Creighton and Jodie sat in the front seat, and Daryl and I sat in the back.
“I heard about the murder. It’s all over the news,” Daryl said to me over the siren noise.
“I haven’t paid attention to the news, but yeah, it’s been bad.”
“Matt Bane, a killer? Wow, you just can’t predict something like that would happen. I don’t know, though—we only know his superhero image. He must be more a bad guy than a good guy.”
I nodded. I wasn’t going to tell Daryl that I didn’t think Matt Bane was bad at all, that there must be some crazy misunderstanding, but that’s exactly what I thought even if I hadn’t quite admitted it to myself until that very second. I sighed inwardly. I might not trust any of these movie people, but at least now I understood my willingness to help Matt in the small ways he’d requested. I sensed he was innocent. I sensed it deeply, as if it were truth beyond all doubt.
“Jodie, Creighton, any evidence pointing to anyone other than Matt as a killer?” I said.
Creighton ignored me, but Jodie twisted her neck partway around and said, “We don’t discuss police business with the public.”
Of course. I’d gotten caught up in all the siren noise and my own self-realizations. I shrugged my shoulders at Daryl, who smiled perfectly with his big white teeth.
As the four of us paraded toward the front door of the small courthouse, we were met by a familiar figure leaving the building.
“Howie!” I said.
“Hello,” he said with surprise and a nod. His eyes were pinched and he seemed more off-kilter than he’d been in the shop.
“You okay?” I couldn’t help but ask.
He looked at the police officers and then at Daryl. I wasn’t completely sure, but I wondered if he spent a moment assessing the man’s good looks before his eyes came back to me. It seemed like a Hollywood-guy thing to do.
“Trying to get Matt out of jail. The judge here was no help.”
“Maybe someone in Salt Lake City could help,” I said.
“He was arrested here.” Howie looked at Jodie. “The judge says there’s no bail. It would sure help to have him out of jail. Help his career, I mean.”
“If he’s a killer, he won’t have a movie career,” Jodie said.
“But what if he isn’t?” Howie said. “You are all ruining his career if he’s innocent.”
“The evidence we have at the moment points toward him being a killer, sir. We don’t take careers into consideration when we’re looking at something heinous,” Jodie said so professionally that I was momentarily impressed.
“He’s innocent,” Howie said.
My opinion of his support of Matt was starting to change. Maybe Howie wasn’t such a jerk.
Creighton had been quiet since we’d left the police station, but now he stepped toward Howie and said, “Do you have information that might lead us or the police in Salt Lake in a different direction?”
It was achingly quiet for the few beats it took Howie to answer. He seemed to assess Creighton with as much scrutiny as he had Daryl, and I wondered if he did that with everyone. Perhaps everyone was a potential star.
“No, sir, I do not. I assure you that I would come to you if I did. But I’m certain that Matt is innocent, and that makes me think that someone isn’t doing their job correctly.” The dig, if that’s what it was, was definitely aimed directly at Creighton.
Creighton leveled his eyes at Howie. I’d never once seen him or Jodie become affected by vocal criticism. Complaints came with the job. As expected, Creighton didn’t react inappropriately, not even with a sneer. He sniffed and rubbed his finger under his nose and said, “Thank you for your time.”
He turned and moved toward the courthouse doors. Jodie followed behind. Nervously, I straightened my glasses and gave Howie a semi-friendly smile, but he didn’t smile back. The entire confab was strange, and Daryl was the only one who seemed to enjoy himself. His smile grew wide as Howie walked away.
“That guy has something to do with Matt Bane?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“Cool.”
“Clare, Mr. Brewsberry,” Jodie said from the door. “Coming in?”
Reluctantly, even though there was probably a hundred thousand dollars at the end of the trip, Daryl pulled his attention away from Howie and followed Jodie and me into the courthouse.
“You found the money?” Judge Serus said as she looked over the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She was young, maybe in her early thirties, and I wondered if she really needed the reading glasses or if they just appealed to her fashion sense. The pair she wore sported multicolored rhinestones along the top, over a green plastic frame.
“I did. In the tin,” I said.
“The ribbon tin that Mr. Brewsberry gave to you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I gave it to her boyfriend to give to her. He’d told me about the shop she and her grandfather run,” Daryl added.
“The Rescued Word?” Judge Serus smiled. I loved it when people did that after they spoke the name of the shop. I’d run into a few scowls over the years, but mostly there’d been smiles.
“Yes.”
“I see. Where is this wayward boyfriend of yours?” Judge Serus asked.
“Well. He’s not wayward. He’s at work. He’s on his way back to town, though,” I said, not liking her as much as I had a second ago.
“I see. Well, it does seem simple considering there are no other heirs to the estate, and the police have done a thorough search regarding any other possible claimants to the money.” Jodie and Creighton nodded confidently. “The copy of the will and the previous directives look to be in order, but I’d need to speak to the person—the boyfriend—who might have touched the tin in between its leaving Mr. Brewsberry’s mother’s house and arriving at The Rescued Word. I’m assuming that the box with all the tins might have been left unattended in the shop at least briefly.”
