by Lyle, Dixie
I made a conscious effort to pay attention to the table instead of the wildlife. I mean tamelife. I mean tamedeath. Oh, screw it.
“Wow,” I said. “This looks delicious.”
“Smoked oysters, pickled artichokes, and asparagus in a truffle oil vinaigrette. Just to whet your appetite.”
“Consider my appetite extremely … um. How about this large weather we’re having?”
“Yes, how about it. What with the air and the sky and the sun and all.”
This time we managed to avoid blushing, but gave each other a look. And then both of us burst out laughing.
“Can we start over?” he managed after a minute.
“What for? I’m having a great time. I think for an encore I’ll just trip over my own tongue and see if I can’t land with both feet in my mouth.”
“Okay, but that’s not gonna leave a whole lot of room for food.”
“Good point.” I grabbed a fork, speared some asparagus, and tried it. “Mmm. You know what? I think I’ll just stick with making appreciative noises. Much better than doing the word-using thing.”
“And not at all suggestive.”
“Can’t talk. Eating.”
He kept pulling out food. Fried chicken with a crunchy breading that would have made Colonel Sanders weep. Cold pasta salad with little bits of apricot and bacon in it. Thinly sliced barbecued pork on buttermilk biscuits with chipotle mayo.
I shut up and ate.
“Afraid I can’t really offer you a good wine to go with all this,” he said, pulling a bottle out of the ice bucket. “Since we’re both technically on the clock, I didn’t think ZZ would appreciate me getting her personal assistant and her cook soused. So I whipped up this—a little something my mother used to make me when I was a kid.” He poured some in my glass, then in his. It was purple and slightly bubbly.
I took a sniff, and smelled grape. “What is it?”
“Concord grape juice and ginger ale. It’s got a nice light flavor, I think, but I may be prejudiced. You know how it is with stuff you ate when you were a kid.”
I took a sip. It was good, not too sweet or too fizzy. “Nice. And yeah, I do know. Comfort foods, right? No matter how white-bread or low-rent, you always remember your childhood favorites. Smooth peanut butter on saltines.”
“Sure.”
“Or mac and cheese with wieners cut into it.”
“A classic.”
“Or fried baloney sandwiches on soft white bread. Feel free to jump in anytime, okay?”
It was a playful jab over an innocuous subject, but he reacted like I’d just started babbling in Klingon. “Uh—sure, yeah. Baloney sandwiches. That was one of my favorites, too.”
“I say something wrong?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not. I guess my childhood’s just not a subject I like to talk about.”
But you brought it up, I almost said, then didn’t. He hadn’t, actually—just referred to it once then shut down when I tried to take the conversation farther. Sigh. Chalk up another verbal blunder for yours truly, the great communicator.
I squared my mental shoulders and told myself to shape up. Dammit, I’m good at this—I deal with people all the time. I’m a people person. People like me.
He likes me.
Change the subject, change the subject. “This food is amazing. Tell me about it.”
“Oh, it’s nothing special. Just a few things I’ve picked up here and there.”
“You must have had an interesting career. Where’d you work before ZZ hired you from that diner?”
He blanked. His eyes were wide open and he was smiling, but I could practically see the gears in his head seize up. This was not a question he wanted to answer.
No. It was not a question he knew how to answer.
“Here and there,” he said. “You know how it is—one greasy spoon pretty much looks like another.”
Well, at least he was a rotten liar. That can be a good thing, in the long run—I preferred to know when I was being lied to, as opposed to finding out later—but only if what he was lying about wasn’t a five-year stretch in a federal penitentiary.
A parrot swooped down and landed on the table, right beside the basket of French bread. Its incandescent blue, green, and yellow plumage made it look like a rainbow come to life. “Awk!” it said. That startled me; most of the animal spirits didn’t seem to make any noise at all. “Not true! Not true!”
I reached down carefully and picked up a piece of bread. “Not true,” I said. “I’ve been to plenty of little hole-in-the-wall places, and each one has its charm.”
