Comic Sans Murder
Page 6
Adal answered for us all. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”
Nathan took off his scarf and placed it on the counter in three perfect folds. He placed his cap on top of the scarf and smiled before he walked out of the shop, a happy pep in his step.
“Huh,” Marion said before she turned to her computer. “It’s cold out there.”
Adal and I sent each other small shrugs.
“Want to help me work on a Facit?” I said.
“Definitely,” he said.
“No, it’s one-hundred-percent true. An Olympia Splendid. That’s the kind of typewriter I work on, at least for my first few drafts. I can transcribe onto a computer, but I simply cannot write on one. I have to have a typewriter and I have to hear it. The sounds, the keys, the bell, the return, they’ve all been a part of my writing since I was a child. There’s no other way for me,” Nathan said as he plopped his feet up on the other side of the large desk the Facit was sitting on. Adal and I looked at each other yet again.
“The portability?” I said.
“Yes, and the reliability. I love it. People at the airport look at me like I’m crazy, but I don’t go anywhere without it.”
“What color is it?” I asked.
“Red.”
“The keys?”
“Black.”
“A wonderful machine.” I sighed.
Nathan laughed and sat up, thereby removing his feet from the desk. “I’ll bring it in tomorrow for you to have a look.”
I laughed too. “I sound a little starstruck, don’t I?” I said.
“It’s good. We’re the same type of person, Clare. It’s why I was attracted to your shop and why I find all of you so appealing. You are my people.”
Not far behind us, Chester dropped a tool and grumbled a complaint. It wasn’t that we didn’t like Nathan. We just hadn’t really gotten to know him yet.
“We had a couple come in just this morning with one that had been ruined in a car crash. It broke my heart how much they were going to miss it,” I said. “It’s just a machine, of course, a thing, but when you use a thing to create other things . . . well, I sound a little ridiculous.”
“Not at all. I would miss mine deeply if it broke. Oh, I don’t even want to think about it.”
“You know, even though this is the business I work in, I can’t remember the last time the same old typewriter came up for discussion more than once in a day, let alone a few hours,” I said, thinking about the bookshop also coming up twice in a short amount of time. “If someone brings it up a third time, we might have to wonder what the universe is telling us.”
Nathan smiled and nodded. “So, what’s wrong with the one you’re working on? You called it a Facit?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s actually unique. It’s from Sweden.” I pointed to a spot under the typewriter case’s handle that had been stamped with “Sweden.” “But the really cool part is its font. It’s entirely cursive.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Nathan said.
“It’s true. We’re mostly just servicing and tuning up this one, but here, I can show you.”
I grabbed a piece of paper from a stack on the corner of a nearby worktable. Chester had put the paper there the other day after he’d grown tired of seeing it out front and being mostly ignored. It was the worst possible shade of neon green you could imagine, and we’d purchased it after only seeing a picture of the color on an Internet site. Chester made a habit of never buying anything for the shop that he didn’t first see and touch in person, but our normal salesperson had been ill and we didn’t want to miss an order, so we worked online. The green looked good in the picture—fun, lively, different. As Chester had said, in person it was more like flat, pukey, and too different. We’d had it out front for a short time, but now we were using it only as scratch paper in the back.
I threaded the paper through the feed, rolled it up, and typed: Now is the winter of our discontent.
“That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Nathan said. “I must have one. Do you think the owner of this one would be willing to sell? I’d pay a good price.”
“I doubt it, but we can mention the idea when they come in to pick it up if you’d like,” I said.
“I would, I definitely would,” Nathan said.
“Nathan, did I hear that you have a cabin near Star City?” Chester asked as he joined us by the desk. His nose was smudged with ink, his perpetually tanned skin glowed, and his eyes twinkled. He loved working on Frank.
“No, I don’t have one, but my friends do. They let me borrow it one summer.”
“I bet you and your Splendid loved it,” I said.
“We did. I hope to take advantage of their offer to use it whenever I want to again, but it’s small and I can’t work with others in my space. I need to be alone, and unfortunately they like to spend time there too. They would get in my way.”
We all looked at him. He was smiling, but it was difficult to know how serious he was being.
Chester nodded. “Pesky friends.”
“Exactly,” Nathan said. “Oh, you can smell the monks from it. I mean, you can smell their wine or at least the grapes. I’m not much of a drinker, but that’s pretty wonderful. There’s also a narrow creek and lots of birds outside the window next to the table I worked from.”
“Perfect,” Chester said.
We’d closed the door between the front of the shop and the workshop and it suddenly slammed open.
“Oh, sorry about that,” Jodie said as she shut the door only slightly more gently than she’d opened it.
She was in full work mode, which meant she was rarely gentle or quiet when she came into a room.
“Everything okay, Jodie?” Chester asked.
“I’d like to grab Clare for a few minutes,” she said.
“About the disembodied foot?” Chester asked.
Jodie blinked. “Well, yes, I suppose.”
