Page 13 of Fish and Chip

Delora screams, too, which honestly makes me feel a little better about my own reaction. Come to find out, terror loves company just as much as misery does. Who knew Delora Drake and I would finally find common ground, and that it would be soaked in blood?

Fish and Chip yowl and dart away as if their tails just caught fire, which is pretty much how I feel right about now.

Cupcake comes trotting over and starts barking like she’s auditioning for the lead role in a canine horror movie.

Body! Body! There’s a body! Cupcake barks, her Southern drawl somehow thickening with the horror. I found it! Well, technically Josie found it, but I’m the one alerting everyone with my superior vocal skills! Am I loud enough? Am I coming in clear? Where’s the cute detective?

We can hear you just fine, Fish says from her safe distance. In fact, the entire state of Maine can hear you.

That’s the point, sugar pot pie! Cupcake prances in place, clearly thrilled to be part of the action.

Georgie and Ree come running, following Cupcake’s frantic barking and probably my continued screaming, which I should stop, but my lungs haven’t gotten the memo yet.

“What in the name of—” Georgie skids to a stop, her pumpkin-printed caftan billowing around her like a Halloween-themed parachute. Her eyes go wide as her kitten-eared headband slips down her forehead a notch. “Would you look at that? The wicked witch is dead!”

Ree’s mouth falls open as she staggers forward. “That’s not Belladonna Hershey, is it?”

“Dead as a doornail,” I manage to say as I struggle to get to my feet. It’s not my fault I can’t get up. The soil beneath me is soft and the ground has a decent pitch to it. Frankly, I’m shocked Belladonna hasn’t rolled downhill yet herself. Even in death, the woman refuses to be moved.

“I knew it!” Georgie whips around and points an accusing finger at Delora, who’s standing there looking like she’s trying to decide whether to faint or flee. “Delora Drake isn’t just a liar, she’s a killer, too! This is what happens when you give event coordinators too much power. I’ve always suspected you were an actual witch!”

“I most certainly am not!” Delora sputters, and her face turns a shade of red that matches the fake blood dripping off the tombstones. “I didn’t touch that woman! I wouldn’t—I would never⁠—”

“Oh sure,” Georgie says, hands on her hips now. “That’s what they all say right before they’re hauled off in handcuffs. I’ve seen my fair share of crime TV. And I’ve hung out with this one long enough.” She hitches her thumb my way. “And, well, Bizzy, too.”

It’s true. Bizzy Baker Wilder has found far more dead bodies than I have. I can still count all of mine on one hand and have a finger left over, but Bizzy has used up her fingers and her toes by now, and probably her husband’s fingers and toes as well. It’s nice to have goals. Terrifying, corpse-shaped goals, but still goals.

“I had nothing to do with this.” Delora is quick to defend herself as that witch’s hat on her head sparkles like a rainbow having a seizure. “I didn’t do it!”

“Ha!” Georgie doubles down on her disbelief. “I know how this goes, Witchy-Poo. First it’s I didn’t do it, then it’s I don’t remember doing it, and then it’s okay, fine, I did it, but she had it coming. How about you save us a week’s worth of investigating and cough up the truth now? Good thing you look great in orange.”

“Georgie, for heaven’s sake—” Ree starts.

“What?” Georgie shrugs with feigned innocence. “I said something nice about her complexion.”

“What’s going on here?” Dexter’s voice cuts through the chaos, and I’ve never been so relieved to hear that particular blend of command and exasperation in my entire life. He strides over, taking in the scene with the unshakable calm of years spent dealing with dead bodies and hysterical civilians. Though to be fair, I think I’m allowed to be a little hysterical, considering the circumstances. It’s not every day a girl gets to wear the evidence.

His storm-blue eyes sweep from Belladonna’s body to my crimson-covered hands to his mother’s pale face to Georgie’s accusatory stance, and I can practically see him calculating how this is going to look in his incident report. Spoiler alert: not great.

“Your girlfriend just murdered someone!” Georgie announces, because subtlety has never been her strong suit.

I gag on a river of words as I stare at her. So much for loyalty. Apparently, friendship only stretches so far when there’s a fresh corpse to narrate.

“I did not!” I protest, holding my hands up like I’m under arrest, which only makes the red slick on my hands look twice as ominous. And that is so not helping. “I just found her like this! I swear!”

“That’s not entirely true,” Delora says, and I swear to all that is holy, if she throws me under the bus right now, I’m going to haunt her for the rest of her natural life. I guess in a way I sort of am haunting her by way of dating her son. So, there’s that.

“I caught her assaulting the woman,” Delora goes on. “She was slapping her. Hard. I saw her do it at least twice. Maybe three times. I lost count after the second one because I was too shocked to process what I was seeing.”

And there goes the bus. Right over my body, then backing up to make sure.

Eliminating the future daughter-in-law before there ever is a wedding, Fish notes from the darkness. Bold. Historically effective. I think she’s pretty intent on locking you away.

I scream again—partly because I just registered that I have a dead woman’s DNA on my hands, and partly because Delora is making me sound like some kind of corpse-slapping psychopath.

“I thought she was a prop!” I say to Dexter, my words tumbling out so fast they’re tripping over each other, just the way I tripped over Belladonna. “I swear on Chip’s entire stash of treats, I thought she was one of our Halloween dummies. The pricey ones that look so real you find yourself apologizing to them after hours. I was testing how realistic she looked!”

Dexter squints at me, and I can see the gears turning in his detective brain. “So you left the party to come back here and slap one of your props?”