The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow Mysteries Book 1)

by Meghan Scott Molin

  “I’m waiting.”

  Lawrence gives me a look that says he regrets having said anything.

  “You were the one that brought it up, L.”

  “Which I am regretting. It wasn’t like that, though Senior was eccentric. He’d been known to wear women’s underwear long before it was cool.” A small smile flits across his lips before he meets my eyes in the mirror and his face closes off again. “I worked for Senior, case closed.”

  “You—what? You worked for Edward Casey Senior? The man who wrote The Hooded Falcon? The man who basically saved my life as a teenager? And you never thought to mention this in the years that you’ve known me?” I could understand maybe not telling me right away, but my feelings sting under the weight of how many opportunities L has had to divulge this information. I sure expounded on several occasions what the comic had meant to me as a teen.

  The comic book store I worked in when I turned sixteen was the first place that had ever felt like home. Even though I wasn’t allowed to run the register because I was a girl—how 1950s can you get?—I put up with it because I loved the stacks of adventures waiting to be read and the conversations about Falcon and Swoosh I had with customers while stocking shelves. It was where I dreamed about living the life I wanted instead of the life my parents dictated, the place where I made my first comic friends, both on the page and in real life. That was until my mother discovered my “retail” job had to do with the comic books she was trying to divest from my life and forced me to quit.

  Without Edward Casey’s comic, I never could have applied to work at that store. I’d never have dreamed of living my own life or had hope that my awkward teenage years could turn into something else.

  Lawrence’s eyes are focused on some point in the distance, and he seems lost in thought for a moment too. “Mr. Casey Senior was a good man.”

  The bell tinkles above the door as it opens. We both turn to see Ryan step in, his jacket held above his head against the rain spattering the sidewalk outside. I know by Lawrence’s suddenly straight posture that we have to hold our conversation—for whatever reason, L is loath to let anyone else know that he worked for the Caseys. Something I’ll respect, at least until I understand why it is some big personal secret.

  Ryan is oblivious. “Hey, L.” He waves, then takes in my foils. “It’s a good look for you, MG.” His own dirty-blond hair is tousled from the jacket over his head, but I’m the bigger person and fail to point it out.

  I stick my tongue out at him but smile. “Shut up. And thanks for coming to pick me up. It’s going to be a few minutes. I forgot to text you and let you know we are running late.” L throws me a glance that says it’s my fault for the monkey business.

  Ryan looks outside at the driving rain. When it rains here, it means business. “I was going to go to a spin class for cardio day, but . . . I’ll just stay and answer emails on my phone instead.” He settles down on the uneven red pleather sofa in the corner near the ancient register and pulls out headphones. “L, I wanted to check if you still wanted to play in that Assassin’s Creed tournament this weekend.”

  And there’s why I love Ryan. He doesn’t pigeonhole Lawrence or me into any box—comic book girl, drag queen, or otherwise. I’m finally free to be myself and am accepted in my own home. My cup runneth over; I really love my strange little family.

  “I’m all in, and those bitches are going down. Could use the cash. I have an eye on a new microphone setup—those things are expensive.” L wiggles his fingers like a pianist about to play. And he’s serious too.

  “You could start work for me next week, you know. I’d kick Dave right off the team.” But he’s smiling when he says it. Ryan keeps trying to get Lawrence to play video games for him as a professional. They rarely lose a tournament, which means good cash prizes, and now that Ryan is helping Genius Comics develop the newest Hooded Falcon video game—thanks to moi—he really could get Lawrence a job with his development company. Which L keeps refusing. Not all of Ryan’s gaming friends are as cool with queendom as Ryan, and L loves being the reigning queen of wild color dye jobs in East LA. My friends have found their niches and success in their careers. I haven’t. Not really, not until I get to wear that executive badge.

  “I’m good,” Lawrence responds, as always.

  “What are you two girls talking about?” Ryan asks, picking up his headphones again. “Looked serious.”

