“She’s not the only one,” I said as I skimmed the lesson plan.
“What about Faith’s seminar?” Mother asked and read the title. “Prissy No More: The Secrets of Sweet Romance.”
I spoke to Wilson. “Roger is bound to be at that one.”
“Is he a suspect?” Gavin asked.
“He is,” I said. “Which means we need another set of eyes and ears.”
“Well, we don’t have them,” Wilson said. “We can only spread ourselves so thin.”
Mother suggested she and Mykal split up, but Wilson nixed that idea. “Mykal protects you, Tessie. That’s his number one role on this team, right?”
“More than right.” Mykal nodded.
“So Roger’s on his own for a couple hours,” Wilson said. He asked about Charm Willowby and Mia Madison. “Anyone know where they’ll be?”
“Are they suspects?” Gavin asked. “Big Mouth filled us in on the Tori Fister-Dewey Womac-Charm Willowby saga.”
“Big Mouth hopes that’s okay.” Louise appealed to Wilson. “The guys are part of the team, correct? I thought they should know.”
“Know what?” Batsy Glee asked, and everyone jumped ten feet in the air.
***
“Have we missed anything?” Patsy asked as she and her sister swept into the room.
But bless her heart, Hatsy arrived on Patsy and Batsy’s heels and saved us from answering. Good old Hatsy couldn’t care less what anyone had missed, or why our group had congregated in Happily Ever After headquarters.
She jabbed at her watch and reminded us the seminars began promptly at ten. “This news about Tori is no excuse to slack off,” she said. “We have a reputation to uphold.”
“A reputation for heartlessness,” Batsy said. “Not everyone thinks like you, Hatsy. Some of us think an innocent person is in jail right now.”
“Some of us.” Hatsy emphasized the ‘some.’
Louise sat up straight and spoke to Hatsy. “Do you think Tori’s guilty?”
“I don’t make a habit of arguing with the police,” she said. “If Chief Keegan says Tori’s guilty, then she must be guilty.”
Okay, so now Patsy was annoyed. “Never mind any nonsense about innocent until proven guilty,” she said and glared at her cousin.
Hatsy backed down a bit. “I know the legalities, okay?” she said. “And we all know Tori will get her day in court. Satisfied?”
“No,” Wilson said, and the Glee Club spun around. He focused on Hatsy. “Why do you think Tori’s guilty?”
“Who else can it be?” she asked. “Tori was pestering Penelope from the moment she got here Friday. She was in her room every other minute. She could have tampered with the candy, or the champagne, or the drinking water. Either Friday night, or Saturday morning.”
“You don’t know Tori was in Penelope’s room yesterday,” Batsy said.
Hatsy put her hands on her hips. “Well then, where was she? She wasn’t at breakfast.”
“Not everyone’s a morning person.”
“You have no clue where Tori was,” Patsy said. “She could have been sleeping in.”
“Oh, and that sounds just like the Tori Fister we all know and love.” Hatsy rolled her eyes. “Maybe Roaring Tori, famous for her lethargy, slept in. Maybe she saved up all her energy to pester people at the preinduction ceremony. Let’s ask Adelé.” Hatsy spun around to me. “You were right there. Was Tori well rested?”
I cleared my throat and had to agree Tori had seemed well rested. “She certainly had plenty of energy. But then again, she always has energy.”
“My point exactly,” Hatsy said. “She had plenty of energy and plenty of access to those water glasses I set out. Let’s face it, wherever she did it, Tori had plenty of opportunity to—” Hatsy gasped.
Then she blinked twice.
Then she stared at me.
Chapter 26
“Hatsy knows,” I said as the ‘Hysterical or Historical’ contingent of the team made our way to class.
“Hatsy knows nothing,” Louise argued. “She thinks Tori’s guilty.”
“But you saw how she looked at me. She’s figured out I might have been the intended target.”
“That, or it dawned on her you could be the killer,” Wilson said.
