“There’s what?” I flung the pen down and hurried to PJ’s side, crunching buttons and crystals under my patent leather toes.

“One of those shuriken thingies is sticking out of her neck.” He pointed, his face whiter than I’d ever seen it, then grabbed my hand, his grip so tight it was almost painful.

There, on the floor of the surprisingly neat closet, lay Ava, facedown, her locs askew, red staining the white carpet under her head. A snowflake die protruded from the angle of her jaw.

I let go of PJ’s hand and fumbled for my cocktail purse, nearly snapping its delicate strap when I pulled out my phone.

“What are you doing?” PJ’s voice seesawed—or else my hearing had gone wonky with shock.

“Calling 9-1-1.” But with my satin gloves on, I couldn’t activate the touch ID. I bit the end of one glove finger and yanked at it with my teeth.

PJ smacked my hand away. “Are you kidding? I’ve watched dozens of episodes of Forensic Files. The person who makes the 9-1-1 call is always the murderer.”

“Honey, calling 9-1-1 doesn’t make you the murderer. The killers on Forensic Files are just stupid.”

“I know. I know. But—”

“Peej. We need to do this.” I could tell there was very little chance that Ava was alive, but we still needed to get the first responders here.

He gulped, but nodded and helped me take off my glove.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“I just found my friend face down in her closet. I think she’s dead.”

“Where are you?”

I gave her Ava’s address, then took a few deep breaths to try to calm my nerves. My hands were shaking, and I leaned against the wall for support. The operator clicked away on her keyboard in a rapid fire pattern that might have been soothing under different circumstances.

“Don’t hang up. Stay on the line with me. Help is on the way.” Her tone was practiced and reassuring, and the tension in my shoulders eased. “What is your name?”

“LaTashia Van Buren. We just swung by to drop off her craft kit because she didn’t show up for our usual scrapbooking circle. We meet twice a month at Central Paper and Supply in downtown Beaverton. If you’re a crafter, you should check it out.” I forced myself to stop talking. Even when I was little, talking was my way of coping with nervous energy. Now was most definitely not the time to promote Graciela’s store. PJ swiveled his head back and forth between me and the body as if willing me to sprinkle some fairy dust and cause Ava to magically arise.

“Is she breathing?” The operator’s voice sliced through my meandering thoughts.

Ava wasn’t moving at all that I could see, but I met PJ’s wide, panicked gaze. “Could you check to see if she’s breathing? I can’t kneel down in this dress.”

His breath hitched. “You want me to touch her?”

“Ma’am,” the 9-1-1 operator said, “do you have someone there with you?”

“Yes. Another friend. He’s actually the one who found the body.” I squeezed PJ’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey, but you have to.” PJ might be addicted to true crime TV and crappy horror movies, but I doubted he’d ever witnessed death personally. “I’d do it if I could.”

“Right.” His voice was thready. “Yes. I can do it.” He lowered himself toward Ava’s body.

“PJ. Your boa.”

“Oh my god!” He caught its tails just as they were about to brush Ava’s out-flung arm, his throat working. His face was nearly the same color as his feathers as he reached out and laid a shaky hand on her back. “No. She’s not breathing.”

“You did good, sweetie.” I held out my hand and helped him up. “No. She’s not breathing. She—” I swallowed. Hard. “She’s been stabbed in the neck. And there’s a lot of blood.”

“Deputies and emergency personnel are on their way, ma’am. Again, please stay on the phone with me.”

“All right. We’ll go downstairs and wait for them.” I beckoned to PJ, miming that we should be careful leaving the room. We both did our best to avoid stepping on the stuff scattered over the carpet, but a lot of that damage had already been done.

Once we were in the hallway, PJ grabbed my hand. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. I never really wanted to be in a horror movie.” He started to laugh a little wildly. “Although if I were writing one, I’d probably have picked Ava for the first victim.” He clapped a hand over his mouth, but must have remembered where that hand had been, because he snatched it away and held it away from himself as if it was contaminated. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Tash, but this is just so… so typical of Ava.”

He stood aside and let me walk downstairs first. When I reached the vestibule I turned left to flick on the porch light as PJ stumbled down behind me.

“Augh!”

I whirled at his cry, my heel skidding on the marble tiles. PJ was backed against the wall. Facing him on top of Ava’s foyer table was the cat, her paw hooked in PJ’s boa.

“I’ve seen this on Crime Scene Investigation,” PJ wailed. “The po-po’s going to think the cat is fingering me for the crime!”

“I don’t think feline testimony is admissible in court.” Reaction was setting in for me too. My fingers shook, making it tough to work my glove back on, especially while sandwiching my phone between my shoulder and cheek. My dress no longer felt like it was hugging me—now it was squeezing the breath out of me like a satin anaconda.

PJ stared, wide-eyed, at his feline accuser. “It could happen.” He tugged the boa away from the cat, leaving a tuft of teal feathers on her claws. “They’ve accepted identification from dogs before.”

Sirens began wailing in the distance. I opened the door and peered out into the night. “I’m pretty sure those were trained tracking dogs or K-9 units.”

“Pardon me if I don’t want to be part of the landmark case where a cat becomes the star witness.” He raised his hands as if to cover his face, but stopped, staring down at them bleakly. “This is worse than flu season. I need to wash my hands.”

“Powder room’s right there.” PJ scuttled in as I tried to regulate my breathing. Calm. Calm. I can do this.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you still there?”

