Page 12 of Dead & Breakfast
“It did, before it came under new management.”
“Now, wait just a minute.” Salvatore gripped Arthur’s armtighter. “My husband did an awfully good job of renovating this place. Took him months of labor—I should know, I watched! I won’t have you slandering his hard work!”
McMartin glanced at the body, then at Salvatore. “You’ll need to come down to the station with me.”
“Why on earth would I do that?” Salvatore looked aghast, as though McMartin had asked him to take a multivitamin.
McMartin raised a too-thin eyebrow. “Well, I’ve got to question you, don’t I? You said so yourself—you left the inn on your own yesterday evening and a dead body turns up in your garden this morning? I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“We had nothing to do with this.” Arthur puffed out his chest, trying to appear larger. Overblown machismo wasn’t his usual cup of tea, but when it came to McMartin, it was better to fight fire with fire. Besides, he couldn’t deny the burst of indignation that rose in him at the sheriff’s insinuation. “For you to cast suspicion on us simply because we’re vampires is unacceptable. For all you know, he might have died of natural causes.”
“Well, the body of George Roth implies otherwise,” McMartin snapped.
Arthur opened his mouth to argue, but his eyes fell on the corpse and he looked—really looked—at George Roth, who in death was very different than he had been in life: pale, motionless, silent. As Arthur peered closer, his eyes caught on something he hadn’t seen before, because it had been hidden by the collar of Roth’s shirt. On the corpse’s neck, there were two small red marks. Someone less observant—or less bigoted—might have mistaken them for insect bites. But Arthurwasobservant, and McMartin, it seemed, was both.
Salvatore let out a little “oh” of surprise as he, too, noticed the bite mark.
“Is he a suspect?” Arthur asked.
“Of course I am!” Salvatore threw his arms around Arthur’s neck. “I should’ve expected this. They always blame the spouse!”
“You’re my spouse, not the victim’s,” Arthur said in a low voice. “This is serious, Sal.” But Salvatore was the type to decide for himself which things mattered, and McMartin’s authority didn’t seem to rank among them. Turning to the sheriff, Arthur said, “You can’t—”
“I can.” McMartin removed a shiny set of handcuffs from his pocket.
“I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I’m monogamous these days, and— Hey, those are cold.” Salvatore struggled against the restraints as McMartin snapped the cuffs around his wrists. “That’s not fair! I can’t pick the lock with my hands behind my back.”
“You’re coming with me.” McMartin’s voice deepened, each word enunciated as if he were delivering a dramatic line before a commercial break.
“What?” Salvatore gasped in faux shock. “Hang on, you can’t arrest me; there’s biscuits and clotted cream—and I had a nap planned for later—”
“Sheriff McMartin, please, there’s no need for this.” Arthur tried to follow him to his car, a shamelessly polished green Mustang—“Highland Green,” McMartin would tell anyone who listened—but his path was blocked by the arrival of the coroner’s van. It rolled to a stop inconveniently in front of him, and as Arthur rounded it in a huff, the door opened.
“If I’d known you were having a garden party, I would’ve worn a bigger hat.” The coroner, dressed in a knit beanie, drapey sweater, and Doc Martens, hopped from the driver’s side, landing directly in a shallow puddle. Rainwater splattered up the legs of her black jeans, but her smile remained undisturbed. “Lore’s the name, corpse collector, mortician, and aspiring soaper.”
Arthur had met Lore on a few occasions—first at a city council meeting where the “paranormal issue” had been discussed at length by mostly non-paranormals, and then every other Tuesday or so in the baking aisle of the grocer. She always bought gluten-free flour and wore a series of gold hoops in her pointed elf ears. Beyond that, though, she wasn’t much more than a stranger to him. Still, he thought it odd that she introduced herself, until he realized her outstretched hand wasn’t for him, but for Nora.
Rumble hissed and darted between Nora’s legs as she stepped forward to accept Lore’s hand. “Nora Anderson, city manager.”
“Charmed,” Lore said. “Not literally, obviously. I don’t mess with spellwork anymore. Now, I’m here to pick up a body?”
“Over here.” Nora waved her forward.
Arthur ducked back around Lore’s van to see Salvatore being forced into the Mustang.
“My safeword isbourgeoisie.” Salvatore waggled his eyebrows as McMartin secured his seat belt and closed the door. Salvatore caught Arthur’s eye through the window, which was half-occluded with the stark reflection of the Iris Inn. “Avenge me, my love!” he shouted loud enough to startle McMartin as he revved the engine.
Before Arthur could explain that avenging was usually reserved for more fatal encounters, the McMartin-mobile blared to life and tore down the driveway, leaving Arthur behind to consider the impact a dead bodyandan arrest for murder might have on business.
Chapter 4
“Interesting choice ofgarden decor. I would’ve gone with a gnome or a flamingo maybe, but a corpse definitely has a vibe,” Lore said as she approached the late mayor with a gurney. “Sorry. I talk too much when things are awkward.” A pink blush crept into her cheeks, her weak smile transforming into a full-blown cringe.
Lore wasn’t what Arthur expected from a coroner. Hers was also an elected position, and she seemed too young for the job. Then again, everyone seemed too young to Arthur, even Salvatore, who was several hundred years Arthur’s senior. Lore might’ve been older than Arthur. She wasn’t human either, after all. In addition to her pointed ears and pink paintball-splatter irises, she had a bright smile and bubbly attitude—wholly inappropriate for someone collecting the body of a suspected murder victim.
A vampire, an elf, and a municipal employee walked into a garden…It had the ring of a joke, but Arthur was still waiting for the punch line. Time to do some damage control. This morning had really gone off the rails, but maybe he could still salvage things.
“Would anyone care for a beverage, or a snack?”