“What!?” Louise and I stopped dead in our tracks, and he told us to keep our voices down.
“I’m not saying I agree with her, okay?”
“Well, gee thanks,” I said.
“Think about it,” he told me. “Think about how it might look. You had easier access to that water glass than anyone.”
Louise bit her lip. “Other than Gavin.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “And Gavin and I had all kinds of free time to be tampering with the water, what with the gazillions of fans we were juggling.” I suggested we stop complicating the issue, and we kept moving.
“Hatsy did confirm one thing we weren’t sure of,” Wilson said. “Tori wasn’t at breakfast yesterday.”
“I could have told you that,” Louise said. “When she called me late last night, we discussed each and every teeny tiny-itsy bitsy detail of her weekend. From the moment she arrived at the Goodnight Inn until the moment she ended up in jail.”
“Okay, so where was she yesterday morning?” Wilson asked. “Before the preinduction shindig.”
“Batsy was right. Tori slept in.”
“She have any witnesses?”
“Why does she need a witness?” Louise asked. “If Tori says she slept in, she slept in. Tori wouldn’t lie to me. Why would she lie to me?”
Wilson stopped us outside the door to the conference room and put a finger to his lips. “Eyes and ears,” he whispered, and bless her heart, Louise mimicked the gesture.
“My big mouth has only one purpose in there,” she whispered loudly and tilted her head. “I will be the voice of Hysterical.”
“Tell me about it.” Wilson opened the door, and Louise and I paraded past.
We blew a few air kisses to the audience and marched toward the front table. I’m certain the audience would have welcomed a few air kisses from Wilson also, but he ignored the stares, took his position at the back of the room, and immediately pulled out his cell phone.
I promised everyone we’d start on time, and my hysterical and insane agent and I took a few minutes to prepare.
“This is fantastical,” Louise told me as she skimmed over my Historical handout. “You go first.”
“Fine with me. But I will leave plenty of time for this.” I tapped her Hysterical handout. “How do you know so much about humor?”
Louise reminded me she had represented Penelope Shay for over a decade. “I know my clients, I know their books, I know their talents.”
“You’re fantastically wise,” I said and again thanked her for her help. “With this class, and with our sleuthing efforts.” I glanced at the back of the room. “Believe it or not, Wilson appreciates you also.”
“Believe it or not, I know he does. Now then, let’s get this show on the road.” Louise twirled around, and with a flourish I can only describe as hysterical, introduced “The one! The only! The fantastically fantastical—Adelé Nightingale!”
***
Dare I say, Adelé Nightingale did a fantastical, if not fantastically fantastical, job on Historical?
And Geez Louise? By the end of her Hysterical talk, the audience was begging her to write a few romances herself.
“They’d be so funny!” Roslynn Mayweather said from her spot in the middle of the crowd.
“No, no, no!” Louise protested. “I’m the business half of this act, not the creative force.” She graciously pointed to yours truly, we took our bows to the appreciative applause, and Batsy showed up to herd the crowd toward lunch.
Evidently Roslynn was in no hurry to eat. She came up to congratulate us on a job well done and reiterated her request that Louise try her hand at writing.
“But what would we do without her?” I reminded Ros
lynn how much we relied on our agent for her business sense. “Can you imagine dealing with Roberto without Geez Louise?”
“She’s a woman of many talents.” Wilson came up from behind, and poor Roslynn jumped, flinched, and blushed.
“See y’all at lunch!” She turned on her high heel. “Wait for me!” she called out to Batsy and veritably ran for the exit.
“Wilson,” I scolded. “Would you please stop scaring people away?”
“I didn’t tell her to leave.”
“You intimidate poor Roslynn.”
“Good.”
“Why is that?” Louise asked. “She told me she’s scared to buy a raffle ticket for fear she might win.”
“Good.”
Louise frowned. “Does this mean you won’t be inviting Roslynn onto the sleuthing team?”
