Free Pleating for Mercy by Melissa Bourbon Page B

government offices. I wondered if they had much leeway. It seemed likely that the building was part of the historic registry.
    Josie and I stayed a step behind Sheriff McClaine. Even his walk was lazy, his bowed legs making him look like he belonged on a horse rather than in a police car. Josie clutched my arm, slowing me down. “What do you think he wants to ask me?” she said in a feathery voice that still seemed too loud for the former church.
    I couldn’t even speculate. Miss Marple’s St. Mary Mead and The Murder at the Vicarage had not prepared me for a real murder. “Routine questioning?” I said, hoping I was right and that McClaine just wanted to fill in whatever gaps his deputy might have left from the night before.
    “He’s not going to arrest me, is he?”
    “I’m sure he’s not,” I said, praying that I was right.
    “So I’ll just answer his questions and he’ll let me go. Not cooperating would be bad, right?”
    She seemed to need reassurance. I offered what little I could. I nodded.
    It seemed enough to bolster her. As she shuffled to catch up to the sheriff, I glanced over my shoulder. Still no sign of Nate screeching to a halt just outside the door, ready to barrel in, Josie’s knight in shining armor.
    It was quieter outside than a field of cotton.
    We walked up the ramp across from the sanctuary, turned right, and made our way down a hallway that used to lead to the church classrooms but now seemed to house all the actual city offices. Brown placards engraved in gold identified the occupants of each space. We passed the mayor’s office, the council members’ offices—one for each of them—animal control, business services, public works, personnel, and finally, at the end of the hallway, law enforcement.
    There was a separate entrance with a counter and a clerk who probably dealt with traffic violations and such. Poor Josie. By the look on her face, the scenic route through the building had done a number on her.
    We stopped in front of McClaine’s office. He took the toothpick from his mouth and used it to point to a hollow aluminum-framed chair. “You can have a seat there,” he said to me.
    Humph. I’d naively thought I would be able to stay by Josie’s side when he questioned her, for moral support as much as to stay in the loop. The murder happened on my property, after all. “Tell Nate where I am when . . . when—” She broke off, her voice trembling. “If he comes,” she finished.
    I squeezed her arm. “He’ll come,” I said to reassure her. Then they disappeared into the office and I sank down onto the uncomfortable chair, wishing I had been blessed with the ability to hear through walls. That was a Cassidy gift that would come in handy right about now.
    No matter how close I pressed my ear to the wall, I couldn’t hear a thing.
    “Ms. Cassidy?”
    I jumped, knocking my cadet hat askew. Madelyn Brighton stood in front of me. I noticed she was shorter than she’d seemed the night before. Up close, her skin was the color of sable, the black of her short hair several shades darker. It didn’t look as perfectly coiffed, more like she’d poked her finger in an electrical outlet, sending stray strands on end. It reminded me a little of Alfalfa from The Little Rascals , only instead of one wild hair, she had them all over. Oddly, it worked for her.
    “I’m Madelyn Brighton. I work for the department.”
    “The photographer, right,” I said. “My mother said you’re working on a town brochure?” I was still trying to connect the dots between a Madelyn Brighton, crime photographer and Madelyn Brighton—
    “Freelance,” she said, answering my unasked question. “I contract out with the city, do weddings and graduations.” Her British accent landed somewhere between Eliza Doolittle and Dame Judi Dench. “You name it,” she said, “I photograph it.”
    I took her extended hand. She pumped up and down exactly three times before dropping mine. “I saw you last