Murder in a Hot Flash by Marlys Millhiser Page B

Sheriff, and I want you to know I think you and Jesus have got it dead right.”
    â€œYou religious, Miz Greene?”
    â€œNo, but I don’t believe in psychics. That’s a silly rumor that got started for the same reason most silly rumors do and I’ll be the first to declare it isn’t true. But let me point out, Sheriff, that no one has to be psychic to see you are holding the wrong person for the murder of Gordon Cabot and I intend to prove it.” Charlie’s shins ached from the kicks the men across from her delivered under the table, accompanied by agonized looks of warning.
    â€œI look forward to watching you do that, Miz Greene. Enjoy your eggs, folks.” He slapped his Smokey Bear hat on his ancient-astronaut crew cut, nodded to Mitch, handed his deputy the bill, and grabbed a toothpick at the counter on his way out.
    â€œWhat do you want to do, get your mother hanged?” Mitch said. “Jesus.”
    â€œJesus doesn’t believe in Charlie.” Scrag sat back so the waitress could deliver his order of steaming oatmeal; a plate heaped with huevos rancheros plus an extra side of beans and another of tortillas. He obviously was not expecting to pick up his own tab. “Wait a minute,” he said, the brown sugar suspended over his oatmeal. “I heard about you I think, wasn’t it last year? You with that agency on Wilshire where the receptionist was a witch and they found her body in the alley?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œWhat agency you with?” Mitch dug a pious spoon into a granola, yogurt, fresh fruit combination.
    â€œCongdon and Morse.”
    â€œNever heard of it.”
    â€œWell, thank you very much.” Charlie dumped the poached eggs out of the bowl onto her toast order and poured the hot milk over it all. “Pass the salt and pepper.”
    â€œAnd one of the agents was a psychic and solved the murder.”
    â€œNot because she was a psychic and the Beverly Hills PD did most of the work.”
    â€œThat’s not what I heard.”
    â€œHey, I’m sorry,” Mitch broke in. “I’m sure there’re lots of little agencies I never heard of. And I wouldn’t put down psychics if I were you. I’ve known a few who were good.”
    Oh boy. “So how about you, now that your part in Ecosystem is done? Are you leaving?”
    â€œI’d planned to stick around for a short river trip with John B. and Earl. Scout out sites for another documentary he’s got in mind that I’m thinking of backing. Long as we’re here. Now with the murder and Edwina in jail I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
    â€œEdwina’s my problem.”
    â€œI already have a lawyer,” Charlie’s problem told her. This time they sat across a table from each other in a small interrogation room with the same lady cop supervising. “You just go on home and tend to more important business.”
    â€œEdwina, you know I can’t go off and leave you in this mess.”
    â€œSure you can. Now I’ve got a lawyer I don’t need an agent.” Her color was better this morning or else it was the indoor lighting. “Oh, but before you go, tell John B. he can’t use the critter footage we shot last night.”
    â€œCan’t use it? Edwina, that’s box office. People eat that stuff up.” Next to watching Mitch Hilsten bat his eyelashes, they’ll remember seeing those critters doing their critter thing. “How often do you get creatures in the wild to sit still for a camera like that?”
    â€œThat’s just it,” Edwina said. “You don’t.”
    â€œYou don’t expect me to go out there and try to tell him those weren’t real rats and bats and that fox wasn’t really a fox like this isn’t really a desert?”
    â€œThey’re real enough, but that’s not the way they really act. The bat would have taken