0aeaa1e36e6f2e625b6ba8d48f773062

Suddenly Mrs. Wimmer spirited a small gun into her hand. We all stared at it in horror and shock, and so did Grace. She stumbled back and her legs hit the couch and she fell backward, still staring at that gun, a horrified expression on her face.

“You and I are going upstairs,” said Daphne, a dreadful coldness having come into her voice. “You’re going to take a bath now. A nice warm bath. Soothing to the nerves.”

“What are you doing?” said Grace, still staring at her friend as if not believing what was happening.

“Don’t worry, honey. This won’t be painful. Not painful at all. I’ll handle the razor.”

Grace’s eyes went wide. “Razor?! What—why are you doing this, Daphne?!”

“Because I can’t risk your conscience having any more of these lapses,” said Daphne, holding up her phone.

“But I’m telling you—that wasn’t me!”

Daphne gave her friend a wintry smile.“Oh, Grace. You’re just making this easier for me. If you’d simply told me the truth, I might have let you off the hook. But you leave me no choice. It’s obvious I can’t trust you anymore. And now up you go. Up!”

But before Grace could respond, suddenly the door to the living room burst open, and both Chase and Uncle Alec appeared.

“Put the gun down, Daphne!” Chase boomed, covering the woman with a gun of his own, which was a great deal larger than the small handgun the woman was holding.

Daphne yelped in surprise, and promptly dropped the gun to the floor.

Moments later it was all over. Daphne had been duly read her rights and arrested, and Uncle Alec was patting Grace’s hand and consoling the visibly stricken woman.

“That didn’t exactly go as planned,” I said, and only now noticed I’d been holding my breath for those last extremely tense moments.

“And now you’re going to tell me everything, Max,” said Harriet.

“And me,” said Brutus.

“Well, it all started with a smoothie,” I said.

Epilogue

“So… Daphne Wimmer killed her husband?” asked Harriet.

“And Jared Zmuda,” I said.

“Who would have thought?” said Brutus.

“Max would,” said Dooley proudly.

The four of us were seated on the porch swing, while our humans were enjoying a nice barbecue in Marge and Tex’s backyard. Uncle Alec was manning the grill for a change. The big guy likes to eat, and has in the past been frustrated by his brother-in-law Tex’s poor performance as a grill master to such an extent that he’d finally decided to take the process of food prep into his own hands.

And I must say he was doing a pretty good job. So far I’d only eaten a piece of steak, but it had been both firm and tender, tasty but not overcooked, spicy but not overly so. In other words, exactly the way I like it.

“Oh, don’t keep me in suspense,” said Harriet. “Just tell me how you figured out it was Daphne.”

“Tellus,” Brutus said.

“Whatever!”

“Well, it was the smoothie that finally decided me,” I revealed.

“Smoothie? Max, will you just speak plain language for a change?” Harriet lamented. She obviously wasn’t happy I’d cracked the case before she did, and even now, when Daphne was languishing in a holding cell awaiting processing by the justice system, she hadn’t figured it out yet, which clearly irked her to a great degree.

“You’ll remember that when we first arrived at the house the kitchen was immaculate,” I said, launching into my spiel.

“No, I wouldn’t remember because I wasn’t there,” said Harriet, sounding peeved, “because Odelia didn’t bother to involve us.”

“Well, the kitchen was squeaky clean, all the dishes washed, and when Odelia opened the dishwasher she found a blender beaker and the rest of the smoothie-making paraphernalia all nicely washed. And then later when Gran and Scarlett talked with the housekeeper she happened to mention how father and daughter were both cut from the same cloth, namely that they both adored takeout and also that they were slobs, and that whenever Daphne was away for the weekend on one of her Avon things the house was always a mess. This time the place was immaculate, though. Obviously somebody had cleaned that kitchen.”

“You mean Dino and Rose had ordered takeout and watched a movie like they always did?” asked Dooley.

“No, because father and daughter weren’t on speaking terms, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“Rose had locked herself up in her room, while Dino spent the evening in his office downstairs. The thing is—would a man who loves takeout prepare himself a smoothie if he can avoid it? I don’t think so.”

“Uh-huh,” said Harriet. “Go on.”

“And then another thing that struck me was that Daphne expressed surprise that Rose was home. You’ll remember that when she came home after being called by her stepdaughter she said she’d figured Rose would spend the night with her boyfriend Cole. She was genuinely surprised, and now we know why.”

“Because Rose could have easily walked in on her that night,” said Harriet, nodding.

“Exactly.”

“So Daphne didn’t stay with her friend Grace?” asked Brutus.

“Oh, yes, she did, but she left at some point, telling Grace she had a hot date with Jared Zmuda.”

“A hot date!” Brutus exclaimed.