No Saving Throw

by Kristin McFarland

  They departed the stairwell on the main floor, where I’d been standing. When the door shut behind them, I lingered, trying to catch my breath. I hadn’t learned anything new, not really, but their secrecy shocked and frightened me. What were they hiding? I knew I should tell someone about their conversation, but I didn’t want them to get arrested—and while I didn’t think they had killed Wes, that conversation was deeply incriminating.

  My mission to talk to Meghan forgotten, I trailed down the steps one by one, looking around me as if the empty stairwell could give me some clue as to the couple’s activities. Whatever they were about, they had left no trace of it in the hallway, but I felt a miasma of unpleasantness filling the air where they’d been. I did not want to doubt my people. But they were making it harder and harder to trust them.

  I opened the door to the basement and began my bemused, solitary walk back to the store. Should I tell Jordan? Should I not tell Jordan in an effort to keep this from the police? Would that get me in trouble? I resisted the urge to beat my head against the wall of the hallway. Down the hall, I could hear the fountain gurgling softly, but this time it failed to calm me.

  I should have gone to talk to Meghan. I should never have followed Paige’s voice. I should have done anything but try to play investigator. My hands were tied, now—either I was covering up for them, or I was ratting them out. I didn’t like either option.

  My steps slowed as I reached my own door. There was something lying on the ground outside the door, something that made my breath catch.

  Someone had spilled something red outside my door, paint or red corn syrup. A doll or an action figure—I couldn’t tell, down the dim hallway—lay in the middle of the puddle, something impaling the join of its head and neck. The lub-lub-lub of my heart pounding grew louder as I approached the sticky puddle.

  It was an action figure of Princess Leia, her brown hair twisted into buns over her ears, her white dress smeared red. Someone had stuck a broken plastic sword onto her neck with clay or red-colored glue, and her head twisted at an unnatural angle to look over her own shoulder.

  There’s way too much blood, I thought irrationally.

  When I looked up from the twisted little diorama, I saw that someone had painted onto the store’s door, GIVE IT UP, BITCH.

  I stifled a shriek, emitting a squeak instead, like a mouse in a trap. Through the window I could see Bay standing at the register, sorting through a stack of invoices for an order that had come in while I was off eavesdropping on Nick and Paige. She had no idea what had happened right outside our door. I didn’t know whether to be frightened by or grateful for her ignorance.

  Had Nick and Paige done this? My stomach churned at the thought. Was this what Paige hadn’t wanted to do? I had heard them arguing in a stairwell mere yards from my store, and, from the sound of it, they were concealing evidence. Now here was proof someone didn’t want me looking into the murder—

  Unless it was someone who didn’t want me in the grant competition, someone who didn’t yet know that I’d been kicked out. Someone like Meghan, who wasn’t in her store. That would add up if she’d been the culprit of the vandalism at her own store, but I had no reason beyond my own wishful thinking to lead me to believe that.

  But now the drama had hit close to home. This wasn’t just the death of a gamer: this was about me, my store. I realized my hands were shaking, and I felt a little weak in the knees. No one had actively threatened me before, some small, rational part of my brain observed, and I couldn’t say the feeling was a good one.

  I stepped around the mess and pushed the door open. At the register, Bay looked up. Her eyes widened when she saw me. “Autumn, what’s wrong? Did they make you drop out of the grant competition?”

  “Yes, but that’s—” I broke off, shaking my head. “Was there anyone in here? Did you see anyone?” I started to stride toward her, but a piece of paper on the floor caught my eye. I bent down to pick it up.

  It was another Spellcasters card, the Queen of the Fey. Her face was scratched off. Someone had tucked her in through the old-fashioned mail slot in the store’s mall door. I shuddered but left the card on the ground where it lay. It might have prints on it, and, unfortunately, it was time to report these ghoulish shenanigans.

  “What is it?” Bay asked, coming toward me.

  “There’s been—someone’s been outside. There’s some vandalism.”

  “What?” She pushed past me, opened the door, and looked. “Oh my god.”

  “I know.” I pointed to the card. “There’s that, too. There’s been more than one of these. I don’t know if they’re related—I thought the cards were for Wes. But now . . .”

  “I’ll call the cops.” Bay started to jog toward the register, but I grabbed her sleeve.

  “Wait,” I said. I told her what I’d heard, about Paige and Nick. As I spoke, her face creased with worry, her blue eyes narrowing with anger and fear. She looked as troubled as I felt. “If we call the cops about this, I’m going to have to tell them what I heard. I’ll be as good as handing them Paige and Nick for Wes’s murder, and I still don’t think they did it.”

  She pulled herself free and put her hands on my shoulders. “Autumn, you have to call the cops. This is a threat to you, to the store, and after what has already happened, we can’t ignore that. It makes me sick, but if they hurt Wes, and we’ve been protecting them . . . Well, if the police don’t lock them up, they’d better find a safe place to go.” She flexed her fingers.

