“The scones are fine,” Mendoza said.“I’ve already had one.”
“And you feel all right?”In that case, I wouldn’t mind one myself.They looked good.
I reached for the one Mendoza had dropped—might as well pick it up off the floor—as Mendoza said, “I did.Until you showed up.”
“I said I was sorry.”I took a bite of the scone.It tasted great.Almond and raspberry, unless I was mistaken.
It crossed my mind that there was some old poison that tasted like almonds—arsenic, maybe?Or strychnine?The kind you read about in old murder mysteries—but if Mendoza said the scones were all right, I’d take his word for it.“This is good.”
He nodded.“So what are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t get you on the phone,” I said, around the bite of scone.“I figured you were still sitting in on the interviews with the Russians.So I thought I’d come down here and… um…”
I swallowed, since I didn’t exactly know how to end the sentence.I mean, I had told him what I thought on the phone.It wasn’t hard to figure out that I was here to see if I could discover whether Araminta was guilty.
“Uh-huh,” Mendoza said dryly.
“I was just trying to help.”
“And I’m grateful.”
He didn’t sound grateful.I took another bite of the scone so I wouldn’t say so.“Anything new on the Russian front?”
“No,” Mendoza said.“Anything new on your end?”
“Nothing I didn’t already tell you by voicemail.”I popped the rest of the scone in my mouth and chewed.“That was really good.”
“Thank you, dear,” Araminta said from the doorway.“Have some tea.”
I wouldn’t mind if I did.Except Mendoza shook his head.
“No?”
“Remember what happened last time?”
I did remember what happened last time.There’d been something in the iced tea.“Maybe some other time,” I told Araminta over my shoulder.“Thanks, though.”
She made a face.“Then I’m afraid I’ll just have to shoot you.”She glanced at Mendoza.“And you.”
He made himself more comfortable on the sofa.“No Band-Aid?”
“I’m afraid I forgot to look,” Araminta said.“About the gun…”
It was in her hand, where it looked very big and scary, although that might have been because she had very small hands.
“It’s the one you used to kill Griselda,” I said, “right?”
The words hitched a little, I admit it.I was scared, and it was hard to breathe.It isn’t every day a girl is faced with a gun, and a woman with nothing much left to lose.
Then again, I’d been faced with a gun less than twelve hours ago, too, and had lived to tell the tale.And Mendoza didn’t seem worried.
Araminta nodded.“Yes, dear.It was Patton’s gun.It came to me when he passed.”
Of course it had.“And you decided that now would be a good time to kill your sister-in-law?”
“I’d been thinking about it for a while,” Araminta said calmly.“For the money, you know.Places like this don’t come cheap.”
She waved a hand at her surroundings.It was the hand with the gun, and I think both Mendoza and I held our breath until she’d lowered it again.
