by Beth Byers
I waited until Simon and the others had made their way back into the bathroom area and then I turned to Az and said, “Let’s do this.”
He looked at me, and I jerked my head towards the door. I figured we needed to get out of there before Carver arrived. Simon wouldn’t expect me to slip out, but I wasn’t going to be my normal team-player self. Not this time. As long as the entirety of Zee’s family were suspects in this case, we needed to find out who did it before Simon and Carver.
I hated thinking that I would cover up a murder, but there was this beast inside of me that said it might be worth it. I wasn’t sure Zee would agree. Az slowly stood and no one said anything. The bathrooms were towards the party room. It was possible to slip outside of the party room and towards the bathrooms and not be seen by anyone inside of the diner.
It was ludicrous to believe that anyone other than a member of Zee’s family had killed Culver. Which meant that he’d gone to the restroom and then been killed by someone who had either followed him or been waiting for him.
It would have been so easy to follow him, kill him, and then casually leave the diner. The tension had been so bad that most of them probably wanted to escape as much as I had wanted to. One of them, however, had killed Culver. He had deserved it. I kind of wanted to kill him, I just figured living without his obsession in Zee was a better punishment than death.
Especially when the hillbilly sheriff, Carver, finally persuaded her that his dogs and her cats would be ok together. Once that happened, I was pretty sure they’d torture each other until the day one of them died and then never get over it. Which was a pretty glum thing to think now that I considered it.
I needed to look up. It was just that this weekend had been crappy before Culver had been murdered. Zee had been the one who taught me how to be…carefree. She’d pulled me into midnight escapades, shenanigans and a variety of exploits. Her zest for life was amazing, and I didn’t see how anyone wouldn’t value that about her. And then I met her family, and I was carrying a low-level rage.
Even before they had arrived. When I’d seen the sassy and mean woman with a bluntness that she wielded like a battle-axe while thoughtfully taking care of family after family in Silver Falls.
When we left the diner and escaped to my car, I drove away before daring to call Zee.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Getting chocolate and booze,” she said, “And waiting for Laney to show.”
“We’re coming,” I said. “The Candy Kitchen?”
“Yup,” Zee said. “Does Simon know you left?”
My phone buzzed and we both said, “He does now.”
She cackled and I pulled up outside of the shop. Laney was just arriving. I honked and They jumped into the back of my Subaru.
“Did you kill Culver?” I asked Laney, eyeing her through my rearview window while blocking traffic. Someone honked behind me, but I didn’t care.
“Um..” She said.
“Because it’s ok if you did. We’ll help.”
She blinked and then said, “I can see why my mom likes you. But no.”
I grinned at her in the mirror and then said, “I guess we better get away from here, before someone calls the cops on us for traffic violations.”
Zee snorted and then said, “As if there are any left when there’s a murder.”
“I can’t believe that Peter is dead. Are you sure?”
I had a flashback to that pool of blood and shook it off before I said, “Oh, I’m sure.”
Zee glanced at me through the mirror and the look on my face must have told her that it was bad. It had been. I would have nightmares about it, and I would never be more grateful about anything than no matter how much my leaving infuriated Simon, he would hold me when I woke up screaming.
“I need wine,” I said suddenly.
“I have some,” Zee said. “And so much chocolate.”
I didn’t even answer. I just drove to my house. If I had been thinking, I would have gone to Az’s house and to my dogs, but at least the kitten was there. I plopped down on the overstuffed couch and demanded a glass of wine. Zee handed me a chocolate covered marshmallow and went for the wine glasses. My kitchen looked like a tornado has swept through it and Zee cursed and then said, “I know you didn’t leave it this way.”
“I don’t care, Zee,” I told her. “I just want wine. I can’t shake the image of Culver’s face.”
She poured me a large glass, herself one as well, and we ended up having to move to the kitchen because she started cleaning the kitchen. Az and Laney joined Zee, but I didn't. I needed the wine and the chocolate and a good brain scrubbing. I shivered as the image came back to me again.
“Whoever killed him hated him,” I said, shivering.
Simon messaged me and I sent back that I’d gone home and that I was safe. I didn’t need to tell him that Culver’s stuff was in our own house, and it would be so easy to go through it. He didn’t say anything about that, though.
Simon: Are you ok?
He’d seen the body too. He knew that it had been hate-filled. Murder always was, but this one felt particularly vicious. Heavens, I thought, why did people do this to each other? Why was whatever made them so angry worth killing over?
I called him and said, “No.”
“You will be. I promise.”
I shivered, feeling the burning in my eyes. I glanced around at Zee and Az. They knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t doing so well holding it together. I swallowed thickly and then took a large drink of wine.
“I expect I”m going to be pretty drunk by the time you get home.”
“Let me talk to Az?”
I didn’t even question it. I just handed him the phone and then realized Simon was probably doing one of those manly type things. I was warmed by it really. Simon was certainly asking Az to stay with me until Simon got back. I didn’t object. Some of the suspects were staying in my home.
