It seemed he didn’t care about my boots. He couldn’t take his eyes off his wife’s pair. Just wait until he got her home. Andrea would feel the end of the cheapskate’s tongue.

The waitress interrupted to lay a couple of salads on the table. Boring. I was a bit peckish myself, but figured I had mere minutes before one of the Weasels hailed the cops in the corner to throw me out.

“Is there something you wanted, Bliss?” Andrea sprinkled a few drops of dressing onto her salad and moved the lettuce around with her fork.

“Not really. I just wanted to get Mike’s take on the murders. He was part of the graduating class. Did you know that?”

“Of course I know. But that has nothing to do with Mike, with us. That happened a long time ago. You certainly live up to your own advertising, Bliss.” She pointed to the words emblazoned in sequins on the front of my sweatshirt: Pissing Off the Whole Planet, One Person At A Time.

“I do my best.” I turned my back on her and addressed a future Prime Minister of this country, if you believed his publicity. “I guess you hope the murderer is found soon. The longer this drags on, the more likely it is that the media will find out about your involvement.”

The Weasel slapped his fork onto the table. “Get one thing straight, Bliss. We are not having a repeat of last summer. You got your settlement and nothing you do or say will get you more. So, get lost!”

“Come, now. Take it easy. This has nothing to do with the settlement, although I think you got off easy. The point is, you had a fling with Sophie during senior year. Now, Sophie is dead.”

He grabbed my wrist and squeezed. “That has nothing to do with me. Everybody had a crack at Sophie.”

“Mike,” Andrea warned.

I ignored her and let my wrist go limp. “So, what were you doing Saturday night? Can anyone verify your whereabouts? Except for your wife, I mean?”

“I don’t answer to you.” His hand tightened around my wrist.

“There are four cops in this room. Let go or I’ll call for help.” When his grip loosened, I pulled free and stood up. “I didn’t mean to disturb your meal. Carry on.”

My heart was thumping as I left the table, only partly from the adrenaline of battle. Mike was ambitious and had a ruthless streak, a bad combination. I believed he would commit a crime to bolster his political career — if he thought he could get away with it. Question: had he been this way in high school? I hadn’t been on his radar back then, and didn’t know the answer.

Outside, the glitter ball in Fang’s truck refused to let me pass. I twitched the tarp aside and the ball sparkled under the neon lights, almost begging me not to leave it in the back of the dirty truck bed.

I opened the passenger door and laid two twenty dollar bills on the seat. After a moment’s thought, I added another twenty, just in case Fang felt inclined to whine about the price. He was a businessman, of sorts. When he sobered up, he would be thrilled with the exchange.

The ball was lightweight, but too big to fit in my vehicle, even if the hatchback wasn’t still crammed full of Christmas crap. Fortunately, the rolls of duct tape I had picked up at the checkout counter spilled out the top of the nearest bag. I ran back to borrow Fang’s tarp.

By the time I had that sucker wrapped and taped to the top of my car, I was sweating buckets inside my furry coat. The temperature was definitely rising. I had to crawl through the front seat with the tape, throw the roll over the top of the ball, grab it, and crawl through the seat again. Multiple times. But my prize was secure.

It was nine o’clock when I finished. Closing time at the Wing Nut. The Weasels dribbled out, looked my way, then quickly got into their car and drove off. Next, Fang staggered down the steps, supported by cousin Larry. Redfern and his posse, including Thea and Dwayne, exited right behind them. I saw a Breathalyzer in Larry’s near future.

As I pulled onto the highway, I looked in my rear-view mirror. Fang stumbled after me, arms waving, legs buckling. He fell to his knees, leaned forward and puked on the ice-covered parking lot.

Maybe Fang was more attached to the glitter ball than I realized.

CHAPTER

sixteen

“Shut up,” Neil told Tony. He had been listening to the gruff chuckling since he picked his friend up at the Super 8 Motel earlier that morning. After breakfast at the Mason Jar, they had proceeded to the first crime scene. Tony spent a few minutes silently gazing at the locker that had allegedly been a young girl’s tomb for a decade and a half. This sobered him for a few minutes, until they were back in the 4 X 4 on their way to St. Paul’s. He managed to keep his face straight while giving vent to explosive snorts of amusement.

He knuckled Neil on the shoulder. “I wish I’d thought to take a photo of Bliss racing out of the parking lot last night with Fang Davidson’s big silver ball wrapped in a tarp and duct-taped to the top of her car.” Tony gave up the battle and laughed out loud. “Are you going to arrest your little lady friend for theft?”

Neil pulled up in front of the church. “Not happening. Fang won’t file a complaint. He knows if he did, Bliss will have a logical explanation, even if she has to lie her head off.”

“What’s she going to do with that thing?”

“How should I know? I drove by her place this morning, and it’s still sitting on the top of her car.” The temperature had spiked a few degrees overnight and a foot of slush covered the streets. Neil gave the steering wheel a vicious twist as the vehicle edged toward the curb. Where were the freaking ploughs?

Tony slid his hand into the “holy shit” strap. “Ah, so the little spitfire spent the night alone? You mad at her, or the other way around?”

“Without a doubt, she’s pissed at me again. I should have asked her to join us last night at the Wing Nut so she could help us with the case. That’s what she thinks, I’m guessing.”

“She has eyes on the whole town and could be a big help if you’d quit acting like such a tight-ass. There’s something weird going on between you two. Is it about Debbie?”

Neil didn’t want to talk about Debbie with Tony. He pulled to the curb in front of the church. “Have a look around, then we’ll see if the husband is home and in better shape than yesterday.”

The church was locked, and Neil used the key given to him by one of the church officials. Their boots clattered up the spiral wooden stairs to the choir loft. Tony leaned on the railing and looked down on the pews where Sophie’s body had landed. The area remained taped off, but Neil planned to release the crime scene back to the church later today. If the OPP investigator agreed.

Tony lifted his head and sniffed. “Churches smell funny, like rotting wood and judgment. Let’s go find Kelly Quantz.”

The manse stood directly behind the church, invisible from the street. A pleasant, round-faced woman in the kitchen told them that they could find “the grieving widower” in his studio. She seemed vague about its whereabouts and they went back outside and trudged half the perimeter of the rambling old house before finding a glassed-in area that looked more like a sunroom than an artist’s workspace.

“I don’t see any paintings,” Tony observed as Neil rapped on the door. On the other side of the glass walls, Quantz hunched over a drafting table, one hand — the right — wielding a thick pencil, the other holding a tumbler of clear liquid to his lips.