A Little More Dead

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  “Thank you,” he said, turning the painting back around to look at it. “I’m being released, Bridget.”

  “Oh.” My hand paused as I reached for the demon me painting. I glanced back over my shoulder at Alex, who was admiring his painting of Bertha. I wasn’t really sure what to say about that. He’d pointed a gun at me. He’d said he was sorry. I was pretty sure that meant he’d feel like he owed me. Maybe I could work this to my advantage. “Alex, did you know the girl who escaped?”

  Alex’s head jerked up. “Someone escaped from here?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding at him. Why was everyone denying it? I turned back and yanked at the painting on the door. It didn’t budge.

  “Who?” He stepped closer and then turned to survey the room as if trying to spot the missing patient.

  “Someone called Katie,” I said and yanked at the painting on the door again. “Jeez, Alex, what did you attach this with?”

  “Sticky Velcro strips. We’re not allowed anything sharp. When did she escape?”

  “Last night, I think.”

  “No, she couldn’t have. I saw her this morning.”

  “What? No, she escaped last night. The GBs came to warn Oz. Where did you see her?” I said, still pulling at the painting. Whatever the hell type of Velcro strips Alex had attached this painting with I was getting some for … something. They were amazing.

  “In the corridor this morning. She was …” Alex trailed off as if something occurred to him.

  “She was what?” I asked. I placed a foot on the wall beside the door and tugged diagonally. I was rewarded with the ripping sound of Velcro separating. I was vaguely aware of a faint click as the door unlocked but, victorious, I turned to Alex and held the devil Bridget painting aloft. “A-ha!”

  Everyone in the room turned at my shout. At least, those who weren’t already staring at me. And then, much to my immense dismay, there was a creak of a door slowly opening and a very familiar thud behind me.

  Oh so slowly I turned around to see a body sprawled on the floor. I assumed it had fallen from the cupboard when I’d yanked the door open trying to get the painting off since it definitely had not been there a moment ago.

  I twisted to get a better look to see if I recognised who it was. I did. I also recognised the small smudge of red lipstick on his collar, almost behind his ear.

  I straightened up and faced the room, pointing behind me at the body. “To be really clear, I am absolutely not taking responsibility for this.”

  Chapter Six

  Maladjusts, partnered with their responsible adult and a patient, were sitting on couches and chairs, spread out around the room a good distance away from each other, and Jason’s dead body, while Detective Johnson spoke to the huddle of staff. I assumed the logic was that the responsible adult would keep both their maladjust and the patient in line while the distance was to prevent everyone from talking and coordinating our alibis.

  Detective Johnson had demanded the segregation when he arrived. I didn’t see the point in it myself. We’d all already given our initial statements to the first constables on the scene. It was a bit late to worry about us organising our alibis now.

  I was relaxed back in an armchair with Alex and Anna sitting on the sofa facing me. I was waiting patiently for Detective Johnson to come over and accuse me. Anna was twisting her fingers together in her lap. She’d stop when she realised what she was doing and place her hands on her knees, but then she’d start tapping and gradually the motion would work back into the finger twisting. Alex stared at the floor with his left knee bouncing. When he realised what he was doing he stopped, but that’s when the opposite knee started bouncing. It was interesting to watch. I understood why Alex would be nervous. He’d tried to kill me, so he already had an attempted murder on his record. Or maybe he was nervous because he was guilty.

  As for Anna, maybe she was worried about what Oz would say when she had to explain I’d found another dead body on her watch. Or maybe it had something to do with the lipstick smudge on Jason’s collar, which looked suspiciously like hers. Maybe she was nervous because she killed him.

  No! What if they were in it together and they were going to try and frame me. I looked at the knee-bouncing, finger-twisting pair. I doubted they had the nerve for it. Unless they were putting on a great show. I covered my eyes with my hand. I had to stop listening to Sabrina. She was going to make me as crazy suspicious as her.

