Smoke by Kaye George Page A

of mercy. “To cheer you up.”
    “You’re doing a hell of a job.” Amy JoBeth returned to the cot and slumped, hard, against the wall it was fastened to. “I feel so much better.”
    “Do you want me to figure out who killed Rusty?”
    Hope glowed in Amy JoBeth’s damp eyes. “You mean you don’t think I did?”
    Well, no, she hadn’t thought that. Until now. But what if Amy JoBeth really did kill Rusty? She pondered that for a moment. She didn’t think PIs were supposed to ask their clients if they were guilty. Maybe Immy had better figure out if Amy JoBeth did it or not. “Why do the cops think you’re good for it?”
    Amy JoBeth’s shoulders rose and fell in a long sigh. “They have some pretty good evidence, my lawyer says.” She held up her piggy fingers and ticked off her points. “First, because I knew he killed Gretchen. And I was mad enough to kill him, I admit. Second, because my signature confetti was found under his body. Third, I don’t have an alibi.”
    Immy wondered if the cops would have connected the confetti to Amy JoBeth if she, Immy, hadn’t pointed it out to Ralph. A spasm of guilt washed over her. “Isn’t being in your cellar an alibi?”
    “I wasn’t always in my cellar. I have to go out sometimes.”
    “Often?”
    “Not too often. But my slop bucket needs emptying when it starts to stink.”
    Ugh. How could she stay in that tiny space with a slop bucket? Double ugh.
    “Why are you shivering? Are you cold, Immy?”
    “So, the confetti was on the floor of the smokehouse. How do you suppose it got there?”
    Amy JoBeth looked at Immy with admiration. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
    An unwelcome idea ran through Immy’s mind: Is it because you had some on you and it got there when you killed him? She used the interrogation technique from The Moron’s Compleat PI Guidebook of maintaining silence so the suspects will spill their guts.
    But Amy JoBeth cleverly turned it around on her. “Have you thought about where the confetti came from, Immy?”
    “Well…it could get there from you, of course.”
    Amy JoBeth broke out in a shrieking wail. “Noooo! I didn’t kill him!” She beat her fists on the cot and squeezed tears from her eyes.
    “Don’t cry, Amy JoBeth.” Immy fished a tissue from her purse and pushed it into Amy JoBeth’s hand. “I’m just saying that’s one way. We need to think of other ways it could get there. Would Rusty have any confetti on himself? Did they use it in their business?”
    “Why on earth would they do that?” She had recovered enough composure to speak at a normal volume, but her tears still streamed and her lip quivered.
    It came to Immy in a flash of pink. After all, she had seen the pink stuff in the smokehouse.
    “It was under Gretchen. Not Rusty.”
    “Huh?”
    “I discovered his body, you know. And I saw the confetti underneath Gretchen.”
    Amy JoBeth’s voice came out in a whisper. “You saw Gretchen? Dead?”
    Immy nodded.
    “How did she look? Do you think she suffered?”
    “Um, no. She had, um, she had a peaceful look on her face.” Immy wondered what that would actually look like. Pigs always looked peaceful to her.
    Amy JoBeth crumpled against the wall again and drew her knees up to her chest. “Oh good. I’d hate to think she suffered.”
    Finally, she was making Amy JoBeth feel better. At least a little.
    “What kind of person would kill a pig?” said Amy JoBeth.
    “Well, slaughterhouses do. I think Rusty has to have dead ones to make jerky.”
    At that Amy JoBeth flung herself face down onto the hard cot and wailed again, a high, wordless sob, and beat her fists harder than ever on the flat pillow.
    Immy quit trying to cheer her up.

Chapter 9
    Immy decided to shift her attention to The Case of The Missing Poppy. Since it was her newest one, maybe she’d make more progress on it. She should interview Poppy’s mother, Ophelia. Marshmallow had one of her special potbelly pig leashes, but