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“The nerve of the guy!” said Chase, as he stepped on the accelerator and roared away. “Now I know it was him!”

“Yeah, but how are we going to prove it?” said Odelia.

And that’s the thing, of course. When ordinary citizens commit murder, they often make a mistake, because they’re amateurs, and haven’t been trained for that sort of thing. But when a professional like Tyrone decides to teach a client a lesson, he doesn’t make mistakes, or at least the people who work for him don’t, since they’re more often than not trained killers, and don’t take any chances.

In other words: the investigation was more or less stymied at this point.

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By the time we arrived home, Odelia had made up her mind that she was going to tell her dad that his modeling career wasn’t going to pan out, with his own wife and mother-in-law deserting him for a younger model.

But when we entered the house, we found Gran and Scarlett, busily baking pancakes, with Grace the very excited recipient.

Unfortunately Grace was also a co-chef, and had been put in charge of dispensing flour to the two ladies. The upshot was that the floor was dusted in a thin layer of white, and it now looked as if it had been snowing in the kitchen.

“Gran, what are you doing!” Odelia said under her breath.

“Making pancakes, or what does it look like?” said Gran.

“Is it true that you and Mom and Charlene have been organizing a secret art class?” she asked now, the deceit obviously still rankling.

“And me,” said Scarlett. “I was also there.”

“I haven’t forgotten about you,” said Odelia, giving her grandmother’s friend a frosty look.

“Honey, you have to understand we did it all for your dad,” said Gran. “We didn’t want to hurt his feelings by making him think we didn’t like his modeling.”

“But we don’t like his modeling,” said Scarlett.

“Yeah, I don’t know what it is about your dad, but he simply doesn’t inspire us to create great art, you know.”

“I think it’s his face,” said Scarlett. “When I look at your dad I see my doctor. Probably because he is my doctor. And he reminds me of the time I had my appendix removed. I mean, who wants to think about their appendix when they’re trying to create art?”

“And who wants to see their son-in-law?” Gran chimed in.

“And Bronson Shagreen inspires you, does he?” asked Odelia.

“Yes, he does, actually,” said Scarlett. “Bronsonis a work of art.”

“The kid looks like a sculpture,” said Gran, a blissful look appearing on her face. “Heis a sculpture. A regular Adonis.”

“I want you to come clean and tell Dad,” said Odelia.

“But, honey!” Scarlett cried.

“No, it’s not fair, the four of you sneaking behind his back like this.”

“But he’s going to ruin everything!” said Gran.

Scarlett nodded emphatically.“Yeah, this whole thing started when Tex found out that Marge was going to her art class, and that Dylon was modeling for us.”

“It’s all Ida’s fault,” said Gran. “If that woman hadn’t blabbed, none of this would have happened. Tex would have been blissfully ignorant, and we would have happily been drawing away to our heart’s content.”

“Look, if you don’t tell Dad, I will,” said Odelia, really putting her foot down on this one.

“Oh, all right, but if anyone tells him, it should be Marge,” said Gran. “She is, after all, his wife.”

“Fine,” said Odelia.

“Fine,” said Gran with some vehemence. Clearly she wasn’t at all happy with this state of affairs and Odelia meddling with her career as an artist. Then she gave her granddaughter a keen look. “I saw that you and Chase were talking to Charlene? Did she say anything about my contribution?”

“Or mine?” said Scarlett anxiously.

“No, she did not,” said Odelia, who wasn’t about to divulge classified information to these two ladies. Also, she probably had no idea who Charlene would pick.

“I wonder if they know that they both entered the exact same project,” said Dooley. “And not even an actual painting but a reproduction.”

“And that a lot of others probably did the same,” I said.

And as Odelia continued to clear things with her nearest and dearest, Grace had fun‘helping’ her great-grandmother by lightly sprinkling more flour on the floor.

And then of course the inevitable happened: the little tyke caught sight of me and Dooley, and since she felt we shouldn’t be exempt from a good dusting with this fairy dust she was happily sprinkling about, she came waddling up to us, and threw a handful of the stuff on me!

“Hey, what are you doing?!” I cried. But human infants being what they are, she refused to respond, and instead dug her hand into the bag and threatened to sprinkle some more of the stuff, like a miniature fairy godmother..

And since I absolutely did not want to be turned into a snowcat, I skedaddled, chased by this ardent child, who was a lot quicker than I would have thought!