Mystery Repeats Itself by Cordelia Rook

Author:Cordelia Rook [Rook, Cordelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

I left Plant to comfort Mrs. B as best he could, and walked Ruby out to her car. She must have sensed I had something to tell her, because she didn’t argue that she could show herself out.

Every step brought a fresh wave of dread. Was I really going to tell her? I certainly didn’t want to.

But what was I supposed to do? A man had died. A man had been killed.

I didn’t owe Percy anything. When it came down to it, I barely even knew him. My loyalty had to be to truth, and justice, and all that kind of thing. And, I supposed, to my deceased employer, even if he was a ratbag.

What had I been thinking? Why had I even hesitated?

Because he didn’t do it. Not Percy.

And why was I so sure of that? Just because he had dimples, and nice hands, and his eyes crinkled when he smiled at me? That was no kind of reason. A crinkle was not a measure of character.

And speaking of character, I was a terrible judge of it. I’d trusted Natalie Jones just fine.

Thought she was a nice lady, in fact. If you’d asked me whether she were capable of putting two bullets in a person’s chest, I’d have laughed and said no way. Right up until the second she did it.

No, it was definitely not my place to decide who was or was not guilty. It was not my place to interpret the truth.

Only to tell it.

“So my dog, Plant?” I stopped at the end of Ruby’s car, started to lean against it, thought better of that, and stood up straight again. “He likes to grab things. Especially cloth things. Napkins, socks. He kind of prances around with whatever it is, and you’re expected to tell him how nice it is. It’s a whole thing.”

Ruby took her glasses off. “Are you reporting this as a crime? Has Plant absconded with a particularly valuable sock?”

“No, but he pulled one of Percy’s out of the trash. A sock, I mean. That he—Percy—had thrown away.”

“And Percy wants it back?”

“No, I told you, he threw it in the trash. Why would he want it?” I shook my head. This wasn’t going right. Conversations rarely did, when I was this nervous. “The sock doesn’t matter.”

Ruby put her glasses back on. “I’m going to be optimistic and assume there’s a point in here somewhere, but I suggest you find it fairly soon.”

“The trash. The trash is the point.”

“And what trash was this?”

“Er … in Percy’s bedroom. Or his bathroom, actually. Not that I was in his room for questionable reasons! I was getting some Tagamet for Mrs. B, and he was … Plant just ran into his room. Plant loves Percy.”

He did love him. And unlike me, Plant was a pretty good judge of character. This was nitwitted. I was being a nitwit. You could buy Dramamine at any drugstore. It was everywhere.

Too bad, because it was too late. “And?” Ruby asked.

“And Plant knocked the trash over, in his excitement over the sock.

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