I got closer. She was laughing.
“Something funny,Lalelei?”
“Yeah, me,” she gestured to her outfit. “I don’t know why I got cleaned up this morning.”
“You’re the one who crawled into the doghouse,” I protested. “I was going to get a tree branch or broom to fish the bottle out of there.”
Her hair was a tangled mess, but it suited her. I liked her messed up like this. Not perfect. I smiled bigger.
“Is this why they call itfieldwork?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Because you get thefieldall over yourself?”
I laughed at her dad joke. It eased the tension between us.
I opened up a plastic bag, stuck my hand onto the bottom of it, pushing it inside out. Then, I grabbed the bottle with my plastic bag hand, turned the plastic bag right-side out, and zipped it shut.
“It’s like watching MacGyver at work,” Celia winked at me.
“I know a thing or two about rough evidence collection,” I winked back. “Not everyone has fancy gloves and evidence bags.”
“Let me smell it,” Celia motioned for the baggie, then zipped it open and took a big whiff. “Not garlic.”
“Doesn’t look that way,” I shrugged, zipping the bag shut again. “Why?”
“While you were in the house, I used the Google Machine to investigate garlic and dogs,” Celia showed me the results. “Garlic is poisonous to dogs. I just thought if these supplements were garlic, that would explain why Killer died.”
“Maybe they are garlic supplements and just don’t smell like garlic,” I shrugged. “Let’s get it to Rand for testing. He has nothing better to do, trust me.”
“And what happens when we find out Killer dug through the trash and accidentally took garlic supplements?” Celia bent her head back to eyeball me.
“We’ll tell Etta. But, for right now, we don’t know that’s what this is.”
She nodded. We began walking up to the house when Celia stilled.
“Do you smell that?”
“What’s with your super sniffer today?” I teased.
She held up her hand. “Something’s on fire.”
“It’s probably Etta,” I joked, then stopped as the smoke rose above the trees. It was coming in the direction of Octavio’s, well, Celia’s, house. “Oh, shit.”
I dialed 911 as we raced toward Etta’s house. The closer we got, the bigger the flames got. The Dick and Vagina Mansion was burning to the ground.
