The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss

by Max Wirestone

  But among the more substantive things I’m excluding were my brief interviews with the other Horizons. The guild had about ten members, and I tried to at least touch base with everyone, even though these other members couldn’t use the spear and were almost certainly not involved. Not much came of this, but for the record, I did interview a fire mage who was almost certainly drunk, a dwarven tinker with a syrupy Southern accent, and a human pugilist who I think might have been a twelve-year-old girl.

  But I will mention part of my interview with Oatcake, the Horizons’ guild leader. Oatcake, of everyone I had spoken to thus far, seemed the least interested in anything I had to say. I learned the basics of his biography—his name was Owen; he lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and he owned a small business that made high-end handcrafted furniture. It had been mostly a side project in his early twenties, but now that he was cresting thirty, it was really taking off.

  He could speak with a terrifying enthusiasm about wood-carved furniture, but for everything else he sounded bored. He clearly was elsewhere, and these questions were just a to-do to him. With the other interviews, I felt guilty for being pushy or judgmental; with Oatcake, I just felt like I was wasting his time.

  “You seem very distant right now, I have to say.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a damning pause. “I’m just trying to multitask. What was your question again?”

  But then it was my turn to multitask, because I got an in-game email, with a flashing crow icon tucked away in the corner of the screen. To check it, I’d have to go to a mailbox, but since I was hanging around that same damned bar, there was one right next to me.

  Maybe it was rude of me to check my mail during an interview, but it seemed clear that a talk with Oatcake was going nowhere. He was a guy who was getting too busy for Zoth, and he was without question too busy for me. He was definitely not a suspect: Here was a guy who did not care about the game enough to commit digital theft. Particularly for a weapon that his character couldn’t use in the first place.

  So I checked my email. I was intrigued—no one knew me aside from the Horizons and, okay, Erik. I was put out by the idea of another email from Erik—not emotionally devastated this time, just put out. I was never going to get anywhere if he kept interrupting me with undecipherable koans.

  It was from a character named Apologia.

  I didn’t know much about her except that she was a level-one human thief. Never heard from her before.

  There was no text in the letter, just a subject heading. It read:

  SORRY ’BOUT IT

  At first I thought the whole thing was some kind of performance art. Apologizing to people you’ve never met; this was the Zoth version of a twelve-step program. Or a cult. But then I noticed that there was an attachment. A rather spectacular attachment.

  In the letter was the Bejeweled Spear of Infinite Piercing.

  There it was, the most powerful weapon in the game. It was something that men stole for, perhaps even killed for. And it had landed in the hands of a rookie fairy with a harp.

  Getting the spear made me feel electric, in part because I had a secret. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone that I had it—or at least, I wasn’t ready to tell Kurt, and the walls were awfully thin at Nathan’s. Assuming I wanted to tell Nathan anyway, which I wasn’t sure I did.

  I markedly considered spending the night at Nathan’s apartment, but my head was full of ideas and I wanted to get out. And deranged laughter or not, I was still wary about getting too emotionally involved with him just yet. Was he a murderer—okay, probably not. But I couldn’t say for sure that he wasn’t involved. Yes, okay, that’s probably a flimsy excuse to avoid emotional connection, but I had gone fast with Erik. And with the next guy, I was going to take it slow.

  My apartment was still inaccessible, so I chilled at a coffee place near Nathan’s that I used to frequent in my carefree days. I recognized no one there, not a soul—not even a barista—and this made me consider that my carefree days were a lot further in the past than I had immediately remembered. I sipped steamed milk with hazelnut and waited for the allotted hour to return to my home.

  If I had known that Detective Shuler would have been waiting for me at my building, I would have lingered at the coffee shop. Hell, I might have slept with Nathan. But I didn’t, and when I walked up to my building from the street, Shuler surprised me so much that I nearly jumped into traffic.

  “Jesus!” I told him when he showed up behind me.

