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A shrill scream goes off in the distance as if it were timed. The fog machine puffs a cloud of blue mist that drifts between Ghoulia and me, making her look like a Victorian ghost.

Every killer denies it at first, Fish says while investigating a discarded cupcake wrapper near our feet, sniffing it with intense concentration. I don’t buy it and neither should you.

“You know a lot about poison,” I say. “More than just a little academic knowledge.”

Ghoulia doesn’t flinch. “I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. I married there too. My husband Floyd and I used poison for livestock, pests, sick animals that needed to be put down. It was part of life.”

Duchess jumps next to me. Go ahead and ask, Bizzy. I know you want to.

She’s right. The obvious question is burning a hole right through my soul.

“Have you ever used that knowledge on anything other than livestock?”

She pauses, takes another sip of cider, and looks me directly in the eye.

“Once.” Her lips curve with a hint of delight, and I swear I just heard Fish, Duchess, and Sherlock gasp at the very same time. “On my husband Floyd. 1983.”

“On your husband?” I was not expecting that level of honesty.

Ghoulia nods as if we’re discussing the weather. “He was abusive, Bizzy. The farm was isolated. There was no one to call for help, and even if there was, rural Wisconsin in the eighties wasn’t exactly progressive about domestic violence.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” And I truly am. “Can I ask what happened to him?”

“He disappeared.” She winks as she says it. “Officially, he ran off with a cocktail waitress from a bar in Milwaukee.” She smiles, this time brighter. “The cocktail waitress was very confused when the police found her and asked about Floyd. She’d never met him in her life.”

“And the body?”

“It was never discovered.” Ghoulia gives a perky little shrug. “I raised my daughter alone after that.” Her expression sobers once again. “And you bet I never remarried. Nor did I regret what I did.”

Floyd got what he deserved, she thinks to herself. Clawdia didn’t.

Sherlock gives a few quick sniffs around Ghoulia’s boots. She smells like old books and secrets.

She’s telling the truth, Duchess mewls. About Floyd, anyway.

Great, Fish mutters. Another killer. This festival is a disaster.

True, with the exception that this killer might be one and the same.

“You’re telling me you murdered your husband,” I say, processing this confession to a forty-year-old homicide.

“I’m telling you I defended myself. Just with considerably more planning than is typical for self-defense cases.” Ghoulia sets down her cider on a nearby table. “Does that make you think I killed Clawdia?”

“It makes me think you’re capable of it.”

Another scream goes off in the ever-growing crowd.

“Capable and willing are different things.”

“Are they?”

“Floyd was a monster. Clawdia was a narcissist who stole opportunities. Those aren’t equivalent.”

Clawdia stole my legacy, Ghoulia thinks as she stares out at the pumpkin patch. Forty years of work, and she just took it. Like I was nothing.

The rage pulsing through her is palpable, but there’s no confession following it. No and I killed her for it. Just that ever-present bitterness.

But also, no denial.