scrambled their only two patrol cars, and this being a room filled with mystery writers, they’d already deduced that the officers were most likely on their way to their bed-and-breakfast to arrest DePoy, though Inez suggested that he might be crouching in a local cemetery instead, “communing with the creatures of the night.”

“Gimme a break,” said Wanda.

“All I’m saying is that the police should be following every avenue,” Inez snapped back. “This isn’t some second-rate children’s story.”

“My nine-year-old detective’s tales make more sense than your pseudo-mystical nonsense, full of portents and omens and the occasional cryptic message a dying person writes in their own blood. See: Ecclesiastes 1:1. Who could spell Ecclesiastes correctly as they’re dying? Or alive, for that matter.”

“Philistine!” cried Inez. “If you were more liturgically literate, you would know that Ecclesiastes 1:1 refers to a priest, unnamed, who is also the son of David, King of Jerusalem. The killer’s name was Dave. Don’t you see?”

“Why not just write that?” said Wanda. “If you’re dying, why not simply write Guys! It was Dave! in your own blood, rather than come up with the whole secret message rigmarole. Why so cute about it?”

Amid such rising incriminations, Miranda noticed the publicist slip into the hallway. Miranda followed her around the corner to the reading room, wherein dwelled the corpse of Kane Hamady.

The door was closed, but despite the yellow police tape that crisscrossed it, Sheryl Youngblut tried the handle. It started to turn . . .

“You can’t go in there,” Miranda said, and the publicist jumped. “My friend Tanvir, most regrettably, had to destroy the mechanism in order to get in, so the reading room can no longer be locked. But it has been sealed off with police tape, as you must certainly have noticed. Until Mr. Hamady’s body has been removed and the forensics team from Portland has gone through the room inch by inch, this area is strictly off-limits, I’m afraid.”

“I was just—I was checking the door to see if it was secure. I wanted to ensure the manuscript was safe.”

A smile from Miranda. “It is.”

“No . . . pages missing?”

Miranda’s smile grew thin. “Why would you ask?”

“Wanted to make sure it was still, you know, intact. If it is a lost John D. Ross novel, you wouldn’t want any of it going astray.”

Astray? An interesting choice of words. How did a page from a manuscript “go astray”? Miranda wondered. Do I tell her that the last page is indeed missing? Better not to.

Instead, Miranda escorted Sheryl back to main room, where G&G, having packed up their ornate serving trays and tablecloths and various floral arrangements, were asking Andrew whether they could “run it all back” to their B&B.

“It’s been such a long, long—”

“—night,” said Gerry. “And we really should be—”

“—getting home,” said Geri. “Before the—”

“Trout tartare—”

“—spoils,” said Geri.

To Miranda’s chagrin, Andrew was considering their request. True, Ned had told Andrew to let the locals go, and though new in town, Geri and Gerry were technically locals, but still.

As Andrew was about to give his assent, Miranda stepped in. “We need to wait for the all clear, Geri. Mr. DePoy might well be hiding in his room at your inn. Chief Buckley and Officer Holly have gone there to check.”

Standing nearby, Ray Valentine peered at Miranda over the top of his rimless glasses in that lectern manner of his. He wanted to know why Fairfax would kill Kane. “It seems clear Fairfax did it, but for what reason? They had their disagreements—but murder?”

Penny replied, “Why does anyone kill anyone? As purveyors of death, you know very well that there are only four basic motives for murder: love, fear, greed, and insanity.”

With her contempt for cozies clear, Inez said, “Maybe in your world, but you missed one: anger. And its cousins: vengeance, justice.”

“I would argue that unbridled anger is a form of madness,” said Penny. “Thus, it falls under the category of insanity. Any psychologist will tell you that a hunger for vengeance can become an obsessive disorder.”

“Not buying it,” said Ray. “Too general. By that logic, one could argue that any murder is a manifestation of insanity.”

“Perhaps it is,” said Penny.

“And what of justice? Or retribution?” Inez shot back. “Is a demand for justice a form of madness, too?”

“That’s not what she said. You’re putting words in her mouth.” Ray frowned his disapproval at Inez.

“Such a gentleman,” said Inez. “Stepping in to defend the queen. Tell me, where do you get your ideas from, Ray?”

This caught Miranda’s attention. She remembered the flinty-eyed man at the Q&A who’d asked the same question of Mr. Valentine, and how flustered Mr. Valentine had become.

“Who would want to kill Kane, anyway?” said Inez. “Abel aside.”

“Ask Fairfax,” said Ray. “Once they catch him, we’ll know. Doesn’t take a genius to work it out. Kane is dead, and Fairfax is missing.”

Inez turned her attention to Wanda Stobol. “Now, if it had been you who was murdered, we would have no shortage of suspects. Who wouldn’t want to kill you?”

Ray continued, “Even the murder weapon points to Fairfax.”

“Ha!” It was Wanda, deliberately ignoring the Maven of Malice. “If I put that in one of my kids books, my editor would say, ‘Li’l too convenient, don’tcha think?’ Not that anyone dies in Compendium Cathy. But a writer whose hero rides into battle with a crossbow in each hand? Killing someone with a crossbow? Was he trying to get caught?”

“Maybe he was . . .” said Penny. Something was on her mind, Miranda could tell.

“What are you thinking?” Miranda asked.

“Oh, it’s—it’s probably nothing.”

Before Miranda could follow up, Lachlan Todd piped in. “It could’ve been an imposter.”

They groaned. “Come on, Lachlan. It was Fairfax, not a body double. We’ve known him for years.”

Lachlan was not dissuaded, however. “Does anyone know if Fairfax had a twin—preferably evil?”

“Hack,” Wanda mumbled under her alcohol-soaked breath.

This was the single greatest insult one could hurl at an author, and Lachlan was instantly upset. “A hack? Me? You write books for children.”

“Better than novels written by children,” Wanda snorted.

“Take that back!” said Lachlan. “Take that back or I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

“What? Kill me? Gonna lure me into a locked room, are ya, Lachlan? Murder me with poison, a single drop of arsenic running down a thread as I’m sleeping on my back with my mouth conveniently open, or maybe an anvil suspended by a rope lit by a candle?”

“Enough,” said Ray.

Edgar agreed. “I’ve had all I can take of this,” he said. “I’m going upstairs to pat my dog.”

Miranda caught him before he could go, pulling him aside. “Edgar, do you remember that episode of Pastor Fran Investigates, ‘The Case of the Purloined Painter,’ I think it was called?”

Edgar tilted his head. He could almost see where she was going with this.

“The one where the killer’s footprints went across fresh paint on the floor of a hospital,” she said, “and then disappeared into thin air.”

“Oh, right. That one. Why they were painting the floor of an active hospital ward was never clear, even to me. And I wrote the damned thing.”

“Was that one of yours?”

“Sadly, yes. That was season six, I believe, when I’d used up all my ideas.”

“There was only one set of footprints in the paint,” Miranda reminded him. “And there were no footprints going in, only out. I was undercover as a nurse.”

“A sexy nurse,” Edgar amended, though that went without saying.

Every time the show sent Miranda into a hospital, the producers always wanted her in a tight, miniskirted nurse’s outfit, which don’t exist in the real world and had to be tailor-made for her.

“How a medical practitioner would effectively minister to their patients while wearing heels and a push-up bra was beyond me,” he said.

“Yes, but do you remember the solution to the mystery?” Miranda asked. “There was a secret passage! Behind the hospital bed.”

“Yeah, that was my go-to as a writer whenever I wrote myself into a corner,” Edgar confessed. “Just add a secret panel. But there are no secret panels in the bookstore reading room. As I said to Ned, when I renovated, I stripped it down to the studs. Had there been a hidden passage, I would’ve found it.”

“Are you certain there wasn’t one?” she asked. “Or perhaps the one that wasn’t there—was!”

A secret panel that isn’t—but is? What the hell was she talking about?

“Edgar! To the furnace room.”

Chapter Thirteen

The Telltale Toothpick

The basement of the bookstore was somehow musty and dry at the same time. Dank smells and the taste of dust in the air. A listing stairway, held together more by good intentions than actual carpentry, led them down in a steep descent. Low ceilings and slab walls. The only light was from a naked bulb above and the boiler fire below. The Monstrosity, as the furnace had been dubbed, was a rumbling presence with its rattling vents and rust-jointed valves. Miranda could hear the strain and rasp of it as they came down the stairs. Edgar had said they’d be lucky if it made it through another winter. More expenses looming.

Crates were piled under dust as thick as dryer lint, the corners of the room clotted with shadow and cobwebs. In Pastor Fran Investigates, this was when the villains would emerge from the darkness. Miranda craned her neck to study the exposed beams of the basement ceiling. Jerry-rigged tin air ducts radiated out from the top of the furnace.

“Is that where the hot air flows through?” she asked.

“No. As I was explaining to Ned, we don’t used forced-air heating. It’s a traditional boiler and radiator system. Hot water is pumped out through the pipes over there, where it then circulates throughout the building and the various cast-iron radiators—though I do have some space heaters on the second floor; gets cold up there. It’s an old building and an old system. The vents you see are for air movement, not the actual heating. Boilers use ductwork to move the air, but it’s the radiators that, well, radiate the heat.”

“Which one of these connects to the reading room?”

Edgar pointed out a flat metal duct that ran along the ceiling. She was disappointed. It was too narrow for anyone to fit through.

“In movies, people are always crawling along air ducts,” she said.

“In movies, people are always outrunning erupting balls of fire as well, and clinging to helicopter rudders with their bare hands. Even if you could squeeze into that duct, it would never support someone’s weight,” Edgar said, pointing out the obvious. Once again, real life had failed to live up to that of TV and cinema.

Miranda stood directly under the duct, looking up.

“I can’t see the grate,” she said. “The one that leads into the reading room.”

“It’s covered by the tin.” The duct above them was screwed in and held in place by guy wires. “And anyway, the grate on the other side is made of heavy cast iron. Would be very hard to lift.”

“To say nothing of the fact that the edges of the grate were painted shut,” she reminded him.

He never had been much of a handyman, though he tried. Lord, how he tried. She remembered how proud he’d been of the wine rack he’d built in their Hollywood Hills home and how, in the middle of the night, when it had come crashing down, shattering into a lake of Château Mouton Rothschild and Cabernet Sauvignon, they had stood laughing at the sight. Laughing, mind you! Now he got angry when the mail was late.

“Would it have been better for you if I had stayed in LA?” she asked. “If I had signed the divorce papers, if I’d never come to Happy Rock?” If I left, she thought, if I accepted Penny’s offer?

“What? Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re here now, so what does it matter? Coulda, woulda, shoulda doesn’t mean much in the real world.” Then, gruffly: “I would’ve lost the bookstore if it wasn’t for you, would be living in a motel by now heating up Hungry-Man dinners on a hot plate. You saved me from the sort of life Lachlan leads, so I suppose I owe you for that.”

From Edgar, that was as close as one got to a declaration of undying gratitude.

Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and said, “Are we done down here?”

“I think so. Alas, it has proven to be a dead end. The grate in the floor above us is covered by an air duct.”

So much for a secret passage.

Then she saw it, lying on the cement floor, in the light of the naked bulb above: a single toothpick. On the dull gray, it stood out in its singularity. Miranda bent down, carefully retrieved it. Held it up to the light. It was red.

A cinnamon toothpick.

“It would appear that Mr. Hamady was down here in the basement,” Miranda said, “before he died.” A thought occurred. “Edgar, can you burn things in the furnace?”

“Not really. It’s a boiler, not an incinerator. There is no iron door that swings open into a fiery pit, like on TV.”

In Pastor Fran Investigates, hardly a tenement building’s boiler existed that didn’t have the bones of at least one person inside. Not that they ever showed the grisly charred remains; they were usually referred to in the form of visual synecdoche: a single femur standing in for the body as a whole, or occasionally a plastic skull held up Yorick-style.

“Not bodies,” said Miranda. “Papers. I keep thinking of that missing page from the manuscript, wondering what Kane did with it. Did they check his pockets?”

“Holly patted the body down fairly thoroughly. Went through his wallet. Didn’t find the last page of the manuscript, though in fairness she wasn’t looking for it. He might have tucked it into his sock or something. When Doc Meadows returns to accompany the body to the morgue, I’ll ask him to check again. That missing page didn’t vanish into the night on its own.”

Another thought occurred to her. “Pirates, Edgar? Any?”

“Complete sentences, Miranda, remember?”

“You know the history of Tillamook Bay better than I. Were there pirates?”

“Don’t think so.” Conversing with Miranda was like trying to dance with a kangaroo. “What does that have to do with—”

“Something I overheard Fairfax say, something about the ‘cutthroats of Tillamook Bay,’ and I thought perhaps in times gone by buccaneers and swashbuckling freebooters had once prowled these waters.”

“Oh, that,” said Edgar with a laugh. “You’ve always had a rich imagination, Miranda. He would have been referring to cutthroat trout. It’s a type of fish. A record for cutthroat on the Nestucca was set a few years back.”

“Hmm,” said Miranda.

Edgar said, “Perhaps we should go back up, see how Andrew’s doing.” The furnace had kicked in with a groan.

“Before I forget, I informed Sheryl Youngblut that she is not to enter the reading room under any circumstances. Stand firm, Edgar! I don’t want that flirty young publicist sidling up you, trying to inveigle access to the room.” Sheryl wasn’t actually flirty, but Edgar could be as susceptible as the next man. “She’s been acting strange.”

Edgar smiled at Miranda. Such a beautiful smile, and so rarely seen these days.

“Inveigling access? Miranda Abbott, I do declare. Are you worried that I wouldn’t be able to resist the blandishments of a slightly younger woman?”

“Well, she is pretty. In a vague, nondescript, unimpressive sort of way.”

“I promise, if Sheryl comes sliding in next to me, cooing in my ear, nibbling on my lobes, asking for access—whether to my heart or the reading room—I shall resist heroically with every fiber of my being. I’m a married man, remember?”

This set her back on her heels. A married man? So you admit it! Ha!

“I see flames,” Miranda said, trying to stay on task. She was referring to the orange glow cast on the floor. “If he rolled it up tightly, couldn’t Kane have fed the missing page into the furnace that way?”

“Through the gap? I suppose. But there are easier ways to get rid of a piece of paper. And why come down to the basement to do it?”

Not destroy, not burn. Get rid of. Edgar had inadvertently given Miranda the answer. It percolated through her free-range mind. The page was not destroyed; it had, as Edgar had said, vanished into the night.

“Kane opened the transom, not to escape, but to get rid of that page!” she said. But as soon as she said it out loud, her thoughts clouded over. “But there was no page lying on the flower bed outside, no footprints in the soil, no crumpled paper on the grass.

“Unless it blew away,” said Edgar.

He was keeping his eye on the toothpick Miranda was holding between her fingers. She had been gesticulating with it as though it were a tiny little pointer.

“You know that toothpick was in Kane’s mouth?”

“Oh. Right.” With a theatrical turn, she sailed back up the steep and creaky stairs. Some people made grand entrances; Miranda Abbott had mastered the art of the grand exit.

Cutthroat trout and vanishing pages from a lost manuscript . . . Did these intersect? Miranda was certain they did, but how?

* * *

IN LIEU OF a proper evidence container, Miranda placed the toothpick in a sandwich bag from one of the kitchen drawers, to a surprised look from Geri.

“Tidying up?” Geri asked.

“Indeed. One toothpick at a time,” said Miranda sunnily. Better not to let anyone know. She would hand the evidence over to forensics when they arrived tomorrow, though Miranda already knew who the toothpick belonged to: the recently deceased Kane Hamady. What she didn’t know was why it had been down in the basement.

As Miranda washed her hands in the sink, she pondered again the puzzle of the missing page from an unknown manuscript, and an open book shot through by an arrow into the chest of a dead man. It all fit together, she knew it; if only she could figure out how. Plus the ankles. There had been something about the position of Kane Hamady’s ankles that had seemed off. Ankles, arrows, and open books. It was enough to make a girl’s head spin.

When Edgar and Miranda returned to the main hall after their foray to the furnace room, Deputy Andrew was in trouble. Serious trouble. An insurrection was brewing, and he was struggling to contain it.

“Settle down, people!”

“What the hell is going on?” Edgar wanted to know.

“If only Ned had given me a badge when he deputized me! And a baton. Maybe some pepper spray. It’s like they don’t take my authority seriously,” Andrew hissed.

“You can’t hold us against our will!” Ray shouted. “I’m a cop. I know my rights.”

“A cop. Sure you are,” Wanda scoffed. “And I’m the Queen of Sheba.”

In response, Ray flashed his badge. “Retired, but still a cop. An active consultant with the LAPD,” he said, to major badge envy from Andrew.

“How come he gets to carry one?” Andrew asked Miranda. “He’s not even an active member of the force anymore.”

Nor was Ray the only angry author there.

“They whisked away the last of the booze before we could even drink it,” Wanda complained, firing an accusatory look Geri’s way. “What’s the point of sticking around now? I’m going back to our B&B. Call me a cab, preferably one that doesn’t smell of horseshit.”

“You can’t leave!” said Andrew. “Not till we get authorization from Chief Buckley and Officer Holly.”

Atticus, stammering, stepped forward to challenge the legalities of it. “Unlawful confinement. That’s—that’s unacceptable.”

“What are you still doing here, Atticus?” Edgar asked. “You can go anytime you want. You don’t have to stay.”

He blushed. “The authors have retained me as their legal representative in this matter.”

“Don’t you usually do real estate?”

“The law is the law is the law,” he insisted.

“But it’s not, it’s not, it’s not,” Edgar countered. “I hope they at least agreed to pay you a retainer.”

Atticus, chest out, said, “I have agreed to handle the case on a contingency basis. My fees shall be—shall be de-deducted from the final settlement as a percent of the award.”

“And what is 10 percent of zero?” Edgar asked. Facing the throng of authors, he said, “Be patient, everyone. Relax. Look around. Maybe buy a book. Or two. You are in a bookstore—one would think you’d be happy to be here.”

“A bookstore with a body in it,” Wanda pointed out.

“A dead body,” Lachlan added (redundantly).

“A dead body of a dear colleague and friend,” Ray Valentine noted.

But was he? Miranda wondered. A friend? Everyone seemed antsy over Kane’s death, but no one seemed particularly upset by it.

Penny Fenland had something else on her mind. She kept trying to make eye contact with Miranda, who knew what the question was: Are you coming to LA? And Why aren’t you more excited about it? We’re talking a starring role in your own series! The murder had taken Miranda’s mind off Penny’s incredibly gracious offer, but the offer was always there, nonetheless, in the background: To go or not to go. That was the question.

Ray Valentine’s professional demeanor, meanwhile, had given way to ire. “For the last time, you can’t hold us here!” he told Andrew. “We’re not under arrest.”

“Material witnesses,” said Edgar, cutting in. Edgar had written enough crime stories to know the law, or at least bluff his way through it. “You know full well, Ray, that a person can be detained without arrest for”—he made up a number—“Twenty-six hours. Atticus will back me up on that. Right, Atticus?”

Atticus, thrown for a loop, could only say, “That—that never really comes up on a real estate agreement.”

From the back of the room, Scoop said, “Can I quote you on that, Edgar?”

“Do whatever you like. Just make sure you add that I Only Read Murder will be having a sale on all Kane Hamady novels this weekend. Two for the price of one if you sign up for our loyalty program.”

Andrew: “We have a loyalty program?”

“We do now,” Edgar said from the side of his mouth.

In a sweep of satiny green, arms wide in full theatrical embrace, Miranda declaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen! Your attention, please. In the interest of harmony and work-togetherness, allow me to intercede on young Andrew’s behalf. I shall telephone our Chief of Police for an update on this matter, and I’m sure an equitable arrangement can be made.” These were the words Miranda’s agent often used when they were fighting with the network over residuals. Miranda held out her palm with a regal confidence. “Andrew, darling, your phone.”

Andrew dialed, handed it to Miranda, but then snatched it back as soon as Ned answered.

“Chief Buckley? It’s me. Deputy Nguyen. Listen. There’s a revolt on hand!”

Miranda could hear Ned’s response: “Stall.”

Cupping his hand over the receiver, Andrew turned his back to the others and whispered frantically, “I can’t. It’s way past that. Can I go to the station, get the riot gear?”

In the background, Officer Holly’s voice could be heard shouting “Clear!”

“We’re at the B&B,” said Ned. “No sign of Fairfax. You can release everyone as long as they promise to come directly back to their rooms. I don’t want them wandering around town, crossing paths with Fairfax before Officer Holly and I can flush him out.”

Miranda, leaning in next to Andrew, shouted, “Any sign of the crossbow?”

“Is that Miranda?”

“Bea said she would keep your salmon in tinfoil in case you get hungry tonight,” Miranda added.

“Salmon and crossbows?”

She took the phone from Andrew. “Unrelated, Ned. Do keep up, darling. Am I correct in assuming that we have yet to locate the murder weapon?”

“We? There is no we.”

“Hello? Hello?” She handed the phone back to Andrew. “I think he hung up.” Then, to her herself: “A crossbow is most unwieldy. Very bulky. Kane could have hidden one in his voluminous overcoat, but Mr. DePoy was dressed much more snugly and, it must be said, more fashionably than the late Mr. Hamady. If he did kill Hamady, how did Fairfax DePoy transport the crossbow to the bookstore without being spotted?”

“Maybe he planted it ahead of time?” said Andrew.

“He was on the lighthouse tour today. But the authors arrived yesterday. Hmm.”

“Can I tell the authors they’re free to go now?” Andrew asked, eyeing the mob as though expecting a full-blown mutiny at any moment.

But Miranda’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Andrew, do you recall Laurén Morocco—or was it Läuren Morocco?—the Gumshoe Debutante?”

“Your character’s recurring foe on the TV show.”

“Yes, Pastor Fran’s rival investigator. I can’t remember which actress was playing her at the time, but in one episode the Gumshoe Debutante had to fire a message across a parade ground using a crossbow, to alert the authorities before I could get to them, thereby pre-empting my victory and stealing my thunder.”

“I remember that episode! You caught the arrow in midair, foiling her plans. My mom was so upset with the Gumshoe Debutante, saying, ‘Why is she always one-upping Pastor Fran? She is a nefarious person!’ Quite impressed with your arrow-catching skills, though.”

“It was a prop, of course, with foam-tipped arrows, but even then it was very bulky and difficult to aim. So where is Fairfax’s crossbow, Andrew?”

“He threw it away as he ran, I would imagine.”

Scoop Bannister was interviewing the peeved authors while their legal advisor Atticus Lawson tried frantically to stop her. “No comment! No comment! Don’t talk to the press.” And Penny Fenland was still waiting for an answer from Miranda.

On Andrew’s announcement that he’d received an “all clear” from Ned to let them return to the B&B, Geri and Gerry immediately began ferrying trays and food containers to their Econoline van, while the publicist Sheryl arranged a taxi for the authors.

“We’ll see you back at BB&B!” said Gerry as his wife slid the van door closed.

As for the “taxi,” the smell arrived before the vehicle.

“God, no,” said Ray. “Not again.”

They piled back into the converted school bus of the Manure Transport & Tour Company and were trundled off down the hill toward Laurel Point. This left only Scoop Bannister and Atticus Lawson, and they departed soon after.

“I thought they’d never leave,” said Edgar. “What a night! I hope Doc gets here soon to collect the body. I won’t be able to sleep knowing there is a dead man in the bookstore.”

Miranda balked at this. “You slept through the LA earthquake, remember? Our house almost slid down the hill.”

“Your house,” he said quietly.

“It was our house, Edgar.”

“You paid for it. I just lived there.”

Years later, when the money and Edgar were gone, Miranda had rented a room in a run-down apartment building below the Hollywood Hills, where she could just see their former house cantilevered above. At night sometimes, the sound of parties would drift down . . . And now, here she was in Happy Rock. She shook off the feeling of the past tapping on her shoulder. The night had ended on an off note, muted and melancholy.

“I think it’s time we went home, back to Bea’s,” Miranda said to Andrew.

“If Ned asks for them, I’ll leave the statements I collected here on the table,” Andrew said, and he went to gather Miranda’s jacket and his own from the front closet.

“I’m sorry, Miranda,” said Edgar. “The comment about the house. That was uncalled-for.”

Uncalled-for, but true. Had Edgar ever felt at home in LA, even at the height of their success?

“May we borrow the Jeep?” she asked.

A vague wave of the hand gave his assent. He was lost in memories of his own.

Outside, the stars shimmered—faint and trembling, barely there. The tall stands of Douglas fir beyond the town were frosted with ice, ineffably beautiful and ghostly in the dark. The evergreens of Oregon vs. the palm trees of LA. Two trees, two worlds, one heart caught between them.

“Are you okay?” Andrew asked, hugging himself for warmth.

“I’m not sure,” said Miranda.

“You’ll drive, right?” said Andrew, still shaken from his earlier adventures with a stick shift.

“I shall!” said Miranda, hiking her jacket and gown as she slid into the driver’s seat. “But we aren’t going to Bea’s.”

“We aren’t?”

“Of course not! We have a killer to catch.”

Chapter Fourteen

What Will Become of Us?

In 1887, the itinerant fur trader and former costermonger Hiram Henry arrived in Tillamook Bay, having departed Louisiana for fresher pastures (or been chased out by an angry mob, depending on which historical source one consulted; the organizers of the town’s annual Hiram Henry Days naturally preferred the former). He arrived with a single Spanish coin, or picayune, in his pocket. From this coin, Hiram built his fortune as a newspaperman—that, and illegal fur trading, though this was never really highlighted during the Hiram Henry Days celebrations, either.

Having imported a printing press from the British colony in Victoria (the unpaid bill of sale and angry letters demanding payment are on display at the Tillamook Museum to this day), he first took up residence above his newsroom in the historic building that now houses the S.J. Fertilizer Supply Company, as owned by Melvin’s clan, the most pungent family in Happy Rock. (The standard joke being: from journalism to fertilizers, the building had been involved in shoveling manure for well over a century.)

Hiram would later build a handsome Edwardian home on the road to Laurel Point. Staid and symmetrical, elegant but not overly ornate, Hiram Henry House became a local landmark and point of civic pride, on par with the hotel and the Opera House. Two floors high, built of slate roofs and gray fieldstone, it was the last building on the road to the lighthouse, and tourist postcards often featured the two of them in the same frame: Hiram Henry House in the foreground, with the candy-striped lighthouse at Laurel Point in the background, or vice versa. The two seemed linked in the public eye, both by their proximity and by their appeal. It was a proximity that would soon turn fatal, though Miranda Abbott didn’t know this as she roared down the hill and along the curve of the bay in Edgar’s Jeep.

A partial moon shone on the water, the light at Laurel Point was turning, turning, and the road to Hiram Henry House was coming up quickly on the left.

Officer Holly’s patrol car, lights flashing on silent, was blocking the driveway, so Miranda was forced to pull onto the side of the road behind Gerry’s Econoline van, which had been parked under one of the few streetlights out here. If the owners of the B&B resented being blocked from their own drive, thus being forced to heft their supplies in from along the road, they didn’t show it.

“Hiya!” said Gerry when he saw Miranda and Andrew approach. He was carrying the last of the trays inside as his wife pulled the van door closed behind him.

“You’ve done a splendid job renovating this building,” Miranda said as she followed Gerry into the main hall. “I was wondering why you didn’t name it the Hiram Henry House B&B, rather than, well, BB&B.”

It was odd, having a Bea’s B&B and a BB&B in the same town.

