Page 89 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

Merle’s face lights up; it’s like he just got new batteries. “Always a pleasure! Just ignore this cast. I was at a funeral last weekend, and the stairs of that place—woooowee. It’s like they’re trying to get more business, if you know what I mean!” He winks at me.

I open my mouth to tell him he already said all that, but then he starts the whole bit overagain. Tasha elbows me and gives me a look.

Welp.

My dude isout of it.

The alderman rambles on while I do some quick mental calculations. The funeral and Merle’s broken leg happened Saturday. Claudia’s garbled text (“investigate alderman office”) came in Sunday evening, when she was delirious from gas poisoning and too weak to do anything about her overaggressive autocorrect. And then, according to the first responder gas guys, she was dead within hours.

Merle couldn’t have killed herhimself, because he was in the hospital during the critical stretch of time—the two or three hours before her death. And I know Merle didn’t tellTondto kill her; that Funeral Deep Throat conversation was just about bribery.

So the other option is that Merle told someoneelse, adifferenthenchman, to kill Claudia.

Seems risky, not to mention complicated, putting separate henchpeople on a murder operation and a bribery operation against thesame person at the same time. But then again, I’ve never murdered before so what do I know.

The honest truth is, I’m grasping at straws here. I have precisely zero leads.

Nuts.

“Hey, Tasha,” I whisper, “I should probably head out—”

“Oh, Merle, for chrissakes, listen to yourself—” A woman’s voice snaps me out of my reverie.

“Lesliebear?” Merle says, breaking off from his leg-breaking story and blinking into the air. “Is that you?”

Leslie from the funeral comes around a cubicle wall—and wait,Lesliebear? Is that the drugs talking? Or is he one of those politicians who gives everyone a nickname? Can I suggest my own? I have thoughts.

Charlie extracts himself from the dogpile and limps over to her.

“Oh hello, Charlie,” Merle says affectionately. “Have you met Charlie?”

I nod.

“He’s a champ, yes, he is, aren’t you, kiddo?” Merle tries to pet him, nearly losing his balance again. “I’m kind of the third wheel in this family,” he says in a stage whisper.

Tasha steps in to help prop the alderman up.

“This is Leslie,” Merle introduces us. “My wife.”

Ohhhhh.Wife.Not a general nickname guy.

So much for picking my own nickname. I hardly knew ya, GeneralissiMo.

“I amalsoyour chief of staff,” Leslie reminds him before reaching into the giant fanny pack she’s wearing and pulling out a dog treat that Charlie instantly scarfs up. Embarrassingly, the poodles also pop up and swarm her for their share.

“Manners,” I hiss, but to my chagrin, they completely ignore me.

Leslie, meanwhile, holds a treat up in the air and all three of my guys sit obediently. She winks at me. “I guess my real job is Dog Mom Extraordinaire!”

“My job is more like Dog Mom Mediocre,” I say sadly, pronouncingmediocreso it rhymes withextraordinaire. If I have to be humiliated, I want to be cute while I do it.

“Nonsense!” Leslie says, giving the poodles a nod of grandmotherly approval. “After everything they’ve gone through, these guys lookreallyfat. In a happy way! You’re doing such a good job.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles kindly. “Better than that Benny character ever did.”

Well. That’s nice. Finally, some appreciation.

“Are youcrying?” Tasha whispers.

“No,” I whisper back. It’s not just Leslie. It’s also the relief of the Merle-as-murderer theory turning into a dead end. Hopefully, Tond will still pay me.