Alien in the House

from a dog. However, I got the point—Prince was a highly trained professional and he knew better than to put his paws, nose, or tongue onto a body that was toxic, thank you very much. He snorted at me, then went back to sniffing.
    After a couple of intense sniffing minutes he got down. “You can cover the body again,” I told Tito, who did as requested. Prince whined and looked around. “He wants to check out the room where this happened.”
    To everyone’s credit, no one asked me how I knew what Prince wanted. One tiny favor in a night full of badness. Chose to enjoy the moment.
    “You sure you’re up to this, baby?” Jeff sounded worried.
    “Yes. You figure out who’s going to go with Santiago’s body. Chuckie, you come with me and Prince.”
    “Me? Why?”
    “I think you’re going to be helping Prince make an arrest.”



CHAPTER 21
    W E HEADED UPSTAIRS. “Kitty, who do you think did this?”
    “Tell you if Prince and I agree.” It made no sense, and a part of me didn’t want to believe it. But only one person had acted weird—weird on my scale, which was a pretty heavy-duty scale—all night.
    “No, tell me now, so I’m prepared.”
    Chuckie had a point. “Fine. Eugene practically broke my chair fighting with both Santiago and Edmund Brewer to be the one to help me sit down.”
    “He wasn’t sitting at your table . . . I can see why that could be suspicious. But how could he have poisoned anyone moving your chair in?”
    “He practically fell onto Brewer, slammed me into the table, water spilled . . . it would take sleight of hand of some kind, but it would have been doable.”
    “This is Eugene Montgomery you’re talking about, right?” Chuckie didn’t sound convinced. Couldn’t blame him.
    “Right. I know, he’s not exactly Mister Smooth, but maybe he got lucky.”
    “Or maybe he practiced. But what’s his motive?”
    “Beats me. We get to find out, if I’m right. And if not, we’re back to square one anyway.”
    “Oh good. Routine.” Chuckie opened the stairwell door for me and we headed back into what I hoped I wouldn’t now always think of as the Pretty Room of Death.
    I was surprised to see everyone still at their tables. Well, almost everyone—obviously some of the guests weren’t in the room and we had a lot of Security A-Cs and most of the K-9 squad up here, but they were all hovering on the edges. The guests were seated, looking worried, bored, or outraged, depending.
    People started talking. Not to me—at me. My name and title were being spoken, called, and shouted. Amazing how fast a relatively quiet room had gone to bedlam.
    Looked at Reader for support. “Ignore the rest, do your thing, and let me know when, Kitty,” he said softly as I went past. That I could hear him over everyone else was most likely because I was looking right at him, but it helped. Reader was being kept in his seat by Cliff—I could tell Cliff’s hand wasn’t merely resting on Reader’s shoulder, but pressing down. Wasn’t sure why, but assumed Cliff had his reasons.
    Prince ignored all of this, and I chose to listen to Reader and follow suit. We aimed for the head table, which, in addition to the Brewers, Armstrongs, and McMillans, held my mother. Kevin was standing behind her. Mom had her In Charge and Pissed to Be Here face on. I couldn’t blame her.
    Reyes’ seat was empty—Mom was sitting in my vacated chair. “You brought a dog?” she asked without preamble.
    “I brought the Top Dog of the K-9 squad. Prince and I need to do some work, Mom.”
    “I’m not even going to ask. Do you need us standing up?”
    “Only you. Everyone else is still in their original seats.” Mom obliged as I brought Prince over to Reyes’ seat. “Search and seizure time, Prince.”
    He sniffed Reyes’ chair, then my chair, then he sniffed Brewer for a good little while. Initial investigation done, Prince jumped into Reyes’ chair and started sniffing what was on the table. His nose reached one of the glasses and Prince snorted. Prince looked around the table, sniffing like mad. He sniffed the one glass again, snorted again, looked at me, tossed off a third snort, and jumped down.
    “Wow. Mom, the poison was in that glass. And, I think, only that glass.”
    Mom motioned a couple of A-Cs over. “Find out who put that glass on the table.”
    “Run it for fingerprints, too,” Chuckie added. Mom nodded approvingly. Kevin motioned for a couple of the K-9 cops in the room to come