Huh. That was interesting. Gunner spending time one-on-one with all the kids at Clayton Farm. He wanted to indoctrinate them young, I supposed. “Thanks for your time, Jagger.”
“Sure thing.” He pushed off his plow and went back to his planting.
* * *
“I can’t believe you’ve got a murder cult,” said Crane Drakely, blowing maple-scented vapor at me across the table at The Remington, my home away from home—a local bar in Keene.
“It’s not necessarily a murder cult,” I said, sipping on my Miller High Life.
Crane was sucking on an electronic cigarette, which looked much more electronic than it did like a cigarette. When he first started experimenting with those things, his e-cigarette looked almost exactly like a cigarette. But as time went on, he kept trading up for models that were larger and chrome colored and covered in blinking green lights. He also seemed to have a different flavor every week. But they all smelled like some kind of dessert. I had thought that the point of those things was to help someone quit smoking, but not Crane. No, Crane had just kind of… switched brands. I didn’t tease him about it anymore though, because, when I did, he’d go on a long tangent about how much healthier the e-cigarettes were. Practically harmless, apparently. It was the tar and the smoke that caused cancer. Nicotine was just a fluffy bunny, no worse for you than caffeine. I wasn’t sold on his pitch. I knew that nicotine was a poison. Ingesting too much of it could kill you. But maybe ingesting too much caffeine would kill you too. What did I know?
“It seems like a murder cult,” Crane said. “Tell me again about the crazies that are locked up claiming to do it. Did they really say they did it to free her soul?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“See, that’s murder cult shit.” He nodded sagely.
I tended to run my cases by Crane, giving him all the gory details. He was my sounding board, and he used the entertaining bits from my work as a jumping off point for the plots of his books. Crane was an aspiring writer. He was aspiring because he had yet to finish anything that he’d ever started.
“I’m not sure if the cult had anything to do with this girl’s murder,” I said. “They hired me to prove they weren’t involved, you know.”
“And you believe that?” Crane shook his head at me. “They’re throwing money at you, but that’s because they’re guilty and they don’t like the bad PR.”
“Well, I’m open to anything. I told them that if the evidence led to Gunner, I wasn’t going to hide from it.”
“Gunner? You’re already on a first-name basis with him?”
“I’ve interviewed him twice.”
“Is he creepy?”
“No.” I laughed. “He’s, you know…” I considered. “Okay, maybe he’s a little bit creepy, but only because he doesn’t seem creepy at all. He seems really normal and nice.”
“That’s what they’re like,” said Crane. “But crazy cult leaders like that are all sociopaths.”
“Well, I’m watching myself,” I said.
“Hey there,” said another voice.
Crane and I both turned to see Brigit standing next to the table. She was holding a drink. “Hi, mind if I sit?”
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“I’m out having a drink in Keene,” she said. “And what a surprise, I run into you.”
Crane laughed. “You know she’s here every night.”
“Really?” said Brigit, feigning innocence.
I groaned. “Brigit, seriously, what’s going on?”
“We spend time outside of the office together sometimes,” she said. “I’m just being friendly. Or are you trying to say that you don’t want me around?”
“I’m not saying that,” I said. “By all means, sit down.”
She did. She took a sip of her drink.
I turned back to Crane, ready to jump back into my conversation about Gunner.
But Brigit spoke up before I had a chance. “So, you never came back to the office after you went out to Clayton Farm this afternoon.”
“Yeah, I decided to knock off early for happy hour,” I said. “Didn’t you get my text? Didn’t you lock up the office like I asked?”
“Oh, I did,” she said. “I just wondered why you didn’t come back to the office.”
“I told you. Happy hour.” I lifted my beer to show her.
“You weren’t maybe avoiding me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I just feel like you’re keeping something from me,” she said. “First there was that stuff with tracing all those names this morning, and then you disappeared all afternoon, and you never even asked me if I wanted to tag along.”
“Tag along?” I looked at her like she was crazy. “How many times have I explained to you that I work alone?”
“Obviously, since I work with you, you don’t work alone. And what gives with that list of people and those bank accounts, anyway? I googled them, and they were all employed by the Renmawr Police Department.”
I groaned. Trust Brigit to go digging when she didn’t need to.
Crane leaned forward. “Hey, are you doing something with the police?”
“Just forget about it,” I said. “Seriously, Brigit, it’s not important.”
Brigit turned to Crane. “She’s not getting paid for it either. Whenever she looks into something gratis—”
“Let’s not talk about this anymore,” I said. “Who wants another drink? Huh? On me.” I got up from the table.
“Why won’t you just level with me?” said Brigit.
“You want a cider?” I said. “Or maybe a mixed drink? Rum runner?”
“Ivy,” said Brigit. “I don’t want to be kept in the dark.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Speak up, or you’re getting a cider.”
She rolled her eyes.
“What about you, Crane? What do you want?”
“Rum and coke is fine,” he said, sucking on his straw.
I went up to the bar, ordered our drinks, put them on my tab, and then returned. I hoped that when I got back to the table, the conversation would have moved on, but Brigit and Crane didn’t look as if they’d said much to each other while I was gone.
