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

“He left last night.” Alan hands Gilly an envelope. “Be a doll and make sure Dave over at The Draft House gets this. I’d bring it over myself, but they’re closed right now, and I got a plane to catch.”

“What do I look like? Your errand girl?”

“Aren’t you the production assistant?” he sneers.

“Not my fault you and Pete got drunk Saturday night and tore up some beer hall. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have to clean up your messes anymore.”

Alan’s phone pings. “That’s my Uber. Look, Gilly, are you gonna help me or not?”

“I know The Draft House,” says Will. “I can drop that off if you want.”

“For real? Thanks, man.” He plucks the envelope from Gilly’s hand and gives it to Will. “Tell Dave I’m sorry. There should be enough cash in there to cover all the damages.” On his way out the door, he turns and mock-salutes Gilly. “Thanks for nothing.”

“Thank God I don’t have to deal with those two cretins anymore,” she mutters. She rises from her seat. “That’s enough questions. I need to pack.”

“You’re leaving too?”

“Tomorrow morning. Like Alan said, there’s no use staying here if we aren’t filming.”

“What will you do?”

She hesitates a moment before saying, “I’m going to be taking over Tara’s job until the network decides who they’re going to get to replace her. Which means I need to scout out more locations for our next season of Battle of the Beach Eats.”

“So Whispering Bay is definitely out?”

“I’m afraid so. Besides, we can only film here if the restaurants actually want to participate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She frowns like she’s said too much. “I think you should go now, Lucy.” She gets up and turns her back on us. “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”

“So what’s the verdict?” Will asks. “Did Gilly kill Tara?”

I wait till we get inside the car to answer. “She’s sneaky, all right. Did you notice how she kept dodging my questions, or worse, answering my question with a question? It’s a classic case of redirection.”

“I take it that means you don’t know.”

“It’s not so simple. I just caught Gilly in a big lie. She said she was worried when she found Tara’s bed empty the morning of the murder, but concern wasn’t the emotion I picked up on. Gilly was terrified that Tara wasn’t in her bed.”

“Terrified? Couldn’t that be the same as really worried?”

“Sometimes, but not in this case. She wasn’t terrified for Tara; she was terrified for herself. This is twice now that I’ve gotten that same vibe from Gilly. When Rusty pulled me out of the meeting yesterday, she was panicked when she first saw him, which leads me to think she definitely feels guilty about something.”

“If she killed Tara, wouldn’t it stand to reason that she’d feel guilty?”

“Possibly. Or maybe her guilt comes from some other place. I’m not sure.”

“Is the Lucy-meter broken?”

“Be serious. This is what we know. Tara was found dead in my kitchen on Sunday morning. The time of death was between 2 and 3 a.m. According to an eyewitness, Tara left the beach house around two and she was driving erratically, which means she was already poisoned and feeling the effects. So why get in a car and drive if you feel badly? Why not call 911 or better yet, wake up your trusted assistant and ask for help? Unless said trusted assistant isn’t so trustworthy after all.”

“Let’s say Gilly did poison Tara,” Will says. “Maybe she didn’t mean to kill her. Maybe she only wanted to put her out of commission for a few days so Gilly could take over her job. Even if it was just temporary. You know, the old show-them-what-I-can-do-if-I-was-in-charge scenario? In case you didn’t notice, she got a big kick out of putting Alan in his place back there.”

“You know, that’s actually kind of brilliant.”

“I don’t know. Personally I think the whole thing is pretty sick.”

“Not the poisoning, dummy. Your theory on how it went down.”