I didn’t miss the smile between him and Jodie. Gone were any signs of post office or Creighton annoyance.
“So, you guys trying to keep your relationship a secret for a while?” I asked when we were on the way.
“It seems like the right thing to do,” Jodie said with a shrug.
“Okay, but just an FYI, I don’t think it’s much of a secret.”
“Yeah, I know, but work with me here.”
“Will do.” I took a sip from the coffee she’d brought and then set it back into the cup holder. “So, we’re going to question Donte?”
“We’re going to go talk to him, try to get some information out of him without making him feel like he’s being grilled or questioned. He’s not a suspect, yet at least, so the casual approach is our only real option anyway.”
“I can do casual.”
“Yes, you can, and let’s face it, Clare—you were more liked than I was back in high school. I think you’ll be an asset to my plan.”
“Always glad to be an asset. So, any new clues at all?”
“None. I did go talk to Lloyd’s parents. That was rough.”
“Oh! I can’t believe I haven’t given them my condolences. I didn’t even think about it.”
“We’ve all been a little stunned.”
“I’ll go by and see them today or tomorrow. Do they still live in the same spot?”
“Yes.”
We fell silent for most of the rest of the trip down the canyon. We’d made the trip to Salt Lake City more times than we’d ever be able to remember, and the mountain views and curves in the road were familiar. After you took the last curve and the cityscape came into view, there was always a moment of appreciation. It was good to make it down the canyon in one piece, of course, but the appreciation was for the beauty that we were fortunate to live around. The city was different from our small mountain town, but they were both stunning.
Donte Senot’s textbook publishing company was on the west side of the city, south of the airport and surrounded by warehouse-style buildings similar to his: nondescript, large, and rectangle shaped. Donte’s boring beige building stood out only because of the sign adorning the spot above the front door.
“Senot Textbook Publishing,” Jodie quoted the funky and flashing neon.
“The neon book is cool,” I said.
“And the numbers. Oh yeah, Donte wrote a math textbook. Who woulda thunk it, huh?”
“Some of us obviously don’t reach our potential until after high school.”
“Yeah, I’m still headed toward my peak,” Jodie said. “Come on, Donte’s expecting us.”
We were greeted by an empty receptionist’s desk in the small, stark entryway.
“It’s freezing in here,” I said.
“Maybe books and ink need cold temperatures,” Jodie said as she inspected the few plaques on the side wall proclaiming that Senot Textbook Publishing had done some awesome things. She turned away from the wall and peered down a corner. “Hello?”
“Actually, it’s best to keep the environment dry. Not too hot or too cold. Not too much light either. But those are more preservation techniques than mass printing, so maybe there’re things I don’t know,” I said.
“I think you told me that once before, the stuff about the dry.”
“Hello?” a gentleman said as he leaned out from a doorway halfway down the hall.
“Hi, we’re here to see Donte,” Jodie said.
“Jodie?” the man said as he stepped out from the office. “I should have known. You haven’t changed a bit.” He joined us and took her hand, shaking it using both of his as a big smile spread across his face. “And Clare! This is a treat.” He turned to me and repeated the friendly greeting.
“Hi, Donte,” I said. He didn’t look a thing like he had looked in high school. He looked much better. He’d gotten a little taller, filled out more through his shoulders, and though his brown hair was short, his face had aged nicely, in an appealing way that made me think of cowboys and rugged things. He didn’t look younger than his about-thirty years, but he carried the years very well.
“Well, come on back to my office. We don’t really have a receptionist because we don’t get many visitors. When we do have special guests, Sarah comes in and hosts us all. She’s still the hostess with the mostess,” he said with a laugh as he led us back down the hallway.
Jodie sent me a half eye roll, but I tried not to react. I didn’t remember Sarah being much of a host, but since Jodie and I weren’t part of their crowd, we didn’t get many chances to be her guests.
Inside the office, there was no sense that Donte had become successful. Like everything else except for the sign out front, it was boring and beige. His desk was covered in spreadsheets, and the back of his laptop was clean. There were no pictures of children or Sarah anywhere.
“Have a seat. I’ll give you a quick tour of the press when we’re done in here, but I’m too curious about your reasons for coming to talk to me to do that first. Sarah told me what you told her about Lloyd, Clare. I’m still in a state of shock. I assume that’s why you’re here?”
“It is why we’re here,” Jodie said.
“Ask me anything.” He half smiled. “I’m an open book.”
“Right,” Jodie said. “What can you tell me about the meeting or meetings you were supposed to attend or were invited to attend with Lloyd? Start by telling me about the invitation itself. When did you receive it?”
I wanted to interrupt when she got out her notebook and pen and remind her we were just there casually, but that would have been a mistake, of course, particularly if I wanted to be invited to go with her again.
“Oh, I . . . I think about two months ago,” he said. He opened the front drawer to his desk. “I searched for the invitation this morning after we spoke, Jodie, but I couldn’t find it. I’ll keep looking. You can have it the second I find it.”
“And it was supposed to be meetings about business, entrepreneurship, et cetera?”