“A disembodied foot?” Nathan asked.
“We’ll tell you all about it,” Chester said as I hurried back to the front with Jodie.
“So that’s Nathan Grimes?” Jodie asked when the three of them were out of earshot. I’d caught the fleeting eye lock between her and Adal, but they probably thought no one noticed.
“That’s Nathan Grimes,” Marion said from her spot behind the counter.
“That’s him, in the flesh,” I said.
“He’s very . . . authorly,” Jodie said.
“He is,” Marion said as she stood from her chair. “He’s nice in a funny, demanding way.” She looked at me. “I found some type. Want me to go back and show him some pictures and give him the purchase details?”
“That would be great. I’ll be up here with Jodie for a second anyway, in case someone comes in.”
“He’s a damn good storyteller,” Jodie added after Marion had gone into the workshop.
“He is,” I said. “So, what’s up?”
“First of all, tell me about your visit with Sarah. I sent an officer up there right after we spoke, but the shop was closed tight, no Sarah in sight.”
I replayed the events of my time at Starry Night Books as Jodie took notes in her Jodie shorthand that she once told me only she knew how to interpret. I’d already mentioned Howard, but she still took notes as I told her again what Sarah had said. She gave me no indication of whether she’d tried to speak with him already. She liked to take note of everything, though.
“All right, Clare. Sounds like no harm was done, but seriously, let us do this.”
“Okay,” I said, though I wanted to point out that I was just being a friendly neighbor to Sarah. I figured I’d just ask for forgiveness again next time. “Did you talk to Howard?”
Jodie rubbed her finger under her nose after she put the notebook in her pocket, completely ignoring my q
uestion. “Lloyd was one weird duck.”
“He was brilliant. Sometimes brilliant people are a little odd.”
“Right. He liked you, you know? I remember a little of it. I think he was sad you wanted to be friends with me, not him.”
“No, that wasn’t it.” Even so many years later I didn’t want Jodie to think she’d come in between me and someone else. “We were kids. That’s all.”
“What would you make of the note in his pocket? And he gave you three of those Hoovens, Clare. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they were gifts from a rich man who had fond memories of our young friendship? Maybe he did want to come see me—to talk about typewriters. It’s hard to know, Jodie.”
“He cared for you, obviously, but in what way and why?”
“Why do you think the answer to this is important?”
She shook her head. “Don’t know yet.” She bit her bottom lip and looked out toward the front window.
“What?”
“I talked to his assistant, Brenda Phillips. She’s on her way to Star City, should be here this afternoon. She’s distraught and wants to get all the details in person. But after I told her the bad news, her first question knocked me for a loop. She asked if Lloyd had had a chance to talk to you yet. When I told her that he hadn’t, she was more devastated about that than the fact that he’d been killed. Or at least that’s what it seemed like.”
“Well, that’s definitely strange, but we still don’t know why. Did she say more? He’s never once tried to contact me, Jodie.”
“She didn’t say why, told me she’d tell me more when she got here. I got the impression that he was even weirder now than he used to be. Okay, so you’re much kinder than I am and probably wouldn’t call him weird, but he might have made you uncomfortable if he’d visited. I guess we’ll never know. Anyway, the reason I’m here mostly is this, you available for dinner tonight with me and Brenda?”
“Sure. Will I be an official investigator?”
Jodie half smiled. “Closer than you’ve ever been maybe. I could question Brenda just fine, but not only do I get the sense that she’d like to meet you. I think you might have more insight into Lloyd’s personality, so you might have better questions, or get better answers out of her. We’ll see, I suppose. I’m not deputizing you or anything.”
“Of course not.”
“All right. Gotta go. I’ll pick you up at Little Blue at around six.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said. “By the way, I think there’s another reason you want me to go to dinner tonight. This invitation, while welcomed, is unlike you and goes against me staying out of your investigation.”
“See you tonight,” she said as she turned to leave.
“I’ll be ready,” I said as she went out the front door.
Jodie revved her Bronco’s engine, backed away from the curb, and then screeched the tires as she pulled away, but only enough to let everyone know she meant business.
7
It took less than one second inside the restaurant to realize what Jodie had been keeping from me. We met Brenda at a barbecue joint halfway to Salt Lake City, down Parley’s Canyon. The Pig Stuff had been around a long time. On a good day and when the breeze was just right, you could catch a whiff of their hickory smoke up in Star City. Their food lived up to their tantalizing aromas.
As we walked into the restaurant, I spotted Brenda immediately, even though we’d never met before. And she spotted me.
She and I could have been twins. We were, unquestionably, doppelgangers.
“You must be Officer Wentworth. And of course you’re Clare. I’m Brenda,” she said soberly but with a firm handshake. She’d been crying and her nose and eyes were red underneath the glasses she wore, with frames that almost matched mine. My nose and eyes even got red in the same way hers did when I was upset.
Jodie shook her hand first. I was second and I lingered.
“You see this, don’t you?” I said. “We could be sisters.”
