Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

If we don’t bring a gift they’ll wonder why.” She tapped the invite against her chin. “Silver’s nice. Or linens. A person can’t have too many linens.”

“Is your Arthur coming to the party, Miss Theo?” Luci looked up from her list as the two detectives entered.

Mickey pulled out his notebook and flipped it open, wondering if Miss Theo’s Arthur was one of the three on his list.

“He’s looking forward to it, dear. Since his surgery he can’t burp or vomit, but he can eat cake again.”

“As long as he can do the important stuff.” Luci made a small note on her list, then looked at Miss Weena. “What about your Arthur?”

“He said he was coming before he left,” Miss Weena said, taking her admiring gaze off Delaney for a brief instant.

“Did he say where he was going?” Mickey asked.

“He might have,” Miss Weena said, inching closer to Delaney and smiling up into his face. “I’ve never been that good with geology.”

Delaney inched away from her. “Is he a geologist?”

“A proctologist. Good with his hands is my Arthur.” She stroked Delaney’s arm. “Nice suit.”

Delaney started to sweat. Mickey wanted to help him, but he felt like he was sinking, too. He didn’t mean to look to Luci for help, but he did. She looked startled, then pleased.

“They need to discuss security arrangements for the party, dears. Someone wants me dead.”

Miss Theo patted her hand. “Nonsense, dear. You’re our Rock of Gibraltar.”

“Our Leaning Tower of Pisa,” Miss Weena chimed in.

“You don’t think our Arthurs want Luci dead?” Miss Hermi asked. “They don’t even know her. I’m sure they’d wait until they got to know dear little Luci before wanting to kill her.”

Luci looked gratified and gave Mickey a look.

He patted his pockets, found the aspirin bottle and chewed a couple of aspirin, not bothering to track down water. After a time the taste didn’t bother so much. Delaney nudged him and Mickey tapped two into Delaney’s palm. Only then did he ask, “Is the concept of life and death that hard to assimilate?”

“Not with Miss Gracie here to put it into perspective,” Luci said, introducing the one topic Mickey wanted to avoid more than any other.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Louise enter, blackboard in hand, and approach Miss Theo. She pointed to “excuse me” on her list of pre-written statements, but Mickey didn’t have time to see if she could provide the needed distraction.

“I don’t think we should talk about Miss Gracie right now—” he began.

Miss Hermi looked coyly at Delaney. “I don’t think you feel that way, do you, dear boy?” She sighed. “So nice for her to have a beau after all these years. She hasn’t had one since she died.”

It was like watching a slow motion accident happening from outside the frame. There was nothing Mickey could do to stop the crash.

Delaney blinked. Twice. Finally he said, “Did you say—died?”

Miss Theo sighed. “Not all beaux are created equal.”

“Now let’s be fair,” Miss Weena said. “We don’t know he’s the one who shot her.” She turned to Delaney to explain, “Gracie didn’t see the perpetrator, you know. The cad shot her in the back.”

“Edmund’s dead now, so it doesn’t matter,” Miss Theo said with eldest sister finality. She looked at Delaney, who wasn’t moving or speaking. “Are you all right, dear?”

Delaney shook his head in slow motion, as if his body and his mind were out of sync. “I think...I must have...misunderstood...dead?” He shook his head again, like a guy shaking off a clean shot to the jaw.

It was time to intervene, Mickey knew, if he could just figure out—

Fate intervened for them. He heard the sound of running footsteps. Out of habit, his hand went to his gun, but he wasn’t really worried. Even before the door burst open, he noticed Louise writing Velma’s name on her chalkboard.

Velma paused in the doorway, looked around the room, then said with dramatic intensity, “I just can’t bear it anymore!”

Luci handed Velma a glass of water, guiding the glass to her mouth to make sure she drank some before saying, “I’m sure that Reggie isn’t dating in the afterlife, Miss Velma.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Miss Weena said. “But we could ask Gracie to see if he’s oozing around—”

Luci shook her head, but it was too late. The color that had been returning to Delaney’s ruddy cheeks faded again.

Velma pushed the glass away and said piteously, “I can’t live with Hugo after this. That he would be so cruel—”

She gave a sob that coincided with a choke from Delaney. Mickey had gotten him something stronger than water to drink and almost forced it down his throat. A hair of the dog remedy that took the dazed expression from his eyes and replaced it with bleak, mixed with denial.

“He’s not dead,” Velma said. “I’d feel it if he were. The psychic connection hasn’t been broken. There’s been a mistake—”

Mickey looked at Velma. “I don’t know if he’s dating, Miss Velma, but he is dead. The dental work is consistent—”

“No!” She pushed Luci away and jumped to her feet. “It’s wrong! All wrong!”

At her back was the row of family pictures, Luci noticed. Their stern, sensible faces so similar, despite the distance in time and space between them. Luci looked from Velma’s face to theirs.

“I think she’s right,” she said to Mickey. “Something isn’t right.”

“Do you think?” he asked, groping for the aspirin bottle again.

If the scene with Velma and the revelation about Gracie weren’t enough, Mickey was gloomily standing guard in the hallway, his ears ringing from too much aspirin when Captain Pryce arrived.

“Where’s my—Luci?”

Mickey pointed toward the dining room where Delaney had met his Waterloo, before going off to talk to Gracie and see for himself. “They’re working on the party preparations.” He rubbed his face. “It’s going to be a security nightmare, sir. They seem to just randomly invite people. No way to check them out before. And the mayor might be coming!”

“I told