“Don’t you even think about it,” I called up to him.

The bird looked down at me, head still cocked.

“I mean it, Dog. We’ve talked about this.”

He considered me a moment longer, then took off in flight, headed directly for Oscar.

“No! Dog! Bad crow!” I broke out into a run. Unfortunately, I was a lot slower than the bird, given my really cute, but impractical boots.

At the sight of us both charging toward him, Oscar startled, then ran in a circle, barking like crazy.

Dog seemed to take that as an invitation because he swooped down and snipped at Oscar’s tail before soaring back into the sky.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” I cried after him. “This is a nice neighborhood.”

I was about to shout at Dog again when a very professorial and very displeased voice called out, “What in the world is going on out here?”

I spotted Williams, standing on the stoop outside her front door, arms crossed over her chest.

“Brynn Warren, what are you doing to my dog?”

Chapter 15

We were just playing?” I swear Oscar arched an eyebrow at me, but at least he wasn’t saying anything.

“I see.” Williams came down the wide steps of her house, her marled gray cardigan sweater wrapped tight to her body. She eyed me in a way that made me think no student would ever dare plagiarize a paper in her class. “Regardless of whatever this is, I’m glad you’re here. I was hoping I’d get a chance to talk to you.”

I blinked. “Williams, you know you’re welcome to stop by anytime.”

She looked briefly over to the B&B. “I wasn’t sure how Nora would feel about that given everything that’s happened.”

“Everything that’s happened?” I was afraid to ask exactly what it was she was referring to. I had been blindsided a lot lately.

“You are aware I was questioned by the police? We all were,” she said, looking around the neighborhood. “They took Mr. Henderson’s security footage.”

Mr. Henderson had security footage? I looked over at his house, really seeing for the first time the camera perched on the wall by the driveway. I was going to have to look into that. “I assumed you had spoken to them.” I could suddenly see where she was going with this. “But you have to know Nora wasn’t being serious that night. That was just Nora being Nora.”

“Yes. I am well aware, and I did try to convey that to the police, but my sense is they were not willing to adopt my interpretation of events.”

I felt my shoulders drop. This, along with the mallet they had taken from Nora’s greenhouse? I knew it meant they were building a case. Obviously, I already knew that to some extent, but hearing the concern in Williams’s voice brought it home.

“I’m also afraid I need to apologize for something else. The morning after Constance died, I may have relayed the night’s events to a few of my fellow council members. I want you to know it was never my intention to cast Nora in a poor light. If anything, I was trying to communicate what a horrible coincidence it was that she had been joking about taking care of Constance just moments before she passed.” She ran a hand over her face. “I was tired. I wasn’t thinking.”