It's a Wonderful Knife by Christine Wenger

I’ll let you out, one at a time. Let’s go to jail, ladies.”
    â€œTy, I can’t go to jail. Not now. I’ll go in April before the cottages open. I promise,” I said.
    Ty raked his fingers through his black, shiny hair, which usually had a groove in it due to his cowboy hat. That’s what he always did whenever he was frustrated, usually by me.
    Not that I’d noticed.
    I took a couple of deep breaths, figured that I’d just write everything down that needed to be done and beg him to allow me to take my cell phone into the cell.
    After all, this was Sandy Harbor, not Attica.
    â€œOkay, Ty. Let’s go,” I whispered, trying to find my voice. “I just can’t stand the thought of sitting idle in a jail cell when I have so much to do.”
    ACB’s candy canes on her fascinator were pointing down and her Midnight Tryst mascara was running in several small rivulets down her cheeks. Each had a touch of gold eye shadow shimmering in them. Just like how I imagined the rivers of Sutter’s Mill would have looked.
    I took her hand and held on to it. She didn’t want to go to jail either, particularly not at Christmas. “We’ll get through this, Antoinette Chloe. It’s okay.”
    I turned to Ty. “Okay, Deputy Brisco, lock us up. Just let me keep my cell phone, paper and pen, and calendar. I have a lot of calls to make and food to order.”
    â€œOkay, listen to me, ladies,” he said. “I won’t lock the door to the cell. You can do your business in there. I’ll call Judge Frazier and ask him to drive over here. But what I want you to get through your heads is that there is a killer on the loose who stabbed Liz Fellows. I don’t know the motivation or the reason or anything else at all at this time. I do know that now
you
”—he pointed at me—“now, you, Trixie, are the pageant director, just like Liz was. I don’t want to scare you. I just want you to be aware. But I don’t know if her murder had anything to do with the pageant yet because instead ofinvestigating, I find myself one step away from having to hog-tie the two of you.”
    â€œWe’re sorry, Ty. We
really
are,” ACB said, wiping her face on the sleeve of her muumuu. “We won’t go back to Liz’s house.”
    She looked at me to make sure that was okay. I gave a slight nod.
    â€œAnd, Ty, we’ll give you all of Liz’s mail. There’s a little lottery scraper in one of the envelopes. We know that because we got the envelope X-rayed at the dentist’s office.”
    â€œYou did
what
?” he asked.
    â€œUh . . . um . . . we didn’t want to open her mail because that’s a federal offense,” I explained.
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, so is taking someone else’s mail!”
    Ty held out his hand, and I reached for my purse, pulled out Liz’s mail, and placed it in his hand. “It’s not exciting. Just some bills and that tiny ice scraper from Gus’s Gutters and Snow Removal.”
    â€œIt’s Gus’s thirtieth year in serving Sandy Harbor,” ACB said. “We figure that he put the little scrapers in his bills for his customers. It has his address and phone number on the little thing.”
    Ty paused in the middle of looking at Liz’s mail and looked up. “Good to know,” he deadpanned.
    â€œIt’s not a clue or anything,” ACB said. “So don’t worry about that. Unless you want to worry about it, but I don’t think you need to.”
    Ty looked at me for help. But since he was the onewho’d arrested us, he could just handle ACB on his own.
    â€œThat’s the one.” ACB pointed to the yellow envelope. “That one. Right there. It’s Liz’s bill from Gus’s Gutters and Snow Removal.”
    Ty looked at me. “What were you two hoping that this little ice scraper was?”
    Oh crap!