“Absolutely,” she said. “It’s as I told Officer Wentworth on the phone earlier today; I had the job the second I walked into Lloyd’s office because I look so much like you. Though I didn’t know about our shared looks right away.”
I looked at Jodie. She shrugged and said, “I’m still pretty surprised. It’s uncanny, that’s for sure. Come on, let’s sit down.”
A young server dressed in black pants, a white dress shirt, and a pink apron adorned with a very happy smiling pig on the front guided us to a booth in a back corner. Jodie had flashed her badge and requested the most private seats possible. The place was so crowded that we wouldn’t have any real privacy, but it was the best available option.
We all got through a few awkward stares at each other as we perused the menu, but then finally got down to business after we placed our orders.
“Like I said, I didn’t know about you at first,” Brenda said to me. “One day . . . This wasn’t as creepy as it might sound, by the way—I need you to know that Lloyd and I never had a personal relationship, but we worked very well together. I have . . . had immense respect for him and his genius. I loved working so close to someone so smart.” Her voice caught and she took a moment. “Anyway, one day he asked if I’d consider wearing different glasses. If I hadn’t known him so well by then, I would have thought much less of him, been scared by him maybe, but it was more an offhand comment than anything. I laughed and asked why he had such a request. He became embarrassed and then told me all about you. I need to stress here that he never pressured me into any sort of relationship but a professional one, but when he talked about you, Clare, he made it clear how much I looked like his first love. Clare Henry.”
Jodie whistled and said, “Sorry, Brenda, there’s no way to make that story not sound creepy, but whatever.”
“Okay, well, right,” she said, not becoming defensive, which was the best way to handle things when talking to Jodie, or any police officer maybe. “Anyway, after he told me about the crazy coincidence of us looking so much alike, he told me the kind of glasses you wore. When the ones I had broke a couple weeks later, I bought these.”
“How long ago was that?” Jodie asked.
“About three years ago,” Brenda said.
“How long have you worn that style of glasses, Clare?” Jodie turned to me.
“For about five years,” I said, seeing where she was going with this.
“And you haven’t seen Lloyd in just over ten. He must have seen you, though. You’re not on any social media sites, so he must have seen you in person.”
“Well, he’s from Star City, Jodie. He might easily have seen me on a visit and I just didn’t notice.”
“Would you like to see a recent picture?” Brenda asked.
Jodie and I both nodded.
Brenda reached into her bag and brought out her wallet. “This is the most recent picture I have of Lloyd.”
Jodie and I were both struck silent at the handsome man on the cover of the brochure Brenda had extracted from the inside of her bag. Gone were Lloyd’s greasy combed-over hair and skinny face and sallow skin, replaced by a filled-out friendly smile and shampooed hair with a natural wave that was appealing even in its short cut.
“No way,” Jodie said.
Brenda laughed. Her smile was a stark contrast to her reddened nose and eyes. We even had similar teeth. Had she worn braces too? The idea of asking the question was too uncomfortable.
“He said you were going to be surprised when you saw him, Clare,” Brenda said. “He really wanted you to see him, know about his success, see that he’d left the geeky guy behind.”
“You haven’t ever seen this version of Lloyd?” Jodie said.
“If I’d seen that guy over the last five years, I would never have recognized him as Lloyd, but I don’t think I have,” I said.<
br />
Jodie’s eyebrows came together in a doubtful glare as she zoned in on Brenda. “And you two never . . . you know?”
“I do know. And never. No. We were strictly professional and knew that we would make the company better by not becoming more than that.”
“But you had a crush on him, right?” Jodie said.
“No. And here’s the part you really won’t believe. He didn’t have a crush on me either. He adored Clare. At first I was someone to keep that reminder fresh, but I’m smart and definitely my own woman. We moved past it all pretty quickly.”
“After you got the glasses,” Jodie said as she reached for a sauce-covered rib.
Brenda just shrugged.
“His company was successful?” I said.
“Very successful. He started out by writing a computer program that changed the way medical personnel get their X-ray and scan imaging. Much quicker and more accurate. Then he improved the machinery used to see the images. The improvements went from there and turned into other things, mostly in the computer and medical fields. He loved that world, made him feel like he was saving lives, and he probably was. ‘Better, faster, stronger’ was his personal slogan. He was very good.”
Dillon hadn’t had so many specifics regarding Lloyd’s business, but he had also been quick to say that Lloyd had been successful.
“What were the duties of his assistant? What did you do specifically?” Jodie asked.
“We worked together constantly.” Her voice cracked again. She cleared her throat. “He wasn’t into what he called the dirty work. He worked the ideas, made the decisions regarding who would follow through with his ideas, but then got bored quickly after that. I did the follow-through. I made sure everyone else was getting things done, the dirty work. I was also Lloyd’s sounding board. I’ve never been shy about my opinions, and I have strong ones. I’m sure I helped him to help create better things, but only in small ways. The business was mostly him.”