“Maybe so, but you wouldn’t say that if you were behind the grill.”
“Hiding something!” the parrot squawked, fixing me with one bright yellow eye. “Hiding something!”
“You’re right,” I said. “I guess it’s just something you have to experience in order to really understand it.” My tone was noticeably cooler, which wasn’t really fair; I wasn’t being exactly honest with him, either.
“Brilliant!” came a familiar voice to my left. Keene strolled over the crest of the hill, hands in the pockets of his baggy, brightly colored shorts—which, other than sandals, was all he wore. “What’s for afters?”
Ben glanced over, then shook his head and smiled. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know exactly what was going through his head: Terrific. This date couldn’t be a bigger disaster if I planned it. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll just be struck dead by lightning.
At that very moment, there was a rumble of distant thunder.
Both Keene and I glanced up at the sky, which was a clear and cloudless blue. “How about that,” said Keene. “Heat lightning, you figure?”
“I don’t know if heat lightning produces thunder,” I answered. “Maybe it was just a plane.”
“I’d invite you to sit down,” Ben told Keene, “but I’m afraid we only have two chairs.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly happy perching here,” said Keene, sitting on a nearby headstone. “I’m part gargoyle, on me mum’s side. Should have seen them at Christmas dinners—stony-faced buggers, the lot of them. Had to have their clothes specially tailored to hide the bat-wings.”
The parrot was now considering Keene. “Awk! Rock and roll! Rock and roll!”
Well, if nothing else, the bird’s instincts were good. Though I was starting to wonder why I could have an intelligible conversation with a shark while Polly here sounded much the same as any other pet-shop pirate accessory. I tried thinking at it, the way I had at Two-Notch. Hello?
Good day, madam. And how are you?
“I could do with a bit of that, if you don’t mind,” said Keene, hopping down off his perch. He grabbed the bottle of grape juice and ginger ale and took a long pull. “Hmmm,” he said after swallowing. “I’d get me money back if I were you. Someone’s nicked all the kick from this.”
“It’s nonalcoholic,” said Ben.
“It’s what? That sounded like English, but made no sense.”
“Awk! Boozehound! Boozehound! Liver begone! Liver begone!”
I apologize for the outburst. It’s an unfortunate verbal tic, quite beyond my control.
“I’m sure,” said Ben, “there must be a liquor store open by now. Somewhere.”
“Ha,” I said. “You know, I could do with some dessert. Can’t wait to see what you’re going to surprise me with.”
“Me too,” said Keene. He grinned. “Hope it’s better than the plonk, anyway.”
And may I say, dear lady, that I just wanted to be among the first to welcome you to the Great Crossroads. We all have the utmost confidence in your abilities and know you’ll do everything in your power to protect and preserve this sacred and beloved nexus.
“Awk! I’m a blowhard! I’m a blowhard!”
“Tarts!” said Keene gleefully. “My favorite!”
My phone chimed. “Excuse me,” I said. I pulled it out, glanced at the screen. Shondra. “I should really take this. Hello?�
��
“Trot. I just got a heads-up from a friend at the coroner’s office. Seems that Maria’s death wasn’t accidental—she was poisoned.”
I did my best to sound shocked. “What?”
“Yeah. My source tells me it was some kind of powerful animal tranquilizer. They found a puncture wound in her abdomen—and that’s not all. Apparently someone called and tipped them off—even told them what kind of drug to look for.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. About all I can come up with is two people working together, and one of them turns on the other after the fact. Maybe someone who’s having second thoughts and doesn’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”
I could tell from her tone she was talking about me. Fair enough, since I was the one who made the call to the police. “It’s not me, Shondra. If I knew who—you know—I’d tell you, I swear.” A half-truth was better than none.
“Uh-huh. Well, you should wrap things up with your little picnic and get back here as quick as you can—Sheriff Brower’s on his way and things are about to get a whole lot more intense.”
