Sort of Dead

by Rob Rosen

  Eve tsked me. “We’re here, we’re queer…”

  She was inside before I could counter with, “We’re alive. Kind of. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Clark tapped my shoulder. “Um.”

  You could read a whole novel into that um, but um seemed to cover it. And brevity was good when you were breaking and entering. Or at least entering, seeing as that breaking part was decidedly unnecessary.

  “Hello?” shouted Eve as we closed the door behind us.

  “You already said that,” said I.

  “Thrice,” said Clark.

  Eve shrugged. “What would you like me to shout? Are there any murderers around? We have a gun. And two vicious watchdogs.” She patted her clutch, the gun hidden inside.

  I nodded an okay. Thought the part about the vicious dogs seemed a bit of a stretch—like Eve’s dress. Thank Goddess for Lycra. “The gun thing sounds wise, all things considered.” All things being my recent demise and the unexpected open door we’d encountered at the home of my potential demiser/ers.

  The dogs whined louder. Britney broke free and scampered through the hallway and around a corner.

  I grabbed Eve’s muscly arm as she began to follow. “Britney’s the dumb one. Remember?”

  Clark nodded and pointed up ahead. “What she said.”

  Eve pulled away. Easy peasy. Voltan, after all, was no gym-bunny. “Britney,” she shouted. “Britney, come back to mommy.” Eve’s heels clomped toward the dumb bitch. It would have made for a funny scene in a movie. Now, not so much. Terrifying was more like it. Much more. In any case, we followed one bitch as she chased after the second bitch. And if Britney was the dumb one, what did that make us?

  We didn’t have long to ponder this because Britney hadn’t made it all that far. Nor did Didi, so it seemed. Eve was crouched down over her. Didn’t seem all that simple of a feat, Lycra or not. Her hand was on the downed woman’s throat. “She’s alive,” she said, glancing back at us.

  I nodded. I gulped. I nodded some more. I nodded some more after that. I didn’t know what to say. Didi seemed unconscious, a large red splotch on her forehead. Her dog seemed fine. Her dog, Muffin, was a Rottweiler. Muffin the Rottweiler didn’t look all that happy to see any of us. Evidence to this were the rows of bared teeth and the growl that cut through like a knife. Britney was sniffing Muffin’s butt. Christina was again playing dead. Seemed me and the latter dog had something in common.

  “Um,” said Clark, brevity again nicely doing the trick.

  I pointed at the Rottweiler, then back to Clark. “Yeah, um.”

  Eve rose to her tremendous height. She reached inside her dress. It had pockets. It had pockets with dog treats in them. Muffin stopped growling and jumped up, tail wagging, swiping Britney in her dumb bitch face.

  We were in a grandly appointed living room. There was a patio outside. Eve walked to the patio door and tossed a few treats outside. Muffin’s loyalty was apparent. Meaning, Didi was left to her own devices as the dog raced outside. Eve closed the patio door and looked our way. “Gets ‘em every time.”

  I pointed at the unconscious woman on the floor. “How many times have you got this?”

  Didi stirred. Didi moaned. Didi cussed. “What the fuck?”

  Clark and I both pointed at Didi. “What she said.”

  She looked up at us. She winced. She moaned again. “Please tell me this isn’t heaven.”

  I hadn’t seen heaven yet, but I doubted it looked anything like this. Fingers crossed. I crossed Voltan’s, just in case. “Are you okay, ma’am?” I asked. “Do we need to call for an ambulance, the police?”

  Oh man, did she react to that. One moment she was sprawled on the ground, all out for the count looking, and the next, POW, up and Adam! “No, no! I’m okay!” She was suddenly breathing hard. Upping and Adaming seemed to take a lot out of her. “The dog scared them off.”

  Muffin was now barking and frantically pawing at the glass. “Yeah, no doubt.” I pointed at her noggin, at the apparent spread of red. “Seems they conked you before skedaddling.”

  She rubbed at it, the wince promptly returning. She didn’t look so good. Lord only knew if we could say the same about ourselves. In any case, she was a pretty woman, probably in her early forties but looking like an old thirty. Somewhere there was a plastic surgeon with a bunch of blue ribbons. Or sports cars. Probably the latter.

