by Nicole Bross
“God, I miss you,” he says into my hair. I twist my head around to see if he means it, but in the dim light, it’s almost impossible to read the expression on his face. “I’m sorry,” he tells me. “Look, I know why you did what you did, and it was the right thing to do. There’s no question we aren’t ready to have a kid together. I should have been here for you these past few days. It was the wrong time to have that conversation with myself. It wasn’t until I saw you just now, looking so alone, that I realized there was never really any choice to make at all. This is where I belong. If…if you still want me here.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I do.” Tension I didn’t know he was holding releases, and I feel his body relax behind me.
“Why don’t we let the future figure itself out, okay?” I nod, but a grain of sadness in my heart remains. From this point forward, I’m always going to be waiting for an ultimatum. How long until it comes, a few years at the most? I feel like I’m right back to where I started when I was still planning on selling the inn and leaving Soberly—and him—behind.
It doesn’t take long for Detective Chao to notice Kellen has joined me, and she approaches the spot where we’re sitting. He rises and introduces himself, and she pulls him away so I can’t overhear what they’re saying. He’s still wearing the bright pink cast; a color which he chose to make me smile at the ridiculousness of it, but now stands out like a neon admission of motive. She questions him for a lot longer than she did me, and for one sick moment I think she’s going to put him into the back of a police car, but in the end, he makes his way back to me.
“She wants to interview me again later at the station on the record, but for now she says I’m free to go, as long as I don’t leave town,” he tells me.
“Does she really think you have anything to do with this?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. I had to tell her all about the fight and the history between us, and you. She wanted to know where I was tonight. Mama will be able to tell them I was at home, but I wasn’t sitting up with her all night or anything. She also asked if I would be willing to hand over my phone for them to examine.”
“Did you?”
“Hell yes, I did. I don’t want to seem even the slightest bit uncooperative. Black men like me have been shot and killed by cops for less. I’m going to be the most compliant, helpful person that woman has ever worked with.”
It’s not until the sky begins to lighten in the east that I abandon my post on the verandah and return to my suite. The medical examiner’s van transported the body away not too long beforehand, and I want to try and get an hour or two of sleep before I’m faced with the inevitable barrage of questions from both the guests and the townspeople. If they’ve been avoiding the pub lately as a sign they don’t support me as owner, their morbid curiosity at the discovery of a body in the parking lot will surely change that. My guess is the place is going to be packed from the moment the doors open, to well after close. Death is good for business, I think, and immediately feel guilty for such an unsavory thought.
Kellen follows me upstairs and closes the door quietly behind him.
“You going to go back to bed?” he asks, and when I nod, asks if he can stay.
“We can’t do anything,” I tell him. Not that I’m even remotely in the mood. “For at least a week. Maybe longer, I’m not sure.”
“That’s not why I want to stay,” he says with a wry look. “There are different kinds of need, you know.”
A few minutes later I’m curled into his chest, tucking my knees up so he can mold himself around me.
“Are you afraid?” I ask him after we’re all settled in. I’ve been waiting for his breathing to settle into its usual slow rhythm as he falls asleep, but he’s tense and I can hear his heartbeat, not quite pounding, but not calm either.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
***
I spend almost an hour trying to calm my thoughts to the point where I can try and drift off before giving it up as a lost cause. Easing out of bed carefully so as to not wake Kellen, who’s snoring softly, I crack open my laptop and draft a memo to the staff apprising them of the murder. After some reflection, I’ve decided to close the pub for the rest of the weekend out of respect for Aaron, and so the police can do their job without disruption from customers. As for the guests currently booked in, I’ll leave it up to them whether they’d like to stay or not. Either way, I promise, no one will lose their wages because of this. I send the memo and pull on some clean clothes.
Cora is so surprised at the police cars and crime scene tape when she arrives, she forgets her hostility toward me. I hadn’t included her on the email chain; I know I’m going to need her support this morning and wanted her to come in.
“What on earth went on here last night?” she asks, eying the parking lot and the two or three officers still working there from through the glass of the inn’s front door. I fill her in as succinctly as possible, leaving out the fact that Kellen’s a suspect.
“I don’t know how to even begin to handle this with the guests,” I confess. “There wasn’t a ‘murder on the premises’ section in any of those textbooks.” Cora cracks a wry smile at that. “What do we say to them?”
“Just the truth, I suppose. That someone died, we don’t have any more information, and they’re welcome to stay or end their visit early without any penalty. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do. It’s nothing to do with the inn itself, of course. People are usually understanding.”
“I was thinking about maybe offering them a voucher for a two-night stay that they can use another time,” I tell her, fully expecting her to shoot down the idea because it’s mine.
“Yes, let’s do that,” she surprises me by saying, and I sit down at the laptop at the front desk, trying to remember Jana’s instructions on making up a gift certificate. A few minutes later I have ten of them printed out on nice cardstock, one for each of the rooms—it’s a full house this weekend. I also type up a letter explaining the situation, enclose both these in envelopes and slide them under the doors of each guest room. Then, I wait.
