Gertie shrugged. “No motive, except that the honorable gentleman was a cock-wallop. One gathers that’s fairly common up there.”
I wondered how I’d missed this, searching onAlbanyand a hundred synonyms ofmayhem. “What was his name again?”
“Seymour…Butts?” A smile drifted slowly onto Gertie’s face, followed by a spurt of laughter. “He’s notreal, silly—I was tricking you!”
I stared at her. “Shit.”
“Sucha simple girl. Bianca wouldn’t tell you secrets in a million years. No one tells you anything. Also, I don’t like your hair!”
“I don’t like your cat,” I said.
“That reminds me.” Gertie produced a little silver bell and rang it furiously. In his sunbeam, Uncle Max twitched a little.
“Why are you mad at me, Gertie?”
She ignored this, crossing her arms and glaring at the hallway. A moment later a boy in olive shorts appeared.
“Snacks!” she commanded.
He went to the refrigerator, three feet from Gertie, and pulled out a glass-covered china plate. He set it before her with a bow.
“Flounce,” she said with a wave of the hand, and he did—out of the kitchen and down the hall. As she pulled the cover off the plate, Uncle Max’s eyes opened. “This is what you get for tricking.”
Gertie tossed a strip of anchovy at my feet.
Uncle Max roared to life, claws scrabbling before catching on the cracked linoleum. The beast hurtled across the room to crash into my ankles.
I didn’t look down at the oily, joyful smacking of jaws, the scent of brine.
“Sebastian is not himself,” I said.
“Because hehatesyou,” she said, flinging another fillet.
The cat swiped at it, a single claw hooking the leg of my linen pants. There was a brief struggle, a tearing sound, then more of the awful smacking.
I ignored the furry little body’s passion against my legs. “Has he killed someone?”
“Hah. You know nothing!” She tossed another anchovy, this time at my lap.
I backhanded it away and it landed on the kitchen island. The cat leapt in pursuit, scattering the sifted flour in all directions, calamitous and insatiable.
There were sudden tears in Gertie’s eyes.
“Sebastian hates you because you killed Peter.”
“He told you that?”
“No. You just did.” Her anger faded. “Two can play at tricking.”
“You could’ve simply asked.”
“You could have simplytold.” She was watching Uncle Max, still at work on the piece of fish. Flour rose up in tiny, ragged clouds as he chomped, set adrift by the breeze from the open window. “Did you think I wouldn’t care?”
“Loyalty has no care.” I looked down at my pants. They were in need of Sebastian’s needlework. “I was under orders to keep it secret.”
“You’re always under orders, Jessica.”
I didn’t answer: We all were.
