Peril in Paperback: A Bibliophile Mystery

central section of the roof. A widow’s walk, maybe? The view had to be incomparable from up there. I couldn’t wait to explore it.
    The overall feeling of the outside of the mansion was whimsically contradictory: heavily fortified yet charming. Almost otherworldly. An airy-fairy castle in the woods.
    At last, the EMTs wheeled Bella’s body over to the ambulance and loaded her inside. Then they took off, leaving the two detectives, Pentley and Graves, behind to conduct witness interviews and examine the crime scene.
    “Sorry we couldn’t get out here last night,” Graves said.
    “I guess the snow was falling pretty hard,” I said.
    “Yeah, the snow was bad, but we also got called to another murder in town.”
    I had to ask. “Do you normally get a lot of murders out here?”
    “Not really,” the taller cop, Detective Pentley, said. “Must be the full moon or some kind of weird planetary alignment or something.”
    “You think?” I asked, remembering there was a full moon the first night here. “Do the movements of the planets have an influence on the level of crime in this area?”
    Graves snickered.
    “Nope, it’s mostly about drugs and alcohol,” Pentley said with a straight face.
    “Right.” So I was being mocked. I exchanged looks with Gabriel. Fine. I could take it. And these cops would need their wacky senses of humor once they were dealing with the crowd staying at Grace’s house.
    By the time we got back inside, Merrilee had arranged for two sitting rooms to be used for the private interviews. She had stocked each room with a coffeepot, sodas, doughnuts, chips, and pretzels.
    Merrilee was so competent and warm and intuitivewhen it came to providing guests with a welcoming space, I wondered why she was wringing her hands and fussing so much. It was almost as though she were the one about to be dragged off to the pokey. I knew in my gut that she couldn’t be guilty of murder, so why was she acting like it?
    I finally pulled her aside to try to calm her down. “Are you all right?”
    Stressed out, she blew her bangs off her forehead. “I’m so worried we’ll run out of potato chips. We’re down to three bags.”
    “You’re kidding, right?” I laughed, then scanned the sideboard with its abundant supply of snacks. “If we run out, it’s not your problem. We’ll just eat tortilla chips or pretzels. But it’s not going to happen. You’ve arranged everything perfectly.”
    “Thank you, Brooklyn. I just worry.”
    “I know you do, but you shouldn’t. We appreciate all that you do for us.”
    She still seemed to need reassurance so I stuck my tongue in my cheek and added, “In fact, I was wondering if there was any possible chance you’d consider coming to live at my house and doing this for me. I could use a running supply of snacks in my workshop.”
    “Oh, Brooklyn,” she said, lightly swatting my shoulder as her chirpy laugh fluttered through the room. “You’re so funny.”
    “I’ll double your salary.”
    “Oh, stop.”
    I shrugged. “I’m just asking you to think about it.”
    She giggled and the hand-wringing ended. Seconds later, she was back to bustling about, making people happy.
    The police interview process was long and slow and took most of the morning. It was a good thing there were plenty of books and games to keep us all occupied.
    When it was my turn, I followed Detective Pentley into the small, blue-accented sitting room and sat on theleast comfortable chair I could find. I wanted to appear serious, not overly relaxed, and a straight-back chair would help.
    “Brooklyn Wainwright,” he murmured as he wrote my name in a small spiral notebook. Then he looked up. “Tell me what you saw last night.”
    I pulled out my phone and clicked on the gallery of photos I’d taken the night before. He followed the pictures as I told him everything that had occurred. We went back and forth as I described the séance, before, during, and after. I told him how Ruth had handed Grace the glass of iced tea just as the séance was about to start. I told him that at least four people at the table had drinks, maybe more.
    “So Bella had her own drink?”
    “Yes.”
    “And Marko put both of their drinks on the floor by his chair.”
    “Yes.”
    “So why would Bella reach for the glass by Grace’s chair?”
    I thought about it. I’d seen Bella putting away the booze for two nights straight, so it was easy enough to surmise that she hadn’t been thinking clearly