The Questionable Behavior of Dahlia Moss

by Max Wirestone

  “Morgan Freeman is not dead,” I said, which was true as far as I knew. “This has nothing to do with Morgan Freeman.”

  I handed Vanetta a printout of the second whistle-blower’s letter, which she read. I could tell she was reading it because her face fell off her head and landed on the floor.

  “Dear God,” said Vanetta’s face from the floor. “If only we could have had Ignacio in here last week.”

  “He called earlier,” I said. “He’s very excited about coming in.”

  “I’ll bet he is.”

  Vanetta scooped up her face, which was clearly very agitated, and smooshed it back on her skull. All things considered, it could have been worse.

  “Who did this?” she asked.

  This question, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, made me happy. Because my two masters were in a weird and probably elusive alignment. Vanetta and Emily wanted exactly the same thing, at least in this limited moment, and I was savvy enough to recognize that this was the industrial espionage equivalent of a solar eclipse. Planets had aligned, and it was magical, and it would probably not last very long.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Someone who works here, obviously. I mean, assuming no one else was murdered at another DE subsidiary.”

  “I don’t know why they don’t just come out and say Cahaba,” said Vanetta, shaking her head at the letter. “The last one was at least circumspect; this one just comes and tells you exactly where it’s from.”

  “Maybe they wrote it in a hurry,” I said.

  Vanetta was quiet for a moment and appeared to consider this.

  “When, exactly, was this sent?” Vanetta asked.

  I could see her thinking, which was perhaps easy because I was thinking too. Plus, she didn’t have one of those faces that was well suited to hiding her thoughts either. We could be on reality TV together.

  “It was posted at 10:43,” I said, and I was surely making the mental calculations she was. What were we all doing at 10:43?

  “When did the staff meeting finish?” she asked.

  “Well before that—maybe around 10:30?”

  “Does the rest of the staff know about this yet?”

  Again, a well-placed question. Vanetta was not playing around.

  “Certainly no one has mentioned it to me,” I told her. “And I haven’t told anyone but you.”

  “Go around, and find out what everyone has been working on this morning. I want you to literally see the work that they’ve created.”

  “Should we have a staff meeting, and everyone can do a show-and-tell of their work?”

  Vanetta looked impressed by this idea, and I could see her mulling it over.

  “No,” she said. “Why don’t you just go around and make discreet inquiries? You seem good at reading people. No one should be concerned unless they’ve done something wrong.”

  While I’d like to pretend that I didn’t preen at Vanetta’s compliment of my people-reading skills, especially since it meant, in one sense, that she was on to me, I positively did a shoulder shimmy at the approbation.

  “On it, boss,” I said. “I’ll see what I can learn. Although,” I added, just thinking of it, “this almost certainly means that Archie wasn’t involved.”

  “Hooray,” said Vanetta with no enthusiasm.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Of course, as soon as I left her office, deductions started kicking in. First of all:

  Vanetta was awfully confident that I didn’t do it. So much so, in fact, that it was vaguely suspicious. I couldn’t have written the first letter, logically, but there was no reason, from her perspective, that I couldn’t have written this one.

  Just because the post was made at 10:43 didn’t necessarily mean that it was written in the preceding hour. It could have been drafted even earlier and posted later.

  In fact, the whole posting could have been automated. Someone could have written it last night and just scheduled the post to go live at a predetermined time. This is exactly what I would have done. I would have set it up to post and then made sure I was conspicuously not using a computer at the allotted time.

  A bit like Archie was, come to think of it.

  Although: 10:43? Who schedules a post at 10:43?

  That’s the problem with real-life logic. If Sherlock were working on this, all of his ruminations would have led in one direction, in a beautiful and unerring line. When I worked out thoughts—even logical thoughts—they spread out in all directions, like a fractal. It was still beautiful, in its own way, but not practical and certainly not unerring. The only thing I had really worked out was that it probably wasn’t Archie, unless it was.

