Free Mummers' Curse by Gillian Roberts Page A

alibi.”
    “I’m innocent, I swear on my son’s head. But when the cops kept asking me where I was, I panicked. All I could think of was you were there, I was there, why couldn’t I have been looking for you? Why won’t you cover for me?”
    “Because it isn’t true.”
    “It could have been true.”
    “Besides, my—” I faltered, as always searching for the missing term for the Mackenzie roommate. Society’s word makers don’t create nice labels for things they aren’t sure they want to have, like romantic partners living together while legally single. “The man I live with was with me,” I said. “And he’s a cop. On this case.”
    Vincent looked as if I’d slapped him, as if I’d taken away his only chance at avoiding the guillotine. And I suddenly wondered if perhaps he had shot his old buddy.
    Who had ever said or known when it had happened? Why was Vincent so eager to establish that he was away when nobody yet knew when that should have been? Maybe he was in the parade the whole time, next to Jimmy Pat, close enough to brush by on a twirl and plant a bullet. Maybe it did matter enough who became Captain of the club, whose father didn’t die young, who wound up with Dolores Grassi. Maybe the wearing of the frame suit was the final straw.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “Truly. Even if I don’t understand why you’re in this mess, I’m sorry you are. But my hands are tied. Aside from ethics, there’s no practical point to my lying. It won’t work, not for a minute.”
    “Oh, God,” he said, “what am I going to do?”
    “How about trying the truth?” I asked softly. “It’s so much easier.”
    “I told you. I’m not going to shame her, particularly now that he’s dead, it would be…” He might have explained more, but just then, after an overly loud warning knock—what did she think/fear was going on down here? And why warn us so loudly that she was about to witness whatever it was?—Barbs began her descent carrying a tray laden with steaming bowls and baked goods.
    That was the end of Mission: Devaney. It hadn’t been a particularly rewarding time. I still didn’t know whether I believed my fellow teacher and friend. I only established that he had a temper sudden and fierce enough to make me wonder, and what seemed a long-lasting yen for Dolores Grassi.
    Ah, yes. I also established that I wasn’t at all fond of Pepper Pot soup.

Five
    IT WAS NOW LATE MORNING. BARBS’S SOUP AND FRUITCAKE lay heavy, greasy, and overly present on the floor of my stomach, and even so, provided scant insulation against the cold. I had no idea what I should do next, so I called home for further instructions from My Leader, who wasn’t back yet.
    Which is when I remembered that I didn’t have or want a leader. But neither did I have a sense of direction, and I would have liked that.
    I reconnoitered and figured out that I was pretty much nowhere. And so was Vincent, far as I could see.
    I didn’t understand. Shouldn’t a decently working marriage be able to withstand the innocuous truth? So maybe he carried a torch for an old girlfriend. Not optimal, but was it such a world-shaking big deal? Did it really matter all that much as long as he held the torch and not the girl?
    Or was Barbs onto something, and was Vincent lying? What was it really with the old girlfriend, his good, now dead, guy-friend’s fiancée? Did he mean he wouldn’t shame Dolores with the truth, particularly now that her fiancé; was dead, because he wanted to stay in her favor? Or because the truth would reveal him as a man having an assignation with his best friend’s fiancée, and make him seem even more suspicious?
    Dolores seemed the key to everything. If Vincent were telling the truth, then where had she been? Why was she “in distress,” as he’d put it? Why had she summoned him if admitting it publicly would “shame” her?
    Still, I was certainly not going to barge into her home and demand answers while she was in