by Raven Snow
“It’s a guy thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Is this some sort of beard envy?” Rowen thought back to any interactions her husband and Clarence had had. “Is this because he fixed the AC in your car? He was just trying to be nice, Honey.”
“He was trying to show me up,” Eric grumbled.
Rowen laughed. “He fixed it. Don’t complain. It’s unlike you.”
“I guess.” Eric picked his phone up from the bar and turned it on. “We have another cheating spouse case today,” he said to himself, like he needed reminding. He’d probably pushed it from his mind at least a dozen times by now. Eric hated cheating spouse cases. He gave a big sigh and turned the phone so Rowen could see. “This is what she looks like.”
The woman on the screen was decidedly normal looking, with dyed blond hair and a medium build. Her teeth were a dazzling white. All in all, she was generically attractive. Rowen had seen the picture before, but she really tried to commit it to memory this time. “A motel in Tarricville, right?” Tarricville was Lainswich’s neighbor. It was a little more metropolitan, but that wasn’t saying much.
Eric nodded. “Long day ahead of us.”
Rowen gave him a smile. “Hey, at least we get to spend quality time together, right?”
***
There was such a thing as too much quality time. This was one of their longest stakeouts yet and the day passed at a snail’s pace. They didn’t have a good time frame for the arrival of their target, only a location. There was a motel near the city center. For most of the day they had been waiting in the back of the parking lot. By hour two, Rowen was restless. By hour five, she was nauseous. Eric had gotten a chili dog for lunch and had a second one bagged for dinner later. The smell of onions was overpowering in such close quarters.
Rowen was slouched down in her seat, miserable. She had pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose in way of protest. Eric had refused to crack a window. “We’re playing music and talking. Unless you’d rather sit in complete silence, I’m going to leave the windows closed so we don’t draw any undue attention.”
Rowen couldn’t argue. She preferred the onion smell over abject boredom. Not that that meant she had to be happy about it. She focused on the camera instead, making sure it had enough charge to get them through the next few hours. Ugh. That hurt to even think about. Rowen prayed they wouldn’t be there for another few hours. “Are we sure she’s coming tonight? Maybe we should call the guy who hired you and make sure that she isn’t still at home.”
“I told him to contact us if that happened,” Eric assured her, his eyes still fixed on the motel office like a hawk. “He’s paying by the hour. I promise you, he would have contacted us.”
“And he really didn’t have a time frame for her showing up here?”
“Not a good one.” Eric looked at his wife, an eyebrow raised. “What? You think I’d keep anything from you? You know what I know.”
“Fine.” Rowen slouched even further down in her seat. “I wonder how long my mom is gonna stay,” she began, conversationally.
“From what I’ve seen, there’s no telling.”
“Ain’t that the truth of it? It really leaves me in a bad way, you know? It’s hard to keep getting close to her only to have the rug ripped out from under me again.”
“Then don’t get close to her,” said Eric, like it was just that easy. “You know what she’s like. You can’t honestly expect her to change her ways. Either like her for who she is or hold her at arm’s length. Maybe find somewhere in the middle. I know it’s not the same, but that’s what I had to do with my grandparents.”
“Really?” Rowen was more interested in talk of his family than she was in him drawing similarities between their hardships. She had never heard much about his grandparents other than that they weren’t close.
Eric nodded. “It always bothered my father when they would come to visit. Even as a child I could tell. They would come and visit, give my brothers and I gifts. Their visits kept getting fewer and further in between. Father said that was just how they were.” He shrugged. “I think they’re still alive. I’m not sure where they live, though. My family doesn’t talk about them, even when you ask. I think they might kinda be black sheep or something. Mom and Dad wouldn’t want anything like that dirtying up their conglomerate’s clean slate.”
“That’s a little different from my problem. I almost wish my aunts would chase her off.”
“No, you don’t.” Eric didn’t buy that for a minute. “You still love her. You just hate her a little at the same time, and that’s totally fair.”
“I guess.” Rowen took a soggy fry from the fast food bag near her feet and ate it. “I just wish I had a normal mother.”
“I’m not sure what normal is anymore.”
“Fair enough. I-” Rowen stopped. A car matching the description from their info had pulled up. She recognized it immediately… which was a little distressing. Rowen sat up straight in her seat and grabbed the binoculars from the console. “That can’t be our girl,” she said, watching as their subject stepped into the main office.
“She doesn’t look like the picture, that’s for sure.” Eric’s tone was careful, like he wasn’t quite sure what he should say, like he didn’t want to make any premature kind of judgment.
