Free Speak Ill of the Dead by Mary Jane Maffini

close second was Jo Quinlan, who averaged two major slams a year by Mitzi. I wasn’t sure who suffered the most slings and arrows: Deb or Jo.
    I flipped through the magazines and checked the little credits area in the front. The photographer was the same for all the Deb and Jo pictures and many of the others. He smiled out from a photograph that made him look very, very good. I fished the scissors from the desk and snipped out the picture of the photographer.
    Sammy Dash was his name, a man who obviously loved his work.

Six
    A lvin was settled in at the desk, humming, so I found myself huddled in the back of the office, surrounded by work I should have been doing. It was just after nine in the morning, but already I did not feel like working. All I could think about was rat-faced Mombourquette waiting for his chance to scurry through the Findlays’ front door and drag Robin off to the station, still in her pink pig slippers.
    No, the best thing, I told myself, was not to sit in the office listening to Alvin sing his favourite Fred Eaglesmith song for the eighty-second time. The best thing would be to get out and stir up a little dust to distract Ottawa’s finest from my very, very vulnerable client. I had a few strong options based on reading about Mitzi’s favourite victims. A phone call was all it took, and I was on my way.
    “You’re spooking the horses,” Alvin sang, “and you’re scaring me.”
    “Good,” I said, just before I slammed the door.
    *   *   *
    Deb Goodhouse was one of those rare women who look good in red. Very good. Her hair was still dark brown, almost black, cut in a dutch-boy style. Her dark eyes and ivory skin showed to advantage with her red blazer and matching slash of lipstick. She looked like Snow White, grown middle-aged and professional. She smiled and shook my hand till my bones ached. But I could tell she was not at all glad to see me.
    “Well,” she said, “imagine. Alex and Donnie’s little sister. What can I do for you?”
    I wondered if she could have been one of the handful of Ottawans who had missed the sight of Robin and me being hustled away from Mitzi’s murder site by the cops. Somehow I doubted it.
    Still, she’d been willing to see me, which was the only way I could have gotten past the long-faced security guards and into the labyrinth of offices in the West Block of the Parliament Buildings.
    Deb Goodhouse’s assistant, tall, beautiful and black, had ushered me in through the antechamber to the M.P.’s office.
    “Thanks for seeing me. This is great,” I said, gawking like the rest of the tourists on the Hill. I had got past the area designated for the public.
    The soft leather padding on the door made me wonder, but Deb Goodhouse’s office was less opulent than I expected, even taking the leather sofa, the brass floor lamp, and the very good rug under the mahogany coffee table into consideration. A television set stood within easy view from the desk or the sofa. Citations from dozens of civic organizations hung around with portraits of former Prime Ministers. A small Canadian flag sat on the desk.
    “I always wondered what it was like inside a Member of Parliament’s office.”
    Deb sat behind her massive desk, her fingers pressed together in a tent. She wore red nail polish and a chunky square-cut silver bracelet with matching earrings. Her body language said “shut up and get out of here”, but her red lips stayed curved in a tight little smile.
    Mitzi had done a real number on her. I thought back to phrases such as “Polyester Goes to Parliament”, “Pound for Pound the Voter’s Choice” and “The Hulk on the Hill”. It seemed absurd to think of Deb Goodhouse in those terms. She was a large woman, but polished and attractive, looking younger than her fortysomething years. Her overall image was one of competence and calm. Of course, she was a little tense, but that was because I was there.
    “Mitzi Brochu.” I met her eyes as I said