  “Dahlia Moss,” he said, smiling. “I see you’ve still got those gimlet eyes of yours.”

  “I’m full of steamed milk right now, and I don’t need to be frightened like that! You’re lucky I didn’t vomit.”

  “As concerned as I am about that,” said Shuler, following me into the building and actually getting into the elevator after I pressed the button, “I’m actually here to ask if you bugged me.”

  Damn Charice. Why am I always the fall girl for her exploits?

  “It wasn’t me?” I said, managing to end the sentence on a question mark, despite my intentions. And it actually wasn’t me, which is, of course, what everyone says in prison.

  “It’s a really bad thing to do, Dahlia. If that had been Maddocks, you would be in a lot of trouble.”

  “And I’m not in a lot of trouble?”

  “No,” said Shuler, his voice sad, as if acknowledging a deep character flaw, “I suppose you’re not. Although I have another question for you.”

  I was being as kind as I could to Detective Shuler, because I did not want to go to jail. “And I have another answer.”

  “Did you hire photography students to monitor Jonah’s parents?”

  “Not the parents, the apartment. And, no, I didn’t.”

  Detective Shuler gave me a look that I would describe as “sister, please.” I noticed that he had permanent creases on his face from this expression, so I’m guessing that it was a go-to look for him.

  “I didn’t hire them. They’re working for free. It takes a village.” This was maybe a little snarky, but I was flying high with the spear in my possession.

  “No,” said Detective Shuler. “It doesn’t take a village. It takes the police. The Lottery takes a village. Solving crimes takes the police.”

  “Right,” I said, suddenly anxious about that damned trash from Kurt’s car again, even though it wasn’t being talked about. “I get those two things confused sometimes.”

  Shuler smiled again at me. He’s a very smiley guy, honestly. Probably in the wrong line of work.

  “Listen, Dahlia. I like you.”

  I wasn’t sure where Detective Shuler was going with this. I felt equally perched on the precipice of being vaguely threatened and awkwardly asked out. Shuler must have sensed my uneasiness, because he tried to fill in the space. Although I’m not sure that he knew where we were landing either.

  “I’m just saying that I like you—in a broad sense—and I would hate to see something bad happen to you.”

  “Bad like getting arrested?”

  Shuler gave me a look of concern.

  “Or bad like getting killed.”

  We were at my door now, and I wasn’t sure what Shuler wanted from me. Plus, I had gotten here too early and we couldn’t really go inside.

  Shuler looked sad now. “I shouldn’t be sharing any information with you at all, but I just think you ought to know something. Is there somewhere where we can be private for a moment?”

  “More private than the hall?”

  “Preferably.”

  I coughed. “Not exactly. There’s a production of Godspell going on in my apartment at the moment.”

  This momentarily broke the spell of whatever confession Shuler wanted to make. He cocked his head at me.

  “Is that some sort of post-apocalyptic musical?”

  “I’m actually not sure. I usually try to stay out of the way of theater people. They’re not like us.”

  I opened the door and was instantly booed for fl
ooding light into the room. There must have been thirty people crowded into cushions on the floor. From what I could glimpse of the production, there was a half-naked man draped across the television with a spotlight on him. I closed the door.

  “I think maybe the naked man is supposed to be Jesus?”

  “That’s surely in violation of some kind of fire code.”

  “You would know better than me. But I’m not opening the door again. I don’t want to get catcalled. Just—what’s your advice?”

  Shuler looked less like a detective and more like the guy a detective would grill. He was nervous and seemed a little cornered. He obviously had something that he couldn’t bring himself to spit out. He behaved a lot like me, ultimately, when cornered because he changed the subject.

  “What do you say we go out somewhere?”

  “Wait, what, right now?”

  “Yeah,” said Shuler. “For frozen custard.”

  If Anson Shuler had finished that sentence in any other way, I would have unquestionably turned him down. But he didn’t.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I can’t be out too late. My client’s funeral is tomorrow.”

