To Helvetica and Back

by Paige Shelton

  “I stopped by for a couple reasons. One, to check on you, but you weren’t here so I felt the need to wait. And two, to tell you that I had a great time on my date with a guy named Mutt.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I said. I looked at her. Never once in all the years that I’d known Jodie had she said she had great time with someone—this included good old what’s-his-name. She’d dated a little after the divorce, but most of the time those dates weren’t worth more than a shrug when I asked her how they’d gone.

  “I don’t have time for a boyfriend, Clare. And do you have any idea how my father and my brothers will react to him? Let’s not even talk about my mother since she will become a non-issue quickly and die the second I tell her that Mutt is his real name.”

  “First of all, everyone has time for a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever. It’s just a matter of finding a match that can work with your availability. Is Mutt willing to be flexible with your schedule?”

  “We’ll see, I suppose. He seems to be, but it’s early. All I really know at this point is that the only other person who I’ve ever had so much fun with is you, and since we’re not lesbians—no matter about that rumor in high school—I have to keep my options open. Mutt told me he likes me too and wants to see me again. Tomorrow.”

  “That’s great. And you’re underestimating your family,” I said. “They want you to be happy.” I thought about the conversation I’d just had with Chester, and though Jodie’s family adored her, she might have a point. They might have a problem with Mutt, but their love for her would win out, once her mother regained consciousness at least. It wouldn’t kill her all the way.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  “You seem sad.”

  “I’m just surprised. I’m almost thirty, and I realized tonight that I might have finally met my match and it could potentially upset everyone.”

  “Let’s not worry about that yet,” I said. “One day at a time.”

  “Right. How was your evening with the nerdy but cute geologist, who may or may not have a criminal record? Have you looked at the papers yet?”

  “I have not. He lives over there, above Elizabeth Owl’s. My date was really great too until Creighton took him into the station for questioning.”

  “What?”

  I told Jodie what had happened, and she pulled out her cell phone. It was when I saw her grab it from the bag she carried that I realized she looked really nice, dressed in girl clothes and carrying a purse, which was unusual. She was more the backpack or pockets-only type.

  I was under the impression that she spoke directly to Creighton. She asked questions and answered back with abrupt and impatient noises. Only a moment later, she ended the call and looked at me.

  “He’s been released, but Creighton told him not to leave town, which is standard procedure. I didn’t get many details, but just from Creighton’s tone, I don’t think he thought Seth was guilty. Creighton did ask me if you and Seth were dating. I didn’t give much of an answer.”

  I looked over at the dark windows. “Any idea when he was released?”

  “Didn’t get that.”

  He must have just gone to bed. I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed he hadn’t called or texted me first.

  “Jodie, I showed him the numbers and letters that were on the key bars. He had a hunch that they were for longitude and latitude measurements, and that if put together correctly, they might give a pertinent location.”

  “Pertinent to the typewriter?” Jodie asked.

  I shrugged. “That seems weird, but I don’t really know. Pertinent to something leather man was looking for maybe, so potentially pertinent to his murder.”

  “That’s interesting. And might be very helpful,” she said hesitantly.

  “Hey, thanks for calling Creighton,” I said.

  “My pleasure,” Jodie said. She stood and swung her purse over her shoulder with too much force, thwacking herself in the back, but she didn’t seem to notice. She wiped the bottom of her nice dress pants and stepped down the stairs, glancing over at the windows I’d been looking at.

  “You should read the background report I gave you, Clare. Just do it.”

  “I might.” I meant it.

  “Good. I’ll be in touch tomorrow. You have plans in the morning?”

  “Work, but Chester might be able to watch the store. What do you have in mind?” I had lots of work to do, but I didn’t want to miss out on any more police outings, even if I was always unofficial.

  “Not sure yet, but I’ll give you a call.” She turned and walked toward the Bronco that she’d parked on the street a couple houses up. “It would have been easier if we’d been lesbians, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Then you could have cheated on me instead of your brother,” I said.

  Jodie turned, and even in the dark I could see her smile as she waved. “Later, Clare.”

  “Later, Jodie.”

  19

  It had been a few years since I was a teenager, but I still couldn’t help the small teenage-girlish squeal of happy surprise when I woke the next morning and found a text on my phone from Seth.

  It said:

  Great time last night. Sorry to have cut it short by becoming a potential suspect in a murder case, but stuff happens. Kidding. I’ve been cleared. Well, mostly. At least I had an airtight alibi, but they talked about an ankle bracelet. Kidding again. I look forward to date 3.

  I texted back that I’d had a great time too and was also looking forward to seeing him again. Neither of us was playing hard to get. How refreshing.

  I wouldn’t say I danced through my morning routine, but there was much less heel-dragging than normal as I slowly awakened. I mellowed a bit by the time I was ready to leave the house, but I was still a touch happier than I should have been. My good mood wasn’t ruined immediately, but it was severely jolted when I opened my front door.

  “Creighton? Kelly?” I said to my surprise visitors.

