Murder By Muffin (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 3)

Chapter One

It’s never a good idea to start off your day thinking of ways to kill someone. For one thing, all that negativity can be a real joy suck. Not to mention distracting, because all I’ve been able to think about for the past twelve hours is not just how to kill this person, but how to get away with it too.

My intended victim?

Tara Bell, a producer for TV’s newest hit show, Battle of the Beach Eats, a reality competition that pits restaurants in the same town against one another.

Following a series of “tests,” the restaurants are eliminated one by one until they crown a winner. The second season is being filmed here in Whispering Bay, and The Bistro by the Beach, the café I co-own along with my friend Sarah Powers, is one of the “lucky” restaurants in the competition. If we win, we’ll be able to call our place the “Best Beach Eat in Town.”

Sounds like fun. Right?

Especially when you consider that besides all the awesome publicity, the winners receive a grand prize of twenty-five thousand dollars (which I could really use).

The not so fun part?

Dealing with Tara and her production schedule. For the past three days, she’s made my life a living hell. Not only have I had to change my regular wake-up alarm from 4 a.m. to three in order to get everything done, she and her crew are constantly in my way filming “pre-show material,” as they call it.

I know I signed up for this. I know I gave her permission to film everything and be everywhere, but yesterday she went too far. Right in the middle of making my morning batch of apple walnut cream cheese muffins (my signature muffin), I got distracted by another one of Tara’s requests that I “turn this way for the camera.” As a result, I forgot to put in the walnuts.

What do you get when you forget to put walnuts in the apple walnut cream cheese muffins?

A lot of angry customers, that’s what.

So far, my revenge fantasies have included pushing her into my oven and closing the door (I know, very Hansel and Gretel of me), knocking her on the head with one of her own cameras, and my own personal ultimate horror: death by squirrel.

An image of Tara fleeing for her life from a pack of rabid rodents is interrupted by a voice asking me if I’m ready to start.

I shake myself back to reality.

This afternoon I’m being interviewed by Allie Donalan and Roger Van Cleave, co-owners of The Whispering Bay Gazette, our town’s local paper. They’ve been after me for an interview ever since I solved my first murder and managed to nab one of the FBI’s most wanted serial killers, The Angel of Death. Now that I’ve helped catch El Tigre, a notorious mob hit man, I’ve become more than just a local celebrity. I’m a curiosity. Or in other words, a freak. Everyone wants to know how I did it, but if I told them the truth, no one would believe it.

Allie sits across from me on my living room couch peppering me with questions, while Roger works on getting the best lighting possible for a front-page photo op. Which, yikes. Not looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

I’m not being modest when I say that I’m not looking my best these days. Ever since filming started three days ago, I’ve gotten a total of eight hours’ sleep in a seventy-two-hour period. So yeah, the term “bags under one’s eyes” has taken on a whole new meaning.

I’ve done the best I can though. I washed and blow-dried my shoulder-length dark brown hair so that it doesn’t look crazy, and I’m even wearing mascara and a brand-new T-shirt that says FEAR THE MUFFIN TOP. It’s a bright blue color that makes my plain brown eyes sparkle a bit.

Allie, who looks fresh as a daisy, smiles at me. “Thank you so much for doing this interview, Lucy. I know how crazy things have been for you lately, especially now with the filming going on for the show. So exciting!”

Roger stops fidgeting with the lights long enough to nod in agreement. “Yes, thanks, Lucy.”

“You’re welcome,” I say, trying to sound bright and chirpy. Which normally I am. Except, you know, lack of sleep.

Paco, my little rescue dog who’s sitting next to me and has had no problem getting his beauty sleep in the past few days, barks happily like he’s joining in the conversation.

Allie laughs. “He’s so cute! Tell me again how you got him.”

I glance at the tape recorder on the coffee table, a not-so-subtle reminder that everything I say can and will be used against me in this interview.

Not that I’m worried Allie and Roger will write anything negative. Just the opposite. They’ll probably write some big fluff piece that will make me sound like a hero. Would I ever call myself that? Nah. But the rest of the town is calling me a hero, so who am I argue with them?

The thing about the tape recorder is that I have to be extra careful not to say anything that might give away the fact that:

A. I’m a human lie detector. A “gift” I’ve had ever since childhood that has been a real pain in the gluteus maximus except it does rather come in handy when you’re trying to solve crime.

B. My dog is a ghost whisperer.

C. Aren’t A and B enough?

I reach over and scratch Paco in his favorite spot behind the ears. He’s a chihuahua-terrier mix with the biggest brown eyes you’ve ever

seen. He’s adorable. And he knows it. His big ego is part of his charm.

“I kind of inherited Paco, or rather, he inherited me,” I say.

“He belonged to Abby Delgado, right?”

“Sort of. She dognapped him. He belonged to Susan Van Dyke, but after she died, well … it’s a long story.”

Allie nods, and I’m reminded of those scenes from The Sopranos when Lorraine Bracco’s character nods sympathetically at Tony from her therapist’s chair. Just like Tony, I tell her the bare minimum she needs to know to do her job while keeping the gritty details all to myself.

“I have in my notes that you’re allergic to dogs? How do you handle that?”

“Medication,” I say. “It makes me drowsy sometimes, but other than that, it’s helped tremendously.”

“So, no chance that you’ll give him up? He sure is cute.”

Paco’s ears stand on alert. Sometimes I think he can understand what the humans around him are saying.

“Oh no. He’s stuck with me.”