“Oh,” said Geri cheerfully. “The extra B in our name stands for Better.”

The interior was awash with honeyed light. Parquet floors and elegant wainscoting. Walls lined with portraits and romantic landscapes, and antique furniture shoehorned in every which way. In the middle of the main hall, a grand stairway led to the rooms above.

Officer Holly was standing to one side, hands on her belt, keeping an eye on the front window. She was on edge, and understandably so; an author with a crossbow was out there somewhere.

“Hello, darlings!” said Miranda as she entered to a rousing round of indifference.

The authors had gathered amid the overstuffed leather chairs and superfluous lamps of the reception hall, and they went silent as soon as Miranda and Andrew entered. Miranda could recognize a cabal when she saw one. As an actor trying to make the transition from TV detective to serious film star, Miranda had been met by similar silence and strained smiles when she was being introduced to her fellow thespians.

Publicist Sheryl Youngblut had already retired for the night, which was understandable given the long day she’d endured.

The Maven of Malice, meanwhile, having gotten her fill of Owen McCune, was stretched out in her anemic glory on a Victorian-era fainting couch, her pale presence not unlike a character in an Oscar Wilde play, ennui personified, in the theatrical sense, the performative sense. Inez Fonio was, Miranda realized, acting.

“What will become of us?” she moaned. “Kane has perished. Who among us shall be next?”

Why would Inez say that? Who among us shall be next? But before Miranda could ask, Ned came into the room and said, “Miranda, what are you doing here? Go home.”

“And a fine good evening to you, too, Ned.” Even Miranda wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic. “Have we found the murder weapon, perchance?”

Ned pulled her away, out of earshot of the others. “Look. Andrew has been deputized. But you haven’t. Okay?”

“I recall helping you solve a previous murder—or two,” she pointed out.

“You’re an amateur sleuth, Miranda. I’m a professional. And I need you to step back. Okay?”

Andrew interjected, “If not Miranda, can you at least tell me? I mean, I am a fellow officer of the law.”

A sigh from Ned. “You’re not a police officer, Andrew. You’re a civilian deputy temporarily tasked with some paperwork.”

“Tomayto, tomahto,” said Miranda. “Andrew, darling—Deputy Andrew, darling—would you please inquire whether our stalwart Chief of Police has been able to locate the murder weapon yet?”

Andrew nodded, turned to Ned, and in his best Sergeant Friday voice said, “Chief Buckley, have we been able to ascertain the whereabouts of the alleged instrument employed by a certain person or persons as yet unknown, aka the perp, in regards to the alleged homicide of—”

“I heard the question, Andrew. And no, we haven’t located the crossbow. Nothing in Fairfax DePoy’s room, just the usual clothes and toiletries. His suitcase was still there. But maybe you can help me with this, Miranda. On the desk in Fairfax’s room there was a small pewter spoon—what looked like a spoon, but more decorative. Kinda like a tiny ladle. Next to it was a shallow candle. I thought”—he cleared his throat uncomfortably—“it might be some sort of drug paraphernalia. But inside this miniature ladle was what looked to be dried wax. I asked Gerry, the fella who runs this place with his wife, and he said, ‘Oh, that’ll be for sealing envelopes.’ Apparently, you melt the wax in the ladle by holding it over the candle, then drip it on the flap of the envelope and press a stamp into the wax before it cools. Seems an unnecessarily complicated way to seal an envelope, seeing how most already have glue, but I imagine that’s the idea, to be extra fancy about it. Why would he be sealing envelopes in his room? I saw no envelopes.”

“It’s not for sealing envelopes but signing books,” Miranda explained. “In lieu of an autograph, Fairfax would tip a dollop of the melted wax onto the first page and press his ring into it. His readers loved it. They would line up for hours to get one of those ‘signed’ books, apparently. Not something one could use on a red carpet, of course, when one’s fans are clamoring for one’s autograph.”

She had considered adopting this system herself but had discarded the idea as impractical. Were she ever to write her autobiography, though (she already had the title picked out: I Am NOT Pastor Fran! The True Confessions of TV’s Pastor Fran), she would use a similar system to personalize each book.

“Why not use a regular candle?” Ned asked. “He could let the wax drip onto the page directly, instead of adding those extra steps.” He clearly didn’t approve of this rigmarole.

“Regular paraffin wax would be too stiff when it dried. Would break off. The wax he uses will be softer, more pliable, will melt more easily and more smoothly. Beeswax, probably, with some colored emulsifying wax added for effect. Fairfax writes historical romances. It’s an affectation.”

“I see,” said Ned, giving a hesitant nod that suggested anything but. He didn’t see, not the point of it, certainly. “An affectation?”

“Like the vial of blood Inez Fonio carries around her neck.”

“Blood?” said Ned, taking notice. “Whose?”

“Hers.” Though, come to think of it, Inez hadn’t been wearing it when she came downstairs with Owen, back in the bookstore. Had she tucked it inside her shapeless dress? “What color was the wax?” Miranda asked. “In the pouring device?”

“Red.”

“And no stick of red wax nearby?”

Ned pushed back his police cap and chewed on this a while. “There wasn’t. Not that I could see. I’ll check again, but nope, I didn’t see any stick of wax on the desk. The only wax was in that little pewter ladle.”

Missing wax, missing blood . . .

“And Kane Hamady’s room?” Miranda asked.

“It’s next door to Fairfax’s. Nothing suspicious, far as I could see.”

“Except for the fact that the rooms were next to each other,” said Miranda, “with them being sworn enemies.”

“I don’t know about sworn,” said Ned. “Near as I could tell, they were frosty but civil. Ignored each other, for the most part. And anyway, I don’t figure they got to pick their rooms. Would’ve been assigned.”

“You describe their interactions as frosty but essentially civil. And yet Fairfax DePoy, by all evidence, killed Kane Hamady. It would seem their literary feud took a deadly turn. Is that still your working hypothesis, Ned, that Fairfax DePoy murdered Kane and then disappeared, leaving a single footprint on the other side of the yard?”

“You’re getting as bad as Scoop, pushing me to answer questions. I already sent her home. She came around here, saying ‘Freedom of the press,’ to which I said, ‘Obstruction of justice,’ and she said, ‘Okay, but if you do find something you can share, I’ll get an exclusive, right?’ and I said, ‘Seeing as how you’re the only press in Happy Rock, I imagine anything I give you will be an exclusive,’ and she said, ‘I’m holding you to it, Ned,’ so I said, ‘When did you get so tough? It’s usually just bake sales and walk-a-thons with you,’ and she said, ‘Exactly!’ Meaning, I suppose, she’s looking for something meatier. Long story short, anything comes up, she gets an exclusive.”

“That was most considerate of you,” said Miranda. “Now. A follow-up question . . .”

“I’m not answering any more questions, not from you, not from Scoop. This is an active police investigation and”—he pulled up his belt in an assertive gesture—“I will not be commenting further.”

“My question is unrelated to the investigation,” Miranda assured him.

Ned was dubious. “Really?”

“Yes. A question about fishing, nothing more.”

His shoulders relaxed. He smiled. “Hey, I didn’t know you were interested in fishing. Sure thing, ask away.”

“When one goes out and about on the Nestucca River, does one typically employ a harpoon gun?”

Ned’s gaze hardened. “Harpoon gun? Why do I feel this is related to the investigation?”

“I’m curious. Does one fish for trout with a harpoon gun? Mr. Hamady mentioned he had been to the Nestucca before, had fished for trout, and I imagine a harpoon gun could be converted readily enough so that it shoots an arrow. As I recall from a certain episode of Pastor Fran Investigates—”

“‘The Scuba of Suspense’!” Andrew shouted. “I remember that episode. You shot a harpoon through the villain’s oxygen tank! That was really smart of you. My mom cheered.”

“We filmed that in Lake Tahoe; the water was freezing cold. My lips were so blue by the end of it, they had to add extra waterproof lipstick to bring back the color. Mild hypothermia, the doctor on set concluded. Mild, the producers noted, and we kept on filming. I ended up in the hospital with not-so-mild pneumonia, but that’s beside the point. The harpoon gun we used for that episode was quite small. And light. Aluminum, I believe. It was, in fact, a real harpoon gun with the trigger removed. I recall the prop man arriving with foam-tipped arrows for it, and they had the feather fletchings trimmed down to fit inside the barrel. Viewers complained, of course. ‘You don’t use feathers underwater. It’s not aerodynamic.’ The fact that I wrestled an enormous rubber octopus in the same episode didn’t bother them, but the fletchings on the arrows did.”

Ned stopped her with a raised hand. “Are you suggesting that Kane Hamady was killed by a converted harpoon gun?”

“Kane Hamady had been fishing on the Nestucca River,” said Miranda. “Fairfax DePoy has also been fishing on the Nestucca. They were both there when the cutthroat record was set. A strange sort of coincidence, don’t you think, the two of them on the same river at the same time?”

“Coincidences are always strange, Miranda. That’s sort of the point of coincidences. And, to answer your question, nobody fishes on the Nestucca River with harpoon guns. I mean, it’s probably against some sort of bylaw. As much as I would like to continue discussing local fishing regulations, I need to confer with my officer about this little matter of a murder that we are investigating, so if you’ll excuse me . . .” He left to speak with Officer Holly on an under-the-breath “Sheesh.”

Miranda now sought out the ever-poised Penny Fenland. “Penny, dear. You mentioned the name of the company behind this writers festival—Middlemist. Why?”

“The name of a flower, isn’t it?” said Penny, smiling down at Miranda (she was a head taller at least). “The Middlemist’s red camellia is the rarest flower in the world. Only two in existence.”

“And?”

“Every John D. Ross novel features the name of a flower in the title. A treasure trove of first editions shows up, and Middlemist arranges an author event where one of the authors is killed—in a room full of John D. Ross novels. Coincidence? Possibly. But don’t you think it strange?”

Coincidences are always strange. “Perhaps.”

“You’re right. It’s probably nothing.” Speaking quietly so no one other than Andrew would overhear, Penny said, “Before I go to bed, I wanted to ask you if you’d had a chance to think over my offer. I would love to have you on board.”

There was definitely a “queenly quality” to Penny Fenland, in deportment and stature both. A long way from her days on Pastor Fran Investigates.

“I have a call with the producers tomorrow,” Penny told Miranda. “May I tell them that you’re at least considering it?”

“You may,” said Miranda.

“Wonderful!” Penny leaned in to give Miranda a hug. “Good night!”

As soon as she’d taken her leave, Miranda finally shared the news with Andrew.

He had only one question: “Considering it? Considering it? What is there to consider?” He continued, frantically, “It’s a starring role in your own series. Why would you even— Oh, wait. Is this a tactic? Are you playing hard to get?”

Miranda didn’t answer because even Miranda didn’t know.

“That’s brilliant!” said Andrew, assuming Miranda was being clever and canny, not conflicted and torn. “Make ’em come to you. I mean, they did come to you—but make them even more determined to have you sign. Everyone else is playing checkers, but you’re playing three-dimensional chess. I love it!”

Alas, not checkers, not chess, not even tic-tac-toe. She was caught in a game of solitaire with two mutually exclusive cards to play. Diamonds or hearts? LA or Happy Rock? And as for Edgar, her non-husband, her ex-husband, her still-as-yet-husband, was he the harlequin-esque joker, the wild card in the deck?

Deflecting the issue, Miranda refocused her mind on the matter at hand. “Darling, I think it is time we conversed with the other authors about their possible connections to the departed Mr. Hamady.”

On that, she pivoted, arms out in a perfect “It is I!” gesture . . . to a largely empty room. It was like coming onstage for another ovation after the audience had left the theater.

Chapter Fifteen

Luckless Lachlan Says Good Night

Perhaps worried that Deputy Andrew might force them to sit back down and expand on their previous statements, the remaining authors—Inez, Ray, and Wanda—had decorously slipped away to their separate rooms on the second floor, leaving only Luckless Lachlan behind.

“I thought you were staying at the Hideaway Motel,” Miranda said.

“What, I can’t hang out with my colleagues?”

“They’ve all gone to bed, apparently.”

He ignored her, pretended to be fascinated by a large, dour portrait of Hiram Henry that hung over the mantel.

“You’ve done a lovely job with this place,” said Miranda when Geri of the pink tracksuit appeared.

“Thanks! It took a lot of work just getting it up to code. It was a pretty big undertaking. It’s been very—” She waited for her other half to step in, finish the sentence, then realized that Gerry wasn’t there.

“Expensive?” Miranda offered.

“Yes! Beautiful, but expensive. Like owning a Pekingese. We even had to install outdoor stairs running along the back of the building past each room as a fire route, because—” She paused, again expecting her hubby to finish her sentence; when he didn’t, she pushed on. “—every room needs to have its own exit if you have more than five bedrooms in a commercial property. That’s the law! We tried to explain that the original Hiram Henry House didn’t have a fire escape, which might explain the Great Tragedy of 1892, and that by adding a back platform, although constructed with rustic wood and aesthetically pleasing, the building would be rendered historically—” She waited.

“Inaccurate?” said Miranda, filling it in for her.

“Exactly! But that’s the law! And the law is the law.”

Hard to argue with that.

Miranda thought about the attic she stayed in at Bea’s. No fire escape. Narrow stairs. One window that stuck when you tried to open it. A single blue spruce in the backyard. Worst case, Miranda could leap across to that, shimmy down. She’d jumped from enough windows as Pastor Fran that she figured she’d be up for it, even without a stunt double or a safety harness to save her.

“This entire arrangement is as lovely as a movie set,” said Miranda. “It’s like the location for a costume drama or an ensemble murder mystery.”

“Gee, thanks!” said Geri. “You should be our ‘celebrity in residence.’ Wouldn’t that be something? Gerry and I are big fans of your show about that crime-fighting lady priest. Would be a thrill to have you here. You could have your own suite! We wouldn’t even charge you for it.”

Get thee behind me, Geri . . .

The Better B&B was aptly named. It was so much nicer than Bea’s on every front, except one: it wasn’t Bea’s. A suite of her own at Hiram Henry House? The temptation dissolved as soon as it arose. Miranda Abbott was nothing if not loyal, and she would never betray her dear friend.

She gave Geri a tight smile instead. “Thank you for the invitation to live here amid these elegant surroundings. But I already have a suite—named in my honor, no less.” (The attic at Bea’s B&B had indeed been dubbed the Miranda Abbott Suite, even if it didn’t feature parquet floors, cut-glass chandeliers, and Tiffany table lamps. Or a proper fire escape.)

“I’m gonna run out of police tape at this rate,” Officer Holly muttered to herself when Ned sent her up to seal off Fairfax DePoy’s room on the BB&B’s second floor.

“Make sure everyone locks their windows,” he called as Holly trudged up the stairs, roll of yellow tape in hand. “Don’t want Fairfax attempting to re-enter via the fire escape.”

“Whatever you say, Sergeant Bosch,” she grumbled.

“Bosch is not a sergeant! He’s a detective, third class.” Ned knew his fictional police officers. He turned to his deputy. “I’ll have Officer Holly stay here tonight in case our suspect tries to return. Her mom has the twins tonight, so that should be okay. Meanwhile, I’ll prowl the streets of Happy Rock in my patrol car, see if I can’t catch Fairfax darting about, though I imagine he’s already left town.”

“Fleeing? Or afraid?” Miranda asked.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re assuming he’s running from the law and not away from the murderer.”

“By odds, he is the murderer. A feud reaching its bloody climax. You said so yourself, Miranda. If nothing else, Fairfax is certainly a person of interest, and the sooner we track him down, the better. Now. Deputy Andrew, do have your report? The statements you took?”

“I, uh, left those at the bookstore with Edgar.”

“You didn’t think to bring them with you?”

Andrew gave Miranda a sour look. “I didn’t know we were coming here. She tricked me.”

“That’s on you, darling,” she said. “It takes two to be tricked: the trick-er and the trick-ee.”

As Geri puttered about, adjusting throw pillows and straightening frames that didn’t need straightening, Officer Holly came back downstairs and Ned headed out.

Andrew yawned as a hint, but Miranda didn’t notice—or chose not to.

“A pen and paper, please,” she said, taking up a spot at the petite Queen Anne Revival escritoire near the front door. “A ballpoint will do, though at a decorative desk such as this, one feels quill and ink should be employed.”

“We have quill and ink,” said Geri, beaming, “if you’d like me to get it. We use it for invitations and handwritten calling cards.”

“Martha Stewart comes to Happy Rock!” said Miranda, but Andrew had already handed her a basic pen.

Officer Holly had taken up position on one of the B&B’s many sofas, was thumb-texting her mom. Lachlan Todd stood up and stretched. He’d made himself at home here, having hung his oversized jacket and ear-flap hat on the coat rack with an almost proprietorial air.

“I’m beat. Time for me to hit the sack,” he said. “Guess I’ll take Kane’s room, seeing as how he won’t be needing it. Key, Geri?”

“Um . . .”

Holly’s eyes had locked onto him. “Nice try, bozo. Kane’s room has also been sealed off. No one goes in.”

“But it’s not a crime scene,” he huffed. “And it’s a waste to let it sit empty.”

“Why are you even here?” Officer Holly wanted to know. “You’re staying at the Hideaway, right? Go back there, straighten things out with the owner. She called earlier, said your check bounced. I was meaning to talk to you about that, but, well, the murder got in the way.”

“A misunderstanding.”

“Sure thing, Lustig.”

An obscure reference, but one Miranda caught: a reference to Victor Lustig, famed conman.

Officer Holly glared at Lachlan. “But if you haven’t paid your motel bill by tomorrow, you will be evicted and held.”

“Lachlan, dear, if you need money . . .” said Miranda.

His eyes flashed with anger. “A handout? From Pastor Fran? Forget it. I made you! I’m not going to come to you, hat in hand, asking for scraps from your table. Look, if I’m not welcome here—”

“Stay or go,” said Officer Holly. “Doesn’t matter to me. But don’t even think about entering Kane’s room or Fairfax DePoy’s. They’re sealed. We have investigators coming in from Portland tomorrow to help, and I’m not going to have them rouse you from the deceased’s bed.”

Complaining that Holly was “tape happy,” Lachlan stormed off—or attempted to. The effect was lost as he struggled into his too-big jacket and pulled on his too-big fur-lined cap.

Geri, distraught, said, “Would you like me to run you down there, Mr. Todd?”

Head held high, he said, “I’m fine! I don’t need your charity.”

“But it’s a forty-minute walk, at least, to the other side of town,” Geri fretted. “And there are bears.”

Lachlan’s bravado faltered, but having committed himself, he said, “Bears? Ha. I fear nothing except the betrayal of others!” It was a line from Pastor Fran Investigates, Miranda was sure.

With that, he left. A billow of cold air accompanied his departure.

“Are there really bears in Happy Rock?” Miranda asked.

Officer Holly was dubious. “I’ve never seen any in town. There’s plenty up the Nestucca, especially during the salmon run. But here in Tillamook Bay? Chances are slim he’ll get eaten. Mind you, if his nickname really is ‘Luckless,’ I imagine anyone runs into a bear, it’ll be him. With that jacket and hat, they’ll probably let him pass, though, figuring he’s one of theirs.”

Miranda slid the paper she’d been writing on across to Andrew. It looked like the fight card for a boxing tournament.

“It’s a list of the various feuds at play,” she explained. “Kane vs. Fairfax was far from the only one.”

Andrew read it out loud:

Inez Fonio vs. Penny Fenland

Ray Valentine vs. Lachlan Todd

Wanda Stobol vs. the world

“Penny and Inez? Really?” said Andrew.

“The macabre vs. the cozy. Granted, it’s one-sided, but Inez has contempt for Penny, and I’ve witnessed Wanda snap at everyone at some point. As for Ray Valentine of the police procedural, he exhibited immense disdain for Lachlan’s outlandish plots, insisting that his own writing was grounded in ‘the real world,’ whatever that is.”

From across the room, Officer Holly snorted. “Ray Valentine? That guy? I can tell you one thing: he’s no cop. At least, not the way he claims.”

This raised an eyebrow from Miranda. “Do tell.”

“I was fingerprinting everyone. Usual procedure, have them clean the end of their fingers with an alcohol wipe, make sure there’s no grit or obstructions. You’d be surprised. Once, on a vandalism charge, I had a guy try to give his prints with a bandage covering his fingers. Sort of defeats the purpose, I told him.”

“Vandalism!” said Miranda. “Here in Happy Rock??” The double question mark of disbelief was evident in her voice.

“A pair of rival fly fishers. One of ’em was convinced the other guy had loaded his trout with weights to win the Spring Fling Fishing Jamboree. A scuffle ensued. The guy later removed the trophy from the case when no one was looking, wrote CHEAT across it in marker, and put it back in the club display. He cut himself on the edge while doing it, hence the bandages. This was before your time, Miranda. It made the papers. Or rather, paper. The Weekly Picayune ran a front-page exposé, laying the blame squarely on the local fishing commissioner. The fact that the local fishing commissioner is the ex-wife of The Picayune’s editor did not enter into it, I’m sure.”

“Scandalous!” said Miranda.

“It was. As for Mr. Valentine, when I was taking his prints, he tried to press down on the card, like he was stamping it, rather than rolling his thumb and fingers over it. I hadn’t explained it to him, ’cause I figured anyone who’s ever done any sort of criminal work knows how to take prints.”

“But he flashed his badge.”

“Yeah, flashed it. Didn’t show it. You get a good look at it?”

Miranda admitted she hadn’t. Her thoughts went back to the Q&A earlier in the evening, when the clammy-lipped man who worked at the Opera House had unnerved Ray Valentine.

“Have you read Mr. Valentine’s books?” Miranda asked.

“A couple of them. Not my cup of chamomile. I spend my days doing police paperwork, why would I want to spend my off-hours reading the same? His hero—big, burly Bill with a big, burly mustache—is no match for Compendium Cathy, if you ask me. Now that’s a sleuth!”

“Mustache?” said Miranda.

“Yeah, his LAPD lieutenant character has a handlebar mustache. The character was drummed out of the force for shooting a Boy Scout in the knee, repeatedly, while he was drunk and on duty, and has been trying to redeem himself since. Spends half his time in seedy bars, the other half in seedy nightclubs. Compare that to Compendium Cathy, who can solve anything with just an almanac, a bit of string, and some basic trigonometry. She’s amazing!”

The mustache. That was the key.

First thing tomorrow, Miranda would pay a visit to the Opera House, speak to the mysterious inquisitor firsthand.

Geri, meanwhile, was demurely hiding a yawn of her own behind the back of her hand. It was well past midnight. Time for Miranda and Andrew to finally head back to Bea’s.

The night might have ended there, but the horror was only starting. And it began with the single creak of a single step on the stairway in Hiram Henry House . . .

Chapter Sixteen

The Game Is Afoot!

In the stillness, that single creak took on a disproportionate weight. And when Miranda looked to the stairs, she saw the publicist standing frozen in mid-step, staring back at her with a feigned smile.

Awkward.

“Oh. Hello, Miranda. I didn’t know you were here.”

It would appear that, instead of going to bed, Sheryl Youngblut had decided to creep out of the B&B. She had her jacket on, was carrying her boots.

Miranda smiled up at her. “We were just leaving.”

“We?”

As Sheryl descended the stairwell, the presence of Officer Holly and Deputy Andrew was revealed.

“Holly has been posted here for the night,” Miranda explained. “But Andrew and I shall be on our way shortly. It has been a long and difficult night.”

“A police presence? Here at our B&B? Why?” Sheryl asked, as disingenuously as possible.

“Why?” asked Officer Holly, redundantly it was presumed. “Take a moment. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Oh, but I’m sure Fairfax won’t come back. And even if he does, he’s hardly a risk.”

Switching to Full Officer Mode, Holly said, “Ma’am, we have reason to believe that Mr. DePoy was involved in the death of Kane Hamady, and as we have not been able to ascertain the current location of Mr. DePoy, you are advised to stay indoors, with your door locked and the window closed, for your own safety.”

“I only wanted to step out and not have a cigarette. I quit smoking years ago, but when I’m under stress, the old yearning comes back.”

Bringing in a pot of Sleepy Thyme tea and biscuits for the police officer, Geri was surprised to see one of her guests. “Oh, Miss Youngblut, you’re still up! Is everything okay? Are the pillows too firm? Too soft? Too many?”

Distracted by Geri’s relentless hospitality, Sheryl said, “Pillows are fine, everything is fine, I was just—I was stepping out, only for a moment.”

“I would advise against that,” said Officer Holly.

Miranda, sitting down on the sofa nearest Holly, scooted over and patted the cushion next to her. “Come, Sheryl. Sit, sit. Geri has made tea. We can talk. You seem distressed.”

Defeated, Sheryl placed her boots by the door and joined them, still in her jacket even though she was going nowhere.

“It’s been a long day,” she said, and on this the others agreed.

A very long day indeed.

Geri poured the tea, and Sheryl said, with a weary weight, “One author dead, another on the lam, and a third who is currently tramping about in the snowdrifts of Canada.”

“Lawrence Block still hasn’t shown up?”

A tired shake of the head. “Was last seen on his way to Gladstone, Manitoba. Happy Rock, I told him. In Oregon!”

Miranda laid a sympathetic hand on Sheryl Youngblut’s arm. “You need an assistant, dear. It’s too much on your shoulders. I know I would be lost without Andrew.”

“Thank you,” said Andrew.

“Oh, but it’s true, darling. It absolutely is.” Regret came to Miranda’s eyes. “I remember the many personal assistants I had during my time on TV, how monstrous I could be. I never appreciated them.” Then, with sudden resolve: “You need to contact your employer. SR Promotions, is it? Tell them—nay, demand of them—that they hire you an assistant. Someone to share the burden.”

Sheryl’s gaze welled with tears. “You don’t understand. I am SR Promotions! There is no one else. It’s just me. I’m fighting to keep my head above water, and there is no one to throw me a lifeline. I’m on my own. SR Promotions? It’s a one-woman operation. Might as well be my name!” She closed her eyes, held her head in her hands. “It’s just me.”

“But it’s not you. It’s a company, and anyway,” said Miranda, “if it really were your name, it would have been SY Promotions.”

She looked up, confused. “SY?”

“Your name—Sheryl Youngblut. If it were your initials, it would be SY. What does SR stand for?”

“Uh, nothing. Nothing in particular, just random letters.”

“And Middlemist Marketing?” asked Miranda. “The other company named on the poster. They hired you?”

“In manner of speaking.” Sheryl’s voice grew soft. “I don’t really have a close relationship with them.”

Another creak on the stairs, heavier, less clandestine than Sheryl Youngblut’s, was followed by the clump, clump, clump of—

“Ms. Stobol!” said Geri. “Won’t you join us? We’re having refreshments.”

“Booze?”

“Tea.”

“Ah.”

The stocky Ms. Stobol settled herself into the settee across from Miranda. “Couldn’t sleep. Was thinking about our old friend Kane.”

“Nigel, you mean to say.”

They turned to look at Officer Holly.

She said, “When I checked his pockets, when I went through his wallet for ID, it seems Kane Hamady was his pen name. His real name? Nigel Hawthorne III.”

“Of course,” said Wanda, brusquely. “He was Nigel, but we knew him as Kane.”

“How undeniably odd,” said Miranda.

The oddity was not the name, but the numerical value attached to said name. Kane’s nemesis had been Fairfax Hughes DePoy III. What were the odds that two different authors would both be so-and-so the Third? It seemed astronomically small.

