The Devil's in the Details (38 page)

“They're kids. They'd start to cry. By the way, the dog misses you.”

“How is Gussie?”

“Aside from an ugly incident with a club sandwich and a Canadian Tire catalogue, pretty good.”

“I guess that's one happy ending.” I looked around. “Now that this is over, I'm looking forward to going home and spending time with Alvin's dog and Mrs. Parnell's cat.”

Silence.

“What? Why are you all looking at each other like that?”

“You can stay with us,” my sisters said.

“Thanks. I think I'll just go home.”

Mrs. Parnell said. “You can fight it in court. They can't just evict you over that one false alarm.”

“Or even the repeated complaints by the neighbour,” Alvin said.

I sank back on the pillow and closed my eyes. I felt relieved when the duty nurse said. “Show's over, folks. Patient needs rest. Time to hit the road.”

Long after the noisy crowd bickered its way down the hall, I lay there thinking. Maybe Laura's house would come in handy after all.

And roses are always good.

Photo by Giulio Maffini

Mary Jane Maffini
is a lapsed librarian, former co-owner of the Prime Crime Mystery Bookstore in Ottawa, author of two mystery series and a double Arthur Ellis winner for short crime fiction.

The books in the Camilla MacPhee series are:
Speak Ill of the Dead
, which was shortlisted for an Arthur for Best First Novel,
The Icing on the Corpse, Little Boy Blues
and now
The Devil's in the Details
. In 2003, she launched a new series, the Fiona Silk mysteries, the first of which,
Lament for a Lounge Lizard
, was shortlisted at the 2004 Arthurs for Best Novel.

Mary Jane Maffini resides in Ottawa, Ontario.

As if it weren't bad enough being a failed romance writer with no sex life, poor Fiona Silk has to cope with the spectacularly embarrassing demise of her old lover, the poet, Benedict Kelly. It's exactly the sort of thing people notice in St. Aubaine, Quebec, a picturesque bilingual tourist town of two thousand. Now the police start getting nasty, the media vans stay parked on her lawn and the neighbours' tongues keep wagging in both of Canada's official languages. Worse, someone's bumping off the other suspects. Can Fiona outwit a murderer in the mood for some serious mischief?

“stylish and amusing
 . . .”   -Maclean's Magazine

“. . as adept at comedy as she is at laying out a tangled crime trail . . . Maffini surrounds Fiona with memorable—but often annoying—friends . . . Surviving their needs and obsessions is almost as daunting as solving the murder.”
-Foreword Magazine

“With its sassy heroine and eccentric but lovable cast of supporting characters, Mary Jane Maffini's Camilla MacPhee mystery series is a bright new addition to the Canadian crime writing scene.”
-Lyn Hamilton, author of the Lara McClintoch archaeological mysteries

Speak Ill of the Dead

ISBN 0-929141-65-2
$12.95 in Canada, $10.95 U.S
.

The Icing on the Corpse

ISBN 0-929141-81-4
$12.95 in Canada, $10.95 U.S
.

Little Boy Blues

ISBN 0-929141-94-6
$12.95 in Canada, $10.95 U.S
.

www.maryjanemaffini.ca
www.rendezvouspress.com