I startled, nearly dropping the phone. I’d almost forgotten the 9-1-1 operator was still on the line. I swallowed hard. “Yes. Yes, I’m here.”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m downstairs in Ava’s foyer. My friend is in the bathroom. Once he comes out, we’ll sit in the living room and wait for help to arrive.” My voice was shaking worse than my hands.

PJ returned to the foyer and shot me a forlorn look. “I’m sorry. I just can’t get my head around this. The only things I seem capable of are inappropriate comments alternating with bouts of hysteria.”

Careful to keep my phone clear of PJ’s feathers and vintage suit, I wrapped him in a hug. He returned it, his hands still a little damp against my back. For a minute, we just stood there in the middle of the vestibule, with the cat eyeing the fluttering ends of PJ’s boa and the sirens getting louder and louder.

“Is it wrong,” PJ murmured with a light hiccup, “that all I can think of besides inappropriate jokes is how absolutely, bone-deep grateful I am that it was Ava and not you?”

I leaned back a little so I could look down into his eyes. “Why would it have been me? We don’t even know what caused her death.”

He glared at me. “How many pairs of scissors do you own, LaTashia? How many staple guns? How many noxious liquids?” He pointed an unsteady finger up the stairs as red and blue flashed through the sidelights of Ava’s front door. “Crafting is dangerous! I mean the paper cuts alone—”

There was a knock on the half-open door. “Ms. Van Buren?”

We both turned at the sound of the deep voice, although we didn’t release each other, not yet. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Dear sweet heaven,” PJ murmured. “He looks just like John Cho.”

PJ had a point—the navy-suited man in the doorway looked very much like the actor—the craggier, edgier Cho from Sleepy Hollow, not the smoother Sulu version. He was flanked by a woman with a salt-and-pepper bob whose pantsuit was the female version of his.

“I’m Detective Bae and this is my partner, Detective Huber.” Both of them flashed their badges.

“Bae?” PJ muttered. “Seriously?”

Either Detective Bae didn’t hear PJ or he chose to ignore him. “Perhaps you could step out here and allow the emergency team to get to work?”

“Of course.” I had to tug on PJ’s arm to get him to move because he was still staring at Detective Bae. The two detectives stood aside to let us exit onto the porch. “Hello?” I said into the phone. “The police have arrived.”

“Thank you, ma’am. They’ll take things from here.”

Detective Bae waited for me to stow my phone in my purse. “Where’s the victim?”

I grabbed PJ’s hand. Victim. Clearly Ava was dead, and probably not of natural causes given the die embedded in her throat. But victim? If PJ was right, and she’d been done in by her crafting tools, I’d never look at my Cuttlebug the same way. “Upstairs,” I croaked. “First door on the left. In the closet.”

The EMTs paused on the porch steps with their equipment, and as Detective Huber gave them low-voiced instructions, a fluffy blur shot out the door and dove into the hydrangea bush.

Detective Bae startled. “What the…”

“Cat.” Detective Huber raised an eyebrow at me. “Correct?”

“Yes. That’s right. It’s Ava’s cat.”

“Ava. That’s the victim?”

“Y-yes.” I swallowed against a lump in my throat. “Ava Cornell. This is her house.”

Detective Huber nodded and disappeared inside with the EMTs.

“Tash.” PJ grabbed my arm. “They’re putting up crime scene tape.”

Detective Bae transferred his attention from me to PJ. It might have been the shadows cast by the harsh porch light and the red-blue flashes from yet another emergency vehicle that pulled up in Ava’s driveway, but I could swear Detective Bae jerked, eyes widening, as he took in PJ from fedora to polished black wingtips.

And of course, the boa.

Bae cleared his throat. “You are?”

“PJ Purdy.”

“And what does PJ stand for?”

PJ slid a glance at me as if to say wait for it. “Peter Johnson.” Sure enough, Bae blinked and his rather austere mouth twitched. PJ huffed and shoved his glasses up with a knuckle. “Look, my mother’s maiden name was Johnson, she was a giant Spiderman nerd, and was completely oblivious that she’d doomed me to a lifetime of sexual innuendo, okay? At least my last name isn’t Richards.”

Bae rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I didn’t say anything.”

PJ glared at him. “You were thinking it. I could tell.”

Bae didn’t answer, but that might have been because the two people who’d been taping off Ava’s yard and driveway approached him. He turned away to discuss something with them, too low-voiced for us to hear.

PJ tugged on my arm, drawing me a little farther down the porch. “I can’t believe it. Not only is there crime scene tape, but Detective Hottie is totally judging me. Do you think it’s because of my name?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you do the same with him? I mean, Detective Hottie?”

“That’s different! I mean if you look like him and your name is Bae, you’re just begging for it.” But although PJ’s tone was tart, from the way his boa was shimmying, he was trembling. I could relate—I still felt off balance myself, and it wasn’t because of my stilettos.

Detective Huber emerged from the house as the two new personnel donned those white hazmat-looking suits. One of them handed a couple of plastic bags to her and then they picked up their kits and disappeared inside.

Huber approached us and handed us each a bag. “If you could please remove your shoes and place them in here?”

I glanced down at my best heels. “Our shoes?”

“Yes. You were at the death scene when you made the 9-1-1 call, correct?”

“Death scene?” PJ clutched my arm. “We didn’t see her die.”

Huber regarded PJ somberly. “We refer to any crime scene with a dead body as a death scene.”

“Wait a minute. Are you homicide detectives?” PJ’s voice squeaked on homicide. When Huber nodded, his grip tightened. “Oh my god, Tash, we’re suspects!”