Part 4 (2/2)

Even when I was a kid and Tunney used to get down on all fours and pretend to be my pony, he'd worn a b.l.o.o.d.y ap.r.o.n. But he'd never looked this scared.

I forced myself to follow everyone's gaze to the floor and worked hard to resist retreat.

Broderick Sampson looked like he was sleeping.

I shuddered. He couldn't be-I gazed at my father seeking hope. ”He'll be okay, right? Dad?”

”In on this one, too, Ms. Cutler,” Detective Werner said. ”And only home, what? Two hours?”

This one what? I retreated inside myself where it was safe.

”Looks like foul play,” Werner said. ”We don't know yet if anything is missing.”

My father hugged my shoulder. ”Mr. Sampson's gone, honey.”

My stomach lurched. ”Not murder. Not again.”

Tunney looked at his cleaver, stood, opened his hand with effort, as if it had stiffened into a death grip, and he let the knife clatter to the floor.

”Was Sampson stabbed?” I asked, staring at the cleaver with disbelief. ”He doesn't look injured at all.”

I'd heard that even Tunney, our beloved butcher, had been loud and angry at the town meetings, but he didn't have a violent bone in his body. He made kids flowers from butcher paper, for pity's sake.

He wouldn't harm a bird . . . except that he did.

Tunney Lague was a big old teddy bear . . . who chopped animals into edible pieces for a living.

Eight.

Little black dresses first began to appear around 1918-1920 and I have the feeling they came out of the mourning look of World War I.

-KARL LAGERFELD Broderick Sampson lived around the corner from us in Mystick Falls, a widower rattling around in a big old place alone, until his younger sister showed up to keep house for him. Gossip is that Sampson and his sister didn't get along and that she showed after the planned sale of his playhouse to a world-cla.s.s department-store conglomerate made the headlines.

Sampson hadn't grown up in Mystick Falls, so no one knew the sister, but he'd been here long enough for everyone to know and dislike him. He was a neighbor, but not neighborly, a hermit who barely spoke to anyone, turned off his lights on Halloween, and never bought a Girl Scout Cookie. Which didn't mean that he deserved to die.

”Did anyone hear or see anything?” Werner asked.

”I heard arguing coming from here when I got home a little after eight,” I said.

”He was always arguing with somebody,” Werner said, and everyone nodded.

”Detective,” Eve said, ”I saw someone leave here when I was driving over to meet Maddie. It was dark, though. It wasn't anybody I recognized.”

”Could you tell if it was a man or a woman?” Werner asked, ready to make a note of Eve's answer.

”If I had to guess, I'd say a woman, because of the way she moved, but I couldn't swear to it. Dark pants, dark hat.”

My mental suspect list started with Sampson's fellow shop owners, most angrier and more formidable than Tunney.

My father kept me up-to-date on local happenings and he'd said that many of the shop owners made veiled threats at the last Mystick Falls town meeting, while Councilman McDowell and the trustees looked fit to kill.

”Blunt force trauma to the head is my guess,” a para medic confirmed, though I didn't remember when they'd arrived.

Detective Lytton Werner took a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket.

”What?” I snapped. ”You think Tunney held the knife by the blade to hit Sampson on the back of the head with the handle? He would have cut his hand if he did.” I raised Tunney's hands, palm side up. ”There. No fresh cuts.”

Werner showed me the cuffs. ”Madeira, do you mind? I have a job to do.”

I reluctantly released Tunney's hands, but not before I squeezed them to show my support.

The detective brought one of Tunney's arms behind his back. ”We'll let forensics find the answers.”

”Tunney's no killer,” I snapped.

”And what about the woman Oscar's seen coming and going from here?” Eve asked.

Oscar, from the hardware store, was second only to Tunney when it came to keeping tabs on his neighbors.

”Gossip,” Werner said. ”Useless.”

”And what about the fire?” I added. ”Shouldn't we get out of here?”

”Fire's out, Mad,” Johnny s.h.i.+elds, firefighter, said. ”Your dad put it out.”

”Dad, are you okay? You didn't burn yourself, did you?”

”I'm fine, Madeira. I smothered the burning curtains with the other pair. You saw. It looked worse from across the street. The fire was confined to the ballroom.”

”I'm glad.” The place might have looked like a ballroom sixty years ago, but now it was just a big old empty s.p.a.ce with a fancy tin ceiling and peeling wall murals.

Werner got down to business and cuffed Tunney while one of the uniformed officers bagged the meat cleaver.

Prime suspects didn't always get cuffed, I knew from my sister's experience, but Werner wouldn't use cuffs without just cause.

Though I knew I should keep my mouth shut, frustration got the best of me. ”Tunney did not do this, Lytton, and you know it.”

”I can't discuss a case, Madeira,” Werner said. ”Which you know very well.”

”I'm outta here,” I said. ”The smoke is killing me.” It was about as smoky as an ashtray full of ciggy b.u.t.ts, but that wasn't the point.

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