Comic Sans Murder

by Paige Shelton

  “I can’t believe I just talked to him,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe we just breathed the same air.”

  I understood starstruck behavior, but since I’d come to know Nathan on such a human level, it seemed weird.

  “I’m sorry about his face. The cut, but he doesn’t look like he was hurt any worse,” Sarah said.

  “He’s okay,” I said. “Really fine.”

  “Unbelievable.” She blinked back toward the book. “Now, what do you think this is worth?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure without doing a little research first, but I would guess at least a few thousand.”

  “Oh my goodness.” She took a deep breath. “Clare, may I leave it with you?”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve seen my place. It’s a disaster piled upon another disaster. You are used to these sorts of valuable books. You would take better care of it. Just temporarily.”

  “Well, okay, I suppose,” I said. Even before I finished responding, I regretted my answer. I should not take care of someone else’s valuable property. It wasn’t even clear whose property it was, but it most certainly wasn’t mine. Between worrying about the Hoovens and now the book, I doubted I’d ever sleep a worry-free night again.

  “Here,” Marion said as she gathered some papers and a pen from under the counter. “You can document it like a consignment, just keep the price too high to sell.”

  I was often impressed by my niece’s quick smarts. She’d seen the need for at least a paper trail of ownership, or at least something that Sarah signed that kept The Rescued Word safe from any damages the book might incur while being here. I hoped for no damages.

  “Oh. Well, okay, but I don’t want you to sell it,” Sarah said as Marion scooted the papers toward Sarah.

  “We won’t,” I said.

  She signed with a flurried signature that could be interpreted as just about anything, and then I signed and set the pen on the counter.

  “All right, then. Thank you,” she said almost breathlessly.

  Marion and I looked at each other as Sarah turned and hurried out of the shop. However, she made one brief stop at a shelf of note cards.

  “These are the prettiest things,” she said.

  “Thanks. Marion can personalize some for you if you’d like.”

  “Good to know. Thanks!” she said before she resumed her quick scissor steps out the door.

  “She’s nuts,” Marion said.

  “Well, she certainly seemed a little off today, but maybe she has a lot on her mind. Who knows what anyone’s going through? And she got to talk to Nathan. Remember when you met all the movie stars during the film festival? You were a little nuts then too.”

  “No, I was way nuts. Do you want me to lock the book under here?” she asked as she peered at the small safelike compartment under the counter. Chester had recently put a new lock on it.

  “Yes, please.”

  She put the book back inside the bag, carefully folded over the flap, and gently deposited the whole thing into the cubbyhole. She locked the door and slipped the key into a side slot, the spot only those of us at The Rescued Word knew about, though I didn’t think we’d shown Adal.

  “All clear?” Chester asked as he stuck his head through the doorway.

  “All clear,” I said.

  “Nathan said you had one of his rabid fans out here.”

  “Sarah Senot,” I said. “We now have her ridiculously valuable book held in our safe. We’re not to sell it.”

  “Nathan mentioned the book. We’ll not sell it, if that’s what she wants. You and I have a funeral to attend. Nathan and Adal will continue to work on Nathan’s book. Marion, just let Adal know if you need any help up here.” He looked at me.

  “Right,” I said, sadness filling my chest. “Let’s go say our good-byes to Lloyd.”

  Chester sent me a sad smile. “I’ll drive, dear girl.”

  21

  Late winter and early spring in Star City meant complete weather unpredictability. We might have a snowstorm in the morning that dusted blooming tulips and daffodils with snow and then cleared off the flowers by noon. Rarely did the spring snow help with the base on the slopes. Sometimes, when the blazing sun followed the snow, the runs got slippery, sometimes icy—spring snow wasn’t typically some of our magical Utah powder. But sometimes we got a doozy spring storm that allowed the resorts to stay open a little longer and skiers and boarders got to hang out on the mountain as far as into the middle of the year. The latest date of skiing I remembered was June 15, but that was a very rare year.

  As I looked up into the clear blue sky, slipped off my sweater, and wished I’d either put on my prescription sunglasses or gotten some of those Transitions lenses, I thought all signs pointed to a shortened season this year.

  I didn’t remember that Lloyd was a skier, but that was where he’d been when he was killed, skiing. I wondered if he would have preferred snow falling instead of the spectacular day we were having, but I decided that no one could be unhappy with this perfection.

  I knew or recognized about half of the attendees. Brenda, Dillon, and Lloyd’s parents huddled together. I expressed my sympathies again, but it had been tough. Lloyd’s dad had once again remembered that junior high dance. I’d hugged them both and told them how sorry I was.

  Jodie, her partner, Omar, Creighton, and his partner, Kelly, were also there, all of them in their dress uniforms, and none of them behaving as if they were searching the crowd for a killer, though I knew they were.

  I was too. It was impossible not to speculate.

  Howard was there, though he kept a good distance away from those of us he’d gone to high school with. I didn’t see him talking to Lloyd’s parents, but Chester and I arrived after he did, so I couldn’t be sure he hadn’t done so already.

