Never Say Sty by Linda O. Johnston

soon.

    I also accomplished a whole lot of lawyering. Even won the motion I’d been preparing for that had been my main reason to refuse Dante’s intriguing invitation.

    Dante. Althea told me a couple of times that she’d not found anything especially exciting about him—but that I should come to the office anyway, so she could show me all she’d uncovered, such as it was.

    Reading between the lines, that meant she wanted me to see Jeff. And I wasn’t ready to do that.

    I got a number of calls from Dante that lit up my psyche and proved that he had been genuine about keeping in touch. But he was delayed in Pennsylvania. So, nothing exciting happened in that area of my life either.

    Probably a good thing.

    The next week rolled around. So did the filming at SFV Studios of the next edition of Animal Auditions . It was as much fun to watch as last week’s, to see the piggies in training for undercover sniff work.

    It was also as excruciating as before to hear Sebastian superimpose his opinions on those of all the other judges—right oncamera. Two piggies—not, fortunately, Ned’s or Nita’s—were booted off the show, as anticipated. But it did not seem accomplished with fairness or flair.

    Unsurprisingly, another free-for-all ensued after filming ended, with contestants and production staff and even Dante, who’d gotten back to town, participating. Leading the very vocal charge against the judges were Nita and Ned.

    This didn’t bode well for the success of our endeavor, despite Charlotte’s assumed cheerfulness about how audiences always appeared to love tough judges. What if our contestants all quit? Those who remained appeared ready to mutiny. Even the Nature Network attendees appeared frazzled.

    All of us on the production staff, including Dante, agreed to meet the next day. But before we got together, I received an absolutely frantic phone call from our producer in charge.

    “Kendra!” Charlotte sounded especially hysterical, even for someone as emotional as she. “It’s terrible. And I don’t know what it’ll mean for Animal Auditions .”

    “What’s terrible?” I asked soothingly, attempting to calm her down.

    “It’s Sebastian Czykovski. He and I were scheduled to meet for lunch to talk over maybe toning down the way he comes across on the show, and how he acts with the contestants afterward. I got to the studio just after noon. I went into the judges’ office and . . . Oh, Kendra!”

    She didn’t have to finish. Murder magnet that I was, I knew what I had to ask.

    “Charlotte, did you find Sebastian—”

    She interrupted with a shrieked exclamation: “He was dead!”

Chapter Five

    I CONSIDERED REMAINING megamiles from the crime scene. I didn’t need another murder in my life.

    But, heck, there was another murder in my life. My own involvement with Animal Auditions said so. Many of my friends and acquaintances had spent mucho time and money on this concept. And, in fact, it was mainly my brainstorm.

    Maybe, because of some incomprehensible quirk in the universe, I was somehow to blame for what had occurred, murder magnet that I am.

    Better yet, maybe that nasty Sebastian had brought this one on himself, without my involvement at all.

    I was at my law office. Lexie was at Darryl’s. Fortunately, I had no court appearances that day, nor any pleadings that required immediate drafting.

    Even so, as frazzled as I felt, I stuck my head into my senior partner’s office. “Borden, you’ll never guess what happened.”

    I love his antique desk and the eclectic mix of client chairs facing it. I sat my butt down in one and stared sadly at the silver-haired man who’d been so sweet to take me in as a law partner some time ago. Never mind that he was quirky and always wore Hawaiian shirts. Today’s was black with yellow flowers.

    “Don’t tell me there’s been another murder,” he said in his high voice, a frown of concern creasing his aging face even