Wicked Charms_ A Lizzy and Dies - Janet Evanovich Page 0,2

Glo said.

A while back Glo found Ripple’s Book of Spells in a curio shop, and she’s been test-driving Ripple’s recipes ever since, with varying results.

“It might help if you gave the cage a coat of Rust-Oleum,” I said.

I reached up and touched the cage, there was some creaking, dust sifted down on us, and the chain separated from the bars. The cage crashed to the floor and broke into several pieces. The imprisoned dummy flopped out, its peg leg fell off, the skull detached from the neck, and its arm snapped in half.

We all gaped at the mess in front of us. The prisoner’s leathery skin was split where the arm had cracked, and a bone was protruding.

“Aargh,” Josh said.

“I think that be a human bone,” I whispered.

—

It took the first cop five minutes to get to the museum. He was followed by three more uniformed cops, two plainclothes cops, a forensic photographer, and two EMTs.

Everyone stared down at the broken cage and the ghoulish guy with the bone sticking out of his arm, and everyone said pretty much the same thing…I was here a couple days ago with my brother-in-law, and I thought this was a fake.

By the time the coroner arrived, a museum official was on the scene, the area had been roped off with crime scene tape, and the body, which looked more like a giant Slim Jim than a human being, had been photographed and outlined in chalk.

The coroner was a pleasant-looking guy in a wrinkled gray suit and wrinkled white dress shirt. He was my height, probably in his late thirties, wore Harry Potter glasses, had sandy blond hair, and was soft enough around the middle to look cuddly. His name was Theodore Nergal.

Nergal slipped under the crime scene tape and knelt beside the corpse. “Yep,” he said. “This guy’s dead.”

One of the plainclothes cops looked over the tape. “It’s a real flesh-and-blood body, right?”

Nergal nodded. “It was flesh and blood before someone decided to try his hand at mummification. Now it’s tanned hide and partly calcified bone.” He pulled on disposable gloves, picked the skull up, and examined it. “There’s an entrance wound in the back of the head where he’s been shot.” He shook the head, and there was a rattling sound, like dice in a cup. He tipped the head forward, and a small lump of misshapen metal fell out of the man’s mouth and plopped into the coroner’s hand. “This is a Lubaloy round manufactured only in the 1920s,” Nergal said. “This man was shot some ninety years ago.”

“Wow,” Glo said. “I guess you’ll put out an APB for a perp with a walker and a hearing aid.”

“Aargh, again,” Josh said.

Nergal set the skull in the vicinity of the corpse’s neck and stood. “Who found this?”

“We did,” I said. “Josh works in the museum, and he was giving us an after-hours tour. I touched the cage, and it came crashing down.”

“And you are who?”

“Lizzy Tucker,” I said. “I’m a pastry chef at Dazzle’s Bakery.”

His eyes widened. “Do you make the red velvet cupcakes?”

“I do.”

“I love those cupcakes!”

Nergal went back to examining the Slim Jim, and Glo elbowed me. “He loves your cupcakes,” she said.

“I heard.”

She leaned close. “He’s cute!” she whispered.

“And?”

“He’s not wearing a wedding ring.”

“And?”

“Neither are you.”

“I don’t think he’s my type,” I told Glo.

“Okay, so he examines dead people all day,” Glo said. “Nobody’s perfect. He probably has all kinds of interesting hobbies.”

“Excuse me,” I said to Nergal. “Can we go now?”

“Of course,” he said, “but don’t leave town.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said. “I’m addicted to your cupcakes.”

Glo elbowed me again. “I think he might be flirting with you,” she whispered.

“It’s the cupcakes,” I said. “It has nothing to do with me. I’m leaving.”

“I can’t leave,” Josh said. “I have to stay to lock up the museum.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Glo said to Josh. “This is just like one of those CSI shows.”

I gave everyone a wave goodbye and walked out of the museum into the warm July night. The streetlights cast little pools of light onto the shadowy sidewalk. One of the lights flickered just as I reached it, blinking out twice before flaring back to life, brighter than ever.

I felt a chill ripple down my spine and goosebumps erupt on my arms. A man was standing under the streetlight. He was deadly handsome in a scary sexy-vampire sort of way. He had pale skin, piercing dark eyes, and shoulder-length raven-black hair that was swept back from his face. He