d5e426eccb138e04dab909926b2752c6

“Again, no,” I said. “Marcia hired Joanne as a private fitness instructor, and was wondering how she could use the young woman’s resemblance to Vicky to her advantage somehow. And then one day last week Joanne was showing Marcia a particular routine when she tripped and fell… and broke her neck in a freak accident. So Marcia found herself staring down at the dead body, and suddenly got a great idea.”

“How to drive her brother crazy,” said Harriet, nodding.

“And it worked—more or less. Quintin really did think the dead woman was his wife—after Marcia had judiciously applied a beauty spot on the girl’s face with permanent marker—and it really did put him in a serious funk. And when Marcia pushed him to finally hand over control of the business to her son, Quintin relented. That was the midnight meeting Gran and Scarlett interrupted.”

“And Bobby himself? How was he involved?” asked Brutus.

“He wasn’t. His mother never told him any of this. Not about Vicky’s disappearance, not about the half a million dollars she took from her brother’s account to make it look as if Vicky had run away, and certainly not about Joanne Whittler’s death. She did it all for him, but carefully kept him out of it, just in case the truth was ever revealed.”

“That smells delicious, Tex,” said Charlene. “Your skills as a grill master are improving with leaps and bounds.”

“I’ve been taking this online course,” said Tex, well pleased with this rare compliment. “And I think it’s taught me a couple of really good pointers. Like did you know you have to baste your meat before you grill it? Go figure!”

“Yeah, go figure,” murmured Uncle Alec as he stared at the piece of leathery meat his brother-in-law had just dumped on his plate. It resembled a well-baked shoe sole.

“At least now the meat is finally cooked to perfection,” said Tex proudly.

Marge, as she tried to saw through her steak, said,“I think you may have overdone it just a little bit, sweetie.” The tip of the knife suddenly broke off, and she blinked.

Odelia, as she tried to chew through a piece of sausage, said,“Are you sure this course you took is kosher, Dad?”

“Of course it’s kosher. It’s got five thousand views.” He sat down at the table with his family, picked up his steak knife and his fork and beamed at those around him. “This is my favorite time of the week. Sitting down with you guys—enjoying a nice meal.”

They all watched as he stuck his fork into his piece of steak, then started to saw—and saw—and saw…

Odelia hadn’t brought us a piece of meat yet, as she usually did, and I was starting to see why.

“I think Tex cooked up a stinker again,” said Brutus.

“Yeah, I guess he took the wrong course,” I said.

“How to turn your meat into charcoal,” said Harriet, much to our amusement.

“I don’t understand,” said Tex, perspiration appearing on his brow as he tried to cut his meat. “I followed the instructions in that video to the letter. It had so many likes.”

Marge spirited a smile of faux cheer onto her face and got up.“Anyone want spaghetti? I have some in the freezer. I’ll have it heated up in no time.” And with these words, she disappeared into the house, shaking her head at her husband’s lack of cooking skills.

“It looked so good in the video,” murmured Tex as the knife went TWOOOING! and suddenly soared through the air, and barely missed Uncle Alec’s head. “Sorry about that.”

“Welcome to the family, Charlene,” said Vesta sweetly. “Where the men can’t cook, the cops need the assistance of cats and senior citizens to catch the bad guys, and the women are in charge.”

Charlene laughed.“Thanks, Vesta. Exactly my kind of family.”

“So no food?” asked Brutus.

“No food,” I said.

“I think it’s all for the best,” said Dooley. “Max still isn’t completely recovered, and sometimes fasting is a recommended cure in such cases.”

“I’m fine, Dooley!” I said. “I’m absolutely fine!”

But he placed his paw against my brow again and tsk-tsked lightly.“Mh,” he said.

Suddenly Harriet spotted the now distinctly lopsided goatherd figurine on the garden table. Marge had put it there to show to Charlene. Tex had glued it back together again—more or less. “So how does that figurine figure into the story?” Harriet asked.

“Well, Marcia figured Vicky needed a hobby. Something to occupy her time while she languished in that basement.”

“Was Marcia going to keep her there forever?” asked Brutus.

“Well, no. But she hadn’t figured out what to do with her. She’d dumped those sleeping pills into Vicky’s tea on a whim, after Vicky told her about the pregnancy, and now she was stuck. She couldn’t let her go, and she couldn’t keep her forever either.”

“That wasn’t very clever of her.”

“So she let Vicky work on those figurines. Marcia was a big fan of Otto Spiel, and had always made her own versions, trying to make them look like the original. But when Marcia wasn’t looking, Vicky wrote a distress call inside, hoping that someone would break one of those things and find the message.”