“She’s babbling,” Bradley said. “Clearly too upset to function properly. You need to stay here, Officer, but I will escort Miss Vixen home to make sure she’s safe. No fair creature should have to look on such a horrifying scene. Now, now, don’t thank me,” he added, though Orville had not been about to thank him. “Just doing my part.”
Before Vera could say goodbye to Orville, Bradley was already steering her away from the crime scene and into the woods.
“Uh, the town is in the other direction,” she said as he tried to escort her along the path.
“Yes, of course!” he agreed, wheeling around the moment he understood he’d blundered 180 degrees the wrong way. “Just wanted to get some distance between you and that hideous tableau. I’m surprised you didn’t faint.”
Fainting had never been Vera’s style, but she acknowledged that the scene was not one she wanted to see again. “I hope Deputy Braun will be able to find out what happened and arrest the killer, if they can even be found.”
“Wouldn’t count on it. These podunk cops don’t know what to do when they see a real crime. When was the last time Shady Hollow ever experienced murder? Decades ago, I’ll bet.”
“Actually,” Vera corrected, “just since I’ve moved here, there’s been a poisoning, a drowning, a good old-fashioned blunt-object whacking…and that’s not even counting the attempted murders.”
Marvel’s jaw dropped and he took several seconds to think of a reply. “Er…” was his answer. “All the same creature? Some madness overtook them?”
“Oh, no. Just the usual results of jealousy, greed, and thwarted love.”
“Hey, I should really write a book set here. Can’t use the real name, of course. I’d have to tweak it to Spooky Hollow or Sleepy Hollow, or…or The Graves of Shady Grove! That’s got a ring to it.”
“And would this be a Percy Bannon book?” she asked politely. By this time, they’d reached the more populated streets of downtown, and Vera nodded to a few residents walking home late, and waved to a squirrel who was rearranging the hats in the window of the millinery shop.
“No, no, no. Percy Bannon thwarts international criminals and crosses the globe. This would have to be a new character. A detective like no other…that gives me an idea.” He smiled at her.
For a moment, Vera experienced a vision of herself on a Marvel cover, dressed to the nines with her tail waving coquettishly. “Oh, I’m not sure that I’d want…” she began to say.
“A grizzled wolf, down on his luck but always ready for the next case!” Bradley pulled his fedora lower across his muzzle and flipped the collar of his trench coat up. “Wily. Astute. Keen-eyed. And strikingly handsome, of course.”
“Of course,” Vera sighed. Marvel was welcome to write his own personal fan fiction, but she hoped he wouldn’t stay too long while he dreamed up his plot. “How long do you take to research your books, Mr. Marvel?”
“Call me Bradley,” he told her. “And that’s a great question. It depends. I rely on a few assistants for some of the work…the more routine queries and the boring stuff. Say, you’re a reporter, aren’t you? You know about fact-checking.”
“Yes, it’s a big part of the job.” Even Gladys Honeysuckle made sure that the gossip tidbits she chronicled weren’t wildly off-base…most of the time.
“You would be a good author assistant. In fact, I may venture to say you’d be a marvelous one.” He grinned at her again, showing rows of sharp teeth. “How do you feel about that?”
“Um, thanks for the kind words,” she replied, feeling that this stroll was interminable. Just then, she spied the corner of her darling little house up the street. “Oh, look, we’re here already! It was so nice of you to see me safely to my door, Mr. Marvel.”
“A pleasure, and I told you to call me Bradley.” He leaned toward her as if he intended to kiss her.
Yikes. Vera stepped back, pulling her key from her bag as she did so. “You must be worn out from your talk at the bookstore, Mr. Marvel. I know I had a very full day. You ought to return to Bramblebriar to rest up. Good night!”
She unlocked her door and slipped through without opening it more than halfway. Turning the latch on the other side, she leaned against the door and sighed.
“What. A. Day.” Vera eyed her quaint kitchen, where the teakettle waited on the stove. Yes, that’s just what she needed. A nice cup of steamy chamomile tea, a few almond cookies left over from her last trip to the Bamboo Patch, and no wolves to interrupt her relaxation.
After the excitement of the bookstore event, compounded by the grisly discovery of a body in the woods, Vera was certain that she would fall asleep immediately after brewing her tea, but instead, her brain churned through the events of the evening. She also pondered what Dot Springfield had told her, about Edward calling her by the wrong name at his mother’s funeral.
Just as she settled onto her comfy couch, there was a knock at the door.
Vera groaned. If that wolf came back to annoy her again, Shady Hollow would have yet another murder to deal with.
“Vera? You still up? It’s me.”
“Orville!” she said happily, recognizing her beau’s voice. She hurried to the door and opened it to let him in. “I’m so glad it’s you.”
“I thought I’d stop by to see that you’re all right. I know it’s not your first corpse, but it was still pretty grim.”
“Definitely,” she said, finding the large mug Orville preferred when he was over. She poured chamomile tea into the mug and set it on the table, next to the honey jar. “Sit down. I don’t think I could go to sleep without thinking some things through anyway.”
“Me too,” he agreed, stirring a healthy dollop of honey into his tea. “Without knowing what
