Jaine Austen 2 - Last Writes by Laura Levine Page A

convinced that Muffy had turned his cat into an umbrella stand. Once again, Uncle Biff tried unsuccessfully to mollify him with a donut.
    Only this time there was a pastry box on the counter. Quinn brought it back to the table.
    “Sure you won’t have one?”
    He held out the box to Mr. Watkins, but Watkins waved it away.
    “You’ll be sorry,” Quinn said, plucking a sugar-coated donut from the box. But as it turned out, Quinn was the sorry one. He took one mouthful and grimaced.
    “I think there’s something wrong with this do—”
    But before he could utter his last “nut,” he doubled over in pain, his face a nasty shade of blue.
    Wells raced to his side.
    “Good heavens,” he said, horrified, as Quinn crumpled to the floor. “I think he’s dead.”
    From the audience, I could hear Mr. Goldman: “That’s funny? A guy dying is supposed to be funny? I don’t get it.”
    “Shut up, Abe,” Mrs. Pechter said. “I think the poor man is really dead.”
    “Oy vey.”
    My sentiments exactly.

Chapter Eleven

    E ver notice how, when your apartment gets burglarized, you could reach menopause waiting for the cops to show up? But have a TV star die on a soundstage, and they’re on the scene faster than calories cling to my hips.
    The cops showed up in record time that night. Before I knew it, they’d cordoned off the kitchen set with yellow police tape and were questioning the cast and crew. I assured the cop who questioned me that I’d seen or heard nothing suspicious that evening.
    By now, the audience was buzzing. Now this was entertainment. This was something they could tell the folks about back home.
    I hurried over to make sure my students were okay. I didn’t want one of them keeling over with a heart attack from all the excitement.
    “Is he really dead?” Mrs. Rubin asked.
    “Given the fact that he hasn’t been breathing for the past twenty minutes, I’d say yes.”
    “Such a tragedy,” she tsk-tsked.
    “You think it was a heart attack?” Mrs. Pechter asked.
    “Of course not,” Mr. Goldman hummphed. “The guy was poisoned. Anybody could see that.”
    “I’ll never eat donuts again,” said Mrs. Rubin.
    “You shouldn’t be eating them anyway,” said Mrs. Pechter. “Not with your high cholesterol.”
    “Her cholesterol isn’t as high as my cholesterol,” Mr. Goldman boasted. “Nobody has high cholesterol like I do.”
    And so it went, until the cops decided to let the audience go. Reluctantly, they filed out of their seats, giving their names to the police as they left the building. The last thing I heard Mr. Goldman say as they ushered him out the door was, “I still say they could’ve served refreshments.”
    At which point, Kandi came rushing up to me.
    “Guess what,” she said. “The cops think the sugar on the donut wasn’t sugar. They think it was poison. Probably rat poison.”
    I looked over at poor Quinn, slumped over at the kitchen table. The guy was a rat, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die like one.
    “What if they think I did it?” Kandi raked her fingers through her hair distractedly.
    “Don’t be silly. Why would they think that?”
    “I was the one who brought him the donuts, wasn’t I?”
    “Kandi, you’re overreacting. Never in a million years are they going to think you had anything to do with Quinn’s murder.”
    “Excuse me, Ms. Tobolowski?”
    We turned to see a dark-haired young cop standing at our side.
    “Yes,” Kandi said, “I’m Kandi Tobolowski.”
    “Would you mind coming down to the precinct with us? We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
    “I didn’t do it,” Kandi wailed, like a suspect trapped in a Perry Mason episode. “I swear, I didn’t do it!”
    “Nobody said you did anything, Ms. Tobolowski,” the cop said. “We just want to ask you a few questions.”
    “I want my lawyer.”
    “Okay, fine. Call your lawyer.”
    Then it dawned on her:
    “Oh, gee. I don’t have a lawyer.”
    “What about that guy who got