Timing is a funny thing. I’d only spent one semester alone when Pawpaw died, and I moved back to Niilhaasi Bay to keep an eye on Memaw. There was just enough online coursework to not only retain my GI Bill, but also graduate. We opened the shop six months later.
I ran a mop across the floor, trying not to picture Ryan’s body lying there. I sighed and let the mop soak in the bucket. I was half out of it, lost in thought, when the bell beneath the door jingled. Before I even looked up, I heard the familiar padding of feet and a loose collar get shaken along with a set of floppy ears.
“Gambit?”
“And friend,” Felicia said. She unclasped the dachshund’s leash, and he circled the store, probably in a futile effort to search for Ryan. The dog found his usual spot in the faded blue bed beside the display case. He huffed, curling down into it with agitation. I guessed I wasn’t the only one with a bad couple of days.
“I kind of figured he could stay with you,” Felicia said, “that is, if you’re up for it.”
I nodded, almost a reflex now. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
“My daughter begged to keep him. But my hours are crazy, and my folks don’t like dogs.”
“Daughter?” So, she was definitely a mother.
“Long story. Well, not terribly long. You remember Derek Fox, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Remember how we started dating at the end of high school?”
Honestly, it wasn’t something I’d thought about often enough that lying in this situation was tough, but I tried anyway. “Wait… You dated Derek?”
“You’re not a good liar. You never were. You liked me back then, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “So, what happened with Derek?”
“The usual. Married too young. Divorced just as quick. He gets her every other weekend.”
Felicia eased further inside. “Can we talk?” She pointed to a booth—the same one Ryan and crew used for their game.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing? Talking, that is…”
“I guess some things never do change.”
She rolled her eyes and slid into the booth, lounging against the back cushion and the wood partition. If I was exhausted after spending the past two days on edge, Felicia was doubly so. She was again in plainclothes cop attire, but no jacket. Her cream colored shirt wasn’t as sharp as the maroon one from the other day. The sleeves and the front were a wrinkled mess. Her hair was down. Curls flowed in all directions.
“Sit,” she commanded. “I meant about Ryan—about the case.”
“You mean you don’t need Detective Ross?”
“Well, not exactly. For now, this’ll be off the record.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I sat down even slower, skeptical. I still looked outside, thinking Detective Ross might show up any moment.
“I’m off the clock,” she laughed and looked down at her watch, “for at least another hour. This case is doing a number on us.”
“I bet,” I said. “Can I… I mean, am I even allowed to ask what’s going on with it? Like, for one, why I guess I’m no longer a suspect…”
“You’re definitely allowed to ask, but I’m not obliged to answer.”
“It’s like that, huh.” I felt us fall into a familiar pattern—like the last ten plus years didn’t count for anything.
“Yeah, it’s like that.” She smirked for half a second, then it faded. “I guess you’ll probably learn a few things just by questions. And I’ll just start with an apology. You won’t get this from Ross—and I’m not sure you will from most of the town, either.”
We both stared uneasily out the long glass windows to Main Street.
“Kirby, it’s just that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last person to see the victim is the killer. And that knife, well, it made things look a lot worse. You understand, we had no way of knowing…”
“Of knowing what?”
“That it wasn’t the murder weapon. The medical examiner barely had to glance at Ryan to tell us that wasn’t the case. The knife wasn’t in deep, it didn’t touch any organs, and there was hardly any blood. In fact, the M.E. said it was luck that the knife was actually stuck in place like it was.”
“Then what did—”
“I’m not finished.” She put out a hand to stop me from speaking—this really was reminiscent of the Felicia I knew in high school. “See, the time of death is also fishy. We’re sure it happened earlier that night. And not here. Of course, the M.E. has to run more tests to be conclusive. But with what we found, we think it happened sometime just after Ryan left Jill Adams’ place on the island.”
When Felicia saw that the name didn’t ring a bell, she said, “Jill Thompson Adams.”
