Rosemary burst out laughing. "Boy, wouldn't
that
be a kick in the pants. Pick the wrong state to murder your husband in for the insurance, then find out you can't collect a dime without a corpse. But you can't produce the corpse to get the money, or the cops will nab you for murder."
Marge said, "I guess that explains why Delbert's still with us."
A sly grin spread across his face. "What if there was a lot more money at stake than Royal Moody's life insurance policy?" He looked at IdaClare. "What if your scarcely underfoot goose was about to lay such a whoppin' golden egg, he wouldn't leave the nest till the undertaker carried him out?"
With a flick of his wrist, a worn slipcased deck of cards thunked on top of the marked-up photo at the center of the table. Malcolm, who'd crept up on the pile of people-food dishes Leo had set on the floor, skittered sideways, as if the bowls were booby-trapped.
Marge rolled back from the table. "Time out, while I put this mess in the sink to presoak."
"Good idea," Rosemary said. "I'll clear away the rest of the dishes."
IdaClare volunteered to help, after she checked on Itsy and Bitsy, then Leo excused himself for a trip to the powder room.
Delbert howled into the sudden semivacuum, "Where the hell's everybody going? I'm just getting to the good part."
Hannah absently scratched behind Malcolm's ear and studied the small box of playing cards. An illustration of a somewhat menacing-looking clown was juggling a bright-colored
R, U, D
and
Y.
Beneath his dancing clodhoppers, the copy read, "Come One, Come All! RUDY's Tons of Fun for the Whole Family!"
She was underwhelmed by the packaging and slogan, but the twelve-and-under market wasn't her realm of expertise. Still, the Ayer and Sons logo at the upper-right corner was familiar to anyone who'd ever been a child.
Delbert said, "As soon as I heard the name, the ol' lightbulb switched on. Along with every other game in creation, there's three more RUDY decks stuck back in a cupboard at the community center.
"None of the decks I found had the instructions," Delbert continued, "but it appears to be an Uno knockoff." He dumped the RUDY cards on the table and spread them out. "You match letters, instead of numbers, and the object's to get rid of all your cards."
"That game is another dot I didn't help you connect," Hannah said quietly, so the KP crew wouldn't overhear.
"Not directly," he hedged. "But the night of our caper at Moody's house, your impressions of Mama didn't jibe with one of Santa's toy-making elves. After Rudy went to jail on illegal weapons charges, I only half listened to the scuttlebutt in town. Nothing
allakazammed
till my peepers gandered at Chlorine's picture in the newspaper."
Hannah chuckled. "You're a smart old fart."
"Humph. You're just now figuring that out?"
IdaClare returned to the breakfast room, cradling the awake but groggy poodles. "The movie thingamajig's still on, dear, but I turned off the TV."
"I don't know about the rest of you," Marge said, "but it's getting awfully close to my bedtime."
Caressing Leo's forearm, Rosemary purred, "It's past ours, isn't it, sweetheart?"
Delbert made a gagging noise and fished out the roll of Tums from his pocket. "You want it short and sweet? Here 'tis. Rumor has it that Chlorine's made more off that dumb card game than she would've on Royal's life insurance."
"How much?" Marge asked.
"A cool million. By now, it's probably closer to two with the royalties." Delbert held up the Masters of Criminal Investigation. "If any of you'd read this, like I told you to, you'd know motive, means and opportunity don't just apply to a murder."
He exchanged the book for the game's slipcase. "The original idea for RUDY had to be Royal's. Could be, either the toy outfit he worked for turned it down, or he knew they wouldn't pay squat for it and asked Chlorine to put out feelers. Or, she did it on her own, in secret. Whatever the case, she had the means.
"Opportunity knocked when a whopping offer to buy it came along. Cutting Royal out of that jackpot was a crackin' good motive to kill him."
"
If
she did," IdaClare countered.
"And if she did," Marge said, "after Royal disappeared and Chlorine got rich quick, wouldn't the police have gotten suspicious?"
"They probably were as soon as he went missing," Delbert agreed. "No body, no life insurance payoff, no arrestee."
"Okay," Hannah said, "let's assume Chlorine murdered him. According to your premise, you think she poisoned him"
"I don't think she did, honeylamb. I
know
she did." He discarded the slipcase to count off on his fingers. "With a kid in the house, scratch guns, knives and blunt instruments for murder weapons. They're too noisy and she'd have all that blood spatter to deal with."
"Oh, eww." Marge smacked her lips, grimacing. "Skip the nightmare stuff, okay?"
"We've gotta have the whys with the wheretofores. Which is, that poison is silent and sneaky. No muss, no fuss. Except once Royal stopped twitching, Chlorine had a corpse to dispose ofalso fast and quiet, so's not to wake up their son."
"Ach, the dead weight, it is heavy," Leo said. "That's why they call it that."
"Correct-a-mundo. There's no telling if Chlorine dug the grave before or after she offed Royal. From what I heard, he wasn't a big fella, but dragging a body out of a house and across a yard would've been a back-breaker."
Delbert spread his hands. "How she covered the fresh dirt, lest the cops see it, I don't know. Planting rose bushes on both sides of the fence is better than barbed wire for keeping out kids, cats and dogs."
"But not bulldozers," Hannah said.
"Chlorine's filed a lawsuit to stop them, but the city has a legal easement to that alley. It'll be a few daysthe middle of next week at the latestbefore her cease and desist order comes up on the court docket and a judge throws it out."
Leo said, "Then the premise of the Code Name: Epsilon, I don't understand. If the bulldozer digs up Royal next week, a cold case to investigate, we don't have."
"Yeah," Marge agreed. "Let the city do the dirty work."
