04b1ef9c60873c444a27c4afd3197be1

“Do you like tea?” asked Dooley.

“Not particularly, no,” said the dog.

“Oh. I thought, you being English and all, you’d love tea.”

“Dooley,” I said warningly.

“Just establishing Fluffy’s frame of mind,” said Dooley.

I tamped down a groan.“Tessa was given a cup of tea laced with Belladonna. Do you have any idea who might have poured her that tea?”

“Cook,” Fluffy said instantly. “That’s the only person I can think of.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

“Who brought her the tea?”

“Suzy. The maid.”

“She could have dumped that poison in.”

“She seems like a nice person, this Suzy,” Dooley commented. “Just saying,” he added when I gave him a censorious look.

“She is nice,” Fluffy agreed. “Which is why she would never poison Tessa’s tea. Suzy is devoted to Tessa.”

“See?” said Dooley. “She has a nice face. Not the face of a killer.”

“And how would you know what a killer’s face looks like?” I asked.

“Killers are mean—they have mean faces. Suzy has a nice face.”

There was no arguing with Dooley, so I decided to ignore him.“What about this cook person?” I asked.

“Yes, well. Cook doesn’t like Tessa. Never has. Whenever I’m in the kitchen prancing around all she does is complain about Tessa. On and on it goes. Quite galling. Not at all pleasant to hear someone badmouth your human like that.”

“What does she say?”

“That Tessa is arrogant, thinks she knows best, always interferes with her work—Cook’s work, I mean. Tessa has very particular ideas about the food she eats. What she considers healthy choices. So she gives precise instructions what to cook for her and Dante. In fact she’s in the kitchen all the time, trying out new recipes, using the blender to make green smoothies for herself and her husband, experimenting with different ingredients and recipes.”

“And Cook doesn’t like that.”

“Oh, she hates it. Says she’s never worked for anyone as prissy and utterly demanding as Tessa, which I’m sure is simply not true.”

“Do you think she hates her enough to try and murder her?”

Fluffy thought hard again, screwing up her face so much her nose disappeared between her eyebrows, then reemerged when she opened her mouth to speak.“I’m not sure,” she said finally. “I’ve seen my fair share of Sherlock Holmes on TV, and even Father Brown. But it’s hard to determine who the killer is, if you can’t actually see them do it, if you see what I mean.”

“Those TV detectives are all very clever,” I agreed. “In real life it’s a lot harder to figure out whodunit.”

“Exactly. They make it look so easy.”

“They do make it look easy,” said Dooley. “Like Aurora Teagarden. I like Aurora Teagarden,” he explained. “She’s a librarian and she’s very pretty.”

Fluffy and I waited for him to tell us more about Aurora Teagarden and why he liked her so much but this seemed to be the extent of his remarks on the subject. So I thanked Fluffy, figuring I’d elicited all the information I could expect, and would have retreated back to the safety of Odelia’s room if Dante hadn’t waltzed in from the nursery and closed the door, cutting off our line of retreat!

“I can’t believe this!” he was shouting. “You do this every time!”

“Keep your voice down! You’ll wake up Silvy!” Tessa hissed.

Oh, heck. We’d just landed ourselves in the middle of a domestic dispute!

Chapter 11

Dooley and I had crawled under the sofa, not wanting to be seen trespassing, and had a worm’s-eye view of both Fluffy and the quarreling couple. Fluffy, who seemed to have resigned herself to the quarrel, watched the news, from time to time darting an anxious look at her owners, then down to us, as if to say: ‘Can you believe this?’

I could—even though I didn’t want to!

“Oh, this is rich,” said Dante once Tessa had closed to the door to the nursery. “First you tell me I can’t go to the pub and now you’re telling me I can’t even invite a mate over for a quiet drink? You’re too much, Tessa.”

“You know as well as I do that it won’t be quiet for very long when Damien drops by.”

“I never see the bloke anymore!”

“You told me yourself you needed to grow up. That things were different now that Silvy is in our lives. That Damien doesn’t fit with the Dante you want to be.”

“He’s been my best mate since we were kids!”

“So go and see him! But not at the pub. You know what people will say.”

“People talk regardless of what I do. So do I have to stay cooped up in here for the rest of my life? I didn’t sign up to be a recluse, Tessa. I’m too young to turn into one of those long-bearded blokes who shuffle around in their PJs with crumbs caked to their face and hair growing out of every orifice.”

Tessa stared at him for a moment, then couldn’t keep a straight face and neither could he. They both burst out laughing, and soon were wiping away tears.

“Are they crying now?” asked Dooley.

“They’re tears of laughter,” I explained.

“I don’t get it. Can you laugh and cry at the same time?”

“Humans can. They laugh so hard they get teary-eyed. It’s true,” I added when he gave me a skeptical look.

“It’s true,” Fluffy said from the couch. “Humans are weird.”