Wanda bristled. “What’s so odd about that? Authors often use pen names, especially with series novels. You think my name is really Wanda Stobol? Hell, I’m the sixth Wanda Stobol so far. We’re like 007. The players change, but the name remains. Oh, don’t look so shocked!” she said at Officer Holly’s shovel-smacked expression.

Holly’s bottom lip was quivering with a Say-it-ain’t-so, Joe expression. “But—but I read your books when I was a little girl.”

“No. You didn’t. You read Wanda Stobol’s books. Not mine. The series has been going since 1956. You really think I’ve been writing since then? I wasn’t born till 1972, so that would be a feat. The books you read were probably written by the fourth Wanda Stobol, what’s-her-face, the teacher from Maine. That would have been about when you were in middle school. You think Franklin W. Dixon wrote all those Hardy Boys books? There was no Franklin W. Dixon, only a series of ghostwriters hired by the publisher. Last time I checked, I think there have been nine different Franklin W. Dixons. And don’t get me started on Nancy Drew.”

With a waver in her voice, Officer Holly said, “I won’t have it. Not another word about Nancy Drew! I named my kids George and Nancy after those books.”

Miranda was worried Officer Holly might draw her service revolver on the obnoxious Ms. Stobol.

Wanda turned to the others. “Shall I give her the bad news about Santa while I’m at it?”

But then something dawned on Officer Holly. “Wait a minute. So the books I read when I was a child weren’t written by you?”

“Nope.”

Holly beamed. “You aren’t the author of Compendium Cathy. Not the Compendium Cathy I knew and loved. When did you take over the series?”

“Number 47, as I recall.”

“Good. I’ll read my kids the Compendium Cathy books only up to Number 46,” said Holly. “That way, you won’t enter into it.” It looked like a weight had been lifted from Holly. It was a gentle soul, the teacher from Maine, who had shaped her childhood, and would shape her own children’s childhood, not this bitter, pill-popping boozehound before her now. “You are absolutely right. You are not Wanda Stobol. Not the Wanda Stobol who was a beacon to me when I was young and unsure of myself. Not the real Wanda Stobol.”

Miranda recognized the mixed emotions that come from meeting someone you thought was your idol only to realize that they were, in fact, deeply flawed human beings like the rest of us and not demigods. Miranda herself had seen that look on many a fan’s face.

And now Penny Fenland joined them in the reception hall. She had come down in flannel pajamas and slippers, holding a piece of paper in her hand. She had a perturbed look on her face. “I thought I heard people down here,” she said. “Can anyone explain this?”

She held up the page. It had been ripped in half, and though she wanted to appear calm, Penny was clearly rattled by it.

“What is it?” asked Holly.

“A handwritten note. I found it under my door just now. It says virgin wolf.”

The tear in the page ran right along the end of the words.

“That was my nickname in high school,” said Owen McCune, coming down the stairs behind Penny, grinning.

“Owen!” said Miranda.

“What are you doing here?” Officer Holly wanted to know. “I thought you went home long ago.”

“I did, to get some stuff. Came in the back way,” he said. “There’s stairs to the second floor out in the rear, didn’t want to disturb anyone by barging in the front door. Inez had some questions about LOJIC, was thinking of joining, even though I did make it clear that our lodge is mainly bingo and potlucks, with very little worshipping of Satan and his minions. I thought I’d drop off some of our, uh, brochures.” His hair was even more mussed up than before, and dark lipstick was tattooed across his face like a panel in an Archie comic. His silk sash with the tassels had disappeared.

Inez followed moments later, breezily descending the stairs as she adjusted her skirt. “A conclave!” she said on seeing the gathering below. “Summoning the forces of darkness, are we?” She seemed to suppose that any midnight gathering was, perforce, a séance of some sort.

Officer Holly came over to look at the note Penny had brought down. “Wolves and virgin forest maybe?” she hazarded. “But there are no wolves in Happy Rock. Bears up in the hills, maybe, but no wolves.”

“Bears?” said Inez, perking up. “Fanged creatures of the night?”

“Shy bruins that want to be left alone.” Officer Holly studied the handwriting, held it up for the others to see. “Recognize it, anyone?”

It had been penned in blocky capitals, as though the person writing it were trying to hide their identity.

“Could this note be from Fairfax DePoy?” Officer Holly asked, pressing the matter. “Anyone?”

“Perhaps we could get a sample of Fairfax’s writing,” said Miranda, “from when he signed his books at the store earlier.”

“He doesn’t sign books, remember?” said Wanda. “The fop melts wax and uses a signet ring instead of signing his name. He’s insufferable.”

“He is a bit of a prat,” Penny conceded. It was one of the few things she and Wanda agreed on.

“Not the autograph,” said Miranda. “The personalized messages he wrote in the books. He must have written something for Harpreet.”

It was too late to call her, though, and Miranda hardly imagined Fairfax DePoy would have personalized his message to her in all caps.

“We could conjure the souls of the dead,” Inez suggested. “Ask them for guidance?”

Summoning the forces of darkness? Yes, you could say that, thought Miranda. That’s exactly what we are doing. A regular rogue’s gallery had been assembled. Was a killer amongst them? The only person missing was—

“Evening, everyone.” It was Ray Valentine, coming down in a bathrobe, with a vaguely disapproving look on his face. He peered at them over his glasses. “It’s 0100 in the morning. Why is everyone still up?”

“Various reasons,” said Miranda with the sliver of a smile. Five little piggies went to market . . . One came down to slip outside (Sheryl), one in search of alcohol (Wanda), one with a strange message in hand (Penny), one still with paw prints on her buttocks (Inez). “And you?” Who will go wee-wee-wee all the way to jail? “What brings you out of your chambers, Mr. Valentine?”

“I heard the fuss and bother—the pother, as it were—came down to ask about this.” He held up a torn piece of paper of his own. “A handwritten note, slipped under my door, but just nonsense vowels: i-a-e. I-a-e. It’s like a first draft of the chorus of ‘Old MacDonald.’ Any idea what’s going on?”

I-A-E?

“The two halves,” said Miranda. “Put them together.”

They did. It spelled out: Virginia Wolfe.

“Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor!” said Miranda. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The play that became a movie, the movie that became a critique of the American marriage. Not to drop names, but I was once asked by Sir Kenneth Branagh—Kenny, I call him—to audition for a gritty reboot of the original movie (they’d added more explosions during the car chase) in the same role Elizabeth Taylor played . . .” Taylor, which could also be spelled tailor . . . tailor, as in a stich in time saves nine . . . as in a cat with nine lives, as in Cat Ballou, starring Jane Fonda . . . who also co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in the musical spectacle The Blue Bird with—Miranda’s mind had entered a feedback loop, was spiraling down, but she managed to pull up at the last moment. “You know, the note may have nothing to do with Elizabeth Taylor.”

As gently as she could, Penny said, “Or maybe it’s a reference to the actual author, Virginia Woolf?” She held the two halves of the note up again. “But the name has been misspelled. Should be Woolf. Not Wolfe with an e.”

“Huh,” said Wanda. “Go figure. I always thought it was spelled with an e.”

“It is spelled with an e,” said Ray Valentine. “I can picture the covers in my mind. Usually an ominous blood-spattered glass of wine that’s been toppled over, or a knife that’s been stabbed into a cutting board or through a playing card, or a blood-covered bullet casing and a broken window.”

“You’re thinking of Nero Wolfe, the character,” said Penny, “rather than Virginia Woolf, literary icon.”

“Kane Hamady!” Inez cried. “He was dyslexic! He could have misspelled the name.”

“I hardly think he wrote a note to us after he was killed,” said Penny.

“You never know,” said Inez darkly.

“And anyway, Kane wasn’t dyslexic,” said Wanda. “That was just a joke, something he used to say, that he was a ‘dyslexic existentialist’ who pondered the existence of dog.”

Inez didn’t get it. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s humor,” said Wanda. “Something you are incapable of comprehending.”

Before Inez could lash back, with voodoo hexes and charm bracelets no doubt, Miranda cut in. “We’re losing sight of the clue.”

“Yes!” said Inez. “The clue! Clues are my forte.”

“What are you talking about?” said Wanda. “There are no clues in your novels. Just gore.”

“Says the children’s author.”

“At least my clues line up!”

“You have clues, but no soul!” said Inez.

Penny interrupted, “Please! People, we have a mystery to solve. We’re mystery writers; this shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Says the cozy writer,” Inez muttered.

Miranda Abbott was reconsidering her list of feuds. Easier just to put “everyone vs. everyone,” she thought.

“Virginia Woolf. Ha. Never could stand her stuff,” said Wanda. “Stream of consciousness crap. No tension, no suspense, nothing ever happens. Dull as dishwater. How could that book be so short and yet feel so long?”

“Which book?” Miranda asked, and in that instant the authors realized at the same time.

“To the lighthouse!” they cried, and they rushed for the front door in a veritable stampede, scrambling for jackets and boots. Sheryl was the first one at the door.

But Officer Holly got there ahead of her and barred the way. “Get back! All of you. Don’t make me taser you!” she shouted. “Or rather, please—make me taser you. It would be a pleasure. You guys are the biggest bunch of blockheads I’ve ever had to deal with. Let me put an end to your shenanigans right now. Under the authority vested in me by the State of Oregon and the Tillamook County Police Authority, I am hereby invoking Public Safety Ordinance 771. The guests of this bed-and-breakfast are instructed to remain indoors, under direct order of a police officer, until such time as local law enforcement can ascertain whether or not the risk to public safety has passed. Ignoring this directive may lead to your detention and/or arrest. Mr. Fairfax DePoy is out there, possibly armed and potentially dangerous, and having you cretins showing up yammering away could easily push him over the edge. Lord knows, it almost did for me. Remain inside. Lock the doors and windows. Remain calm. And stay. Right. Here.”

Chastised, they fell back as Officer Holly called it in. “The lighthouse, Ned. He’s at the lighthouse.”

Moments later, Ned’s vehicle flew past the window, lights blazing.

“Ned’ll need backup,” said Andrew. “As his official deputy, I could—”

But Officer Holly was already out the door, car keys in hand. Miranda and Andrew followed. They were not guests of the B&B, so technically the ordinance that Officer Holly had cited, and which Miranda assumed she had just made up,* did not apply to them.

Holly barked at the two of them over her shoulder, “Andrew, Miranda, I want you outta here! Go back to Bea’s and stay there.”

“We will!” Miranda promised, adding under her breath, “. . . eventually.”

Officer Holly dove into her cruiser and followed hot on Ned’s heels.

In the distance, the lighthouse at Laurel Point loomed against the night sky as the sweep of the police cruiser’s beams disappeared down the narrow road toward it, only to be swallowed up by the darkness.

A beat, and then Andrew said, “I assume we’re going to the lighthouse?”

“Of course!” said Miranda, striding back to the Jeep. “The game is afoot!”

Chapter Seventeen

The Fallen Clock

The lighthouse at Laurel Point was built in the 1890s after concerned residents noted that ships coming around the headland had a habit of sinking. True, the underwater shoals did provide a bounty of flotsam over the years, some of it quite lucrative, but occasionally a body or two would wash ashore and have to be buried, which was annoying, and as these numbers increased, it was eventually deemed easier just to build a lighthouse. Hiram Henry donated a single picayune, symbolically it was assumed; the rest came from charitable women’s organizations and bake sales. It was said that Hiram had discouraged talk of building a warning beacon because shipwrecks had so often featured prominently on the front page of his newspaper, but the local Hiram Henry Society insists that this is not true, citing an editorial wherein he wrote, “If these nattering nabobs want to kill the golden goose, that’s fine with me.”

The lighthouse stood three stories tall, a round stone structure on a raised foundation. Although the light itself had been fully automated since the 1970s, the former lighthouse keeper’s quarters on the main floor was maintained, along with a grandfather clock that was deemed too historic (i.e., cumbersome) to move and had thus been left in situ. The clock was an ungainly timepiece, one that had stopped ticking decades ago and had been appraised for less than the cost of moving it, so it stayed as a point of pride, part of the life-sized diorama inside: the lighthouse keeper’s cot and dresser, his stove and table and chairs, and that clock—which would provide a crucial clue in the hours to come.

Designated a Site of Minor Historical Interest, the lighthouse at Laurel Point had been carefully preserved by the town, although the outside had been painted over in a candy stripe of red and white to help “spruce up the view.”

The windows of the keeper’s quarters on the first floor were akin to cubbyholes, with embedded bars protecting thick panes of glass that were too high up to look through. The heavy door, which opened inward, into the quarters, was a solid slab of oak secured out front by a large padlock. The keys to this padlock were strictly controlled: only the local museum, its director, its summer students, the elementary school staff (for field trips), the local high school (ditto), the Gold ’n Silver Seniors Club (ditto), the owner of Klips ’N Kurls (because her dad used to work at the museum), the Tillamook Sailing Club, the Happy Rock Little Theater, the Duchess Hotel, the town council, and any tour companies, such as Melvin’s, had copies of the key. Oh, and also the local visitors center, in case visitors wanted to pop in and have a look around while they were in town. They had a couple of keys, too. Maybe three? Four? No one else had access to the lighthouse. Given this strict guidance, how could Fairfax DePoy have gained entry?

As Miranda roared up in Edgar’s Jeep, the glare of her headlights revealed Ned Buckley struggling with a crowbar at the door to the lighthouse, as Officer Holly stood back, hand on holster. The two officers turned, Ned squinting into the light. When Miranda killed the engine and turned off the headlights, Ned recognized the Jeep and waved them in.

“Andrew, hurry! Give me a hand!” he yelled.

They crossed the gravel, up the stairs to the oak door.

“You don’t have a key?” Miranda asked. “I thought everyone had a key!”

Puffing and out of breath, Ned said, “Don’t need a key. Padlock was removed.” He pointed to where it had been tossed aside on the stairs. “The door is locked from the inside.”

“Shoot the handle!” Andrew urged. “Shoot the handle, Chief.”

“I’m not firing my sidearm,” Ned said, stopping to wipe his forehead. “The door is bolted shut on the other side. A service revolver wouldn’t do it—and neither would a shotgun!” he hastened to add. “So don’t ask.” The cruiser had a shotgun in the trunk.

“Want me to give it a try?” Holly asked, and Ned nodded, stepping back to switch places with her.

A light was on inside; they could see the murky glow through the window. But the door was watertight, sinking below the stoop to be essentially sealed off by the door frame. Holly wedged the crowbar into the narrow space Ned had gouged out between the jamb and the metal plate that held the door’s rudimentary handle: an old-fashioned lever that lifted the latch on the other side. The entire arrangement was simple, clunky, and impossible to get through.

With Andrew helping, Holly managed to splinter some of the jamb and partly bend the plate free, but the door itself wouldn’t budge.

“Should I give Tanvir a call, Chief?”

“Try the other side first, away from the handle. Maybe we can worm the edge of the crowbar in that way, pop off the hinges.”

This approach proved effective. Stubborn and difficult and shoulder-socket-aching, but effective. With every wrench from Andrew and Officer Holly, a gap grew until the crowbar was firmly in place. All four of them now leaned into it, and with a satisfying crack of metal giving way, the door lurched inward as first one hinge then the other buckled and broke, until finally they were able to push the door open just wide enough for Holly to peer through the gap.

“Is he in there?” Ned asked.

“Yeah. He’s in there.”

They pushed more until the gap was big enough for Holly to squeeze through. She entered, weapon drawn.

A pause, and then: “All clear.” Her voice sounded grim.

“Anyone else in there?” Ned shouted.

“Just him.”

From the other side, Holly pushed the door back into place. This was followed by the scraping sound of a deadbolt being pulled back. A moment later, the entire door fell inward, landing with a sharp thud as Holly stepped to one side. It revealed a terrible sight: in the thick light inside the lighthouse keeper’s quarters, Fairfax Hughes DePoy III, celebrated author of historical romantic mysteries, loved by many, envied by others, was hanging from an overhead beam. His face was swollen and distorted, eyes gaping in horror, tongue distended, body slack above an overturned chair.

They entered in silence. Stood staring at the tableau before them.

“Well, that solves the Case of the Missing Rope,” said Holly. The rough cord could only have come from Owen’s.

“Better get an axe, cut him down,” said Ned, his voice hoarse.

Officer Holly went to fetch one from her patrol car, sidestepping the loose metal and debris scattered across the wooden floor. The grandfather clock had toppled and lay shattered on the floor, its mechanical parts radiating outward. Other than the chair Fairfax had kicked aside when he hanged himself, everything else seemed to be in place.

“Clock fell over,” said Ned. “It musta been pushed. Darned heavy; can’t see how it would ‘accidentally’ fall. And the pieces seem to have been, well, kicked away from it, across the floor. How else would these metal parts—these rods and weights, the various cogs and gears, that pendulum over there—have been flung so far? You’d think they would’ve stayed mostly in place.”

“The rope is shiny,” Miranda noted.

Fairfax’s body was turning slowly on a creak. And the stretch of rope over the beam was indeed inky wet.

“And that will explain the Case of the Missing Grease,” Ned said, with a nod to the tub of the stuff sitting next to the fallen chair. “Though I don’t imagine Owen will want either one returned.”

The other end of the rope was looped around the cast-iron leg of the heavy stove. Why lubricate the middle of the rope? It had a coarse, hemp-like texture, but surely grease wasn’t needed to toss a rope over a beam and pull it across?

Here’s what they knew: Windows with thick glass and iron bars. A single door, bolted from the inside. A stairwell to the second floor that had been sealed off and walled in. No trapdoor below, either. Very few furnishings, and nowhere for someone to hide. Fairfax DePoy had been alone inside a locked room. Clearly a suicide.

And yet . . . it didn’t add up.

Officer Holly came back with a small hatchet. It would have been unfair to ask Andrew to support a dead body as it dropped, so he was given the task of cutting the rope while Ned and Holly held onto the legs, bracing themselves for the moment Fairfax would fall free.

“Wait!” Miranda cried before they could begin.

Something was wrong.

It was the shoes! And the space below them. Hanging in midair like that, the lifts Fairfax was wearing were evident—as was the height between Fairfax’s feet and the floor.

Miranda turned the chair back upright, slid it under Fairfax’s dangling feet. The two didn’t touch.

“How do you suppose he would have managed that?” she asked.

Ned, who had been holding one of Fairfax’s legs, let go. Looked at the gap between chair and shoe. “Tell me this isn’t happening.” But it was. Another impossible crime had been committed in Happy Rock.

* * *

IT WAS ALMOST two in the morning by the time they laid poor Fairfax on the floor of the lighthouse. Ned called Doc Meadows, who had only just finished transporting Kane’s body to the morgue, to tell him “We got another one.”

As they waited for Doc to arrive, Miranda and Andrew stood outside the lighthouse, looking across the water to the other side of the bay. A single point at the far end marked their home.

“Bea left a light on for us,” Andrew said.

Although part of a saltwater inlet, protected as it was from the full brunt of the Pacific by a network of wooded islands and the arm of this peninsula, Tillamook Bay always felt more like a lake to Miranda, with waves lapping in on cat tongues of water and dark forests encircling it. Happy Rock’s Duchess Hotel and the Opera House lay at the deepest curve of the bay, in the innermost reaches of the inner harbor.

“I’ll miss this,” said Miranda, feeling wistful.

Andrew chose to say nothing (wisely).

A lonely pair of headlights moved down the road toward them. It was Doc’s SUV. He pulled in and got out with a stiff-legged gait, carrying his satchel. He looked tired.

“Ned inside?” he asked.

Miranda and Andrew followed him up the stairs and into the round room where the door lay fallen, the grandfather clock lay scattered, and the body lay cold on the bare floor.

“Hello, Doc,” said Ned.

“Busy night for the both of us,” said Doc. “Hey, Holly. Busy night for you, too. How are the twins?”

“At my mom’s.”

“You know you’ve got to get them in for their rubella, right?”

“I know.”

Doc placed his leather satchel on the table, looked down at the body on the floor. “I know this guy. One of the writers, right?”

“Fairfax DePoy,” said Ned. “Though his ID gives a different name.”

Miranda perked up at this. “A different name?”

Ned had placed the man’s wallet on the table. “Like Kane, Fairfax must’ve been using a pseudonym. His real name was Francis—Frank, I’m guessing. Or even Frankie, given he was born in Jersey.”

“Jersey, England?” Miranda asked. He was supposedly British, after all.

“What? No. Jersey Jersey, as in New Jersey. Is there a Jersey in England, too?”

“Indeed there is,” said Miranda. “Hence the appellation ‘New’ affixed to the American one.”

“No kidding! Next you’ll be telling me there’s an Old York.”

Andrew was confused. “But Fairfax is—was—from the English landed gentry.”

“Landed, for sure,” said Doc, gesturing to the corpse that was supine before them, the rope still around his neck. “That part’s true.”

Doc pulled on a pair of latex gloves, crouched down on his uncertain knees. “Blue lips, yep.” He lowered one of the eyelids, then examined the ruptured capillaries on the man’s now mottled face. “Petechial hemorrhage, yep.” Ran his finger between the rope and the man’s neck. “Yep.” He stood back up, his joints creaking. “We’ll need an autopsy, of course, but I’d wager a dollar he died of oxygen deprivation.”

“A noose will do that,” said Holly.

“Not necessarily,” said Doc. “No major bruising around the rope, which suggests the blood had already stopped circulating when the rope was tightened around his neck.”

Ned didn’t like the sound of this. “What are you saying, Doc?”

“Just that he may have been dead or dying before he was hanged.”

“Impossible,” said Holly. “He was alone in here, and door was locked from the inside—with a deadbolt. We had to break it down to get to him.”

“His feet didn’t touch the chair,” Miranda reminded her.

“He could have jumped,” Ned suggested.

“How would that have worked?” said Miranda. “He throws the rope over the beam, anchors one end, and then—standing in midair above the chair—manages to tie the other end around his neck?”

Ned had no answer to this.

“But there was no one else in the room,” Holly insisted. “I tried the windows. Those iron bars won’t budge, and the glass hasn’t been removed or tampered with. No one tied that rope around DePoy’s neck after he died, Doc. It’s impossible.”

“Impossible or not, I’m just telling you what I see here. We got a team coming in from Portland tomorrow. They’ll do a full postmortem. We’ll keep our guy on ice till they get here, but my gut is telling me he died of asphyxiation, but not due to strangulation. The rope didn’t even crush his larynx. It was looped under his jaw. A guy might even survive that. But he didn’t. No bruising on the face, no injuries to the head or hands that I could see, so most likely it wasn’t an epileptic asphyxiation. Not anaphylactic, either; his throat would be swollen like a bullfrog if that was the case. Nope. He choked on something. L’ama’thut cun,” Doc said, looking down upon the deceased soul. “Safe journey, wherever it takes you.”

“Time of death?” Ned asked.

“An hour or so ago? Was easier to tell with the first one. He was still warm. This guy? Autopsy might give us a better idea. Hard to say.”

Andrew was disappointed. “On CSI, it’s always ‘The deceased died between 9:31 and 9:37 p.m.’”

“As I was saying earlier, this isn’t an episode of CSI.” Doc Meadows opened his case, unrolled a selection of forceps. “Lemme see, lemme see. Forceps for pulling sutures, for clamping arteries, ah! Here we go—Magill forceps. Used for intubation. That should do it.”

Long and flat and angled, with rounded circle tips, the Magill was ideal for extracting foreign objects lodged in the larynx. Doc pried open DePoy’s jaw and peered in. “Yep. Obstruction in the airway, all right.” Carefully, slowly, he inserted the length of the forceps into the dead man’s mouth, angling it in. He jiggled it about a bit and then—“Bingo!” He extracted a wet wad of paper from deep within Fairfax DePoy’s throat.

“Must’ve tried to swallow it,” said Doc.

“Or had it forced into his mouth,” said Ned.

Doc Meadows spread the damp page open on the table with his latex-covered hands, flattening it out.

“What is it?” Ned asked, leaning in to look.

“Something typewritten,” said Doc. “Looks like a page from a story.”

“May I make a prediction?” said Miranda before she even stepped in to look. “The top right-hand corner, the page number. It’s 298, yes?”

It was like a magic trick.

“Cool! How’d you know?” asked Doc.

“Gentlemen,” she said. “I do believe we’ve found the missing page of John D. Ross’s lost manuscript. The very page that Kane Hamady was trying so desperately to find when he locked himself in the reading room at the bookstore. A page that someone was willing to kill for.”

Crowding in, Ned read what was typed on the mangled page. “It’s a list of murders.”

It was indeed: a murder in a swimming pool, blamed on a schoolteacher; a murder in a casino, blamed on a color-blind professor; a murder at a theater, blamed on the left-handed stage manager; a murder on the Rocky Mountaineer train, blamed on a cross-eyed travel writer; a murder at a horse track, blamed on the jockey’s rival in love; a murder at a political rally, blamed on the candidate; the murder of a nurse, blamed on the doctor; the murder of the doctor, blamed on a nurse; a murder at a lake, blamed on a retired ambidextrous ophthalmologist—on and on it went, multitudinous murders, filling the page, typed single-spaced in one run-on sentence.

At the bottom, the typewriting stopped and a handwritten note followed, scrawled along the bottom of the page:

If you find this, I’m dead and the race is underway. Winner takes all, if he or she can solve the final puzzle: the killer’s real name, for there was only one killer over all these years, one killer behind each and every murder. One killer and one name only. But who? You will find the answer at the end of the book that matters most.

Andrew swallowed. “It reads like a confession.”

“Or an accusation—from beyond the grave,” said Ned.

“Or a challenge to the reader,” said Miranda. She was more focused on the state of the paper itself, on the myriad wrinkles in the page. Doc had smoothed it out, but it had been crumpled into a small ball and then rescued from the wet confines of a dead man’s throat, so naturally the surface was soggy and crinkled. But several distinct lines ran across the paper.

“Look,” said Miranda. “Here, here, and here.” She pointed out the creases. “The paper was folded. Three straight lines down the middle of the page, then three more on either side, spreading out like a fan.”

“Miranda, we’ve had two impossible crimes and two dead bodies, and you want to talk about the pattern of the creases on a piece of paper? It’s late. You can go home. And you, Andrew. You go with her. Doc, Holly, and I will take it from here.”

“May I see the deadbolt before I go?” Miranda asked.

Officer Holly, with Andrew’s help, managed to flip the door over on the floor with another heavy thud. On the other side, the barrel of the bolt was dented but intact, a circular metal chamber the length of someone’s forearm, with the bolt still firmly in place.

“Technically not a deadbolt,” said Ned. “That’s a basic sliding bolt. You lock it almost like you were loading a bolt-action rifle.”

A simple design. The barrel was attached to the back of the door, with a bolt that slid across into place. Locked securely, it would have been impossible to manipulate from the other side. Miranda looked again at the various cogs and bobbles that had sprung loose from the innards of the clock and were now scattered across the floor. She frowned.

“Don’t touch anything,” Officer Holly admonished. “I have to tent and photograph each of those.”

She went through, placing plastic yellow numbers next to each bit of potential evidence, as Miranda stepped back to consider the scene as a whole. It was like a scene written by Lachlan Todd.

Speaking of which . . .

“Elementary, my dear Fran.”

A snide voice from the doorway. Everyone turned, surprised by the figure silhouetted at the threshold. It was Luckless Lachlan himself, leaning against the jamb, arms crossed, head tilted, emanating arrogance.

“This is an active crime scene,” Ned said. “Stay back.”

Lachlan let his arms drop from his chest and said, with an airy indifference, “Oh yes. God forbid I interfere with your crack investigation. Except, maybe, to point out the solution. But if you’re not interested, fine, I’ll leave.”