  “Miss Sway!” Detective Johnson said, pulling me out of my cynical daydream in which everyone was out to frame me. I dropped my hand from my eyes to see him standing in from of me, his arms spread wide as if he were happy to see me. I guessed he was. I guessed he was thinking third time lucky for pinning a murder on me. I don’t think it even mattered to him if I’d actually done it anymore.

  Okay, so maybe he hadn’t pulled me that far out of my “everyone’s out to frame me” mindset.

  “Are you the only detective the police force has?” I asked.

  “No, but I am the best,” he said, flipping through his notebook. I was going to comment on that but really, it would’ve been just too easy. “So, how did you do it this time, Miss Sway?”

  “Don’t answer that, hon,” Anna said and I was pretty sure there was a quaver in her voice. Maybe the finger twisting wasn’t guilt. Maybe it was because she’d known Jason and was upset.

  “I didn’t do it this time. Just like I didn’t do it the last two times,” I said, ignoring Anna.

  “So you didn’t cry out ‘a-ha’ after you killed him right in front of everyone?” Johnson asked.

  “Don’t answer that, hon,” Anna repeated. “Detective Johnson, as Bridget’s adjustment companion, you need to direct your questions to me.”

  “No, I cried ‘a-ha’ because I’d finally managed to pull this off the door.” I held up the painting for Johnson to see. “Alex tried to say he’d used Velcro strips to attach it but I think he lied.”

  “Bridget! Stop speaking,” Anna snapped.

  “It was Velcro! Why would I lie?” Alex exclaimed, like accusing him of lying about that was the worst thing that could’ve happened today.

  “It’s a good likeness,” Johnson said as he leaned forward to look at the painting. “So you and Alex were in it together then? That’s what you’re saying?”

  Anna leapt to her feet and stood directly in front of me. “Detective Johnson, I have told you! Direct your questions to me.”

  “Why did your client murder the nurse and shove his dead body in the cupboard only to open it up again and reveal her guilt?” Johnson asked her.

  “I—well—she—,” Anna stammered. I don’t know if it was because he’d listened to her and behaved as she’d asked or she’d not expected such a direct question. Or maybe she just wasn’t used to murder accusations being thrown around so freely to have a snappy comeback ready. I was just grateful she didn’t consider this an “agitated situation” or I was pretty sure I’d have been in real trouble.

  “She found him,” Johnson continued, not waiting for a reply. “Nothing says ‘I’m guilty’ like publicly finding your victim with the intention of diverting blame from yourself.”

  Anna shook her head. “No.”

  “No what? No, it doesn’t divert blame? Or no, she didn’t find him? I have a room full of witnesses who say she did. Ohhhh, are all three of you in on it?” Johnson asked, pointing at each of us in turn.

  “I’m not in on anything,” Alex jumped in.

  “Aren’t you? But you have a history of attempted murder,” Johnson said.

  “No, I—” Alex looked to me for help. I had no idea what he thought I was going to do. I was the person he’d attempted to murder. What was I supposed to say? I’d intended to keep quiet since Johnson wasn’t attacking me at that particular moment but the panic on Alex’s face forced a response from me.

  “Don’t say anything, Alex. He’s just playing with you. He’s waiting for you to incriminate me somehow.” It was the best I had to o
ffer.

  “So you admit you did it? He wouldn’t be able to incriminate you otherwise. Well, that’s you and Alex bang to rights.” Johnson slapped his notebook on his open palm and turned to Anna. “What about you? Did you do it too?”

  Anna squared her shoulders. “I refuse to answer that.”

  Johnson laughed. “You refuse to answer?”

  “Wait, I didn’t admit to anything,” Alex rushed in. “Bridget, tell him.”

  Johnson leaned forward and patted Alex on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Alex, I know this was all Miss Sway’s idea. We’ll go easy on you.”

  I rested my head on the back of the armchair and closed my eyes. This was not going well.

