Home For the Homicide (A Do-It-Yourself Mystery) by Jennie Bentley Page A

means a conjunction of three astronomical objects.”
    I stared at him.
    “Also a metrical unit of two feet,” Steve added. “In poetry.”
    I stared at Steve. And then at Derek again. “How do you know this stuff?”
    “Just because I’m a handyman . . .” Derek began, and I rolled my eyes.
    “You didn’t become a handyman until you’d been a doctor for a few years first. It’s not like you’re uneducated. But I still don’t see how you’d know about the conjunctions of astronomical objects.” Or poetry. “It isn’t something you’d learn about in medical school.”
    “I grew up playing Scrabble,” Derek said. “Of course, he had to use a blank for the third Y. There are only two.” He looked me up and down. “Why do you have your coat on?”
    “I just came in.”
    “Cora’s taken hers off.”
    She had, and sat down next to her husband on the sofa.
    “We thought we saw a light in the house on North Street when we drove past,” I said. “I thought maybe you’d want to come with me to check it out.”
    “A light?”
    “It was probably a mistake,” Cora said, settling into the sofa next to Dr. Ben. “A reflection of headlights from the hill. Or a reflection of light from the house across the street.”
    “The house across the street is only one story tall. It wouldn’t reflect into the second-story windows.”
    My husband looked at me, and then at Cora. “You didn’t stop and check?”
    She shook her head.
    “It’s late,” I said. “And dark. And Cora wanted to get home. And besides, you have the only key.”
    He nodded and got to his feet. “I was losing anyway. It’s hard to compete with words like ‘syzygy.’ Say good night, Avery.”
    “Good night, Avery,” I said, and followed him into the foyer.
    “I’m proud of you,” he told me a couple minutes later, when we were in the car and on our way back to North Street.
    I glanced across at him for a second. “You are? Why?”
    “You could have run inside the house and gotten yourself killed. But you didn’t. You came and got me instead.”
    Right. Um . . . “I probably would have gone inside,” I admitted, “if I’d had the key, and if Cora had been willing to go with me. But she insisted that she’d made a mistake and she wanted me to take her home, so I did. I’d rather go sleuthing with you anyway.”
    “Flattered,” Derek said and opened the glove box. “Is there a flashlight in here?”
    “Should be.” I risked a glance in that direction as he rummaged, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the road any longer than I had to.
    “Got it.” He pulled it out and flicked it on. Nothing happened. “Out of batteries,” Derek said, disgusted.
    “We can use my cell phone instead. I have a flashlight app.”
    “That’ll work.” He returned the useless flashlight to the glove box and leaned back in the seat, folding his arms across his chest. “Remind me to get you new batteries. I don’t want my wife driving around with a nonfunctioning flashlight.”
    “Flashlight app,” I reminded him.
    “Not the same thing.”
    Maybe not, but we had reached the house now, and the time to argue was over. I pulled up to the curb and cut the engine. Derek peered out the window. “I don’t see anything.”
    “I didn’t, either. There probably wasn’t anything there. But Cora said she saw a light, and it couldn’t have been a reflection from the house across the street.”
    Derek glanced at it. “No.”
    “I’m sure there’s no one there at all. But just in case she wasn’t wrong . . .”
    “May as well take a look.” Derek nodded and unlocked his door. Before he swung his legs out, he opened the glove box again and palmed the flashlight.
    “I thought it didn’t work.”
    “It’s not for lighting our way,” Derek said. “We have your cell phone for that. This is for protection.”
    Wonderful. Yet another reason to hope we’d find no one in the house. Or my husband would be hauled off to jail for