He made a big production of turning away in his oversized winter jacket and ridiculous flapped cap.

With a sigh, Ned said, “Okay, shoot. You got a theory, let’s hear it.”

“Not a theory, an inevitability. This room was locked, correct? No access from the outside. So if Mr. DePoy was murdered, the killer must have been in here with him.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” said Officer Holly, already tired of him.

“You’re forgetting that Tillamook is a saltwater bay. A deep bay, one that I assume is kept clear by dredgers. Dredgers that employ—aha!—magnets. Giant magnets that scour the floor of the inlet to retrieve discarded metal, and the roof of this lighthouse is, I assume for the sake of my theory, metallic.”

Holly said, “For the love of Pete, tell me you’re not suggesting . . .”

“A giant magnet! On a boat! Raised above the lighthouse, the magnet is used to turn the entire building like a corkscrew. The building is round, remember. Once the killer has slipped out through the gap that has opened up under the wall, the building is then screwed back into place!”

A long pause.

“Get out,” said Holly.

“If you find the dredger with the magnet, you find the killer!” said Lachlan. “It’s that simple.”

“Get out before I taser you.”

Ned tutted. “Now, now, Officer Holly, what have I said about threatening people with your taser just because they’re annoying you?”

“Just one zap, Ned. Please.”

“Fine,” said Lachlan, head high. “I know when I’m not welcome.”

“Do you, though?” Holly asked.

“If someone will run me down to my motel, I shall be on my way.”

“I thought you were going to walk there,” said Andrew.

“With a killer on the loose? To say nothing of bears?”

“Won’t find many bears in Happy Rock,” said Doc Meadows, who was finishing up with the body. “Too shy. They stick mainly to the coast farther north. They scoop the salmon right outta the creeks. A sight to see.” He peeled off his latex gloves. “I’ll call the morgue, get someone up here.”

“We can run Lachlan down to the motel,” said Miranda. “Unless you’d like to toss that lucky coin of yours for it, Ned.”

Ned was photographing each of the tents Holly had laid out. “I’m good. You take him.”

Miranda stopped. Something Doc had said stirred thoughts in her. Salmon. Trout. Cutthroats and record catches.

“Doc,” she asked, “would you ever go fishing with someone you didn’t like? On the Nestucca River, say.”

Ned looked up, answered for him. “Y’only fish with friends, right, Doc?”

“Absolutely. If you’re gonna spend a week upriver with someone, it’s got to be someone whose company you enjoy.”

Ned beamed because Ned and Doc went fishing on the Nestucca every year. Occasionally, they’d ask Edgar or Owen along, but Edgar always got bored by the second day, and Owen was more interested in eating the salmon than catching it, so it was mainly just Doc and Ned.

“That’s what I thought,” said Miranda. “You wouldn’t go shopping for shoes on Rodeo Drive with someone you passionately disliked, any more than you would go fishing with an enemy, sworn or otherwise.”

A possible explanation was taking shape . . .

Chapter Eighteen

The Book That Matters Most

They stuffed Lachlan into the back of Edgar’s Jeep, hoping they wouldn’t have to talk to him on the drive, but he leaned forward, shoving his big face in between them to ask gauche questions about Miranda’s marriage and Andrew’s salary—or lack thereof (in both cases).

“What, are you scared to go back to LA?” he asked.

Miranda ground both the gears and her teeth, following the road past Hiram Henry House, where the lights were still on, and then onto the forested road out of town. If only Lachlan Todd had been eaten by a bear!

“You’d think Edgar would have offered to put me up,” Lachlan griped. “It’s the least he could do, with everything I’ve done for him.”

When Miranda didn’t take the bait, he added, “Edgar owes me. Big time.”

“What could Edgar possibly owe you?” she snapped, pushing harder on the accelerator.

“I was his designated fall guy. On your TV show. Whenever Your Highness got angry over a given scene or bit of dialogue, he would blame me. Remember when Pastor Fran gave in to the temptations of the flesh and kissed that priest, Father McKenzie—what a lush that actor was! Didn’t you catch him in your dressing room trailer once, trying on your undergarments?—and you were worried that it was out of character, even though Fran and Father McKenzie were locked in a vault with a time bomb about to go off and Pastor Fran, thinking her life was about to end, revealed her true feelings in a moment of weakness?”

“What about it? Although savaged by critics, it remains one of our most popular episodes. The whole, ‘will-they-won’t-they?’ aspect of it.”

“But you threw a fit over one of the lines: Father, your lips are like the Holy Water of Christ tempered with a secular love, but, alas, I am and shall remain a woman of the cloth; my calling, like my heart, is clear, and I must not—may not! shall not!—accede to these baser instincts. Then you karate-chopped the clock on the bomb, thereby disabling the timing mechanism. Remember that?”

“How could I not? It was voted worst dialogue at that year’s Razzie Awards—along with my performance of that same dialogue.” The memory of it still stung. She’d shown up thinking it was an actual awards show. She’d fired her agent over that. (Technically, she had already fired him; she’d rehired and then refired him, but the effect was the same.)

“I didn’t write that dialogue,” Lachlan revealed. “Edgar did. He inserted those lines into my script at the last moment. He was always doing that, trying to give you these dramatic emotional scenes, showcase your talent, I guess. Half the time, it fell flat—and I took the blame because you were his wife and he begged me to.”

“Edgar would never beg!”

“Okay, so he slipped me a couple of bucks to take the fall.”

That sounded more like him.

“The point being,” said Lachlan, “Edgar owes me at least a couch to crash on after I helped maintain his matrimonial harmony. Not that it did a lot of good. Are you guys divorced now or what? No one can give me a straight answer on that.”

With an angry yank of the wheel, Miranda veered off the main road toward Happy Rock’s Hideaway Motel, circa 1972, where the sun-faded sign out front promised Color TV! and Air Conditioning! with icicles hanging off the brrrr letters of the latter.

“Let me out down here,” Lachlan said. “I’ll walk in. Motel manager has been yappin’ at me about ‘bounced checks’ and ‘expired credit cards,’ blah blah. So suspicious, these small towns.”

Lachlan closed the door of the Jeep as quietly as possible and then hiked in as Miranda spun the Jeep around, kicking up gravel, not caring about the noise and muttering invective under her breath. “I ought to lean on the horn, really wake up the manager.”

Instead, she flew back into Happy Rock, past the Duchess Hotel, gunning the motor. Rather than follow the road along the shore, however, she turned up Beacon Hill.

“I thought we were going to Bea’s,” said Andrew.

“We are . . . eventually.”

* * *

MIRANDA PULLED IN at the I Only Read Murder bookstore and marched up to the front door, fully expecting to enter unimpeded—but the door was locked.

“It took a dead body in the bookstore to finally make him take security seriously.” She turned to Andrew. “Key!”

“Key?”

“To the front door. As cashier, you must have one on you.”

“I do—but shouldn’t we knock first?”

“And rouse Edgar from a much deserved slumber? Nonsense. As the owner of this establishment, I may enter at my leisure. Now, please unlock the door.”

Andrew did so, but under protest. “This might be a bookstore, but it’s also Edgar’s home.”

“The book that matters most,” she said, quoting the note Doc Meadows had found lodged in Fairfax DePoy’s throat. “Kane must have assumed the book in question was one of John D. Ross’s first editions. When he found that note on the final page of the manuscript, he began going through each book in a panic, flipping to the end, trying to find the answer: Who was the true killer in those cases?”

She closed the door behind them and strode down the hallway, flicking on lights imperiously as she went, around the corner to the yellow X that Officer Holly had taped over the broken door of the reading room.

Before she entered, she turned to Andrew. “Kane Hamady was trying to find ‘the book that matters most.’ He never found it. He was killed, and the last page of the manuscript ended up in a dead man’s throat. But what was the one anomaly in those boxes of books Edgar received—the one book that didn’t fit with the others, that stood out by its very incongruity?”

“Of course! That weird literary novel we thought had been included by accident. What was the title? So Sad the Moon, So Tragic the Wind? Something like that.”

“How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun.” She pushed the door to the reading room, and it opened on a groan. The inside was tented with numbered police evidence markers. The books remained flung about, as though by a child having a tantrum. The lamp remained on its side, but the transom above the window was now closed. Even so, the room was still chilly. Autumn, like death, had seeped in. The body may have been removed, but its presence could still be felt.

Stepping under the police tape, Miranda crossed over to the glass cabinet and then swore in a decidedly non–Pastor Fran way. The book was gone.

“It was right here, in this cabinet! Some nefarious soul has snatched it.” She tried to remember the last time she’d seen it in there, but couldn’t. Had it been there when the body was discovered? She was sure it had been. Which meant the strange book with the mauve cover must have disappeared during the chaos right after, or during the drawn-out process of taking statements and fingerprints when Office Holly and Deputy Andrew had been distracted. Or had someone slipped back into the bookstore after the fact? It could have been anyone.

“Miranda? Andrew? What the hell are you doing here?”

Edgar was standing sleepily in the doorway of the reading room, dumbfounded, holding a small china plate and a silver dessert fork.

Miranda swept out of the reading room, back into the hallway, asking Edgar as she stepped past him, “Did you remove a book from this crime scene?”

“Huh? No. Why would I? It’s a crime scene. What are you two doing here? How did you get in? I thought I locked the front door. I only came back downstairs because the lights were on. It’s”—he checked his wrist where his watch would have been, having forgotten he’d taken it off for the night, an awkward maneuver because of the empty plate and fork he was holding—“Anyway, it’s gotta be two in the morning, at least. You should be in bed. We should all be in bed.”

“Fairfax DePoy is no more! He was found hanged—in the lighthouse.”

“What? My god. That’s horrific.” A beat. “But how does any of this involve you, Miranda?”

“It doesn’t not involve me!” she said. “We are closing in.” (She said “we” to include Andrew.) “That strange little novel that we assumed was included amongst the John D. Ross hardcovers by mistake may well contain the solution to everything. But that book has gone missing!”

Edgar closed his eyes a moment. Took a deep breath. Opened his eyes, but she was still there.

“Miranda, it’s late. You need to leave. Take the Jeep. I’m going to bed. You can let yourself out. Lock the door behind you.” Unstated was the sentiment and don’t let it hit your ass on the way out.

“And what is this?” she said, referring to the fancy fork and china plate he was holding. “Those don’t belong to you, Edgar. I recognize that plate, that fork. Those are from Geri and Gerry’s. They served Bea’s peach cobbler on those.”

“I found them upstairs on my bookshelf. Owen must have left them behind when he was canoodling with the Duchess of Darkness earlier. Don’t worry, I’m not keeping them. I’ll wash them up, return them to Geri tomorrow. They’ve probably already taken stock and noticed one was missing. Like I said: keen.”

“Owen McCune? He left that plate and fork upstairs?”

“They were the only ones who went up there. Who else would it be? Have you ever known him to clean up after himself? If I’m going to start adding locks, I should start with one to the stairs, just to keep Owen out.”

“Peach cobbler,” she said. “He took his peach cobbler upstairs with him.”

Edgar was showing them to the door. With plate and fork in one hand, he ushered Miranda and Andrew down the hallway with the other. As they passed the main room of the bookstore, Miranda noted the various volumes that had been removed from the shelves and stacked on the tables.

“Aha! What is going on here? Were you looking for clues, Edgar? Or has a soul more dastardly been through here, searching for hints amongst the stacks?”

“It was me. I was trying to re-alphabetize the shelves after the mess you made of it, but I gave up. It was too much. I see that G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown collections are now beside the Kellermans—both Faye and Jonathan—but nowhere near Laurie R. King’s Detective Martinelli series. Those are under R, naturally, next to the works of Philip Craig—sorry, Philip R. Craig.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was his “imminent migraine” gesture. “I’ll take another stab tomorrow. To be clear, Miranda, the first principle of retail is that your customers should be able to find the product they are looking for. Don’t do it again, okay?”

Miranda stopped to ponder this. “But why would you want to make mystery books easy to find? Defeats the purpose, no?”

Andrew said, “In a weird way, she has a point.”

“Solve the mystery of our system, win a gift card! Is that the idea?”

Edgar was being sarcastic, but Miranda thought this was a splendid idea.

“A mystery bookstore where the books are arranged . . . mysteriously. I love it!”

“Miranda,” he said. “I know you’ve always been a night owl . . .”

This had been a bone of contention, not to mention discontent, in their marriage, Edgar waking up at six in the morning to type (as authors are wont to do) and Miranda sleeping in till the crack of noon every day (as actors are wont to do). Miranda had long suspected this was the real reason Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe had gotten a divorce.

“You and Andrew need to go home and get some sleep,” he said. “And stop meddling.”

“Meddling? I never meddle!”

“Meddling is all you do—in my bookstore, my life, this investigation. You can’t go around letting yourself into places whenever the mood strikes you. Call first and, maybe, I don’t know, knock before you enter?”

“I am the majority co-owner of this establishment, may I remind you.”

“Of the business. Not my home.”

“Our home.”

“My home!”

Miranda fought down the hurt, opted for ire instead. “Andrew! We are leaving.” She tossed the keys to the Jeep onto the nearest book-laden table. “We shall walk!”

“Miranda, don’t,” said Edgar, but she was already gone, into the cold air of night.

Andrew caught up to her, more out of loyalty than common sense—it was a good half hour’s walk to Bea’s, downhill on slippery roads and then out along the bay—and the talk of bears had rattled him.

“You grew up in Minnesota. Lotta bears there?” he asked, puffing as he jogged alongside. When Miranda Abbott strode, she strode.

“Oh yes. St. Olaf was rife with bears,” she said. “Bears, bears everywhere! Bears on the lake, bears in the park, bears in the lefse store, bears lounging about outside the town hall. One couldn’t leave one’s house in the morning without shooing away several bruins.”

“And—what do you, um, do if you encounter one? A bear, I mean.”

“You run. Faster than the person you are with, preferably.”

“Kidding, right? You are kidding, right? Any bears out here are probably hibernating by now, right? That’s what bears do, they hibernate. Right?”

Miranda was heading downhill at full pace, a storm cloud of emotion over her head.

“Maybe we should turn back,” Andrew pleaded, still jogging just to keep up. “Maybe smooth things over with your husband.”

“I have no husband!”

“Ex-husband?”

“I have no ex-husband!”

“Former?”

“Same thing. And I have neither!”

“I’m just saying, maybe you overreacted? You do tend to do that.”

Miranda stopped, dead in her tracks. Turned and glared at him. “Did you just say I overact?”

“Over-re-act.”

“Oh. Okay. Fine, then.” She continued down the hill.

Edgar’s Jeep pulled up, rolled alongside them. “Miranda,” he called through the open passenger window. “Come on. Get in. I’ll drive you there.”

“Never!”

“If you get in, I’ll apologize.”

“Done!”

She climbed into the back seat, gave Andrew the front.

Edgar followed Beacon Hill Road down to the harbor. The air was misted with frost. It was as though the very landscape were exhaling.

“Well?” she said, arms crossed. “I’m waiting.”

“Miranda, I’m sorry that you are upset by facts.”

“Apology accepted!”

Chapter Nineteen

Return of the Idaho Seven

Bea had waited up for them.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said when Andrew and Miranda finally appeared through the back door. “I was so worried about—”

“We’re fine, Bea, thank you.”

“—Ned. With a murderer running loose in Happy Rock, I was so worried something might happen to him. He carries so much on his shoulders. I worry about him.”

Bea Maracle’s two-story-plus-an-attic clapboard home by the bay was considered a “cottage” in the Pacific Northwest. Where Miranda was from, cottages were rustic log arrangements hewed out of the forest by hermits and hunters. Here, they were cozy arrangements. Andrew, meanwhile, had grown up in Silicon Valley, where cottages were industries, often boutique. And, of course, the “cottages” of Hollywood stars such as George Clooney often included rustic helipads and indoor swimming pools.

Bea had pulled out the TV trays and poured a pot of chamomile tea. Everyone needed to unwind—or rewind, in this case.

“Do you think Ned will be okay?” Bea asked.

Miranda assured her he would. By tacit agreement, neither Andrew nor Miranda informed Bea that Kane’s suspected killer had purportedly committed suicide, let alone that it was the romance author Fairfax DePoy, whom Harpreet was such a fan of. Better to leave that news for the morning.

Something at the back of Miranda’s mind made her ask, “Bea, do you remember an episode of Pastor Fran Investigates with a grandfather clock?”

Of course she did. “‘The Case of the Clockwork Corpse’!” Bea found the tape and put it in. “A nice way to keep our mind off of things,” she said.

On a warble of VHS tracking, those famous opening lines began: Our Lady, who arts on the mean streets of Crime City! Hallowed be her fists.

“He was the nicest boy in middle school,” Bea said, apropos of nothing. “Bob adored him. They were the best of friends.”

“Ned?”

Bea nodded, eyes on the screen but mind elsewhere.

In ‘The Case of the Clockwork Corpse,’ the corpse in question had been hidden inside a clockwork; the title sort of gave it away. It was clearly one of Lachlan Todd’s offerings.

“Ah, Professor Nemesis, you seem to have forgotten the primary characteristics of a parabolic arc!” said Miranda’s younger self to the shiny-headed villain. “When you set your pendulum of doom to cut the rope that released the dagger that pierced the container that contained the cyanide capsules, you failed to calculate the trajectory of the oscillation as adjusted for the downward force of gravity to the power of two. Any schoolchild knows that! As a church pastor, I have seen my share of incense swinging on the pendulum of a censure during the Rite of Holy Eucharist. Now, prepare to face the karate kick of justice!”

As always, Miranda watched the episodes with a mix of nostalgia and sadness. She was so young, so full of energy back then, as she sprinted across a beach (harder than it looks, running on sand; she always gave the Baywatch crew credit for that) or kicked guns from the hands of scowling henchmen or outran a fireball or pirouetted to face the camera on a sudden zoom-in, her hands raised in pre-emptive karate stance. So young.

This episode featured an appearance by Pastor Fran’s rival detective, Lâuren Morocco, the Gumshoe Debutante, as played by four or five different actresses over the years. Not unlike Wanda Stobol. It felt strange to think of an author taking over someone else’s persona, and yet actors did that regularly.

“I still can’t believe they had her wearing actual gumshoes,” said Andrew as he watched the plucky Pastor Fran thwart her rival once again. “And in an evening gown, no less!”

“Well, she was a debutante detective,” Bea pointed out. “And debutantes do tend to wear gowns.”

“And what’s with the name Professor Nemesis for your actual nemesis? A bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

Bea was getting annoyed. “Just enjoy the show, dear.”

Miranda’s thoughts had wandered as well. “Bea, what’s that coin Ned has? The one he carries with him, tosses whenever he’s stuck and needs to make a choice.”

“His lucky quarter? I don’t rightfully know. He’s had it for as long as I’ve known him.”

With Professor Nemesis now grrrr-ing behind bars and Pastor Fran’s rival sleuth thwarted well and good, the episode ended as they always did, with Pastor Fran in her clerical collar hitchhiking down the road to the next town. It was now three in the morning, and they were too tired to sleep, too tired even to get up from the couch.

Bea was looking into the middle distance. “What does the extra B stand for?”

“The extra B?” said Miranda.

“In that new bed-and-breakfast, the one in the old Hiram Henry House. What does the extra B stand for, do you know? Three B’s. Seems unnecessary. After my Bob passed and I decided to rent out rooms, I considered naming it Bea & Bob’s Bed & Breakfast in his memory, but B&B’s B&B might have been confusing. I wonder what the extra B in their name stands for.”

Miranda dodged the question. “Let me clean up.” She cleared the plates. She never cleared the plates.

“Better,” said Bea fretfully. “That’s what it stands for, doesn’t it? The Better B&B. Do you think it really is better?”

Parquet floors and glass-cut chandeliers. Antiques and a sweeping stairwell. “Not in the least,” said Miranda. And she meant it.

* * *

MIRANDA ABBOTT HAD promised herself she would go to the Opera House to speak with the janitor “first thing in the morning.” But she’d been up till three and didn’t wake till one in the afternoon the next day, which is to say, at her usual time.

She was awakened from her slumber in the Miranda Abbott Suite (aka the attic) by a frantic pounding on the door, and when she traipsed down the narrow stairs in her satiny green pajamas, Bea was staring at her, distraught.

“Is it true? Is Mr. DePoy really dead?”

“Bea, I’m so sorry.”

“No more romantic Fairfax DePoy mysteries? No more Jack Stryker riding into battle, a crossbow in each hand and the reins between his teeth? What is Harpreet going to do?”

“There are 148 books in the series, give or take, so I imagine she will still have many a tale to keep her warm on long winter nights.”

“But how will we know whether Jack Stryker and Lady Gray will finally join forces to defeat the armies of Queen Boudicca?”

Harpreet Singh showed up soon after, eyes raw, voice trembling, and the three of them had a good cry. Or rather, Bea and Harpreet had a good cry; Miranda hugged them and rubbed their backs and said “There, there.” Having never read any of DePoy’s novels and having only met him briefly the night he died, she was less stricken than she was determined. Whoever had done this must be caught. Even as she rocked back and forth with Harpreet and Bea, Miranda’s mind was turning to the Opera House and its flinty-eyed, lip-denuded janitor, the one who’d demanded of Ray Valentine, Where do you get your ideas? As innocuous as that question was, the enmity in the man’s voice had been evident—what a vocal coach might call “an undertone of violence.”

Time to confront him.

Bea Maracle was on the board of the Happy Rock Amalgamated & Consolidated Little Theater Society, which is to say she had a key to the Opera House. (Its access was as strictly restricted as that of the lighthouse.) Ned Buckley was also on the local theater board, but Miranda thought it might be imprudent to ask him. He was finicky about amateur sleuths joining an active police investigation in too robust a fashion.

Andrew was meeting with the detectives who’d arrived from the city, so Miranda went it alone, protected only by her sense of justice and finely honed TV fight skills (most of which were choreographed to avoid hurting the other person, but never mind). She was focused on solving the case, which also allowed her to avoid the question that lay beyond it: whether to take Penny up on her offer or to stay here in Happy Rock. Murder was an excellent distraction.

When Miranda arrived at the Opera House, the poster in the community events board that had started all of this* now had a large CANCELED sign slapped across it, the First Annual Happy Rock Mystery Writers Festival having ended before it could begin. The proposed venue for the festival stood in silence. Using Bea’s key, Miranda let herself in through the stage door on the side, past the stillness of the auditorium to where the caretaker’s room was situated.

With a sharp intake of breath for courage, she rapped on the door. No answer. The door was unlocked, and the room inside was empty and murkily lit. Little more than a glorified broom closet, really. A work table. The sour smell of a mop bucket. And pinned on the wall—a photograph.

Miranda leaned in, squinting in the half-light. A group of young people were sitting around a picnic table under clear skies, relaxed and beaming and, from their questionable fashion choices, twenty years out of date. (Miranda had an eye for such things.) It would have been a pleasant memento were it not for the fact that three of the faces in the photograph had been X-ed out angrily. Faces Miranda now recognized.

Miranda gasped and stepped back—into the man she had come looking for. She spun to face him. He towered above her, face reedy, eyes reptilian.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Eschewing her TV karate skills, she pushed past him, mumbling something about “Looking for a mop.”

She was fearless, but she wasn’t foolhardy. The photo with X’s signified imminent danger should she stay, so Miranda fled, running through the backstage area, fumbling for her phone. She was dialing 911 when Ned appeared. In person.

“I was just calling you!” she cried.

“Miranda, what have I told you about using 911 to arrange rides?”

“The janitor! X’s on faces. A photograph!”

“Complete sentences, Miranda, remember?”

As it turned out, Ned was coming to see the same man, and as Miranda described the photograph, his face turned thoughtful. She followed Ned back to the utility room, where the man in question was calmly waiting. The photograph was gone, however.

The janitor presented Ned with his ID.

“I’m just following up with everyone who was at the bookstore last night,” Ned explained. “I understand you left early, but I’d still like to take your prints, if you don’t mind, to avoid any misunderstandings.”

A shrug. “Sure, but you’re wasting your time. You won’t find any of my fingerprints on that arrow.”

Ned’s eyes narrowed. “Who said anything about an arrow?”

“Who hasn’t? Everyone is talking about it.”

The janitor rolled his fingers on the card like a pro. Like someone who has done it before. The entire time, he ignored Miranda’s fiery gaze.

Ned turned the man’s driver’s license over in his hand. “Cephus Kudarc-Vesztes? Am I saying that right?”

“No one does.”

“And what sort of name is that?”

“Southern. I’m from New Iberia. That’s in Louisiana.”

“Says here you’re from Bakersfield.”

“I mean, before.”

“Long way to come to work as a janitor, Cephus.”

“We prefer the term custodian.”

“Who’s we?”

“Janitors.”

“Not too far to go for revenge, though, is it!?” Miranda yelled. “The photo with faces X-ed out. I recognized some of them. You hid it as soon as I left.”

“Where’s the photograph?” Ned asked.

The other man tried to brush it off with a standard-issue “She’s imagining things,” but Ned stared at him, hard, didn’t blink. Said exactly nothing.

A long silence passed between them, and Ned Buckley let the silence do its work for him.

“Fine.” Cephus retrieved the photograph from the table drawer, turned it over, and slid it across. “I know how it looks, but I was just keeping track, wondering which of the Idaho Seven would be next to die.”

“Idaho Seven, you say?” Ned studied the photo carefully. “And there you are, Cephus. The one with the handlebar mustache.”

“That’s how you slipped into the reception unnoticed!” said Miranda. “They would have known you with a mustache. Where do you get your ideas from? That was the question you threw at Ray Valentine. You were twisting the blade. Why?”

Cephus the Custodian said nothing.

“That is you, though, isn’t it?” said Ned, looking closer. “Oh, and look, there’s Ray Valentine, the skinny kid in the back. And a younger, spryer Kane Hamady, with his face X-ed out. And next to him, with his face X-ed out, too, is the recently deceased Fairfax DePoy. And here in the middle, surrounded by adoration, this older gentleman, the one with the third X across his face. That would be the late John D. Ross, I presume?”

“The master himself. May he rest in hotter climes.”

Ned pushed back his police cap, whistled. “A happy gathering by this photo. Whole gang is there. I can recognize Penny by her height, even when she’s sitting down like that, practically on the master’s lap, with Wanda Stobol clinging to his left-hand side—Wanda, or whatever her name was back then. And that mousy young woman standing off to one side, that would be Inez, yes? Before she tattooed her cheek and dyed her hair black. Hardly recognizable here, in her cardigan and cat-eye glasses.”

“Wow,” said Miranda. “She truly reinvented herself.”

“We all did,” said Cephus. “Some of us were just better at it than others.”

Seven students. One master. Six who became authors—and one who never made it: Cephus, the seventh member, the young man with the handlebar ’stache.

“Ray Valentine stole my life story,” he said. “He took my experiences, my past, my identity, changed the names around, and claimed them as his own. Those stories he wrote were based on my life. Not his.”

“Hardly seems a killing matter,” said Ned.

“You’re absolutely right. It isn’t,” Cephus said. “Litigation, yes. But not murder. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“And when the litigation failed, as I’m assuming it did, what then?” asked Ned.

“You can’t copyright an idea,” he sneered. “That’s what they ruled. Turns out, writers can draw on real people for their stories as much as they like, so long as it’s not libelous. So ruled the judges.”

“Judges, plural? You were at it a while, then, trying to get recompense.”