I thought. “Yes. There weren’t eyes on it all the time, but it wasn’t necessarily left unattended.”
“Well, I’ll let that go because I can’t imagine someone would suddenly and randomly decide to put the money in the tin just because, and if they were dumb enough to do so, I guess they lose, then. I just need to speak to the boyfriend.”
“His name is Seth Cassidy,” I said. “May I call to see where he is?”
“Sure. We’ll take five. Bailiff.”
Court, such as it was—a small room with a two-bench gallery, a bull pen made up of two small tables, and a separate and more highly set desk for the judge—was adjourned briefly.
I hurried out to the hallway—it wasn’t wide and stately, but cute and cozy instead—and called Seth.
“I’m almost in town. Maybe ten minutes,” he said as he answered.
“Stop by the courthouse. The judge wants to talk to you about the tin.”
“Okay. No problem.”
“Daryl’s here.”
“Great. That should make things move along quickly.”
“See you in a few.”
We disconnected and I hurried to the front doors to watch for Seth as well as find Jodie and Creighton. They’d both gone in this direction. I hadn’t seen Daryl leave the courtroom.
Though the building was small, it was big enough to have more than one hallway. The bathrooms were located next to the main doors, and another hallway jutted off from there, at a right angle to the one with the courtroom. I knew there were attorneys’ offices in that direction. I’d heard a world-famous novelist also leased a small space so she’d have a place to escape the crowds and write when she was in town, but I wondered if that was only a rumor.
I was just about to peer around the corner when two voices stopped me. I knew those voices. Creighton and Jodie often argued, but it was rare that I heard such venomous tones fro
m either of them.
I couldn’t help myself. I stayed hidden and listened hard.
15
“Do you have any idea what you did?” Jodie said.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Creighton said.
“What do you mean, you didn’t do anything wrong? Everything you did was wrong. Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“Not true. Not really wrong,” Creighton said. “Considering the circumstances.”
His tone belied his words. He knew he’d done something wrong, but didn’t want to admit it. I’d heard that tone. I’d even been on the receiving end of those same words, though I doubted they were about the same sort of misstep.
Creighton’s personality traits were bound to cause him some lifelong battles, both internal and external. He had a deep-seated sense of right and wrong—at least what he considered right and wrong. That probably came from his cop family. But he was also all about control. There were moments when his controlling behavior would jump in the middle of his personally defined morality and . . . fix things.
When he’d cheated on me, his first reaction had been to somehow justify his actions by making his betrayal something that would prove to be good for our future together. He couldn’t get to the apology without first going through the motions of making himself feel better because what he’d done was somehow “right.” It hadn’t worked, of course, and by the time he apologized, it was far too late to salvage any sort of relationship.
“Yes, totally wrong. You’re a cop, Creighton, not supreme ruler of the universe.”
“Jodie. Enough.”
“Right. You’re the boss now. Now you get to do whatever you want. I don’t think so.”
“It’s fine, Jodie.”
“Clare?” a voice said from behind me.
I jumped but caught any noise of surprise before it came out of my mouth.
“Hey,” I said to Seth as I hurried next to him, to a spot that wouldn’t seem like I’d just been craning my neck toward the other hallway.
As casually as possible, I staged the best scene I could and moved up to my tiptoes for a quick kiss. To his credit, the moment Seth saw Creighton and Jodie come around the corner, he figured out what I’d been doing, and he played along perfectly.
“I got back as fast as I could,” he said to me. He glanced quickly and casually at Jodie and Creighton. “Hey.”
“Seth, you just get here?” Creighton said.
“Just walked in.” He held out his hands and looked at them. “I’m a mess. Sorry.”
Seth was covered in dust. I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been doing, but the activity had made his dark hair look like it had frosted tips along one side. His sweatshirt and jeans were also dotted and streaked in the gray dirt. He hadn’t taken the time to put a coat on, but I imagined it was dirty too.
“No problem,” Creighton said. “We’d better get back to the courtroom.”
He led the way, but Jodie followed behind him, shooting both Seth and me suspicious sidelong glances. I hoped my neutral expression didn’t give anything away.
“Seth,” she said.
“Jodie,” he said.
I was sure she and I would discuss this later.
The first thing Seth did was apologize to the judge for his appearance. This made her strangely happy and much less sarcastic, and she didn’t mention his “waywardness” once. In fact, if I hadn’t added the “boyfriend” part, I thought she might ask for his number.
From there the proceeding moved quickly. Seth hadn’t even stopped to fill up with gas on the way back up to Star City after he’d helped Daryl with his mom’s house. The tins had gone directly from a shelf in Mrs. Brewsberry’s basement to Seth’s car, to The Rescued Word. None of us claimed the money was ours, so after a bunch of legalese was printed and signed, the judge told Creighton he could hand the money over to Daryl. She wasn’t even going to rule that the money be put into a separate account until any other avenues could be explored. The judge didn’t sense there were any further necessary steps to take. Once court was adjourned, we all made our way back to the police station parking lot.
“Here, I’d like to give you a reward,” Daryl said to me. After Creighton had excused himself and gone inside, Daryl pulled out one of the ten-thousand-dollar bills.