“Jill Thompson—like the Jill Thompson?”
“Adams, now. But, yes. The very one. She’s a nurse at the hospital. He really didn’t tell you?”
“A nurse at the hospital has a place on the island?”
“Her ex-husband’s a doctor.” Felicia saw where my mind was headed. “And he has a rock-solid alibi. He’s an OB-GYN. Delivered a set of twins that night by C-section.”
“Wow,” I exclaimed. “And Jill—is she a suspect?”
“I can’t say. But I will say, she looks exactly same as she did in high school. So, if you have a theory on how hundred pound Jill got that body here, I’m all ears.”
I shook my head.
“And, obviously, you’re out. That is, you’re no longer a suspect. At that time of night, it’s a twenty minute drive from here and back. There’s no record of your car crossing the toll bridge. And why would you take a body from the island back here and stick a knife in its back?”
No, I thought, the only knife I would stick in Ryan’s back is a metaphorical one. I hadn’t considered what was going to happen to the comic book side of the shop. But I did give Felicia’s words some thought. “Wait… Are you saying someone tried to frame me?”
“And they did a half decent job of it. Ross was ready to book you and close the case. Lucky for you our M.E. thought Niilhaasi was a better place to work than Chicago. Five years ago, when I became a detective, it’d probably be an open and shut case. I’m pretty sure Dr. Doom never looked at the bodies. He just went off what the lead detective told him to say.”
“Dr. Doom?”
“A nickname.” She smirked again. “Anyway, you’re lucky Dr. Capullo’s here.”
“Yeah… Lucky,” I agreed, reeling at the thought that not only had someone murdered Ryan, but they’d tried to frame me in the process.
“Anyway,” Felicia took a look at her watch, “I wanted to ask you about those D&D friends. They’re an odd bunch, huh?”
“Yeah…”
“I’m guessing there’s not, but I have to ask—is there any reason one of them would murder Ryan? I’m asking you because they were all a bit hard to talk to. Granted, Ross made things difficult. You can take the old jock out of sports, but get him around a few nerds and the ego comes out.”
I pondered it a moment. “Honestly… I don’t think so. But that Damian kid. He did look heated for some reason.”
She nodded. “Good to know.”
Felicia scooted out of the booth and checked her watch once more. “All right, Kirby, I guess I’ve got a job to do.”
“You want a coffee for the road?” I eyed the espresso machine.
“I would love a coffee for the road,” she said, a relieved grin spreading across her face. A familiar dimple on her right cheek sent a flutter down to my stomach.
Her order was simple, a mocha. Before leaving, she took another look around, sighing. “I’m going to see if I can do you a favor. Make sure the town knows you’re no longer a suspect.”
“Are you going to the paper about the case?” The Niilhaasi Gazette wasn’t exactly the most reputable local paper, but it was all we had.
“The paper,” she said, laughing, “are you kidding? No. It’s Wednesday, right? If the chief’s secretary, Barbara, hears the scoop, well then she
’ll tell whoever she sees at church tonight. And by tomorrow morning, the whole town will know it wasn’t you.”
“Barbara Simone? She’s in Memaw’s book club.”
“Ah, and book club’s Thursday. All right, so if not tomorrow, then by Friday morning, the whole town will know it wasn’t you.”
7
To my utter surprise, Felicia’s plan worked. Thursday morning saw two regulars and a steady trickle of customers. By Friday, things were actually picking up—better than they were before Ryan’s murder. Granted, there were some sick individuals who just came in because of the murder. Their eyes lingered far too long on the floor.
Adding insult to injury, I lost not only Ryan, but two other staff failed to show up or return my texts and my calls. Luckily, Sarah volunteered to work a double shift. And she was oddly good at understanding Ryan’s lack of organization. She not only found the files for his comic book customers but turned a squad of teenage girls onto Ms. Marvel—not to be confused with Captain Marvel whom we’d discussed a few days prior.