“Used up the last of my savings on legal fees. Living on my pension now, and the paltry paycheck that comes with being a small-town custodian.”

“Pension, you say. You were with the force.” It wasn’t a question.

“LAPD, second lieutenant, homicide. Early retirement.”

“You showed up in Happy Rock shortly after the roster of authors was first announced. Happenstance, was it, or were you stalking someone?”

“If I wanted to kill them, I would have started with Ray, don’t you think? I didn’t kill any of them. Not Kane or Fairfax, certainly not John D. Ross. Natural causes, that last one. Unfortunately. The man deserved worse. He encouraged Ray Valentine to take my stories and steal my life while the rest of them sat back and said nothing. But like I say, I’m only keeping track, taking pleasure in watching them eat their own.”

“If you didn’t do it, who did?” Ned asked.

“Good question. Here’s a better one: cui bono?”

Ned wasn’t up on his Latin, but Miranda Abbott, who had played out many a fictional courtroom scene, understood immediately.

“Who benefits, you mean?” said Miranda.

“Exactly. Who has the most to gain? And who has the most to lose? Somebody put this whole thing together and then pushed over the first domino just to watch the rest topple.”

“Someone who wanted to pit the writers against each other?” Miranda asked.

For a moment, his eyes filled with pain. “You know, we were friends once. All of us.”

“The Idaho Seven,” said Miranda.

“John Ross said we were the most talented group of students he’d ever assembled. Those were intense times. Some of us fell in love, some became rivals. Some of us were left behind.” A thin smile surfaced. “You want to get to the bottom of this, officer? Ask his widow—I forget her name. She’ll know who set this up. It can’t be a coincidence, the boxes of John D. Ross novels arriving just before those six writers arrived. His widow will know. She’ll have the rights to the entire works of Old Blood and Thunder, including that lost manuscript.”

Old Blood and Thunder.

That nickname, thought Miranda, something about that nickname . . .

“She doesn’t, though,” said Ned. “The widow. She doesn’t control her husband’s work, isn’t the executor of the John D. Ross estate. Edgar called her this morning, told her about the double tragedies. She seemed unsurprised, almost satisfied. And when he asked where he should send the manuscript, she replied, ‘You keep it. I’d as soon you have it as anyone.’”

“Hard to imagine,” said Cephus, his voice full of rue. “Huh. The great John Ross. He promised us fame, promised us great careers. He promised us many things.”

The wheels in Miranda’s head were turning. Inez had reinvented herself. They all had . . .

“Kane Hamady’s real name was Nigel,” Miranda said. “He was British. That’s why his voice changed when he locked himself inside the reading room, trying to solve the riddle. Under the stress of the moment, his original accent emerged.”

“It started as an exercise in voice and POV,” said Cephus. “But it took over their lives. Ross was always playing with people’s lives. We were like characters in a story orchestrated for his own amusement.” His smile turned cruel. “Officer, I don’t know who killed Kane or Fairfax, but I can tell you who’s next.”

“And who might that be?”

He tapped a finger on one of the faces in the photograph: Penny Fenland.

“I’ll be drawing an X through her soon enough, I suppose.”

“And why is that?” Ned asked, voice flat. Killers often telegraphed their intentions.

Cephus leaned back on a terse smirk. “Because she knows too much. In any circle of friends, some will always be closer than others. Kane, Fairfax, and Penny? They were thick as thieves. Look how near they’re sitting to each other in this photo, practically in each other’s laps, limbs hooked in limbs, fingers entwined. Look at how Inez is off to one side, barely part of it, on the outside looking in. Kane was always dismissive of Inez for the freak she was. As for Ray Valentine and myself, we began as friends, good friends—best friends, even—until Ray betrayed me.”

“And Wanda Stobol?”

A shrug. “She wasn’t close to any of us. But unlike Inez, she didn’t care. Couldn’t make it as an adult author, chose the children’s route instead.”

Ned pointed out, “Be that as it may, Ms. Stobol has been published. Successfully, too. But you never were, were you, Mr. Kudarc-Vesztes? That must rankle. Seems if a fellow was looking for motive, that’s where he’d start.”

“Please,” he said, his voice splintered with ice. “Call me Cephus.”

“Kane Hamady, aka Nigel—he really was a III!” said Miranda. “Nigel Hawthorne III. Fairfax DePoy, meanwhile, was just an unnumbered kid from Jersey named Frankie. Kane and Fairfax—or rather, Nigel and Frankie—swapped lives!”

“That’s exactly right,” said Cephus.

“When did it sour? When did they cross the line to become mortal enemies?”

The janitor balked at this. “Enemies? They were never enemies.”

The news was like a thunderclap. In that moment, everything made sense: the locked door, the open transom, the creases in the page.

“We have to go back!” she cried.

“Where?” Ned wanted to know.

“To the Murder Store!”

But Ned refused to be hurried. He first took down Cephus’s statement on his whereabouts last night. It was a plausible alibi, though one that would need checking: Cephus had left the reception early to be on custodial duty for a local ladies’ social do, which ran late, as they always did (no one drank like the Tillamook Ladies Cultural Society). He’d locked up after they left. Witnesses would attest to that.

Only then did Ned allow himself to be pushed along by Miranda.

“We’re not exiting through the side door,” he admonished. “We’ll take the lobby like normal people. And anyway, Andrew is meeting me out front.”

Chapter Twenty

Melvin “J”

Ned Buckley escorted Miranda out of the Opera House via the main doors, securing the lock behind them and then stepping out into the clear, cold sunlight of the inner harbor. The air had the crispness of an apple being bitten. Miranda took a deep, satisfying breath. But before she could put her thoughts in order, she was accosted.

“Wait! I need to speak to you.” Scoop Bannister, jaywalking with impunity, ran across Harbor Road toward them, waving her notepad like a semaphore.

Damn paparazzi!

“No comment!” said Miranda, striding away, chin up.

But Scoop wasn’t interested in her. Unbeknownst to Miranda, the publicist Sheryl Youngblut was cutting across from the opposite direction. That was who the reporter was trying to intercept.

“I just came from the police station,” Sheryl said, stomping past. “I have nothing more to say.” With a glare in Ned’s direction, she added, “I already gave a statement to your local deputy last night, but had to go through it all over again this morning with those annoying detectives from Portland.”

Scoop stopped her anyway. “The Weekly Picayune. I only need a moment.”

“No time,” Sheryl snapped, pushing past.

As the publicist blew by, Scoop called out to her, “Just one question! Please, Ms. Ross!”

Sheryl froze. Turned slowly. “I think you have the wrong person.”

“You are Sheryl Ross, yes? Youngblut is your professional name, derived from the German, ‘young blood,’ to distinguish you from—”

“Enough!”

Ah! Miranda thought. Young Blood vs. Old Blood.

Sheryl’s eyes were blazing with ire. “What do you want from me?”

“You are John D. Ross’s granddaughter, yes?”

“How did you . . . ?”

“Nothing fancy. I just ran a basic reverse image search on your LinkedIn photo. You’re not exactly in witness protection or anything.”

With a distinct chill in her voice, Sheryl Ross/Youngblut said, “One question, that’s it. I will answer exactly one question and no more. And if it’s about the death of Kane Hamady or Fairfax DePoy, this interview is over.”

“Oh, nothing like that. You’re a successful entrepreneurial young woman. Our readers will want to know: What are your impressions of Happy Rock?”

“Happy Rock? It’s . . . it’s a nice town.”

Gold!

Scoop thanked her and let her pass. A moment later, Andrew arrived. Seeing the reporter, he asked, “What’s up?”

Ned shrugged, but Scoop, giddy with excitement, said, “Got an exclusive!”

Before Scoop could run off to file her story, Miranda, suddenly inspired, stopped her. “Ms. Bannister, you work for the paper. You must have microfiche files. There was a record for largest cutthroat trout set a few years ago when Kane Hamady was on the river. I think he said 38 pounds, or maybe it was 138.”

Ned chuckled. “Would hardly be one hundred and thirty-eight.”

Whatever. Men and their fish. Sheesh.

“Sure,” said Scoop. “I can find that for you, text you the link.”

Andrew interceded. “Maybe text it to me instead.”

Miranda was not known for her technological savvy. The fact that she’d referenced microfiche files underlined this.

“Do you have my number?” Andrew asked.

“I do, under—” She caught herself. She had jokingly listed Andrew as “future boyfriend,” only to find out later that he was playing for the other team. “Um, sure, I can send that.” And she left, more flustered than when she’d arrived.

On Scoop’s departure, Miranda pivoted. “Ned, Andrew! To the Murder Store! We have a fallen toothpick and an open transom to explain!”

To which Ned replied, “Miranda, how many times have we gone over this? I’m not your personal chauffeur. I’ve got to get to the station, type up my notes from my talk with the janitor, confer with my colleagues from Portland. I’m not running you up to the bookstore. Capiche?”

Having once again lost a coin toss to himself, Ned Buckley drove them to the bookstore. Miranda insisted he accompany them inside.

“You will want to be present for this!” she declaimed in full performance mode. Employing the finely honed deductive skills she’d developed as TV’s Pastor Fran, Miranda Abbott had solved the first impossible crime. “A locked room above, a single toothpick below. It fits together!”

She swept into I Only Read Murder, with Andrew and Ned scurrying to keep up.

On hearing the jingle of the front door opening, Edgar, who was ensconced behind a stack of mis-alphabetized books, shouted, “We’re not open today.” Then, on seeing it was Miranda charging in, followed by Andrew and the Chief of Police, he said, “Oh. Didn’t realize it was you.”

“We’re closed?” said Miranda.

“Not by choice. Entire joint is crawling with feds, as they might say in a Kane Hamady hard-boil.”

The bookstore was indeed busy with detectives from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Oregon State Police and white-clad forensic investigators from Portland’s Investigative Support Unit, who were coming and going like extras on a movie set.

Before she got any ideas, Ned said, “Miranda, this a crime scene investigation. You can’t interfere.”

“Can’t I?” she said, arching an eyebrow perfectly. “Or can’t I not not interfere?”

While Ned—and Edgar—attempted to untangle the byzantine syntax of Miranda Logic, she stood scanning the disheveled shelves of the main room. Edgar had emptied some of the shelves, tackled others haphazardly as he tried to untangle the similarly complex syntax of Miranda’s organizational approach to authors’ names.

“Drat! You shouldn’t have moved the books around, Edgar. You’ve covered up one of the key clues.”

“I had no choice, seeing as how you’d reorganized our entire inventory according to your own inscrutable whim.”

“Kane Hamady’s books. The covers were facing out before.”

“Because he turned them that way. Remember?”

“Oh, I do. As I said, it’s the crux of the case. Kane Hamady kept compulsively rearranging his books, did he not?”

Edgar, dryly: “Yeah, turning them around so they were face-out, an author’s magic trick to push their books onto the New York Times bestseller list.”

“Any author worth their salt can spy one of their books from a hundred paces across a crowded room. That’s what you said. Across a crowded room—or tucked in behind a door. Or lying open on the floor, I imagine. Authors zero in on their own works. Their own covers draw them in like a moth to a flame, like an actress to a waiting audience.”

Ned could almost see where she was going with this. “Meaning?”

“The toothpick! Don’t you see, Ned? Kane Hamady was never in the basement. His toothpick was. The grate in the floor of the reading room is covered by air ducts below. These ducts are made of tin, too weak and too narrow for anyone to climb through, and the heavy floor grate above was painted shut. The grate never moved. But surely the tray directly below it can slide aside. Otherwise, how would you sweep it clear of dust?”

“Melvin is the guy who cleans the furnace and ducts,” said Edgar, and Ned nodded.

Andrew, who was still bewildered by Happy Rock after all this time, said, his voice agog, “Melvin Jacobson runs a manure supply/tour company and furnace cleaning service?”

“And bakery,” said Edgar. “Don’t forget the bakery. Those shortbread cookies he sells at the farmers market, the ones with the distinct tang.”

“It’s not the cookies but the cleaning I am interested in,” said Miranda. “Ned, get his Royal Pungency down here at once!”

* * *

HE ENTERED ON a waft of pheromones, with a John Travolta strut, to the rhythm of “Staying Alive,” snapping business cards left and right the way a magician might show you the jack of diamonds or the king of hearts, a gangly kid in a retro 1980s ski jacket (retro because he had pulled it out of the dumpster behind the Duchess Hotel). The dumbfounded investigators he passed in the hall accepted his card before they fully processed what was happening.

Melvin “J” (as he liked to be known) gave Miranda a wink and a nod. Fresh out of high school, he’d once played her love interest in the Happy Rock amateur theater production of Death Is the Dickens, which he assumed had created an eternal bond between them. It hadn’t.

With a satisfied smile, he looked around the interior of the bookstore. “Ah yes. The Sieve, we call her. This building leaks heat like it was made of Swiss cheese, furnace constantly straining. You know, when the time comes, I also install new furnaces.”

Always trying to upsell, this guy.

“The ducts and grates in the floor,” Miranda said. “You clean those?”

He did indeed. He emptied the dust trays under the grates as part of his Super Elite™ Service.

Edgar: “I signed up for the super elite service?”

Melvin: “Yup. Your signature is on the form, so it’s too late now. It’s why I tightened the light bulbs and checked your wall sockets for obstructions. Part of the service.”

“And how long is this agreement for?” Edgar wanted to know.

“In perpetuity,” said Melvin. “That means—”

“I know what that means.” Under his breath, Edgar muttered, “I’ll get Atticus on that.”

“Atticus is the one who drafted the agreements,” Melvin said. “Now, about those grates. Pretty simple, really. You go underneath them, where the duct is. You reach up, there’s a latch. Turn that, and the last panel flaps down on a pin hinge. It opens up like that so you can clean out the inside of the duct. It’s an old design from before people used those giant vacuum-hose, rattle-bang machines to suck out the dust. Me, I’m old-school. I use a hand brush. I could use a regular vacuum, I suppose, but that would require an upgrade. Our Mega Super Elite™ package.”

Although she already knew the answer, Miranda asked, “Anyone could open those trays?”

“Yup. If you do, though, be careful. It can shower you with dust.”

“Dust—and toothpicks!” cried Miranda. “Gentlemen, to the basement!”

But before they could head downstairs, an irate woman from the Portland team shooed Melvin away. “Out! Your presence alone is contaminating the crime scene.”

“Will do.” With the snap of a business card, he said, “You need anything, call.”

“Um, okay. Sure.” She took the card in a daze.

These Happy Rock men were musky, Miranda noted, but not without their appeal. Case in point: Owen McCune’s wooing of the uber-gothic Inez Fonio.

“Melvin, before you go,” Miranda said. “You took the authors on a tour of Tillamook Bay. And the lighthouse?”

“Highlight of our Premium Tour package,” he said. “No trademark on that one. Thomas Cook beat us to it. Don’t know who this Cook guy is, but he’s always one step ahead of us.”

“Which is to say, they would have known they would be going to the lighthouse at Laurel Point, would be visiting the keeper’s quarters, with the grandfather clock and the heavy beams overhead?”

“For sure. We have it on our website. A full 360 of the interior.”

The young forensics investigator had regained her composure and was now hustling Melvin down the hall to the front door.

He called back to Edgar as the officer closed the front door on him, “With our Mega Super Elite™ Furnace Cleaning Service, we also check for boa constrictors in the—”

“I’m going to kill Atticus,” said Edgar. He was going to kill a lot of people; the list was long, but the name Atticus Lawson figured prominently on it.

“Time enough to kill Atticus later!” Miranda said. “We have a murder to solve.”

Chapter Twenty-One

A Kill Shot from Below

Miranda led the way, through the hall, past the kitchen, and down the stairs to the furnace room, with Ned, Deputy Andrew, and Edgar in tow.

In the dim light, they followed the overhead ducts in the basement. Edgar reached up and found the latch Melvin had told them about. The metal panel under the floor grate swung loose, and they found themselves peering up directly into the reading room. Through the curlicue gaps in the grate, they could see figures moving about amid the heavy trod of footsteps and the muffled sound of voices. An ornamental pattern. But space enough to fire an arrow through.

“If only he’d been wearing his hat,” said Miranda. “It would have fallen on top of the grate, revealing where the arrow had come from. Alas, Kane had stuffed his trilby into his overcoat pocket, and when he toppled backwards into the chair, he took his hat with him. But not his toothpick. That fell though the grate into the basement.”

Miranda looked at the crates stacked against the wall. “The dust on those crates,” she said. “Undisturbed. What does that tell you?”

The others had no idea.

“It tells us that Fairfax DePoy did not kill Kane Hamady!”

“You can tell that from dust?” said Ned.

“The challenge the killer faced was how to get Kane to come to the grate. In the room above, Kane was growing frantic. He needed to know how that final John D. Ross story ended. He’d turned the manuscript over, found a handwritten note at the bottom of the last page: the answer to the riddle would be at the end of the book that matters most. But which book? He began flinging hardcovers around, flipping them to the last page, tossing them aside. Defeated, he came over to unlock the door and let us in, and what did he spot? The one thing no author can resist: a copy of his own book. It was lying open, face down on top of the grate. Planted earlier by someone who knew Kane’s plan. Someone who knew he was going to sneak back into the room and lock himself in it until he had retrieved the manuscript and uncovered its secrets. The killer was familiar with the blueprints to the bookstore, had studied them online. Knew the vanity of authors, and Kane Hamady in particular. Knew he would stop to pick up his book when he saw it there. I imagine, when everyone else was crowding in to stare into the cabinet at the manuscript, our killer casually laid a copy of Kane’s novel on the grate behind the open door.”

“It also explains why the book was open at exactly mid-point,” said Ned. “Page one hundred out of two. That’s how a book would naturally fall open, I’d guess.”

“Exactly. Kane was being set up from the start. The trap was set. When Kane spotted his own book, he must have thought, in his last moments alive, Maybe it was me all along! Maybe I was the one who mattered most! He bent over. And the arrow went straight up from below, though the book and into his chest. He was thrown backwards into the chair, which swiveled in a slow turn, carried by the momentum of his falling body. That’s what was wrong with his ankles! They were angled the wrong way, dragging away from the door, rather than the window, where we thought the arrow had come from.”

Ned spoke. “So Lachlan Todd’s initial outrageous theory was correct on one score: the kill shot did come from below.”

Edgar craned his neck. “I’m not sure a bow and arrow could shoot straight up like that . . .”

“Not a bow, an arrow,” said Miranda.

Andrew was just about to remind her to speak in complete sentences, when she continued.

“A speargun. You could hold it straight up against the grate.”

Ned and Andrew joined Edgar in gazing upward.

“Were there no fingerprints on the arrow?” she asked.

“Wiped clean,” said Ned.

“What I don’t understand,” said Edgar, “is if it was a speargun—and true enough, they can be quite small and light and easy to hide, compared to a crossbow—why use it to shoot an arrow? Why not just fire a regular fishing spear?”

“To disguise the fact that it was a speargun, to make it appear to be a crossbow, to throw the scent onto Mr. DePoy, he of the crossbow-enamored, lassie-beguiling romantic love stories.” She turned to Ned. “Did you find any fingerprints on Kane’s novel, the one that was laid down on the grate?”

Ned nodded. “We did. Inez Fonio’s.”

Andrew gasped. “That will destroy Owen!”

“But Inez is the one person it couldn’t have been,” said Edgar. “Inez was upstairs with Owen at the time the murder happened. She has an alibi.”

“Be that as it may, her fingerprints were all over that book,” said Ned. “As were Ray Valentine’s and Wanda Stobol’s and Penny Fenland’s and Sheryl Youngblut’s and Bea’s and Gerry’s and more. Everyone who handled it left prints. It had been pawed over during the course of the evening, just like the other authors’ books that were on display that night.”

“Pawed over but not purchased,” said Edgar bitterly. The woe of booksellers everywhere.

“How did the missing page of the manuscript end up in Fairfax’s throat?” Ned asked.

“When he was at the lighthouse, he shoved it into his mouth, tried to swallow it when the killer confronted him, thinking that would save him, or at the very least buy him time, because with Kane dead, he was the only one who knew what the missing page said. Fairfax had been lured to the lighthouse by that note referencing Virginia Woolf.”

Ned looked around the dark basement, at the grim shadows and murky corners and the creaking furnace with its many tentacled ducts above. “So where is the murder weapon?”

Edgar answered. “If it’s a lightweight speargun, the type used for recreational fishing, they’re made of aluminum, can be broken down easily to be put away.”

“Everyone thought the arrow came from outside,” said Miranda, “through the transom, but the real killer—and their weapon—were in the bookstore, not outside. You can have Holly make a thorough search of this basement if you like, Ned, but I would imagine the weapon is gone. Stashed somewhere or flung away.”

Andrew’s phone trilled and everyone jumped, skittish and frightfully aware they were standing in the same place the killer had, in the suffocating air of a dank basement.

Looking at his screen, Andrew said, “It’s nothing. Scoop sent me a link to a story about the trout. I’ll look at it later.”

“No!” said Miranda. “The trout explains the transom.”

“The trout explains the transom?”

“Yes, yes,” she said, with an impatient flutter of her hands. It was perfectly obvious.

“Okay.” With a shrug, Andrew scrolled through the article. “It’s from The Weekly Picayune archives, several years ago, under the headline a good time had by all at annual fish run.” He read: “Last Saturday, a record 38-pound cutthroat trout was caught on the Nestucca River.”

Ned chuckled to himself under his breath at Miranda’s earlier error. “A hundred and thirty-eight pounds. As if.”

Miranda ignored this and said to Andrew, “I’m not interested in the record itself, but the participants. They would have interviewed people who were in town fishing that weekend.”

Andrew scrolled through to a pixelated image: a pair of beaming faces holding up their catches for the camera. Familiar faces.

“Frank Hoffman and his friend Nigel from the UK enjoyed the fishing last weekend, saying that Happy Rock was—and we quote here, for factual accuracy—a ‘nice place to visit.’”

A hush descended upon the basement.

“Kane and Fairfax,” said Ned. “They were . . .”

“Friends,” said Miranda.

“Everything Kane did was a facade,” said Andrew. “The tough-guy American persona, the swagger.”

“The two of them swapped lives,” she said. “More than friends, they were co-conspirators. Their stage-managed feud may have sold a lot of books, and may well have raised the profile of both authors, but that only underlines the larger truth: they were working together. They were trying to snag the last page of that manuscript. And I can prove it with a single piece of paper!”

To the relief of the others—the heebie-jeebies had begun to seep in from the furnace room walls—Miranda Abbott marched her coterie back up the stairs to the main floor.

In the kitchen, she found a notepad and handed Andrew a sheet of paper. “Please fold this, as best you can, along similar lines as those we found on the paper lodged in Fairfax DePoy’s throat.”

“Um, sure. Let’s see. There were a couple of creases down the center, then more angled like a fan on either side . . .”

As he folded the paper, he saw it. They all did. Not a fan. Something else entirely.

Miranda entered the reading room, to cries of “Hey! What are you doing?” from the crime scene investigators. Ned quickly flashed his badge, saying, “She’s with me.”

On a decisive stride, Miranda crossed the room to the window, lowered the transom, and threw the paper airplane Andrew had folded through it. It glided across into the backyard, landing near the shed.

“That’s why we saw no footprints in the flower bed,” said Ned.

“The plan was, Kane would pass the final page of the manuscript through the transom to Fairfax, who would spirit it away,” said Miranda. “But the last page only directed them somewhere else: the book that matters most. Which book? Kane folded the page into a paper airplane, opened the transom, threw the page through it, then closed the transom back up—not all the way, but enough that it was locked. He then began frantically searching through the John D. Ross first editions, trying to find the message at the end of the book that mattered most. He failed. Was turning the key on the door and was about to step out into the hallway to face Edgar’s ire, when what did he see, lying off to one side? A copy of his own book. The rest, as they say, is murder.”

At which point, the forensics team from Portland cut in, wanting to know who the hell this woman was and why Ned had allowed her to enter an active crime scene. With imperious dignity, Miranda replied, “I am the owner of this establishment!”

“Co-owner.”

“And I have solved the how of it!”

Now she just needed to figure out the who of it. And the why.

* * *

“THAT STILL LEAVES the murder in the lighthouse,” said Ned. “The detectives in charge are convinced the second death was a suicide.”

Miranda couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Even with the discrepancy between the height of the chair and the dangling of Fairfax DePoy’s feet? And how about the grease on the rope? That was to pull the weight of the body over the beam. The killer looped the rope around DePoy’s neck and then hoisted him up.”

They were standing in the hallway outside the reading room, having been chased away and properly chastised by forensics. The CID detectives had taken note, though. One of them had gone to the basement to check on Miranda’s proposed solution, while another stayed up top to keep an eye on her.

“My mom used to watch you on TV,” he said, unsmiling. “Back when there were only six channels.”

Miranda ignored this. Never mind that she was in her prime well after the cable TV revolution. (Those high-tech days!) Edgar had gone upstairs to make sure Emmy was okay, and Miranda could hear his footsteps and the skidding joy of the dog racing about overhead. Her thoughts went back to the saucer and fork that Owen had left up there the night before . . . She’d almost seen the significance of this, but the talk of suicide brought her back around to the matter at hand.

“Doc Meadows thinks Fairfax was already dead when he was hanged,” she pointed out to Ned. “How could a dead man hang himself inside a locked room?”

“Dead—or dying,” Ned corrected. “All Doc said was that he didn’t think the noose was the primary cause of death.”

“Lured to the lighthouse, Fairfax saw the chair and the noose and rope, perhaps a speargun in the killer’s hand, and he knew what was coming. He stuffed the paper into his mouth, tried to swallow the secret the page held, began to choke. The killer strung him up, assuming it would still pass as suicide.”

The detective was listening in. A lanky man with a sinewy look about him, he was in a dark jacket and jeans (what counted as semiformal in Oregon). He said, “Ma’am, with due respect to your Dr. Meadows, he’s a local GP, not an expert in crime scene investigations. Mr. DePoy could have swallowed the piece of paper and then tightened the rope around his neck as he was choking. He climbed up on the chair, had a contorted spasm as he died, kicking the chair away. The rope then somehow tightened up as he fell, which could explain the apparent gap between Mr. DePoy’s feet and the chair.”

“Apparent gap?” she said. “Apparent? He would’ve had to be standing in midair when he kicked away the chair. No. The answer is simple: someone else hoisted him up, pulled too far, perhaps not realizing how short DePoy really was. When I placed the chair under his feet, he was dangling inches above it.”

“Nonetheless, it could have happened. In fact, it’s the only way it could have happened, as far as we can see.”

“A rather complex way to die.”

“Ma’am, the deceased was alone inside the lighthouse, with the door locked. It was bolted shut from the inside. The windows were barred, no access to the floor above, no hidden trapdoor in the floor below. The room was entirely sealed off. If that isn’t suicide, what is?”

“And the grandfather clock? Explain that!”

Unaccustomed to the sudden breathtaking leaps Miranda was capable of, the detective turned to the others for help. “What is she talking about? The clock in the lighthouse? The one that fell over?”

Andrew answered for her: “The pieces seemed scattered.”

The detective’s brow furrowed. “A toppled grandfather clock will do that. How is that an issue?”

“It isn’t an issue until it is! And then it is an issue!” she declared, to a deepening of the furl on the detective’s brow.

“Ma’am, I don’t follow . . .”

“It’s ‘The Case of the Clockwork Corpse’! But the opposite of it.”

Leaning in, Andrew whispered, “He may not be as knowledgeable about the Pastor Fran canon as some of us.”