“No way,” I said as I looked around, hoping we weren’t being watched. Jodie did the same but much more dubiously. I swallowed hard. “Not necessary at all. Thank you, though.”
“I insist,” Daryl said.
“I don’t care,” I said. “Donate it to a children’s charity or something. That’s your mother’s money, however she accumulated it, Daryl. She would want you to have it. I seriously could not sleep at night if I took any of it.”
Daryl looked at Seth for some sort of help, but he only shrugged.
“Can I take the two of you out to dinner sometime?” Daryl said.
“That would be great. Next time you’re in town,” Seth said.
The next few moments might have been as surprising as overhearing Jodie and Creighton’s argument.
Daryl turned toward Jodie and said, “It would be perfect if you would join us.”
The silence that followed was rude, but also genuine. Was he asking Jodie out?
“Oh,” she said a second later as she looked up at his overly handsome face and rode her eyes over those ridiculously wide shoulders. “Well, I have a boyfriend.”
The regretful tone she infused into the words might have been her attempt at acting or not, but it was just the thing to ease Daryl’s ego.
He shrugged. “Had to try. It’s not often I meet someone like you.”
“Well, thanks,” she said so girlishly that I smiled.
Jodie was a pretty woman, but also one who took her cop role seriously. She came off tough and no-nonsense. More often than not, she stood with her thumbs in her belt and her feet firm and even on the ground. There was nothing supermodel about the pose. It was rare that men weren’t intimidated or put off by her, but Daryl saw through her well-practiced exterior. It was fun to see her on the receiving end of such admiration.
“All right. Well, I guess I’m out of here. A police escort wouldn’t be a bad idea.” He winked at Jodie. “Just kidding. I’ll be fine. Good to meet you and see you again, Seth. Thank you all for being so honest.”
The good thing about the flirtatious moment was that Jodie either forgot about what might have happened in the courthouse hallway or just didn’t want to bring it up. She excused herself a moment later.
“So, how’s everything?” Seth said to me when we were alone in the parking lot full of cars and Toby’s van.
“Oh, boy, do I have a lot to tell you. Have time for dinner before we go see a movie?”
“Absolutely. Let me get cleaned up.”
“You can do that at my house.”
“Works for me.”
16
It was cold. The clouds were gone, having moved on, and we had a clear view of the sky and the blanket of stars that had been instrumental in naming our small piece of the mountainside.
The movie, Kill Night, had been the creepiest thing I’d ever seen. But it had been good, really good. Compelling to the point that I’d held my breath a couple times, and I forgot all about the popcorn Seth had bought for us to share. We’d all enjoyed it—Chester, Ramona, Seth, Marion, myself, and even Toby, who’d taken Jimmy’s ticket when Marion decided to forget to tell her father about the movie and give the ticket to her new friend. The movie was so good that about five minutes in, I stopped watching Marion and Toby to make sure they were behaving. I was sure they had, though. No one could have easily given his or her attention to anything but the screen as Matt Bane took on the role of cop / serial killer like a pro. He was an extraordinarily good actor.
I let the story take me away, but onc
e the end credits rolled, I couldn’t help but look deeply into myself and see if I really did believe that Matt was innocent of killing his sister or if I’d been well convinced. Despite his flawless acting skills, I still sensed that he was not a real-life killer. I wondered if I’d ever be able to help prove it.
After the movie we all went our own ways. Toby wandered back to his newly repaired van and I watched Jimmy pick up Marion at the bottom of Main Street. Chester and Ramona went back to Chester’s apartment, where they planned on some binge reading. They’d named the activity such after I told them all about the popular binge watching of television shows. They read aloud to each other. Currently they were binge reading some mysteries set around the goings-on in a farmers’ market. It wasn’t heavy reading, but they enjoyed the escapism of their bingeing and they both preferred whiling away the hours with books rather than with anything on a screen of any kind.
The festival turned Star City into an open-all-the-time town. Though most of the local businesses kept their typical hours, a couple of small restaurants and a few food or hot chocolate carts stayed open. The hill of Main Street saw foot traffic all through the night. Tonight Seth and I joined the visitors and probably some well-disguised movie stars as we ventured down the hill, bidding farewell to our group of movie watchers, and then back up again toward my small house.
Our dinner before the movie had been quick, sandwiches at my house as I told him all that had happened since the murder.
I wondered what he made of everything, including what I’d overheard in the hallway. Unfortunately, like me, he had no idea.
What did Creighton do that he deemed acceptable but his sister thought was wrong? The list was probably endless, but at least Seth and I agreed that the offending action must have had something to do with the murder, or with Matt Bane. But we came to that conclusion only because we couldn’t come up with anything else. Of course, we weren’t privy to all police investigations, though.
We wondered briefly if Jodie might have been angry about something Creighton had done regarding the money in the tin, but from everything I could see, Creighton had behaved like a perfect police officer on that one. Other than the mystery man who’d claimed to be the brother of the original owner, the rest of the transfer of the money went smoothly. If Seth hadn’t confirmed that Daryl was exactly who he said he was, I might have had some doubts and more questions. And the money would never have left police custody if that had been the case.
Bookman Dead Style Page 13