Free Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) by Maia Chance

it in the corner. Then she went to the window. It was just a tall rectangle cut out from the stone wall. No glass. They did things old-fashioned here at Schloss Grunewald. She leaned out.
    Down below, maybe two stories, were the walled kitchen gardens with leafy vegetable beds and gravel walkways. The scraping sound came from a hoe, and the hoe was held by Hansel.
    Crackers.
    There he was, splendiferous in his white peasant shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to show sun-brown forearms, and his golden curls shone in the morning sun. Meanwhile,
she
was got up in an ugly brown dress with straw stuck all over, her nose and chin felt greasy, and there wasn’t a mirror or hairbrush in sight.
    Well. Ma sure wouldn’t approve of her talking to a fellow when she was so messy. But Ma wasn’t here, was she?
    “Psst,” Prue whispered.
    Hansel went on hoeing.
    She surveyed the garden. No one else was around, unless you counted the pecking hens in the yard by the wall.
    “Hey!” she whispered, louder this time.
    Hansel paused and straightened, wiped his forehead with his arm, and went back to hoeing.
    Prue turned and scanned the dim tower room. Her eyes fell on a tray by the door, which she hadn’t noticed before. On the tray were an earthen jug and a plate of—she went and crouched beside it—pastries. Three of them. Frau Holder’s scrumptious kind with the buttery apple on the inside. And cinnamon. Still crouching, Prue gobbled one up. Heaven. She washed it down with water from the jug. Then she ate a second pastry. She’d have to sacrifice the third.
    She took it to the window, aimed, and pelted it. Her lessons backstage in New York with the baseball-mad boys paid off. The pastry hit Hansel square on the back of the head.
    He spun around.
    Prue smiled and waved with just her fingers, like Ma had shown her.
    Hansel dropped his hoe and came to the base of the tower. He shaded his eyes with his hand. “I will not tell Frau Holder you are squandering her pastries.”
    “She’d never believe you, anyway. She knows them apple ones are my especial favorites.” Prue batted her lashes, something else Ma had taught her early on. “Won’t you let me out of this dump? It’s a sparrow hotel in here. I know you could go and fetch the key from Frau Holder and—”
    “Let you out? I ought not even be speaking to you. Not after last night.”
    “How could you even
suggest
I killed that old boiler? After—”
    “Not that, Prue. You know I—you know that we are friends. I would not betray you.”
    “You didn’t say anything about me being an actress to the police, you mean?” She’d accidentally spilled the beans to Hansel about that last week, but she was fair certain she could trust him.
    “No. We are friends.”
    “Then who’s going to tattle if you let me out for a little leg stretch? Them chickens over there?”
    He scratched his head. “Truly, Prue, it would be delightful to stroll with you awhile, but—”
    “I was intending on asking you. How come you didn’t tell that horrible police feller that I was with
you
before tea yesterday? So I couldn’t have gone up to my chamber and poisoned that apple like he said?”
    Hansel glanced away.
    Prue watched him. He was a looker and mighty gentlemanly for a gardener. But he was still just a servant. Ma would never approve. Ma had always claimed that a gent’s best feature was his bank account.
    “I did tell Schubert,” Hansel finally said. “He did not believe me.”
    “But why would he think you’d lie?”
    “He suspects that I helped you.”
    “Helped me?”
    “Helped you kill Mr. Coop.”
    “Carry me home! Why would you ever do that?”
    “Because we are friends.”
    Prue sighed. “I’m sorry, Hansel, truly I am.”
    “So you can see, it would not be wise for me to let you out.”
    Something told Prue that no amount of eyelash fluttering or lower lip wobbling was going to change his mind. “Will you at least tell me what’s happening in the castle?