Bae opened the back door, and I sat sideways, smoothing my skirt over my knees. I crossed my ankles and focused on my shoes. Pink. Pointed toes. Kitten heels. They always make me feel better, so why aren’t they working now?

Stupid question. I knew why. My throat worked as I fought back tears.

He hunkered down in front of me. “Who is the victim?”

“Her name is Dianne Detwiler.”

“How do you know her?”

“I don’t. Well, not well. I only met her on Saturday when I was at the craft show with A-Ava.” My voice broke, and I had to blink rapidly for a bit. “She was a vendor.”

“Was Mr. Purdy with you?”

I frowned, trying to remember whether PJ had joined us by then. “Not the first time Dianne and I spoke. But maybe later? Why?”

He shifted uneasily—it couldn’t have been comfortable crouching down like that. “Just routine questions. So you purchased items from her at the show?”

“Yes. Ava and I both did. Dianne had a lovely selection of… of…” Oh, lord. Dianne was dead. A sob caught me unprepared, and it was all over.

I’m not opposed to crying in general, and PJ could vouch that I’m no stranger to causing a scene, since he’s usually part of it—only he christens them events. But typically our events were well orchestrated with impeccable costuming.

This was nothing like that.

This wasn’t an event. This was most definitely a scene—a full-out, one hundred percent, mountain-of-tissues ugly cry. A loud, tear-stained, snot-filled ugly cry. I covered my face with my hands and hunched forward, my tears slipping between my fingers to plop onto my skirt. I heard the rustle of Bae’s suit and the snick of the car door opening.

“Here.” His normally brusque voice was gentler. I lowered my hands to see him holding out a little packet of tissues.

Much more practical than a lace-edged hanky. At this point, all hope of maintaining my upbeat retro-glam persona was long gone, and more than anything? I needed to blow my nose. So I accepted them—they were the extra large, extra soft kind. “Thank you,” I croaked. “Are these department issue?”

His poker face actually cracked a little, amusement and maybe exasperation flickering over it. “No.”

I blotted the tears off my cheeks. “Thank Detective Huber for me.”

“They, ah, weren’t her idea.” He didn’t meet my gaze—and were his cheeks a little pinker? My, my. Detective Hottie had a marshmallow center under his crunchy outer shell. I made a mental note to tell PJ.

I honked into the tissue—okay, I honked into several of them. But as much as I’d rather find a nest of pillows to crawl into and pretend none of this was happening, it was time to get back to adulting. I stuffed the tissues into the handy trash receptacle in Bae’s car, took a deep breath and stood up.

“Thank you.” I managed a not-too-watery smile. “If you keep these on hand as a way of reassuring witnesses, it’s working.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. Can you tell me about discovering Ms. Detwiler this evening? Why were you here?”

“I used the embellishments I purchased from Dianne in a class I taught on Sunday.”

“That would be the same class where you saw Ms. Cornell for the last time?”

“Yes. The Christmas card class.” I had to swallow again, and tugged another tissue out of the packet, just in case. “One of my students contacted me earlier today because her card hadn’t turned out the way she wanted and she needed another kit. I went to Central Paper on my lunch break to put one together for her.”

“Was Mr. Purdy with you at that time? You work together, I believe.”

I squinted at him. “Yes, but we’re not joined at the hip. I’m in product marketing. PJ is a systems engineer. He works in internal IT. Besides, he’s not a fan of paper crafts.”

“Yet he was with you at the Expo Center and at your class, correct?”

That damn goose was back, doing a salsa dance on my grave. “He’s my best friend. He was supporting me.”

His poker face was back. “Of course. Please go on.”

“While I was putting together the kits—”

“I thought you were only making the one your student needed.”

“Graciela asked me to put together a few more for her to sell. She’s sold all the extras I left with her on Sunday.”

“I see.”

“While I was assembling them, a number of customers came over and joined me. I helped them find the materials in the store, but then realized that I didn’t have the embellishments I needed.” I lifted an eyebrow. “They’re in my bag, which you impounded yesterday.” He made a noncommittal sound. “I had Dianne’s business card, and I knew she was local, so I called and asked if I could buy some more directly from her. We arranged for me to stop by this evening.”

“Why did you go into the garden?”

I narrowed my eyes again. “Am I a suspect, Detective?”

He may have sighed. “You were the first person on the scene. I’m simply trying to determine the sequence of events.”

“When I called at lunchtime, Dianne invited me to come over right away but I had to return to work so we arranged to meet later. She told me to come around to the garden if she didn’t answer the door. She didn’t.”

