Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) by Maia Chance

noticed Mrs. Coop under the influence of strong medicine before that morning.
    Peculiar.
    Ophelia replaced the bottle on the table, put the empty water glasses on a tray, and left for the kitchen.
    The kitchen was silent.
    Freda the housemaid sat alone. The flowered cotton sleeves of her housemaid’s dress were rolled up, and it appeared she had been tasked with shelling a pile of peas. But the peas and a bowl lay forgotten on the table. She was munching some kind of chocolate biscuit, and her eyes were riveted on the pages of a book.
    “Freda?” Ophelia said.
    “Miss Flax! You made me jump near out of my skin!” Freda pressed a palm against her cheek. “You should not go sneaking up on a body when there has been a murder in the house. And with me reading Mr. Poe, too.”
    “I beg your pardon. I thought you’d heard me come in.” Ophelia took Mrs. Coop’s dirty water glasses to the sink. “Has Prue been brought everything she needs, Freda? Food? Water?”
    Freda’s expression closed. She’d remembered who she was talking to.
    “Why are you asking me about Prue?” Freda said. “With her locked up in the tower, I have to do all her work
and
mine.”
    “Might I help you? With those peas, perhaps?”
    Freda scowled, slapped her open book facedown on the tabletop, and started shelling peas.
    “The police were here again today,” Ophelia said, “weren’t they?”
    “Seems you already know the answer.”
    “They spoke to Prue?”
    “To Prue and to a few others as well. Trying to build up a case against her, I suppose. They did not get far, by the sound of it. Prue did not say a word.”
    That
was a relief.
    Suddenly, Cook swung into the kitchen with clattering boot heels and puffing breath. “You two! Gossiping like queen bees when we have enough work for a staff of thirty.”
    “No one but that fat professor is eating what we cook,” Freda said. Peas plinked into her bowl.
    “Why are you bothering Freda, Miss Flax?”
    “She has been asking,” Freda said, with a devious glance at Ophelia, “where the orchard is. The
apple
orchard.”
    The little liar! But . . . perhaps an opportunity had been plumped in Ophelia’s lap.
    “The orchard?” Cook placed her hands on her hips. “Now why would you want to go there? That place has caused more than enough mischief.”
    “It’s only,” Ophelia said, “Inspector Schubert asked me where it was, and I couldn’t say.”
    “You are not poking about on Prue’s behalf, are you?” Cook’s voice was softer.
    “Not—”
    “Orchard’s on the slope behind the castle. Past the courtyard, through the kitchen gardens. Behind a green wooden door in the wall.”
    “Thank you. I—”
    “I do not wish to hear a thing about it.”
    *   *   *
    The sun was sinking by the time Gabriel rapped on the knotty door of the rear gatehouse. From inside came the playful screams of children, the yaps of a dog, crashing crockery.
    The gatehouse hadn’t been easy to find. He’d followed a road that began at an old mill on the edge of Schilltag, led around the base of the castle bluff, and meandered through a somber stretch of forest before he’d found the overgrown cart track leading to the gatehouse. The gatehouse had a moldering, forgotten air. Clearly, it hadn’t been remodeled at any point in the last three centuries.
    Gabriel rapped again.
    The door swung open. A plump woman, perhaps thirty years old, with a rosy baby on her hip, appeared.
    “Ja?”
She sounded impatient and looked suspicious.
    “Good evening,” Gabriel said in German with a slight bow. He introduced himself as a professor who was visiting the castle.
    Frau Herz’s eyes narrowed. “There was a murder up there. What do you mean, coming unannounced to a private home like this, when there has been a murder! Why,
you
could be the murderer.”
    “I beg your pardon, madam—”
    “Mina!” Frau Herz yelled over her shoulder. “Put the kitten down this instant!”
    There was a feline yowl,