“Are you all right?”

  “I am now. Zita is a little discombobulated, though.” She looked over to the cabin and saw how Zita now resembled a steamboat, sending up huge clouds. She did not look okay.

  “Discombobulated, huh?”

  “Yeah, that means she’s upset.”

  “I know what discombobulated means, babe. I may be a builder but I do read.”

  “I know you do, Rove.” Which was one of the things she liked so much about him. He was the smartest guy she knew, and he didn’t need the college degree to prove it. “The weirdest thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He had this big wound on his head. I mean, like, there was all this blood and stuff?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But I just don’t see where he could have knocked his head to get a big wound like that, you know?” She shrugged. “I guess I’m letting my imagination run away with me again. Novelist’s curse, huh?”

  There was another silence on the other end, then: “Are you sure he wasn’t murdered?”

  She laughed. “You sound just like Bobbi. She thinks the murder of a famous writer like Marty would make a great plot for our new book.”

  “Melody?”

  “Mh?”

  “Be careful, all right?”

  His words sent a slight chill up her spine. “Sure. Why?”

  “Famous dead writer? Big, bleeding head wound? I think the dude was murdered, babe.”

  Chapter 9

  “So how are you holding up?” asked Bobbi. By now she’d given up trying to work on her outline. When real life proves more interesting than fiction she found it sometimes better to give it the attention it deserves. Like now.

  Zita shrugged. “You know? I never thought of myself as a delicate flower. Not with the kind of stuff I write. Which is why I’m surprised by my reaction to this whole Marty dying thing. I mean, I’m supposed to be this tough baby?” She grimaced. “Big surprise. I’m not.”

  “That’s fine, hon. You don’t have to be the tough baby with us. You can be the delicate flower.”

  Zita stared before her, looking miserable. “I always figured Melody for that role. Turns out she’s way tougher than me. I mean, look at her.”

  Bobbi looked at her. Melody was gabbing away with her boyfriend, seemingly not a care in the world. “Looks can be deceiving, though. Maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet.”

  “Oh, it has sunk in. You know what I think?”

  “No, what?”

  “That the three of us are in the wrong genre. I’m the one who should be writing the romance novels and Melody the horror stuff.”

  Bobbi smiled. “What about me? What should I be writing?”

  Zita gave her a sideways glance. “I think you’re the right fit. It’s me that’s in the wrong business.”

  Melody returned to the bench, her brow puckered in an expression of bewilderment.

  “What’s wrong? Rover in trouble?” Zita asked.

  Melody shook her head. “No, Rover’s fine. It’s just that…” She looked up, and Bobbi saw that her usually bright demeanor was slightly dimmed. “He thinks Marty was murdered.”

  As if to add credence to her statement, just then the doorbell rang. And not a simple ring either, but an insistent, annoying jangle, as if someone was trying to demolish the thing.

  Bobbi groaned in annoyance. “For crying out loud. Come to Georgia, they said. Work in peace and quiet, they said. Peace and quiet my ass. This place is busier than Grand Central Terminal.” She got up and returned indoors. Stalking over to the door, she intended to give whoever was trying to drive that poor doorbell into the wall a piece of her mind.

  She yanked open the door, and was surprised to find two cops dawdling on the mat.

  “Yes?” she snapped. “What do you want?”

  “Detective Mulligan, ma’am,” the tallest one said. “And this is Detective Mullet. We’re with the state police and we would like to have a word with a…” At this point he consulted a well-thumbed-through notebook. “A Miss Guerra and a Miss Pen.” He looked up. “Am I right in assuming this is where I can find both ladies?”

  Detective Mulligan, whose hair was an unruly rust-colored mop and whose face resembled a well-worn leather baseball glove, creases and all, gave Bobbi a scrutinizing look. His partner, Detective Mullet, strictly adhered to his surname by having styled his hair in the manner more popular in the eighties and nineties. To complete the hirsute package he also rocked a full blond beard, something Bobbi had never seen on a copper before.

  “What do you want with Zita and Melody?” she asked, continuing frosty.