“Did you discover her immediately?”

I bit my lip, my stomach protesting a little over my memory of how I’d strolled around, enjoying the garden, while Dianne had been lying there at the mercy of the yellow jackets. “No. I called out, but she didn’t answer, so I was making my way toward the shed at the far corner of the yard. I thought she might be in there.” I swallowed. “I called 9-1-1 as soon as I found her.”

Bae remained poker-faced as usual. “What time did you last speak to her?”

“Probably between twelve forty-five and one o’clock. Oh!” I dug in my purse and pulled out the receipt for the Subway sandwiches. “I bought lunch right after I left the store and I’d spoken to Dianne less than ten minutes before that.”

He took it but didn’t look at it. “Wouldn’t the exact call time be logged on your phone?”

My cheeks heated. Of course it would. I checked my phone. “Twelve fifty-three. Sorry. I’m a little rattled.”

“No need to apologize. Do you have any idea what else Ms. Detwiler might have planned before your appointment?”

Actually, I did. But if I told Bae about Graciela’s meeting with Dianne, would that put her under suspicion? If I didn’t say anything, though, it would obstruct the investigation, and I wanted whoever did this to Dianne caught before someone else got hurt. “The owner of Central Paper told me she had a meeting with Dianne this afternoon to discuss placing some of Dianne’s products in the store. I don’t know if the meeting took place. But I’m sure she’d never hurt anyone.”

“Mmmphmm.” Really, Bae should patent that noise because it gave nothing away. He peered at the receipt. “Interesting that you assume foul play.”

I propped my hands on my hips. “You’re the one who told us that any death scene is treated as a potential homicide until the coroner declares otherwise.”

He didn’t respond to the tartness of my tone, but he peered down at the receipt. “Two sandwiches?”

“I bought one for PJ since he couldn’t get away.” I remembered Howard scarfing down PJ’s favorite spicy Italian sub. “Not that he had a chance to eat it.”

“You gave it to him personally?”

“No. I left it on his desk. One of his coworkers ate it when PJ didn’t—” My eyes widened. “Wait a minute. You can’t possibly think that PJ had anything to do with this!” I pointed at Bae’s chest. “In the first place, he’s not the kind of person to do anything remotely violent. In the second place, he barely knew Dianne. In the third, he was tied up with a server crisis all day, which I’m sure his boss or the other people on his team could verify.”

Bae pretended to ignore my finger, but his expression was definitely more testy and affronted than inscrutable. “We’re simply gathering as much information as we can about these cases.” He flinched—only slightly, and he recovered quickly, but PJ claimed I could read a person’s body language like a graphic novel.

“You think this is connected to Ava’s murder, don’t you?”

His stone face was back. “I can’t comment on any ongoing investigation.”

“You do. Oh my god. That’s… that’s…” I threw up my hands. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Mmmphmm.”

I huffed an exasperated breath. “Fine. Can you at least tell me if Ava’s passing is public knowledge yet?”

He nodded. “We’ve notified her daughter. She’ll be here tonight or tomorrow. And the news of Ms. Cornell’s death has been released.”

“Good.” It was my turn to cringe. “Well, not good in the sense of the news itself, but I’d like to express my condolences to Rebecca, and I know the rest of our scrapbooking circle would as well.”

“You may discuss the fact of her death, but please don’t disclose any information about its nature.”

“I’m not an idiot, Detective.” My words as well as my tone probably weren’t the most sensible, but the ME team had just rounded the corner of the house with the body bag. Another sob was fighting to get out, and I refused to break down again—being assertive was one of my go-to techniques for getting through emotional scenes with authority figures without showing weakness.

“No. You’re very astute.” He spread his palms. “But it’s our standard warning, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t deliver it.” One of the white-suited crime scene techs came over to Bae and handed him a plastic evidence bag.

It held two tiny teal feathers.

Bae’s expression turned briefly furious before he schooled it into its default calm. He glanced over at Huber, who was standing by the gate, and nodded. She turned away, lifting her phone to her ear.

Now there’s a thing you should know about me—my Auntie Willa Mae always claimed to have the Sight, and while I wouldn’t go that far, I can’t deny that sometimes I get feelings.

And I was getting a very bad feeling right now. I started shaking so badly that I almost didn’t feel my phone vibrating. The screen didn’t display a number I knew, but my feeling warned me that it wasn’t a call about lowering my credit card interest rate or a timeshare scam.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Tash.” PJ’s voice was shaking as much as I was. “I’ve been arrested. Could you do me a favor and feed my cat?”