“No, see I thought Captain Marvel was badass. Then I read Ms. Marvel,” she told me as I frothed milk for a caramel macchiato.
“Ah, I see,” I said. “What’re you reading next? Batgirl? Wonder Woman?”
She gave me a speculative look, scrunching her eyebrows together. “I can’t believe you own this place. No, I don’t think I could be a DC fan. I’m thinking of looking into what’s what in the Spider-Verse.”
“Spider-Man? I’ve actually read some Spider-Man. Back when the Tobey Maguire movies came out.”
“Not Spider-Man per se, but something along those lines. I’ll let you know.”
“Sounds good.” I’d already added the vanilla syrup to the bottom of the cup. I poured in the frothed milk, and dumped two shots of espresso over the top. Next, I haphazardly drizzled caramel over the top until it looked artsy. I put the lid on, ensuring I was the only one who ever saw said art.
“I’ll take over from here.” Sarah nudged me, which had the effect of directing my eyes to the man standing across from me at the counter.
Marcus Drake, Marc, gave a slight nod toward the booths. “Can we talk?” he asked.
Since high school, my friendship with Marc had dwindled to hardly anything at all. It’s strange, but I’d gone from seeing, talking to, and bonding with him daily for over four years to barely “liking” any of his Facebook posts.
Unlike Ryan, who not only maintained relationships but fostered new ones, I let relationships fizzle into obscurity.
Marc sighed grimly—it’s a thing, I swear—as I joined him in the most remote booth in the shop, close to the comic display cases and the sleeping dachshund. Gambit had not taken the past two days well. He barely acknowledged me. He wasn’t eating. I felt bad for the pup. And part of me thought maybe Marc was here to scoop him up.
“Kirby,” he said just as grimly, “I just want to get this off my chest… I know you didn’t do it.” He sighed like that took off some immense pressure. “It sucks the cops had to arrest you.”
“They didn’t arrest me,” I protested.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh,” Marc perked up, “well, at least there’s that. I thought I heard Felicia arrested you.”
“Not exactly… She, uh, took me in for questioning though.”
“I bet that was weird.” He gave me an odd look; I struggled to figure out its meaning.
“Yeah, it was,” I confessed. “But why do you say so? Why would it be weird?”
“You know,” he shrugged, “because you liked her in high school.”
That was a sufficient answer. But I didn’t remember confiding that information to Marc. Ryan, I thought, gritting my teeth.
“Well, that and she liked you…”
“Wait… what?”
Marc laughed through his nose. “Yeah, that was always the big gag in high school. You liked her. She liked you. We used to put you in a room alone together to see if anything would happen. Spoiler alert—nothing ever did.”
“Cause I didn’t know she liked me!”
“Yeah—that was part of the gag. It’d have been way less fun to tell you.”
I choked on the futile anger piling up inside. There was no use losing two friends in one week—even if this one deserved it.
“Do you keep up with her at all?” I asked. “What happened after high school?”
“Not really,” Marc replied. “She went to FSU with Derek, came back married to him and with a degree in criminal justice, I think. She had a baby not long after, and then they got divorced. That’s about all I know.”
I nodded.
“So, you think you’ll make it to the wake tonight?” Marc asked.
“The wake?”
“Yeah,” he shook his head, “Ryan’s brother said he doesn’t want to do a real funeral. I guess it might be a while before they release the body. He’s having Ryan cremated and sent to Detroit later. How messed up is that?”
“Pretty messed up.” I shrugged. But from what I knew of Ryan’s brother, this wasn’t all too surprising. “Are you sure I’m invited to this wake? If his brother doesn’t think I did it—which he might—I bet he still blames me.”
Marc shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. It’s at Sky Bar. And pretty much the whole town’s invited.”
“Really? Who invited ‘em?”
Marc grinned at me mischievously. “I did… You know it’s what Ryan would’ve wanted.”
There was no questioning that.
“Okay, I’ll think about it,” I said. But I was already thinking about a lot of things—like who framed me and why Ryan was killed. “Marc, can I ask about the other night? What happened with the game?”