“How did you—never mind. I’ll be right there.”
I hung up. “Sorry, guys, dessert will have to wait. I need to get back to the house, and both of you should probably come, too.”
“Why?” asked Ben. “What’s going on?”
I stood up. “Let’s just say the afternoon is going to be less fun than the morning.”
“Awk! Busted! Busted!” Once again, I apologize for my rude and entirely unintentional vocalizations. I have full faith in your abilities as our champion and wish you nothing but the best. “Awk! Kiss-ass! Kiss-ass!” Oh, good Lord.
“Well,” said Keene, swallowing the last of the tart he’d popped in his mouth when I answered the phone, “fun is what you make of a situation, I always say…”
CHAPTER TWELVE
After talking to Sheriff Brower for an hour, I was beginning to think being attacked by a homicidal dead elephant wasn’t so bad.
“Look, I appreciate your thoroughness,” I said. “But we’ve gone over this twice now, and I’ve given you every scrap of information I have.” Which, of course, was a bald-faced lie—but I had given him everything I knew about the guests, the staff, the grounds, and the events around the murder. Everything that wasn’t supernatural-related.
Brower squinted at me from the other side of my desk. “Seems to me you know an awful lot. Almost like you’ve been doing a little investigating on your own.”
I sighed. Something I’d been doing a lot lately, it seemed. “Of course I have. I’m involved in virtually every aspect of life here, and it’s my job to make it all run smoothly. I can’t think of a better example of me failing to do my job than for someone to die on my watch, so I’m more than a little invested in finding out exactly what happened and why.”
“Mm-hmm. Well, I’m going to be talking to Shondra Destry next, and then everyone else. You sure what you told me is going to line up with everything they say?”
I considered another sigh, and decided against it. “No. Most likely some details will vary, because people remember things differently—but all the verifiable facts will stay the same. That much I’m sure of, and so are you. Because, at the end of the day, both of us are professionals, both of us deal with hard information, and both of us want the same thing.”
“That so?” He got up out of his chair, his hat in one hand. “One big difference between us that I can see.”
More than one, I thought, but kept my voice polite. “Which is?”
“I deal with people who lie to me every day.”
He closed the door behind him as he left.
[He doesn’t like you much.]
“Tiny!” I hurried over and slid the drawer on the filing cabinet open carefully. A big-eyed Chihuahua that looked like it had just stepped out of a black velvet painting stared up at me soulfully. “You’re awake!”
[Very astute. I can see my superiors made a wise choice in choosing you as an investigator.]
“Is sarcasm a good sign? Does it mean you’re getting better, or just … bitter?”
[If you’re planning on working biter into your next sentence, please throttle the impulse.]
“I’m going to go with better. Can I get you anything?”
[A nice thick steak would do wonders.]
“I thought you didn’t have to eat.”
[Not normally. My ectoplasmic form exists in a state between matter and energy; it’s not really one or the other until I will it so. I expended a great of energy fighting that creature, so my mass is accordingly reduced. Consuming a meal will allow me to replenish that energy.]
“I’ll run down to the kitchen and see what I can scrounge up.”
[I’ll wait.]
I managed to get into and out of the kitchen without being noticed. I didn’t know where Ben was; he’d vanished quickly after our date, and seemed more than a little preoccupied. Keene had stuck pretty close, though—even the sight of Brower didn’t scare him off. I almost expected to find him hanging around outside my office door.
Tiny wolfed down the steak—well, Chihuahuaed it down, I guess—then said, [I need some time to absorb this. Can you put me back in the drawer?]
I did. He put his head down and was asleep almost instantly. “Sweet dreams, little guy,” I said.
I decided I needed a little fresh air to clear my head; normally I would have headed down to the graveyard to sit on a bench, but that option was definitely off the table for the moment. I went for a walk in the gardens, instead.
