Love Can Be Murder

at the house, she accused me of sneaking around with Deke behind her back. She said she suspected that something was going on."
    "Was there?" he asked pointedly.
    "No. But maybe he was seeing someone else."
    "When was the last time you saw him?"
    "Yesterday morning. I ran into him at the museum."
    "Museum?"
    "The Instruments of Death and Voodoo Museum. It's Mojo's claim to fame. And it's located next to my business. I walked over there yesterday morning to drop off some misdelivered mail, and I ran into Deke coming out of the museum."
    "Is that unusual?"
    "No, he takes care of the museum's legal affairs."
    "Did he seem upset or preoccupied?"
    "Stressed, maybe, but that's been the norm lately when we're together."
    "Did you two have an argument?"
    "Not really. I was irritated that he'd painted the house pink."
    He winced. "Yeah, that's bad. So...maybe he has another honey on the side who was tired of being ignored."
    Penny nodded, then another thought struck her. "Sheena and Deke just got engaged, so if he had another woman on the side, maybe that sent her over the edge."
    B.J. studied Penny, and she knew what he was thinking—that the engagement could just as easily have sent her over the edge. But he simply nodded. "You think that whoever did it might have been trying to frame you by using a stake from your property and simulating the voodoo doll stabbing?"
    When he said it, it sounded utterly ridiculous. "I don't know what to think. I'm a little numb."
    He shoveled, chewed, and swallowed. "Who gave you the doll?"
    "I don't know—the gifts were anonymous. But there were only a few people at the party, so it shouldn't be hard to find out."
    He shoved a napkin in her direction, then fished a pen out of his coat pocket. "Write down the names."
    She took the pen and wrote down everyone she could remember, pausing when she got to Liz and Wendy—she needed to call them, to break the news about Deke.
    "Does anyone stick out in your mind as someone who would have done this?"
    Penny turned her head to glance at the two girls from the Hair Affair, who had their heads together. One of them was biting her nails. Penny looked back and sighed. "No. But Deke hid a lot of things from me."
    "There's always the possibility that it was a random killing—a stranger passing through for the festival."
    She nodded, strangely buoyed by the fact that it could be someone who didn't know Deke...who hadn't killed him because they hated him. "What happens now?"
    He finished the last bit of food and washed it down with a swallow of coffee. She stared at his empty plate as he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "Now I do the legwork that the police might not do."
    She pursed her mouth. "If I lose my business over this, I might have to pay you in vitamins."
    He winked. "We might have to think of something else."
    She tried to laugh but found suddenly that she didn't have the energy. "I need to get to bed."
    "Okay," he said, withdrawing his wallet. He threw cash on the table.
    "Alone," she added, then instantly felt like an idiot.
    His smile was sardonic. "You're in luck—I don't sleep with clients." He stood and picked up his jacket. "Come on, I'll walk you back."
    Penny clamped her mouth shut lest she say something else brainless.
    On the way out of the diner, he stopped at the public bulletin board. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a white flyer and used a pushpin to attach it to the corkboard.
    MISSING: Jodi Reynolds, age 17, last seen in New Orleans, September 12.
    Penny bit her lip. "So you're the one who posted the flyer."
    He nodded. "I'm hoping someone in town for the festival might have seen her."
    "Who hired you to look for her?"
    "Her grandmother." He held open the door, and she walked under his arm.
    She shivered when the cool, dewy air hit her face. "How many of them do you find?"
    He opened his leather jacket and settled it onto her shoulders. She started to object, but honestly, it felt good. "About half. But even then, like you said earlier, some of them don't want to be found. I'm working on about a dozen missing person cases at the moment, some of them a couple of years old."
    "Do you have a feeling about this girl?"
    He nodded. "My feeling is that she ran away, then ran into trouble. And from what I know about her, she wouldn't last long on the streets."
    A chill ran down Penny's back. Evil people were out there, just looking for an innocent to prey upon. "Do you have any leads?"
    "The bartender at Caskey's said he