  “We would like to ask them a few questions,” said Detective Mulligan, “in regards to the death of Martin SS George.”

  Melody sat staring at Detective Mike Mulligan, eyes wide, hands in her lap, chewing her bottom lip nervously. She’d never been questioned as part of a police investigation before. Heck, she’d never been involved with the police in any way, shape or form. Not unless she counted the work she did as a romantic suspense novelist, which she didn’t think she should, as it only involved fictional police officers, all of them buff and handsome and having the chiseled physique of Chris Hemsworth or Channing Tatum in Magic Mike.

  The two men sitting in front of her and Zita and Bobbi did not look like Chris or Channing, which meant they were probably real police officers. And they meant business.

  “So am I right in concluding that when you arrived at Mr. George’s cabin you found the door unlocked?” asked the biggest one of the two—the one without the weird beard.

  “Yes, Detective Mulligan,” said Melody dutifully. “The door was ajar. About two inches I would say. Or it could have been an inch and a half. Or no, two inches.” Her cheeks were burning at this point, and she knew she probably looked guilty as heck. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to remember, exactly, as I wasn’t expecting to have to testify about it later on.”

  She just hoped they wouldn’t hook her up to a polygraph machine. She’d seen people in TV shows buckling under the pressure and babbling inane nonsense when questioned by the police and hooked up to a polygraph. She was sure she’d fail the test.

  Detective Mulligan gave her as kindly a smile as a man with a face like him could manage. Why was it that cops in Hollywood movies looked like handsome hunks while here sat two specimens only a mother could love? If Mike Mulligan auditioned for a part in a Hollywood movie the best he could hope for was the part of the hardened criminal, not the debonair and capable detective who’s loved and admired by all—even the criminals.

  She transferred her gaze to Mulligan’s sidekick, a viking with a mullet who hadn’t said a word ever since they’d sat down at the table. She wondered if he was the bad cop to Mulligan’s good cop or vice versa. Oh, hell’s bells. She was falling apart at the seams!

  “So the door was ajar. And then you went in?”

  “No, we did not, sir, detective, sir,” said Melody quickly. “That would have been trespassing, and both Zita and I are law-abiding citizens and trespassing is a definite no-no for two law-abiding citizens like ourselves—isn’t that right, Zita?”

  “I wanted to go in—seeing as Marty left the door open—but Melody thought that was probably a bad idea. So we went around the back and that’s when we saw him.”

  Melody swallowed as she thought back to the horrible discovery. “We only met Marty this morning, you know. He came round to see if we could lend him a cigarette. He had trouble writing without a cigarette. And his wife had told his housekeeper not to buy him any cigarettes so he was really wanting to have a cigarette so he came over to see if he could borrow a cigarette. Or two.” She laughed at the recollection. “He was so happy when Bobbi gave him a pack of cigars and Zita said she had an extra vape tucked away she hadn’t used and then he went away happy as a clam with his cigars and his vape and…” She gulped slightly and blinked, noticing for the first time how all eyes were now on her.

  Bobbi placed a hand on her arm. “Melody, honey, you’re babbling.”

  “I’m not babbling,” she said. “I’m just telling the story of Marty and how you should have seen how happy he was—happy like a hippo.” Suddenly a hiccupy sob escaped her throat and then she was crying—little gulping sobs and snorts and sniffles. Very embarrassing. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “I’m feeling a little emotional right now.”

  “See?” she heard Bobbi ask Zita. “I told you it hadn’t sunk in yet.”

  Chapter 10

  While Melody made a valiant attempt to compose herself—which involved blowing her nose in a paper napkin and producing funny little hiccuping sounds at the back of her throat—Zita thought she better tell the story if they were ever going to get through the interview. “So then we raced back to the front of the cabin and went in, figuring Marty needed help.”

  “And when you found him, lying on the floor, you took his pulse,” said Detective Mulligan, frowning at his notebook. Obviously he’d been talking to Sheriff Woolsack.