“What? Oh, the game. I’ll tell you what I told the cops. Nothing happened. We got finished around 11:00, and we all left together. I watched Ryan lock up the shop. He had Gambit on his leash. He mentioned something about a hot date. Then he got in his car and left.”
“His car,” I looked instinctively outside. “Where is it?”
“Hmm.” Marc grimaced. “I’m not sure. That’s a good question.”
“Well, I’ve got one more—”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Something was up in that game. That Damian kid, what was his problem? Was it something Ryan did?”
Marc chuckled. “Yes and no. But I don’t think it was a murder-worthy offense. We’d cut our last campaign short, so we started this game where we’d left off—all in a tight spot against a troll. Damian thought he could take it. I’ve never seen something like it before.”
“Like what?”
“The kid had rolled a natural one—critical failure. Then, on his saving throw rolled a natural one. And Ryan as Dungeon Master, well, house rules say you die if you roll a critical failure on a saving throw.”
“So?” I said. I had a foggy memory from my old D&D days. “Couldn’t you guys resurrect him or something?”
“Well, we could’ve. And this part wasn’t Ryan’s fault. But Tim thought it’d be funny not to. Made him write up a new character sheet and everything. Then Ryan introduced the new character into the game.”
“And that’s all he was pissed about?” Marc was right—it didn’t sound like a murder-worthy offense.
“Well, that and Ryan took Damian’s dice.” Marc pointed to the shelf behind the counter with the figures and toys. There was a small handwritten sign I’d failed to notice—CRITICAL FAILURE DICE $10.
“That’s messed up.”
“It’s Ryan’s sense of humor.” Marc chuckled again. “I already miss him, bro.”
“Me, too.” I sighed.
8
We closed the shop early, at 6:00, giving me a whole two hours before the wake to go eat at Memaw’s. Yes, my Friday night plans had been to eat dinner with my grandmother, and they were only livened up by the addition of a wake.
“How are things at the shop?” she asked, splitting a
salmon patty with the prongs of her fork. Memaw was of a generation who learned to cook with ingredients from cans and boxes—adding an egg here or there was all the food prep required. Even with the plethora of local fish available in Niilhaasi, here we were eating something shipped from Alaska.
“Surprisingly good,” I answered. “Today was a record day. I think we served fifty mochas alone. I’ll have to order more chocolate syrup.”
“I’ll never understand those mocha drinkers,” she scoffed. “A little half and half and some Splenda is all that’s required for a good cup. Your Pawpaw always drank it black.”
“With a cigarette,” we said in unison.
She smiled at the thought of him. We both did. “Any news on your friend’s murder?”
“None that I’ve heard.” I wondered if Memaw had put together what Felicia had to spell out for me. That someone tried to frame me.
“It’s always the lover.” She scooped a fork-full of flakey fish. “That, or the lover’s ex.”
“The problem is, Ryan seemed to have a few lovers.”
“Ooh, maybe one got jealous.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “How was book club last night? I’m guessing this was a topic of conversation.”
“The only topic,” Memaw said sardonically. “Had I known that, I wouldn’t’ve even read that godforsaken book.”
“What book?” I asked skeptically.
“Oh, Gail’s on a fantasy kick. You’d know it. We read that Harry Potter. You know, with the wizards.”
“Harry Potter’s a classic. Why would you call it godforsaken?”
She leveled her gaze on me. “I’m just a bit confused. See, I read it. And it was pretty good. But then I saw it on TV the other night, and I swear it had a whole other plot. Didn’t make a lick of sense.”
“Well, Memaw, there’re seven books.”
“Seven?”
“Yeah.” I grinned.
“Who knows which one I was watchin’. I think it had that young man I like who played Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK. He was a prisoner or something.”
“Gary Oldman?” I had to verify that one on IMDB. “Memaw, how do you remember things like that?”
Marvels, Mochas, and Murder Page 4