CHAPTER

twenty-two

WHAT ARE YOU doing?” I asked, gesturing to the smoking branches in Amy’s hand.

She tried to hide the bundle behind her back, but I could still see the smoke snaking up in the air. A heavy earthy fragrance filled the house.

“Kind of smells like, er, Mary Jane.”

She sighed and brought the branches back out. “It’s sage. Meant to clear the air of vengeful spirits.”

Spirits? I didn’t believe in the supernatural much, but owning a psychic cat had definitely expanded my beliefs. I missed Marshmallow; his dry wit would’ve alleviated the tension at the service today.

“Do you have some sort of haunting?” I asked, peering around her home, particularly at her television. Did she have a poltergeist lurking behind the screen?

“It’s not that.” She pointed to the living room, where the chairs were still set up for the memorial service.

“Wait, are you talking about . . . Helen’s ghost?” I stared at her in disbelief. Then again, the woman did carry a lucky clover keychain and had practically hissed herself when she’d spotted my cat.

Amy crisscrossed the house, all the while waving the sage. “I just don’t feel like Helen’s at peace.”

Was she saying that as a general comment, or had she witnessed something untoward the day of Helen’s death? I stepped into the middle of her weaving path. “Do you know anything that might help the case?”

She stopped moving the bundle of sage, and her left hand stroked her stomach. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I belly knew her.”

“You what?” Even as an untrained psychologist, I’d caught her Freudian slip. “Did you say ‘belly’?”

“Ha.” She laughed it off. “You must have misheard me. I said I barely knew her.”

Nice try, Amy.

Her free hand fluttered in the air. “Anyway, why’d you come back?”

Gesturing to her backyard, I said, “I left my favorite platter.”

“I’ll go get it for you.” She placed the sage down in a decorative glass bowl on an end table and bustled outside. It felt like she had wanted to get away from me—and my probing.

While I stood waiting, I wandered over to a nearby bookcase in her front room. I loved checking out what people read. Their taste in books often gave me insight into their character. I myself read young adult fiction. Did that mean I was a teen at heart? Amy’s shelves were lined with tomes on the esoteric: the magic of Stonehenge, voodoo rituals, and ancient Egyptian animal familiars.

She soon returned with my jade platter and thrust it at me. “There you are. Bye now.”

How awkward to end the visit this way. “Thanks again for hosting the service,” I said.

She shifted from one foot to the other. “It was the least I could do.”

I said goodbye, and she shut the door behind me. What secret knowledge could she have? Amy had mentioned the word “belly,” and it didn’t seem like a coincidence that Helen had suffered an upset stomach the day she’d died.

I found Josh still sitting in the car where I’d left him. However, he wasn’t wearing his usual smile. A deep furrow creased his brow instead.

I slid into the passenger’s seat and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Josh fiddled with his own business card. The prosperous-sounding name of “Murphy, Sullivan, and Goodwin” flashed up at me.

I touched him on the shoulder. “Didn’t you get a rave review during your last performance meeting?”

He turned to me in slow motion. In the sunlight, a hint of gold reflected in his deep brown eyes. My breath caught at the beauty of it.

Josh shook his head, and his bangs swished away. “It’s not about work. Or rather, it’s about getting more work.”

“That sounds like a good thing.”

He jerked his thumb back at Amy’s house. “Principal Lewis asked me for a favor.”

I searched my memory. Why would the principal need legal advice? “Is it about that mysterious note he got from Helen?”

“Yeah. The code is actually CFR Title 29 Part 1604.11.”

“Oops. I couldn’t remember the entire train of numbers.” Detective Brown had said they hadn’t found any hCG in Helen’s system, so I ventured a guess. “The legalese isn’t even related to pregnancy, right?”

“The regulation covers sexual harassment. The principal’s worried because Helen had threatened to file a claim. He asked me to check up on that.”

I gazed into Josh’s earnest eyes. “Are you worried you’ll pull up something unsavory?”

He put his hands up. “It’s really not my area of expertise.” Josh’s familiarity with legal patents didn’t make him an expert on workplace discrimination.

He scratched the back of his ear and continued, “I’m going to ask around my alumni network and see if she filed anything. And I’ll be scrutinizing the principal’s résumé on his LinkedIn account to cover the bases.”

“Why?”

“To see how long he lasted at his old jobs. For Alice’s sake.”

I nodded.

“Maybe you should talk to her and get her perspective on the principal’s behavior. Just in case.”

He was probably right. I scrunched my nose. But I should ask her in a lighthearted location, to make it a less intense experience.

It was going to be an icky conversation, especially if I did find something off about the principal. I should bring Marshmallow along, too—we might need some pet therapy, what with the sure-to-be-uncomfortable talk.