“Well, not totally. It was worded something like ‘A meeting of the minds. Successful friends coming together again to share ideas.’ Something like that, but that wasn’t it exactly.”
“That sounds like it was definitely something for businesspeople to discuss business things,” Jodie said.
“Right. Well, for Lloyd, Howard, and myself, that would be an easy assumption. But how to explain Creighton?” Donte said.
It was rare that Jodie was stunned. This was one of those rare moments, but she recovered.
“Creighton?” she said. “Creighton was invited?”
“Yeah, he was invited. I thought you knew.” Donte looked at me. “Sarah said she talked to you.”
I cleared my throat. This had gone from casual to formal quickly. “She told me about Howard being invited, but she couldn’t remember the fourth person.” I looked at Jodie so my eyes could tell her that I would have absolutely told her about Creighton’s being invited if Sarah had mentioned him.
“Okay.” She nodded quickly at me and then turned back to Donte. “So you, Lloyd, Howard Craig, and Creighton?” Jodie said.
“Yes, those four,” Donte said. His eyebrows had come together sharply. I could read his mind. He’d moved past the part where his wife had forgotten that Creighton had been invited, and had come quickly to the conclusion that something was weird if at this point Jodie didn’t know that her brother, another police officer, had been part of the group.
“Who sent the invitation?” Jodie asked.
“No idea. It wasn’t clear, but there was a Star City postmark. For a short time I assumed Creighton, but then I realized that the others also still have ties to Star City. Anyone could have sent it.”
“I’d sure like to see that invitation,” Jodie said.
“I’d love to give it to you. I was bowled over by the
news of Lloyd’s death yesterday and felt compelled to look for it. I wonder if I absently picked it up and put it in a file or something. I’ll get it to you the second it turns up. I’ll bring it up to Star City or have Sarah take it to you.”
“That would be great. Thanks,” Jodie said. “Donte, have you been in contact with Lloyd, Howard, or Creighton over these last ten or so years?”
“Not really. I had a beer with Howard when he came back to Star City a time or two, but I haven’t seen Lloyd since high school and I don’t remember ever really knowing Creighton at all. He was older than us and traveled in different circles.”
“Did anything in high school, or later for that matter, happen that would make you think the four of you should get together ten years later for a reunion?”
Donte laughed once. “Nothing at all. Apparently Sarah knew Lloyd, had a class or two with him, but she had to tell me who he was when I got the invitation. I had no memory of him. When I saw Creighton’s name I had one of those ‘uh-oh, a cop’ moments, but I quickly realized that was kind of dumb of me. Howard and I were friends, so that didn’t seem out of place, but the invitation was a complete surprise.”
Jodie nodded twice slowly and asked, “How’s the bookstore going?”
“Fine so far, but Sarah can’t get caught up. Too soon to know much of anything regarding its success or failure. All I really know is that her inventory is huge, and I’m thankful that it’s not in my garage.”
“I understand. She’s got some woo-woo stuff going on too, huh?” Jodie asked.
Donte blinked. “Oh, her life-after-death metaphysical stuff. Yeah, that stuff is weird.” He straightened his crinkled forehead. “It’s her thing, not mine at all. I don’t understand any of that stuff. It’s weird for sure, though.” He cleared his throat and blanched momentarily before he brought his features back in line again. If the metaphysical stuff was a wedge between the two of them, he didn’t want us to know, but too late.
“Yeah, I agree,” Jodie said.
“You guys live in Salt Lake?” I asked when the beat of silence went on a bit too long. If I read her correctly, Jodie was okay with me jumping in.
“Yes, in Sugarhouse. It’s a great place to live and Parley’s Canyon is close, so Sarah can get to work up in Star City in less than half an hour most days. She gets to her work much more quickly than I get to mine.”
“Any kids?” I said.
“No, not our thing. You two have any kids?”
“Not yet,” we replied in tandem.
“Plenty of time,” he said with a polite wave.
“Yep,” Jodie said.
“So, what happened to Lloyd? I mean, can you share the details of his murder? Or, maybe you can tell me what he did after high school? Sarah wasn’t clear on that part,” Donte said.
“He moved to Nebraska and used his smarts to start a computer-something company. We’ve determined that he was killed but something happened to his body afterward. I can’t go into detail. He’d been in town for less than forty-eight hours according to his parents and his check-in time at the hotel,” Jodie said.
Donte shook his head slowly. “Terrible.”
“Very. Where were you two days ago, day and night, Donte?”
The surprise in Donte’s eyes lit genuinely. “Oh. Well, here and then I was at home, I guess. That’s where I usually am at night. Can’t think of anywhere else I might have been.”
“Can anyone but Sarah confirm that?”
He thought a moment. “Well, one of my print folks can tell you I was here during the day, but I’m afraid no one but Sarah could tell you I was home at night.”
“When did she get home two nights ago?”
He frowned. “Late, I suppose, but she was working, trying to get that bookshop straightened up.” He sat up and shook out his tense shoulders. “Jodie, I didn’t kill Lloyd. Neither did Sarah, if that’s where your mind is going.”