  “That’s right. I tried to find a pulse while Melody called 911. And that’s when I discovered that he was, in fact… dead.” She swallowed away a lump as she recalled the dreadful moment. A moment that would probably stay with her for the rest of her life.

  “Can you describe to me any observations you made, Miss Guerra?”

  “I, um…” She frowned, thinking back. “Well, he was on the floor, like I said. He had a wound on his head, probably when he knocked it against the floor, um…” She wondered if she should share her surprise at not seeing the famous writer’s manuscript on his desk when she found Detective Mulligan staring at her intently. It unnerved her.

  “Yes? What are you thinking, Miss Guerra?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” she admitted, suddenly feeling silly. “But I wondered what happened to Marty’s manuscript.”

  “His manuscript?”

  “Yeah. He told us when he came over this morning that he was working on the final installment in his Game of Bones series. So… he was sitting at his desk, right? Vaping and thinking what to write next? Then he gets a heart attack or whatever and falls to the floor. But what happened to his manuscript? There was nothing on his desk, or the floor, or even a sheet of paper in his typewriter.” She shrugged, wilting a little under the scrutiny of both detectives and feeling even sillier than before. “Just an observation,” she muttered weakly.

  “No, it’s observations like these that are very important for us,” said Mulligan. “Isn’t that right, Mullet?” The bearded viking merely grunted something. Mulligan seemed to consider it an expression of agreement, for he went on, “When you approached the cabin, did you see anyone else around? You, Miss Pen?”

  Melody, whose nose was now as red as her face, frowned as she made the visible effort to throw her mind back. “We did see that thin, gaunt man, didn’t we, Zita?”

  Zita nodded. “Yeah, we did see him. Only briefly, though.”

  Mulligan leaned in. “Thin man? Who’s this thin man?”

  Zita shrugged. “Never met him before, to be honest. Probably just another writer. These cabins are infested with them.”

  “Can you describe him for me?”

  “I can describe him for you,” Melody offered with a quick glance at Zita. “He had a gaunt, pale look about him, like a recovering cancer patient or an alien who’s having a hard time getting used to life on Planet Earth.”

  “An alien?” asked Mulligan with a frown, and even Mullet was looking perturbed, his blond beard waggling disapprovingly at so much nonsense.

  “We’re writers,” Bobbi said apologetically. “We tend to get carried away by the vividness of our imagination. I’m sure this man wasn’t an alien—he just looked like an alien.”

  “A very thin alien,” Melody supplied helpfully. “Very gaunt.”

  “I thought he looked like one of the walking dead,” said Zita.

  “A walking dead who hasn’t fed on brains for a long time,” Melody added. She’d cheered up and had stopped snuffling and sniffling.

  Mulligan rolled his eyes, a gesture Zita hadn’t seen in a member of the police force before. She filed the experience away for later use in one of her novels.

  “So you saw a man who may have been an alien, or maybe a zombie. Anything else?”

  “We saw a writer,” said Melody. “Remember, Zita? You told me he writes fantasy.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Stanley Thurber. He was sitting out on his deck.”

  “He gave us a very nasty look,” Melody added. “Not a nice man at all.”

  Mulligan and Mullet shared a quick glance and Zita wondered what that was about. Detective Mullet drew a hand through his mullet and produced another grunt, apparently his preferred mode of communication. “Anything else?” Mulligan inquired.

  “No, that’s about it,” said Zita. “We saw the gaunt man and Stanley Thurber who gave us the evil eye and then we arrived at the cabin.”

  “Actually we saw Stanley Thurber first and then we saw the gaunt man,” Melody said. “In that order.” When Zita gave her a ‘Really?’ look she quickly added, “It’s very important to establish a timeline of events, isn’t that right, Detective Mulligan?”

  “You know? I don’t understand why you’re asking all of this stuff,” said Bobbi. “I mean, the guy had a heart attack. He fell out of his chair and died. So why do you want to know who met who when and why?”

  “Met whom,” Melody corrected with a smile. Of the three of them, she was the spelling nazi.

