“I think Redfern is a little worried about her. Funny …”

“What I want to know is, do you call him Redfern when you’re doing him? Seems kind of formal for the occasion.”

“Mind your own business. Stick around and help me with my next call. It’s to Dorval, Quebec. He owes six hundred and fifty dollars and will insist on speaking French …”

“You don’t speak French.”

“Exactly.” I picked up the phone. “So, this should be fun. I’ll put him on speaker, if you show me how to do it, and you can learn some new French swear words to use in your books.”

He declined to participate and went back to his own make-believe world. I called the Quebec number, switching my name to Angie Aniston. It turned out that the customer spoke perfect English, apologized for the omission, and promised to put the cheque in the mail. Right. Like I hadn’t heard that before. I put PP next to his name — Promises, Promises.

The other two customers sounded just as sincerely sorry for their negligence and would rectify their oversights immediately. I didn’t believe a word either of them said. I assigned them MBIDI — Maybe But I Doubt It.

There was no fun to be had at the greenhouse this morning so I called one of my own clients, Fern Brickle. Glory and Mrs. Brickle had been my original cleaning customers during the dark years I spent on poverty row, and both remained customers of Bliss This House.

Mrs. Brickle invited me to come right over for tea. I put on my taupe down-filled jacket and dropped my phone into my tote bag.

In deference to the driving sleet that showed no signs of letting up before spring, I had worn my black UGGs and was just stepping into them at the door when I heard my name screeched from one of the plant rooms. Before I had time to run for the parking lot, Glory steamed up to me and jabbed a clawed forefinger at my face.

“You! I want to talk to you.” If she had spent the night in a tangled mess of sheets with Tony, lack of sleep didn’t show on her face. Her hair tumbled as artfully as usual over her shoulders, and her makeup was flawless. She didn’t even have bags under her eyes. On closer inspection I was concerned to see the whites of her eyes were tinged with pink. I stared at the wall.

“Here I am. What’s up?”

“Please look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

Please? I dared a glance at her face and realized she was unusually calm and her voice somewhat less than piercing. Maybe sex was working for her after all.

“Okay. If this is about the decorations for the food bank benefit, I have everything covered. And I’ll have it all set up in time. Don’t worry about it.”

“This isn’t about the decorations. Although, you’re going to have to take over the advertising for the event. Dougal says he has a deadline and can’t spare the time to visit the newspaper office and printer. But right now I want to discuss your meddling into police investigations in this town.”

“What meddling? Moi?”

“You do remember I’m on the Police Services Board, don’t you.”

“Um, sure.” Who cared?

Glory looked at me like I should know what she was talking about. When I didn’t answer — I had lost track of the question — she blew a stray wisp of hair away from her face.

“Don’t you know anything about how this town runs? The board is comprised of myself, Bert Thiesson, Mayor Mike Bains, and Andrea Bains, who is the deputy mayor.”

“Isn’t Mr. Thiesson a hundred years old? And my condolences for having to interact with the Weasels on a board. Can’t you resign?”

“Shut up and listen. Bert is eighty-four and, while very capable for his age, easily swayed. That means that, typically, it’s me against the other three board members. So, if it comes to a vote about not renewing the chief of police’s contract, guess what will happen?”

“What! They can’t do that. Redfern is the best police chief this town has ever had. They can’t fire him.”

“You don’t have to convince me that he’s competent. But believe me, the Weas … the Bainses … will find a way to get rid of him. I heard what happened at the Wing Nut on Monday night.”

“What? Redfern’s job is in jeopardy because I pulled the Weasels’ tails? I do that every chance I get.”

“You pretty much accused him of murdering Faith Davidson and Sophie Quantz!”

“I certainly did not. I merely asked him if he had an alibi for the night Sophie died. And I was joking.”

“Your humour leaves a lot of people cold. Especially Mike and Andrea. As long as you’re dating Neil Redfern, you have to stay out of his investigations. You’re making things very difficult for him.”

“I was present at the old high school the night Faith died. How can I stay out of it?”

“You better find a way, or you’ll be moving to Toronto with Neil. If he still wants you — and I wouldn’t count on that.”

“All right, I got it already.”

“I hope so. We have an in camera board meeting tonight. I want to be able to assure the other members that there will be no outside interference from anybody for the duration of the investigations. Can I do that? That means you will desist discussing the case with other potential witnesses.”

“Yes.” Although, how the hell was I supposed to determine who was a potential witness? That Caribbean vacation looked better and better. With or without Redfern.

“Good. Maybe Mike and Andrea will back off. I’ll do my best.” She raised her finger and waved it back and forth in front of my face. “If minding your own business means you have more time on your hands, you can …”

I moved closer and peered up into her face.

“What are you looking at?”

“There’s a really long hair sticking out between your nose and upper lip. Hold still. I think I can grab it with my fingers.”

I reached up. She clapped her hand over her mouth and backed away. Panic filled her eyes, and she turned and ran for the washroom.

Dougal’s disembodied voice called out, “Nice going, Bliss. Now she thinks she had a hair sprouting from her face while she was out with the new boyfriend last night. It’ll be a hard hat zone around here for the next week.”

“I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes, it’s just too easy. Enjoy the rest of your day, sweetie.”

“And you enjoy doing all my advertising work for her stupid charity benefit. You might want to get started on that. It takes time to design and print flyers. Then you have to post them all over town. Oh, and don’t forget the newspaper ads …”

“I hate you.” I slammed the door on his delighted sniggers.

The temperature had dropped, and a thick coating of ice covered my windshield. I turned on the heater to defrost mode. I couldn’t find the scraper and had to chip at the ice with the roll of duct tape left over from the glitter ball liberation. Luckily the washer fluid still contained anti-freeze, since I couldn’t recall switching over to regular last summer.

Between blasting the screen with heat from the inside, soaking the outside with anti-freeze, and turning the wipers to hyper drive, the ice melted in the middle of the windshield, giving me plenty of visibility.

The county plows hadn’t made it through the side roads yet, and at least a foot of crusty snow overlaid Concession 10. I felt it scrape my undercarriage the few hundred yards to the highway. At the corner, I backed up and gunned it, back end fishtailing until my tires gripped the sand generously scattered on the highway by the Ministry of Transportation plows.

I passed the Wing Nut and noticed a police cruiser waiting to pull out. So what, this time I wasn’t speeding at all. The cop car narrowed the gap between us to an unsafe distance. Waaa-waaa-waaa. Lights flashed on and off.

What the hell now? I sighed and pulled to the shoulder.

The squad car stopped behind mine. When Constable Dopey got out, I wanted to bash my head against the steering wheel.