“I hate that phrase, and not on your life.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cordiality.” I started gathering up the leftover paperwork. “Roslynn would be another set of eyes and ears, you know?”
“No Roslynn.”
“She helped us with another homicide investigation,” I persisted.
“Yep, and I still don’t trust her. She have any reason to want you dead?”
“Oh, please.”
Louise waved a hand to get his attention. “What is your problem with poor Roslynn?”
“The woman is fishy as hell. I don’t trust her.”
I rolled my eyes and informed Louise that once upon a time Roslynn Mayweather had lied to Wilson. “But it was a tiny little white lie.”
Tiny?” Wilson was incredulous. “She lied during a murder investigation.” He waited patiently while I performed another eye roll. “Is Roslynn jealous of you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Louise and I spoke in unison.
“She wants a place in the Hall of Fame?”
“Yes,” we repeated and jerked our heads to stare at each other. “No!” we said in unison.
Wilson raised an eyebrow. “You two been practicing?”
Okay, so I had to admit Roslynn Mayweather is exceptionally ambitious. “Of course she’d like to be in the Hall of Fame someday.”
“But the key word is someday,” Louise said. “Roslynn knows she’s far, far, far too young for such a fantastical honor, even if she did make quite a name for herself with The Sultan’s Secret.”
“Which brings up another point,” Wilson said. “She doesn’t use an alias.”
“Pen name,” I corrected. “And don’t you dare try to imply that’s fishy.” I reminded my husband the cop that he and Jo Keegan had spent the entire weekend claiming that people who do use pen names are fishy. “Make up your mind.”
He shrugged noncommittally.
“Please tell me you don’t have Russell once again looking into poor Roslynn’s background.”
He shrugged again. “She does come from an impoverished background.”
I shook my head and turned to Louise. “This only makes the third or fourth time they’ve investigated her. Russell probably knows her shoe size by now.”
“Eight.” Wilson smirked.
“Russell?” Louise asked, and I reminded her of Lieutenant Russell Densmore.
“You met him at our wedding,” I said. “He’s the black guy who stood up with Wilson.”
“Oh!” she said as it dawned on her. “The research guy! The amazing Google guy!”
I nodded. “That’s Russell.”
“He’s on the sleuthing team? What a fantastical idea!” She smiled at Wilson, and he groaned accordingly.
***
“You’re taking me out to lunch,” I said in no uncertain terms as the three of us vacated the conference room.
Wilson checked his watch. “We have time before your afternoon class?”
“We do. ‘Villains, Vixens, and Vampires’ doesn’t start until three.”
Wilson still seemed confused.
“Villains, Vixens, and Vampires: Bad Guys and Gals to Sink Our Teeth Into,” Geez Louise clarified.
Poor Wilson appeared even more perplexed so we enlightened him about another Happily Ever After tradition—the very popular Sunday afternoon panel discussion.
“In Hall of Fame induction years the panelists are the inductees themselves,” I said. “But I’m free until the Bad Guys, and I certainly could use some freedom.”
“I let you out yesterday.”
“You took me to a police station, Dearheart.”
Okay, so he admitted that probably didn’t count and suggested we eat at the Fable Golf Course and Country Club. “The way things are going, this will be the only time I get to see the course.”
“And we can walk.” I took his arm to lead him away, but he held back and spoke to Louise.
“I’m leaving you in charge at lunch.”
“Like the co-captain?” She clapped her hands. “What should I do? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”
Wilson told her to gather the team and stay observant with the lunchroom crowd.
“We’ll be your eyes and ears!” she said.
He gave her a cop-like look. “What else will you do?”
Louise pursed her lips and thought about it. “I know!” She raised an index finger. “I’ll be discreet! Discreet, discreet, discreet! I’ll keep my big mouth shut! Shut, shut, shut!”
He looked at me.
“Well, you did ask,” I said.
Chapter 27
“Well, ask her again,” Wilson said. “This could be important.”