Rowen kept on watching. She could no longer see the woman now that she had gone into the main office. Maybe it was just her eyes playing tricks on her. Maybe she was wrong. God, she hoped she was wrong. She didn’t want to blow their whole case just because she thought she had seen something. She waited until the woman was leaving the office, a room key in hand before she stepped out of the car. Eric didn’t even say anything to stop her, though she did hear him get out of the car as well. He had every reason to be just as mad as she was, maybe even more so.
“Margo!” Rowen shouted across the parking lot.
Margo froze, her keycard hovering near the electronic lock mechanism. She stared back, eyes visibly huge even from this distance. By the time Rowen and Eric got to her, her face was blazing red. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Please don’t try and use clichés on me.” Rowen was offended she would even try. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Obviously. Who are you meeting?” Rowen hated being so hostile to her cousin, but she was disappointed. More than that, she was embarrassed. Margo had been dating Eric’s brother, David, for going on a year now. They had even moved in together. David was away on business often, but to think Margo met with other guys while he was away? It was beyond upsetting. It made it doubly worse that Eric was here to witness the betrayal.
“Let’s talk about this tomorrow at the Inquirer,” Margo suggested after a length of awkward silence.
“Why don’t we talk about this now? We can use the room you just rented.” Eric’s expression was dark. He wasn’t a violent man or even someone who got upset all that easily. A slight against his family clearly wasn’t something he was willing to take lightly.
“I don’t…” Margo began, but she stopped talking with a sigh. “Fine.” She relented and unlocked the door, letting them in.
The motel was pretty average as far as motels went. There was a bathroom on the left as you entered and a bed near some windows. The wallpaper was a tacky red and orange striped print. Margo immediately went to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. It was like her legs refused to carry her much further, or maybe she’d just lost all drive. Her being here was pretty damning, regardless of what the truth turned out to be.
It was only now that Rowen got a good look at her cousin. She was wearing a black dress that fit her much like the one she had worn when they were working on the garden. Did that mean she had gone out to this motel right after that? It seemed likely in retrospect. “Did you ever even meet with Julia Martinez?”
“I did,” Margo said quickly, but in a tone of voice that suggested it hadn’t taken all that long.
“Did you and my brother break up?” asked Eric, at least partly willing to give Margo the benefit of the doubt in a way Rowen hadn’t.
Margo chewed on the inside of her mouth for a moment. She averted her eyes to the window. “We haven’t been spending a whole lot of time together lately.”
“But you didn’t officially break up.” Rowen wasn’t going to let her paint this like it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. There was a decent chance it was worse. “Did you even talk about it?”
“I hadn’t heard anything from David about this.” Eric shook his head. He hesitated. “Unless he’s the one who hired me for this job.” He raised his phone to eye level and opened the picture of the woman they were looking for. “This is probably a stock picture.”
Rowen took a closer look at the generically attractive woman with the shiny teeth. She had to agree. It did look a bit like a badly cropped stock photo. “Why would he hire you for something like this?”
“How many private investigators are there in town? This probably wasn’t something he wanted to investigate himself,” Eric reasoned. “He used a fake name to save face. It was win-win… If you can even call this a win-win scenario. Either you and I caught Margo cheating on him or she wasn’t cheating at all.”
“Who are you cheating with?” Rowen asked. “Do we know him?”
“He doesn’t even live in Lainswich.” Margo began to stand. “Can we just leave before he gets here? I don’t want this to get more humiliating than it already is.”
As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. Evidently, her suitor didn’t have his own key. Margo sank back down onto the bed with a miserable look on her face and a groan. She didn’t say anything. She just sat there and waited for whatever was going to happen next.
Eric went to the door. He looked through the peephole for a few seconds. He opened the door after that, revealing a slim fellow about a head shorter than he was. The man had a smile on his face at first, but it quickly fell.
“Sorry,” said the man. “Wrong room.”
“Not if you’re looking for Margo it isn’t,” Eric told him, dryly. “You might want to cancel your plans for tonight, buddy.”
The man took a step away from the door, though he still hesitated, looking terribly uncertain about what was happening. Rowen moved closer to the door before he could make a full retreat. She knew this guy. Something about him was familiar. He was dressed nice. His black and red vest looked expensive. The shirt beneath it was silken, and his pants were bespoke. There was something about that blond hair and long, narrow nose that tugged at the corners of her memory. “Jasper Stonewall,” she announced suddenly. Margo winced, but Rowen didn’t back down. “That’s who you are. You’re a Stonewall.” She recognized him from high school. Geez, this really was a scandal. The Stonewalls and the Greensmiths didn’t get along in the slightest. They were both witchy families. At one point, they had both lived in Lainswich. Eventually, the Stonewalls had set up shop in Tarricville. The rivalry between the two families was such that they didn’t really speak to each other unless they could help it these days. When they did, they were either openly hostile or catty to one another. That was about the extent of their interaction.