I sat back down.
“So, why couldn’t I come to Clayton with you?” asked Brigit. “You could use me there. There are a lot of people who need interviewed, and we could divide and conquer.”
“I need to talk to all of them personally, Brigit. You’re not a detective.” I sighed. I turned to Crane. “What’s going on with your job?”
Crane took a puff on his e-cigarette. “Business as usual. I just finished grading a bunch of bullshit papers. Half of them wrote my lecture back to me, for which I had to give them high marks, and the other half wrote shit that didn’t even make sense.” He was an English professor at Keene College.
“Sounds frustrating,” I said.
He shrugged. “I don’t give a flying fuck. It’s not as if writing a paper about literature is exactly a marketable skill. I get to babble at them about my favorite poets, and people pay me to talk. Overall, cushy job.”
Brigit raised her eyebrows. “Don’t you think you should be, you know, teaching your students something?”
“I am,” he said. “I’m teaching them that agreeing with the professor’s lecture is always a good idea. That’s a skill they can apply in the workforce when they suck up to their boss.”
I glared at Brigit. “A lesson you clearly didn’t learn.”
She sighed heavily. “You know, if I’m honest with myself, I think college was really a waste of money. I’m not sure I learned anything there that I couldn’t have learned while on the job. And my degree is hardly helping me now.”
“What’s your degree in?” said Crane.
“Art,” she said. “Painting and drawing, to be specific.”
“Oh, wow,” he said. “Cool.” He took a drag on his e-cigarette. “You could always teach, you know.”
She ro
lled her eyes and sighed. Then she turned back to me. “Listen, Ivy, about going with you to Clayton.”
My shoulders slumped. “Are we really still talking about this?”
“I just think that I could help out, even if I was only there to observe. Next time you go, let me come.”
“You just want to meet Gunner Bray.”
“No, I want to help you out,” she said.
“What about the phones?” I said. “I hire you to watch the phones.”
“I’ll have the phones forwarded to my cell.”
“What if we have a walk-in?”
She glared at me. “We almost never have walk-ins.”
“Colin Pugliano was a walk-in.”
“Well, that went well, didn’t it? I bet you wish that you’d missed that case.”
It was true that Colin Pugliano had turned out to have ties to the O’Shaunessys, and it was partly his fault that I’d gotten beaten up. Not to mention, Colin had been a little bit scary all on his own.
I didn’t want to talk about this anymore, though. I liked working alone, at least for the investigative parts of the job. Well, I guessed I liked working alone. The truth was that I supposed that it had been all right to have a partner when I was working for the police. I didn’t think of Brigit as partner material, though.
Brigit was insistent, however. “We could just try it, right? You bring me with you one day, you know, as a trial run?”
I racked my brain, trying to think of how I was going to get her to stop asking me about this. I needed a distraction of some kind, and I began looking around the bar. But there wasn’t much to see except drunk locals—well, okay, not all of them were drunk yet. It was early evening, so they were mostly buzzed, I guess. Thing was, I didn’t see anyone interesting. I did know most of them. It was a small town, so I knew everyone.
“Ivy?” prompted Brigit. “What do you say?”
I looked at the door, willing someone interesting to come in. The door stayed firmly closed. I sighed. “Brigit, let’s stop talking about this, okay?”
She folded her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you won’t even talk about it.”
“Well, believe it.” I was still staring at the door, annoyed with it for not coming through for me.
The door opened.
In walked Miles Pike.
I stood up, nearly knocking over my chair. Maybe I was developing magical powers or something.
Miles Pike didn’t ever hang out in Keene. He only ever hung out in Renmawr, where he lived. I didn’t know why he was here. He could only be here because of me, because he knew this was my favorite bar. And I didn’t know why he’d want to see me. Ever since last fall, we’d done our best to avoid each other. There had been a very awkward incident involving a shower and both of us taking off our clothes. We hadn’t had sex, but we’d come close. We’d only come closer once, back when we were actually officially dating.
Anyway, after that, we’d had a kind of argument. Miles had accused me of being selfish and of liking having sex with random people more than I liked him. He’d said that I had an addiction, which I so did not. And I’d deflected the whole thing, and we hadn’t spoken about it since.
I couldn’t understand why he might be here. Why was he here?
Since I was standing up, he noticed me right away, and he started through the bar towards me.
I moved out from the table to intercept him.
“Hey, is that your ex?” came Crane’s voice from behind me.
I ignored Crane. He didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t understand my relationship with Pike.
Pike and I met in the middle of the floor, right in the front of the bar.
“Pike,” I said, by way of greeting.
“Stern,” he said.
This was our typical way of saying hello.
I raised my eyebrows.
He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Do you want a drink?” I said.
“Um, maybe,” he said.
“What do you want?” I said. “I’ll order it for you. I just bought a round, so I can get you a drink as well.”
“A round?”
I gestured at the table that I’d come from, where Crane and Brigit were sitting.
Brigit’s eyes were wide. She looked back and forth between Pike and I meaningfully, no doubt wondering who the heck he was.
