Page 69 of Rest In Pink

There were no secrets in Burney, I thought. Then realized, hell, yeah, there were secrets in Burney. Mickey Pitts was behind one or two. My inner clock told me it was time to meet Rain to compare notes.

“We’re still investigating,” I said, standing.

Hen fixed me with a stern eye that had probably served her well as a teacher. “Someone is either dead or they aren’t, Detective Cooper. It doesn’t take an investigation to figure that out. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure Mickey Pitts is burning the town down, bit by bit.”

“Doesn’t seem to be much you don’t know, ma’am,” I said, and headed out to find Rain.

Chapter Thirty

I’d left Anemone alone for far too long, she was probably engaged to George by now, so I said goodbye to Molly and Raina and headed back up the hill.

The Blue House still looked obnoxiously blue; its rich color set off by miles of white trim, lording it over the landscape, sure of its architectural superiority. It really was conspicuous consumption, although I had a suspicion that Anemone was right about the movie room being great. Maybe I’d lure Vince up later for a movie with popcorn and groping.

Anemone was talking to Marianne when I got back to the living room.

Marianne was frowning.

“Whatever it is, you can have it,” I said to her. We were not losing Marianne.

“Marianne would like to move into the tower rooms,” Anemone said. “I haven’t been in there. Is it livable?”

“I can clean it out,” Marianne said, and from the look on her face, she really needed a place to stay.

“Tell you what,” I told her. “You feed Peri and Anemone and then go get your stuff. When you get back, but before I need to work on Anemone’s book or schlep Peri to more education—” I looked at Peri.

“Karate,” she said. “Monday is karate. I am very good at karate.”

Great, just what we need, Peri able to kill somebody with her thumb.

“But before karate, Marianne, you and I will go through the tower rooms and see how they are. If they’re too bad to sleep in, there are two more bedroom suites upstairs and you can have one of those.”

“Not in the house,” Marianne said.

“Just for the night,” I said, “until Anemone can get somebody to clear the place out.”

“I can do the clearing.”

“You will be cooking,” I said. “Don’t cross the streams.”

Marianne nodded, but Peri said, “What does that mean?”

“It’s from a classic movie,” I told her. “Ghostbusters. We should watch it tonight.”

She nodded, and I turned back to Anemone and Marianne.

“With your approval, of course,” I said to Anemone, and she nodded. I looked at Marianne. “Does that work for you?” and she nodded, a little wobbly this time.

So, while we clean,I thought,I will get the background of this out of you, and if somebody is being a bastard, I will unleash Vince on them.

Because Marianne was a part of us now.

And together, Vince and I could fix whatever was wrong.

* * *

By three, Marianne had not given up what was wrong, but she and I had looked through the tower—a stacked two-room structure, office downstairs, bed and bath up, accessible from the second floor of the main house with a hallway that formed an arch over the drive to the garage and the back of the house—and decided that all it needed was the stuff in it sorted into boxes for Faye and then the rooms cleaned. She and I took some of Peri’s empty boxes and packed up the bedroom—a lot of lavender stuff which probably meant that was where Lavender had stayed when she visited her mother here—and moved it all to the downstairs room, and then she went back to the kitchen, and I put fresh sheets and pillows and a comforter on the bed, made sure there were towels and soap in the bath—more lavender—and then went back downstairs in the big house. I sat across from Anemone and Veronica on one of the blue couches—you know, I’ve always liked that color, but after a month trapped in Faye’s Rhapsody in Blue, I would kill for a nice taupe—and tried very hard not to yawn in her face. Staying up most of Sunday night with Vince is one of my favorite things—right up there with food—but it did make Mondays hell.

“Would you like a nap?” Anemone said politely, so I must have yawned in her face after all.

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