Free Death by Pumpkin Spice by Alex Erickson Page B

talk to him.”
    Paul’s eyes narrowed at the “we” part, but nodded. “I’ll talk to him.” His frown deepened. “Are people leaving?”
    I glanced back. There were definitely fewer people in the ballroom than there had been a few minutes ago. “They’re wandering around,” I told him. “Igor won’t let anyone leave.”
    Margaret sniffed. “His name is Vince.”
    I shrugged. Vince? Igor? His name didn’t matter just as long as he was keeping our killer from sneaking away.
    Paul sighed and ran a hand over his face. He looked weary. “Okay.” He turned to Margaret. “We’ll need to talk at some point, but I’m going to put it off for now. Can you try to wrangle everyone back into the ballroom? We need to find the man in the black suit and hat.”
    She nodded. “I can.”
    â€œGood.” He turned to me. “You’ll have to come with me.”
    â€œMe? Why?” Instant worry shot through me. He couldn’t possibly think I knew more than I was letting on.
    â€œI need you to identify this guy when we find him,” he said. “There are quite a lot of black hats and suits here tonight. I can’t question them all.” He paused. “Do you think you’ll recognize him if you saw him again?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œGood.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “Are you ready for this?”
    â€œAs ready as I’ll ever be.”
    â€œI’ll go see if I can find everyone,” Margaret said before heading down the hall.
    Paul watched her go and then motioned for me to go ahead of him. “After you.”
    â€œGee thanks.” Just what I was looking forward to: hunting down a man who could very well be a murderer.
    What could possibly go wrong with that?

7
    â€œWhat about one of those men?” Paul sounded tired as we strode around the crowded room. No matter how many times he asked the guests to stay in one spot, they continued to mill about, making it hard to keep track of whom we had and hadn’t already seen.
    I followed his eyes and then shook my head. “I think we checked them already.”
    He heaved a sigh and we moved on.
    I’d fully expected our search to be difficult, but it was starting to get a little silly. Both Paul and I were frustrated, and the longer we continued our search, the more convinced I became that the man was long gone. He could easily have slipped out before the body was discovered. Igor, as I continued to think of him, claims no one had left through the front door, but there were back exits as well. He might even have escaped through a window for all we knew.
    â€œMaybe we should lock everyone up,” I said. “If we section them off in groups of ten or so, we could check them over, and once we make sure our man isn’t one of them, lock them in one of the rooms before moving on to the next group. It would keep us from checking the same people twice.” Or three or four times as we’d already done in some cases.
    â€œTempting,” Paul said. “But I don’t want to start a riot. These people will rebel the moment we start locking people up. It would cause more problems than I’m prepared to deal with.”
    He was probably right, but I liked the idea, anyway. Once we locked everyone up, our murderer would be safely tucked away until Buchannan got here, and I could spend some quality time with Will. I’d already left him alone long enough.
    We were moving along the wall near the drinks when I caught a glimpse of a black top hat just peeking over the edge of the table. I nudged Paul and pointed. The man was mostly hidden from view, which was why we’d overlooked him for so long.
    Paul nodded and held up a finger to me to wait. As much as it pained me, I listened.
    â€œSir?” he said, approaching the slumped form. When the man didn’t move, I became instantly