“Morning, Jimmy. Sorry about the plants. Looks like our vandals went this way.”
“Yeah, I thought so too. This wasn’t here yesterday.” He pointed at the sad pile of daisies.
“Are those deer prints?” he asked.
“I think so,” I lied. Jimmy was a human and wasn’t going to believe that a demon pretending to be a unicorn pretending to be a pony, and her boyfriend demon pretending to be a miniature bull, had broken in and stomped on his flowers.
“Took out a lot of foliage,” he said. “A darn shame.”
“Might be elk,” I said. “Maybe a herd. They’ve been around town lately.”
“Sure, sure. That can happen. We just don’t have fences high enough. I’ve been saying we should have fences high enough.”
“At least they moved through before they did any more damage,” I said.
He nodded. “We’ll make do. It was time we thinned that area anyway. I just need to fix it up before we open for the day. Thanks for coming out, Delaney.”
“Any time. Oh, and how much do you think it would cost to replace those plants?”
He sucked on his teeth and rocked back on his heels. “Couple hundred, I’d think. Why?”
“I’ll talk to a few people I know. See if I can get them to pitch in some donations toward it.”
“That’d be fine. Real fine. You think they would?”
“I can be very persuasive.”
We made our way back to the scene of the crime where Than and Crow were waiting. Jimmy gave us a wave, and headed off to the tool shed, obviously wanting to get to fixing the area.
“Our cover story is elk,” I said.
“Elk,” Than said, “and not the demons.”
“What about demons?” I asked.
“Xtelle and Avnas murdered the plants.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that when I got here?”
“You did not ask.”
Crow laughed.
I inhaled, exhaled clinging to my calm. “You could have saved me some time if you’d just told me.”
“And yet was this not good practice for the murder mystery?” Than said.
“No. I don’t need practice. I’m a detective. I already know how to solve crimes, especially when my own officers don’t withhold relevant data from me.”
“Ah,” he said. “I see.”
I just shook my head. “Let’s go deal with Baum.”
Patrick and Myra were in the parking lot, Patrick’s phone aimed in our direction, filming our approach.
“Looks like it was elk,” I said. “Happens every once in a while. They come through, get spooked by traffic or something, and take refuge overnight here in the garden. Unfortunately, they had the munchies.”
“I thought it might be something like that,” Myra said. “Wasn’t I just telling you about the wildlife that sometimes wanders through town?”
