“Brian Dunnegan is going to have to come by and fill out the paperwork if he wants Juliet cremated,” I said. “But yeah, between our victims last night and getting Juliet prepped, it’s going to be a full day. And that’s assuming I won’t have any more visitors.”
“I like how you call them visitors, as if they’re dropping in for drinks and a conversation,” Jack said, putting a plate in front of me.
“Well, technically they are visiting. They’re not moving in. And sometimes we have really great conversations. It’s like therapy. I get a lot off my chest, and they don’t judge me in return. We don’t have drinks though. That would be weird.”
Jack snorted. “I think you’ve already crossed that bridge.”
“Don’t get sassy or I’ll let Peter Trest paint me. He appreciates my bone structure.”
“While I’m not arguing that your bone structure is, in fact, fantastic, I think Trest’s appreciation has more to do with the fact that you’re female and breathing. He’s a hound dog.”
I widened my eyes and then blinked rapidly. “Say it ain’t so! I’ve never met one of those before.”
He grinned and said, “Shut up. Besides, I’m a reformed hound dog. Completely domesticated.”
“And housebroken,” I said.
“You’d better go to work before you get in trouble,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
I grinned unrepentantly and got up to put my empty plate in the sink. I smacked him on the behind on my way out of the kitchen, feeling like the day was off to a good start.
Emmy Lu was already at her desk by the time I’d navigated my way through the streets that had turned to rivers overnight. And since the people of Bloody Mary were contrary on their best days, they’d all decided to get in their cars and drive around to see how bad the flooding was. Which meant cops and firefighters were spending their morning rerouting traffic and pulling people out of high-water situations.
Emmy Lu’s things were hung neatly in the mudroom—a bright pink raincoat and matching boots with little red cherries on them. And then I took a closer look at her boots and realized they were steel toed. If an outfit could perfectly sum up a person, it was this one. Emmy Lu looked like a middle-aged soccer mom who specialized in baking cookies and knitting sweaters, but she could stab a person in the eye with her knitting needles and never blink. She was tough, and her five boys could attest to that.
I could hear her moving around the kitchen and smell the coffee brewing.
“You must have gotten here at the crack of dawn,” I said, adjusting my sweater. I’d dressed for business today in black leggings and a bright red cowl-neck sweater that came down to mid-thigh. I sat down on the barstool at the island and put on my black knee-high boots.
“About half an hour ago,” she said, putting creamer and sugar in the center of the island and then filling two mugs with coffee.
“How were the roads from your place?” I asked. “I wondered if you’d even be able to come in today.” Emmy Lu lived in what we affectionately called the “boondocks” and her one-lane gravel road tended to wash out in bad weather.
“Oh, they’re flooded,” she said. “But the house is fine. Two of the boys are holding down the fort.”
The confusion on my face must have been obvious because Emmy Lu’s cheeks went pink. “Tom’s house is closer. He offered to let me stay so I could make it in to work today.”
I arched a brow at that. “I bet he did,” I said, disguising a smile by blowing on my coffee.
Tom Daly owned the donut shop on the square, and he and Emmy Lu had been sharing more than donut recipes.
“Stop that,” she said, waving her hand scoldingly in my direction. “Tom’s a gentleman.”
“You’ve got a bite mark on your neck,” I told her, and she slapped a hand over the side of her neck and went to look at her reflection in the toaster.
“Well,” Emmy Lu said, returning to the island and her coffee. “Gentlemen can be animals too.”
I burst out laughing. “And he gave you donuts too. I can smell them.”
She shook her head. “You’ve got a gift.” She opened the oven and pulled out two boxes of donuts from where she’d been keeping them warm.
“It’s my superpower,” I said. “I can always sniff out hot buttery sugar, no matter where you put it. I put the paperwork for Juliet Dunnegan on your desk.”
“I saw it,” she said, taking a bite of donut. “It’s a sad situation. Tom took me to see that play she was in early last week. We dressed up and everything. I recognized her picture from the program.”
“Notice anything weird?” I asked.
“What could be weird about a room full of adults dressed up like a bunch of Charles Dickens rejects? We only went because they gave away free mulled cider with every ticket purchase. I needed the buzz at intermission. Tom just slept through the whole thing.”
“Her husband is supposed to come by later and sign paperwork. He wants her cremated as quickly as possible.”
“No viewing?” Emmy Lu asked.
“Her head was detached,” I told her. “It’s not an open casket situation.”
Emmy Lu winced.
“Besides, he doesn’t seem too keen on drawing out the mourning period. I wouldn’t be surprised if he dumped her ashes in the garbage on the way out. There’s no love lost between him and Juliet.”
“That’s a shame,” Emmy Lu said, shaking her head. “It seems like you should mourn the person you swore to love until death do you part.”
The mudroom door flew open with a crash, and Emmy Lu and I both leaned back to see what had happened.
“Sorry about that,” Lily called out. “The wind caught the door. It’s a mess out there. I smell donuts.”
“Lily has a superpower too,” I said.
“What superpower?” Sheldon asked, peeking around Lily. He was wearing down coveralls in camo brown and a matching jacket, and he was dripping all over the floor. Everything looked two times too big for him.
“Twelve percent of people in this country believe they have a legitimate superpower,” Sheldon said.
“What counts as legitimate?” Emmy Lu asked.
Lily hung up her red raincoat and umbrella and helped Sheldon get the coat unzipped because he couldn’t reach the zipper down around his knees.
“Things like psychic powers or telekinesis,” he said. “Or those people on the infomercials who can always predict who the next president is going to be.”
The more layers Sheldon pulled off, the higher my eyebrows rose. He was stuffed into a pair of black western dress pants rolled up at the hem and a pair of snakeskin boots. He wore the same black-and-yellow checkered shirt he’d worn yesterday, though I was guessing it had been washed since it was freshly ironed. He wore a black belt with a big silver buckle that actually fit.
“Wow,” Emmy Lu said. “Don’t you look snazzy. You going two-stepping after work?”
“I don’t know,” Sheldon said. “Should I? I don’t know how to two-step.”
“I’ll teach you,” Emmy Lu said.