  This actually gave me an odd sense of optimism, because I figured that it meant checking with staff was the most important way to tackle this problem. It meant that reactions were more important than ever.

  There was probably a best order to do this in, which involved talking to Quintrell last. Yesterday he had blabbed the news about Cynthia to the whole office, and I was not about to make that mistake again. Even though he had gotten some sleep, Quintrell could get excited, and he was in a central location to boot.

  I started with Tyler, who had his own office, or at least a cubicle in a room with a door.

  Tyler was sitting at a computer and appeared to be doing nothing, or at least nothing involving work. He had an open web browser and was looking at an Amazon page of Ziggy Stardust T-shirts. I think it’s Ziggy Stardust—you know, David Bowie with the red lightning bolt over his right eye—whichever character that was.

  “Working hard or hardly working?” I asked.

  “Honestly, you’d think the Internet would be more helpful,” said Tyler, gesturing to the grid of Bowies before him on the monitor.

  “These are not the Bowies you’re looking for?” I asked.

  “I was, well, going through Masako’s old Facebook profile—and do you know what her favorite movie is?”

  Without intending to, I made a face expressing displeasure at this sort of reconnaissance, although it’s exactly the sort of thing I would do. “The Life of Ziggy Stardust?” I guessed.

  “Stardust Memories,” sighed Tyler.

  This bit of information perched at Morgan Freeman levels of relevance.

  “I see,” I said, although I didn’t completely. “That’s great, but I’m trying to find out: What actual work have you done this morning?”

  “They don’t make Stardust Memories T-shirts, apparently,” said Tyler. “Apparently that’s too weird.”

  “What kind of work have you done this morning? Vanetta wants to know.”

  “Vanetta doesn’t really have purview over me,” said Tyler, unthreatened. “Just so you know. But maybe this is just as well. About the T-shirt I mean. Maybe wearing a Stardust Memories T-shirt is trying too hard.”

  Was I like this when I first met Nathan? Or Erik? (Or, hell, Shuler?) I tended to think not, and maybe that meant I had never truly been in love with someone. Or, alternatively, it meant that I wasn’t an idiot. I was inclined toward the latter, and Tyler’s goo-goo-eyed intractability made me take more direct measures than I had been planning.

  “Did you know that there was a new whistle-blower’s letter posted?”

  “That’s my problem,” said Tyler, which I thought was an interesting response until I realized that he was quite plainly not listening to me. “I always try too hard. But I actually do like Stardust Memories. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite movie, but I like it. And it’s a mysterious and inviting choice for someone to say it’s their favorite movie. It’s not like, I don’t know, Flash Gordon.”

  There’s a Tumblr post I saw where a YA character says to a mysterious cool girl: “You’re not like the other girls,” and is responded to with a heartening: “What the fuck is wrong with the other girls?” I was inclined to say this now, except with Flash Gordon. What the fuck is wrong with Flash Gordon? But all of this is a gigantic digression.

  “Tyler,” I said. “Snap
out of this,” I said. “And you are definitely trying too hard. Masako will not want you to wear a novelty T-shirt to impress her.”

  “What about a tie?” asked Tyler. “Redbubble does ties now.”

  I had no choice but to step out of detective mode, just to bring Tyler back into reality.

  “Dude: Nothing says I am desperately trying too hard like a Stardust Memories tie.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Tyler said, then added, “Why are you in here again?”

  “There’s a new whistle-blower’s letter.”

  “Oh, fuck me.”

  “Did you write it?”

  “Psssh,” said Tyler. “As far as I’m concerned, this place can burn.”

  “If it burns completely,” I said, “you won’t be working here in St. Louis, and you won’t see Masako again.”

  “I can make long distance work,” said Tyler. “I’m getting ready for a change from DE anyway. I actually spent the morning doing a little job hunting. Did you know that the St. Louis arts center is looking for a composition instructor?”

