Daisy opened her mouth to respond, but all that came out was a thin squeak of air.
“Absolutely not.” Cordelia held out her hand for emphasis, as if halting him would come any easier than knocking down a building. “The Chickadee ismyproperty, and you’re not searching any of the rooms without a warrant.”
“That’s fine.” Archer pushed his sunglasses back up, shielding his eyes. “I’m not out here in an official capacity. I just thought you’d like to clear your name. But if you’d rather wait for the sheriff to beat down your door, that’s your prerogative. This will be his jurisdiction, and he’s not near as polite as me.”
“You’re calling yourself polite?” Cordelia snapped. “I’ve seen better manners from a fox in a chicken coop.”
“I’m going to take the compliment and be on my way now. Y’all try to behave yourselves.” He walked away with his hands in his pockets, whistling a jaunty tune like he’d really done something. At least he wasn’t investigating. Yet.
Cordelia rolled her eyes at his back, then helped Daisy to her feet. “Come on, let’s have a look-see at what’s in your trash.”
The four of them filed into Daisy’s bubble-gum-pink room, and their eyes couldn’t help but stray to the bed where PastorReed-Smythe had taken his last breath. The last time the four of them had been in this room together had been to move a body. It felt like a bad omen.
“I don’t know how you manage to sleep in that bed.” Belinda Sue shuddered.
“It’s real easy,” Daisy said. “I just lay my head on the pillow and close my eyes. It’s only a matter of time before I’m drifting off to dreamland.”
“That’s not—” Belinda Sue closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose, her nostrils flaring like a bull. “Never mind.”
Cordelia picked up the pink trash can with a petal-shaped lid and removed the top. Inside were several tissues, foil wrappers, empty makeup palettes, an aerosol can of hairspray, a few Diet Coke bottles, and a half-empty bottle of wine. She held the trash out for Daisy to examine, internally squirming at all the germs that must be crawling across her fingers. Her industrial-strength hand sanitizer burned a hole in her pantsuit pocket.
“There ain’t nothing of note in there,” Daisy said.
Cordelia set it to the floor and Arline peered over her shoulder to take in the contents. “Since when do you drink wine?”
“That’s not mine.” Daisy turned her pert nose up at the bottle. “Even if Miss Penelope is gone, I’m not risking a haunting by breaking her strictest rule.”
At Cordelia’s questioning look, Belinda Sue said, “No drinking on the job.”
Cordelia raised a skeptical eyebrow. “But you’ve had cocktail hour by the pool every day since I’ve arrived.”
“Men aren’t invited to cocktail hour.” The snap in Belinda Sue’s voice made Cordelia want to drop and give her twenty. “That’s our time. We aren’t on the clock then.”
“Where did the wine come from?” Cordelia asked.
“The pastor brought it,” Daisy said, shrugging.
The room went deadly quiet for one beat. Two. Then they exploded.
“Did he buy the wine himself? Was it open when he arrived?” Cordelia asked.
“Good Lord, girl, why didn’t you tell us from the jump?” Belinda Sue asked.
“It’s always the religious ones with the drinking problem,” Arline said. “Why is that?”
“This is Sarsaparilla Falls, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a man of God round these parts, that don’t mean religion has anything to do with drinking.” Daisy crossed her arms as she glared at Arline for making unkind insinuations about a man not yet cold in the grave. “He said the wine was a gift someone had given him on the way over to see me. He offered me a taste, but of course I turned it down. I don’t know where he got it from, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think of it.”
“That’s not a surprise, considering you don’t do much thinking at all,” Arline said.
“You’re one to talk,” Daisy said. “We wouldn’t even be in this mess if you hadn’t broken the glass at the church and stolen from the pastor’s office. What do you need a stapler for, anyway? You don’t have papers in your room.”
Cordelia pinched the bridge of her nose. “Everyone, quiet down for a second.”
Much to her surprise, they instantly fell silent. Cordelia couldn’t even get this much respect from her houseplants. It was an unusual feeling, being heard.
“I think...” Cordelia trailed off, gathering her thoughts about her, plucking ideas out at random and trying to make sense of them. “The wine is the only lead we have so far. We need to figure out a way to get it tested.”
“We could take it to Archer,” Daisy said. “He’s got access to all sorts of labs at the FBI.”
