Arizona Heat

I threw him a bone. Part of the truth. But, hey, that’s better than nothing, isn’t it?

“Mrs. Erland asked me to investigate Gillian’s murder,” I said, and braced myself for meteor impact. Oceans were going to overflow. Continents would shift. A new ice age would begin.

And here’s me, the flash-frozen mammoth with fresh grass in its mouth.

“When,” Tucker countered evenly, “did you speak with Helen?”

“Today at the convenience store where she works,” I answered after swallowing. “Gillian appeared in my car at Walmart, and she wanted to see her mother. So I took her there.”

“Mojo, if you compromise this case—”

“I might solve it, you know.”

“As far as the sheriff’s office is concerned, it is solved.”

“Not what you said on the news this morning, Detective Darroch.”

“Look, Mojo, there’s an official investigation going on here, and it’s delicate.”

I ignored that. I was in charge of the unofficial investigation. “Helen doesn’t think he did it. Vince, I mean. And neither does Gillian.”

“Helen is out of her head with grief, and she doesn’t want to believe Erland’s guilty. As for Gillian—well, I hate to tell you this, Sheepshanks, but ghost testimony doesn’t hold up in court.”

I glanced in Justin’s direction, hoping he’d left.

He was still sitting on the couch, and he was listening. For all I knew, he could hear Tucker’s side of the conversation as well as mine.

“It’s not easy being a ghost,” I said.

Tucker sighed again. He sighed a lot whenever we talked about my strange new talent for seeing dead people. I could only conclude that he wanted me for my body, not my mind.

It was a sure bet it wasn’t my detective skills.

“Moje,” Tucker said. “I’m not sleeping with Allison.”

I would have replied, “And I’m not sleeping with you,” if Justin hadn’t been there, taking it all in.

“Whatever,” I answered.

“Stay away from Helen Erland.”

“No. But thanks for the input.”

“Mojo—”

I hung up.

“I could find out if he’s sleeping with her,” Justin said.

“Justin,” I answered, “don’t help.”

He grinned. “It’s not like I don’t have time on my hands,” he reasoned. “I could help you solve the case, too.”

“How?”

“By spying on people. I’m invisible to most of them, remember. That could come in very handy.”

“I’ve got a better idea, Justin,” I said. “Go home.”

“I can’t. My mom’s too sad. It’s a bummer.”

“That isn’t the home I was talking about.”

“I have to wait for Pepper,” he told me decisively. “He’s old and he might get lost or something. It won’t be long, and I might as well make myself useful in the meantime.”

My throat closed and my sinuses clogged up instantly.

“Do you think they let dogs into heaven?” Justin asked. “Because I’m not going if they don’t.”

I started to cry.

Justin blipped out.

Alive or dead, men can’t stand tears.

* * *

JOLIE ARRIVED WHILE I was rooting through the cupboards looking for something that could reasonably be expected to morph into lunch.

“You look terrible,” she said after letting herself in.

“Do you think dogs are allowed in heaven?” I asked.

“Sit down,” Jolie ordered. “You’re a train wreck.”

I slumped into a chair at the kitchen table.

Jolie washed her hands at the sink—a good thing, since she’d probably been dropping pieces of Alex Pennington into evidence bags all morning—and opened a can of soup. “Greer’s not back from shopping yet?” she asked, getting out a saucepan.

I shook my head.

“It will be interesting to see how she reacts to the news,” Jolie said, plopping the contents of the soup can into the saucepan. “Do you ever buy groceries?”

I ignored the grocery gibe. Jolie cooked. It made sense that she had a fixation with supermarkets. To me, they were just places where I ran into crazy stalkers and dead people. “Greer,” I said evenly, “did not riddle Alex with bullets and leave him to rot in the desert.”

“Don’t be so free with the gory details, okay? I could get fired if anybody finds out I called you from the crime scene.”

Guilt washed over me. I bit my lower lip. Who needs collagen when you can get the plump look by gnawing on yourself? “I might have let something slip to Tucker,” I confessed.