“From what I saw, Fern seemed pretty protective of Herb.”

  “Oh, don't let her doting sister act fool you! Fern despised Herb! She always said that Doylett Bowl could be a multi-million dollar business if she ran it the way she wanted. But that wasn't going to happen with Herb in charge! And who was sneaking around in the kitchen while the food was being prepared, just minutes before Herb was poisoned? Do I have to draw a diagram for you? And now that Fern's gotten Herb out of the way, she'll be coming for me next! Well, if she thinks she can get rid of me as easily as she did Herb, she's got another thought coming! Augie Doylett won't go down without a fight!” As if on cue, another wave of sea gulls dive-bombed the bucket on Augie's lap, eliciting more thrashing and profanities.

  “I won't take any more of your time,” I said, slowly backing away from the whirlwind of birds, fries and flailing limbs. “Good luck with your... uh, good luck.”

  It was still early when I got back to the B&B and there were no Auks around the swimming pool yet, so I decided to take a short cut through the french doors behind the pool to the library. I was barely inside when I noticed Dr. Brad's bonsai tree sitting on the coffee table with an open book in front of it. I distinctly remembered leaving it in the living room less than an hour ago. Who would have moved it? Were bonsai trees capable of moving around on their own? Could they read? It seemed unlikely, but finding out would require me to look through that massive volume of bonsai facts that Dr. Brad had given me, so I decided not to think about it and went looking for Aunt Sam.

  I found her sitting with Dodie at the kitchen table, eating breakfast. When I came in, Dodie laid out a plate of cheesy hash browns with two scrambled eggs and a bowl of fresh cut peaches covered with peach yogurt in front of me. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “If I wasn't before, I am now,” I said enthusiastically.

  “Then pull up a chair and chow down,” Aunt Sam said, “and tell us what you learned this morning.”

  Half an hour later, I had demolished breakfast and recounted my experiences with Rory and Augie to Aunt Sam. “So, it doesn't seem like Rory had much of a motive to kill Herb,” I said. “Granted, he wasn't going to win any 'employee of the year' awards, but according to Augie, Fern wouldn't let Herb fire him, so it's not like his job was in danger. And he didn't seem to care much what Herb thought about him either.”

  “That's true,” Aunt Sam said thoughtfully. “Unless he had some other reason to want Herb dead that we haven't uncovered yet.”

  “On the other hand, Augie certainly had a motive to kill Herb, but he seems to be more scared of being murdered himself than anything else.”

  “Or he could be trying hard to convince us that he didn't do it. A lot of the evidence does point to him, after all.”

  “What about Fern?” I asked. “Do you think she's really trying to knock off Herb and Augie so she can take over the bowling alleys?”

  “I don't know. That scene she made in the kitchen could have been a ruse to poison Herb's plate without our noticing. I think you had better talk to her next. I would be interested to hear how she responds to Augie's accusations.”

  Suddenly we heard the front door open, followed by a loud creaking sound and then muffled shouting, cussing, and some pained groaning. We rushed out into the hallway and found Brody pushing a sandy wheelbarrow with a bedraggled clown in it toward the stairs, while another rather angry-looking clown followed him close behind.

  “Good heavens! What happened to Clint?” Aunt Sam asked.

  “Nothing much,” Brody said. “It seems like the curly slide on my Berle's Backyard Bargains float come apart somehow and ol' Clint here just happened to be sitting on it at the time. He took a bit of a tumble and twisted his ankle. No big deal.”

  “No big deal?!” Tilly exclaimed. “My husband's leg is probably broken, and it's all your fault! That thing isn't a float, it's a deathtrap on wheels!”

  “It ain't fair to blame me for this,” Brody protested. “It was an act of God. It could have happened to anybody.”

  “God didn't take that turn at 40 mph, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't God's idea to put a slide on your float that was held together with rust!”

  “No need to get hot and bothered over this. I figger it's no more than a sprain, and Clint here can just walk it off, or maybe we could put a slice of onion on it.”

