“I understand,” Clyde said. “Let’s see your room.”
“Lacy, what’s this about?” Frannie said. She set aside the seating chart and followed them to the small back bedroom, the one that now tried to contain Lacy and her things since Frannie’s arrival. It was bursting at the seams, a jumble of clothes, shoes, and jewelry. “It’s a mess in there,” Frannie called. “Lacy’s never been able to keep a clean room.”
Clyde ignored her and stepped to the window. He grunted. Lacy understood from Jason that the grunt was male cop-speak for, “I found something.”
“How’s it going?” Jason asked. He arrived and surveyed Lacy. Then he surveyed the room before purposely shutting it out. To him, the mess was probably equivalent to a loud buzzing sound.
“Take a look at this,” Clyde said. Jason went over to assess and made his own speculative grunt.
“What is it?” Lacy asked.
“The window was definitely jimmied,” Clyde said. “By these chips in the paint, I’d guess they used a putty knife. I’ll go take a look in the bushes and see if I can find it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and there will be some prints.”
“There won’t be,” Lacy said. “He or she was wearing gloves. Oh, I guess that’s part of the description. Dark blob with gloves. And a hood. Or maybe it was a ski mask. The head was definitely covered. Or the hair was dark and shaggy.”
“What are you talking about?” Frannie asked. Clyde eased by them and went outside.
Jason turned in a slow circle and scanned the room. He pressed his hands over his ears, whether to block out Frannie or the mess Lacy couldn’t be sure.
“The intruder didn’t do this,” Lacy confessed. “The closet is filled with Grandma’s things, and I don’t have anywhere to put stuff.” It was a lame excuse. The truth was that Frannie was right; she had always had a hard time keeping her bedroom clean. It was an ugly truth both she and Jason realized but didn’t talk about. If there was a someday for them, it would have to include a shared bedroom. Either Lacy would have to learn to keep things clean or Jason would kill her because she didn’t foresee him changing his ways anytime soon.
Frannie huffed impatiently. Without conscious effort, Jason began picking up. It was as if he were a robot who had been set to auto-clean mode. “Lacy,” Frannie said. “What is this about?”
“Someone came into my room through the window,” Lacy said. She watched as Jason began folding her shirts, wrapping them around a large book to make them uniform. He was like a Gap employee gone wild.
“Why is he doing that?” Frannie asked. She stared at Jason as he moved on to another stack of shirts and began sorting them by color.
“He’s practicing for the shirt folding Olympics,” Lacy said.
“What?” Frannie said.
“He just likes to clean, Mom. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“It is if he plans to mar…” Frannie began, but Lacy interrupted with a loud yelp.
“Mom, do you think the intruder might have gotten into your room, too? All of Riley’s centerpieces are in there. You’d better go check them.”
“Her veil and wedding dress are there, too!” Frannie cried before scurrying out the door. Lacy heaved a little sigh of relief. All she needed was to have her mother mention marriage in front of Jason. At least he wouldn’t run screaming out the door until after he cleaned her room.
She sat on the chair he’d unearthed and watched him work. “You’re a cleaning hummer,” she remarked.
“That’s not a thing,” he said.
“I think you invented it. I’ve never met anyone else who hums while he cleans. What’s going on in your mind while you do that?”
“I don’t know. It’s a good feeling to put things right. Don’t you ever get that?”
“Sure,” she lied. She cleaned because she had to, because it was the responsible and hygienic thing to do, not for the sheer joy of cleaning.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he matched and rolled her socks. She lacked the courage to tell him they weren’t clean.
“Yes. It was freaky, but nothing happened.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Jason said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He moved on to a pile of underwear and began folding them into tiny little squares. Lacy was glad they were clean, though she was disturbed by how little passion they provoked. When a man held his girlfriend’s underpants, should efficiency be the driving emotion? For all the attention Jason gave them, they might as well have been a stack of pillowcases. “When you were gone the first time, you had a bottle of water. You said someone gave it to you. Do you remember anything about that?”
“No. I remember bits and pieces of everything, but it’s a nonsensical jumble. What kind of water was it?”
“Does that matter?” He picked up a bra and showed it more interest than her underpants. She snatched it away and sat on it.
“Grandma heard a radio sermon on caring for the environment. She bought earth-friendly recyclable water bottles.”
“This was not one of those. It was a store bought generic brand.”
“That definitely didn’t come from this house,” she said. “Where did I get it?”
“There are two options: either you found it along the way or someone gave it to you.”
“Do you really think someone took me and locked me in the baseball shed?” she asked.
“I didn’t, but now I don’t know. This is not good.” With nothing left to fold, he started making her bed.
“I’m getting back in that in a minute,” she said.
“It will feel even better if it’s made,” he said. “Trust me.”
There was no arguing with him when he was in an obsessive cleaning mood. “Who would take me? And why?”
“I don’t know. Somehow this relates to the murder. When was the last time you swept under this bed?”
“Ten minutes before you arrived. I do it every night before bed,” she said.
He nodded as if that were a reasonable thing to say and not a joke. Frannie ambled back in and stood in the doorway. “Lacy, I still don’t understand what this is about. Why was someone in your room?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” Lacy said.