I wasn’t sure there was anything that made you feel more loved than someone carefully, non-stiflingly trying to protect you. Like Simon did with me. He wanted me to stop interfering with cases, but he never actually tried to control me. He just did his best to make sure I was safe. And there was a very simple reason for it.
He loved me. Being loved, it was like a fire that I was constantly a little startled by. I had spent too much of my life assuming that I would never fall in love. Now that I had…it snuck up on me, my whole perspective had changed. When I confessed to my mom, she told me the same type of magic happened when you had a baby. Your heart grew so big, you realized that you hadn’t been seeing all the colors of the rainbow.
I realized I might have been combining trauma with booze and morphing into a maudlin mess. But I didn’t care. “Tell Simon I love him.”
“She loves you, bro,” Az said. “I’ll stay until you get back.”
I took another big drink of wine, breathing in slowly through my nose and blowing it out through my mouth. It might have been the loosening of the alcohol, but my mind turned to the bloody death without so much of the horror. It became more of a puzzle.
And when I looked at it through the lens of a puzzle, I didn’t want to cry so much.
“Who lives around, Culver?”
Laney glanced at Zee and then said, “Is this it? Is she starting to figure it out, like you said?”
Zee nodded, making me feel a little bit like a performing lion, but my mind was stuck on the way Culver had died. It wasn’t that I knew the details, but the feeling behind it was clear. It was pure and complete rage.
I just didn’t think you could feel that strongly about someone who you rarely saw. It wasn’t one of the out of town relatives who had killed Culver. It was someone who had known him for a while. Probably not Helen. She was old. But, Zee could have done it. I bet that her siblings could have too. They all seemed unfairly strong and healthy. Zee had an energy that buzzed through her leaving everyone else in the diner behind.
“My mom,”
Zee said.
“Aunt La and Aunt Cam,” Laney added. “And of course, Uncle Talfryn and his kid.”
“Everyone else?” I asked.
“Well, Jackson isn’t that big of a town,” Zee said. “Most of the youngest ones left for school and never went back. If they were raised there at all. None of my kids were. Fionnula moved back recently, so her kids weren’t raised there either.”
“So just your immediate siblings and their spouses?”
I doubted that anyone who saw Culver here and there could have that much hatred. There had been a smashed in face. I shivered and then shook my head to get the image out of my mind. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t working.
I needed…I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think there was a fix for what I’d seen. I hadn’t liked Culver, and I wasn’t all that surprised to find out that someone had snapped and hurt him. What surprised me, instead, was that it had been so vicious. If he’d been poisoned or even shot, I think I might have suspected the entire family.
But for a murder that dark? It had to be someone who knew him well. Who had been close enough to him to be truly betrayed by him. And that…that narrowed things down, didn’t it?
Chapter Eight
I didn’t see any point in going through Peter’s things. Zee, however, did it happily and with a glass of wine in one hand and tossing his things to the side with another. Culver had been sleeping on the couch in our family room, and his bags were to the side of the room. Easily accessible while the rest of us sat around with our wine and our feet up. The fire place was empty, but it felt like a night for a fire. Not because it was so cold, but the homeyness of a fire seemed to be the proper response to murder.
I curled my fingers into the belly of the kitten. He purred on my lap, looking up at me with adoration. I was in love with him. I hoped that it worked out with the dogs because I hadn’t thought things through given the number of my dogs. I wanted them here. I wanted Mama Dog on my lap, Daisy laying across me feet, while Goliath leaned into my side. They made me feel safe and at home. As much as Simon did.
Zee dug through Culver’s while I snuggled up on the couch in the family room, wondering if we needed to replace our new couch because a man had been murdered who had slept on it. The kitten bit at my fingers lightly as if commanding me to stop thinking such dark thoughts and get back to scratching him. Az leaned back in the large chair, his feet crossed quietly watching our friend.
It wasn’t that weird to see Zee invading someone’s privacy. In fact, the only weird thing about this was that it was Laney here instead of Maddie and Jane. Laney was like her mom in a lot of ways. But she was so much softer.
“Is your dad one of those super nice types?” I asked Laney.
She looked at me, a little surprised and then slowly nodded.
“Maybe too nice?”
She nodded again and Zee snorted in the back of her throat as she found Culver’s bag of toiletries. They were tossed aside with everything else.
“He has nice things,” Zee said, but I didn’t think that mattered.
“Your dad needed someone less overpowering than your mom, I bet.”
“He says that he’ll love her forever, but she was exhausting.”
I laughed at that and then shook my head as I looked at the simple bag of a few things that were all that was left of Culver outside of his broken form.
“I don’t see how your family thought Culver was a good match for your mom. She doesn’t have patience for smarminess or for weak people.”
Laney shook her head, looking for a moment like her mom. I bet her dad was super nice. It made sense if you turned out someone like Laney when Zee was one of the parents. Laney was probably mostly as nice as her dad, only with a core of Zee that ran through the center. It was probably a far easier personality to have than Zee’s.
“You did good, Zee.” I told her, staring at Laney instead of Zee. “You chose a good dad and a good counterpoint to you for the father of your kids.”