Eric sighed. He knew the name. “I guess you better come in.” He stepped to one side.
Jasper looked from Eric to Rowen and then to Margo on the bed. He hesitated but came inside. The door was closed behind him. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, standing up a little straighter.
“That’s debatable,” Rowen grumbled. “I’m betting you knew that Margo was already in a relationship with someone.”
Jasper shrugged. “She’s a grown woman. I assume she can make her own decisions.”
“She can. It’s just now we have to report those decisions back to the guy she’s cheating on.” Rowen wasn’t looking forward to that. She hoped Eric would be willing to take care of it for her. She wasn’t as close to David as he was.
“Don’t do that,” Margo blurted. “Let me talk to him first. I owe him that.”
“I’m going to call him first thing tomorrow,” said Eric, still looking very on edge about this. “Whatever you want to do before then, you’re welcome to do.”
Margo didn’t argue with him. “Look, I made a mistake. I’m human… and a lousy girlfriend, apparently.”
“Apparently,” Rowen echoed.
“I’ll apologize for cheating but not who I did it with.” Margo glanced at Jasper. “It shouldn’t matter that he’s a Stonewall. We have a lot in common. We like each other, like being around each other.”
“If you say so,” Rowen was so mad at Margo just then that she couldn’t come up with anything constructive to say.
“Don’t act like you’re so different,” Margo snapped, her brow creasing in anger. “You were engaged to a Stonewall!”
“It’s not the same!” That was a cliché thing to say, but it had been different. Margo knew that. Her relationship with Flint had been a ruse. It had been part of an overenthusiastic teenage need to get out of Lainswich. It had all fallen through about as soon as it had started.
“You’re still friends with him,” Margo pointed out, which was fair. “You can’t act like all of the Stonewalls are villains.”
Margo had her there. The last time Rowen had seen Flint, he was causing them considerable trouble by stealing some of their records for a client he was defending. Rowen hadn’t talked to him since, but she still didn’t hold a grudge against the guy. “Does your family know?” Rowen asked Jasper instead of trying to lecture Margo.
Jasper’s eyes went wide, like he was a child about to be told on. “No, they don’t. And I would prefer it stay that way, if you don’t mind.”
“So, you’re just never going to tell them about your relationship with Margo?” That didn’t make Rowen think very highly of him.
“We’re just friends with benefits.” Jasper’s eyes flicked to Margo’s at that. She nodded in agreement. “It’s not anything serious. We’re just having fun.”
“At my brother’s expense,” Eric grumbled.
“Will you two get out?” Margo stood from the bed. “I know I made a mistake, but I’m tired of the two of you talking down to me. Just go, will you?”
Rowen really didn’t have anything else to say. What could she say? She went to the door in silence. Margo knew how she felt by now. It felt too awkward to keep on vocally disapproving. Eric followed, throwing one more glare at Jasper as he went. Jasper moved to one side of the door. He still looked very lost but also seemed unwilling to pick a fight. He stepped away until his back was to the wall.
“Well, that wasn’t how I pictured us spending tonight,” Rowen said once they were back out in the parking lot.
“Are you going to tell your family?” asked Eric, staring straight at the car with a blank expression. Rowen could tell that he was going to be upset about this for quite a while.
“What would I say?” Rowen couldn’t even imagine how that conversation would go. “No, I’ll let her deal with that side of things if she wants to. Eventually, I’m sure they’ll ask why David isn’t coming around anymore. I’m guessing you’re going to be telling him everything.”
“Of course I am. He’s the one who-” Eric stopped talking as Rowen’s phone rang. He waited for her to answer it.
Rowen pulled out her phone. It was Aunt Lydia calling. Given what she had just encountered, Rowen was tempted to let it go to voicemail.
Something in her gut told her Aunt Lydia would be especially cross if she didn’t answer right now, so she did. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Rowen?” There was something strange about Aunt Lydia’s voice. It quivered a bit, like she was on the verge of tears.
“What is it?” Rowen asked instinctively. She stopped walking, suddenly certain that she was about to receive some bad news. Eric stopped a few steps ahead of her and looked back, concerned.
Lydia
continued. “Rowen, Grammy passed away.”
A cold, miserable feeling gripped Rowen’s heart. “What?” she managed. “W-when? How?”
“It just happened a few hours ago.” It was clear that Aunt Lydia was crying as she spoke. It was difficult to listen to. “They say it was heart failure, but they don’t know for sure yet.”
“Are you at the house? I’ll be right over.”
“Thank you, Dear.”
“Don’t worry about calling Margo.” Rowen could only assume that she hadn’t yet. “I’ll tell her myself.” Even if they weren’t on the best of terms right now, telling her something like this seemed like it would be better done in person.
“All right. I’ll see you in a little while. I love you.”