ZZ’s gardens were just as eccentric and varied as she was; I didn’t know the names of most of the plants, but they tended toward distinctive and brilliantly colored. I tried to discourage her from acquiring poisonous varieties, but sometimes she overruled me. “For God’s sake, Foxtrot, rhubarb is poisonous. Are you going to ban that, too?”
That remembered exchange summed up ZZ’s attitude toward life in general: Embrace beauty, even if it was dangerous. Take chances. Live your life the way you wanted to.
I was no longer alone; I turned a corner in the path and saw Kenny Gant standing under a monkey puzzle tree, smoking a cigarette. He smiled at me and held a hand up in greeting. “Foxtrot! You’ve uncovered my dark secret.”
“Tobacco? Compared with what Keene shows up with, that practically makes you a saint.”
He chuckled. “Well, we can’t all be rock stars, right? Somebody needs to be in the audience.”
“So, how’s your car?”
“Oh, it’s fine. Turned out to be relatively easy to fix. Not so easy on the pocketbook, but they say I’ll have it back by tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s something.”
He finished his cigarette, carefully ground out the cherry, and put the butt in his pocket. “Shame about your maid. Never can tell when your number’s up, huh?”
“No, I suppose not.”
He nodded his head. “Well. My condolences.” He turned and walked away.
I went back to the house and upstairs, trying to distract myself with paperwork. It worked, too—my obsessive-compulsive side gets stronger when I’m upset, which means I can spend hours concentrating on little, fiddly tasks. I lost myself in invoices and lists for a while, squeezing as much satisfaction as I could out of turning a jumble of numbers into predictable, orderly patterns.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I heard a minuscule whine from Tiny’s drawer, followed by [Foxtrot?]
I jumped to my feet. “I’m right here. You okay?”
[Much better, thank you.] He stood up, yawned, then hopped out of the drawer and onto the floor. He seemed a lot more robust already. [Let’s get back to work.]
“You sure you’re up to it?”
[Don’t worry about me.] He morphed into his golden retriever form. [I’m ready.]
“Okay. I’m not sure what our next step is, though.”
[I thought about that while I
was convalescing. I believe we should return to the scene of the murder and examine it again.]
“That could be tricky. The first thing Brower did when he got here was tape the room off again as a crime scene.”
[My goodness, tape. You humans have such clever and impenetrable barriers.]
“All right, all right, we’ll go. Brower’s too busy re-interrogating everyone to notice, and he doesn’t have the manpower to post a guard.”
Sure enough, the only thing preventing us from getting in was a strip of yellow plastic across the door frame, though I did have to use my key. I stopped in the middle of the room, eyeing the bed nervously. It felt wrong to be in here, and that wrongness had nothing to do with breaking the rules; it was because this was where Maria died.
No. This was where Maria was killed. And I was going to catch the killer.
Tiny circled the room, sniffing at everything. I relied on my eyes, studying every detail, trying to figure out what had happened. The body had been found on the bed. The puncture wound was in her stomach. Was she stabbed with a hypodermic, or was it a dart like the ones fired by Gant’s gun?
I went over and examined the window. It was long and slender, with a small pane on the top that opened out. I was careful not to touch anything. It seemed highly unlikely the killer would have left any fingerprints—this was obviously a well-thought out crime. But it would have been impossible to climb through that opening without coming into contact with it; maybe the killer had left some other mark or trace.
I leaned in close, hoping for a loose thread or some dirt. Nope. I leaned in even closer, trying to will my eyes to focus on the microscopic. Still no luck. I was so close my breath was fogging the glass, but my latent CSI vision refused to kick in.
[Finding anything?]
I stepped back. “Not so much. You?”
[I’m afraid not. Traces of a bad cologne that I recognize as Brower’s.]
I frowned. “Wait a minute.” There was something on the glass, a vague outline highlighted by my foggy breath. It was already fading, so I carefully leaned forward and exhaled again. There. Not one mark, but two—I breathed a little more to bring the full shape out. Two marks, right next to each other, spaced a few inches apart. They looked like flowers—no, more like fronds. And oddly familiar.