Stranger Danger (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 4)

Paco starts whining. “Don’t tell me you have to pee again?”

He looks up at me with those soulful brown eyes of his.

“Oh, all right.” I unclip his leash. “Go do your thing. Just not on the sign,” I tease. But instead of sniffing around in the front yard, Paco takes off like a bat out of hell and disappears from my sight.

Great. Just what I need. He probably thinks this is a game. I place the container with the muffins on a rocking chair on Betty Jean’s front porch because now I have to chase my dog. “Paco! What’s wrong with the yard in front?” I demand, following him around to the back of the house.

Only I don’t see where he’s gone. “Paco!” I yell.

The sound of familiar whimpering hits my ears. I’ve heard that sound before. And it’s never been good. My mouth goes dry.

I find Paco hovering near the back door. His eyes are glazed, and he’s panting. What’s he seeing or hearing that I don’t? There’s a note taped to the door. With a hand that’s already shaking, I take it down and read:

Lucy, I went to the Piggly Wiggly to get more wine. The door is open so go ahead and start setting up! BJ.

I turn the knob, and sure enough the door is unlocked. “You with me?” I ask Paco.

His eyes are so big, they look like they’re going to explode out of this head. I step inside Betty Jean’s kitchen. “Hello? Anybody home?” Other than an empty bottle of wine on the counter and two dirty glasses in the sink, the kitchen is obsessively neat, to the point that it could probably pass the white glove test.

Paco nudges me with his nose, then dashes off into the next room.

I take a deep breath and force my wobbly legs to follow. If my history with Paco repeats itself, I’m pretty sure what I’ll find. I’m just not sure who it will be.

I walk into the quiet living room. Paco sits calmly at the foot of a lounge chair where a man is slumped over. My first reaction is intense relief that’s it not Betty Jean. There’s blood on the man’s shirt. A quick inspection of the surroundings reveals a knife (Ugh! My least favorite murder weapon) lying on the coffee table in the center of the room.

I check the man’s pulse. Nothing. His skin feels cool to the touch, and he’s not breathing.

Paco slumps to the ground and begins to whine.

I reach into my pocket and retrieve my cell phone. Travis answers on the first ring. “Lucy, I’m glad you called. I just heard back from Agent Billings. You were right. That wasn’t J.W. Quicksilver we saw last night. His name is Jefferson Pike, and he’s wanted for questioning in at least three different con operations.”

“Correction. The man’s name was Jefferson Pike. I’m at Betty Jean’s house. He’s dead, Travis.”

Chapter Ten

Betty Jean, Travis, Rusty Newton, three other cops, a fire truck and an ambulance, complete with screaming sirens and flashing lights, arrive on the scene at the same time. Paco and I meet them all at the door.

“What on earth! What’s going on here? Why are all these people trying to get into my house?” Betty Jean stomps past me, takes one look at the body slumped in her living room chair, and stops cold. “Good gravy.” She blinks. “He isn’t dead, is he?”

“Actually, yeah,” I say.

She sucks in a breath. “Heart attack?”

“Looks like he took a knife in the chest.”

“Huh, what do you know? I told the Neighborhood Watch they needed to up their game, but does anyone ever listen to me?”

She starts to walk past the body, but Travis stops her. “Sorry,” he says, “but we need to keep the area secure until we collect all the evidence.”

One of the cops takes Betty Jean to sit inside a squad car until, as he puts it, “she calms down enough to answer questions.” She seems pretty chill to me considering there’s a dead body in her living room.

Travis waits until Betty Jean and the cop are out of earshot. “Are you all right?” he asks, his gaze full of concern. “Do you need to sit down? How about a glass of water?”

I think Travis has me confused with someone else. “That’s sweet, but

first things first. You need to arrest Hoyt Daniels or whatever his real name is. He was in on the con with Jefferson. The assistant … Anita. She was probably in on it too. They can’t leave town, Travis.”

Now that he’s reminded that I’m no shrinking violet, he goes back into cop mode. “Let the police take care of that. Tell me everything that happened once you got here. And don’t leave out any details.”