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

seeing Duckla that morning. And the people who worked with him weren’t the only ones who wanted him dead. He had a pile of hate mail in his office. The autopsy was pretty straightforward. No surprise he bled to death when the letter opener punctured his carotid artery.

It was a crime of passion, a crime of impulse. The surface of the opener made it hard to pick up prints, so all they had were some partials, not enough to even weed out the victim’s. There were plenty of prints everywhere else. Everyone who worked in the building left at least one in there. Most of them were found gripping something, probably in a rage.

They had been able to eliminate the cleaning lady as a suspect. She was in New Orleans having her hip replaced.

“Maybe we could start by figuring out who didn’t want him dead?” BT said, leaning back in his desk chair while he tried to balance pen on his nose. He claimed it helped him focus.

“That would be a good place to start but I don’t think we’ve met anyone who didn’t want him dead.” Tony stared morosely at his notes. There wasn’t even anyone with an unbreakable alibi to focus on. The murderer was blending into a crowd. Though he couldn’t say it out loud, Tony didn’t think Capri had killed him. Had nothing to go on but his gut—and his libido, he had to admit. He liked her. Which meant she probably had done it.

Though if he was going to look at the most unlikely candidate for his killer, that would have to be the plant lady—since the cleaning lady was side-lined by her hip.

He looked over at BT. “We got an interview set up with the plant lady yet?”

“Got a call in, waiting for her to call back.” He was quiet for a few minutes. “Everyone but the editor, Capri, claims that Duckla was blackmailing Ducumb. Blackmail’s a powerful motive.”

Tony frowned. “No one can tell us what he’d have on Ducumb. His life seems to be an open book.”

“Maybe he was fiddling the books?”

“He probably is, but that only matters if his mama cares. From what I hear, all she cares about is that he stays far enough away to not embarrass her. But we should talk to him again.”

Capri was the only employee who hadn’t been with the company before Katrina. She’d been hired after the move, because the previous editor in chief went down with his house when he refused to evacuate. Duckla got promoted and Capri was hired. Everyone said she did all the editing while Duckla and Ducumb played Halo over the company network.

And everyone was surprised Mose Milton had given this book Injustice League to Duckla to edit. Why would he do that when everyone knew Capri would do the job anyway? Which brought him back to: what did Duckla have on Ducumb?

And was it big enough motive to kill?

Capri waited for Mose Milton to look up from his computer, waited long enough to wonder who he was playing Halo with now. He was a good-looking man, but his face was marred by a perpetual pout and already lines of dissipation were cutting into his face, like a wax figure slowly melting.

He was big, horizontally and vertically, and it always surprised Capri that he was gay. She’d caught him eyeing her legs more than once. Her legs were the only assets she had that a guy would look at. When the boobs were being handed out, Merleen clearly got several women’s share. And not content with that, had gone to the well again with a surgical enhancement. Now she made Dolly Parton look flat as a board.

“Well.”

Capri realized Mose Milton was looking at her, though mostly he looked to the side of her. When he knew he was in the wrong, he wouldn’t meet your eyes.

She could have helped him out, but she didn’t. He gave Injustice League to Dennis. No one else. He wanted her to edit it, he was going to have to say it out loud.

“So…Dennis…”

What could she say about a man no one had liked, Capri wondered. You couldn’t say you were sad or sorry, or even that it was a pity. Couldn’t say you were glad either, with the police hanging around.

Capri made a noncommittal sound. She had no reason to hasten the interview. It was the first time all day she felt warm.

“You know you’re our best editor.”

She was their only editor—even before Dennis died.

“Was thinking…”

That had to hurt.

“How would you feel about being acting Editor in chief?”

“Acting?” Capri hadn’t really expected to get ahead at Socrates Musing, but dang, did he have to be insulting as well as clueless? She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. Not that he saw, looking off into nothing like that. Which was probably the real reason he did it.

“Wouldn’t look good to fill his shoes in haste. Tacky.”

This from the man who made a living from tacky.

“If I’m acting editor in chief, does that come with an acting hike in pay?”

Now he looked at her, his eyes kind of bulging out of the sockets for a minute. Clearly he hadn’t thought this through. In his haste to offload responsibility on her, he’d forgotten about the money.

“We both know I was already doing mine and Dennis’s job, but if you’re going to hire someone over me, I think I’ll just do my job and nothing else. I’m sure you can find another editor…by the end of…next year.”

If Dennis could blackmail, why couldn’t she? At this rate, she’d be better off waiting tables at Hooter’s. Not that they’d hire her without some.

He deflated like a stuck pig. “Of course I was going to raise your pay, Capri.”

“Then you don’t mind calling Mari Beth right now and telling her that.”

Capri had learned a lot since Mose Milton hired her. His expression hovered somewhere between hostile and admiring while he made the call. Maybe he liked