Ghastly Glass by Joyce and Jim Lavene Page A

flashing a little occasionally. He walked up close to the wall and put his finger in the red goo, then put the digit into his mouth. “Hmm. Type A, I’d say. Of course, a good O can be difficult to pin down. Definitely from the area though. High salt content, you know.”
    I took back everything I ever said about Livy being squeamish. I almost lost it right there in front of the crazy Village sorcerer. It was bad enough when Chase had done it, but at least that had been jelly (which he’d said he could tell before he tasted it). “ Eww . That is totally the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
    “But now we know.” He nodded his stately white head beneath the ridiculous purple pointed hat. “As you might suspect, we should call in the bailiff.”
    “I know. I’ll go find him if you’ll wait here so no one will bother the writing.” As I was speaking, Merlin was pulling one of the Village-issued radios from somewhere inside his robe. I don’t want to know where. “Oh, that’s great. You get a radio. Chase gets a radio. Roger has a radio. Probably Fred the Red Dragon has a radio. I must be the only person in the Village that doesn’t have a radio.”
    “Hardly. And the dragon doesn’t have a radio. You can rest easier now, Jessie.” Merlin explained the situation to Chase. When he’d finished, he said, “You’d better get over here, boy. Queen Olivia was here hitting on your girlfriend. Or is that boyfriend? In any case, you’d better get over here.”
     
     
     
    Chase arrived a few minutes later. Lonnie took pictures of the wall. “Detective Almond can’t get over here right now,” Chase explained. “He said to take pictures and save some of the goo from the wall.”
    “I feel certain this is nothing more than people with bad taste copying what you found on poor Ross’s body,” Merlin replied. “I believe you’ve both taken it too seriously. You know how it is around here.”
    I did know how it was: crazy. “So maybe we’re looking for somebody with a bad sense of humor and not a killer.” That thought brightened my day. I didn’t care for the idea that there was a killer on the loose in the Village, especially not right now when the familiar had become unrecognizable.
    “I hope so,” Chase agreed. “Lonnie, can you send that picture to the police for me? ”
    “Sure, I’m good with computers.”
    “Thanks. I’ll scoop up some of this stuff, and then I guess we can go. It’s getting dark. I expect all hell to break loose once the night settles in. And I mean that literally.”
    Merlin said his good-byes and started back to his apothecary shop near the big first aid station and the entrance to the castle. Chase dispatched Lonnie with the red goo from the wall and the camera.
    “What made you take Lonnie on as your assistant?” I asked as we strolled toward the Lady of the Lake Tavern. I could already hear the cannon fire, a nightly occurrence, from the pirate ship as they set off a few rounds at sunset.
    “It wasn’t my idea. I guess Livy and Harold decided I needed some help. Lonnie showed up at the dungeon with a letter from Adventure Land headquarters telling me that he was officially mine. He’s a useful little guy. He can do almost anything I need him to do.”
    “He was at Sir Latte’s for a couple of years, but they kept him in the back. Probably that snorty laugh. I guess that doesn’t bother you.”
    “Not really. I thought they’d choose Jeff if they decided to pick anyone as my assistant. You know how well we worked together at the stocks last summer. But he walked off one day about a week after you left in August. No one’s seen or heard from him since. No telling where he’s gone.”
    “I’m sure there are whole files of people who’ve worked here and left.” I watched as the pirate ship sailed across Mirror Lake, past Eve’s Garden where they did demonstrations on plants and herbs used in the time of the Renaissance.
    The full white sails billowed out in the