Zee didn’t even look up from digging through her bag. But Laney asked, “How do you know that?”
“She puts little pieces together,” Az said mildly. “Always building a story in her head. It’s how she figures out murders. And what makes people happy. When Rosie loves you, she does the same thing for you. Worrying at your life’s edges until she thinks your dreams are coming true.”
I grinned at him, thinking of the look on his face when I told him that we were going to open his own food truck or when I’d offered to buy the property he wanted and let him pay me instead. I’d have just bought it for him, brother of my soul that he was, but he wanted to craft his own life.
“So she’s figuring me out and like…extrapolating my dad?”
“She’s probably got a lot of clues from Zee over our friendship too,” Az said. He crossed his stretched out ankles over each other and his arms behind his neck.
The light of the day glinted across my living room, making patterns on the floor. Given that we were blurry from alcohol, it seemed like it should be evening, but it was only early afternoon. If the murder hadn’t happened, we’d be arranging petit fours on trays and making scones.
Zee snorted her mean snort and then said, “There’s nothing here.”
“Your mom is a feisty woman,” I told Laney. Zee kicked the bag again and then started heaping the contents of Culver’s life back into his bag haphazardly.
“Oh I know,” Laney said. She had the same strong, stringy body, but her eyes were a dark brown. Her hair was platinum blond, and she didn’t have that constant mean twist to her mouth that Zee did. “Thank goodness. She always used it for us kids.”
“I can see that,” I said. I wasn’t sure how many glasses of wine I had downed, but my memory of Culver’s body was fading with the general blurriness of the sweet wine. “It isn’t even weird to me that he obsessed over her all this time. She stole his life.”
Laney laughed and then said, “He didn’t. He has always obsessed over Grandma’s money.”
I blinked. I had no idea that Zee’s family was wealthy. Nothing about Helen screamed wealth, and I knew that Zee had paid for that cottage that Helen was staying in. We had Talfryn, Zee’s brother, and his family staying with us. Surely someone rolling in money could have done the reunion differently. Less cheaply. Really? Helen was really rolling in cash like Laney made it seem? I couldn’t see it. Unless. Unless she was stingy. I could see how Helen would be a woman who controlled her money down to a single penny. Which was fine, it was hers, after all. I just wouldn’t have expected to have put so much effort into things for a rich woman.
I had, I realized, come to a wrong conclusion about Helen. I’d assumed she was trying to build a bridge with her daughter when they decided to have the reunion here. And I had never questioned that assumption. Knowing there was money, though, that meant that all the work Zee was doing was, what? It was some kind of controlling device. Was Helen like that with all of her kids? Of course she was, I thought.
I snapped back to the present when Laney added, “Mom realized he was after the money when they were still kids. It’s why she dumped him and hightailed it out of town. She met my dad and the rest is history. But Culver isn—was—into my mom for the money. Mom will inherit some good money when Grandma dies.”
“But…” I shook my head, trying to think. The puzzle was blurry with alcohol, and I was regretting that last glass of wine. I stood, crossing to the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of water and started coffee. My mind couldn’t quite get to where I was trying to go. Finally I asked, “But your Grandma is a healthy woman. She could live for like twenty more years.”
Laney’s expression was a twist of mockery as she said, “Look I love my grandma. But she uses her money to keep her kids close. Mom is the only one who told her to keep it. Why do you think everyone else lives in Jackson? Even Aunt Fionnula moved back after her divorce because Grandma was willing to help if Auntie La went home.”
“Your mom, on th
e other hand,” Az said, laughing a little, “Would rather be a waitress. That must chap your grandma’s hide.”
Laney nodded as my mind started working again. I pushed aside the blurriness as best as I could and with it, the memories. Things didn’t add up yet, and it was bothering me. I wouldn’t be able to feel safe again until I knew why Culver had died. Why there had been so much anger in his death.
“So he just wanted the money?” I asked Zee. Her eyes flashed at me as she unzipped the bag that Peter had tucked into the corner of my family room.
“We had good chemistry too,” she said. She flashed us all a wicked look and then added, “Maybe not as good as me and Carver, but—”
I didn’t want to know more. Az laughed and Laney groaned, covering her ears.
“Of course,” Zee added with that same mischief, “That was back in high school. I’ve learned a bit since then. Peter was always good at doing what you told him to.”
Laney gagged and I told Zee, “Stop it. You’re deliberately torturing your kid.”
Zee’s laugh was almost mean, but her eyes were alight with love as she glanced at her kid. It was funny. Laney was late-20s or early-30s, but Zee looked at her daughter like she was 13-years-old and needed to be teased.
“You were a mean mom, I bet,” I said. “But speaking of torturing people…”
I trailed off and eyed Az. A different set of clues was forming in my head. I’d seen him glance at Maddie when we’d snuck out of the diner. I’d seen the way she gazed after him when we were there. Just what was happening there? I silently asked him my question, staring at him. He stared back at me, slowly a deep tinge of red came to his dark cheeks. His eyes shifted to the side.
“You are a minx,” I told him.
He laughed that low laugh that filled many a morning in the diner. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rosie luv.”