  No, I had clearly never fallen for anyone as quickly or as hard as Tyler had for Masako. I couldn’t tell you in the moment whether Tyler was just powerfully lovestruck or out of his damned mind, and the answer would have a lot to do with what Masako thought of the situation. I suppose it was possible that Masako was off somewhere Internet-stalking him, and job hunting in Austin, but this seemed supremely unlikely. Then again, she had been known to make rash romantic decisions too.

  At least I had worked out what Tyler had been up to this morning. Job hunting, T-shirt shopping, and stupidity. I decided to put Tyler in the “obviously innocent” category.

  Interviewing the rest of the office went more easily than my conversation with dream-bound Tyler. Lawrence went easiest of all, given that I had no idea where he was. Quintrell and Gary were the trickiest because I had hoped to talk to them separately, but they suddenly were tied together at the waist.

  The two of them were at a third cubicle that was neither Quintrell’s nor Gary’s. I had initially pegged this as the old cubical of an ex-employee who had been fired, although it was littered with inexplicable objets d’art, such as a miniature snow globe with the Tower of Pisa in it, and a tiny papier-mâché tiger.

  More to the point, there was an enormous monitor, which was filled with error messages, and Gary and Quintrell looked as though they planned to solve this problem by pushing their heads through the monitor and looking around inside. I suddenly felt like a mother compelled to yell at children to not sit so close to the television.

  “Why is this crashing?” said Quintrell.

  “This is the wrong question to ask,” said Gary. “You should just begin with the presupposition that life equals suffering. Of course it is crashing. Life is torment. Torment is life. The more salient question is: Why did this once ever not crash?”

  “Gary, Quintrell,” I said, interrupting Gary’s Zen and the Art of Coding Maintenance lecture, “how are you?”

  “We are fucked,” said Quintrell. “If you can pardon my French.”

  “Zut alors,” I said. “You holding up, Gary? Worldview shattered yet?”

  “My worldview consists of nothing but a universe destroying–blackness,” said Gary.

  I had grown, inexplicably, to like these buffoons, and I asked if I could get them anything, like a coffee. I generally don’t go around offering to bring drinks to people, but I thought I would this time, on account of them being doomed.

  “I’ll have a Fresca,” said Gary.

  “We don’t have a Fresca,” I told him. I really didn’t know this precisely, but I didn’t feel like hammering around in the refrigerator.

  “I probably shouldn’t have any more coffee,” said Quintrell. “I feel like I can hear my heart. In my face.”

  “How much have you had?” I asked.

  “Simultaneously too much and not enough,” said Quintrell.

  “What have you guys been doing this morning?”

  “Making gears spin, to no greater purpose,” said Gary, who really was growing into a philosopher, aside from the Fresca thing. Fresca is the beverage choice of no philosopher. Not even Ayn Rand would drink a Fresca.

  “Specifically, what have you been working on?” I asked, then feeling that I owed them an explanation, added, “Vanetta wants to know.”

  “We’ve been doing what she asked,” said Quintrell. “We’ve been trying to get a version of this game going for the journalist. But it keeps crashing.”

  “It crashes on start-up now,” said Gary. “So far all we’ve done is make it worse.”

  “Maybe just a little more coffee would help me,” said Quintrell.

  “Do you think you guys are maybe making it worse because you’re still overtired? It’s going to take at least a week of sleep before you get right again.”

  “I feel great!” said Quintrell a little maniacally. “I’ve never felt better than this!”

  “You woke up in jail,” I observed.

  “Better. Worse,” said Gary. “These are just arbitrary states. This code will someday die, just like all of us.”

  As ridiculous as this line was, it somehow seemed meaningful at the time, and then all of us got suddenly quiet and somber.

  “We’ll never make this work,” said Quintrell. “I’m starting to think now that it never did work. That was just a mirage.”

  “The past is the past,” said Gary. “You can’t go home again.”

