Free Arsenic and Old Books by Miranda James

to be mere coincidence, would you say?” I asked.
    Helen Louise nodded. “Yes, but I wouldn’t have remarked on it, probably, until you explained who she is.”
    â€œMaybe she’s following him around, trying to catch him out on something.” That seemed possible, given she was secretly engaged to Singletary’s opponent. I couldn’t tell Helen Louise that, however.
    â€œShe’s being rather obvious about it, wouldn’t you say?” Helen Louise glanced back in the direction of Kelly Grimes. “Surely he, or one of his aides, would have picked up on it by now.”
    â€œTrue,” I said. “They can’t all be oblivious.” I watched the writer for a moment.
    At the table next to her, the men pushed back their chairs and stood. Jasper Singletary motioned with his hand, and the other men began to file toward the door. He turned in the direction of the restroom. He didn’t appear to notice Kelly Grimes when he passed her.
    She stared after him until he disappeared into the hallway where the restrooms were located. Then she gathered her things and made her way out of the bakery. Was she going to follow Singletary to his next stop? I wondered.
    Helen Louise turned to me and shrugged. “Guess that’s over for now.” She stood and picked up the two empty plates. “How about dessert?”
    I shook my head. “No, after that wonderful meal and the big breakfast Azalea cooked, I’d better not. Otherwise I’ll have to run to Memphis and back to work it all off.”
    We shared a laugh, and Helen Louise said, “I’ll be back in a minute,” before she walked away with the plates.
    â€œWe’re going to have to get back to work,” I told Diesel, who stared longingly after Helen Louise. He wanted more chicken, but he’d had more than enough already. He turned to me and meowed. “I want to stop by the bookstore first, though. We haven’t been in there lately, and I want to see what’s new.”
    The cat meowed again. I thought he recognized the word
bookstore
. He liked going to the Athenaeum, the town’s only independent bookstore. The owner, Jordan Thompson, always made a fuss over him. Today, however, I would have to tell her not to give him any cat treats. Otherwise, he might have to join me on that jog to Memphis and back.
    While I waited for Helen Louise to return, I decided I might as well make a restroom stop before we left. “Come on, boy,” I told Diesel and picked up his leash.
    I had taken only a couple of steps when I saw Jasper Singletary return to the dining room. As I moved closer, I saw him pause right by Kelly Grimes’s vacated table and pull out a cell phone. He stared down at it, and if I hadn’t been watching closely, I would have missed what happened next.
    With his free hand he picked up something from the table and thrust it into his pocket. He stared at the cell phone a moment longer, and then he tucked it back into its holster on his belt. He strode toward the door and nodded at me as we passed each other.
    More strange behavior. There was definitely something afoot. What had he scooped up from the table? I pondered that as I completed my business in the restroom. Diesel waited patiently near me.
    I couldn’t really see what Jasper had picked up, but it had to be something small. The writer had been scribbling in a notebook earlier, so perhaps it was a piece of paper. A note of some kind?
    That sounded probable. But why the secret communication, if it was indeed a note?
    Back at the table, where Helen Louise waited, I told her what I’d seen. She grimaced. “
Incroyable!
Sounds almost like CIA stuff, and that’s just plain silly.”
    I shrugged. “It’s politics, so who knows? If I run into Maxwell Smart or Ninety-nine, I’ll ask them to look into it.”
    Helen Louise laughed at my reference to the old sixties television show. “It