  “Did I just hear you publicly accuse my ward of murder, Detective Johnson? Again.” Oz’s voice carried across the room. I breathed a sigh of relief and opened my eyes to watch Oz approach us. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly but he always seemed a tiny bit more attractive when he was rescuing me from something. Or maybe he was always that attractive and it was only when I wasn’t preoccupied with being annoyed at him I could fully appreciate the whole package.

  “Well, well. You must have pulled some strings to get in here, Salier.” Johnson stepped to the side so he could keep Oz, Alex, Anna and me in his field of vision. “Just as well you don’t trust Miss Sway’s adjustment companion to handle this situation on her own. She was about to give her up.”

  “I wasn’t—I didn’t—” Anna shook her head frantically at Oz.

  “I trust Anna implicitly,” Oz said and I very much hoped he was just sticking it to Johnson because I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. Especially with the lipstick smudge on Jason’s collar that looked suspiciously like Anna’s colour. And why had nobody noticed this but me? It wasn’t like it was a subtle, matte nude shade, for heaven’s sake.

  “More fool you,” Johnson said.

  “Talking of professional ineptitude, is there a particular reason that you’ve positioned my ward next to a man who attempted to kill her less than a month ago.” Oz jerked his head in Alex’s direction. Alex quickly sat back down and stared at the floor, hunching his shoulders in what looked like shame.

  “But he painted her such a pretty picture,” Johnson said as he leaned over and attempted to grab it from my hands.

  I moved the painting out of his reach and carefully rolled it up. “Didn’t your mother teach you it was rude to snatch?”

  Oz held his hand out for the painting without speaking or moving closer. If I were to give it to him, it would mean I would have to get up and I was comfy in my armchair. But one look at Oz’s expression told me it was a non-negotiable request. I supposed he was pretty much the only thing preventing Johnson from locking me up for the rest of my afterlife, since my innocence never seemed to matter to the detective. I stood, handed Oz the painting and returned to my seat. He unravelled it. His face didn’t show any reaction but the fever in his eyes as he looked at Alex could’ve melted metal. Just as well Alex was staring at the floor.

  “You’re done here, Johnson,” Oz said and waited for him to move.

  Johnson grinned and then tapped his notebook with his pen as he backed away from our little group. “I’ve got what I need for now.”

  “Anna, I need you to sign Bridget out of here,” Oz said as he watched Johnson move to the far side of the room, without once looking back at us. Oz pointed to me. “Don’t move. I need to speak to Dr Mendall. And don’t even think about talking to her,” he said to Alex. Alex glanced up at Oz, gave him a single nod and returned his focus to the floor.

  I gave Oz a mock salute, which made the muscles in his jaw jump as he clenched his teeth, and then he and Anna moved away, several glances thrown back in our direction from each of them.

  I covered my mouth with my hand as if I were just leaning on it. I still hadn’t mastered that speaking without moving my lips thing. I really needed to practice that because it seemed like such an important skill.

  “What were you saying about Katie?” I whispered. Alex’s shoulders tensed and he looked toward Oz, who was watching us. I gave an internal eye-roll. “Don’t look at him. It’s like announcing we’re doing exactly what he told us not to do. You said you saw her in the corridor but you couldn’t have because she escaped last night.”

  Alex flicked his eyes toward Oz again and made a non-committal grunting noise.

  “For god’s sake man, you held me at gunpoint, then drew a devil picture of me and stuck it on the door for everyone to see, then you let me tug it down so the dead body fell out. You owe me.” I was hoping that it didn’t come through in my tone but I was so much more bothered about the unflattering painting than the attempted murder thing. Once you’d been held a gunpoint a couple of times it didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

  “I didn’t know the body was in there,” Alex hissed.

  It was my turn to make a non-committal noise. I didn’t not believe him, I just didn’t quite believe him either. “Tell me about Katie.”

  “I thought I saw her this morning.” Alex looked over his shoulder. “Did you see the lipstick on Jason’s collar?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. My imaginary self danced a jig to know that someone else had seen it. I was beginning to think my dislike of Anna had made me hallucinate it.