“Why would someone break in here?” Frannie asked. “There’s nothing of value.”
“There’s one thing,” Jason said.
“What?” Frannie asked.
“Lacy,” he said.
She laughed. “What are you talking about? Why would anyone steal Lacy?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not leaving here tonight.”
“I’d like to be there when you run that by Mom,” Frannie said.
“Fine,” Jason said, rising to the challenge. “Are you coming, Lacy?”
“No, I’m going to stay here and curl into the fetal position until the conflict stops,” Lacy said.
“There won’t be any conflict,” Jason promised. He squeezed her knee as he breezed past her. He returned less than three minutes later and began taking off his shirt. Next door, Frannie’s door closed with a bang. Lacy watched in amazement, stunned, until he took off his pants.
“Stop. What are you doing?” She shot to her feet. Her bra caught on her back and dangled behind her like a lumpy tail.
“Going to sleep. I talked to Clyde. They haven’t found anything, but they’re going to stay in the area. They’ll call if they need anything. I’m exhausted. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, but you’re in your underwear in my grandma’s house,” she said. “We’re ten seconds from being struck by lightning. We’re going to be smited.”
“You mean smitten? We’re already smitten. Besides, they’re boxers, not a Speedo,” he said. “What is the big deal?”
“I think maybe it’s smote. And the big deal is that you’re in your underwear. In my bedroom. In my Grandma’s house. It’s verboten.”
“’We’re going to be smote,’ doesn’t sound right. Furthermore, I am not going to sle
ep in my jeans to placate your grandmother’s Quaker sensibilities,” he said. “She knows we’re not doing anything in here. I promised. I’m here as your protection.”
“My grandma is not a Quaker. They’re far too progressive.”
He pinched the area between his eyebrows. “Fine. Give me a pair of your pants.”
“If you fit in my pants, I’m going to need a powerful psychotropic to forget it,” she said.
“Let me have a pair of pants from your, uh, early years,” he said.
“I guess my fat pants might work,” she said. She dug through a suitcase in the corner and handed him her favorite pair of pants from her freshman year of college. They were hot pink and landed mid-calf on him. He reached for a shirt.
“Whoa, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Putting my shirt on,” he said.
“Let’s not get crazy here. No shirt allowed,” she said. She snatched it away and hid it behind her back.
“Let me get this straight: I have to cover my boxers but not my bare chest.”
“Look, I don’t make the rules, I just dutifully observe them.”
“It’s your grandma’s rule that I have to wear hot pink floods with writing on the butt but I’m not allowed to wear a shirt?”
“I could quote you the corresponding verse in Leviticus, but I’m very tired,” she said.
“What exactly does my butt say?” he asked. “I didn’t read the pants before I put them on.”
“‘I Eat My Feelings; They Taste Delicious,’” she said. “They were a Christmas present from Kimber.”
He put her in a headlock and pulled her close. “That’s an awfully tiny bed, miss. I guess I’ll take the floor.”
“No way,” she said.
“Lacy, I’m not kicking you out of your bed,” he said.
“No, you’re not. Stand back and be amazed.” She bent and pulled out a trundle.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.
“It’s not officially a sleepover until someone’s in the trundle. Riley and I used to fight for it. Usually she won. Then I won once and she closed me in it and broke my finger,” she said.
“Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to sleep in that bed, and then let’s never discuss this again,” he said. He kissed her before she could protest. “Am I allowed to kiss you?”
“I would check Leviticus, but my bible’s in the other room. We’re going to have to go with my gut on this one.”
“What does your gut say?”
“My gut says you make fat pants look good,” she said. She stood on her toes to kiss him again. A while later, they were settled in bed, her on the top mattress and him in the trundle. They were both tired but finding it hard to sleep. Instead they held hands and talked.
“Is this what girl sleepovers are like?” Jason asked.
“Yes, with less hand holding and more cookie dough. Tell me about your case.”
“It’s not my case. It’s Arroyo’s case,” he said. “I’m along for the ride, but it’s not going well. Michael was my only lead.”
“Michael didn’t do it.”
“I’m still not convinced,” he said.
“It definitely wasn’t Michael in here tonight. I would have recognized him.”
“Without your glasses?”
“Michael is tall, taller than whoever was in my room. I guess that means whoever broke in was kind of short. Add that to the description—short, dark blob wearing gloves and possibly a head covering.”
“Great, that narrows it down to an ewok,” he said. “You couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman?”
“No. Why would it be a woman?”
“The female protester. She’s insane, and I think she has a thing for Michael.”
“He told me he had a date with her and accidentally brought her here,” Lacy said. “But why would she want to hurt me?”
“Maybe she thinks there’s something between you and Michael and she’s jealous. Crazy people don’t really need a reason. She’s a loose cannon. I had her in lockup for a while, but I couldn’t hold her. She definitely had opportunity, and craziness was her motive. Same goes for the murder, although I have a hard time seeing her be able to heft a body into the dumpster. I guess it’s possible that he was killed in the dumpster. There wasn’t a sign of struggle there, but if he was sleeping and she jabbed him, then she wouldn’t have needed strength at all.”