  “You put a slice of onion on a bee sting, not a sprained ankle, Brody,” Dodie said.

  “A bee sting is about the only thing that hasn't happened to me so far!” Clint moaned.

  “Well, how about a putting a steak on it,” Brody said. “Ain't that a remedy for something or other?”

  “Do you know how much steak costs these days?” Dodie asked. “If I go around stickin' steaks on every cut and boo boo, we'll be out of business before you can say... say... I don't know what you can say, but we'll be out of business.”

  “What about lunch meat? That pretty much the same thing, ain't it?”

  “How about if we call Dr. Brad instead?” Aunt Sam suggested. “I think it's time we give modern medicine a try.”

  “I'll call him now,” I said.

  “No, I think it's best if you find Fern. The sooner we get this murder solved, the better. I'll call Dr. Brad and then see if Dodie and I can get some of this sand cleared out of the hallway before he gets here and slips on it. I would like to keep the broken legs to a minimum if possible.”

  “If your lookin' for Fern, you won't have to look too far,” Brody said. “She's out in front, standin' at the side of the road.”

  “I wonder what she's doing out there? Are you sure it was Fern?”

  “Oh, yeah, I'd recognize that finger anywhere.”

  “Well, you did almost run her down,” Tilly said.

  “I'll go out and see what she's doing,” I said. When I got outside, I saw Fern still standing by the side of the road like Brody had said. “Hi, Fern, is there anything I can help you with?” I asked as I approached.

  “No thank you, you've done quite enough already,” Fern answered curtly. “I'm not sure I could survive any more of this establishment's hospitality.”

  Well, we're off to a good start. “Are you going somewhere?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I am. I'm going into that so-called town of yours to find something to eat that hopefully won't kill me!”

  “Would you like me to call you a ride?”

  “Certainly not! One of the Auks that's staying here told me that there's a bus that goes by every half hour. The Brotherhood of Auks have a chapter in our town, so at least I know I can count on them. If you can't trust an Auk, who can you trust? Ah, here's the bus now!”

  I heard the strains of Born To Be Wild blaring from speakers before I saw the bus... which wasn't a bus. It was a pedal bar on wheels, a rolling tavern that seated 12 people, each of whom had a set of bike pedals that they used to keep the bar moving. Most of the seats were already occupied by Auks, naturally, but a couple of seats at the end were free, so Fern and I got on. I tried to recall all the mystery stories I head ever read, but I couldn't remember a scene in any of them where Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot had to pedal a moving bar in the scorching Florida midday heat in order to question a suspect. Apparently I was blazing new trails in detective work.

  The driver of the pedal bar was a tall, lanky young man with shaggy brown hair that hung down over his right eye. He came over to me and said, “That'll be $45 for the two hour tour.”

  “$45? I don't want the two hour tour. I just want a ride into town. It's barely a mile.”

  “Look, lady, this isn't a taxi, it's a tour bus and there's a flat fee of $45 per passenger. You can get off any time you want but the price is the same. If you bought a $25 cheeseburger and only ate half it would still cost you $25. It's the same here. If you don't like it you can go to one of our competitors. Oh, wait, I forgot, we don't have any competitors. By the way, the beer is $9 extra per cup.”

  “I'll pass on the beer,” I said as I pulled out my phone and reluctantly paid the $45. I could actually feel my bank account cringe as I did it.

  Fern rummaged through her purse. “I can't find my travelers checks,” she said to the driver. “The young lady will pay for both of us.”

  I got out my phone again. Fern's information had better be worth it. For this price she should confess to Herb's murder and write it out in triplicate before we got to town. I started pedaling.

  “My condolences about your brother,” I said. “I guess you two were close.”

  “Yes we were. Herb was the best brother a woman could ask for.”

  “Not the best business partner though, from what I've heard.”

  “Oh, you've been talking with Augie,” Fern said, almost spitting the name out. “Don't believe a word that bitter little man says; Herb may have gotten the lion's share of the business, but I knew how to manage him to get what I wanted and Augie didn't. That's why they were always fighting.”