  If you’re not a Saint Louisan, you probably don’t understand the unquestionable awesomeness that is frozen custard. You’re probably thinking that it’s some sort of weird acquired taste like chitlins or Moxie.

  You’d also probably think that Ted Drewes—legendary frozen custard vendor—doesn’t look like much. And okay, maybe it is sort of a giant hot dog stand—but looks are deceiving, auslander. To a trained Saint Louisian eye, the place looks like heaven. Anson Shuler and I were there, late at night, on a Wednesday, and there was an enormous freaking line. A custard line. Because it is awesome.

  Conversation in the car with Shuler had been awkward, particularly because he insisted on playing King Crimson, which I don’t want to talk about, and I don’t have words for. But in line for custard, I was feeling much more amenable toward him.

  “So,” I said. “You don’t seem like someone who would be a detective.”

  “Neither do you,” said Shuler, who had a point.

  “I asked first. How did that happen?”

  Shuler sighed, and it was such a sad little sigh—a middle-aged sigh, if you will—that it seemed not quite to fit on him. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time?”

  I liked wistful Shuler more than chipper Shuler, or at least more than let’s-listen-to-King-Crimson Shuler.

  “But not now?”

  “I haven’t completely decided yet.”

  And then it got sort of awkward. It was strange, because it was fun and, I don’t know, slightly charging to talk about detective stuff with Shuler, but the moment we hit upon anything personal, it was weird. So I stuck with the case.

  “So how’s it going with that whole murder investigation?”

  So brazen was the question that Shuler broke from his usual brow furrowing and actually bugged his eyes at me, a little.

  “I can’t discuss that with you.”

  “I could share with you details about the spear theft online,” I said, sounding a lot more coquettish than I had originally intended.

  It got his attention. Oh, he tried lobbing it off, as if he didn’t care, but I saw the flash of interest.

  “I cannot discuss the case with you.”

  “I see,” I said. And I did. But then it was awkward again. I think that’s what pushed Shuler into talking—not any particular powers of persuasion on my part. He just didn’t want things to feel weird. Neither did I.

  “So,” he began. “I was watching this really great show on Netflix.”

  “Oh? What was it?”

  “A mystery,” he said with a conspiratorial tone in his voice that I didn’t notice until later. “A police procedural, actually.”

  “What’s it called?”

  Shuler seemed irritated that I kept peppering him with questions.

  “It’s called Interrupted Cop, Dahlia.”

  “Oh, right!” I said, suddenly seeing where this was going. “I think I might have seen that one. Handsome lead?”

  Shuler raised his brow at me. He had great brow action.

  “You tell me.”

  “In an unconventional way.”

  This got more brow action. Peter Capaldi would have been impressed.

  “So, on the show—”

  “Interrupted Cop,” I said, interrupting him.

  “Yes,” he said, “Interrupted Cop. There’s this investigation of a murder. At first the police think that it’s a break-in, but the deeper they get into it the more they wonder if the thief didn’t have a key.”

  “Ooh, intriguing. What happens next?”

  “I don’t know, I’m only on episode one,” said Shuler. “What about you? You seen anything good?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been really getting into a mystery series myself. More of a cozy. It’s, uh, called Glamorous-Looking and Extremely Competent Amateur Detective.”

  “GLECAD?”

  Shuler was faster with acroynms than I was, because by the time I figured out what he had done, he’d gotten in another line.

  “Doesn’t seem like something that you would be into.”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s like it’s my life.”

  Shuler gave me more brow.

  “I haven’t been keeping up with that show. What’s happened on it lately?”

  “The GLECAD had been after this, uh, stolen pole that a bunch of people wanted, and, just in this most recent episode I saw—she found it.”

  Now, this got a reaction.

  “Really?” Shuler was floored. I should honestly have been insulted by how shocked he was, but I was too busy with my metaphor to notice.

  “Well, sure. I mean the ‘C’ stands for ‘Competent,’ right?”