  “We’re talking about Edward Casey Junior,” I say before Ryan can put on his headphones. Maybe L will tell him about knowing Casey Senior too, if given the open door. Seeing as Ryan recently started as a contractor for Genius Comics, I thought the conversational opening particularly suited for everyone involved and high-fived my dialogue-writing genius.

  Ryan glances between us, then grunts, a sour look on his face too.

  “What the hell. You two are being so weird today. It’s like I don’t know you.” I throw my hands up as I watch Ryan clamp the bulky Dr. Dre phones over one of his ears.

  “Men,” I mutter.

  “So have you done anything about that yet?” Lawrence addresses me, raises an eyebrow, and looks pointedly at Ryan. And by “done anything,” he clearly means “hit that.” I can tell he’s trying to change the subject, which I don’t want to do, but he’s hit an Achilles’ heel. Lawrence has been hoping for a Ryan-MG ship for a long time. Which I get. On paper, Ryan would be perfect for me. He runs his own business, he nerds out with the best of them, he’s not bad looking, he’s not horrible to live with, and he’s open-minded about his friends and clients. But. My feelings of my roommate-found-at-a-gaming-con situation possibly turning into something more led to a best friend. Not a romantic love. Lawrence just always holds out hope since Ryan and I are still single.

  We’ve had this mini conversation a million times. “No. There’s nothing that needs to be addressed. Look, I know we live together amicably and shared one teensy kiss, but I think that boat has sailed romantically. I love Ryan, just not in that way. In fact, last night he went out with a girl from his gaming group. I’m happy for him.” I shrug, thankful that Ryan isn’t listening, and try to shove the thoughts of Matteo out of my head. We need to get back to the matter at hand. Maybe a little humor will grease L’s tongue. Sass is his first language.

  “So. Casey Senior. Were you his colorist?” I’m teasing, but I’m surprised to see a flash of something haunted in L’s gaze. It’s an expression I haven’t seen cross his usually jovial features.

  His eyes flick to mine, and his shoulders sag an inch. I get the feeling that he knows I’m not letting this go. “Not his colorist. I was his security guard. You say he saved your life when you were a teenager? Well, he saved mine too, and he was a damn fine man for it. He got me out of a bad situation when he didn’t have to, took me in, gave me a job, accepted me as a person.” Lawrence’s voice is quiet, and he avoids eye contact.

  I sit back, letting that wash over me. I never knew. The million or so times I spouted off about The Hooded Falcon and he never said anything. For all the angst I have when people try to label me, I never considered Lawrence as anything but a lipstick-loving queen. Security guard. He certainly looks the part. I’d never mess with Lawrence in a million years, unless I wanted to get scraped off the street. The guy still worked out twice a day—he and Ryan went to the same CrossFit gym. His arms literally bulge out of the black tank top he’s wearing today, and I saw him win a bet that someone could bounce a basketball off his abs.

  There’s so much story here, I don’t know what to ask first. “Let me get this straight. You worked for Casey Senior? As a security guard? Why did you quit? . . . Oh.” Edward Casey Senior died of a heart attack, amid rumors of a huge change in the plans for his comic book. Of course his job would have ended. “Lawrence, we have to talk about this. You have to tell me everything. How could you keep this from me?”

  Again, a flash of something I don’t understand crosses L’s face. “Girl, sometimes the past doesn’t need to be examined. Mr.
Casey was a good and kind man, but he died on my watch, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But he died of a heart attack. No one can help that.” I just reread the big LA Times article yesterday when doing research for my write-up on the thirtieth anniversary. Stress-induced heart attack.

  Lawrence doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Maybe.” There’s a shadow behind his word, but he moves on with a shrug. “Junior blamed me for it. For bringing trouble into their house, for adding to his father’s stress. And Junior sure didn’t appreciate my . . . extracurricular activities and dismissed me. I don’t love that my life led me back to dealing with him, but I make it work. LA is a small town. End of story. Now, let’s get you to the wash sink before your hair ends up like a trashed purple weave.”