It doesn’t take long for the inhabitants of the inn to trickle down to the lobby. Most want to leave immediately, others are morbidly curious about Aaron’s death, and want as many details as I can provide. All the guests are questioned by an officer about whether they heard or saw anything in the night before they’re allowed to leave the scene. Most of them pack up and leave afterward. I doubt many will bother to redeem their vouchers.
Kellen’s gone when I find a moment to slip up into my suite. A note informs me he was going to go home, and to call him on his mom’s landline if I needed him, but that he was supposed to go to the local office of the state police to be formally interviewed at noon.
Meanwhile, it’s not just the guests who have me busy with questions. Word has spread through the town, and residents are milling around outside the parking lot, craning their heads to see if they can spot anything to feed the gossip mill further. Some come in to press Cora or I for details, then bring what scant information we have to offer back outside to their compatriots. A few make their annoyance known about the pub being closed, but I stand firm in my decision and hope the majority agree that it would be in poor taste to carry on eating and drinking steps away from where a local man lost his life hours earlier. Crumb’s Cafe is probably bursting at the seams trying to make up the difference.
Around four in the afternoon, Detective Chao shows up at the inn and asks if we can speak again. My suite upstairs is a mess, with the bed still unfolded and dirty laundry on the floor, so I suggest we sit in the vacant pub.
“Can I get you a glass of water or a soda?” I ask, and she accepts water. I fill two glasses at the sink behind the bar and seat myself across from her.
She’s an inch or two taller than me, with smooth, shiny black hair pulled back into a short ponytail. I judge it to be about shoulder length. Her fringe brushes the top of her eyebrows, softening the
sharp angles of her face. She’s wearing the same navy blue power suit as when we first spoke in the night, and I wonder if she’s been working continuously since then. If she has, she doesn’t show any signs of fatigue—no puffiness under her eyes, no weariness in her voice.
“Do you mind if I use this?” she says, putting a tape recorder on the table. I shake my head, wonder if I should have my reply on the record, and answer verbally as well.
She begins by going over the same information I gave her the evening before—where I was, whether I heard anything unusual, and the nature of my relationship with Aaron Glass. She also asks me to recount the events leading up to the fight between him and Kellen, including their exact words, if I could recall them. I answer as best I can. Did Kellen ever mention running into Aaron again at a later date? No, never. Had I seen Aaron since? My stomach sinks. There’s no point in lying about it—there would have been cameras in the store for sure, and I’d look suspicious as hell if she found out about it later on, so I tell Chao about the encounter at the drugstore when I’d gone to buy antacids. Did I tell Kellen about that incident? No, I state. I didn’t want to stir things up between them again. Why had I gone all that way in the first place? I tell her that since Marnie’s death, the Soberly pharmacy has been closed.
“Marnie Decker, another recent homicide here, correct?” I nod. “Did you know her at all?”
“I’d shopped in her store a couple of times. Sunscreen, a paperback, stuff like that. We only talked a bit, but I liked her. She was friendly to me when I was new here.”
“Have others been not so friendly?”
“Well, there was Aaron.” I think for a moment about how I want to express myself. “I’ve heard that some people would prefer if I sell the inn to someone with more experience doing this job.”
“That was the crux of your disagreement with Mr. Glass, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What about Irene Bell; did you know her?”
“I met her at church, that’s it.”
“There have been three homicides in Soberly in the past month, Ms. Eames. In a town of 400 people. What do you think about that?”
“I think it’s awful. Like a nightmare.” She doesn’t know the half of it.
“You came to town about a month ago, is that correct?”
What? The blood is roaring in my ears. “Yes, I did, but you don’t think I have anything to do with this, do you?”
“Can you account for your whereabouts on the nights of July 11th and July 17th?”
“I don’t know.” My mind is blank, heart pounding. I wipe my hands on my jeans. I have no idea about either of those nights, I don’t keep track of my whereabouts for every single day. Think back, my brain commands. The night before Marnie was found in the storm pond. Was I at Cora’s? No. You spent the night here, with Kellen. Yes. It was our first time together.
“The night Marnie died I spent the night here, with Kellen,” I tell Chao. “It was the first time we hooked up. I don’t know about the other night. What day of the week was it?” She tells me Irene died either Sunday night or early Monday morning. “Sunday, I went to church, which was where I met Irene. Kellen’s mom, Naomi, introduced us. Afterward—” I rack my brain, trying to think about what I did the rest of the day. “Afterward I think I slept at Cora’s. When I first got to town, she let me stay with her, on account of her being my aunt’s partner. Yes, I think I did. I had a headache from the heat and didn’t leave her place again that day.”
“Can she confirm you were there all night?”
“I suppose so. I don’t remember if we talked that night or not. We mostly kept out of each other’s way.” Shit. All Cora has to do is tell Chao she has no idea if I stayed in or not, and I’m screwed. At least I have Kellen to back me up for the night Marnie died. Why is Chao focusing on me?