“A body hidden inside a standing clock!” she said. The pieces of the puzzle were moving, were snapping into place—almost literally.

“A body? Inside a clock? Where?!” said the detective.

“On TV!” she cried.

If sighs could kill . . . “Ma’am, I really don’t have time for this.”

“In that episode, the nefarious villain Professor Nemesis—”

“Wait,” said the detective. “The nemesis on your show was actually named Nemesis?”

“He had to make room for the body, so he removed the internal mechanisms—when the clock didn’t chime, that was the clue that solved the case. But here we have something quite different. The question isn’t ‘How do the clues fit together?’ in the figurative sense, but how they fit together in the actual sense. The pieces of the lighthouse clock were scattered far and wide. How do they fit together? Do they fit together? Andrew, darling!”

She yelled as though summoning him from a great distance, even though he was standing right next her.

“Yes?”

“You are still deputized, I believe. That should grant you access to the lighthouse. I want you to go through and put that clock back together again, the inner workings, in its entirety, see if everything fits.”

“You want me to reassemble a grandfather clock? That would take ages. And how would I even know where everything belongs? Who would know how to put it back together? What, am I supposed to call up my ‘clock guy,’ see what he says?”

“Excellent idea! Yes, do call him. That’s the spirit.”

“I don’t have a ‘clock guy.’ I was being sardonic.”

“Oh? Well, don’t. It doesn’t suit you.”

“And what would I even be looking for? Missing pieces?”

“Not missing pieces, extra pieces. One in particular. Something about this long”—she held her hands a foot or so apart—“And this wide.” She held up her thumb and finger in an OK sign. Not the most accurate measurements ever given, but enough to go by, she was sure.

“The assignment seems both incredibly vague and impossibly specific,” said Andrew, his heart sinking. He could see what was coming. “You want me to put a clock back together just to see if there are any extra bits left over?”

“Precisely! I want you to look for something that could be squeezed into the barrel of a door bolt,” she explained.

“The barrel of a bolt?”

“The tubular shaft that the bolt slides into when the door is unlocked. Look for something—a spring, perhaps—that could be pushed into it so that, as it slowly expanded, it would push the bolt back into place, locking the door after the fact.”

The detective had become increasingly animated as he listened to what Miranda was suggesting. “A spring?” he asked.

“A heavy industrial-style spring. Something strong and slow enough to gradually push the bolt into place.”

Fumbling with his phone, the detective brought up a gallery of images. “We cataloged everything,” he said, and began scrolling through them at a blur until he came to various images of clock parts, as tagged and numbered and photographed on the floor of the lighthouse. He stopped at one of the items. “Like this?”

It was a thin copper rod with a long but delicate spring running down it.

“Too small.”

He scrolled through to an image of a grooved pendulum weight. “Or this?”

“Too thick—and not springy enough.”

“How about this?”

There it was: a heavy-duty metal spring.

“Taken from Owen’s pile of industrial parts, no doubt,” she said. “Along with the rope and can of grease.”

They crowded in around the detective’s phone. “It certainly looks like it could fit into the barrel of the door’s bolt,” said the detective.

Ned and Andrew agreed.

“You place the spring behind the bolt,” said Miranda, “then pull back on the bolt to open the door, squeezing the spring in. When you close the door behind you, the spring slowly decompresses, pushing the bolt into place and then falling away, onto the floor.”

“Where it would have immediately been spotted when we pried open the door,” said Ned, “except for the other loose pieces scattered about to cover it up, the cogs and gears and gewgaws and various oddments of a clockwork mechanism. The spring among them. It would be assumed to have come from the clock as well, not that it had been used to lock the door behind the killer after the killer escaped. Ingenious!”

“Thank you!” said Miranda.

“So, not suicide?” said the detective,

“Of course not!” said Miranda. “This wasn’t improvised. This wasn’t something thrown together at the last moment. Our killer was planning to kill both men from the start, first Kane and then DePoy.”

Two locked rooms, two impossible murders. Both solved with a decisive Gordian blow by Miranda Abbott. The only thing the detective from Portland could think to say was “Wow.”

“You are so truly welcome!” She swept toward the front door.

“Wait!” said the detective. “Who are you? Really?”

She stopped, flung her scarf over shoulder. “I’m Pastor Fran!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hiding in Plain Sight

Ned Buckley finally got his salmon. Bea had had to reheat it three times over the past two days, and Doc Meadows had warned Ned about this when he’d heard what she’d be serving for lunch, but Ned pronounced it the most delicious meal he ever had.

He’d stopped by Geri and Gerry’s earlier to speak with Penny Fenland, to let her know about the X the janitor had drawn on the photo of her face, claiming she and Kane and Fairfax had been, as he put it, “thick as thieves.”

“But why?” she’d said. “We weren’t friends. No one could stand Kane, and Fairfax was living a lie.”

Ned had asked if she wanted to be put into protective custody, meaning locked up in a local cell, and she’d declined, more confused than upset. It was a wise choice, as the holding cell of Happy Rock would prove more permeable than people realized.

And now Ned was at Bea’s B&B, where he belonged, ready and eager to dine. Bea had added lemon slices as garnish, though Miranda had offered to douse the entire slab of salmon with lemon juice.

“I have loads of the stuff,” she’d assured Bea. “For when anyone asks for my patented lemonade.” Not that they did.

Bea had politely declined and stuck with herbs, sea salt, and sliced lemon instead. And butter. Lots and lots of butter. (Bea’s hero was Julia Child.)

“I was worried about you,” she said, as Ned tucked in.

“No need,” he assured her between mouthfuls. “Andrew here had my back.”

Ned was updating them on the murders. “The team from Portland is scrambling just to keep up with you, Miranda. They’re calling people back in to reinterview them specifically about access to the furnace room under the bookstore. Until now, the focus of the investigation had been on the window and the yard behind.”

“Any luck?” asked Miranda.

“Several people saw Fairfax going in and out, but the door leading to the basement is tucked in around the corner, past the kitchen. Geri and Gerry were busy preparing food for the reception and didn’t see anyone go down to the furnace room. Would be easy to slip by without being noticed.”

“And the lighthouse?”

“You were right again, Miranda. The heavy spring was hidden in plain sight on the floor, in among the pieces of the broken clock, and it did indeed fit snugly into the barrel of the bolt. When squeezed back, it would have slowly expanded, moving the bolt into place just like you said, locking the body inside and making it appear to be a suicide.”

Miranda Abbott had solved the mechanism of these impossible murders, but the identity of the killer still eluded her.

“That’s what worries me,” said Bea. “Knowing someone is still out there, lying in wait. You’ll be careful, won’t you, Ned? Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“How long have we known each other, Bea? Have I ever done anything rash in my entire life?”

His phone vibrated on the table and, like a fool, he put it on speaker, freeing up his hands for the utensils but allowing Officer Holly’s droll take on matters to be heard by everyone in the kitchen.

“Ned, it’s Holly here. I’m assuming you’re at the Widder Maracle’s homestead?”

“Salmon,” he said, as though that both explained and justified everything.

“Sure thing, Romeo. Anyway, you need to get down to the station pronto! Or as close to pronto as you can move. We have a confession.”

“A confession? That’s terrific news! He ’fessed up?” Like Miranda, Ned was assuming it was the janitor.

“It’s not a him, it’s a her. Just get down here, okay, Casanova?”

He grabbed his hat and headed for door, apologizing for not finishing.

“Don’t you worry,” said Bea, relieved that the killer was in custody. “I can warm up the leftovers for you again later. You go and get the bad guy—or gal, I should say.”

Miranda and Andrew followed him out to his car as a matter of course.

“Why would she call me Romeo?” Ned asked, addled by what Holly had said. He unlocked the doors. “I just came by for the salmon. Didn’t want to waste it.”

Andrew jumped in up front. He was always so excited to ride in the patrol car.

Miranda, sliding into the back seat, remarked, to no one in particular, “With acting, if we tell ourselves the same thing enough times, we start to believe it.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s not really about the salmon, is it?”

He climbed in, started the engine. “You’re as bad as Holly,” he muttered. “Commenting on things that don’t concern you.”

“Bea matters to me, Ned. And you matter to Bea. Ipso facto, you matter to me, too.” It was a straightforward syllogism of friendship.

“Can I put on the siren?” Andrew asked. “Please? Can I? Since we’re in a hurry. You know, to clear the traffic.”

“This is Happy Rock,” Ned growled. “We don’t have traffic.”

* * *

LIKE THE BOOKSTORE, the Happy Rock police station was busy with out-of-town investigators coming and going, carrying folders and barking orders to each other. Fortunately, Officer Holly had managed to hold them back—possibly on threat of a good old-fashioned tasering—from the holding cell, where the suspect was waiting.

“I reminded the Portland crowd that they are here on the invitation of the HRPD, and that this was still our case until they were notified otherwise.”

“Good work, officer,” said Ned, sweeping in past the front desk. “We’ll take it from here. You stand guard. Andrew, come with me. You can take notes.”

And before he could tell Miranda to wait. right. here., Officer Holly had waved her through, too. “You too, Nancy Drew.”

Ned was as surprised as she was.

With a wry smile, Holly explained, “She asked for you specifically, Miranda. Said, ‘If someone is going to play me in a shitty movie of the week, I want it to be her.’”

Flattered, Miranda joined Ned and Andrew. They walked down the hall past Ned’s office to the station’s single holding cell at the rear of the building.

Sitting behind bars was Wanda Stobol. She looked up, gave them a weary smile as they approached. “Here I was hoping it might finally be Compendium Cathy on the case,” she said. “Kid never shows up when I need her to.”

Before he could unlock the cell door, Miranda pulled Ned to one side and whispered, “Ned, this makes no sense. She masterminds a pair of devious murders, and then just strolls in and confesses?”

Ned squirmed. “Not confesses, not exactly.” He turned his back to Wanda so she couldn’t hear. “Officer Holly said her actual words were ‘Lock me up and I’ll tell you everything.’”

On a clang of the door, they entered the cell. Andrew dragged in some chairs as the police chief joined Wanda on the cot.

Not without sympathy, Ned said, “Somethin’ weighing on your mind, Ms. Stobol? We can talk in the interview room, would be more comfortable. But Officer Holly informs me that you want to stay right here.”

Her smile tightened. “Safest place for me,” she said.

“Tell me about the Idaho Seven,” Ned said, throwing a glance to Andrew, who sat, notebook poised and ready.

And now the smile turned wistful. Wanda Stobol, such a stout and imposing physical figure, seemed so vulnerable, so very much alone.

“We were young and nervous, full of panic and joy. Personally selected by the great John D. Ross to be his acolytes. Love and money are the two greatest motives for murder, with the love of money stronger still.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“Love, money, and glory. He promised his franchise to the one of us who could work out the ending to his final book. He’d already written the last novel in the series, to be held in estate until his death, by his widow, I presume. We were to gather at his summer home on Cape Cod a year after he died, where we would be allowed to read his final manuscript, A Black Orchid to End With—but not the last page. Whoever among us could predict the final twist would get to take over the entire series. An iconic and lucrative series.”

“Helen doesn’t control the estate.”

“Who?

“Helen. His wife.”

“Ah.” Wanda nodded. “That would explain why she shuffled it off to you, Miranda. Decided to wash her hands of the matter.”

“Not to me, to my husband. Helen Ross sent the books and the manuscript to the bookstore, care of Edgar.”

“If not the widow, who does manage the Ross literary estate?” Wanda wanted to know.

“Sheryl Youngblut.”

“The overworked publicist?” She was not expecting that.

“From what I gather, she has a strained relationship with her grandmother,” said Ned.

“The publicist is John D. Ross’s grandkid?” said Wanda. “Go figure.”

“And Helen Ross is her grandmother.” Miranda remembered the look on Sheryl’s face when Edgar told her he’d only met Helen one time. “Well, you must have made quite an impression on her.” A look of sadness, of envy.

“She was alienated from her grandmother’s affections,” Miranda realized. “Most likely over her grandfather’s estate, over what to do with John D. Ross’s legacy, that final manuscript. Instead of gifting those first editions to her granddaughter, Helen Ross packs them up and ships them off to Edgar Abbott. That must have hurt Sheryl’s feelings immensely.”

“Not that it mattered,” said Wanda. “It was a poisoned chalice, his final act of cruelty. It dies with him.”

“What dies with him?” Miranda’s voice grew quiet. “Oh my god, you know. You know the ending of his final novel.”

But how? Then it hit her: John D. Ross’s handwritten note on the page extracted from Fairfax’s throat. The answer lies at the end of the book that matters most.

“That strange novel, the one tucked in amongst the John D. Ross hardcovers and paperbacks. It was taken from the reading room in the confusion following Kane’s murder. You took it! You took it and you read the solution. You know how the series ends.”

A dry laugh from Wanda. “How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun, written by the only one of us with any real talent. John D. Ross, of course, would have none of it. He dismissed the novel as being ‘literary.’ A label of contempt in his eyes. A book without a plot? A book with artistic aspirations? Better to squash that at the onset. But the old fool must’ve known in his heart that it was good, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Must have known it mattered. Both the book and the person who wrote it.”

“Who was it?” Miranda asked. “Who was the one who squandered their talents?”

“Take your pick: I write children’s books, Penny writes cozies, Inez writes lurid erotica, Kane became a caricature of himself, trapped by his own persona, and Fairfax penned some of the world’s dumbest historical mysteries. We are all of us glorified hacks in our own way. Kane and Fairfax were working in tandem, planning to take over the franchise and share the name John D. Ross.”

“Who wanted that last page?” Ned needed to know. “And more importantly, who was willing to kill for it?”

Wanda Stobol sighed. “Could have been any one of us. Kane desperately needed the money. Fairfax DePoy wanted to become American again. He longed for that vernacular, was trapped in a flouncy world of romantic pap, was aching to return to who he really was, would’ve yearned to take over the John D. Ross name. Student becomes the master, literally. I certainly could have used the franchise, would have been happy to pass Compendium Cathy off to the next Wanda Stobol. Penny Fenland and Inez Fonio are by far the most successful of the Idaho Seven, so I don’t see them wanting to take over the Trevor Lucas series, iconic as it is.” She thought a moment. “But there was another member of our group, the only one who never made it as a writer. A young police officer. Idealistic, naive, even. Cepheus something-or-other.”

“That was him at the reception,” said Ned. “The fellow who asked Ray Valentine where he got his ideas from.”

“I thought I recognized him! Without the mustache, it was hard to tell.”

“Speaking of financial difficulties,” said Ned. “Mr. Valentine has faced multiple lawsuits over the years.”

“And won every one of them,” Wanda pointed out.

“Would still be ruinous. Legal fees and whatnot.”

“And lost sales,” Wanda conceded. “Feuds might move books, but accusations of plagiarism don’t. Tends to erode a reader’s trust—even if it’s never proven in a court of law. The accusation alone can be enough to undermine an author. Listen. Cephus What’s-his-face never wrote a damn thing worth publishing. He was a cop, not an author. Ray? He was the exact opposite: he was a wordsmith first and foremost, who reinvented himself as a police officer. That badge he keeps flashing? Community volunteer.”

“He stole Cephus’s life story,” Miranda insisted.

“He took inspiration,” Wanda shot back. “That’s what authors do. They plunder the world around them. Cephus had no cause to get so upset. His life was just sitting there, unused.”

“It was still his life,” said Miranda. “And it was still wrong, whether it was illegal or not. The law is the law—but not when it is above the law!” Then, before anyone could try to untangle that, Miranda leaned forward, leveled her gaze at Wanda Stobol. “If you really are the murderer, you’ll know exactly how it was done. Kane Hamady and Fairfax DePoy. If you are the killer, prove it. Tell me how you did it.”

“Who said I did?”

“You’re the one who asked to be arrested.”

“I asked to be put into protective custody.” Wanda Stobol closed her eyes, tilted her head back. “God. My ulcer is killing me. I think we’re done here.”

“I just have one more question,” said Miranda. “Where did you put it, the novel that matters most, the one that has the answer to everything?”

“How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun? I hid it in the one place no one would think to look, the one place no one would find it.” She laughed and refused to say more.

As they made their way to the front of the station, Miranda said, “Ned, she’s scared.” And then, catching sight of Holly, she rushed over. “Officer Holly! You have to protect her! Wanda Stobol is in mortal danger.”

Holly snorted at this. “Relax. She’s inside a jail cell, protected by an army of police officers. The front of the station is guarded, and the back door is locked. It’s as secure as you can get. I don’t think a killer is going to walk through walls or pass like smoke through the bars of a cell.”

But in this Officer Holly would be proven wrong. Dead wrong.

* * *

HIDING IN PLAIN sight.

The mind of Miranda Abbott, let loose at full gallop, was something to behold. As they passed by the front desk of the police station, where Officer Holly had managed to keep the Portlanders at bay, Miranda suddenly spun around, crying out, “I know where she hid the novel! We must make haste!”

And before anyone could say anything, she was sailing out the front door with Ned chugging behind her, calling out, “To where?”

“The Murder Store!”

As he scrambled into the patrol car, up front next to the chief, Andrew asked, eyes gleaming, “This counts as siren-worthy, no?”

“No!”

“Toss a coin?”

With a tired exhalation, Ned said, “One whoop. That’s it.”

“Yes!”

One whoop and a quick drive up Beacon Hill brought them back to the bookstore, where Edgar was still struggling to re-reorganize the shelves. The out-of-town investigators had finished with the reading room, were now in the basement.

“They haven’t found the weapon,” Edgar said. “But they agree that the arrow was fired from below.”

Miranda wasn’t interested in the furnace room, however. She was interested in the very books Edgar was sorting.

“You haven’t reached G, I see!” It was a statement that only made sense to her.

“What are you on about now?” Edgar asked.

“Hiding in plain sight!” she said. “Edgar, dear, what did you say to me after I selflessly spent my free time carefully revising our system of shelving? You said, How is any customer supposed to find a specific book they’re looking for now?”

And there it was, filed under G (right next to Carolyn G. Hart, naturally): How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun, by one Gertrude Gyilkos, that strange novel with the mauve cover and the cursive font.

A sudden intake of breath from Ned and Edgar, and a cheer from Andrew greeted the discovery. “Go Miranda!” He’d almost said Pastor Fran.

She flipped through to the last page, found the handwritten message. A personal note from John D. Ross.

To the one that mattered most, but was treated the worst. A gift to whoever finds this:

And below it, the missing dialogue from the final John D. Ross manuscript:

“You want to know who was behind it? Every one of the killings? Every one of them, right from the start? I’ll tell you who, and I’ll tell you now. It was—me, Trevor Lucas! I killed them all, every one of them, and then systematically ‘solved’ each case by framing someone else. Innocent people were convicted in my place and sent to the gas chamber, were sentenced to life without parole, to the gallows, to the firing squad—thereby doubling my kill rate. I remain the greatest murderer who never got caught: Trevor Lucas!”

It was written in the same scratchy penmanship, the same sharp lines and harsh angles, as the message that Fairfax DePoy had died trying to swallow.

“But is it his handwriting?” Miranda wondered.

“It is,” said a low voice from across the room. Startled, they looked up and saw Sheryl Youngblut standing in the hallway. She was staring at the book in Miranda’s hands with a sadness so deep it was almost anger. Christmas cards and birthday letters and postcards from Rio. Even from across the room, she recognized it. “That’s my grandfather’s handwriting.”

It was Edgar who first understood the enormity of what had been revealed by John D. Ross’s note. “If the hero, Trevor Lucas, was the killer all along . . . ?”

A grim nod from Sheryl. “It would sink the series. I’d heard rumors at family gatherings. My grandma had hinted as much, that that was Pawpaw’s intention: to bury the franchise with him, make it impossible for anyone else to take over.”

“Why would that make it impossible?” Andrew asked.

“Don’t you see?” asked Miranda, imagining the impact such a revelation would have on future movie sequels.

“It’s a twist ending,” said Andrew. “So? Books are full of twists.”

“It’s not merely a plot twist,” said Sheryl softly. “It’s the twist of a blade, ensuring that no one would ever profit from his work ever again.”

“Agatha Christie wrote her final Miss Marple mystery, Sleeping Murder, back in 1941,” Edgar explained, “to be published upon her death as ‘Miss Marple’s Last Case.’ Her request was honored, and the novel wasn’t released until 1976, thirty-five years after it had been written. Now, imagine if that final novel revealed Miss Marple to have secretly been a serial killer, playing readers and Scotland Yard for fools from the start, that every single death she’d ever solved had in fact been committed by her own hand. Imagine what would happen to the entire Miss Marple series. It would collapse. The backlist sales would plummet. Fans would be enraged. It would, as Ms. Youngblut so correctly puts it, sink the entire franchise.”

A heavy silence filled the room.

“That handwritten paragraph marks the end of Trevor Lucas,” said Edgar. “The end of an icon.”

“My grandfather’s parting gift to the world,” Sheryl Youngblut said. “A giant middle finger to his readers, his publishers—to all of us.”

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 of How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun to 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 neck before 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.”

Everyone stopped eating.

Miranda squeezed in next to Doc Meadows—He’s a married man! she reminded herself—as Andrew took up a spot on one of Bea’s kitchen stools.

“Hey there, deputy,” said Doc Meadows. Andrew beamed.

“Any word on the culprit?” asked Tanvir. “I have it on good authority that they arrested the children’s author.”

“Not arrested. She surrendered to authorities,” said Andrew.

Ray Valentine nodded as though he’d been expecting it. “I heard the same thing over at the Better B&B. Word was, Wanda Stobol was going to spill the proverbial beans. Though it was not clear which beans, exactly, or how many would be spilled.”

Miranda tilted her head and looked at the author/faux police officer. “What brings you to this side of the harbor, Mr. Valentine?” Looking for another life’s story to steal? Perhaps Inez is not the real vampire amongst us. Perhaps it’s you.

She smiled sweetly, but her teeth were showing. She did not care for Mr. Valentine, no matter how much the men of Happy Rock gushed over this self-proclaimed Prince of the Police Procedural.

“Truth be told, I was looking for the police chief. Mr. Buckley, I think his name is. The one who locked us down in the bookstore last night. When I phoned the station, the officer who picked up said, and I quote, ‘Try Bea’s, that’s usually where you’ll find ol’ lover boy.’ The officer—Holly, I think her name was—said something about Mr. Buckley being ‘Happy Rock’s answer to Don Juan.’”

Now it was Bea’s turn to blush.

“In regards to lover boys,” said Tanvir, a broad smile breaking through his beard, “Owen, I am informed by Harpreet that you and Ms. Fonio are now an item.”

Owen stared at the table. “Not really. Not so much. She’s been kinda cold to me today, like the passion burnt out in one night. I probably shouldn’t have asked her to marry me.”

It was all Doc Meadows could do not to slap his palm against his face. “Owen, no. You didn’t. Not again.”

“I just think a girl worth kissing is a girl worth marrying.”

Doc turned to Ray. “Our friend the mechanic has a habit of falling a little too hard, a little too fast.”

“Why were you looking for our police chief?” Miranda asked.

Ray dug around in his cardigan pocket, fished out a necklace chain with a small circle of broken glass at one end. “I found this. Hanging off a tree branch outside the Better B&B.”

God, I wish he’d stop saying that! thought Miranda. Even if it is the name of the damn place.

“That’s Inez’s necklace!” said Owen. “It’s that vial of her blood. It must have come loose when we were, um, pre-indisposed. She was lookin’ for that. How’d it break?”

“No idea. But it seemed like a clue of some sort.”

Deputy Andrew retrieved a plastic baggie from Bea’s counter, and Ray dropped the necklace inside as a piece of potential evidence.

“How is that evidence?” Owen asked, agitated. “Are you accusing Inez of—what exactly?”

With hands held up in protest, Ray insisted he was suggesting nothing of the sort. “I found it by chance. The afternoon light across the bay. I was sitting on the stairway out behind the Better—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Miranda. “Move the story along.” Ray had a knack for annoying people.

“I managed to pull the branch down, and I recognized it right away as the remains of that little glass tube Inez was always wearing around her neck. It struck me as possibly important to the case. Something the police should examine.”

“You could have asked her about it!” Owen shouted, getting angrier by the moment. “You didn’t need to pocket it and then come skulking around. You were probably the one who stole my rope!”

Owen grabbed his jacket and left. The tension in the room crackled on his departure.

Ray took a big breath. “Maybe I should go.”

“Maybe you should,” said Miranda, still smiling with all her teeth.

The mood had been spoiled, and Doc got up, too, stretched, and thanked Bea for the cobbler.

She thanked him in turn for watching out for Ned. “I worry about him.”

“I know you do,” Doc said. He pulled on his jacket. “Miranda, I can run you and the deputy to the police station, if you like, so you can drop off that broken necklace.”

As far as evidence went, this was a dead end, she was sure. But one never knew. And the fact that Ray Valentine had gone out of his way to draw attention to it seemed more significant than the item itself.

Doc opened the door of his SUV and put his tackle box and medical satchel in the rear seat to make room for them up front.

Before he could start the engine, Miranda said, “Can I ask you a question?”

He grinned. “You just did.” It was his gentle teasing that always made Miranda a little weak in the knees.

“I mean, can I ask you another question?”

“You just did.”

“How about a third question, then?”

He took pity on her this time and said, “Shoot.”

“You’ve known Ned for a long time.”

“Since we were kids. Sure.”

“What’s the story behind that quarter he carries with him?”

This got Andrew’s attention. He was dying to know, too.

“Oh,” said Doc. “That.”

“He says it’s a lucky coin.”

“It is—and it isn’t,” said Doc. “You have to understand that Bea was just about the cutest girl in middle school, and the sweetest girl, too. Bob and Ned, they both had immense crushes on her. We all did. How could you not?”

“Bob being Bob Maracle, Bea’s late husband.”

“That’s right. Bob and me, we were cousins.”

Andrew said, “No way!”

“Sure. I got lotsa cousins, all the way up the coast, from Neahkahnie to Sechelt. Anyway, Bob and Ned, they both wanted to ask Bea to the Spring Jamboree school dance (or some such). They didn’t want to put Bea on the spot, so they tossed a coin. Whoever won would get to ask her out first. If she said no, then the other would get to ask. Bob won the toss. Bea said sure, she would love to go to the dance with him. He kissed her behind the gym, they started going steady, and they fell in love. The two of them got married. Ned never did. He’s kept that coin ever since.”

Doc had just started the engine when his phone rang. His ringtone was the theme song from Quincy M.E., Miranda noted, right down to the voice-over: “Gentlemen, you are about to enter the most important and fascinating sphere of police work: the world of forensic medicine.” Everyone around here is a frustrated detective, she thought, with a shake of her head. How delusional.

“Hey guys. Speak of the devil,” said Doc. “It’s Ned on the phone.”

Doc answered and the smile drained from his face. “I’ll be right there.” He pulled out onto the harbor road.

“There’s been another death,” Doc said.

“Oh no! Who?” Miranda asked. “And where?” Though she had an inkling.

“Where we were heading. The police station. The woman they were holding, Wanda Stobol, she was found dead, locked inside her cell.”

Another X through another member of the Idaho Seven, thought Miranda. And then there were four . . .

* * *

AFTER EXAMINING THE body, Doc determined the cause of death to be sudden cardiac arrest, and the Investigative Support Team from Portland concurred, pending a fuller examination of the body. And with that, Wanda Stobol (aka Deborah Nolan, according to her driver’s license) was no more. She had died in a police station, while inside a locked cell, alone.

