Public Anchovy #1 by Mindy Quigley

Author:Mindy Quigley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER 19

The three of us knelt next to Isabel, inadvertently reenacting the scene that had played out with Sonya only a few minutes earlier. This time, however, the outcome was dreadfully different. Isabel Berney was not going to be miraculously revived.

I watched as Capone, more accustomed to interacting with the recently deceased, scanned the room. The murder weapon was obvious—the boa had been cinched tight around her neck. But why would anyone want to kill lively, bookish Isabel?

“You two stay here,” Capone said. “I’m going to call the station. In light of what’s happened with Sonya and Isabel, they need to re-prioritize getting us out of here ASAP.”

Despite the adrenaline jolt of discovering Isabel’s body, I still had a strange, disconnected feeling. His words washed over me as my attention flitted around the room. To the shelves of books, to the boa, back to Capone, Jarka, the comfortable furniture, the deep molten orange of the dying fire. Finally, my gaze came to rest on Isabel’s body. “I wonder when she burned her hands,” I said, half to myself.

Capone was halfway to the door but stopped. “What?”

“Her hands. They’re both singed,” I stated. I was something of an expert on the subject, having endured my share of kitchen mishaps. From what I could see of the irregular red patches, the burns were bad. The kind that would blister and peel and hurt like hell for a week or two. At least Isabel would be spared that pain.

Jarka leaned in closer and inspected the dead woman’s fingers. “Yes, those look like burns. From the fire, perhaps.”

Capone crossed back to us, sidestepping the coiled boa, and peered into the bottom of the fireplace. He did a double take and crouched down. “Is that what I think it is?”

Jarka and I squatted alongside him, looking closely at the ash and embers that had fallen below the fireplace grate. Fluttering in the minute updraft from the flames was a scrap of cinder-gray paper—a pallid image of a bird, faded by the heat of the fire. As I looked more closely, other remnants of printed paper became evident. Capone used the fireplace tongs to pull out the fragment and rake through the ashes. The books had been reduced to a powdery dust, but a few identifiable scraps remained intact. Enough to be sure that they were the same two volumes Clemmons gave me earlier that night.

“Was she burning the books? And the murderer tried to stop her? Or the other way around?” I asked.

“Good questions,” Capone said. “Stay here until I get back, okay? Block the door, don’t touch anything, and don’t let anyone come in.” He took a step away but then stopped and fixed his eyes on my face. “Don’t trust anyone.”

“You don’t need to worry about us not being on our toes,” I said. “Everyone is a murder suspect tonight, even Butterball.”

Once we’d wedged a chair under the doorknob, Jarka and I settled into the leather chairs in front of the fire.

“I don’t like for Miss Berney to stay here on the floor like this.

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