Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) by E. E. Kennedy Page B

I’ll make some.”
    “What did Vern tell you?”
    “Says he’s just been tutoring J.T. in French and helping Dustin with his English, and that’s as far as it goes.”
    “Tell me what it is you know.”
    “The two boys are definitely the favored suspects in this lake murder and are currently in the county jail.”
    “Oh, no!”
    Gil worked his jaw ruefully and spooned coffee into the coffeemaker. “Couldn’t be helped. With their wild reputations, the DA—they’ve got Elm DeWitt himself working on this one—was disposed to ask for remand, but Judge Ryan is a kindly sort and he’s letting them go home and stay under house arrest.”
    “They’ll hate that.”
    “They’ll just have to suck it up. And the public defender they’re getting is a new guy, a real go-getter I hear, so they’ll get a fair shake.”
    “Tell me exactly what they’re supposed to have done. From what I’ve heard, it happened on the lake.” I reached for two coffee cups.
    “Yeah. They were driving in their car and—”
    “Car? On the ice?”
    Gil nodded.
    “What were they thinking?”
    He poured coffee into each cup. “Who knows? The way the police tell it, the boys encountered a man out there. His identity is undetermined so far.” He pushed a cup across the counter toward me.
    “What, just walking across the lake?”
    “No, he was ice fishing. The police say the boys robbed the man, fought with him, and drowned him. His head was hanging down through the hole in the ice, frozen.”
    I shuddered. So the rumor young Frank had told the class was true.
    “Oh, Gil!”
    Gil grimaced. “Yeah. Not nice. Not nice at all.” He stirred his coffee. “I have a source in the police department who says they found a gun in the tent, but the man was drowned, not shot.”
    “Maybe there were fingerprints.”
    Gil smiled and shrugged. “My source didn’t tell me.”
    I leaned over my coffee cup to take a sip and paused. “Is this our usual brand? It smells odd.”
    “Nope. Same old, same old.”
    I sniffed at the cup. My stomach churned and I swayed a little.
    “What’s the matter?” He resumed his seat next to me, rubbing my back. For once, the caress didn’t soothe me. It only made me feel queasier.
    I rested my face in my hands. “Nothing. I guess it’s just so horrible. A man killed that way. It makes me feel a bit sick.” I had once narrowly escaped death by drowning.
    “We all feel like that, honey,” Gil said.
    “And there’s something wrong with this coffee, that’s for sure.”
    “What are you talking about?” He took a large gulp. “Mmm, pure caffeine! Just what the doctor ordered! Come on, drink up!”
    I jumped from my seat and ran from the room.
    “Amelia, come back! I was just kidding! I’m sorry.”
    I made it to the bathroom just in time.

CHAPTER TEN

    Maybe the honeymoon wasn’t exactly over, but the following day, Saturday, I learned just how stubborn my new husband could be.
    I was fully recovered from my upset stomach by morning, but he insisted on serving me a breakfast of dry toast and tea as a precaution. “And you’ve got to promise me to see Dr. Ben on Monday,” he said, placing the plate before me at the breakfast table.
    “That’s silly. I’m fine. It was just all the stress yesterday. First, I had that parent-teacher conference with the Sheas, and then seeing the Rousseau boys led out of school in chains.”
    Gil’s dimples made an appearance, though his eyes still frowned. “Not chains, honey, just handcuffs. And don’t change the subject; you’re going to the doctor.”
    I ignored the latter half of the statement. “Well, the dramatic effect was the same: those poor boys, arrested for such a horrible crime.” I turned to Gil’s nephew. “Vern, what do you think about all this? Could they really do such a dreadful thing?”
    “I’m sorry, Amelia,” he said, and drained a tumbler of orange juice. “All I know is that J.T. is starting to get a little French under his belt