Donna Andrews: Chesapeake Crimes: This Job Is Murder!

“I knew she’d fight dirty. Time to roll the credits on this little comedy.” Serena slipped the camera strap over her shoulder and pointed to a hot dog cart. “Hey, they’ve got Grote and Weigels.”

Morty insisted on paying. “Wasn’t it your birthday Monday?” he asked. Serena beamed. They sat at a picnic table by the parking lot, watching along with a crowd of curious mothers, children, and senior citizens as the cruisers and van pulled away.

“So the police were watching Artie anyway.” Serena shook a mustard packet and bit it open.

“Yeah. You always think about the spouse first. Glad you got Kawicki here in time to incriminate herself. Urbanski may have given her up, but Artie’s definitely the type to try to protect a woman. Even if she doesn’t deserve it.”

“Chivalrous,” Serena said.

“Krystle’d be on the first plane to the Bahamas.” Morty chewed appreciatively. “Then when Artie’s-well, Bunny’s-money ran out, she’d probably find herself another sap. But it all worked out. Just a couple phone calls and presto. Sting operation. Kawicki and Stanley caught red-handed paying off the hit man. Cops more than willing to take the credit.” Morty’s eyebrows rose. “Speaking of which…”

“Hey, Morty.” The two undercover joggers joined them. Falcone and Ritter from the office. They looked even more devastatingly handsome in jogging gear. To her horror, Serena felt a large gob of mustard drip from her hot dog onto her shirt.

“Good to see it worked out.” Morty nodded toward two empty spots at the table.

“Thanks, Morty. Serena, right?” Falcone said.

Serena nodded and wiped the mustard furiously. Her mind went momentarily blank as the men settled their sweaty, athletic frames onto the benches.

“Grateful for your help, Morty, but you’ve got to tell me, how’d you put it together?” Ritter asked.

Morty grinned at Serena. The men turned to Serena, Serena’s eyes met Falcone’s, and she forgot about the mustard.

“Because we had nothing solid,” Ritter continued. “No forensics from the house. Side door left conveniently unlocked, so no break in. Autopy showed Mrs. Stanley slightly sedated, just enough to make it easy for a hit man and not enough to seem suspicious.”

“Easy enough for hubby to put something in her dinner before he left for the night.” Morty nodded. “Could even be seen as part of the suicide attempt.”

Serena tore her gaze away. “I can see Artie doing something non-confrontational and sneaky like that, especially if under orders from Krystle.”

“Miss Kawicki.” Ritter frowned. “My kids go to Oceanview.”

“Kawicki’s Donnie Urbanski’s cousin,” Morty added.

“Nice family,” Serena and Falcone said at the same time.

“Owe me a coke.” Serena smiled at Falcone. His ears turned pink.

Morty cleared his throat.

“The big problem was your surveillance,” Falcone said. “Talk about a rock-solid alibi for Kawicki and Stanley. The medical examiner put the time of death between seven and midnight.”

“And I tailed them from six until one in the morning. Alibis Are Us.” Serena sipped a Pepsi thoughtfully. “Still, seems like a pretty embarrassing plan for him. I mean, he’s off with his girlfriend while his wife’s committing suicide.”

“Yeah, but what an alibi. Not only witnessed, but recorded,” Morty said.

“What made you think it wasn’t suicide?” Falcone’s deep brown eyes turned shrewd.

Serena took the last bite of her hot dog, and chewed slowly, savoring.

“It was the shoes and the ‘you and I’,” she said.

Ritter looked blank. “The shoes and the you and me?”

“Exactly. At the Dutch Maid, their shoes were lined up together, just like little soldiers. Their clothes were hung up. Let’s just say that keeping the room tidy is not the first thing two people in a motel room have on their minds. Plus the curtains were open-on the first floor-and every light was on.” She licked mustard and relish from her fingers. “They made it too easy.”

“They could have been, what, exhibitionists.” Morty dabbed his lips with a napkin.

Serena nodded. “That’s the first thing you think of. Remember the first job you sent me on, with the retired trapeze artist and the state senator?”

“Heh, heh, heh.” Morty chuckled.

Falcone’s eyebrows shot up. Ritter laughed.

“But I talked to the first Mrs. Artie. She said he liked the lights off. Sure lots of guys change with a new woman, but then there was the ‘you and I’ from a former English teacher.”

“I don’t understand,” Falcone said.

Morty grinned.

“The suicide note said, ‘Once the gift of love belonged to you and I.’ Bunny was an English teacher. She never would have written ‘the gift of love belonged to you and I.’ It should have read, ‘the gift of love belonged to you and me.’ When I heard it on TV, I figured it was the reporter making a mistake. Then I read the text of the suicide note in the paper. The pronoun should have been in the objective case.”

Morty raised his can of soda in tribute. “Smart girl.”

“So you two cooked up this sting based on some shoes and two little words.” Falcone smiled.

“Freakin’ awesome,” Ritter said. His cell buzzed. Ritter glanced at the screen. “We gotta go.”

“Morty.” The detectives shook hands with Morty, then Serena, with Falcone’s hand lingering a second too long.

“Serena, I’ll have to give you a rain check on that coke.” Falcone grinned and walked up the path.

Morty and Serena tossed their trash. “You know, Morty, they didn’t even need that flowery suicide note. They should have kept it simple.”

“There isn’t too much simpler than greed, kid.”

Serena watched the detectives. Falcone threw not one but two glances back her way.

Or men , she thought.

Shari Randall works in children’s services in a public library. She lives in Virginia with a wonderful husband and has occasional visits from two globe-trotting children. She enjoys dance from ballet to ballroom, antiques, and mystery fiction.

People’ll knock off anything. That’s what I was thinking as I waited on the porch of the big, obviously faux country house, not in a rural area at all, but behind tall brick fencing and ferocious iron gates in a suburb of Atlanta. Before I could bang the bronze armadillo-shaped knocker, a rangy man with skin as wrinkled as alligator hide appeared in shorts that seemed to billow without a breeze, black socks, and those rubber shoes they stick you in at the spa.

“Um…I’m Nonni Pennington?” Not used to sounding professional, since this was my first job (unless you count marrying up), the end of my statement came out like a question-an affectation I thought I’d shed after high school ten years ago. I cleared my throat and continued, “Mr. Shelbee is expecting me.” Mr. Shelbee was Chef Clyde, the Citchen Critter’s star, who’d become famous cooking unusual dishes featuring game or farmed exotic animals.

“That’s right,” the man said and turned back inside. I followed.

After a few paces in his wake I yelped, “What is that?”

“ That would be simmering fish heads,” he replied. “For stock.”

I wasn’t talking about the smell, only, God knows, it was awful. Frozen in mid-flight on top of an armoire in the foyer loomed a stuffed bird with its splayed talons pointing at my head.

My guide, unmoved, continued across the dining room as I scurried to keep up.

A voice from the next room called out, “Emmett, why are you hollering?”

The back of Emmett’s bony hand stopped me beneath the archway to the kitchen, its frame gleaming with intricate wood carvings of fruit and fowl.