  “You were attacked, ma’am,” I said.

  She wobbled to a recliner and fell back into it. “Duh,” she exhaled.

  Clark raised his hand. “Sure you don’t want an ambulance, ma’am? The police?”

  The wince returned. I took it she didn’t like all that ma’aming. She squinted our way. “How did you, um…how did you get in?”

  I cleared my throat. “Your door was open. We were walking our dogs.” I pointed down at Britney and Christina, who were now fast asleep, clearly bored by all the goings-on. “We yelled inside, but no one answered. We wanted to make sure everything was alright.” My finger aimed from the dogs to her forehead. “Everything was not alright.” I left out the ma’am. She didn’t leave out the wince. Eve had the gun. Eve eyed me uncertainly. Did we use it now, kick Didi while she was down, so to speak? “Are you okay? In trouble? Is anyone going to come back and finish whatever they started?”

  She didn’t seem to like the sound of that. I’d been murdered. Was Didi next on the list? Was all this somehow connected? Was Didi somehow connected? Had there been some sort of disconnect now the bad guys and or gals or both knew someone or ones, namely us, was snooping around? My head hurt. I, too, winced. Seemed to be contagious. Herpes on the brain.

  I didn’t have long to ponder all this as Didi was quickly off the recliner and running to the patio. Muffin was let in. Muffin barked at us. Yes, wincing was indeed contagious, seeing as we were all doing it now.

  “Muffin, down!” Didi barked, and Muffin stopped doing the same. Didi then ran from the room and returned a moment later with her purse and a scarf wrapped around her head, sunglasses finishing off the look. “Come on!” she then barked at us. Like Muffin, we, too, obeyed, three drag queens and three dogs following their apparent leader.

  She looked at her Corvette. She turned and looked at us. Round peg met square hole. Which is to say, if she wanted our help, her car was not the way to go. She sighed. “I’m probably in no shape to drive, anyway.”

  Eve leaned down and whispered in my ear, “If we take my van, she’ll know who I am, can trace it back to me in about two seconds flat.”

  Clark leaned down and whispered in my other ear, “If we take Eve’s van—”

  “Stop. I get it,” I said, flustered. I looked at Didi and threw caution to the wind. Someone, after all, had just clubbed her, maybe intended far worse. Didn’t mean she wasn’t my murderer, but we had few other ways to go with now, and why not chuck all our eggs into her bruised basket? “Your husband,” I said. “You don’t want us to call the police or an ambulance, so, unless you’re doing something illegal, I’d guess it was him or related to him.” I pointed at the scarf. It was a Hermes—it proudly said so along the brim—something cubist, something familiar-looking but not enough to lay a finger on. I pointed at the Corvette, at the large house behind us. “Are you protecting him or yourself, Didi?”

  She chuckled. “So you weren’t just passing by and saw my door ajar, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Did you know there was someone murdered at your husband’s office recently?”

  She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look guilty. She didn’t suck in her breath or suddenly run away or reach into her purse and pull out the gun that had killed me. Instead, she frowned and reached up to rub her chest, just above her heart. Though maybe she simply had an itch. Either way, those chucked eggs of ours seemed, for the time being, safe—though sound was another matter entirely.

  “You knew him?” she asked. “Nord, I believe, was his name.”

  I nodded. Clark nodded. Eve shrugged. “Tangentially, yes,”
I replied. “We think your husband was involved, either directly or also tangentially.” I pointed at the scarf again. “Would that have been worse had it not been for Muffin?”

  Her eyes squinted. I could see a shiver run through her as she quaked in place. She started walking away from the house. We followed, what with her in possession of our eggs, and all. “I…” She looked our way, kept walking. “I…” You could see she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure she should.

  We stopped when we reached the van. “You’re in danger,” Clark said. “You think it might be related to Nord,” he added. “You don’t know us, Didi. Three strangers entered your house right after you were…” He pointed toward the scarf. It would have looked better on him than her, all things considered. In other words, on a much younger woman. “You don’t know where to turn to, who you can trust.” He patted her shoulder. “That about cover it?”

  She nodded. She squatted down and per her dog. Muffin was staring at Britney. He must’ve preferred the dumb ones. Maybe Didi was in the same barrel. “I snooped. I shouldn’t have,” she said.

