Free Nothing to Fear But Ferrets by Linda O. Johnston

pushed.
    “Not really.” She sighed. “He was the best of the fifteen-man pool I started with. I knew that right off. And . . . well, by the end I actually was in love with him.” Another hefty swill.
    “I see,” I claimed, while my mind mulled over this revelation. “Did you know you’d have to choose between him and a bunch of money when you picked Chad?”
    She shook her head. “No, but there’ve been a lot of reality shows that have a catch. A few made the main player choose between mucho money and supposedly true love. Some shows were straightforward about their endings, some weren’t. I figured something like that could happen in this one, too, and I was fully prepared to pick love over money.”
    I felt floored. That wasn’t what I’d anticipated. Charlotte had Yul now and a whole lot of loot. Plus a burgeoning career in reality TV.
    And she’d chewed out Chad but good at her party, without hiding it from any of her house full of guests.
    “But you dumped Chad on the last day, right?” I asked.
    She nodded sadly. As she spoke, her speech was slurred. “That was when I found out he was really in it for the fame and fortune. Not that he was offered money and a show to dump me, but he accidentally let slip about his girlfriend from home, how his being on the show had been her idea, and how she was still in the picture.”
    “That doesn’t make sense.”
    “Sure it does, sort of. Hardly any couples in these shows actually stay together long enough to still be an item months later, let alone get married. But most major contestants became media celebrities, at least temporarily. There’s lots of money in that. It’s what Chad and his girlfriend apparently counted on—together. Only when I found out, I decided that if I couldn’t have him, I might as well settle for fortune and fame, and a reality show of my own.”
    “Might as well,” I agreed. My mind was definitely boggled. I’d already decided that, huggy habits or not, Charlotte was probably a mercenary queen, ready to kick a guy who was down on his knees to propose to her right in his impoverished teeth.
    Instead, she’d settled for a bushel of money as second best.
    “And then Chad showed up at your party. Didn’t his visit threaten what you’d gotten?”
    “Yes,” she acknowledged. This time, she just took a sip, maybe because her drink had nearly disappeared. “I was pretty damned mad about it, especially since he and his girlfriend nearly made a fool of me. I guess I made a spectacle of myself.”
    “Everyone understood,” I said sagely, then added, “Of course it also gave you a good motive to kill him.”
    “Kendra, you can’t believe that!” she squealed. “I mean, that nasty detective said the ferrets had human help, but not even he has accused me of having anything to do with Chad’s death.” She paused, eyes rolling upward as she pondered. “Not directly, at least. He really upset me.”
    Hence her histrionics in the car? Maybe.
    I’d found out the hard way that Noralles wasn’t a nitwit. I wondered how he’d become certain the ferrets hadn’t acted alone in killing Chad—the autopsy?
    And whom did he suspect, if not this possible perpetrator who’d had motive, means, and opportunity? Or was he playing cagey with Charlotte, waiting for her to implicate herself?
    “I suppose, by ‘nasty detective,’ you’re referring to Detective Noralles?” I asked dryly.
    “You know him?” She looked at me in confusion till her blue eyes narrowed in understanding. “He was the one who tried to pin those murders on you, wasn’t he?”
    “The same,” I acknowledged with a smile as wry as I could grin it. “What has he asked you?”
    “Mostly about ferret habits.” She swung herself to her feet. She had to hang on to the table, I figured, since she’d chugged the hefty helping of rum in less than a minute. To make sure the table and Charlotte stayed erect, I held on, steadying it, feeling it tilt in my tenant’s