A Most Curious Murder by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Read Free Book Online Page A

what Jenny expected. No fairies or trolls or magic dolls. The living room was neat and orderly. Maybe more flowers—on the drapes and cushions and set about in vases—than Jenny would have liked. Everything else was low key and functional: two small chairs done in a soft green, end tables low to the floor, lamps much too short for a full-grown person to read by. All very nice except for Jenny’s bizarre feeling that she’d nibbled one of Alice’s cookies and grown way too large.
    Zoe paced from time to time, stopping at the front window to pull the gauzy sheers aside. “Oh my,” she said. “People are gathering. Maybe I should go out and talk to them. I mean, it was only yesterday the police were at your mom’s house. They’re going to think there’s a crime wave in Bear Falls, all centered around us. Drawing a crowd is never a good thing.”
    “Stay where you are. You don’t want more trouble with Ed.”
    The room was quiet again. The women stared at the floor for the next hour. When the phone rang this time, Zoe ran to get it.
    “My editor, Christopher Morley,” Zoe said, disgruntled, when she came back a few minutes later. “He’s hoping to see the new manuscript soon. As if I can write with everything going on around here. It’s Armageddon, I told him. I’ve landed in the place of bad dreams. I knew it would happen. Walk along happily, mind your own business, then boom, it’s the rabbit hole, for sure. And then you’re big and then you’re small and then you’re falling and then you’re playing croquet with a mean queen, and your world turns and everything’s different. And then you’re doomed. That’s what I told Christopher Morley. I’m doomed. Now he’s worried about me.”
    “Doomed for what, Zoe? What are you talking about?”
    “I see it now.” Her hand went to her forehead. “There I am, stuck in quicksand. Going down and down until no one sees me anymore. And there’s Fida. And Mr. Cane. It’s only the beginning, Jenny. If I were you, I’d go home, pack your clothes, and head back to Chicago. And, by the way, take your mother with you. Keep Dora safe.”
    “Crazy talk.”
    “You don’t know as much as I do. There are dark places and dark clouds and dark people. When they settle together, good people are doomed. Absolutely doomed.”
    “You’re full of . . .”
    Zoe fell into a chair, little legs stretched straight out in front of her. Her scowl was enormous. Jenny wasn’t happy with this trip through Zoe’s dark, imaginary cave. Zoe’s escape to Wonderland was a little too convenient for her. A lot of what Zoe Zola did seemed a little too convenient.
    “I didn’t kill him, you know,” Zoe said, as if reading Jenny’s mind.
    “Neither did I,” Jenny snapped back.
    “Really?” Zoe sniffed. “All I know is that this place was quiet until a certain person moved in next door.”
    “By that, you must mean me.”
    “I’m not saying who. It’s just odd—you’re here barely twenty-four hours and all hell breaks loose.”
    Jenny’s ears turned bright red. The nerve of the little pest! “I’ll tell you something, Zoe,” she said when she could talk again. “I’m no more thrilled with you than you are with me. In fact . . .”
    A deputy Jenny vaguely remembered from a lower class in high school walked in to say Ed Warner would talk to them soon.
    “Did he send somebody over to Adam’s to see if my dog was there?” Zoe begged.
    The man nodded. “I think so. I’ll find out and let you know.”
    Another half hour passed until Ed walked in, worked his tall body into one of the small chairs, and tried to settle back. He looked from woman to woman, shook his head, and clasped his hands together.
    “You need something to drink?” Zoe offered, half out of her chair, craving something to do.
    He shook his head. “Like to get this over with.”
    “My dog?”
    Ed shook his head. “Nothing in there. No sign of a dog. Sorry to tell you that. Maybe she just