6. Morrie

"Obviously, whoever is behind this intends to sabotage our wedding." I perused the drawers of the Georgian sideboard until I located a pad of paper and a Montblanc pen. I tapped my long fingers against the paper. "Who in the village doesn't want Mina to get married?"

We all looked at each other and said at the same time, "Dorothy Ingram."

"She's been railing against our ‘unholy union' for weeks," Heathcliff growled. "When I tried to book the community hall for the reception, she complained to the council. That's why we had to move here."

"She put up those horrible posters about her prayer meeting all over the village." Quoth shuddered. "Maybe she decided she'd have to do more than pray us away."

I wrote Dorothy's name on the top of my pad and underlined it three times. "She seems the most likely suspect, but if we've learned anything from Mina's previous investigations, it's that we need to be thorough. Can we think of anyone else who might want to destroy Mina's happiness?"

"There's that writer, Wayne Bryant," Quoth said. "He's been into the shop a couple of times trying to get us to stock his dreary poetry collection."

Heathcliff made a face. "The one with the poems that are worse than the Poet Prince Edward's oeuvre?"

Oof, Wayne's poetry must be terrible.

"That's the one." Quoth fidgeted with a tattered strand of gold ribbon, his fire-rimmed eyes dark with worry. "I heard him complaining at the pub the other week that Nevermore Bookshop was guilty of literary nepotism and Mina is using her clout as the bookshop owner to turn her book into a bestseller. He might be bitter enough to want to hurt Mina."

"Doesn't the man know that no one wants to read poetry," Heathcliff snapped. "Not even good poetry."

"‘Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar'," Quoth quoted, his long eyelashes tangling together. "Percy Bysshe Shelley."

"Poetry is a load of rubbish words strung together by weepy beatniks who believe the weather has feelings," Heathcliff tapped his chin proudly. "Heathcliff."

I wrote Wayne's name underneath Dorothy. "Anyone else?"

"What about someone Mina put behind bars?" Quoth asked. "She's ruined quite a few nefarious schemes with her clever sleuthing."

The problem with being engaged to a woman who solved mysteries in a quaint English village was that she made a lot of enemies. However, because Mina was actually quite good at her hobby, she'd managed to put quite a few of them behind bars, where they couldn't get her. Unless…

"It could be a hit job," Heathcliff said. "I wouldn't put it past Angus Donahue."

"Angus Donahue is an ex-cop. If he did this, it wouldn't be nearly so messy. If this is a hit, then it's a bloody terrible one." I held up a handful of torn fabric. "I don't think this is the work of a hardened criminal. It's too petty. But I'll check with my contacts in the underground, in case one of the criminals Mina put behind bars is out and looking for revenge. You two leave this to me, I promise that I'll take care of our little problem."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Quoth murmured.

"I made you a promise, birdie," I grinned as I hid my crossed fingers behind my back. "Absolutely no violence."