I erupted in a violent, wet sneezing fit. While I mopped up, Mr. A heaved himself out of his chair and tottered out of the room. In case he came back with a gun, I looked around for my purse and prepared to flee, but I wasn’t fast enough.

Aerosol can held high, he sprayed around the room. My nose was too congested to smell it. “Stop it! That’s toxic.” Hell, it could be roach spray.

“Calm down, Miss Cornwall. It’s only Lysol. I’m hoping it will kill the virulent germs you’re spreading around my home.”

“Yeah, you need more than that. No offence, Mr. A., but this place needs a good cleaning. Are you perhaps a hoarder?” I drew a happy face in the dust covering his coffee table.

He looked around. “What do you mean? It’s a little messy, maybe …”

“Sit down and relax. I have a proposal for you.” Geez, that didn’t come out exactly like I intended. “I mean, I have a proposition.” Shit, I should just spit it out.

He sat, but kept his trigger finger on the nozzle of the can.

I took out a brochure and a price list from my purse. “You may have heard of my cleaning company, Bliss This House? No? What I propose is that I send in a team for a full day to give this whole house a good going over. Here, this is my price.”

When I saw his mouth open to protest, I said, “No, wait, since you and I go way back” — gag me — “I’ll knock 20 percent off the price. Then, a team of two will come in every other week for four hours to do the routine cleaning. Laundry and windows are extra.”

His chin sank onto his chest and he peered through the layers of flesh surrounding his eyes. “I may have fallen into bad housekeeping habits lately. But I’m not a healthy man. I may well die before long, so I don’t think …”

“Okay, Earl, what’s all this shit about dying? You need to lose a few pounds — okay, maybe a couple hundred pounds — and you have sleep apnea, undoubtedly a little high blood pressure, but you’re not that old. You have time to get your body back into a less lethal condition.”

He lifted his head. “Thank God you never went into the healing arts. Your bedside manner stinks. Now that I think of it, you were never even a hall monitor, were you?”

“I volunteered, but they wouldn’t have me.”

“Thank God,” he said again. He was getting on my nerves.

I sneezed and was rewarded with another spritz from the Lysol can. I grabbed a World War Two weapons’ magazine and fanned the air. “Do you by any chance belong to a gun club? You seem to be fascinated with deadly weapons, and you have, like, a hundred Lock and Load magazines sitting around.”

“As a matter of fact, my great-uncle left me an extensive collection of souvenir pistols from the war. He taught me to shoot when I was a boy, and I did join the gun club later. I have a target pistol, legally registered. But you don’t need to tell your boyfriend about the souvenirs. City cops don’t understand our ways.”

“Tell me about it.” Did everyone refer to Redfern as my “boyfriend?” If we split up, would he henceforth be referred to as my “ex-boyfriend?”

“You were just leaving, Miss Cornwall.”

“In a minute. Tell me what you’re dying of.

He sighed. “If it will get rid of you. I need to lose a hundred pounds. My blood pressure is off the charts.” From the cluttered table by his chair, he picked up a pill bottle and shook it. “I have to go to a sleep clinic and get fitted for one of those horrendous masks for sleeping. As far as I know, my valves are running clear, but I need to be checked by a heart specialist to make sure.” He sighed again.

“Only a hundred pounds? That’s not bad. Once you lose the weight, the other problems will resolve themselves. Do you want to know what I think?” By his expression, he didn’t, but I told him anyway, “I believe you’re suffering from depression. Maybe you should see a doctor, other than Dr. Who’s-it at the hospital. He’s a gynecologist, you know.”

“And a very capable ER doctor. I have an appointment with my own doctor tomorrow. He’ll set me up with all the pertinent specialists.”

“Fine. I can send a team in next Friday. Is that good for you?” Damned if I was leaving here without information about grad night and without new business.

“If I say yes, will you leave?”

“Of course, you just have to ask.” I stood up and zipped my coat. “If you think of anything regarding the graduation party, will you let me know? Here’s my business card. Or, you can contact my boyfriend instead, if you’d rather.”

“Goodbye, Miss Cornwall.”

He shuffled to the door behind me. I wanted to invite him to Glory’s charity benefit, thinking it might cheer him up. But when I sneezed — only once this time — he slammed the door shut.

I trudged to my car, wiping my nose and searching my pockets for the blister pack of cold pills. I still hoped Mr. Archman was the killer, but not as much as before.

CHAPTER

thirty-one

The station had one interview room, barely enough space for a perp and his lawyer and two cops. Neil took a seat and waited while Thea, Dwayne, and Bernie pulled their chairs into alignment with the whiteboard. Tony picked up a marker and drew a line down the centre of the board.

“Okay, boys and girls. We’ve hit a brick wall regarding Faith Davidson’s death. Looks like homicide, smells like homicide, most likely is homicide. She was sixteen weeks pregnant when she died, and we don’t know who the father was yet. He may have been very unhappy over hearing about the pregnancy, and that, my kiddies, would be a motive. Are we looking for a male perpetrator? Looks like it, but he may have had a female accomplice.” He pointed at the list of seven names on the left side of the board. “In my humble opinion, we could strike off Miss Bliss Moonbeam Cornwall’s name. But the chief here insists she’s a contender, so her name stays.”

Bernie sniggered while Dwayne snorted. Thea rolled her eyes and jabbed Dwayne in the arm with her elbow. Neil stirred in his chair and quelled his staff with a look.

“So,” Tony continued, throwing the marker in the air and catching it, “let’s focus on Reverend Sophie Quantz. I don’t think we can discount her husband. Kelly Quantz has been drunk since his wife’s death and I’d bet he’s been best friends with the booze before that. He could have followed his wife into the church and shot her. So far, we haven’t found a motive.”

“Do you think he could have killed Faith Davidson, too?” Thea asked.

“Don’t know. He could have. He was on the scene,” Tony responded. He turned and wrote PAL? at the top of the board over the first column. “Do any of our suspects have a Possession and Acquisition Licence?”

Thea opened the folder on her lap. “First of all, the casing we found in St. Paul’s choir loft is a .32 ACP. Next, I checked with the RCMP, and six people on that list have a PAL for a target pistol and ammo. Also an Authorization to Transport for each of them.”

Neil stood up and squared his taut shoulder muscles. “All six belong to a gun club of some sort. Any .32s, Thea?”

“No, Chief. All own Rugers, mostly Mark I’s. They all use .22 calibre ammo.”

“Even Fern Brickle?” Neil was surprised she owned a target pistol, given her advanced arthritis.

Thea consulted her file again. “Her PAL is about to expire. The RCMP has sent out her ninety-day reminder.”

Tony tapped the end of his marker on the board, leaving a grouping of little black dots. “I don’t know about the rest of you coppers, but I’m dying to know who doesn’t have a PAL.”

Thea smiled. “I didn’t say the seventh person doesn’t have a PAL. Fang Davidson has a licence for two long guns, both older shotguns, neither take .32s.”