  “Who took the pole?”

  “Well,” I said, “the GLECAD hadn’t figured that out yet. It was returned anonymously. But she’s working on it.”

  “What’s the GLECAD going to do with the pole?”

  “She was thinking of using it as a trap to discover the identity of the thief.”

  Whatever the correct answer was, this was not it. Anson Shuler’s face practically doubled over at me with disapproval.

  “GLECAD’s gonna get canceled, if she doesn’t watch herself.”

  “Pshaw. This glamorous detective has also acquired a replica of the murder weapon. It’s all under control.”

  “Dahlia, you really need to pull back from this.”

  “Incidentally, how much strength does it take to spear someone to death? Could a woman do it? Would you have to be in great shape?”

  Shuler sighed at me. “You’ve got the strength to do it. And the brazenness.”

  I wasn’t so sure. For all its bling, the spear wasn’t actually all that sharp. You could bludgeon someone with it for sure, but to gore someone to death? It’d take some force.

  Shuler wasn’t such a bad detective after all, because he answered my question without me ever voicing it.

  “The replica you have is a revision of the original. It’s duller. It also has less gems on it.”

  I was impressed by his reading of me but mostly floored by the notion of something with more gems on it than the spear I had. “How many more gems could it possibly have?”

  “I don’t know; I’d have to see yours,” said Shuler.

  I nearly invited him to my room for a comparison, but I felt it was bit too much like inviting someone to look at a collection of etchings.

  Marshmallow. That’s the flavor I got. Shuler went in for something fruity. Banana? Big Apple? I got a Concrete—a custard confection named for its legendary consistency—so I wasn’t paying that much attention. It was a little cold out, and so we adjourned to his car. It was a slow walk because I was feeling happy and increasingly sated. Mostly with custard, but maybe with life too.

  “So what’s this big confession you were going to make to me?”

&
nbsp; “You should be cautious around Jonah’s friends.”

  I gave him some skeptical brow work of my own. “That was the big tip you were going to give me?”

  “Not originally, no,” said Shuler. “But it’s the tip I’ve decided to give you now.”

  I was playing it off like it was nothing, but it did make me a bit nervous. Who was he trying to warn me against? Was Kurt not the benign panda I had taken him for?

  “You know Jonah’s sending all the Horizons to a convention in Phoenix, right?”

  Shuler looked surprised, but I soon realized he wasn’t surprised about Jonah’s plan—he was surprised that I told him.

  “We have his credit card receipts, and it’s something we worked out.”

  “Are you going out there?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  I felt like this was a question that should have a solid answer. Maybe not Marshmallow Concrete solid, but I should at least be able to turn it upside down without it falling out. But I couldn’t muster up a single reason that wouldn’t sound ridiculous out loud. And I didn’t have time to consider it much, because we got to his car then. Shuler picked up a flyer that had been placed under his windshield.

  He glanced at it and smiled.

  “Maybe your string of unemployment is over,” he said, handing me the flyer. It was written in black Magic Marker on Astrobrights-red Xerox paper: JOB FAIR—SATURDAY 3 PM.

  Ugh, gainful employment. The fantasy was broken. “Oh, thanks,” I said.

  But as we got back in the car and drove away, I noticed a curious thing. Not a single other car had a flyer placed on it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The next morning was Jonah’s honest-to-gosh, real-life funeral. I probably should have been more focused on that, but my head was still in the events of the previous day. Don’t laugh, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had left that job-fair note just for me—which I know sounds like crazy paranoia. And yet. Did I have some fairy godmother who was trying to find me a job? If so, she should have shown up several months earlier, when my life was falling apart. Why now, when I actually sort of, kind of had something going? I wasn’t just being paranoid, was I? It was weird. I mean, who distributes flyers late on a weeknight at a custard joint? To a single car? Still, maybe it was paranoia, because Anson Shuler, Interrupted Cop, didn’t think it worth commenting on. Maybe he had left the flyer for me.