Page 29 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

It just so happens some of those people will be crazy conspiracy theorists.

Don’t get me wrong, part of me wishes she’s right, because it would let me off the hook. But I’m going to be a grown-up about this and take responsibility for my actions. Even when my actions suck and someone, uh, dies.

“It really wasn’t murder,” I say quietly. “It was my fault. I was late to my shift. This guy—Cran, was it?—drives through every day at a hundred miles an hour. It’s the most predictable thing in the world.And without me here to make him slow down, he drove straight into the sinkhole and hit his head on the steering wheel. Game over. And very much my fault.”

Claudia stands. “Then why weren’t the dogs hurt?”

“What?”

“The dogs. They’re all totally fine.”

I look down, where the sweet dog has curled into a ball at my feet. He gazes up at me lovingly. “Huh.”

“Exactly.”

I shake my head. “No, I’m sure it’s because dogs are bouncy or something.” But then I think back to yesterday, when Cran hit the pothole, before it was a sinkhole, and was so convinced I’d given one of the dogs a concussion.

That dog wasn’t very bouncy yesterday.

Still. No way.

“Okay, then,” Claudia continues. “Why didn’t the airbag inflate?”

“I don’t... I’m not a mechanic, Claudia.”

“I’ll tell you,” she says. “It’s because the car wasn’t going fast. Not fast enough to kill somebody.”

“He always drives too fast,” I argue, feeling queasy all over again. “That’s his whole thing.”

“Nope,” Claudia says, shaking her head. “Look at the facts. We were the first people to arrive, so we had a pristine crime scene. We know we got there immediately afterward, based on the amount of oil leaking under the car. His positioning indicated that he vomitedduringthe incident, not after, which suggests—”

I hold up a hand to stop her while I do my best to not sympathy-barf.

She shoots me a withering look, but gives me a second.

“What about his nose?” I carefully ask when my stomach has more or less settled. “It was bleeding, probably from hitting the steeringwheel. How about that, hotshot? You trying to tell me that’s not from impact?”

“Fine, but my point is, no cuts or gashes or bruises like you might see in a blunt force trauma. Therefore,factually, he was disintegrating internally. You know what causes that?”

I want to know.

I also don’t want to know.

“Radium poisoning,” Claudia says triumphantly.

And this, right here, is how conspiracy theorists get you. They sound perfectly reasonable, and then they pull the rug right out from under you.

“Now we’re in this together.” She’s suddenly on a roll. “You and me have to figure out who did it, and what their motive was, and it’s going to be hard because I can think of about a dozen motives for killing Cran, and that’s without even trying—”

“You know what,” I interrupt as delicately as I can, because you never want to piss off a conspiracy theorist. “I have to go. I’m sorry. I have a... mammogram.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, yeah, that’s important.”

“I’ll, ah, see you around,” I say, as I back away.

She holds out three leashes with dogs at the end of them.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asks sweetly.