Buttoned Up by Kylie Logan

shop—”
    My chin came up and I clutched plates and silverware to my chest. “What?”
    “Well, it is a tad out of the ordinary.”
    “Which doesn’t mean it’s weird.”
    “No one said it was.”
    “And they better not ever.”
    I pushed past him and into the dining room, and set out the plates while he pulled white cartons of food out of the bag. He’d also brought along a bottle of wine. Before I could offer an opener, he pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and did the honors. There were wineglasses on the sideboard and I reached for three, and once he’d poured, I took one of the glasses to Stan.
    Gabriel staked out the chair at the head of the table and I chose the one to his left. “You must have been pretty sure I’d be willing to talk,” I said, looking over the feast. “Or is the lo mein supposed to take care of that?”
    “When it is appropriate, I’m not above offering a bribe.” He sipped his wine. My head was still pounding and I thought better of joining him, but one taste and I changed my mind. It was a pinot noir and pricey, if I knew my labels. A couple more sips helped clear my head. “As for the lo mein, it was a lucky guess. You look like a lo mein sort of girl.”
    “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
    “It was meant as one.” He heaped his plate with fried rice and chomped into a spring roll. “So . . .” He chewed. “That bit with Forbis at the art show, the dramatic dropping of the champagne glass and the race from the church, was it staged?”
    “If it was, nobody told me.”
    “Then what did they tell you?”
    I had an excuse for not answering—I had a mouthful of lo mein. I chewed, swallowed, and washed it all down with another sip of wine. “If you’re looking for answers, you came to the wrong place. You should talk to the police.”
    “You found the body.”
    There was no use denying it so I didn’t even try.
    There were two sets of chopsticks in the bag and Gabriel scooped up fried rice with his as if he’d been born using them. I am not so adventurous or willing to make a mess; I played it safe and used a fork.
    “Is it true?” he asked. “About the buttons glued to Parmenter’s eyes and mouth?”
    “Is that what the news reports said?”
    “You know they did, or I wouldn’t have the information. I’ve called your boyfriend any number of times to try and get a few quotes and a whole lot of information. He’s either busy, or he doesn’t want to talk to me.”
    “And you think I can put in a good word for you.”
    “I think you look like a woman who could use some fried rice on her plate.” He did the honors and for a couple minutes we sat in silence, eating. When I was feeling more generous and less like I’d been ambushed, I’d have to ask Gabriel where he got the food. It was too delicious to be from one of the carry-out places in the neighborhood.
    He finished off his fried rice and attacked a portion of lo mein. “You know buttons,” was all he said.
    “If you’re talking about the buttons on Forbis’s eyes and mouth . . .” Sitting in my dining room eating lo mein did not seem like the appropriate time to think of what I’d seen at the church. I tried to stay as objective as I could, as objective as I’d seen Nev at the scene of a crime. Turns out, I wasn’t very good at it, but it did give me a better appreciation of what it must cost him to retain his professionalism in the face of human tragedy.
    “What about the buttons?” I asked Gabriel.
    His right eyebrow lifted just enough to let me know he hadn’t expected me to be even this cooperative. But then, he didn’t know how firmly I believed that two could play the same game. He wanted information from me? Well, I wanted the same from him. Namely, why. Why was an arts writer so interested in murder? And why was he so convinced that buttons were involved that he thought a payoff in the form of lo mein to a button dealer was going to get him somewhere? If he knew