She nodded, trying to shoo my cat, King, off the table and out of the food.
I’d grief-adopted King after moving to Parkwood, thinking that what I needed was a distraction to get my mind off of Trace and Tink. His name was actually Archie, but he was full of quirks that made it obvious that he fancied himself the ruler of the house, so I added what seemed like the most appropriate title: King.
King Archie required his dinner be served to him in a people bowl rather than a cat dish. He snubbed any drink other than the clear, cold stream of a lightly-running bathroom faucet, or anything I poured for myself and left unattended for longer than thirty seconds. King assumed every bowl of cereal, deli sandwich, PopTart, or can of tuna was his and his alone, as was the bottom quarter of the bed, all the way across. He refused to so much as lick a cat treat, flicking his paws disgustedly at the mere sight of one, but instead demand-meowed at the refrigerator door when he felt like snacking. And King Archie always felt like snacking. Which was why he was pushing twenty pounds. But he was twenty pounds of pure pomp and circumstance, and I loved him.
“I thought you said this cat was on a diet,” Daisy said, waving in his general direction.
“He is, but mum’s the word,” I said, covering his little kitty ears. “He doesn’t know it. I’m easing him into it slowly.” I picked him up and set him on the floor.
“Mm-hmm, so slowly I think he’s actually gained weight,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he’s thinking you don’t know yet that he diets for no one. Come to think of it, that’s a philosophy I could get behind.”
“Should we get started?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Sure. Let’s do this. Hey, there, fellow fans of crime!” she said into the microphone.
“Wait! I have to turn it on.”
“Oh. I thought you were just testing it.”
“I was, but I wasn’t recording.”
She peered at the computer. “How do you know if you’re recording?”
I peered along with her. “I actually don’t. I kind of thought you would be the tech person.”
She gave me a have-you-lost-your-mind look. “What made you think that?”
I considered it. “I don’t know. You’re always fixing the kids’ stuff. I just assumed.”
“There’s a big difference between replacing the batteries on a talking piece of plastic and this,” she said. “My vast technical knowledge is ‘blow on it, and if that doesn’t work, try distraction with Popsicles while you throw it away and pretend it got lost.’ You’re the technical person.” She pushed the pan of lemon bars toward me. “I’m the recipe person.”
“Nice try, but you are not just a recipe person. This is a true crime podcast.”
“No, it’s a true crime and baked goods podcast. Remember, you said, ‘We should record a podcast together,’ and I said, ‘Lucas, get out of those brownies,’ and you said, ‘Murder, mayhem, blah-blah-blah, oh, those brownies do look good,’ and I said, ‘Girl, I barely have time to listen to podcasts, what makes you think I have time to research for one? They’re my secret recipe brownies, here, have one,’ and you said—and I quote—” She puffed her cheeks out in a disturbingly-good impression of me talking around a mouthful of food. “‘You just bring the brownies and I will take care of everything else.’ So I brought the brownies—in the form of lemon bars.”
Oh. Right. The brownie conversation.
In my defense, Daisy’s brownies could make people say and do just about anything. They could cause out-of-body experiences. They could be the source of blissed-out blackouts. Forget the insanity defense—not guilty by reason of browniebrain was more like it. They were that good.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll do the editing. Let’s just…try not to mess up a lot because I don’t really know what I’m doing yet.”
“What do those lines mean right there?” she asked, pointing to the screen.
I squinted at the lines, then flipped through the manual. “I think it means we just recorded this whole conversation. I guess it was on after all.”
“Oh!” she said brightly. “Hey, world!”
“No, we can’t open our podcast with, ‘Hey, world.’ We need something snappier.”
“Well, what should I say?” She adopted a serious newscaster voice. “Welcome to K-DEAD, ladies and gentlemen, here’s a first look at today’s headlines. Local podcaster, Hollis Bisbee, is kind of a control freak. Let’s go live with King Archie Bisbee for more.” She scooted her microphone toward King, who had reappeared at the dessert plate. He meowed, pawed at the plastic stretched over the lemon bars a few times, then hopped down from the table indignantly and headed for the fridge. “Well said, King.”
“Very funny,” I said. I thought it over for a second. “How about this?” I leaned toward the microphone. “Welcome to the Knock ’em Dead podcast, where crime and passion meet. I’m Hollis and…”
Daisy bit her lip. “I don’t know what I think about that.”
“About what?”
“That ‘where crime and passion meet’ thing you’re saying. It sounds too fancy romancey.”
I sighed. “Fine. Let’s do it again with a different—less romantic—tagline.”
“I have one!” she said jubilantly. “Let me! You do the welcome and then I’ll do the tagline.”
“Okay,” I said. “Great. Let’s do this.” I cleared my throat and leaned in again. “Welcome to the Knock ’em Dead podcast.”
“Where murder and muffins meet!” Daisy chirped. She held up her pan of lemon bars, as if we had an audience who could see it.
“Murder and muffins?”
She nodded. “Isn’t it cute?”
Cute. Granted, I hadn’t exactly crafted a mission