  “But didn't you say that Doylett Bowl could have been a lot more successful if you were in charge?” I asked, trying to ignore the sweat dripping off my chin and running down my back.

  “Well, I could certainly run the business a lot better than Augie could! Sure, he's got that fancy degree, but he's as dependable as a leaf in a wind storm! That weakling would never have the nerve to run the day-to-day operations. It takes hard-boiled determination and an iron fist to run a bowling alley, and I have that in spades!”

  I never knew that about bowling alleys. I made a mental note to never get into the bowling business.

  “I'll tell you who is behind all this nonsense that Augie has been telling you,” Fern continued. “It's his good-for-nothing wife, Stella. Augie is just a puppet and she's pulling the strings. She can't fool me.”

  “Stella?”

  “That gold-digger has been angling to take over this business ever since she conned Augie into marrying her! She'll stop at nothing to get what she gets what she wants, and I mean nothing! Who do you think manages all of Augie's pills?”

  “You think that Stella murdered Herb?”

  “I'll bet that scheming harpy plotted it all out and got Bertie to do her dirty work! That's just the sort of thing Stella would do! In fact, she might have hired Bertie in the first place to hang around Herb for that very purpose!”

  “By 'hang around Herb' you mean marry him and live with him for decades?”

  “I wouldn't put anything past Stella!”

  I paused before speaking again. Not because I didn't have any more questions to ask Fern, but because I was trying to catch my breath. This pedal bus was giving me a real workout! Every muscle unlucky enough to be located in my legs felt like it was on fire, and a vague pins-and-needles sensation was slowly working it's way up my back. I glanced around at the other passengers who were talking and laughing, and wondered how they had enough energy to talk, let alone stave off cardiac arrest.

  I looked down at Fern's feet and saw they they were resting on the floor of the pedal bar, not on the pedals. I turned to my left and realized that the Auk sitting next to me was sprawled out with his head on the counter in an alcohol-induced nap, and, no, his feet weren't on the pedals either. Was I the only one pedaling this torture device?

  Before I could get my answer, the town came into sight and I gratefully took my feet off the pedals. The bus slowly rolled to a stop and Fern got off. She turned to me and said, “I'm warning you, don't try to follow me! You won't find me as easy a victim as Herb was!”

  She could have saved her breath because I was in no shape to follow anyone. My legs were like rubber and I was barely able to stagger over the a shaved ice stand and wheeze out an order for a watermelon ice. Then I flopped onto the nearest bench and slurped on the shaved ice between gasps, hoping for relief or death, whichever came first.

  After a few minutes, my brain came out of its fatigue-induced haze and pointed out to me that walking back to the B&B was totally out of the question. Fortunately, Captain Nick Delaney's Live Bait and Fishing Trip Shop was just around the corner not quite half a block away. Nick could give me a ride back home on his motorcycle if I could get there.

  Somehow I managed to convince my legs to get up and wearily stumble all the way to Nick's shop, open the door and collapse onto the nearest chair. I was sitting there soaking in the blessed air conditioning when Nick came out from the back and said, “What on earth happened to you?”

  “Nice to see you, too,” I said. “A pedal bar happened to me.”

  “A pedal bar in 90 degree heat! I thought assisted suicide was illegal in this state.”

  Nick brought me a bottle of iced tea from a cooler behind the counter, and said, “I'm assuming you're not here for the live bait or a fishing trip.”

  “No, I'm here to bum a ride back to the B&B if you have the time.”

  “Consider yourself bummed. Why did you come to town in the first place?”

  “Aunt Sam wanted me to see if I could get any information from Fern Doylett that might help solve Herb's murder, so I ended up following her onto the pedal bar.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nick said. “Why are you and Sam investigating the murder? Shouldn't the sheriff be handling that? It's kind of her job.”

  “Sheriff Landon's investigation has hit a dead end, and as soon as Archie Gras is over she's going to arrest Bertie for Herb's murder if we can't come up with a better suspect. Also Aunt Sam needs to get the Doyletts out of the B&B before the grand-high-whatsit of the Auks gets down here and needs his room. Besides, I'm not really investigating anything. I'm just asking questions.”