  “Clare, do you have just a minute?” Creighton said.

  “Do I need to go back to the station again?” I said as I swung one hand up to a hip and tried to look bothered.

  “No. I promise we’ll be brief,” Creighton said.

  Both he and Kelly were in their uniforms, official and stern. I knew that Creighton worked a lot, but he didn’t look as if he’d been up late the evening before. He never had needed much sleep.

  “Sure.” I opened the door and stepped back. Creighton stepped through without looking at me, but Kelly gave me a quick smile and nod, which was strange for someone who was never friendly to me.

  They both sat on the couch, making me think they were going to be longer than they’d said. I’d hoped for a stand-up conversation. I took a seat on the chair.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  Creighton sat forward. “We talked to your friend last night, and he mentioned the numbers and letters you found on the key bars could potentially be made into longitude and latitude coordinates.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” I said. I wondered how their conversation had managed to get to that point and if Creighton had talked to Jodie since last night. I didn’t ask.

  “Right. Well, we wondered what you thought about that theory,” Creighton said.

  “I guess I thought it was as good as any,” I said. “That’s a strange question, Creighton. Why would what I think matter?”

  Creighton and Kelly looked at each other. Kelly seemed to understand it was his turn to talk, so he sat forward, duplicating Creighton’s elbows-on-knees pose.

  “Clare, how well do you know Mr. Cassidy?” Kelly said.

  “We just met a few days ago. Why?” I looked at Creighton as I asked the question. Was this a sneaky way for him to get in the middle of my personal life?

  Kelly cleared his throat, perhaps to pull my atte
ntion back his direction.

  “Clare, this is a bit awkward considering your past with Creighton,” he said.

  “Really? We’re going there?” I said.

  Kelly held his hands out as if to ask me to hang on a second. Creighton remained quiet and oddly stoic and unreadable.

  “Clare. Look, we could have sent other officers up to talk to you. Creighton and I discussed this, but we didn’t think you wanted the entire force to know what we found. This wasn’t an easy decision, but I hope you realize that it was done with your feelings in mind, in a good way.” Kelly sighed. “We didn’t even tell Jodie. We thought that should be your choice.”

  I took a deep breath and silently told myself to calm down.

  “All right,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Mr. Cassidy has a criminal hiccup in his past, Clare,” Kelly continued after being prompted with an almost imperceptible nod from Creighton.

  “Go on.”

  “He was arrested for theft from public lands. He was accused of stealing something . . . something called a geode. His case went to trial, but the geode in question disappeared mid-trial and so the case was dismissed.”

  “He wasn’t convicted?” I asked as I thought about the rock-and-mineral tour from the evening before, and the stunning geode that Seth kept out in the open for anyone to see. At least it had been out in the open yesterday.

  “No, when the evidence disappeared from the evidence room, there was no reason to continue the trial. Charges and the case were dismissed.”

  “Where was this?” I asked.

  “Wyoming,” Creighton inserted. “Where his brother lives and where the motorcycle license plate that Jodie found in the walkway is from.”

  “You think this might somehow make Seth a killer?” I said.

  “No, we don’t,” Kelly said. “We’re pretty certain that Mr. Cassidy isn’t the killer. His alibi checked out quickly and easily. It’s just that . . . well, this is an unusual situation and we wanted to let you know. Evidence is key, but coincidences make us curious.”

  I looked at Kelly and Creighton. It was impossible to know if they’d given me the information just to mess with my personal life or if they had some real concerns about Seth they were sharing only cryptically. I decided to keep it simple. “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” Kelly said. He looked at Creighton and then back at me. “Look, Clare, it might seem like we’re interfering in your personal life, and we probably are, but our intentions are good. Please remember that Mr. Cassidy wasn’t convicted of anything, and even if he had been, it wasn’t like it was murder.”

  Creighton’s mouth pinched briefly.

  “I got it. Thank you again,” I said as I stood up.

  Creighton and Kelly followed my lead and stood too. I opened the door for them, and we all politely but without eye contact wished each other good days as they exited. I closed the door behind them and gave them a few moments to be on their way so my walk to work wouldn’t require me to talk to them further.

  I grabbed my bag, peered out the front windows to confirm they were gone, and opened the door again.

  Then, changing my mind, I closed it.

  I set the bag on the table and opened the side pocket. There it was, the tri-folded elephant in the room.

  “Jeez, just get it over with,” I said as I grabbed and then unfolded the papers.

  I was immediately struck by two things—one, this was, without a doubt, a terribly intrusive and wrong thing to do. And, two, it was pretty interesting.

  His name was Seth James Cassidy. We hadn’t even asked each other our ages, but he was three years older than me, his birthday in October. He’d been born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and had attended the Universities of Wisconsin, Alaska, and Southern California. He was very well educated, with a PhD, though so far he hadn’t referred to himself as “doctor.”

  His background report was marred only by the arrest for stealing from public lands. The report didn’t mention anything about the case’s outcome—there was no conviction listed. Just the arrest, that was all. I wondered how Creighton and Kelly had known the detail about the evidence being removed from the evidence room. Had they made that part up or had they made some calls?