“What about the other protesters?” Lacy asked.
“Between them, they seem to share a brain and a pervasive sense of sleepiness. A few have priors for vagrancy. Mostly I think Rain rounded up a handful of homeless people and brought them along. Or it’s possible that our victim was the one who rounded everyone up and brought them along as cover for his story. I haven’t been able to get a clear answer on who brought the protesters here.”
“If it was the victim and not the woman, then that clears Michael.”
“I suppose,” Jason said.
“Jason, you’ve got to let it go. Michael had nothing to do with this. He’s a good guy.”
He wasn’t a good guy, Jason knew. At least not in the legal sense of things. But Lacy saw the good in everyone, and he liked that about her. He had no desire to dampen her rose-colored glasses with reality. Someday maybe she would learn the truth about Michael’s checkered past, but it wouldn’t be from him, not unless it became absolutely necessary. “He may not be first on my list of suspects anymore, but he’s not gone completely.”
“Who’s at the top of your suspect list?” she asked.
“Technically, you,” he said.
“Me? What did I do?”
“Nothing. But I found your pictures at the victim’s trailer. He was doing a story on you. Your mom talked to him. Objectively, he could have dug up something from your past, something you wanted kept quiet.”
“You’ve got me. He discovered my secret ‘N Sync phase. All these years, I’ve tried to keep it quiet. I couldn’t take the humiliation.”
“I’m not saying I think you killed him; I’m saying that someone else could make it look that way.”
“Someone else being Detective Arroyo,” she guessed.
“And the mayor. I don’t like how chummy they’ve become lately.”
“They tried to incite a lynch mob the night of the council meeting. Travis broke it up,” Lacy said.
“I don’t understand that,” Jason said. “What do they have against you?”
“They just don’t like me,” Lacy said. She had never told him what happened when he was unconscious, nor about the secret club or how Detective Arroyo had threatened her. She didn’t want to make him choose between her and the job he loved. She edited it down to say that she and the detective had a disagreement. If he had any idea of the depth or scope of that disagreement, he would be forced to act. The best way to protect him was to keep silent. But now she was in a pickle. She wouldn’t put it past the detective and mayor to frame her for murder. Did Jason understand how low they were willing to go to exact revenge? If he didn’t, then she was in even greater danger than he realized.
“How would they explain someone breaking in here tonight?” she asked.
“They could say you made it up. You’re the only person who saw the intruder. You could have jimmied the lock earlier and called me in a fake panic.”
“I’m extremely nefarious,” she said.
“You covered all your bases by kidnapping yourself twice,” he said.
“I’m a criminal mastermind,” she agreed. “Except that I never said I was kidnapped.”
“Even better. By allowing me to come to my own deduction, you made your story more believable.”
“When I get out of prison, I’m going to start a crime syndicate,” she said.
“You’ll go to prison over my dead body. I’m going to figure this out before anyone gets any brilliant ideas about pinning it on you,” he said. “First I need a suspect.”
Lacy wondered if he already had
two of them and just didn’t realize. If Arroyo and the mayor were plotting against her, was it enough to wait for a murder and try to frame her? Would they set out to murder someone with the intent of framing her? What if they killed Carl Whethers and dumped him at the Stakely Building, Lacy’s place of business? She felt paranoid and ill at ease.
“Cold, baby?” Jason asked and she realized she had shuddered.
“No, I’m fine. How are you? Are you comfortable?”
He shook his head. “Something is missing.”
“What?” she asked, smiling.
He tugged hard on her hand. She rolled off her bed and onto his. “There we go,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight.
“We’re going to be smote for sure,” she said.
“We’re already smitten,” he said. A few minutes later, they fell asleep.
Chapter 14
The next morning, Jason stayed for breakfast. Lacy’s grandmother made a feast before leaving to go to her follow-up doctor’s appointment. Lacy tried to convey to Jason what a pivotal point of acceptance that was. “You’re not truly loved by Grandma until you’re clutching your stomach in pain from the onslaught of food,” she said, taking stock of his miserable expression. “One more muffin ought to do it,” she said, adding one to his already crowded plate. He stifled a groan and plowed dutifully through his food.
As for her, she gummed her way through a muffin and a small pile of eggs. She was ravenous, but her aching mouth didn’t allow for eating.
“This is all very Jack Sprat and his wife,” Jason muttered after his second helping of bacon.
“That bacon looks so good. Is it good? Tell me about it,” she said.
“Are you really asking me to describe my eating experience for you?” he asked.
“Think of it as closed captioning for the eating impaired,” she said. “Start with the bacon and work clockwise.”
“I keep thinking there’s got to be a limit to your weirdness, but it’s an abyss, isn’t it?” he said.
“Deeper than the ocean,” she agreed. “Let’s get back to the bacon.”
“Finding your quirkiness cute and enabling your quirkiness are two different things. This is my red line,” Jason said. “You’re going to have to use your imagination about my bacon. And that is officially the strangest thing I have ever said.”
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