Death and Relaxation (Ordinary Magic #1)(20)

“I have no idea. Thoughts?”

“Thanatos?”

I shook my head. “He doesn’t strike me as the type who would go through the mystery of whatever this is. I think he’s the kind who would enjoy telling bad news to someone face to face.”

She scanned the back of the envelope and held it up to the light. “Could it have something to do with the explosion?”

“I don’t know. Did you find anything?”

She replaced the letter in the envelope and handed it back to me. I dropped it into my In box.

“It was dynamite. About a half a stick.”

I nodded. That wasn’t going to do us a lot of good for narrowing down who the suspect might be. Plenty of people in this area had dynamite. Especially anyone with land that needed clearing.

“I’ve gone through the photos. Can’t see any evidence of who might have snuck into his backyard to blow up the garden patch, but it was a direct hit. Only his rhubarb was destroyed.”

“And his burn pile,” I added.

She nodded. “That was a favor, if you ask me.”

“So who in town doesn’t like Dan Perkin?”

“I think the shorter list is who in town doesn’t hate Dan Perkin.”

I nodded and scrubbed at my forehead. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me. “Pearl likes Dan.”

“Pearl has a soft heart for everyone,” Roy said, finally joining the conversation.

I walked over so I could see him better. Also to make coffee, because I hadn’t had nearly enough pots of it yet today. “You have insight on this one, Roy?”

“Not really, no. But I think if someone had been out to kill Dan, or to do him any real harm, they wouldn’t have blown up his burn pile. Just as easy to stick dynamite under his house. Or his car.”

I agreed with him. This was sounding more like a case of criminal mischief with the intent to harass. Certainly damage of property too, but not something intended for a lethal outcome.

“Did you check the hardware and feed store?” I asked Myra.

“Yes. They’re going through their books and will be sending me a list of people they’ve sold dynamite to in the last few months.”

I scooped coffee into the filter and added a second helping.

“Hitting the hard stuff a little heavy today, aren’t you, chief?” Roy set the cube down. All the same colored squares were lined up on their respective sides, except for the corner square of each, which had the colors out of place.

“Not hard enough,” I said.

Myra gave me that look that said maybe I should knock off the coffee and take a nap instead.

“Maybe you should knock off the coffee and take a nap.”

Mind reader.

“Too much to do. Haven’t even started the report from this morning. Still need to hire someone to help out around here. Did either of you know Chris Lagon was seeing Margot from out of town?”

“Cowboy hat, feather-hair Margot?” Roy asked.

I nodded. The grumble of coffee filling the carafe soothed my nerves with the sweet promise of un-soothing them.

“They’ve been off and on for the last week or two.” Myra plunked a tea bag in her mug, then poured hot water out of the electric kettle into it.

Roy made a “hm” sound. He didn’t miss the things going on in town, but he wasn’t a gossip.

“Do you want to let us in on that?” I asked.

“She’s Lila Carson’s sister, you know.”

“I did not know.” I poured coffee into my mug even though the pot wasn’t done brewing. “Thought her name was Lapointe?”

“Divorced. Maiden name.”

“Has Lila been in town with her too?”

Myra swished the tea bag, then looped it around the handle of her mug. “I saw Lila and Margot at their old place last week.”

“The antique shop?”

Their parents had opened a curiosity and antique shop that could not be missed, since they’d painted it cotton-candy pink with turquoise trim. It had drawn tourists and turned a good profit under their care for years. But when they’d retired to Arizona, Lila had inherited it.

She’d reluctantly returned from Paris, cleaned out the place, and changed the old candy-colored antique shop into a fussy importer of Parisian art and decor.

It hadn’t turned a profit since.

“I thought she was done with this town,” I said.

“She didn’t leave because the business was failing,” Myra said quietly.

I knew exactly why she’d left. She’d been dating a god—Heimdall, to be exact. She hadn’t known he was a god. That was another unbreakable rule deities had to follow—no sharing the secret. She thought he was a fisherman who took people out on whale-watching trips in the spring.

And yes, he was a fisherman. Nice, quiet-spoken man for the god who was supposed to alert all the gods in Valhalla that Ragnarok was upon them.

It never ceased to amaze me that the gods worked jobs during their mortal vacation that had nothing to do with their god powers.

The quiet of the sea had been Heimdall’s chosen profession.

Still, he had a little of that light that gods, even unpowered gods, carried. Some mortals were more susceptible to it. Moths to eternal flames.

Lila Carson had fallen fast and hard for the quiet fisherman.