Love Can Be Murder

her find vendors, and dealt with salespeople. Although Guy was nearing forty, he could pass for a college youth, dressed as he was in slim corduroys and an untucked button-up shirt. His hair was blond, gelled, and lofty, his funky wire-rimmed glasses sparkling clean. He was buff and handsome and everyone in town seemed to know that Guy was gay...except Guy. He'd had several long-term relationships with gorgeous, cosmopolitan women who lived in nearby New Orleans, but for one vague reason or another, the relationships had seemed to...peter out. Still, Penny humored Guy when he exhibited uber-hetero behavior and didn't comment on the more feminine manners that seemed to leap out of him involuntarily.
    "Good morning, Guy."
    He stopped and angled his head. "Have you seen the train wreck happening across the street?"
    She nodded, biting her tongue.
    He sighed. "It looks like a decorating reality show gone bad."
    She attempted a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe we can use it in our advertising—Located Across from the Tacky Pink House."
    He pursed his mouth, nodding. "I like that."
    Marie stuck her head out of the stockroom. "Guy, are you coming to the party at Caskey's tonight?"
    "Won't Caskey's be packed with the festival crowd?"
    "We have a private room reserved."
    "Oh. Well, is it okay if I bring a date?"
    "Sure."
    "Great. I met this new babe named Carrie." He grinned sheepishly. "We've only gone out a couple of times, but I think she might be the one. She's really hot, was first runner-up in the Miss Louisiana pageant a couple of years ago."
    Penny avoided looking at Marie. "That's...great. But are you sure that you want to bring her to a divorce party?"
    His eyebrows climbed. "Why not? Are you planning to do something cheesy, like have half-naked guys dancing around?"
    "No," Marie said.
    His disappointment was apparent. "Oh. Well, then everything should be fine. It's just a regular party, right?"
    "Ask Marie," Penny said, pointing. "She's the organizer."
    "It's not just a party," Marie declared. "It's to celebrate Penny's liberation. She's a single woman again!"
    "She is?" a man's voice said behind them.
    Penny startled, then turned to see Jimmy Scaggs, the man who sold her goods he scavenged from the woods, standing inside the door, wearing brown camouflage gear. It wasn't the first time he had managed to slip in without triggering the door chime.
    "Jesus," Guy said sourly. "Sneak up on people, why don't you?"
    Jimmy grinned. "It's what I do best, Gay."
    Guy scowled. "My name is Guy."
    "Jimmy," Penny said to intervene, "do you have something for me today?"
    He smiled at Penny and removed his hat, revealing long, flattened hair. "Yes, ma'am."
    She gestured to the dry sink along the wall. "Why don't you show me?"
    Jimmy Scaggs was a wiry, rawboned man of indeterminate age. He lifted a green canvas sling bag over his head and walked to the area where he always showed her his finds. Jimmy wet his thin lips. "Did I hear right—that you're...single now?"
    Penny hesitated. The man had nice teeth and interesting, if spooky, pale blue eyes, and underneath the layer of perpetual dust he might be a passably good-looking man. But Jimmy Scaggs took the survival gig just a little too far for her comfort level. "Um, yes. I'm divorced. Did you bring more ginseng?"
    "Yeah, a couple with interesting shapes." He spread out several orange-brown roots and picked out one about five inches long that looked like a human leg. "Some people say the root will cure the part of the body it most resembles."
    "Is that so?" Penny asked, noticing that despite the dirt caked beneath the man's fingernails, he had well-shaped hands.
    He nodded and picked out another root that was the size of her palm and shaped remarkably like a human heart. "I brought this one for you," he offered gently. "Your ex is a no-good polecat, running around with that nasty Sheena Linder."
    Penny bristled at the personal topic and raised her gaze to his. A mistake, she realized, when she saw affection shining in his eyes. "Thank you, Jimmy, but actually, Toby Madeer was in last week asking for ginseng. He lost his wife over the summer and he's still in a bad way. I think he could grind up this root and use it more than I."
    Jimmy stared at her for a few seconds, then something akin to frustration flashed in his eyes. "Whatever you say, Miss Penny."
    She smiled. "I'll buy all of these. Did you bring anything else?"
    "Some oyster mushrooms," he said, lifting them out of his bag and