Free A Festival of Murder by Tricia Hendricks Page B

finger quotes made
Nicholas think of bobbing bunny ears. “I’m sure I’m mistaken, but I thought he
also mentioned something about having been arrested! Can you imagine? He
accused Rocky of coming to Hightop to, and I quote, ‘dig up dinosaurs long
buried.’” More bobbing bunny ears.
    “I
had no idea Horace was a former criminal,” Nicholas said as casually as he
could, watching Charles for reaction. “I’m sure he’s cleaned up his act since
then.”
    “Who
knows what he could have done!” By Charles’s excited manner he’d already put
some thought to it and come up with some appalling crimes. “He told Rocky
something along the lines of, ‘If you try to hang me, too, you’ll regret it.’”
Charles blinked slowly, like an owl. “Once a criminal, always a criminal. By
the Maker, I think he did it.”
    Nicholas
felt vaguely ill. “That’s a big conclusion to jump to.”
    “Even
if I hadn’t overheard him saying such things, you have to admit he’s the
perfect type for it.”
    “Is
he?”
    For
the first time since his mountain retreat began to be invaded by his
now-neighbors, Nicholas wished he knew more about them. All these months of
avoiding them and pretending he didn’t see them when he drove to the shop each
day was coming back to haunt him.
    Charles’s
eyes were huge again. “He looks like a murderer and now we’ve learned he has a
bad past!”
    “Everyone
has a history, Charles. Horace’s may not necessarily be bad enough to have
driven him to become a murderer. One doesn’t lead to the other.”
    Charles
bit his lip. “But what if he was a murderer? Freed on parole? He’s the
most likely suspect. There’s no way around it!”
    The
other man’s passionate rebuttals to everything Nicholas said were beginning to
make Nicholas feel like he was feeding lines to a stage actor.
    Charles’s
shiny face tilted sideways. “This is just between us, right, Nicholas? I wouldn’t
want to implicate any of my neighbors.”
    Like
you just did? Nicholas thought, but he obligingly said, “I hate gossip.”
    “Good.
Good. Glad we feel the same about this. Well, er, I have bookkeeping to catch
up on. Have to work my magic on the numbers and all that.”
    Charles’s
smile was pained, suggesting the magic was in short supply. It didn’t often
occur to Nicholas, since he rarely thought about his neighbors unless they were
annoying him, that their businesses were also floundering and had been for some
time now. How desperate were they to keep someone like Rocky Johnson from
burying their businesses for good? Could this be a recreation of Murder on
the Orient Express ?
    “A
slow week or two isn’t anything to worry about,” Nicholas said. He had no idea
what he was talking about, but he felt pressured to say something optimistic in
the face of Charles’s obvious distress.
    “It’s
been a bit tight,” Charles said. “Doesn’t help that deliveries haven’t made it
up since Tuesday.” His eyes flicked once toward the back of the inn where the
stock was kept.
    “Hopefully,
you were able to load up for this weekend’s festivities?”
    Charles’s
nod was tentative, as though he were testing whether Nicholas would believe it.
Feeling uncharacteristically sympathetic for his neighbor, Nicholas decided not
to press the issue.
    “It’s
not as if these people came up here for the food anyway,” he said breezily. “I’m
sure none of them would mind starving if it meant more of them could fit inside
a flying saucer.”
    Charles
chuckled. “Indeed. And on that note—I’ll see you tonight, won’t I?” He gave an
awkward, bashful smile. “At the movie viewing party?”
    “With
any luck I’ll be arrested beforehand,” Nicholas replied, only partly joking.
    Charles
chuckled again and patted him on the shoulder before continuing toward the
dining room. Nicholas went the opposite way, passing through the wallpapered
hallway and emerging into a sunroom that served as a space for