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I WOKE UP WITH THE sun shining rudely into my eyes. I flung my arm over my face and groped at the night table with my free hand until I found my phone.
According to the clock on my lock screen, it was already Sunday afternoon.
I showered, got dressed, and did my makeup. It was something I could do to feel normal, even if I wasn’t going to see anyone today. Except for Pat and Emma, who were pretty much members of my household by this point. Our insurance office wasn’t going to be open until tomorrow. I’d call them and deal with the fire damage first thing tomorrow morning. What should I tell Donnie? I’d put off thinking about that until tomorrow too.
Pat and Emma were at the dining table. Pat was on his phone, and Emma was reading the County Courier.
“You okay Molly?” Emma set down her newspaper.
“I’m fine.”
I fixed myself a cup of coffee and joined them at the dining table.
“You slept through Mass,” Pat said. “For shame.”
“Give her a break, Pat.” Emma scowled at him. “Her new ʻohana just burned down, she had to spend half the night sitting in the police station in her bathrobe, and worst of all, she had to go to a homeowners’ association meeting with Linda Wilson.”
“Thank you, Emma. Oh, there’s one bit of good news.” I sipped my coffee. “I sent out a message to my class telling them certain assignments had been identified as having been purchased from OutsourceMyHomework.com, and academic dishonesty would result in a failing grade and expulsion from the school.”
“Could someone really get expelled for plagiarizing?” Pat asked.
“Technically, yes,” I said, “although in reality the Student Retention Office would never allow us to expel anyone. I just wanted to scare the students into doing the right thing. Give them a chance to turn back. So I told them if anyone wanted to change their business idea, they should delete their previous submission and they could submit a different idea for their next draft.”
“What a softie,” Emma groused. “You gave the cheaters a free do-over.”
“What am I supposed to do, Emma? I can’t prove anything.”
“Did anyone remove their submissions?” Pat asked.
“Yes, they did,” I said. “Specifically Urine Luck, Party Pooper, Toot Sweet, and yes, ‘Wee the People.’ They all got taken down.”
“Someone actually turned in Wee the People?” Emma asked. “After they admitted online they bought the paper from OutsourceMyHomework? What a dummkopf. What was it, anyway?”
“It was a design for a unisex public bathroom,” I said. “It’s a shame. It was actually pretty well thought out. And there was one more plan I hadn’t even gotten around to grading yet. It was called Bloody Marvelous.”
“What kind of product was that?” Pat asked.
“You don’t want to know. Well, all my class’s best business ideas just disappeared, but at least I’m not going to have any plagiarized business plans in the Senior Showcase.”
“That you know of,” Emma said darkly.
“Molly,” Pat said, “did you learn anything from Detective Medeiros yesterday? You were down there a long time.”
“Oh, yeah. He told me Ladd is now claiming the dead woman isn’t Jandie after all. That’s a twist, huh?”
Emma snorted.
“Ladd’s an idiot if he expects anyone to believe that. He’s just saying it now cause he’s in trouble.”
“I dunno.” Pat scratched his chin. “He might be telling the truth. Molly, your coffee smells good.”
“Help yourself,” I said, although Pat would have gone and made himself coffee regardless.
“What are you talking about, Pat, he might be telling the truth?” Emma demanded. “We heard him identify her in the morgue, you know.”
“Yeah, it was really disturbing to listen in,” I said. “You know what sticks with me? The squeaking metallic sound. I don’t know whether it was wheels on a dissection table, or one of those long drawers, or what, but it’s the soundtrack of my nightmares now.”
“Let me show you something.” Pat came back to the table and set down his fresh cup of coffee. He took out his phone, navigated to a popular bookstore website, and showed us the result.
“Is that the book Jandie’s husband wrote?” Emma asked. “The one we saw?”
“Uh huh,” Pat said. “His memoir. It’s still on preorder, but based on the ranking, sales are gonna be through the roof as soon as it’s released.”
“That’s a shame,” Emma said. “Ugh, he really called it Rhyme and Reason?”
“And people are buying it anyway,” Pat said. “There’s something else. Jandie Brand’s account. Even though there haven’t been any new posts in a while, for obvious reasons, her followers have more than doubled since her disappearance.”
“So people have morbid curiosity,” Emma said. “What else is new?”
“That’s exactly it,” Pat said. “Scandal sells. If it bleeds, it leads. Is it so far-fetched for a publicity-minded couple to have planned something like this?”
“Jandie would never,” Emma declared. “Besides, someone died for real. There’s a dead woman in the morgue. That’s not a stunt. So who is the dead woman, and where is Jandie, if she’s not dead?”
“Yeah, I haven’t figured that part out,” Pat said. “What did you two find out at the egg farm place in Kuewa? What was it called, Peter Pumpkin Eater?”
“Little Jack Horner’s,” I said.
“Oh right,” Pat said. “I think Peter Pumpkin Eater would’ve been better.”
“Jandie was there,” I said. “She took a picture of their lilikoi chiffon pie and everything.”
“The woman who works there told us Jandie had come in a while ago but hadn’t been there recently,” Emma said.
“Has your friend Howdy Howell been looking into it?” I asked. “He’s talked to Jandie and her husband more than any of us have. What does he think?”
“He’s been busy trying to get Kaycee out of jail,” Pat said. “He hasn’t really been paying attention to much else.”
“Are those two a thing now? Kaycee and Howdy?” Emma asked. Pat shrugged.
“Do you know who strikes me as someone the police might want to talk to?” I said. “Mr. Henriques from next door. He came up and talked to Harriet and me yesterday at the HOA meeting. He seems weirdly obsessed with Jandie.”
“Just cause he can’t read social cues doesn’t make him a murderer,” Pat said. “I think he’s just lonely. I know how it can be.”
“You are nothing like Mr. Henriques, Pat,” I said. “Hey, here’s a theory. Linda Wilson. She’s obviously still jealous that Jandie rented from me and not from her. Maybe Linda killed my renter out of spite.”
“Oh, and then she went and burned down your rental unit,” Emma said. “Finish the job and get rid of any evidence. Makes sense to me.”
“You two really don’t like Linda, do you?” Pat said.
“It’s not a matter of like or dislike,” I said.
“We know what she’s capable of,” Emma added.
Pat sighed.
“Emma, she made you go to a half-day seminar. Let it go.”
“Is anyone else hungry?” I asked. “I just realized I am.”
“Little Jack Horner’s is open Sundays,” Pat said. “I didn’t get to go with you last time.”