"If a body's there and they find it," IdaClare said, "it'll be fascinating to hear how Chlorine explains it."
"For the love of Mike," Delbert bellowed. "Use your damned heads for something besides a hat rack."
Clenching the red marker in his fist, he circled Chlorine Moody's picture a half-dozen times. "After all these years, do you think she's gonna sit back and wait for the gas company to
prove
she's a thief and a murderer?"
8
H
annah was in bed, a nest of feather pillows cushioning her back, when a pair of warm, delicious lips kissed her awake.
Just like the prince who'd rescued Snow White. Except Royal Moody had eaten the witch's poisoned apple and was doomed to an eternal snooze in the rose brambles. And instead of seven dwarves, there'd been only five: Crabby, Pinky, Chubby, Naughty and Marge.
Hannah's tentative peek through her lashes found Prince Charming looming over her. Hooked on his finger was a hanger with a clean uniform and a plastic shopping bag with other minimum dress-code requirements.
"Hi," she said, scraping back the hair the fan blew across her face. "Don't take this wrong, but I didn't know I fell asleep, then I had this weird dream, but I'm not sure I'm really awake, so would you mind saying something David-like?"
"I missed you."
"Good start."
"I couldn't stand another night without you."
She waggled her fingers,
keep going.
He grinned. "Got anything to eat?"
Ah, yes. Her prince had really come. She stretched, then kicked back the sheet. The file she'd been reading before she nodded off fell to the floor, landing at David's feet.
"What's this?" he said.
"Nothing," she said.
Oh, hell,
she thought, and dove for the file.
A size fourteen-and-a-half boot attached to a sheriff with lightning reflexes pinned it to the floor.
David looked down at the label. "Code Name: Epsilon?" His chest expanded with the sigh of the persecuted. "I know I'll hate myself for asking this, but what's with all the asterisks?"
Whew, boy. Once upon a time, doodling was a harmless habit. Maybe if she whistled a happy tune, Crabby, Pinky, Chubby, Naughty and Marge would skip in for an encore.
"Hannah?"
"They're, um, supposed to be snowflakes."
"Okay
"
"Becausewell, you know, it has to be cold to snow and that's a cold case, so
"
The boot lifted off the folder, as though it were soft, fresh and organic in origin. "Bisbee's at it again."
"Yeah," she allowed, "kind of. But aren't you glad it isn't the Beauford homicide?"
"Ecstatic." The gray in David's eyes blotted out the blue, like an ocular mood ring. "I thought he learned his lesson the last time he played detective."
So had she. Until tonight, there hadn't been any gumshoe meetings for more than two months. Seeing them out in force and in action was one of life's little oh shit/thank God moments. The
get it
part of
watch what you wish for.
"Delbert has pulled some foolish stunts," she said, "but he isn't a fool."
"I never said he was. None of them are. If they were, they wouldn't be such pains in the butt." Aware that Hannah was a semi-willing conspirator, his informant and thus a present-company pain in the butt, he inquired, "How cold is cold?"
Finally, a question she could answer that might relax the nerve twitching at his jaw. "Ice cold. More than twenty years cold." She took the hanger he still held and hung it on the closet knob. "And way back then, it was a Sanity Police Department case, not the sheriff's."
"If you're expecting a hallelujah, you're in for a huge disappointment." David bent to pick up the folder. Thrusting it at her, he warned, "One complaint call from Chief Rhodes about the Apple Dumpling Gang and I
will
throw them in county lockup."
"But you don't even know what"
He held up his hands. "Not another word. I don't have time to arrest myself for being an accessory before the fact."
So much for the Prince Charming-Snow White dream. Then again, David was currently dealing with the death of a friend and an investigation that wasn't going wella gumshoe revival was the last thing he needed. If only she'd put that damned file in a desk drawer and curled up in bed with a book instead, he wouldn't even have found out about it.
He caught her arm as she started for the kitchen. "Hey. I'm sorry, sugar."
"For what?" Hannah smiled up at him. "No, that isn't your cue for a line-item apology, and God help you if you miss one, because that'll be what really pissed me off, which you'd know, if you loved me as much as you say you do, so it'll be obvious you don't, and maybe never did."
David's head reared back. It angled left, then right, like a satellite dish pivoting for a clear signal. The tic formerly at his jaw migrated upward to his temple. "This is just a guess, but what you're saying is, I don't have anything to apologize for?"
"Not a thing."
"Because your feelings aren't hurt, like most women's would be for going off the way I did, because you're not most women and you know me better than I know myself, sometimes."
"Bingo." She stretched on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "God, we're lucky that communication has never been a problem for us."
"I reckon." As she left the room, he added, "Scary as it is for me, sometimes the crazy stuff that falls out of your mouth makes sense."
Malcolm stood in the shadowy breakfast room, body-blocking Hannah's path to the kitchen. On second glimpse, the four-legged barricade was shorter, burlier and wasn't wagging its tail. This was because what remained of it was stumpy and probably not inclined to express joy when it was intact.
Rambo's presence explained Malcolm's absence in the bedroom when David kissed away Royal Moody and the Five Old Dwarves. By a rhythmic thumping in the great room, her guard-mutt was leveraging the chair from the desk's kneehole, so he could crawl in and hide.
Hannah couldn't imagine why David had brought Rambo along. The rottweiler's purpose in life was terrorizing defenseless woodland creatures, fertilizing the meadow and patrolling David's land. One might presume a county sheriff needn't worry about trespassers, but smart thieves considered it a challenge and stupid ones werewell, stupid.
Rambo looked at her as though his own prayers for a midnight snack had been answered. She knew he was all bluff and no confirmed body count. Still, her heart went aflutter and not in a good way.
