Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

course. A pity his vision was so…limited. He’d miss old Reg. A little. While he was living his life of wealth and ease in Butt Had with Helen with all the shoes in his closet he could need or want.

Of course, there was still Dante to deal with. He wouldn’t be as easily duped as the police. And killing his man had raised the stakes. He’d seen Artie under his diguise, which the police hadn’t.

“Look.” Sarah pulled him out of his plotting as she pointed to the television. “They’ve caught the couple that killed those people at that party.”

“That’s not far from here, is it?” Artie asked, caressing the back of her neck and smiling with practiced charm.

“Too close for comfort.” Sarah shuddered. “Not that I know them—except by reputation. Frankly, from what I’ve heard about the Seymours I’m not surprised bodies are turning up all over!”

Only somewhat aware of her burbling, Artie listened to the report. Did they think he’d fall for something so blatant as that? It was insulting.

Good thing he already had a plan to get his money and finish off Luci. Now all he had to do was think of some way to get Dante off his ass. Well, he’d always been lucky, in an unlucky sort of way. Dante wouldn’t be bought off, so maybe he could be drawn off...maybe with Cloris’s help?

21

Mickey looked up as Delaney came back balancing two cups of hot coffee and four doughnuts. Another doughnut protruded from his mouth. All around them was the comforting clatter, chatter and ringing phones of other detectives following other leads in other homicides.

He didn’t like admitting it, but he missed the quiet, phoneless, nearly people-less Seymour house. Of course, it didn’t help that he could feel Caroline’s glare boring a hole in his back. One date and he was in the dog house. Women were so unfair.! Mickey gave a half-twitch, half-shrug to shake it off. It didn’t work, but lucky for him, he saw her grab her purse and head out with her partner. Until now he wouldn’t be relieved there’d been yet another homicide added to their yearly tally, but he needed the hostility break.

“Any movement yet?” Mickey asked Delaney. Ever since they’d driven away from the Seymour’s he’d had the feeling they were in the calm before the storm. He’d been a cop too long not to know when serious shit was about to hit the fan. He’d like the chance to duck when it did.

“Nada.” Delaney put one cup and one doughnut in front of Mickey. “You know, he could have decided to cut his losses and booked on out of here.”

“He didn’t,” Mickey said. “If he was gonna leave, he’d have done it before he started offing people. He’s in too deep to stop now.”

Delaney nodded, studying the circle of fried dough like it held the answers to all the questions if he could just learn to speak doughnut. Mickey had never found any answers in food, up to and including tea leaves. Just got heartburn and a few extra pounds.

Mickey looked at the file, then tossed it aside with a snort of disgust. They’d exhausted their leads and themselves. It was a waiting game now, with the ball in Arthur Maxwell’s court. Mickey hated waiting games and the noise he’d missed while doing time at the Seymour’s was now giving his headache a chance to do a return show. He dug out his mega bottle of aspirin and tossed back two, then two more. He’d get over it, he told himself. He’d been orbiting the Seymour planet for nearly five days. That long in what amounted to a loony bin would leave its mark, but he had to admit, if only to himself, that the real problem was distance from Luci.

Would the people they’d left as watchers know how to deal with her? How to keep her safe from Maxwell and herself? And, like a rat following a maze, his thoughts went back to the big why. Why did Maxwell want her dead? Mickey pulled the chain letter out of the file and studied it, but none of the addresses were in Wyoming, let alone Butt Had. That didn’t mean Maxwell had never been to Butt Had, of course. Be stupid of him to leave a trail to his home base.

“I’m going to fax Maxwell’s mug shot to Butt Had. The connection has to be there. Luci said she doesn’t travel much.” Something teased at the edges of his mind. Something Luci had said. Problem was, she’d said too much and he was too tired to recall half of it, let alone sort out the important stuff. Always supposing she’d said anything important. “Should have thought of it sooner.”

“We’re both tired.” Delaney looked up, shaking off his blues long enough to say, “Send it to the local Post Office, too. Whole town passes through the PO. Then go lie down. I’ll wake you in an hour.”

It was Artie’s knowledge of the old ladies’ habits that formed the basis of his plan. It took some heavy thinking and some careful circuits through the neighborhood before he located the cemetery he’d escorted them to a couple of months ago. He walked down the rows until he found the Seymour crypt. He was early, so he scored some flowers off another grave and sat down out of sight of the street.

There were too many people looking for him. He had to finish this and get out of town. Max had made sure Artie knew Dante was gunning for him, just in case he hadn’t figured it out. If Cloris could get Dante to call off the dogs long enough for him to get clear...he could soothe her down, spin her a tale, promise her what she wanted to hear and then disappear.

It was risky. He didn’t know how much power Cloris had, but he had to try. If he’d just left her, not taken the money,