  “Yes, asking questions to people who may have murdered somebody. And what if you really do learn something about the murderer, and they decide to murder you next?”

  “Then they'll be disappointed. The pedal bar got me first.”

  “Don't say I didn't warn you,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Come on, I'll get you back to Murderer's Row.”

  Chapter Six

  After Nick dropped me off at the B&B, I went into my RV, took a shower and changed clothes. By then I was feeling semi-normal again, so I went looking for Aunt Sam. I found her in her office and told her what I had learned from Fern and her suspicions of Stella.

  “Do you think Stella could really have murdered Herb?” I asked.

  “It's certainly possible,” Aunt Sam said. “She has easy access to Augie's medication, and if she's as ambitious as Fern claims, she would have a good motive to want Herb out of the way. But it's just as possible that Fern is trying to divert suspicion from herself. Maybe you should talk to Stella; with any luck she's let something slip that gives us a real clue.”

  “Okay, but only if she's in the house. If she's outside, it's not happening. My legs won't carry me that far.”

  “You're in luck. Stella's in her room, making a racket as usual. Think you can make it up the stairs?”

  “I'll try. If you don't hear back from me in an hour, send sherpas.”

  When I got to the door of Stella's room I could hear thumping sounds and Olivia Newton John's Physical coming through the door. I knocked, and I heard Stella yell, “Come in, Augie! I could use some help here!”

  “It's not Augie,” I said. “It's Teri McAfee. I wanted to-”

  “Are you hard of hearing? I just said that I need help!”

  I opened the door cautiously and found Stella, wearing a colorful tee shirt and yoga pants, lying on the floor struggling with a black elastic strap that was wrapped around her wrists and forearms. I wasn't sure what I had just walked into, but I thought maybe I should walk right back out of it.

  “Uh, what are you doing?” I asked.

  “I'm exercising, of course! At least I was until this piece of crap snapped back on me!” With an effort, Stella managed to free herself and held up the long black strap. “This is the last time I buy something from QVC...”

  “What is it, exactly?”

  “It's the patented Multi-function Tension Rope for Slimming and Fitness Training. But if you ask me, it's garbage! Here, loop this end over the door knob. Make sure it's tight.”

  She handed me one end of the strap, and I slipped it over the door knob and tightened the Velcro tabs as much as I could. Stella started walking slowly backwards, stretching the strap until it was taught. I was about to ask her a question when the other end of the strap suddenly came loose from the door knob and hit me in the stomach with the force of a cannon ball.

  “See what I mean?” Stella said as I doubled over in pain. “It's not supposed to do that. That thing is a death trap!”

  “Cant... argue... with... you... there...” I wheezed, crab walking over to the nearest chair.

  Stella tossed the resistance band onto the bed and shook her head. “I guess it's back to Pilates,” she sighed. “So what are you doing here? We have enough towels.”

  Making words was not the easiest thing to do at that moment, but I managed to gasp out, “I wanted to give my condolences for the death of your brother-in-law.”

  “You can save your condolences. Herb and I never had any use for each other, and nothing has changed about that.”

  “Yes, Fern did tell me you were resentful that Herb was in charge of the family business rather than Augie.”

  “Resentful?” Stella scoffed. “I wasn't resentful! I only pointed out the obvious fact that it was unfair and just plain stupid! Herb was clearly incapable of running anything, and Augie had the education and the business sense to make Doylett Bowl into the entertainment empire it was meant to be! Anyone but Fern could see that!”

  “Fern seems to think that you were willing to get Herb out of the way to make that happen, too.”

  “Fern's just jealous because I married Augie and she ended up marrying Sluggy the Unshaven. She was glad that Herb was in charge because she thought she could make him do whatever she wanted, but lately Herb has been ignoring her and making his own crazy decisions that were hurting the business, and Fern couldn't stand for that! That's why she had her good-for-nothing lummox husband Rory bash Herb's head in.”