Why the man chose to ruin a perfectly pleasant stroll by calling Jo Keegan was beyond me. But while I enjoyed a few much-needed and well-earned outdoor moments along the oak-lined path that connected our hotel to the Fable Golf Course and Country Club, Wilson argued with the chief of police.
“Make time,” he demanded. “Maybe she’ll remember she wasn’t in her own room after all.”
I tore my eyes from the Spanish moss hanging overhead and watched Wilson listen and frown. Frown and listen.
“If it helps, I can drive down there and question her myself,” he said. He flinched and held the phone away while Jo spouted off a few choice obscenities.
Eventually he returned the phone to his ear. “Ask her again,” he said and hung up amid another string of profanity.
“That didn’t go well,” I said.
“An understatement.”
“I take it you’d like Jo to question Tori about yesterday morning? About the breakfast hour in particular?”
“Very good.”
“But she’s already done so and isn’t wildly keen about doing so again?”
He told me Jo Keegan wasn’t ‘wildly keen’ about many of his suggestions.
“Why are you so certain Tori didn’t sleep in yesterday?” I asked.
“Because of something Hatsy said. Sleeping in doesn’t sound like Roaring Tori.”
Good point. I thought back to other Happily Ever After conferences, when Tori Fister always—always, always, always, as Louise would say—attended each and every event and gathering.
“It would be unlike her to miss the breakfast buffet,” I said. “But I still don’t understand why it’s so critical. If, as you insist, the poison was meant for me, the only event that matters is the preinduction ceremony itself.” We crossed the parking lot and navigated around a few stray golf carts near the clubhouse entrance. “Unless you’ve changed your mind, and you don’t think I was the target after all. In which case, all this bodyguarding nonsense is for naught.”
“Is having me around cramping your style that much?”
Another valid point. I broke down and admitted I almost always enjoy his company, and to his credit, Wilson admitted he wasn’t so sure who the poison was meant for.
“Which is why I want a clearer picture of yesterday morning.” He held the door for me, and soon we were sitting at a table overlooking the golf course.
Sunday brunch was being served. Wilson ordered an omelet, and I got the eggs Benedict.
“Black cof
fee for me and a mimosa for my wife,” Wilson added before the waiter left us.
I didn’t argue, but I reminded him I usually don’t drink midday. “Especially when I’m operating on minimal sleep.”
“A little champagne might soften the blow of what I’m about to tell you.”
I cringed. “You think Tori’s guilty, don’t you?”
“I do.” He watched me cringe some more. “And if so, what about Louise? She’ll be ticked off at me. And she’s so important to you, Jessie. I get that.”
“No, you don’t,” I said firmly. “If Tori’s guilty, Louise will be mad at Tori. Not you.”
Our conversation halted while our waiter served our beverages. But once he left, Wilson tapped my glass with his coffee mug and asked about my Historical presentation. “I was on the phone. Did I miss anything interesting?”
“You missed an invaluable lesson on various and sundry bodice-styles throughout the centuries.” I fluttered my eyelashes. “Adelé Nightingale is quite the expert on what needs ripping when. Believe it or not, she did some research years ago.”
Wilson chuckled, and I asked him what I had missed. “You were on the phone for over an hour. Who did the amazing Russell Densmore research this time?”
“We talked about the Womac brothers.”
“Haven’t we covered the Womac clan in enough detail?” I asked, but I had to wait while our brunch was served to get an answer.
“Densmore didn’t find anything incriminating.” Wilson nodded to thank the waiter and turned to me. “All five Womac brothers are squeaky clean.”
“Then why the cop-like look?” I asked.
“Maybe they’re a little too clean.” He reminded me that Russell always finds dirt, no matter how small or insignificant, on everyone.
“He found out about you,” he said, and I put down my fork and glared.
Okay, so once upon a time, back before Captain Wilson Rye realized he was madly in love with me, back when he had entertained the ridiculous notion that I might be a murderer, Russell Densmore had dug up a teeny tiny piece of dirt about yours truly.
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