“She didn’t seem like a Debbie,” Miranda said. It was sad. So many masks. So many pen names and false names and fictional heroes that were confused with their creators.

Officer Holly was crushed, even if it wasn’t the same Wanda Stobol who’d written the Compendium Cathy novels she’d loved as a child. It was like a piece of her childhood had died with her, she said.

“Three bodies in two days,” said Doc. “I don’t like this, Ned.”

“Neither do I. Dammit, she was under our care! She was in protective custody.”

“It was a heart attack,” Andrew cut in. “There was nothing you could have done.”

“A woman dies inside a locked jail cell, alone, normally I’d say that’s a clear-cut case of death by natural causes. But with everything that’s going on, I’m not so sure.”

“What else could it be?” Andrew asked.

A steely determination came over Ned Buckley. His checked his holster, tightened his belt, straightened his cap, and headed out.

“Miranda. Andrew,” he snarled, straight-arming the front door of the station. “Come along. We are going back to Hiram Henry House. And we’re going to settle this once and for all.”

“Yes!” Andrew was about to punch the air, like the freeze-frame at the end of The Breakfast Club, but caught himself in time.

“Dignity,” Miranda reminded him as she sailed past. “Dignity and decorum, darling.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

A Formidable Woman

With a satisfied smirk, he said, “Of course she was murdered. And I can tell you exactly how.”

Lachlan Todd had draped himself over a velvet settee in the parqueted reception hall of Hiram Henry House and was looking properly pleased with himself. He’d been rounded up at the Duchess Hotel, where he’d recently rented out the entire Gerald Ford Suite on the fourth floor. (The dynamic former president had once spent a night in the Duchess, to the town’s eternal pride.) Lachlan had paid up front and in full, Ned noted, and had also cleared his outstanding account at the Hideaway Motel.

“All a misunderstanding,” he’d assured Ned.

Chief Buckley had gathered them in the furniture-laden environs of this historic inn: Lachlan Todd and the authors (those of them still alive), plus the publicist. G&G, as owners of the establishment, were present mainly by default. Geri and Gerry sat perched on matching Queen Anne chairs. The rest of them were arranged on various couches and divans in the reception hall. With varying degrees of trepidation, they faced Ned Buckley, his intrepid deputy, Andrew Nguyen, and the always indomitable Miranda Abbott. It was like the ending of every Nero Wolfe novella ever written.

Ned wanted answers. Now. And the insouciant Lachlan Todd was only too happy to elucidate.

“Chief Buckley, I’m afraid you missed the one salient factor in the death of Ms. Stobol. The human body is 97 percent water!” He waited for a gasp and, receiving none, muttered darkly, “Makes you wonder what they’re teaching at police schools these days. Ninety-seven percent water! Think about it!”

Ned did, to no avail.

Leaning forward, Lachlan said, “Electrified bars on the jail cells! A simple electromagnetized lithium battery surreptitiously wired to the metal. Water is a conductor, and she would naturally have been nervous, perspiring even. When she grasped the bars with damp palms, it would have completed the circuit. Instant death!”

“You should check her palms!” said Inez Fonio. “See if they’re scorched.”

Fortunately, Penny Fenland introduced a dollop of common sense to the proceedings. “Surely if she was locked inside a prison cell, it could only be natural causes.”

“Unless,” Inez said, “someone is planning to work their way through the remaining Idaho Seven, killing each of us in turn . . .”

Penny shook her head. “What a ridiculous idea—”

Inez didn’t let her finish. “It’s called a plot, Penny. And if a killer is targeting us all, well, you’re next.”

Penny had to ask, “Why me?”

Miranda had to ask “Who?” As in, whodunnit. Not that she expected a logical or coherent response from Inez. She got neither.

“If we are all being chosen for murder, it would obviously be in order of success, lowest to highest, Penny, so you’d be next.” A pause. “I’d probably be last.” She shivered. “And”—turning her attention to Miranda—“as far as who, it could only be the re-animated corpse of John D. Ross.”

This was met with silence and a consensus of blank looks, ranging from incredulous to nonplussed.

“That seems a little far-fetched,” said Lachlan Todd.

Getting things back on track, Penny Fenland turned her attention to Ned. “A heart attack, you said.”

“From the looks of it, yes. But she was about to squeal on someone,” he said. “And that makes her death suspicious, as far as I’m concerned.”

Ray Valentine cleared his throat. “Back when I was on the force—”

“You were never on the force,” Sheryl Youngblut snapped. “Everything you have was stolen from Cephus. Your entire writing career is based on a lie.”

“The janitor,” said Penny. “Why isn’t he here?”

“Cephus has an alibi,” Ned pointed out. “You don’t.”

Poor Geri was wringing her hands. “May we—”

“—speak?” said Gerry.

They’d lost three guests in two days: dead, dead, and dead. It was the sort of thing that could damage one’s rankings on Yelp.

“One of our china saucers,” said Gerry.

“And a silver fork,” Geri reminded him. “Early Colonial Revival—”

“—curved Castilian design.”

“They’ve disappeared,” said Geri. “Vanished! Saucer and fork both. Gerry and I took a full inventory—”

“—after the reception.”

“Gone. Both of them.”

“Oh, that,” said Miranda. “They’re at the bookstore. Edgar said he’d run them over later.”

Geri’s shoulders relaxed. “Phew! We were so worried. Didn’t want to accuse anyone.”

“One hates to accuse someone,” said Gerry.

At which moment, in a perfect deus ex machina manner, Edgar entered. “Cold outside!” he said. He looked around at the group Ned had gathered in the reception hall. “I just stopped by to . . .” He held out a paper I Only Read Murder book bag for Geri. “Here’s the plate and fork Owen left in my room last night.”

Her eyes welled with appreciation. “Thank you,” she breathed.

Gerry took the bag from Edgar with equally teary-eyed gratitude. “Hate to accuse anyone,” he said.

Ned was doing his best not to growl. “Well, I’m glad we were able to resolve the Case of the Missing Dinnerware. Maybe we can return to the issue at hand: the murders? Unless you have anything else to add, Geri?”

“We do! Tell them, honey.”

“Oh, right,” said Gerry, brightening up. “Almost forgot. We found the murder weapon.”

Bolt upright, Ned said, “The weapon? The one used to kill Kane Hamady?”

“The very one! Though we are merely assuming it’s the same weapon, aren’t we, dear?”

“That’s right,” said Geri. “I mean, how many harpoon guns would guests need?”

It wasn’t a harpoon. It was a lightweight aluminum speargun capable of firing either metal spears or modified arrows at great force over short distances. Geri had wrapped it in a plastic bag, and Ned extracted it gingerly with thumb and forefinger.

“You should check it for fingerprints!” said Ray Valentine.

“Obviously,” said Ned.

“Not fingerprints,” said Penny. “DNA! Someone might wear gloves or wipe a surface clean of prints, but DNA? You should check for DNA.”

“I know about DNA,” said Ned. “I am aware of DNA.”

He threw a look Edgar’s way that said, Writers. Edgar, being a reformed writer himself, silently agreed.

But Miranda was not convinced by any of it. The killer brings the weapon back to their own B&B? It made no sense. Fling it in the bay or stash it in under a bush or toss it in a ditch. Why risk bringing it back with you?

“Where’d you find it?” Ned asked.

“I was vacuuming the guest rooms,” Gerry said. “I do the vacuuming.”

“He’s very good at vacuuming.”

“I was using the flat hose attachment—”

“Gerry says it gets under the furniture better. He’s very good at vacuuming.”

“—and it bumped into something under the armoire.”

“Pennsylvania Dutch, pine with walnut finish.”

“Impossible to move. That’s why I used the—”

“—flat hose attachment.”

“Enough!” said Ned. “Not the furniture, the room. Which room?”

Geri and Gerry went quiet. Geri was looking at her hands, folded on her lap, and her hubby was avoiding eye contact with—

“Inez,” he said. “It was in Inez’s bedroom, under the armoire.”

Instantly on her feet and vehement in her denial, Inez shouted, “They’re lying! Both of them. This is preposterous! They could have planted that in my room. Anyone could have!”

“No one is accusing you of anything, Ms. Fonio,” Ned assured her. “Not yet.”

He held the speargun up to the light, its metal gleaming dully, and spotted a faint smattering of drops along the trigger.

Kane’s blood? Miranda wondered. From when he was hit by the arrow? Some of his blood could have fallen through the grate into the furnace room below. But if it had, the Portland team would have spotted it on the grate. And she’d seen no droplets on the cement floor of the basement below. The killer’s blood, then? Perhaps from a nick on a finger when loading the arrow? Had it been Wanda Stobol from the start? Had she scratched herself on the weapon and then stashed it in Inez’s room before checking herself into the police station? That was the most straightforward explanation.

But tests would show it was neither Kane Hamady nor Wanda Stobol’s blood on the speargun—it wasn’t blood at all, in fact. It was something else entirely; something quite unexpected.

Ned placed the speargun back in the bag as gingerly as he’d extracted it.

The solution seemed both tantalizingly near at hand and hopelessly far away. Miranda felt like she was caught in a game of Whac-A-Mole, the kind she’d played as a girl at the St. Olaf County Fair. As soon as you hammered one problem down, another one popped up. Kane? Killed by an arrow shot upward into his chest as he bent over to pick up a copy of his own book. A locked lighthouse? The bolt to the door had been pulled back against a heavy spring that slowly expanded, pushing the bolt back into place after the killer had left. And now Wanda Stobol, killed by a phantom—or a faulty heart. Three locked rooms, three impossible crimes.

Then it hit her: none of them were meant to be locked rooms.

“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&B.”

A flash of red-haired anger from Miranda, who shot back at the owners of the inn, “That was exceedingly cruel, by the way.”

Geri was aghast. “Cruel?”

“The extra B,” said Miranda. “B for Better. It was uncalled-for. Bea Maracle is a friend of mine.”

A hurt look from Gerry. “Better view. Of the lighthouse. That’s what the extra B stands for. We were going to name it the BVB&B, but that was too—”

“—long.”

“We have a much better view of the lighthouse than the Duchess Hotel. That’s a selling point. I mean, the lighthouse is right there.” He gestured to the tall windows of the main room, which faced Laurel Point, with the candy-striped lighthouse perfectly framed. “It’s even on our website: the view of the lighthouse, the inside of the lighthouse keeper’s quarters. We even have one of the keys.”

“Website?” said Miranda. “Those are public venues, are they not? Anyone might look at them?” She was still getting the hang of how things operated.

“That is sort of the—”

“—idea,” said Geri. “Prospective guests can have a 360-degree tour.”

Andrew stepped in to explain, once again, that, yes, anyone could view the inside of the lighthouse keeper’s quarters. As with the architectural plans Edgar had posted, people could peer inside, study the layout. Lay their trap . . .

“The heavy bolt on the inside of the door, the grandfather clock, even the beams would be visible? Someone might have studied the interior beforehand?”

“Absolutely.”

Before Miranda could fully parse the significance of this, the door to Hiram Henry House was thrown open on a swirl of cold air, and a figure stepped through, across the threshold and into the reception hall. A petite but formidable woman, she was dressed in a sharply cut waistcoat with a navy beret, silver hair swept back, her eyes an agate gleam behind oversized glasses.

There was an almost visceral reaction to her presence among the people assembled, a pulling back of souls into their shells.

Edgar looked over at her. “Hello, Helen.”

“Edgar, nice to see you again.” The wife of the late great John D. Ross scanned the room, spotted the publicist cowering in the corner. “Hello, Sheryl.”

And she was nine years old again. “Hi, Nana.”

Helen Ross turned to Geri and Gerry, held out a hand like a benediction. “Hello, I am Helen Ross of Middlemist Marketing.”

“The name on the poster,” said Ned. “The company that set this whole thing up.”

“One and the same.”

She extended her hand now to Ned, who looked like he might awkwardly try to kiss it or curtsy in her presence.

“Ray, Penny, Inez,” she said, ticking them off as if in a tally. “The circle certainly seems to have gotten smaller.”

“You’ve heard?” said Miranda.

“Three of John’s prize pupils being punted into the Great Beyond? How could I not?” A flinty smile. “Middlemist, that rarest of flowers. I gathered my bouquet of ingrate wordsmiths, brought them together one last time as per John’s wishes. Not at Cape Cod, but at your bookstore, Edgar.”

“Our bookstore,” said Miranda.

“I stand corrected. I gave Cephus a heads-up, in case you’re wondering, Ray. Plus dear Larry. He’s not one of the Idaho Seven, of course, but he was such a good friend to John that I added him to the list. What the heck. Where is Lawrence, anyway?”

Sheryl said, “Last I heard, Mr. Block was somewhere in the tundra of northern Manitoba.”

“That does sound like Larry.” Helen stared at the smarmy-looking man who was sprawled out on the velvet settee. “You, I don’t know.”

He gave her a tip of the head and a mock salute. “Lachlan Todd, King of the Locked-Room Mystery.”

“Lachlan Todd?” She turned the name over in her head. “God, not the same Lachlan Todd who wrote that infamous ‘Red Herring’ episode?”

“That’s me!” he said. He still didn’t understand the meaning of the word infamous.

“The one that ended with the line ‘I knew something fishy was going on’?”

“A classic,” said Lachlan, still not getting it.

Helen ignored him, turned to the others. “Please understand, I never dreamed it would end in murder.” A flutter of a smile, however, suggested that, although surprised, she was not necessarily disappointed. “All of you, fighting over my John’s remains like jackals. Envy, lust, pride. The Seven Deadly Sins personified. Kane, so greedy; 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.

“He’s working on a memoir, did you know that?” Helen said. “Cephus is. Not fiction, but true crime. A moral transgression, not a mortal one. The memoir of a crime committed—a theft. I’ve recommended he bring it to my husband’s publisher. Ray, the truth comes out in the end. It always does.”

“If he libels me . . .”

“You’ll do what?” Helen asked, amused. “Sue him? How droll. Or will you silence him like you did Kane? Like you did Fairfax?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

It could have been Ray, thought Miranda. It might have been Cephus. In fact, it could have been anyone—except Inez. That’s what Ned had said, and he was right. Or was he? Those two handprints on her buttocks certainly seemed like a time stamp, placing her upstairs when the murder occurred below. Miranda looked to the paper book bag that Geri was now holding, the one with the saucer and fork inside, and in that moment everything fell into place.

Oh no, thought Miranda. Oh no. What did you do, Owen? What did you do? The meaning of that misplaced saucer and fork was now eminently, irretrievably clear . . .

In an Ellery Queen novel, this would be the moment where the story would stop, the fourth wall would be broken, and the reader would be challenged to solve the case. But, of course, this wasn’t an Ellery Queen novel, this was a Miranda Abbott mystery.

CHALLENGE TO THE READER

All the information required to solve the mystery has now been presented. You already know where and when and how each murder was committed. All clues have been revealed, and everything you need to know has now been supplied to help you deduce who the killer is.

With a heavy heart, Miranda interrupted Helen. “I apologize, Ms. Ross, but I have a question for someone here. A single question.”

The room grew tense.

“The floor is yours,” said Helen Ross, stepping back.

“Geri,” said Miranda. “Last night at the reception, you stuck to your serving schedule?”

“Always!”

“Like clockwork!” said Gerry.

That’s what I was afraid of, thought Miranda. “Andrew, the reports you wrote up will be most illuminating in this matter.”

“They will? Cool!” He couldn’t believe that the work he’d done was finally going to be of use. “How so?”

“I’m sure Ned will confirm this later, but as I recall, Owen provided an alibi for Inez, signing a statement that he was upstairs with her when the murder occurred, that they’d gone up before eight. Yet he left behind the saucer and fork from Bea’s peach cobbler, which was served at 8:16 p.m. Was Owen mistaken? Or was he lying?”

Andrew said, “I asked him, Where were you from eight o’clock on? We were trying to place everyone’s whereabouts at the moment Kane was killed. Owen swore he’d gone upstairs with Inez.”

“No one move,” said Ned. He pulled out his phone, speed-dialed mechanic. “Owen? Hi. Ned here, got a question for you. No, not about my oil change. I know, I know, you’re very busy. Where are you now? Bookstore, you say? Changing oil at the bookstore, are you? Nope? Didn’t think so. Anyhoo.” (He always said “anyhoo” when he was exasperated.) “Bea’s peach cobbler last night, you had some? You did? Upstairs, you say? You went up there with Inez after the cobbler was served? Nope, that’s not what you told my deputy. Why would you lie about that? Don’t cry, Owen, it’s okay. No, no, we’re still friends.”

Ned hung up. “Owen says when they came downstairs after their, ahem, make-out session, Inez pulled him aside and said, ‘Remember, anyone asks, we went up there before dessert was served.’”

“Because they always blame the freak!” Inez screamed. “Because they always blame the tattooed vampyre goth girl!” And now her Eye of Osiris tattoo did look a teardrop. “That’s why I asked him to lie for me. Because I knew this would happen!”

Ned cleared his throat. “Ms. Fonio, based on your falsely sworn testimony and pending DNA tests on the speargun found in your room, I’m going to ask you to accompany me to the station for further questioning.”

Inez Fonio said nothing. She looked away. Far away. Memories of Idaho, of their mentor reading her work, saying, “Listen, kid, this is creepy and vile and poorly written. It’ll sell.”

As Inez was led out of the inn and down to the patrol car waiting below, a voice cried out. It was Scoop, running up, waving her tape recorder.

“Jane Bannister! Weekly Picayune! Ms. Fonio, will you speak on the record? People have the right to know!”

Dazed, Inez turned. “Yes?” She looked like an actress who had forgotten her lines.

“What are your impressions of Happy Rock? Our readers need to know!”

“Um, it’s a pretty town, I guess.”

“Pretty . . . not nice?”

“Nice, too, I suppose.”

With that, Chief Buckley waved aside the press and closed the car door behind Ms. Fonio.

Owen McCune roared up in his tow truck, hook swinging wildly, came to a skidding halt, jumping out just in time to see Inez being driven away. He stood, gutted, staring down the road long after the patrol car was gone.

Miranda was next to him, watching the same empty road. “You lied about her alibi, Owen. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“But I was going to marry her.”

Behind them, Helen Ross appeared, pulling her jacket in for warmth. On the front steps of Hiram Henry House, she turned to address them like a Roman senator: “Inez is gone. As for the rest of you, you deserve each other, squabbling over the literary bones of my late husband like that.”

“Nana,” Sheryl pleaded. “I had to intercept that manuscript. I had to stop it from getting out or being published. It would have destroyed everything he’d built, would have destroyed his legacy. I couldn’t let that happen. Think of the sales we would have lost, the readers who would’ve felt betrayed and outraged.”

“You are his executor, Sheryl. He doted on you. Your role is not to protect the franchise; it is to honor the dead. A flawed man, hardly a husband, but a good father and an even better grandfather. It’s his wishes you have to serve. John D. Ross, the person, warts and all. Not Trevor Lucas, his fictional creation. Trevor Lucas doesn’t exist. Your grandfather most certainly did. I leave it in your hands, Sheryl. Whatever decision you make will be the right one.”

Before John D. Ross’s widow could depart for good, Edgar had to ask, “Why me, Helen? The first editions of your husband’s work, a collector’s dream, mint condition, an incredible collection—and his last manuscript, too. It’s a treasure trove. You could’ve chosen anyone. Why me?”

She smiled. “You were the only one who remembered my name.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Toss of a Coin

Chai tea and caramel popcorn.

“Actually, you don’t need the word tea when you say ‘chai,’” Harpreet explained. “Chai means ‘tea.’”

“Does it?” said Bea. “Oh, how interesting. I did not know that.”

Chai and caramel popcorn. It had been a long day, and that night Harpreet, Bea, and Miranda gathered on the comfy couch in Bea’s living room for a Pastor Fran Friday of their own. Ned was working late, Andrew was sorting through the original statements he’d gathered, looking for further discrepancies in Inez Fonio’s testimony, and Miranda had offered to make—

“But chai goes so much better with popcorn than lemonade does!” Bea had said, cutting off that avenue as quickly as she could. “Everyone says so. It’s practically a motto: Chai with popcorn, instead of lemonade. I believe it was Julia Child who said that.”

Miranda was too exhausted to argue. Inez was in custody, the machinations of all three murders had been resolved, and Miranda was preparing to once again watch her younger self karate-kick guns out of villains’ hands.

On her outing Inez Fonio as the killer, Bea had said, “I’m so proud of you! Pastor Fran solves another case! Sorry—I mean, Miranda Abbott solves another case. I get the two of you confused. I’m so sorry.”

You and me both, Bea.

“How did you untie such a tangled knot?” Harpreet wanted to know. “It must have been like attempting to remove a double-stitched hem from a rayon-polyester blend without pulling the fabric.”

She often spoke in such terms, just as Owen McCune put everything in automotive terms and Miranda in references to fame and the degrees thereof.

“In the end, each came down to the smallest of details,” said Miranda. “A toothpick gave away the first murder, the ‘artfully’ scattered pieces of a fallen clock gave away the second, and a tube of missing wax gave away the third.”

A silence passed after Miranda’s last comment. The wax had been filched from Fairfax DePoy’s signet sealing set, and by tacit agreement they were avoiding speaking about the late Mr. DePoy (aka “Frankie from New Jersey”) in order not to further upset Harpreet.

“It was your peach cobbler that did it, Bea. The final piece of the puzzle. Even when he sneaked upstairs to ‘canoodle’ with Inez—as Edgar puts it—Owen couldn’t help but bring a plate of your cobbler up with him. I imagine he had to gobble it down between suction-cup kisses. It was that good.”

“Thank you, dear.”

“She seemed a troubled soul,” said Harpreet.

“Inez had been mocked by the group, true, and that may have been part of it. But who knows what murky depths churn in the hidden heart of a murderer?” Was she quoting Pastor Fran? Possibly. “Inez Fonio was fascinated with ropes and pulleys, which may have inspired the lighthouse noose. She lied about her alibi, and once her DNA is confirmed on the murder weapon, it will tell us she also wielded the speargun.”

“Why hide it in her own room?” asked Harpreet.

“I was puzzled by that, too, but then I realized that the police had already searched the bedrooms at the inn, including hers. Officer Holly is commendably thorough; she would certainly have looked under the armoire; in fact, she insists she did. Which means the weapon was placed there after last night’s murders. Inez must have stowed it outside, then brought it in after the police left. Perhaps she was planning to use it again.”

“On who?”

“Penny, most likely. That was Cephus’s prediction, though it could easily have been Ray Valentine who was targeted next. Picking them off one by one—revenge for how they treated her, and removing the competition as well.”

“You prevented a further murder!” said Bea. She was going through her library of VHS tapes, trying to find one suitable for their tired but triumphant mood. She stopped. Turned. “But why would Owen lie like that? He knew Inez wasn’t with him at the time Kane was murdered.”

“Love makes you do crazy things,” said Harpreet. “I once got a perm.”

They nodded thoughtfully.

“I wouldn’t do that now, of course,” Harpreet hastened to add. “I was young and rebellious.”

Bea pushed the selected tape into the deck, and on a warble of VHS tracking it began: “Our Lady, who arts on the mean streets of Crime City . . . Tonight’s episode: ‘The Bomb in the Birthday Cake’!” (again, sort of gave away the ending).

This episode once again featured Pastor Fran’s archrival Lãuren Morocco.

“With the female characters on the show, they always gave me rivals,” Miranda complained, “never allies. I was always being pitted against another female sleuth, or a fashion magnate, or a ruthless member of a competing church congregation. She went on to greater things, though, that actress, the one playing Morocco in this episode.”

“She was Mark Hamill’s daughter in one show and later played his wife—or was it his mother?—on a movie of the week,” said Bea.

I once had a home in the Hollywood Hills, thought Miranda. Now I’m staying in the attic of a small B&B. Happy Rock had taken her into its fold, and yet—

“If I had a chance to return to Hollywood, hypothetically speaking, and star again in my own show—”

Bea didn’t even let her finish. “You have to go!” The use of the hypothetical hadn’t fooled anyone. “Is it Pastor Fran? Are they remaking Pastor Fran? Tell me they are remaking Pastor Fran.”

“Not exactly. But still a detective. A female version of Inspector Le Gnash.”

“Oh my. But he never karate-chops anyone, or wears a red bikini, or drives a speedboat; he just shuffles about, being grumpy.”

“Very well written, though,” said Harpreet. “Those novels. Ms. Fenland has real talent.”

Miranda agreed. “It’s not like she’s writing comedic cozies or anything.”

“God forbid!”

They laughed.

Harpreet disagreed with Bea when it came to Hollywood and Miranda. “I say, stay where the heart is. When we first moved here from Seattle, it was a great cultural shock. Happy Rock was so much quieter. But we each wanted to have our own shop. Tanvir’s dad had been a carpenter back in Peshawar. My mother was a seamstress of great renown. We opened our businesses right across the street from each other. Tanvir says it’s so he can keep an eye on me, but really it’s the opposite.”

They laughed again.

Tanvir’s Hardwares & Bait Shop was a mainstay on Main Street, as was Singh’s Things, Harpreet’s fabric store.

“Our daughter is studying medicine in Portland, but Tanvir and I hope she will return to Happy Rock someday and open a pharmacy here, perhaps next to my shop. But we worry.”

“That she won’t come home?” said Miranda.

“That she’s not getting enough to eat, that she isn’t making friends, that she is studying too hard, or that she is not studying hard enough. Tanvir likes to pretend he doesn’t worry about her; he says she is a very capable young woman—that’s his finest compliment, by the way—but I know he worries. It’s the people we worry about who we love most.”

And where did that leave Miranda Abbott?

“Bea, you grew up here. You never thought of leaving?”

She was genuinely puzzled by the question. “My Bob and Doc Meadows—and Ned, of course—we grew up together. Owen’s dad owned the garage, as did his father before him, although Owen is quite a bit younger than the rest of us, so we didn’t know him that well when we were kids. Atticus came much later, in high school. From Garibaldi,” she said. “Not that we hold that against him! We’re not like that.” (Garibaldi being next town along the bay.) “Here in Happy Rock, we are always welcoming, never judgmental. Not like those people in Garibaldi, who think they’re so hot.”

“Oh, yes,” said Harpreet. “They’re terrible. I went to the DMV, and the lady behind the counter made a little comment, said, ‘Oh, right. The town with the manure store.’”

Bea pshawed this. “They’re just jealous of our hotel and our Opera House and our—” She stopped herself. Happy Rock was also locally famous for Hiram Henry House, home of the town’s Better B&B.

“The B stands for Better View, by the way,” said Miranda. “It’s a reference to the lighthouse. I confronted Geri about the name. She was genuinely hurt, said no, it was not a comment on your business, Bea, that you weren’t rivals, you were fellow innkeepers. They even asked if they might get your recipe for peach cobbler, they enjoyed it so much.”

“How lovely,” said Bea. “How very lovely.” But then added, “Over my dead body.”

On the TV screen, Pastor Fran was defusing another bomb. The blue wire or the red? Did it really matter? Whichever one she snipped was always the right one.

“You’ve had such a large life,” said Harpreet, with an envious sigh.

“Pastor Fran had a large life. I just tagged along for the ride.”

* * *

THE DUCHESS HOTEL might boast a good view, and Hiram Henry House a better view—but the best by far was the view from the Cozy Café, with its panorama of the harbor and the lighthouse at the far end. Sailboats and seaplanes and the dark forests beyond.