Inwardly, I groaned. Every piece of my life was suddenly colliding—my past with my present, my work with my social life. I didn’t know how to juggle all these things. Still, I’d wanted a distraction, and I’d gotten one. It wouldn’t be proper for me to complain.
“Beer?” I said to Pike.
“Not what you’re drinking,” he said, eyeing my High Life.
“Right,” I said. Pike wasn’t exactly a beer snob, but he liked beer with a little more flavor to it. I ordered him a Yuengling, told the bartender to put it on my tab, and turned back around to hand it to him.
Brigit was standing next to him. “So, who’s this, Ivy?” she said brightly.
“Brigit, this is Lieutenant Miles Pike,” I said. “He’s my old partner from the Renmawr Police Department. Pike, this is Brigit. She works for me. She’s my administrative assistant.”
“I do other stuff, too,” said Brigit, offering him her hand. “I really want to be a detective like Ivy. I’m getting her to show me the ropes, even if she doesn’t want to.”
I expected Pike to raise his eyebrows or laugh at that or something. But he seemed oblivious. He shook Brigit’s hand, but he was looking over her shoulder at Crane.
Crane was paying a lot of attention to his drink.
“So, you were buying him a drink?” said Pike to me. “The English professor. The one who picked you up from the hospital last fall.”
“I was,” I said. “Crane and I are friends.”
Pike narrowed his eyes. “I know what kind of friends the two of you are.”
Well, Crane and I were the kinds of friends with benefits. Neither of us was particularly good at long term relationships, but we did like to get laid, and that meant that we occasionally turned to each other if there wasn’t anyone particular we wanted to take home for the night. It was an amicable arrangement, and it wasn’t the least bit romantic. Crane and I cared about each other, but not in that kind of a way, and we never would.
Still, I hadn’t expected that kind of reaction from Pike. Honestly, Pike wasn’t much for reactions at all. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call… emotional. I liked to joke with him that he had a touch of undiagnosed Asperger’s. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a social butterfly, and he could be very focused—almost obsessive. Of course, I was kind of obsessive myself, so maybe I shouldn’t throw stones if I lived in a glass house.
Not that there was anything wrong with having Asperger’s, anyway. I generally tended to like people with Asperger’s. They seemed concerned with getting things right in a way that I appreciated. Hell, maybe I had Asperger’s. But if that was the case, then why couldn’t I get things right? I knew that living my life the way I did was probably wrong, but I just… couldn’t stop myself sometimes.
Brigit furrowed her brow. “What kind of friends are you?”
Shit. This was perfect. I really didn’t want Brigit to know all about my proclivities. She knew enough as it was, and everything she found out about my personal life made me look worse. I didn’t like it.
I took a nervous drink of my beer. “We’re just friends. Really.”
Pike snorted.
“Um,” I said, “you want to go find a table together, just you and me?”
Brigit’s jaw dropped. “You two are going to be… alone?” She made suggestive faces at me, grinning.
“Ignore my assistant,” I said. “She’s drunk.”
“I am not,” said Brigit.
“I wouldn’t want to break up your evening,” said Pike, lip curling. “By all means, let’s all sit together.” He marched over and sat down dir
ectly opposite Crane.
Crane sat up straight, startled. “Um, Lieutenant Pike. It’s been a while. How are you?”
Pike sized Crane up like an insect. “As well as can be expected. And yourself?”
Brigit leaned close. “What the hell’s going on, Ivy?”
I really didn’t know, but I didn’t think I liked it. Pike was being downright weird. He was being sort of confrontational with Crane. In a macho, aggressive way. And Pike wasn’t that kind of guy. For that matter, neither was Crane. I didn’t really like that kind of guy. Okay, it was fun to go home with that kind of guy on occasion. That kind of guy was fun to fuck. But that kind of guy wasn’t fun to be friends with or to associate with or anything like that. I didn’t want Pike to be that kind of guy.
I hurried over to the table and sat down. “Um, look, we were all just talking about my latest case, and maybe you can help me out with some details, Pike.”
Pike looked pointedly at Crane. “You and Ivy been spending a lot of time together?”
Crane shot me a confused look. “Uh… Ivy, is there something I need to know about you two? Did you get back together or something?”
“Back together?” Brigit sat down. “Ivy, you never tell me anything.”
“Wouldn’t matter if we were together,” said Pike. “Everyone knows that Ivy can’t stay faithful to save her life.”
“Hey,” I said. “Not in front of Brigit.”
“I’m not a child,” said Brigit. “I don’t know why you’re always keeping things from me.”
“Pike, why are you here?” I said.
“I came to see you,” he said, but he was still staring at Crane. “I should have known I’d find you with him.”
“Jesus, Pike, Crane and I are friends. Old friends. Good friends. You’re making this into something that it completely isn’t. We were all just having a drink.”
“He’s the one you called,” said Pike. “When I said that I wouldn’t drive you home from the hospital, you called him. You didn’t call a girlfriend. You didn’t call a family member—”
“You know I don’t have family members,” I said. My parents had been murdered when I was a teenager. I still had an elderly aunt and some cousins, but they didn’t live nearby, and we weren’t real close. I was angry at Pike for even bringing that up.
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