Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle Pauline Jones (the red fox clan txt) 📖

“Sorry.” He picked up the pieces and tossed them onto the table. Both pieces rolled into an indentation in the surface on one side. It looked like it was from beating heads there. A tiny, sympathetic ache formed around my eyes, then fanned out along my forehead.

“You’re an artist?” Willis flipped through my sketch pad.

“Sort of.” I twitched as he got closer and closer to the page with the sketch I’d just done of him.

“I’ve seen this bug before.” He looked up. “You the one does the cockroach books?”

“Yes.” Was this going to help or hurt my cause?

“My sister’s kids love your books. I don’t suppose you’d autograph one of these for them?”

What? Was I going to say no to a cop?

“Sure.” I reached for the book. Dillon cleared his throat. “Was that wrong? I’m not trying to bribe him. Really. I’m a law abiding person. I’m probably the most law abiding person you’ve ever arrested. I’ve never even gone in an out door or taken tags off my pillows!”

Dillon sighed. “You read mysteries, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I can stop anytime.”

“How about this one?” Willis held up the page I’d just done. In center place, larger than the rest, was my roach with him and Dillon doing their dance. “I think they’d like this one. This one kind of looks like you, Dillon.”

He stopped, his stocky, fish-shaped body going all stiff.

Law suit time.

I snatched the sketchbook from him and slammed it shut. “I’m sorry. That’s part of a work in progress.”

“Can we get down to business?” Dillon paced across the narrow room, his hands shoved in the pockets of his suit pants. His tie was listing toward his left ear. I got the feeling he blamed me for all of it.

“Of course.” I sat down and looked cooperatively at Willis. He didn’t look as friendly as before. A distraction was in order. “I’m surprised you got onto my sister so fast.”

“We’re not quite as incompetent as the media like to make out,” Dillon snapped.

“And when she was identified in the line-up—” Willis shrugged, settling into a chair facing me.

“The man with the dust-mop dog. I knew it. His dog was pooing on someone’s lawn, you know.”

“This will take less time if you’ll wait until we ask you questions,” Willis said, amusement creeping back into his eyes.

Dillon leaned toward me again. “Let’s start with the bullet holes in your sister’s car. Where they came from? Why you were seen speeding from the scene of Carter’s murder?”

“Uh, because I didn’t want to get shot?”

Dillon slammed his hands against the table. “Don’t mess with me!”

I cowered in my cower-resistant seat. “I’m not. You don’t have to scare me into spilling my guts. I’ll spill them without the act.”

I looked at Willis, then Dillon. They looked confused.

“What act?” Willis finally asked.

“Good cop, bad cop.” They looked at each other, then me again. I hastened to reassure them. “Don’t feel bad. You do it very well. It’s just that I was expecting it. I can pretend I don’t notice if you want.”

Willis gave a half laugh, half snort and rested his arms on the seat back. “You’re a very, unusual woman, Miss Stanley.”

“Oh no. I’m hopelessly ordinary. That’s what makes this whole thing so weird.”

“Don’t you think it’s stretching things a bit to call murder weird?” Dillon asked, pacing around to loom over me.

“Murder isn’t normal,” I felt the need to point out.

Dillon looked inclined to puff up again, but Willis laughed and said, “Can it, Ken. Miss Stanley is cooperating. You can badger our next witness.”

With an air of forbearance, Dillon hooked a chair with his foot and straddled it like a rebellious teenager. I gave him a “teacher look,” which seemed to disconcert him. Satisfied, I looked helpfully at Willis.

Willis’ lips twitched, but all he said was, “Let’s take it from the top. Why did Carter’s killer shoot at you?”

I explained about the choir practice and Mrs. Macpherson while Dillon beat an impatient tattoo on the floor with his foot. When I paused for breath, he jumped on me with, “The Carter house isn’t on your way home, Miss Stanley.”

“I know. I was thinking, you see.” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table. “I’m trying to get out of bugs and into romance novels, but it’s not as easy as some people think it is. I was mulling my book and not watching where I was going. And when I stopped, I realized I was lost, well, not exactly lost, I was in my subdivision, just not the right part of the subdivision. That’s when I drove by her house.” I shrugged. “It was just a coincidence.”

“A coincidence?” Dillon fixed me with an official glare. “Want to hear another coincidence?” I had a feeling I didn’t, but he didn’t wait for my assent to tell me, “Paul Mitchell was killed with the same gun that killed Carter.”

“Two murders in two days is pushing the coincidence envelope pretty far,” Willis added.

“The same gun?” I sagged back. Maybe it had been the round-headed man I saw in the parking lot? This was not good. “This really isn’t my week.”

“Carter volunteered at a youth center that helped teens get off drugs,” Willis said. “We found drugs on Mitchell’s body—”

“But it couldn’t be drugs.” I turned to Dillon. “According to your son, Paul Mitchell was a major straight arrow kid. No way would he be using the stuff.”

“My son?” Dillon began, puffing up again, but the door opened again. Of course we all looked. In the opening I saw yet another cop. Behind him were two men in suits.

“What’s up?” Willis stood up, his body going tense at the sudden interruption.

“They’re here for Miss Stanley.”

“What?” Dillon jumped up. “We’re not through with her yet.”

The cop shrugged. “Their paperwork is in order. She belongs to them now.”

She? Who? Me?

The cop gave way for the identical suits. It wasn’t just their conservative gray suits, white shirts, or