  “Looks a lot like the shade your adjustment companion is wearing,” Alex mumbled and my jig turned into a full-on victory dance.

  “I thought so too.” I chanced a glance in Oz’s direction and saw him edging our way while still speaking to a nurse. “Tell me more about Katie. When you saw her this morning what was she doing?”

  “She was heading away from the breakfast room. She was at the other end of the corridor and when she saw me she put her finger to her lips as if to shush me. I just assumed she wanted five minutes’ peace.”

  “But it was definitely her?”

  “I’ve lived with her for a month, Bridget.”

  “Are you sure?” I pressed. “Did she have all her usual mannerisms or was there something off about her? Maybe something you couldn’t put your finger on?”

  “It was her. Why are you asking about mannerisms?”

  “People can morph into other people, Alex.”

  Alex blinked slowly, as if having difficulty understanding what I’d said. “Are you on some sort of medication?”

  “No, people can change their faces to look like other people,” I said.

  “Like clones? Is the bureau cloning us?” Alex’s eyes darted around the room, I assumed looking for clones.

  I opened my mouth but found there were no words coming out, so I closed it again. All pretence of not talking to him was long gone. Alex didn’t know about the whole face morphing thing? How did everyone not know about it? I’d run into it a couple of times and I was still very newly dead. Maybe I just ran in the wrong circles. Or the right circles, depending on your perspective.

  “Let’s go, Bridget,” Oz called, still a short distance away. He waved me over.

  “Take care of yourself, Alex.”

  “You too, Bridget,” Alex said before I stood and headed toward Oz and a very twitchy Anna.

  “Can I have my painting back, please?” I asked Oz as he led Anna and me out of the common room. The nurse guarding the door waved us through and locked it behind us.

  Oz gave me a measuring look. “Why?”

  “I want to put it on my bedroom door with a ‘keep out’ warning,” I said. Not that it would keep anyone out, but the idea made me feel like I was more in control.

  “No,” he said and pointed to a door on the left of the corridor. It had a small green square drawn above the door handle. Anna tried it and to my surprise it opened. No wonder Katie escaped if that was their level of security. I peered into the room. It was a cleaning closet. All manner of cleaning products filled the shelves that encircled the small room. Three brooms and two hoovers took up most of the floor space but there was just enough room for two people to stand insid
e, three if you huddled. Okay, so maybe they just had low security on cleaning products.

  “Why not? It’s a picture of me and Alex said I could have it,” I said and watched Anna step into the room. What was going on here? Were we going to steal some washing up liquid from a mental asylum? That just didn’t seem right. On so many levels.

  Oz gestured for me to follow Anna into the cleaning closet. “What were you talking about after I told him not to talk to you? And don’t say nothing because you were obviously talking about something.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that Alex thought he’d seen Katie after she’d supposedly escaped but closed it again. Maybe Alex had been mistaken. And why would the staff and GBs assume she’d escaped if she hadn’t? Surely they had searched everywhere before declaring her missing. Although Jason had seemed pretty adamant that no one had escaped. Maybe Officer Leonard was wrong. And was now the moment to mention it looked like it was Anna’s lipstick on Jason’s collar? With Anna right there listening in? Probably not. Would he believe me anyway? Would he just think I was trying to get rid of her?

  Oz lowered his voice and leaned closer, his eyes narrowing on my expression. “You feel confused.”

  I pointed in his face and stepped back, almost bumping into Anna, as if I could move out of his emotional radar snooping range. “You said you were going to stop doing that.”

  “And you said you were going to be honest with me.”

  “You didn’t give me a chance.”

  “You took too long.”

  “Why are you directing us into a broom closet? Are we hiding?” I asked, changing subject to give me a minute to think.

  “Places like this have emergency protocols,” Oz said, stepping inside the closet and closing the door after him. It was such a tight fit if I’d folded my arms they would have been touching his chest. “In certain circumstances, the block on tunnelling is automatically dropped in specific areas.”