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

avoided her gaze. “Well, dear, I had to say something to explain being late for my own death. If you’d thought about it, you’d have known it didn’t make sense. When have I ever been interested in babies? You were just a tiny bit gullible, you know.”

Miss Weena was right there. When had her aunts—or her mother for that matter—ever demonstrated the least maternal instinct?

Luci frowned. “So why did you want Miss Gracie to stick her head in my stomach?”

“I’ve got a bet with Louise riding on it.”

Luci wanted to object but she was on shaky ground on the whole bet issue. A distraction seemed in order.

“Closure would be nice, but what makes you think you can solve it now? You’ve had fifty years to think about it. As far as I can see, the only thing that’s changed is you’ve eliminated two suspects. There are still…” She pulled out a sheet and looked at it. “…at least five suspects left. Have you found anything new this time?”

Miss Weena’s gaze slid sideways. “No—but this time I have a plan. Hercule Poirot isn’t the only one who can use his little gray cells.”

She pushed her chair back and stood up, with only a hint of unsteady from her period of pre-death inactivity.

“Since you’ve waited this long, dear, could you put off the baby until after my tea party?”

Luci tried the blinking thing again, not expecting it to help, but just for something to do that didn’t involve twitching. “Tea party?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. You can wait that long, can’t you?”

Since the baby seemed determined to occupy her womb forever, she muttered, “Probably won’t be a problem.”

She was rewarded with a beaming smile. “Excellent.” She started toward the door with a slight frown pulling her brows down. “I wonder if my favorite Hepplewhites are free tomorrow afternoon? It’s kind of late notice…”

Luci straightened at that. “No, Miss Weena. No Hepplewhites. Mickey will kill you and then you won’t get your closure.”

Miss Weena’s mouth drew up in a pout that had probably been endearing way back when. “It’s awfully mean of him, you know.”

Luci tried to sigh and almost managed it. “If you have a plan, that’s probably punishment enough.”

Miss Weena brightened. “That’s true.”

Luci thought about asking what the plan was, but before she could Miss Weena was gone. Maybe it was just as well. When Mickey realized the reports of Miss Weena’s death had been exaggerated, Luci would need to have some serious deniability or even the baby couldn’t protect her.

In the meantime, she pulled the file toward her and started reading. It was past time she found out about Miss Gracie’s murder. It was just possible she might see something that previous investigators had missed.

Mickey entered Pryce’s office cautiously. Pryce was handling Luci’s overdue pregnancy worse than Mickey was, but with his usual injustice blamed Mickey for it.

On the upside, he hadn’t asked any ghosts to stick their heads in there and look around. Lila, the grandmother-in-waiting, wasn’t giving any clues to how she felt about things, but that was typical. Her attitude toward Luci was detached and distant, really distant. Almost another galaxy distant. The only person Mickey had seen who could penetrate her fog was Pryce—and it had taken him almost thirty years.

Lila, according to Luci, was more Seymour than anyone else in her family, sort of Seymour-plus. She made Luci’s aunts seem almost normal—in the right light. Much as Luci pulled Mickey’s chain, after long-term exposure to some of her family, Mickey was deeply grateful her Seymour genes had been leavened by Pryce’s.

It was a pity his Captain couldn’t reciprocate the gratitude. Maybe once he was a grandfather, the Captain would stop looking at Mickey like a bug that needed to be stepped on.

Inside the office, Mickey found his Captain staring out the window. Since the view was uninspiring, Mickey concluded he wasn’t seeing it.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Even off duty, Mickey hadn’t been invited to address his superior as anything but “sir.”

“Is Luci all right?” Pryce swung around to face Mickey. He looked troubled. “This business with Miss Weena, it must be wearing on her. And with the baby being late…”

“She’s fine, sir. A little bored, but fine.” Maybe he didn’t know she’d been at the take down this morning.

“That why she showed up this morning?”

Of course he knew. Always assume he knew, Mickey reminded himself, because he always freaking did. “I think so.”

Pryce smiled. “I’m surprised she could get into the van.”

“I understand it took two men to make it happen. And I almost didn’t get her out again.”

Pryce almost chuckled. Mickey knew he could. He’d seen him chuckle about Luci and about Lila, but he didn’t usually do it around Mickey. Must be the heat again. Either that or the old man was finally getting mellow.

“It must be difficult for her, but still, I wonder if you should let her do this tea party.”

Mickey stiffened. “Tea party?”

Pryce’s stern brows arched away from his cool gaze. “She didn’t tell you?”

Mickey’s brows lowered as his gaze narrowed. “No.”

“So you aren’t invited either. Now that’s interesting. Lila told me it was Miss Weena’s party, but I didn’t believe her. She was due to, I mean it’s been well over a year and a day hasn’t it?”

Two days over, though it felt longer, Mickey thought morosely. Then he felt a slight chill run down his back, and not a Delaney induced one either. Though a chill in this heat wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was what prompted it that was the problem. A woman planning a tea party didn’t sound like a woman ready to die. Which meant he was still living in a technology-free zone.

He swallowed back despair. “When’s the party?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

Mickey frowned. Why had Miss Weena popped up out of her deathbed to have a tea party? What was she up to? Because she had to be up to something. Whatever it was had got her up again, and he was going to find out