Page 5 of Cadaver Lab: Mind Over Murder

The din of shifting bodies and grumbled low conversations only got worse once Harper began to speak and Natalie realized Harper was right. She had every reason to be nervous addressing this group of people.

Harper had based supposedly fictional small-town characters on more than one person here. Changing the names, of course, but so vividly and accurately describing their quirks that only the dimmest among them wouldn’t be able to identify who in Mudville she was really writing about. Who she was not-so-subtly insulting between the pages of her books. Making them the laughingstock in town.

But to paraphrase the popular saying about Vegas, what happens in novels doesn’t stay in novels. And by the tension palpable in this room, these people knew it.

Heck, Harper had even killed one guy off in a spectacular manner in one recent story published shortly after he’d made her mad at a village meeting.

As the din grew louder, Harper somehow managed to continue on with her presentation covering how she’d moved to Mudville and wrote her first small town romance fiction—with emphasis on the word fiction—that soon became a fan favorite.

“Um, excuse me! I’d like to ask who gave you permission to write about us? That’s illegal. I can sue,” Douglas Pompinou, real estate agent and one of Harper’s least favorite people, interrupted loudly.

Liam rubbed his palms together. “Here we go.”

He had no idea how right he was.

The rude man was Pompous Doug, as Harper had privately dubbed the recent transplant who’d swooped into town, joined the planning board and thought he’d force change even of things that didn’t need changing.

The real-life opinionated blow hard, who acted like he was always the smartest person in the room, was the inspiration for the very character Harper had killed off so creatively in her book Cry Me a Muddy River, an Amazon top ten bestseller for two weeks straight.

In the story one farmer’s pigs had gotten down to the riverbank and ate the unfortunately unconscious real estate agent and planning board member Dougal Payne, who’d slipped on a wet rock while fishing. Payne, as in pain in the neck and other areas, Harper had explained to Natalie laughingly.

There was no way Doug could have missed the similarities to Dougal in the book. And he wasn’t the type of guy to let a slight like that pass unaddressed.

Natalie glanced sideways at Liam, who was still inappropriately excited about the situation. “Hey, this thing turns into a brawl, you’re going to have to break it up.”

“Brawl? This guy is at least seventy-five with obvious COPD. He’s not going after Harper physically. Though Harper’s fiancé might go after him.” Liam glanced around. “Where is Stone anyway?”

“Budget meeting at the firehouse,” Gabe answered, having swooped over to sit in Harper’s vacant chair and join the conversation.

“Were you at the lab right before this trying to scare me?” Natalie turned to accuse him without even passing along Gabe’s answer about Stone’s absence to Liam.

“No. I was here for the past half hour. I walked over when Harper and Agnes did.”

“Liar. I didn’t see you,” Natalie accused.

“Hi, Gabe,” Liam said flatly from Natalie’s other side.

It wasn’t hard for Liam to figure out Gabe had arrived since Natalie was talking to an empty chair. She did seem to be making Margaret Trout uncomfortable though as the woman elbowed her husband in the side and they both moved their folding chairs over a good foot.

Ignoring the Trouts’ behavior, Gabe scowled at Natalie. “Fine. I was here in the kitchen sniffing the old, buttered popcorn someone had thrown in the garbage after last night’s movie screening. Okay? Happy? Yes, I sniff trash now. If I can’t eat buttered popcorn, I’m going to at least smell it.”

Natalie somehow controlled her smile. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Why did you think I was in the lab trying to scare you?” Gabe asked, looking curious in addition to angry.

“Tell you later.” Things were heating up and she wanted to hear.

Apparently as Harper tried to explain that her books were complete fiction and she only took very broad-sweeping general inspiration from Mudville and its residents, the attendees weren’t having it. And they were responding vocally.

“It’s supposed to be a parody,” Harper explained.

“A parody!”

“Oh, so we’re just a joke to you, are we?”

Liam leaned in. “Told you. This is definitely popcorn-worthy.”

“I wish he’d stop talking about popcorn. Some of us can’t eat, you know.” Gabe scowled.