  Neither Donte nor Sarah showed up, which surprised me. I’d thought that maybe Sarah had hurried out of The Rescued Word because she needed to get ready for the funeral.

  There were about twenty other attendees, but I didn’t know any of them. In fact, only one of them looked familiar, as if maybe he was a local business owner, but I couldn’t place which business.

  I nudged Chester. “If you recognize anyone, memorize names so you can tell me later.”

  “Are we searching for a killer?” he whispered.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to pay attention.”

  He nodded, brushed his mustache with the back of his knuckle, and then surreptitiously scanned the crowd.

  The service was brief, and sweet, and emotional. Funerals were tough even if you didn’t know the person who was being dispatched. However, there was one moment that stood out to me more than the rest of them.

  Lloyd and his family were Mormon, so I assumed the man presiding over the service was their ward’s bishop. In the Mormon Church, the bishop is someone who lives in the neighborhood and is already a part of their house of worship, their ward. I wasn’t in the know regarding most of the religion, but I knew that the bishop wasn’t a position of employment, but a position in the church that required many hours of devotion—mostly to the other people in the ward—and I thought each bishop served in the position for two years.

  I didn’t think the current bishop would know the man Lloyd had become before he died. Lloyd had left Star City for college and had stayed away. Or so I thought. But the man giving the service seemed to know Lloyd very well, mentioning moments they’d shared over the recent years.

  The bishop said that Lloyd had been a good man with a big heart, someone who’d worked hard for his accomplishments and had never forgotten his parents or where he’d come from. In fact, he’d visited Star City often.

  I wondered what “often” meant and if the bishop was just trying to make him sound like a great guy. Chester called post-death accolades the Funeral Treatment. I sent him a sideways
glance to see if he was sensing the Funeral Treatment or if he thought the words were genuine. His face was neutral.

  “That was lovely,” Chester said after the words and a prayer were spoken.

  “I need a minute,” I said. “Can I meet you at the car or maybe you could talk to Jodie and Creighton a minute?”

  “I’ll find a way to pass the time. What are you going to do?”

  “I want to talk to that guy.” I nodded toward the bishop, who was now stepping over the grounds toward the parking lot.

  “Oh,” Chester said as his eyes followed him. “He’s a Nelson if I remember correctly, but I can’t place his first name.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I took off in pursuit.

  I stepped around graves and tombstones. Years ago Chester had told me I should never step on a grave if I could help it, so I did my best to stay on the perimeters.

  “Mr. Nelson,” I said as I waved.

  “Yes?” he said as he looked over his open driver’s-side door.

  “Yes, hi,” I said as I joined him and extended my hand. “I’m Clare Henry. I went to high school with Lloyd.”

  “Ah, Clare. I know your family. Your grandfather’s a delight even if my father couldn’t convince him to convert.”

  “Chester’s not all that religious, but he’s pretty spiritual.”

  Mr. Nelson laughed. “Oh, we know. I believe he’s offered my father a beer or two at a number of events over the years. Dad’s always declined.”

  I smiled. “Sounds like Chester.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I went to high school with Lloyd, and I heard your kind words about him.”

  “He was a good man.”

  “I believe that. I haven’t seen him since high school, though, and I wondered . . . well . . .”

  Mr. Nelson squinted at me a moment, but then clarity brightened his features. “You’re wondering if he really was a good guy or if I was just giving lip service to the man who’d died.”

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “I knew him very well, Clare. He did come visit his parents often. He was an only child, you know.”

  “I did know that.”

  “Well, whenever he visited, he came to Sunday services and always asked what he could do while he was in town to help someone else. Did someone need some work done on their home, did someone need some help with groceries, many different things. He was a genuinely good man, I promise. In fact, he didn’t have a bad bone in his body as far I knew. His parents didn’t want me to share all those details, said that Lloyd wouldn’t have wanted that sort of recognition. They just wanted a nice service.”

  “Was he . . . well, was he especially intense? Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think I do, and I’d have to say that yes, he was a perfectionist, but when it came to doing good works, he could mellow and be less wound up maybe.”

  “Do you think he might have ever wanted to rub others’ noses in his success?”

  “No, never. I believe he was humble to the end.” Mr. Nelson’s (I didn’t ask for his first name and he didn’t offer it) mouth formed a hard line. “He might not have wanted his fellow ward members to see that side of him, though, if it did exist. When we’re of my age and experience, we’re already pretty aware of the world, Clare. We know everyone has good sides and bad sides, but if that sort of bad side was a part of Lloyd, I never saw even a hint of it. If it existed, he hid it well.”

  I nodded. “I see. Thank you. It was a lovely service.”

  “Thank you. Give your family my best, particularly Chester. And tell him I still don’t believe the story he told me about the bear he tamed.”

  “Ah, that one.”

  “Yes, he told it to me when I was a kid.” Mr. Nelson whistled. “He certainly got my imagination to spin in full speed on that one.”

