Cloudy with a Chance of Ghosts (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 4) by J.D. Winters Page A

one.”
    “We don’t have a cat.”
    I stared at her. “But I saw one. I saw her yesterday, too. She came right up the stairs and….”
    “No cat,” Debbie said, eyes flashing. “I don’t want to be rude, but you really are intruding on a private area of the house.”
    “Of course.” I looked around but there was nothing that was going to save me. “I’m sorry. I came up here yesterday because Marilee was here. She said this was her bedroom when she worked for you and….”
    Debbie was shaking her head. “I think you must have misunderstood. This isn’t Marilee’s bedroom and never was.”
    “Oh.”
    “There are three bedrooms on this landing. Mine, the one that Marilee used while she lived here, and then this one, which is the one we used as a guest room. Hardly anyone ever stayed here.”
    “Oh.”
    That threw me for a loop. Why had Marilee lied to me? And where was that darn cat?

Chapter Five

    Debbie led me back out of the area very sternly and I felt properly abashed. I really had never meant to intrude on private areas and I was truly sorry. Still…
    I caught up with Jill and went with her to start the packing process. It looked like it was going to be a huge job of taping together large pieces of cardboard to form boxes individually around each framed canvas.  
    “Did it ever occur to you?” I grumbled to Jill, “That Jagger did this on purpose?”
    “Did what?”
    “Got himself arrested so he could get someone else to come pack away his paintings for him?”
    “He didn’t get arrested,” she insisted doggedly, not even cracking a smile at my lame attempt at humor.  
    “Hmm.”
    Celinda Moore was there, packing away her huge works of body paint splashes of color and complaining about the mess George Marker had left behind when he’d collected his trash can pictures.
    “It’s no wonder he chooses to paint what he does,” she said, shaking her head. “It seems to be right down his alley.”
    Old George wasn’t there to defend himself and her nagging was getting old, so I risked asking an uncomfortable question.  
    “Have you recovered from yesterday’s ordeal?”
    She looked at me, surprised. “It wasn’t my ordeal,” she said. “I just walked around a tree and found a body. Then I called in the discovery. It had nothing to do with me.”
    I thought she was a little quick to jump on the defense. “Can you tell me something?” I asked, but didn’t wait for her permission. “Did she have any papers with her when you found the body? Did you see a notebook or….?”
    “No, nothing,” she said, turning away abruptly. I could tell she wasn’t up for any chatting on the subject.  
    “She was wearing a camera on a cord around her neck,” a voice said behind me. “I saw it when they were loading the body into the paramedic van.”
    I turned. It was Quill, taking her exquisite pen and ink drawings off the wall and sticking them into a case she had on wheels. Very nifty. Very efficient.  
    “Thanks,” I said. “Did you have a chance to talk to her at all?”
    She shook her head. “Not yesterday. Although I did have lunch with her the day before.”
    “You did?” I glanced around the room to see who was still there. Celinda was going off as quickly as she could. Alda was busy explaining something to some other artists over on the side, so Jill was the only one left to overhear.  
    “Was it a friendly lunch?” I realized that sounded tacky. “I’m sorry, but you see Jill and I are trying to find out what happened….”
    “To help Jagger. I understand.”
    “Yes.” I grimaced, hoping I wasn’t going to have to come right out and start aggressively questioning her.  
    “Don’t worry.” She smiled a Cheshire cat smile and patted my arm. “She had an ulterior motive for asking me to meet with her. She wanted to pump me for information about Carlton.” She shrugged and made a face. “I carefully avoided telling her anything that might matter. I hate that kind