  By the set of his shoulders, I can tell Lawrence is finished talking about his past, and this time I have enough to ponder that I let it drop. I wonder what else he’s kept from me. It’s nuts how complicated my life has become since Matteo appeared with his questions. I lean back over the sink and let the hot water and L’s humming momentarily wash away my worries.

  I snort at one of my own wayward thoughts. “Now at least I understand your willingness to go to Hooded Falcon stuff. I always assumed you just liked the spandex.”

  “I may not love comics, but I can appreciate the art. I loved the drawings that Casey Senior did in his journals. The messy ideas, the scribbles, the colors, the costumes.” Lawrence shrugs, then meets my gaze in the mirror and gives me a small secret smile. “And the spandex. In fact, Senior gave me one of his journals right before he died. He knew I loved watching him work, drawing the characters. He’d said he wanted me to have it.”

  “Wait—like you have original memorabilia? And I don’t know this.” I’m a little jubilant, mostly deeply offended.

  “I told you we were done talking.” The blow-dryer clicks on, and we’re forced into silence.

  “Can I see it?” I ask the moment my hair is dry. Lawrence tries his best to hurry me out of the chair, but I’m not finished.

  “It’s just a journal. An old journal. Aren’t we done talking about this?”

  “If you show it to me, we can be.”

  “You’re so stubborn.”

  “Back at ya.”

  Lawrence throws down the brush with a scowl, leaves me sitting in the salon chair, and trudges off to the back hallway without another word. I can hear him clomping upstairs to his apartment and . . . silence.

  Ryan eyes me over his phone in puzzlement. He removes his headphones and motions to the back of the shop. “Are you done now?”

  “Almost. Lawrence has an original journal from Casey Senior he’s going to show me!”

  Something sparks in Ryan’s gaze, but his words are blasé. “And you care because . . .”

  “Ryan. Seriously. Because I love The Hooded Falcon? Do you know me at all? You’re working on the video game! Aren’t you interested?” It takes all my willpower not to divulge the entirety of L’s secret.

  Ryan’s lips press into a thin line, and something odd passes over his face. My friends are acting so weird today. He clamps the headphones back on his ears just as the creak of stairs announces Lawrence’s descent. Lawrence reappears moments later and shoves a worn black moleskin notebook in my face.

  I can’t help myself. I squeal like a Whovian at the start of a new regeneration. “Lawrence, it’s real!” I flip the pages, taking in the pen and ink sketches, the messy notes, the odd torn-out page. I have notebook upon notebook exactly like this of my own work. I recognize the thought process of a fellow comic book writer; familiar sketches call to me at the beginning of the journal—sketches from the last issue ever published. This is a gold mine. It’s likely one of the last journals Senior ever drew in. I flip faster, wanting to see everything this treasure holds.

  A scene near the back, fully and artfully wrought, especially for a sketchbook version, catches my eye. It’s an all-black panel that spans two pages, the pen lines of a hatch fill in all the white, leaving just two lone figures in the center. It’s the Hooded Falcon, kneeling before Swoosh and handing him his bow.

  I do a double take and look again. I flip to the back, then forward again to the sketch. “When was this written?” I’ve never seen this sketch before, but its significance is undeniable, and it’s definitely not in the canonical issues.

  “Girl, don’t you mess up my keepsake.” Lawrence taps his foot. He reaches for the notebook, but I parry and spin the chair around, using his shins as a push-off point.

  “I need a date; I need a date—ah-ha!” I find a little sketch that Casey Senior dated a few pages back, do a little quick mental math that only someone truly obsessed with the comics would know, and shake my head. “This isn’t possible.”

  “It’s real, if that’s what you mean. He gave it to me himself, right after a meeting with his son.” L sounds offended now.