“Do you recognize this?” Chao takes two photographs out of her satchel and slides them across the table to me. Both depict a large knife, and while the blade has been cleaned off, there’s no mistaking the bloodstains on the leather wrapped around the hilt in the first photo. In the second, the leather has been removed to reveal the handle. It seems like an odd thing to do to what appears to be an everyday kitchen knife.
Wrapped in leather. Just like in the vision of Pavel’s death.
“No, not at all.” I can feel bile rising in my throat. “Is this the knife that killed Aaron?”
“Yes. He was found with it sticking out of his chest. He died of a single stab wound which severed his aorta. He bled to death in less than a minute. Kellen Greene tentatively identified it as being similar to the type of knife used in the kitchen here.”
The room starts to spin, and I suddenly feel a sharp desire to get out of this room, to run as fast and as far as I can from this woman who’s doing everything but accusing me outright of killing three people. My vision narrows until all I can see are the photos of the knife on the table. It’s the pain of my fingernails digging into my palms that brings me partially back to my senses—enough to speak.
“That’s impossible,” I whisper.
“Mind if I check?” I don’t know how I manage to stand, my knees feel so weak, but I lead her through the swinging doors into the kitchen. I’ve never been in here when it hasn’t been full of the bustle of a busy service crew, all spitting grease, clattering plates, and calls for orders. Now the silence seems magnified by the stainless steel, which offers only muted reflections of my horrified face.
“I’m not even sure where the knives are kept,” I tell Chao. “I’ve only worked in the front of the pub, never the back.” She doesn’t answer me because she doesn’t have to—each of the three workstations have a large wooden knife block sitting in front of it, with the handles jutting out, at the ready. Naomi insists everything be left ready for the next day’s work. The first two blocks have all their knives accounted for, but the third one—Naomi’s own station—is missing its largest occupant.
23
“Idon’t know what to say,” I tell her, leaning up against the counter to hold myself steady.
“Who else has access to this kitchen?”
“Well, all the staff here, of course. There are seven people who work in the pub altogether.”
“I’ll need to collect all their fingerprints so we can eliminate them from the scene. Who can access the kitchen after hours?”
“I—” It occurs to me that I have no idea who has keys to the pub. “Cora will know. I’m not sure how many key holders there are. At least a couple, plus Cora and myself.” I’d inherited Roz’s keyring the week I’d arrived in Soberly.
“Any signs of forced entry? Do you keep a log of when the alarm is set and deactivated?”
“We don’t have an alarm system,” I tell her. “I don’t know why.”
While we’ve been talking, Chao has been photographing the empty knife block and the workstation around it.
“Was Mr. Glass drinking here tonight?”
“I’m not sure, but I doubt it.” I tell her what he had told Drew when they’d run into each other after Kellen had punched him. “He was obviously still angry at me, based on what happened at the drugstore. I doubt he’d give me his business again.” Just then her phone rings, and she holds her index finger up while she answers.
“What have you got?” She listens for a minute or two. “Okay, send me screenshots. I need someone back here who can print the kitchen in the pub. I think I found where the weapon came from.” She disconnects and taps on her screen for a minute, reading intently.
“What’s your mobile number?” she asks me. I rattle it off. “Is that the only phone you have?” I nod. “Will you consent to a search of your phone and its contents?”
“Yes, of course.” I tell her the code to unlock it and pass it to her. I don’t even care that any number of people might end up reading the steamy texts Kellen and I sometimes send each other—or see the photos either. Anything to prove I had nothing to do with this, with any of it. C
hao makes a note of my password in her notebook and puts my phone in a plastic evidence bag.
“Mr. Glass was sent a series of texts last night urging him to come to the inn and finish the fight he and Mr. Greene had started,” she tells me. “Since he doesn’t have any other injuries, it appears he was lured here specifically to be killed. I assure you, Ms. Eames, if those texts came from your or Mr. Greene’s phone, even if you changed out the SIM card and deleted the conversation, we will find them.” Her voice is so cold and devoid of feeling. It’s as though she’s reading me the weather report.
“You won’t find anything, I have nothing to do with this, I swear,” I tell her. “I’ll do whatever it takes to help you find the person responsible. Anything you need at all.”
“Let’s start with your fingerprints.” I expect her to take out an ink pad and a card with a spot for each print, but instead, she plugs a small scanner into her phone’s charging port and shows me how to put my fingers in, one at a time, to be scanned. After unplugging the device, she taps away for a moment and waits.
“Well, you have no criminal record,” she says after a long minute, once the results are returned. “These prints will be kept on file to compare to any we find in the kitchen.”
“Were there any on the knife?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Silence stretches out between us. “Are you going to arrest me?” I ask finally, my voice small. The thought of being hauled off to jail, in front of half the town, has me literally shaking with fear. I might as well sell the inn and leave town for good. Even though I’m innocent, I’ll never regain what little trust I’ve built here.
“Not at this time, no, although that might change, depending on what we find on your phone. I’m also going to instruct that under no circumstances are you to leave the state without prior approval from me. Understood?”
“Of course. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. You can get in touch any time if you have any other questions, or if there’s something else I can help with. There’s someone killing people here in town. I want to find them.”