Free Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow by Patricia Harwin Page A

shower, and got into slacks and a sweater, trying all the time to figure out why Stone would have fingered Peter instead of the real killer. By the time I was into my raincoat Muzzle had had enough of the wet outdoors and was back on the doorstep, reaching up to paw at the doorknob ineffectually.
    “It’s never going to work,” I told him as he scooted through the door. “Not without an opposable thumb.”
    I turned the heat up a little, to keep him comfortable, and hurried out to the car. Driving into Oxford I heard the radio weatherman cheerily predicting a full day of rain, not even offering the hope of “sunny intervals,” as they sometimes did. I passed Stone’s house, closed and dark, and wondered how his poor wife was coping. She was well rid of her sadistic husband, but such a shock couldn’t have done her mental condition any good.
    Emily had given me a key to their apartment, and I used it in case she was sleeping, although it was almost eight-thirty now. As soon as the door swung open I realized how dumb it had been not to call first. Quin and his woman were already there.
    Archie jumped up from the sofa where he’d been sitting between them, ran to me, and threw his arms around my legs, immobilizing me in the doorway.
    “Nana,” he said happily.
    I knew better than to confine him in a hug. I just rubbed his curls and said, “Archie.” He responded, “Ow!” and backed away, and I realized his head was still tender from the bump yesterday.
    Emily came across and gave me a kiss, murmuring, “I should have called you when they came. I just didn’t think.”
    “Neither did I,” I whispered back. “Don’t worry, I’ll be good this time.”
    Her face was pale and strained, her eyes pink-rimmed. I put my arms around her and for a moment we stood there in a three-way hug, before Archie bounced back to Quin.
    “Nana, taypay!” he announced, waving his arms at Quin, so I was forced to look at him. He was holding a small portable tape player on his lap.
    “Hi, Kit,” he said, smiling. Of course I didn’t answer. I glanced at the girlfriend and saw with satisfaction that she looked sulky and was obviously, as he had said, not having much fun.
    Archie started punching every button on the little machine at once.
    “No, no,” Quin said, taking hold of his hand. “You don’t get any music that way. This is what you do,” and he set one small finger on a button and pressed it down. A shrill, saccharine voice came from it, singing, “Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clemens, You owe me four farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin’s—”
    Archie’s eyes got bigger, and he stared at the player as if it were magic. When the singer paused at the end of the song he breathed reverently, “Taypay!”
    “It’s yours,” Quin said, putting Archie’s hand around the machine’s handle. “When the music stops I’ll show you how to hear the other side.”
    The girlfriend grimaced when Archie leaned against her leg, examining the tape player. She moved a little away, out of contact with him, and didn’t see Quin’s brief frown as he noticed her distaste for his grandson.
    Archie ran over to Rose, his shy young nanny, making herself as inconspicuous as she could in a straight chair at one end of the room. “Vofe, taypay!” he informed her.
    “Ooh, isn’t it lovely?” she said, glancing furtively at Quin. Rose, I knew from past experience, was highly susceptible to older men with dominant personalities, and she appeared to have developed a crush on her employer’s father. “Isn’t your granda kind to give you such a nice gift?”
    Archie plopped down on the floor with his new toy. That irritating voice was now singing about the Duke of York’s pointless sortie up the hill.
    “We’ve got a CD player now, of course,” Quin said, “so I brought the old tape player for the kid. More fun for him than CDs, with all the buttons to push. It ought to keep him out of your hair, Em, with all