  I spin the chair back around and meet his eyes with my own wide gaze. “I believe you. But according to this, Casey Senior was retiring the Hooded Falcon. He was going to stop the Falcon series.” I look around. “Can you copy these two pages for me? I promise I won’t show anyone. I want to do some research if I can. This is the biggest news in the comic industry in years.”

  “But . . . the comic is still going, isn’t it?” Lawrence looks confused and extremely hesitant to share his journal.

  I catch my breath. “You said that Casey Senior argued with his son the night he died. What if it was about his plans to stop the comic? What if my boss knew his dad wanted to stop the comic and has been covering up and hiding the original creator’s wishes? It’d be a huge deal if Casey Senior finished the series and his son hid the issues in order to capitalize on the franchise. I need to find out if anyone else knew about this.”

  There’s a moment of coiled violence where I think Lawrence is going to rip the journal out of my hands. Instead, he takes a deep breath, and his shoulders relax a fraction of an inch.

  “No one else sees this unless I say so.” Lawrence takes the journal to the copier at the register and runs off two sheets for me. He’s muttering about how I should just leave the past alone again, but I can tell he’s a little glad we talked today. It takes a really good friend to dredge up your former life drama and maybe relieve a bit of misplaced decades-old guilt. Or maybe it’s the thought of Casey Junior getting caught doing something wrong. Either way, I’ll take it.

  “I promise.”

  Without permission, my mind wanders to Officer Herbal Tea and his crazy theory centered around the same comic book. By some weird twist of fate, the original Hooded Falcon is in my life yet again. I can only wonder at what change he’ll bring this time.

  CHAPTER 4

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  My front door stands open the next morning, and there, like my own Groundhog Day, is Officer Herbal Tea. Trogdor yaps like mad, and I have half a mind to move the leg I’m using to block the door and let this guy’s shins get nipped by my dog. I can’t even hear OHT’s response over the barking.

  “Trog! Inside! Now!” I point and watch with satisfaction as his Wonder Bread corgi butt trots into the living room. Even after five years together, it still makes me laugh to watch his little purposeful stride.

  My gaze runs over OHT.

  “It’s not the pizza! Or Lawrence!” I shout to Ryan in the living room before stepping outside and closing the door behind me. I would much rather have Lawrence at the door, but his afternoon appointments are running late, something about acrylic gel that sounded painful. Instead, OHT and I are nestled on my snug front porch, a little too cozy for my comfort, but what are you going to do in four feet of space?

  “Am I interrupting?” he asks, trying to allow me room on the porch and failing miserably. His shoulders look the “lean and fit” type, but right now they feel like the “huge and hulking” variety.

  “No, I often greet guests on my spacious veranda. I’m sorry the iced tea is
still brewing,” I say before I can catch the snark from coming out. “What? Now I’m under arrest?”

  “No, of course not.” He looks uncomfortable and plays with the cuff on his shirt. It’s not cute, I decide. Not even a little bit. “I tried emailing you.”

  “It’s a work email. I only check it on workdays.”

  “I have additional questions to follow up on. This case is extremely time sensitive.”

  “So you came to my house.” I cross my arms over my ample chest. “You have thirty seconds to prove you aren’t a stalker before I call the police. The other police, I mean.”

  “I needed to ask a favor. It shouldn’t take much of your time.”

  I arch my eyebrow in clear indication of my dubiousness.

  “There’s been a development in the case I told you about. I looked up that stuff you talked about. The Hooded Falcon and the Justice Liaison.”

  “League.”

  “Yeah, League. I’m trying to find some of them to read—”

  “Any newsstand will probably have the latest copy. Or Meltdown on Sunset.”

  “No, the ones you talked about. The older ones.”

  I laugh, my hands dropping to my sides. “Good luck with that. They’re Bronze Age collectibles.” At his look I add, “They’ve been out of print for years and years. Sometimes I have to sit on eBay for months to find one.” I don’t want to be accused of obstructing justice, even if “justice” is taking up an annoyingly large part of my tiny porch.