  Mulligan closed his notebook and glowered at Bobbi as if she’d just insulted his grandmother. “Mr. George was a very prominent member of the writing community as well as a world-renowned celebrity. It’s customary in these cases to conduct a thorough inquiry.”

  “What about the head wound?” suddenly Melody piped up. When all eyes turned to her she blushed but still continued, “My boyfriend says no way would he have a head wound like that if he simply fell from his chair. My boyfriend—he’s a builder but he’s very smart because he likes to read lots of books—thinks that Marty may have been murdered.”

  For a moment, silence reigned supreme, then Mullet grunted something, Mulligan snorted, and as one both men rose from their chairs with a suddenness that startled Zita.

  “If anything else comes to mind,” said Mulligan, unearthing a crumpled card from his pocket and placing it on the table, “please get in touch—day or night.” He then nodded at the three of them. “Ladies. Come on, Mullet.”

  Mullet, fondling his beard, gave them a final scrutinizing glance, and then both detectives trotted off towards the door, very much in lockstep, and soon were gone.

  Chapter 11

  “I think he was killed,” said Bobbi decidedly. In spite of the graveness of the situation she was feeling strangely excited. It’s not every day you come upon a crime being committed right under your nose. For a crime novelist this was the stuff of gold. The stuff you dream of.

  “I think so, too,” said Zita. “They killed him and then they stole his manuscript.”

  “Rove seems to think so,” said Melody. “I’m not so sure, though. I mean, if he was killed, don’t you think Mullet and Mulligan would have told us?”

  Bobbi cracked a smile at that. Mullet and Mulligan. Melody made the two cops sound like characters from the Muppet Show. “They probably don’t want to announce it to the world. Yet,” she said thoughtfully. “But judging from their line of inquiry I think it’s safe to say they’re not treating Marty’s death as natural causes. For one thing, why bring in the state police? If this was a heart attack Sheriff Woolsack would have handled things.”

  “They said it’s because Marty was a celebrity,” Melody insisted.

  She still looked a little rattled, Bobbi thought, nor was it any wonder. First finding Marty dead in his cabin and then being interviewed by the police? It was enough to rattle anyone. She placed a hand on her friend’s arm and squeezed it. “Are you all right, honey? You look pale.”

  “I feel pale,” said Melody, her eyes wide, like a deer in the headlights. “Murder? And we found the body? They’re going to think we did it, won’t they?” She swung an arm in the vague direction of the front door. “They’re out there right now, collecting evidence—going through that cabin with the team from CSI or Law & Order or Criminal Minds and then soon they’ll decide that we did it and they’ll come barging in here, guns blazing, and arrest us!”

  “I think you’ve been watching too many crime shows,” said Zita. “Which is actually strange for a romance buff. I thought all you guys watched were Hallmark movies.”

  Melody turned on her friend. “Rover likes crime shows and so do I. So sue me!”

  “Easy there, slugger,” said Zita with a laugh. “I think we’re fine. We found the body. We didn’t kill him.”

  “Exactly. You are witnesses,” Bobbi said. “Very important witnesses. If Marty was killed—and that’s still a big if—the killer must have struck right before you arrived.”

  Melody slung her hands to her face, eyes like saucers now. “Oh. My. God! He was still in there! The killer was in there with us! He could have killed us, too! Omigod omigod omigod!”

  “No way was he in there,” said Zita. “You called 911, remember? They showed up within minutes. If he was in there the police would have seen him.” She shook her head. “But you’re right about one thing, Bobbi. The killer was there right before we arrived. When I touched Marty…” She closed her eyes. “When I looked for a pulse, he was warm to the touch. And the blood on his head… it was glistening. He died just before we arrived.”

  “Omigod omigod omigod,” Melody was muttering.

  “Yeah.”

  “I think we need to look into this ourselves,” Bobbi said.

  Melody and Zita’s heads swiveled as if operating on a hinge. “What?!” they both exclaimed.

  “We were Marty’s friends. We owe it to him to catch his killer.”