  The hairs on the back of my borrowed neck bristled. “What were you snooping for, Didi?” I asked.

  She stood back up and sighed. “I was looking at our bank accounts. My husband has a propensity to spend our money, sometimes recklessly. I was worried. The withdrawn amounts were larger than normal. I knew I couldn’t ask him what they were for because he wouldn’t have told me the truth, so, like I said, I snooped.”

  “And he found out?” Eve asked, brushing the wig from her face.

  It was now Didi’s turn to point at the scarf. “You tell me.”

  She told us to tell her, and so I did. Rip went the proverbial Band-Aid. “Your husband is cheating on you.”

  She nodded. The sigh returned. “Seems everyone knows.” She shrugged. “He’s being blackmailed. That whore, Paula, gets a monthly stipend.” She made air-quotes.

  “But if you know,” I said, “why let her blackmail him? You’d save a ton of money if you took away her leverage.”

  A smile wormed its way up her face. “More fun to watch him squirm. Besides, what’s good for the goose…”

  We gandered at the gander. To each their own, I figured.

  “So this isn’t about that?” Clark asked.

  Again, she shrugged. “Doubtful. The affair has been going on forever. And the amount of money suddenly missing is far greater than what Paula usually gets. So, no, probably not about that. Not unless he suddenly figured out that I know, but, even then…” Her finger went to the scarf, to just below it. She winced upon contact. “Seems excessive, even for my douchebag husband.”

  Well, at least we were in agreement on one thing. “Chaz the azz,” I said, and she nodded. “What did you find then, Didi?” The bristling hairs returned. Her previous quake jumped to my spine. “To cause…” And we all pointed at the Hermes.

  Eve opened the van door. “Maybe safer in here, Didi?”

  She peeked inside. She peeked at us. Muffin sniffed Britney’s ass. Christina eyed the interaction with apparent jealousy. “Safer, huh? You sure about that?” she said, but hopped in just the same, with us and the pups right behind. The van door slammed shut with a loud bang. We all jumped, mainly because we were all rather jumpy at that point.

  “Sorry,” said Eve.

  Didi again rubbed her chest. “If this is the belly of the beast, I never imagined it would be so—”

  “Fabulous?” Eve interjected.

  The shrug and sigh reappeared. “Sure, we’ll go with that.” She looked at all three of us. Her own eggs seemed to be tossing our way. Pretty soon, we’d be able to serve brunch. Now all we needed were the mimosas. Dear God, please. “My husband uses the same password for all his accounts. He left his work laptop unattended. I, um, attended.”

  We leaned in. The dogs seemed to lean in, even Britney. “Do you know who killed Nord, Didi?” I squeaked out.

  She blinked. We blinked. “It was his work laptop.”

  I blinked again. I blinked again. “Oh, right. Hard to put a confession in an Excel document.”

  “Look,” she said, “I don’t know the first thing about what my husband does all day. He works hard. He pays the bills. He treats me well enough. The house is nice, dog is nice, vacations are nice, so I’m generally not one to rock a boat that’s already in precarious waters, but…”

  “But,” I said, “the boat is about to hit an iceberg and you’d rather not go down with the ship. Celine isn’t going to sing about this one. Not enough casualties.” I thought of me, the one casualty already. Yeah, maybe there were enough. “So what did you see then that could’ve possibly caused the…” Me and Eve and Clark pointed at the Hermes. It really did look familiar. Muffin looked up from her sniffing. Britney and Christina seemed not to care either way, but perhaps they were already accustomed to drama, if only by hanging around Eve, day after day. Me, I cared. This might be it, the clue that pointed to my murderer.

  “He’s taking money from our bank account,” she said, “and putting it back into the business.”

  My shoulders slumped. That didn’t seem like the clue we were looking for. Was that even illegal? I mean, it was his business, after all. “But why would someone conk you over the head for knowing that?” I asked. “And is that even something that out of the norm? I mean, maybe the business has hit a rough spot and he’s simply trying to get it back on its feet?”

  Clark shook his head. “No,” he said, “the company is doing fine these days. I saw the statements while I was poking around.”