  Obviously, the only way to understand what had really happened was to get the truth from Seth. Ask him. Kelly was correct though; his crime wasn’t heinous, or so it seemed. I knew that stealing from public lands was serious, but the only other case I’d heard about was the theft of some ancient artifacts in southern Utah. Geodes weren’t considered ancient artifacts, were they? And what did the ancient artifact designation matter? I didn’t know, and at the moment I didn’t much care.

  I did not see how I could ask Seth outright about the charges. Telling him that my police officer best friend and police officer ex-boyfriend were concerned enough about me and my dating decisions that they pried into Seth’s past made them look like bullies and me look much weaker than I hoped I truly was.

  “Ugh,” I said as I folded the report and dropped it on the table. At this point, I didn’t even want to have it with me. I felt like I’d cheated on Seth already, and we hadn’t even had our first real make-out session.

  The coast was totally clear when I opened the door again. I glanced up at Seth’s dark windows but thought he might be at work already. He’d mentioned that he got up early, and the text had come in at about five a.m.

  I was glad to finally set out on the walk down the hill toward work. I decided that I would push all the bad thoughts away, at least for the time being.

  It was going to be another great summer day in Star City, and the pedestrian traffic was already starting to build. I smiled at everyone and they smiled back. Good vibes were being spread and shared.

  By the time I turned onto Bygone, I’d convinced myself that there wasn’t any need to worry about anything, that everything would work out. I didn’t see Jodie’s Bronco, so I thought I might be able to get a little work done before she called or stopped by.

  My mood had lifted almost all the way back up to cheery as I pulled open the door to The Rescued Word.

  Chester was sitting in a chair in front of the counter, his long legs extended out; the same pose he’d adopted the night before. Along the counter was a crowded gathering of old typewriters. Another person was sitting in a chair facing Chester: Homer Mayfair. When I registered his presence, I realized that the typewriters were the same ones I’d looked at the day before, the ones that had been sitting on the ledge in his office.

  “Homer, hi!” I said.

  He stood and came forward to greet me with a handshake. He moved easily, his limp not terrible, but again I wondered why he had stuck with the wooden prosthetic. There were so many more realistic and helpful ones now. As we shook though, it occurred to me that the toast given throughout the bars the night before the ski season opened would be much less enthusiastic if glasses were raised in honor of Homer’s prosthesis instead of his peg. Perhaps he liked the tradition enough to keep the inconvenience.

  “Clare, hello again,” he said.

  “Homer said you paid him a visit,” Chester said.

  I nodded his direction and then turned back to Homer. “You brought in the typewriters?”

  “I did. I thought they could all use some attention. Can you tune them all up?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Have you decided to start using them again?”

  “Except for the battered No. 5 I just might, but even if I don’t, I think they should be better taken care of,” Homer said.

  “Yes,” Chester said. His tone with that one word was so suspicious that I looked at him with raised eyebrows. He continued, “Homer was hoping to also have a look at the old Underwood that he sold to Mirabelle. He said that he’d love to ‘take a trip down memory lane.’”

  “Oh,” I said. Hadn’t I tol
d Homer that the police still had Mirabelle’s typewriter?

  “I, however, told him it was unavailable,” Chester said.

  “Right,” Homer said. “With the police? Still?” he added with a “hopefully not” tone.

  “Right,” I said, but that was a lie I could get easily caught in. I decided I needed to add more, which was never the right decision, but brazenly I continued on. “Actually, I had to send it to another repair person just last night, someone with more experience.”

  Chester’s eyebrows went higher, but I couldn’t be sure if they were on the rise in question or with admiration.

  Baskerville jumped up and onto the counter, fitting himself onto the tiny corner space that was still available. He was unhappy about all the typewriters in his way. He looked at me and then sent distasteful glances and snapping tail tips toward Homer. Homer didn’t seem to notice.

  “You did? Someone in Salt Lake City?” Homer said.

  “No, no. I had to send it to Bulgaria,” I said.

  Homer blinked. Chester stood. His bushy eyebrows about flew off his forehead, and a high-pitched sound escaped his throat. Baskerville meowed doubtfully, or was that disappointedly?

  “Really?” Homer said.

  “Yes,” I said. “But how about these? Anything specific you want done?” I stepped around Homer and moved next to the counter, placing my hand on top of the old Hermes. Baskerville watched me.

  “Just whatever you think needs to be done to get them shipshape.”

  “I can do that.”

  We all—Chester, Baskerville, and I—looked at Homer expectantly, as if we were waiting for him to say something else. Or perhaps no one could top my Bulgaria mention.

  “Well, all right, then,” Homer said as he patted his pockets as if he was searching for his phone or his keys, but he didn’t retrieve anything. “I guess I’ll be on my way. Just call me when they’re ready.”

  “Thanks for stopping by, Homer,” Chester said. “It was great to talk to you.”