Page 35 of Murder on Charity Lane

Lily-Ann ducked her head and checked the time. Then she removed her hair from a bun, changed into a cranberry silk blouse and black trousers and went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and called to Anthony, “If we don’t bring an appetizer, Hamilton will pass around candied salmon again.”

“I liked his candied salmon.”

She gave a shudder. “We have feta. Did you buy the olives?”

“Yes.”

“Castelvetrano?”

“In the door.” There was a pause. “Miles calls them Castlevania olives, after a vampire show.”

“We can make wooden stakes from toothpicks,” she said. “You took him shopping?”

“He likes errands.”

“You’d make a great father.”

He appeared in the doorway. “Yeah?”

She suddenly didn’t know what to do with her hands or how her face was supposed to look. She bent into the fridge to hide her expression. Then she took a breath and calmed herself and cooked garlic and lemon peel in olive oil to pour over the feta and olives. She set Anthony to slicing a baguette for crostini. As they worked, she talked through the guests at the DeYoungs’ party—at least the ones that Sophie and Nicholas mentioned—and felt a shiver of anticipation. She loved finding order in chaos. Riddles and spreadsheets satisfied her on a fundamental level.

After the Marigold murders last spring, she’d missed investigating a crime.

She didn’t much care about guilt or innocence; it was the process that interested her. Unfortunately, she knew that intruding on a family’s grief for her own gratification wasn’t kind—so she dearly hoped that Mrs. B would insist upon an investigation.

19

SOPHIE

Hamilton left his front door unlocked, so I knocked once and let myself in. Every time I visited his cottage, the neatness surprised me. His brain was cluttered and idiosyncratic, but his living room was serene. The walls were a neutral cream color, the couch was white and unstained, and his birch bookshelves were organized with game boxes and fantasy novels.

The living room was empty so I crossed toward the kitchen, listening to Hamilton in mid-conversation: “—my current theory is that we’re going to find levels of toxicity in the Mississippi River that mimic the effects of lead on the brain that we’ve—”

“Interesting,” Lily-Ann interrupted. “But I asked if you have soda.”

“Oh, right. To drink?”

“Yes,” Anthony said.

“No.”

“Tap water’s fine,” Lily-Ann told him. “We’ll cut up lemon wedges.”

I smiled to myself and called, “What smells so good?”

Anthony appeared in the kitchen doorway, holding a plate of toasted baguette slices. “Salty cheese in garlic and olives.”

“Feta,” Lily-Ann said.

“My kombucha won’t be ready for another week,” Hamilton announced.

“Good thing I brought iced tea.”

I set the pitcher on the coffee table, then separated the bread onto two plates so nobody would have to reach. As I finished, Nicholas came in with Ocean and Mrs. B, who pointed a small wooden hammer at me.

“I brought a gavel!” she told me. “Will you take notes? Not notes, what do I mean? Moments?”

“Minutes?” Ocean suggested.