“Good.” Jodie smiled as if she was trying to let him know she might have been kidding about asking him, but only might have.
“Want to see the printing part of the facility?” Donte said.
“Yes,” I said enthusiastically.
Donte led the way out of his office and the other direction down the hallway. Once out of the stress-riddled air in the office and back in control, Donte seemed to relax.
“We do the whole books here, from soup to nuts, or from text to shipping, I suppose. I know you and Chester do printing, but yours is unquestionably much more personal and artistic, even in the simplest ways. I remember going into The Rescued Word when I was a kid. Even back then, it was a great place, and Chester let me watch him work on the printing press. It was a life-changing moment probably, but I didn’t realize it at the time. Anyway, our press is much different, much bigger.”
Donte walked us through a tour of the rest of the facility. The press was big, long and intimidating. Mechanical. There were no print runs scheduled and we didn’t see any other employees, though Donte mentioned a couple were on their breaks and would be setting up the press later if we wanted to stick around. Jodie said that we didn’t have time, but we hoped for a rain check.
Even on such a grand scale, the place smelled just like The Rescued Word, but with less coffee scent. It felt like home, but a more palatial home that could afford housekeepers. As I’d already noted to myself earlier, I had no ambition to see Chester’s business become anything like Donte’s, and neither would Chester, but it was good to see modern technology in action, if only to appreciate my timeworn skills and those customers who needed them.
As Donte saw us to Jodie’s Bronco, Jodie told him to be on his toes.
“You think the killer set up the meetings and is planning to kill us all?”
“I just don’t know, Donte. But a murder has occurred. It’s always good to be careful.”
Donte swallowed hard before he said, “Will do.”
He watched us and waved until we were all the way out of the parking lot. I’d had no sense that he was anything but friendly, but Jodie might have thought differently. She grumbled a noise in the back of her throat.
“What? Oh! Creighton? I asked.
“Yes, but there’s more. Donte’s hiding something,” she said.
“I didn’t pick up on that at all.”
She sent me a sideways glance but didn’t try to point out what I’d missed.
“Let’s head home. I need to talk to my brother,” she finally said.
“Can I come with?”
“No, not on this one, Clare. Besides, I might not want any witnesses.”
“Got it.”
“Oh, by the way, when we get back up to Star City, I’m having the Hoovens delivered to The Rescued Word.”
“Jodie, they aren’t ours. I mean, we can’t accept them.”
“They are legally yours, Clare. There are some weird dynamics regarding us keeping them in a truck in our parking lot. There are even weird things about us putting them in a storage shed. The cold temperatures might not be good for them.”
“They were in a basement in Nebraska for who knows how long. They’d be fine in a storage shed.”
“But Lloyd wanted you to have them. It’s clear that was his intention. They’re in this limbo that makes for too many people not responsible enough for them. We have to bring them up to The Rescued Word.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was nervous about the responsibility of something so valuable, but excited to have them too. How could I not be? I was sure Chester and I would donate them to some sort of museum if they ultimately proved to be ours, but we would have to keep them secure until then.
“Okay,” I said, still working out logistics in my mind. “Okay.”
The roads got us from place to place, but leaving the city and moving through the canyon usually released the stress that came with city
traffic. Today, not so much. The stress of the city, along with the stress of the murder, stayed with us for every curving mile.
10
I took a deep breath of the cold night air and let it out slowly. What a day.
Almost immediately after Jodie dropped me off, her partner, Omar, and two other officers brought the truck up with the Hoovens. Chester was fit to be tied, for about thirty seconds. And then his eyes took in the machines, and he was put under their spell. Once they were in the workshop, crowding the space far too much, he couldn’t stop inspecting them in a way that was almost fawning.
We all liked looking at them, and we all wanted to spend more time with them, but that didn’t take away the fact that we probably had over twenty thousand dollars’ worth of rare typewriters sitting in our workshop, and none of us would accept the fact that they were ours. Chester promised to move a cot into the room if it would ease my concerns over the machines’ safety. I told him his sleep was worth more than the typewriters, and we had to remember that an ad hadn’t been put out announcing what we had. Not many people knew, and most people wouldn’t even know what they were looking at if they came upon them.
I was glad the day was over as I enjoyed the night air. It was somehow sweeter when I breathed it in as I stood outside the shop on Bygone Alley. It had been a good winter and I’d seen my fair share of time on the slopes, but I suddenly craved more. Cold, fresh air did that to me. I didn’t see that happening this week, though.
It was dark outside but hadn’t been for long. I glanced at the time on my phone. Seth had been called to a late meeting, so I was on my own for a while. Home, some soup, and a good book sounded like the right combination.
“My goodness, the air smells better up here than anywhere I’ve ever been,” Nathan said from behind me. He’d been leaning against the wall next to the shop’s front window. He bounced himself away from it and moved next to me.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I said as I jumped in my skin a tiny bit. “I didn’t see you over there.”
Comic Sans Murder Page 8