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

“Yes, but without the Seymour accent. It can be confusing.” She stood up. “I wouldn’t want you to be. Confused, I mean.”

“No,” Mickey said. “I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

Her eyes glittering with amusement, Luci showed them into a room at the front of the house. The front parlor, she called it. A subtle hint at the more than just personality differences that separated Mickey from Luci Seymour and her aunts.

Delaney went straight for the table, but Mickey paused just inside the doorway and looked around. The parlor was a clean room, with long narrow windows that overlooked the street and a decor that indicated no single personality had directed its planning. Dim and cool, the furniture was a mixture of old and new, good and tacky, trendy and venerable. Not unlike the Seymour ladies.

Delaney tested each chair for soundness before taking one that still creaked a protest when he sat down. He waited a beat, but when nothing happened, pulled out a notebook and a pencil with a nearly flat tip. He licked it, then looked up.

“Start with the help?”

Luci opened her mouth, but Mickey quelled her with a look. She closed her mouth, then curved it into a slight, unsettling smile.

“I’ll send them in.”

Was it his imagination or did her tone add, it’s your funeral?

Mickey picked a chair near Delaney’s but didn’t sit. “One at a time, please?”

Luci paused at the door. “Of course.”

When she left, he was sure it was his imagination that she took the light with her. He widened the gap between the curtains and then sat next to Delaney, removing his notebook and sharpened pencil.

Louise came first. A small dour woman, she was so thin, Mickey wondered if life with the Seymours had sucked all her animation out of her, leaving only this pale husk. Was the small chalkboard and chalk she carried an intimation of trouble ahead?

“Did you know she was mute?” Delaney whispered when she seated herself across from them without comment.

“No—” Though now that he thought about it, she hadn’t said anything to him when he’d come for the pig. With some unease, Mickey noticed that she’d already written her responses on the board: no, yes, I don’t know.

Despite these ominous signs, he trotted out his first question, her full name. By the time she’d squeaked her way through it, he and Delaney were twitching. And determined to limit their questions to ones she could answer with her pre-written responses. It didn’t help that they didn’t really know what to ask, since the only thing they knew for sure about their corpse was that he’d been shot, hosed, and then froze.

They both heaved sighs of relief when Louise left as silently as she’d arrived.

They took a short break, then summoned Boudreaux. He entered, some of the leaves from his fall into the azaleas still clinging to his person. Though vocal, they already knew he wasn’t a great communicator. Between his heavy Cajun accent and an apparent speech impediment, he succeeded in communicating only his agitation.

When the door shut behind his round form, Delaney turned to Mickey. “He knows something.”

“No shit. How do we find out what that something is?”

“Is it too late to take Luci up on her offer?”

“We don’t need her. Besides...” Mickey looked sheepishly at Delaney. “I checked while you were in the can. She’s not here. She went out to buy some clothes.”

“Great. Are we screwed?”

“Of course not. How hard can it be to question some old ladies?” Mickey asked.

There was a stir in the doorway and they looked up to find Miss Weena standing in the doorway dressed as Sherlock Holmes.

“My good Wats-men,” she said as she waved her pipe at them. “Why are you sitting around when the game is afoot?”

9

Over their muffelatta lunch, Donald went broody. Munching his sandwich, he stared ahead, his lids blinking to a rhythm only he could hear.

In between supplying him with food, Fern did some thinking of her own. It was obvious what Artie had wanted to remove from the Seymours before the cops found it. Now that his secret was out, would he still be able to get to the money hidden inside and pay them their money? Donald was confident it wasn’t over yet, but Donald was an idiot who didn’t want to leave his last job undone. Men and their egos.

Leaving Donald to his thoughts at the paper-littered table, Fern strolled over to the lunch counter for a refill on her coffee. As she waited she looked out the window. St. Charles was a pleasant prospect with its tree-lined vistas sliced by a picturesque streetcar. Only she wasn’t in the mood for picturesque. Not when what she wanted to see was a view of Luci Seymour in the sights of the Uzi.

It took her a moment to realize she did see Luci Seymour—though not in the Uzi sights. She was getting on a streetcar.

“Donald!” Fern hissed. “It’s her!”

He freed himself from the table and trotted over just in time to see Luci Seymour passing in front of them, her distinctive profile framed in the window of the streetcar.

“Pack your camera, Fernie. We’re going to Disneyland.” He stuffed in his last bite of sandwich, wiped his face on his arm and looked at her. “Let’s follow that broad.”

Mickey had pretty much resigned himself to a state of permanent headache before they managed to persuade Miss Weena, aka Holmes, to sit down across the table from them. Her cupid’s bow mouth pursed in a manner that he suspected was supposed to be thoughtful.

“Before we go hunting we need to get some details cleared up, Miss Weena,” Mickey said, smiling in what he hoped was an encouraging manner.

“Of course.” She chewed on the end of the pipe, then removed it to point at them. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. With my law enforcement experience, deduction comes naturally to me.”

“Law enforcement experience?” Delaney asked like someone who didn’t really want an answer.

“As a