  To which Didi said, “I thought so. Chaz always tells me that. Which is why it seems weird that he’s putting money back into it, that he’s taking so much out of our account.”

  It was then a lightbulb flickered above my head. “The file, the document,” I said to Clark, “the one that was on my desktop. There were cash values in it. Positive values. A total at the end.”

  Clark’s head moved up and down in overdrive. He took out his cellphone, flicked through it, found the document in question. He’d sent it to his cell. Phew for that. He held it up for Didi to see. “That about the amount?”

  She scratched beneath the scarf. “Pretty close to it,” she replied. “But what is that document and how does it affect me?”

  Clark shrugged. I shrugged. Eve was grooming Muffin, probably out of habit. “That’s what we’re trying to find out, Didi,” Clark said. “But it looks like your husband might have found out that you saw what you saw.” He was now pointing at the scarf.

  Didi blanched. Didi had a deep, dark tennis-tan. Meaning, blanching didn’t come easy. “Chaz wouldn’t kill me,” she said. “Divorce me, maybe, but not kill.”

  I gulped. I gulped because I thought the same. Who would want to kill me? I didn’t know anything. Didi was probably thinking the same. Who would want to kill her? And was that person the same for the both of us? And what if it was Glenn, the man who was eating lunch with my mom?

  I again looked at Didi. “How long do you think you were out, Didi?”

  She shrugged. She looked at her watch. Cartier. Figured. “Not long. You probably found me right away. Why?”

  I blinked. I looked at Clark. “We have to get to my mom soon. We’re meeting her after her lunch with Glenn.” I emphasized that last part: with Glenn. Because, if my mom was with Glenn, Glenn couldn’t have conked Didi. Didn’t necessarily prove anything, because he could have hired some thug, but it did drop Glenn’s standings on the old murderer roster.

  Clark tilted his head and blinked in return. “Um, okay,” he said, clearly lost at my abrupt change in conversation and odd over-emphasizing. “I know, I…” And there was his own lightbulb going off, it seemed. “Glenn. Right, Glenn.” He grinned. He got it. “Glenn.”

  Eve looked up. “Who’s Glenn?”

  I coughed. Clark coughed. Did Didi need to know everything? Was it safe for Didi to know anything? Was it irresponsible now not to tell her what we knew? Oh wha
t a tangled web we weave when we’re sort of dead and also sort of on the trail of a murderer and potential potential-murderer.

  I again changed the subject. If we needed to tell Didi about Glenn, we would. When it came to that. Which, for now, it didn’t. “Any way for you to figure out what your husband is up to, Didi? Any way to figure out what our document is and what the tie-in is between Nord’s death and your, um…” I pointed at the beautiful scarf. It seemed to be the in-thing to do that day.

  She rubbed at the wound very Pavlovian-like. “You think the document is somehow connected to Nord’s death. Suddenly, a similar amount of money from that document is withdrawn from our bank account and deposited into the company’s. All that implies that my husband is responsible for both, that he might also be responsible for…” She, too, pointed at the scarf, winced, despite not touching the wound this time. Then again, some wounds ran deeper. “Stands to reason, if you were able to find that my husband took that amount from the company’s bank account at some point, you might have some sort of case against him, perhaps circumstantial, perhaps not.”

  “Perhaps?” I asked.

  “Perhaps not?” Clark asked.

  She shrugged. She looked tired. Her husband might have tried to kill her. Her husband might have killed me. It couldn’t have been a good day for her. “Do the police have that document?”

  Did they? They must have, right? It was on my screen when I was killed. It had to be evidence. “Probably,” I replied. “But that doesn’t mean they know what it is or what it could imply. Why do you ask?”

  She paused. You could see she was struggling. Was she helping us to hurt her husband? Did her husband hurt her first? Yep, bad day. Very bad. “If you could show that my husband took money out and put money back in, that the document the police more than likely have in their possession was tied to Nord’s death, then circumstantial might not be so circumstantial.” Her frown sagged further south. “Did Nord have that document in his possession? Did my husband know he had it? Maybe that spurred all of…” The finger aimed for the scarf. It really was lovely. I’d never been much of a fan of cubist art in life, so why did it look familiar now?