Mabel Greene tossed the plate down in front of Ned Buckley with a clatter. Since her days with the ACLU’s Anti-War Coalition, Mabel had never warmed to officers of the law, something about which Ned remained cheerfully oblivious. (Meanwhile Myrtle, the other half of Mabel and Myrtle, had never left Happy Rock and was mildly ambivalent regarding officers of the law. She liked Ned, though.)

A fat slice of pie with sliced apple and caramelized sugar on top, Ned’s dessert looked almost as good as the view from the café. And though she was currently eschewing dessert for mineral water and a selection of celery, Miranda was impressed. She watched wistfully as Ned attacked it. Must get myself down to TV-friendly form, just in case. If she was going to return to the screen, she had to account for the weight the camera inevitably added.

The Saturday paper lay folded on the table in front of her, the headline: ASIDE FROM THE TRIPLE HOMICIDES, A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL!

“Ned,” said Miranda. “Do you remember the murder at the Opera House during the Little Theater’s performance of Death Is the Dickens?”

“Of course. Your first case.”

“That took three months,” she said. “And the murders at the Duchess Hotel?”

“The body in the dumbwaiter. How could I forget?”

“That took three weeks. This one was solved in three days.”

“Mmmph?” he asked, mouth full.

“I was just thinking, next time, we’ll have to solve it in three hours, and then in three minutes, till finally it would have to be done in three seconds. There’s a body—and there’s the killer!”

He choked back a laugh, chased down the pie with coffee.

“Are they going to formally charge Inez?” she asked.

“Looks that way. Waiting on the DNA. You were right, by the way. Tiny traces of melted wax were discovered in Wanda Stobol’s stomach. Would’ve been missed in a standard autopsy, especially since she’d taken no medication while she was in her cell and she died from cardiac arrest. Killed by a sudden spike of adrenaline that damaged the heart, which is to be expected of death by stress—had it been natural causes. But it wasn’t. It was murder.”

“The case is wrapping up, then.”

“The case, yes. But that’s not the end of the story, is it, Miranda?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

He placed his napkin to one side. “Andrew told me about the job offer. In Hollywood.”

“Blabbermouth.”

“We’re going to miss you,” he said.

Taken aback, Miranda said, “You think I should go?”

“Don’t want you to, but I think you have to. You’d always regret it if you didn’t try. Life is too short for regret. Bea will miss you fiercely, of course, but getting to watch you on the screen again, battling the forces of evil, setting the world to rights—that would be even better.”

“I’m not so sure. They hired Lachlan Todd as the head writer!”

“The smarmy guy with the outlandish theories?”

“The same. A nuanced literary series set in Quebec’s Eastern Townships will now be adapted by a Hollywood hack, the Master of the Locked-Room Mystery.”

“King,” he said.

“King, pontiff, imperial pooh-bah. However you slice it, it’s still cheese. When I found out about the deal—oh, how he crowed about it before he left town!—my first thought was to back out of the project entirely. But then I thought, no. I will go down there and I will duke it out with him, not giving an inch. I won’t let him win. A feeble and petty reason to go, I admit.”

“Sometimes we make the right decisions for the wrong reasons.”

“Hollywood or Happy Rock?” A smile surfaced. “It’s not the kind of thing that can be decided on the toss of a coin.”

He either missed this reference or chose to. He put down his fork and shook his head, pushed his plate away from him. “See? This is good—this is fine—but it’s nowhere near as good as Bea’s. I’ve been telling her, open a bakery.”

“Doc told me about that quarter you carry with you, the story behind it.”

“He did, did he?”

“Indeed.”

“Blabbermouth.”

“He told me about the fateful coin toss when you were young. He said you lost.”

“I did. In every conceivable way.”

“What I don’t understand,” said Miranda, “is why you keep telling everyone it’s a lucky coin.”

“I said it was a lucky coin. I didn’t say it was lucky for me.”

“You know, when the killer was on the loose, Bea worried about you so much she couldn’t sleep.”

“Aw, that’s just Bea being Bea. She worries. It’s what she does.”

“Does she, though? Bea Maracle is the world’s greatest Pastor Fran fan; she knows that character better than I do. And yet, it wasn’t me she was worried about. It was you. A wise person recently told me, It’s the people we worry about who we love the most. Bea worries about you, Ned.”

“And Edgar worries about you,” he countered.

“No. He doesn’t. No one worries about me.”

“Andrew,” said Ned. “Andrew worries about you.”

There was a pause.

“And how about you, Ned? Do you worry about Bea?”

“All the time.”

He cleared his throat and gathered his cap and pulled on his jacket and said, “I’ll be stopping by later tonight. Promised her a fresh salmon to make up for the other one. Are you joining us for Pastor Fran Friday?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Not this time. I think I’ll stay up in my attic suite. You can keep Bea company in my stead, just the two of you.”

“Okay, then.”

Ned threw a few bills on the table, told Myrtle to keep the change, then paused. Went into his wallet, tossed the quarter on the table as well. He left the café unencumbered.

Miranda watched him leave, then picked up the quarter, turned it over in her palm. As Pastor Fran, she’d once gone undercover as a riverboat gambler; she knew how to flick a coin and how to slap it down, just one of the many strange and eclectic skills she’d picked up over the course of her career.

Miranda took a deep breath, flipped the coin in the air, and caught it on the back of her hand.

“Heads I stay, tails I leave.”

* * *

THAT NIGHT, HARPREET Singh told her husband, “Good news! Miranda is going to teach me how to make lemonade. Turns out, I’ve been doing it wrong! We have agreed that I will show her how to make a proper chai and she will return the favor by showing me the correct way to prepare lemonade. Isn’t that splendid?”

The look of horror on Tanvir’s face gave it away. “Soniye, soniye, soniye, why would a star* of such an elevated stature as Miranda Abbott ever agree to teach you how to make lemonade?”

Harpreet was affronted by this. “She’s not a movie star.* She’s my friend.*”

* * *

ON THE OTHER side of town, as her twins lay softly sleeping, Officer Holly Hinton of the HRPD sat down at her kitchen table and wrote a letter. It was to an address in Maine:

Dear Ms. Stobol,

I know you are not the real Wanda Stobol, or the only Wanda Stobol, but you are the one whose books I read when I was growing up, and I just wanted to tell you how much they meant to me. When our dad left us and we moved to Tillamook Bay, your books got me through a very tough time. I didn’t have many friends, except for Compendium Cathy. She was smart and brave and true, and she never backed down. She will always be real to me. I hope you are doing well.

Holly

Chapter Twenty-Six

Hollywood Calling!

Miranda and the palm trees.

It’s been too long, she thought. She’d asked that they exit the freeway and take Sunset Boulevard across instead, below that honor guard of palms, with her window down, sun on her face. She’d almost forgotten the feel of California on her skin, the pastel colors and surging crowds, the slow-crawling traffic, the buskers and the billboards. Almost, but not quite. Like the hollywood sign itself, everything seemed both far away and near at hand at the same time, like looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

They turned in at the same Burbank studios where they’d filmed the last four seasons of Pastor Fran Investigates.

“I’m here with Miranda Abbott,” said her driver. “Eastern Township Mysteries.”

Miranda called out, “I’m in the cast.”

“Just a sec.” The security guard in the booth retrieved a clipboard. “I don’t see that name.” He flipped to the next page, and the next. Ran a finger down it. “Oh, here it is. At the very end.” He passed her lanyard across to the driver, who passed it back to Miranda.

The guard then pressed the button to raise the gate. “Lot C, general parking, at the back.”

“Not staying,” said the driver, more gruffly than necessary. “Just dropping her off.”

No preferred parking spot near the studio gate with her name attached, and no dedicated driver, either.

“Ms. Fenland is expecting you,” said the receptionist.

A new chapter. A new direction. A decision made. Regrets hovering in the background.

“So good to see you!” said Penny, ushering Miranda into her office. “The table read is not till tomorrow, but do come in. Sit, sit. Do you need anything? Water? Wine?”

“Nothing, thank you. I only wanted to stop by before we started, see how my favorite former intern is doing.”

An awkward silence followed.

“Miranda, look, I’m so sorry about—”

“It’s perfectly fine, honestly it is. There’s no need for you to apologize. I know you tried your best.”

Penny looked relieved. “Thank you for being so understanding. In the end, the powers that be felt that making the character of Inspector Le Gnash a woman was a little too ‘adventurous’ for their tastes. But I’m so happy you agreed to take another part. It’s smaller, of course, not the lead, the auntie of the detective. But you get to do a Canadian accent, all ‘oot and aboot’ and ‘eh’? It’s going to be fun.”

Miranda said, without rancor, “It was Lachlan, wasn’t it?”

“Sorry?”

“He’s the power that be.”

Penny pursed her lips, pretending not to understand. “I don’t follow.”

“Lachlan Todd, your head writer—sorry, newly appointed showrunner. That’s who actually vetoed the idea of having me play the lead.”

Eyes down. “He did.”

“But you fought for me to be included in the pilot.”

Eyes up, smiling. “I did. And who knows? The aunt is potentially a recurring character. Pastor Fran began as a spin-off, so anything is possible.”

The word potentially had as much meaning in Hollywood as proposed. Miranda looked around Penny’s office, sparsely furnished as studio lot offices always were.

Penny was curious. “How’s everything in Happy Rock? Any news?”

It was meant to sound conversational, but she was obviously alluding to the murder investigation.

“Owen McCune is getting married. It was just announced. So that’s exciting.”

“The greasy mechanic in the coveralls and silk sash?”

“The very same.”

“Who’s the blushing bride?”

“Inez Fonio.”

“But—isn’t she still in jail?”

“A prison romance? Heavens, no. The wedding ceremony will be held at our local LOJIC Grand Lodge, featuring an array of cheese cubes provided by TB Foods, with a reception afterwards in the cemetery. A dignified Presbyterian-Wiccan affair. I know! It was quite the shock. Who knew Owen was a practicing Wiccan?”

“Oh. Well. That’s good news, then!” Penny shuffled through some folders on her desk. “I’ll see you at the table read. Thank you so much for stopping by.”

“Will Lachlan be there?” Miranda asked. “At the read-through?”

“I imagine so, but—please, no tension. What I told you was in confidence. He didn’t feel you were right for the lead, but he didn’t stop me from offering you a secondary role.”

“Oh, I’m not here asking for a bigger part.”

“No?”

“Penny, I need your help. I’m closing in on a killer.”

“A killer?”

“The fiendish person who murdered Ray Hamady, Fairfax DePoy, and Wanda Stobol.”

“But they arrested Inez.”

“Not arrested, detained. She was never formally charged.”

“But what about the DNA on the speargun? If it wasn’t hers, whose was it?”

“No one’s.”

Penny was perplexed. “There was no DNA?”

“What looked like blood was in fact red food coloring. It came from the glass vial that Inez wore around her neck. Everyone assumed it was real blood in the vial, that it was her blood, but it wasn’t. She just said it was. But the killer didn’t know that and assumed it would have her DNA. It didn’t. Which begs the question: Why would droplets of food coloring be sprinkled on a murder weapon? If the vial had broken in the furnace room, some of the food coloring would have splattered. It didn’t. The fake blood was added to the weapon later, and it would hardly have been Inez Fonio who did that. No. It would have been added by someone intent on framing her, someone who thought it was Inez’s blood in the vial. Let me ask you a question.”

“Please.”

“How well do you know Lachlan Todd?”

“I don’t. We met when I worked on Pastor Fran Investigates, but I left the show soon after he arrived on the scene. When I saw him again at the bookstore, he introduced himself to me, unaware that we’d crossed paths before, albeit in a tangential manner. Why?”

“Barely knew him, yet you used your clout as an executive producer to bring him on as head writer and then to have him promoted to showrunner?”

“I don’t know him well, but I’m a fan of his work. The episodes he wrote for Pastor Fran Investigates were among my favorites.”

“Really? Name one.”

“Sorry?”

“Name one of the episodes he wrote. Any episode.”

“I—I, well . . . there are too many to mention.”

“An actor lives on false praise, Penny, but every now and then, the flattery falters. Geri and Gerry thought my character was a priest. I was a pastor, of course, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them. You were dropped from our TV show because your scripts were too good for Pastor Fran Investigates. They were nuanced and layered, had lengthy scenes of introspection and not enough spectacle. Lachlan and Edgar could crank out high-concept confectionary. You couldn’t. You had depth, and you left before the show ever went into production. I have a hard time believing you became a fan of the show after we parted company. If you honestly were a fan of Lachlan’s work, if that’s truly why you hired him, name something he wrote—anything, made-for-TV movies, pilots, anything.”

“Miranda, I don’t really have time for this. I was just being polite when I said I was a fan of his work.”

“You write mysteries for a living, Penny. Here’s one for you: an over-the-top hack is unexpectedly handed the reins to a dramatic television series based on novels that are rich in detail, rather than the usual inane gimmicks he traffics in. Does that strike you as . . . suspicious? It certainly makes one wonder. It makes me wonder what Lachlan saw that night when he stomped off from Hiram Henry House and then came hurrying back, scared of bears. It makes me wonder who he might have seen slipping out the back, or coming in.”

Her cheeks flushed. “You need to leave.”

“He’s playing with fire, our Lachlan, dancing with the devil like that. But when one has hit the bottom so hard, is so abjectly desperate to get back in the game, well, the rules of the game no longer matter. Knowing Lachlan, he has some unnecessarily elaborate time-release mechanism to reveal the truth, should anything happen to him. But you are so much smarter than he is, smarter than all of us, that I don’t imagine it would take you much time to find and dismantle such a safeguard. And when you do? Goodbye, Lachlan. You kept insisting that we test the speargun, not for fingerprints—there were none, as you well knew; they’d been wiped clean by you—but for DNA. Why? Because you were sure that Inez’s DNA was on it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t her blood around her neck. When it comes to Inez, everything is always more performative than real.”

“This is conjecture, nothing more.”

“It might have been Fairfax. That’s true. He could have killed Kane and then later been murdered in turn by a second assailant who was in cahoots with him. There’s no reason there couldn’t have been two killers roaming the streets of Happy Rock that night. Except for the dust.”

“The dust?”

“The dust in the basement. Fairfax was a short man, and there was nothing to stand on down there except some crates stacked to one side. He might have dragged those over to reach the grate above him, but the dust on them was undisturbed. I can hardly picture someone as short as Fairfax angling an arrow so precisely through the narrow gaps in a floor grate. No. You would want to place the speargun directly against the grate as you waited. The killer would have to be tall. Fairfax was too short. And how would the killer know to place Kane’s book—not someone else’s—on the grate in the reading room unless they knew exactly what Kane was going to do: barricade himself inside and pass the stolen page through the transom to Fairfax DePoy, who would be waiting outside. Thick as thieves. I believe that was the phrase Cephus used. It wasn’t a conspiracy of two—it was a conspiracy of three. A pact had been made: Kane, Fairfax, and yourself. They thought you were in this together. But you had other plans, didn’t you, Penny?”

Miranda slid a photograph across the table. It was the one the janitor had pinned up. He’d crossed out Wanda’s face, but the surviving members of the Idaho Seven remained. The close-knit smiles. The fingers, entwined.

“If you look carefully, what do you see? Here—where your arm lies next to his, where your fingers meet. You’re holding hands. How sweet! You and John D. Ross.”

“This proves nothing.”

“I’ve already spoken with Helen. She knew about you and your mentor. She always knew. She just didn’t care, and that must have been the final sting. What was it Wanda said? ‘Some people sleep their way to the middle.’ Ah, but you were in love. And yours was not a middling talent. You were the only real writer amongst them, the only one who’d already been published, even if it was with a small, obscure press.”

“Miranda, listen—”

“You planted the note about the lighthouse, slid it under Fairfax’s door to lure him there. You would never have spelled Virginia Woolf’s name wrong, and you were also the one who ‘discovered’—and decoded—the message. A nice deflection, that. Fairfax was waiting for you at the lighthouse, and when you entered with the speargun, held him at bay as you began preparing the noose, he knew. Fairfax choked trying to swallow the last page of the manuscript, thinking that’s what you’d come for. But it wasn’t.”

A flash of anger from Penny. “It wasn’t enough to sink that stupid series of novels. A six-foot former whatever, going town to town punching bad guys? It deserved to die. But so did the others. I was going to make them pay, starting with the two I was closest to, my friends—my so-called friends—the ones who’d watched it happen, had watched me fall in love, had watched as he toyed with me and then fobbed me off, had watched me squander my talent and my heart.”

“How Precious the Rain, How Sad the Sun. There is no Gertrude Gyilkos, is there? That’s why Andrew couldn’t find any trace of her, and he’s very good at that sort of thing. Your name truly is Penny Fenland, unlike Kane or Wanda or Fairfax, all of whom operated under pen names. And yet, I suspect Gertrude Gyilkos is who you truly are.”

But Penny’s thoughts were elsewhere. She looked away. Far away. She was remembering the tall, ungainly girl who had attended the Idaho Writers Workshop in Boise, nervous and insecure even though she was the only student there who could call herself an actual author, who had actually been published; the tall, ungainly girl who struggled in her attempts to switch to mysteries, only to have each and every attempt dismissed by The Great Writer™. John, turning in bed to look at her. John, reaching out to stroke her cheek, saying, “You know, I liked that one character of yours, the French Canadian in Chapter Seven. You could probably write a whole book about him, so long as you don’t worry too much about psychology and focus more on plot instead. Who knows? It might change your life.” It would. It did. Though not necessarily for the better.

She looked at Miranda with twenty years of sorrow in her eyes. “We missed one. The other authors and I. Fear, greed, love, anger, and madness. But we can also kill out of pain. The missing motive on that list is pain.” The sadness broke, the rage returned. “I was the only one! The only one with a novel to my name, the only one who’d come there as a real writer, the only one with talent, yet my work was marginalized, dismissed, and demeaned by the same Great Man who gathered his acolytes around him even as he isolated the weak and the vulnerable, as he took advantage of my affections and my insecurities. Like his cruel alter ego, Trevor Lucas, he deserved to die.”

“John D. Ross died in his sleep. The others were not so fortunate.”

Penny’s rage had dissipated. Her eyes had cleared. Her intelligence took over. “Miranda, let’s think this through. I can ensure that you get a bigger role, a better character, more lines—maybe a limited series of your own eventually. I won’t insult you by offering you money, I know you don’t care about that, but I can offer you fame—and creative control over how your character is depicted.”

“It’s tempting—I won’t say that it’s not. But I keep thinking about Fairfax in his ill-fitting lifts, terrified and desperately trying to save himself when you cornered him in the lighthouse, shoving that page into his mouth, trying to swallow the final, lethal words of John D. Ross, choking on them, dying in abject fear. He didn’t deserve that. Neither did Kane. Neither did Wanda.”

“Listen, Miranda. We can work this out. Where did you say you were staying?”

“Oh, I’m not staying in LA. I’m only down for the day. We’re heading back this afternoon.”

“We?”

Ned Buckley entered Penny’s office with Deputy Andrew Nguyen in tow.

Penny turned on Miranda, not in anger or hatred, but with tears in her eyes and genuine affection. “You were a true actor, so much more talented than those TV writers ever gave you credit for. Classically trained, sharp as a whip, you squandered your talents on that show, just as I squandered mine. I would have removed Lachlan from the picture—you know that, don’t you? And once he was safely out of the way, I would have invited you back into the fold. It would have been the two of us, together, telling the stories we wanted to tell. We could have made art, Miranda.”

Miranda Abbott said nothing.

Ned was holding a manila envelope in his hand, and when he spoke to Penny, his voice was surprisingly soft. “Ma’am, I have an extradition order here from the State of Oregon. You’ve written enough of these books. You know what happens next. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Those We Worry About

The janitor’s tell-all memoir—I AM Ray Valentine: The Truth Comes Out!—ignited a veritable firestorm. It was widely reviewed, got nominated for several awards, and sold well. On the advice of a literary agent, Cephus followed it up with a cop novel of his own, which promptly tanked. He never was much of a writer. And although he’d done nothing illegal, Ray’s backlist suffered from the accusations, and his publisher eventually dropped the series, Ray Valentine’s reputation having been broken into a million little pieces, like shattered glass. The last anyone heard, he had taken over the Compendium Cathy franchise as the new Wanda Stobol.

Sheryl Youngblut chose to honor her grandfather’s final wishes and released A Black Orchid to End With without changing the ending, with Trevor Lucas as an unrepentant serial killer who’d framed innocent people for decades. Far from sinking the series, however, the John D. Ross novels saw an uptick in sales as readers went back through the entire oeuvre, looking for clues.

Business boomed at I Only Read Murder. Turned out, having a mystery writer murdered inside your bookstore, when your bookstore specialized in murder mysteries, only added to the cachet. Fans of the morbid made pilgrimages to Happy Rock just to tiptoe through it to see the room where Kane Hamady had been struck down, and occasionally to buy a book. They posted wild theories online about the way the bookstore was organized. There has to be a system of some sort, but damned if I can find it! The Fibonacci sequence was involved, one person insisted. No, it’s according to the number of murders in each book and their severity, said another, as arranged in alternating descending order. Others believed it to be based on the unrevealed solution to the Voynich Manuscript.

Lachlan Todd blamed Miranda for ruining his comeback on the now-canceled TV series. (Never mind that she’d probably saved his life in the process. “I could’ve outsmarted Penny!” he said, erroneously.) Under oath, he testified to what he’d seen that night: Penny Fenland, Queen of the Cozies, slipping out the back of Hiram Henry House, heading for a rendezvous of death with Fairfax at the lighthouse. Ironically, Penny’s own DNA was found on the remnants of the broken vial she’d flung into the forest from the second floor, not realizing that the chain had caught a branch on the way down. The faintest trace of a scratch, but fatal in its own way. Oddly enough, after she was arrested, the sales of her novels soared as well. Handy tip for authors: consider killing a rival writer for added notoriety.

No longer a deputy, and more a friend than a personal assistant, Andrew Nguyen continued to mind the till at I Only Read Murder. Even with the added gawkers and would-be codebreakers filing through daily, the bookstore felt quieter without Owen McCune tromping about, folding down pages and using the upstairs washroom. Owen and Inez were on their honeymoon, a tour of Eastern European medieval torture chambers—Inez for the frisson of it, and as research, presumably; Owen for the mechanical appeal of said devices.

Miranda had stopped by the bookstore to take Emmy for her walk, and Edgar had come downstairs with the exuberant pooch, a cup of chamomile in hand. As the golden Lab wove her way between the two of them, turning loops and thumping her tail excitedly, Edgar said, “Don’t get her too wound up. And make sure you have her back in time for her nap.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

Miranda attached the leash to Emmy’s collar, but before she could leave, Edgar added, as though just in passing, “Ned told me, by the way.”

“Told you what?”

“About the, ah, conversation you had with him, about lucky quarters and who we worry about and why.”

Oh. “Blabbermouth,” she said.

Edgar cleared his throat. Miranda waited. Edgar cleared his throat again. (Whenever Edgar wanted to avoid a topic of conversation, he would suddenly develop a severe case of scratchy throat. When NBC canceled Pastor Fran Investigates, it had taken him a good twenty minutes of throat clearing before he could tell her.)

“Is there something you wanted to say?” she asked.

“Just that, y’know, even though you drive me crazy and everything, I do worry about you. I just wanted you to know that.”

He left quickly on some uncertain task.

“I worry about you, too, Edgar.”

The coin had come up tails, but Miranda had ignored the verdict. As she herself might have put it, life is a coin to be flipped, not a coin to be kept! And no matter how the coin landed, Miranda Abbott would always win the toss.

* * *

AFTER MIRANDA HEADED out, with Emmy bounding in every direction, the bell above the bookstore’s front door jangled loudly and a tired but eager man burst in. He stood beaming in the middle of the store, looking like a cross between Sean Connery and an elf.

“Welcome to I Only Read Murder,” said Andrew. “How might I help you?”

“I made it! Took me a while, but I made it.”

“I’m sorry. You are . . . ?”

“Larry. Larry Block. I was supposed to be here for the writers festival, but got off-course along the way. But I’m here now!” He looked around the room expectantly. “So,” he said. “What did I miss?”

Authors’ Acknowledgments

The authors have noticed how movies and TV shows always feature closing credits but books don’t. There is an entire team behind any novel you read, and this is the team at HarperCollins Canada that helped make this one possible. The credits, as it were:

Killer on the First Page

Senior Vice President & Executive Publisher ............ Iris Tupholme

Editor in Chief ......................................................... Jennifer Lambert

Production Editor ............................................................ Canaan Chu

Copy Editor ........................................................................ Sue Sumeraj

Proofreader ..................................................................... Tracy Bordian

Cover Designer ............................................................ Quinn Banting

Publicist ........................................................................... Shayla Leung

Marketing Manager ...................................................... Neil Wadhwa

Publicity Director ................................................... Lãürên Morocco

Senior Sales Director ...................................................... Peter Borcsok

Vice President, Sales & Marketing ................................. Cory Beatty

Director, Publishing Operations & Subsidiary Right ... Lisa Rundle

ADDITIONALLY

Salish Cultural Consultant .................................... Steve Sxwithul’txw

Southeast Asian Cultural Consultant ........................ Jagjit Gordaya

And a special thank-you to Jag’s mom, Kulwinder, and his sister Karendeep for their lessons in how to prepare a proper chai. Don’t worry, though! We haven’t given away all your secrets. Your family recipe remains safe. And thanks to Will’s son Yūki Alister for the idea behind the “Red Herring Episode,” and to Muskaan Sharma for pointing out that “chai” already means “tea,” so you don’t need to say “chai tea.”

In memory of Donald Westlake

About the Authors

IAN FERGUSON won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for Village of the Small Houses. He is the co-author, with his brother, Will, of the Miranda Abbott series, which includes I Only Read Murder and Mystery in the Title; and How to Be a Canadian, which was also shortlisted for the Leacock Medal and won the CBA Libris Award for non-fiction. A writer and creative director in the film and television industry, Ian Ferguson lives in Victoria.

WILL FERGUSON is a three-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour. His novels include his debut, Happiness™, which sold in twenty-three languages; 419, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize; and The Finder, which won the 2021 Arthur Ellis Award for Crime Fiction. With his brother, Ian, he is the co-author of the Miranda Abbott series, which includes I Only Read Murder and Mystery in the Title, and the mega-bestseller How to Be a Canadian. Will Ferguson lives in Calgary.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at harpercollins.ca.

The Miranda Abbott Mystery Series

I Only Read Murder

Mystery in the Title

Copyright

Killer on the First Page

Copyright © 2025 by Ian Ferguson and Will Ferguson.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Cover images: iStock

FIRST EDITION

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception.

Epub Edition JULY 2025 Epub ISBN: 978-1-4434-7510-5

Version 05152025

Print ISBN: 978-1-4434-7509-9

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Killer on the first page / Ian Ferguson & Will Ferguson.

Names: Ferguson, Ian (Author of How to be a Canadian), author. | Ferguson, Will, author.

Description: Series statement: A Miranda Abbott mystery

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20250157594 | Canadiana (ebook) 20250157608 | ISBN 9781443475099 (softcover) | ISBN 9781443475105 (ebook)

Subjects: LCGFT: Humorous fiction. | LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. | LCGFT: Cozy mysteries. | LCGFT: Novels.

Classification: LCC PS8561.E7593 K55 2025 | DDC C813/.54—dc23

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*former

*former

*former

*They are. They are indeed.

*Inez. It would prove fatally important to Inez. No reason to be coy about it.

*She had. Rest assured, there is no such thing as Public Safety Ordinance 771.

*on the first page

*former

*true

*also true