  Dumping the whistle-blower’s letter on these two was just going to make them even sadder, and I didn’t really want to do that.

  So I didn’t. They could find out later.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I still couldn’t find Lawrence anywhere, which was probably the least surprising thing that has happened in this, or perhaps any, book. Lawrence, I was quickly realizing, made it his business to not be found. Because being found meant that possibly, just possibly, someone might make you do something that vaguely resembled work.

  Even with that, I wasn’t exactly sure how or when he had left. Presumably he must have ducked out while I was in Tyler’s office, or Vanetta’s. I sat down at my workstation and decided to call his cell number, which had been helpfully printed and tacked to the corkboard next to my computer. I did this almost idly, because I did not expect him to pick up. This would defeat the entire purpose of ducking out.

  But lo and behold, he did. I was a little speechless, actually.

  “Cynthia?” he said. “Are we calling you Cynthia now? I can’t remember. Maybe that’s disrespectful to the dead.”

  “Cynthia is not dead,” I said. “Remember? That was Joyce, and it is disrespectful to the living, to me, for you to not call me by my actual name.”

  “What was your name again? Maude? Shirley? Agnes?”

  “Dahlia,” I said, grumbling despite my best intentions not to. “I don’t know why you’re persisting in saddling me with an old woman name.”

  “I guess it just suits you,” said Lawrence. “Anyway, what kind of crisis is going on there now? Let me guess: I can’t come back to the office because Vanetta has been run through with an awl?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Quintrell has been consumed by a fire?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Jason has been devoured by mice?”

  “There is no Jason, and I’m not aware of any mice.”

  “Twenty-four hours without a murder,” said Lawrence. “You should type that up and put that on a sign. Maybe it would raise morale.”

  Having lived with Charice and dated Nathan, I was used to people who enjoyed the sound of their own voice. I knew how to speak their language, which generally means letting them make whatever jokes they want, and then cut in with relevant questions and information. It does no good to try and prevent whatever ridiculous jokes they have in mind, because it only makes them cranky. And, like trying to stop a leaky faucet with your finger, only makes the tomfoolery come out e
lsewhere.

  So I let Lawrence have his moment, as I suspect everyone did.

  “I’ll take it under advisement,” I said, not bothering to express the opinion that an “X Days Since Last Murder” sign was probably not likely to raise morale, nor would it make a good talking point when Ignacio Granger came through. I was expecting to have to reorient Lawrence to the topic at hand, as I might with Charice, when he surprised me by taking up the subject himself.

  “So, what’s the crisis? I assume there’s a crisis. I assume that you wouldn’t just call me to see how I’m doing.”

  “It’s not how you’re doing,” I asked. “It’s what you’re doing. Vanetta wants to know what you’ve been working on this morning, and where you went.”

  “I hope this doesn’t sound callous,” said Lawrence, in a voice that sounded completely callous, “but I’m being wherever the fuck I want to be and doing whatever the fuck I want to do. As per usual.”

  “Can you be less broad?” I asked.

  “I don’t answer to Vanetta,” said Lawrence, who was suddenly surprisingly peevish about this. I had expected him to be a little breezier. “Or to you.”

  What was the likelihood that this clown was the father of Vanetta’s proto-baby?

  “You ought to treat Vanetta with more respect,” I said, which wasn’t at all what I had planned or intended to say. Maybe having been surrounded by all the talismanic belongings of Cynthia had summoned up the old woman inside me. “She works so hard trying to keep this place together. She’s not asking for you to give up your personal secrets—as if she doesn’t already know them—she just wants to know where you are and what you’ve been up to.”

  Lawrence, to my even greater shock, sounded sad. Reproached, even.

  “I know she does. Believe me, I know how much Vanetta wants this. Anyway, I’m at the Beechwood.”

  “That’s a restaurant?”

  “At the moment, I prefer to think of it as a bar.”

  “You’re day-drinking now? You’re gonna have to pull your shit together before this journalist comes here tomorrow.”