Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(70)

“Let’s make it a quick shower. I got a million packages in my truck.”

238

Laura Levine

Okay, a shower’s good, too. Just go!

And they did. Limp with relief, I heard them scampering up the stairs.

The minute the shower started running, I crawled out from behind my hiding space and raced into the foyer, past Jimmy’s mail cart, and out the front door.

The last thing I heard as I made my break for freedom was Cathy singing “ Besame Mucho” at the top of her lungs.

So much for the grieving widow.

My muscles had been through the wringer that afternoon, what with crouching behind a sofa for twenty minutes and being shot like a cannonball from a bathroom window.

So the minute I got home, I ran myself a steamy, musclerelaxing bath, billowing with strawberry-scented bubbles. I sank down into it and sighed in ecstasy.

What a difference forty-eight hours makes.

Just two days ago, I had one measly suspect, and now I had them coming out of my ears.

For starters, there was Cathy Janken. I was still reeling over the tender love scene I’d just witnessed. Clearly her tears on my first visit had been an act. She probably disliked Garth as much as everybody else. Maybe even more. The question was, had she bumped him off to bankroll a happy new life with her macho mailman?

Next, there was Peter Roberts. Garth was threatening to expose his criminal past and get him disbarred. Had Peter sent him tumbling to his death before Garth could carry out his threat?

And what about Prudence Bascomb, aka Brandy Alexander, stripper extraordinaire? Did she scamper up Garth’s roof to put an end to his pesky blackmail demands?

Last but not least, there was Libby Brecker. I hope you haven’t forgotten that pink flocking stuck to her baseboard. I THE DANGERS OF CANDY CANES

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sure hadn’t. No, she was still very much alive and well on my suspect list.

“So who did it?” I asked Prozac, who was sprawled on top of the toilet tank. “What do you think?”

I think it’s time you got out of that tub and fixed me dinner.

She jumped down from the toilet and started waving her tail in her patented Feed Me wag.

“Forget it, Pro.”

Minced Mackerel Guts would be nice.

“It’s not going to happen.”

With bacon bits on top.

“I am not budging from this tub. Not for at least a half hour. There’s dry food in your bowl if you want some.”

But I want Minced Mackerel Guts.

More tail waving, accompanied by a plaintive yowl.

“You’ll get your Minced Mackerel Guts. In a half hour.

Not a minute sooner.”

Okay, be that way.

She shot me a dirty look and slunk out the door.

I really had to start disciplining that cat more often; the way she bossed me around was disgraceful. No wonder she ran riot on an airplane. She was spoiled rotten. I vowed that from then on, I was going to be a new sterner cat owner.

I was lying there, feeling quite proud of the new Disciplinary Me, when Prozac came sashaying back in the room with a brand new pair of pantyhose dangling from her mouth.

How that cat manages to open my lingerie drawer is beyond me, but she does it all the time. I’m surprised she hasn’t figured out how to call for pizza.

I think I’ll nibble on your pantyhose while I’m waiting for dinner.

Needless to say, thirty seconds later, I was in the kitchen, water puddling around my ankles, opening a can of Minced Mackerel Guts.

240

Laura Levine

Prozac stood at my feet, gazing up at me with what I could swear was a smirk.

I thought you’d see it my way.

“Some day I swear I’m going to put you up for adoption.”

Yeah, yeah. In the meanwhile, don’t forget the bacon bits.





Chapter


! Eleven #

You know how sometimes you go to sleep with a problem and you wake up the next morning and the answer to your problem is staring you right in the face?

Well, that may happen to you, but it sure didn’t happen to me.

I got up the next morning, still clueless about which of my suspects had sabotaged Garth’s roof.

Oh, well. I’d just have to let everything percolate in my brain and hope that the answer would come to me eventually. In the meanwhile, I needed to take time off from the case and go Christmas shopping.

Every year I vow to buy gifts early and avoid the lastminute crunch. But you know me. I make a lot of vows I don’t keep. (See Discipline the Cat Vow.) In just a matter of days I’d be boarding a plane to Florida and so far, I hadn’t bought a single gift. I couldn’t afford to procrastinate one minute more.

So, fortified with a wholesome breakfast of peanut butter on a Pop Tart, I headed off to do battle at the mall.

I zipped over to Century City and pulled into a coveted parking space right near the escalators, congratulating myself for getting out of the apartment by ten A.M. and beating the crowds.

My game plan was simple.

242

Laura Levine

This year, I would not stand in a daze agonizing over what to buy. I would be a kamikaze shopper, choosing my gifts quickly and decisively.

It didn’t matter what I bought, anyway. Whatever the gift, my mom always says, “Oh, darling. I could’ve bought it for less on the shopping channel.” Really, if you bought my mom a new house, she’d tell you she could get it for less on the shopping channel.