  “He does that well.”

  “Have a nice day, Clare,” he said before he got into his car and shut the door.

  I watched him drive away.

  “Well, what did your investigative skills tell you?” Jodie said as she came up behind me.

  “Hi, Jodie. I don’t think Lloyd sent those invitations. I don’t think he put the meetings together, at least not so he could rub everyone else’s face in his success.”

  “The bishop tell you Lloyd wasn’t that kind of guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would tend to believe him, based on the Lloyd we used to know.”

  “Me too. But who sent those invitations, and why?”

  “We’re working on it,” Jodie said as she rubbed her chin, all hints of the early-morning girlishness I’d seen now completely gone.

  “I hope so,” I said. “I really hope so.”

  22

  “Where are we going?” Chester asked.

  “We’re going to go talk to Donte Senot again. I went with Jodie last time, but it’ll just be you and me this time.”

  “What are we going to talk to him about?”

  “His failing business.”

  “That should be an easy conversation.”

  “He admires you.”

  “Ah, I see. I’m your grease for the squeaky wheel.”

  “Yes.”

  Chester laughed. “All right, I can do that.” He switched the radio to a big band station.

  “You know his family, don’t you?” I asked as I turned down the radio a little bit.

  “Sure. Hardworking folks. I knew Donte when he was a kid because he had some interest in printing, and I seem to remember you and he were friends for a brief time in high school. At least he came into the shop a time or two to see you.”

  “I don’t think that was Donte,” I said.

  “Sure it was. He and a couple of other people came into see you. I can’t remember who they were, but since I knew Donte’s family, I knew who he was.”

  “High school was just over ten years ago, and I don’t remember that at all. I don’t think Donte and I were ever friends.”

  “Well, you were so smitten with Creighton that you might not have noticed the others who were smitten with you.”

  “Chester, I don’t think that’s correct.”

  Chester shrugged.

  As I steered through a couple of curves toward the bottom of the canyon, I thought back hard to that time but still could not place those moments. I did not remember thinking or knowing anything about Howard or Donte and their feelings for me. It was high school. Maybe I just didn’t notice or care what anyone else thought of me, but that’s a rare high school attitude. I had Creighton, and in that stupid high school way, my boyfriend was my everything.

  “What about Sarah Senot? Her name was McMasters back then. Did I know her?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember you knowing her, but I remember Sarah when she was younger. She came into the store all the time. She liked to write letters. She liked our pens and paper, and she was one of our first note card customers. When Nathan came back to tell me about the woman in the store who was behaving oddly, I was surprised. She might not have been a friendly girl, but she wasn’t odd.”

  “I don’t remember that either.”

  “So much was going on during that time in your life and everything was moving so quickly. I can see how you’d forget things. It happens.”

  “Huh. I’m not sure it’s supposed to happen this quickly. Maybe in thirty or forty years, but not just over ten.”

  Chester laughed. “As you get older, my dear, you’ll find you start to remember the strangest things, many of them from when you were young. I often think of our memory banks as really long tapes, and at some point the tape has to circle back around. You’ll see. And you’re as sharp as a katana. You’ll be fine.”

  I looked over at him briefly, but put my eyes back on the road so I could maneuver us throug
h the freeway’s spaghetti bowl.

  “That’s a sword, right?” I said. “A katana?”

  “See, you haven’t lost a thing.”

  I laughed, but this sort of memory block or loss was a new experience for me. I wasn’t necessarily worried, but I made a mental note to pay better attention. Of course, now I just needed to remember the mental note.

  Donte’s receptionist was MIA again, and when Chester sent a “yoo-hoo” down the hallway, we were greeted with only silence.

  “I think I hear a press running,” I said as I bent my ear toward the back.

  “Let’s go see,” Chester said as he led the way down the hall.

  I peered inside Donte’s office as we passed by, finding it empty and seemingly unvisited today. The lights were off and there was a sense that the computer keyboard was still resting from the night before. The desktop was too organized.

  “Hang on,” I said.

  Chester stopped and looked back at me.

  “Maybe we’re not welcome back there,” I said.

  Chester’s eyebrows rose. “We’ll ask for forgiveness.”

  “All right,” I said, though I felt a distinct discomfort niggling in my gut.

  Chester pushed open the door and we were greeted by the mechanical whish-whish of the printing press.

  “Donte?” His voice carried through the space, but the only answer came from the noisy press.

  “There was no one in here last time either, but the press wasn’t running,” I said.

  “I bet there’s someone on its other side. Can’t hear me probably,” Chester said.

  We set off at a brisk pace. Whatever niggling had gotten under my skin seemed to have spread to Chester’s too. I knew this quick walk; it only happened when he was in a rush to find out why he thought something was wrong.

  I had a sense that we looked like the Flintstone characters bringing their foot-powered vehicles to a halt as we came around the press. We stopped and slid and maybe went backward a little too.

  “Donte!” I said before I regained movement in my limbs and took off toward the man on the floor.