  “What do you think Wes ‘knew’?” I asked, quoting Paige. “What could he have known that would make me do something if I knew it, too?”

  “I have no idea, but we’re unqualified to answer that question. I think this is bigger than just a lovers’ quarrel, especially if they’re threatening you and Meghan now, too. We need to get the cops on this.”

  I couldn’t argue with her no-nonsense pragmatism. I let her go, and she went to make the call.

  11

  I WATCHED, POWERLESS, AS my life became an episode of a police procedural.

  Jordan was on duty, and she came with the beat cops to check out the scene of Princess Leia’s murder. Detective Keller trailed behind her like a sullen teen, absorbing everything while simultaneously trying to look cool and uninterested. The cops traipsed back and forth across the hardwood floors, the knight in shining armor guarding the old-fashioned games and some kids’ costuming kits, a silent witness to the action. Jordan paused beside me as the others gathered up the action figure, the card, and samples of the fake blood. She looked like she wanted to talk, but words never seemed to come, and she just lurked beside me, unspeaking as the knight.

  They ransacked the memorial the others had left for Wes on the front sidewalk. Bay watched with wide eyes, a hand pressed to her mouth, while I stood by and let it happen. Jordan asked, when they started, why I hadn’t mentioned the scratched off Spellcasters cards, and I explained that it hadn’t occurred to me that the cards might have some sinister meaning. She gave me a pitying look and handed each of the cards to a gloved officer collecting evidence.

  By the time they finished, the shop looked like a crime lab. Uniformed officers dusted for prints by the scene of Princess Leia’s demise; others scrutinized the shop for any other stray Spellcasters cards, hairs, toenail clippings, or anything else they could use to get DNA from the mystery vandals. The size and quantity of dust bunnies they uncovered beneath some of the racks made me realize I needed to establish stricter cleaning-at-close policies with my employees, but now didn’t seem like the time to mention it.

  They insisted I come down to the station, and I felt as if I were being packed up and carted away like just another piece of evidence. Bay came, too, and we locked up the store during business hours yet again. Monday afternoon wasn’t exactly a busy time, but it was still cutting into my business. Pretty soon, Donald would get his wish, and the store would shut down, if only because I couldn’t manage to keep my empl
oyees in it for more than twenty minutes at a time. That was the least of my worries, however—Detective Keller dragged me back to the little room where she’d first interrogated me, leaving me to stare blankly at myself in the mirror that filled one wall.

  Was anyone on the other side of it? Was some poor, underpaid cop staring at me now, wondering if my Starfleet T-shirt had some deeper meaning? I pulled a dreadful face at the mirror, irritated that they hadn’t let me put my store back together after their invasion.

  As soon as I made the face, the door opened, and I scrambled to rearrange my expression. Detective Keller looked distinctly unamused as she came to sit across from me at the table. She dropped a folder containing a thick stack of papers before her, just like in the movies. I wondered what they said—I’d never even had a parking ticket, so she could hardly pretend it was my criminal record.

  “Well, we’re seeing a lot of you, aren’t we, Miss Sinclair?” she asked in a fake-cheerful tone.

  “Yep. Can’t stay away.”

  “Were you aware this is the second act of vandalism we’ve seen in your building in as many days?”

  I leaned back in my chair like Han Solo in the cantina, striving for indifference.

  “I’d heard something to that effect, yes.” I wished I had a cigarette or something, some cool tic to underline my studied devil-may-care attitude. This day had gone from crap to shit really fast, and I might as well play the part of the hardened criminal. My sense of humor had died with that action figure’s dignity. My chair wobbled a little as my confidence ebbed.

  “Yes, we had another similar scene at the store called Chic,” the detective said as if I hadn’t spoken. She opened her folder and drew out a photo like the one I’d seen on Meghan’s phone, showing the medieval princess’s drawn and quartered form. I supposed I was lucky, meriting Princess Leia rather than generic damsel in distress. That was comforting, in a really sick sort of way.

  Detective Keller had understated the “similarity.” The scene at Meghan’s was exactly like what I’d found, right down to the corn-syrupy blood and the wording of the message. Whoever was insulting us wasn’t very creative in their derogatory terms for “woman.” The blood looked a lot like what high school productions and—alas—LARPers might use for prop wounds. That didn’t look good for Nick and Paige.

  I thumped the legs of my chair back down and grimaced at the photo. “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

  “You have?” Detective Keller asked, excited.

  “Meghan showed me a picture.”

  “I see.” She scribbled something on a notepad. “Had you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “Murdered action figures? No. The blood looks like stage blood to me, but that’s not a huge leap. And as for the Spellcasters cards, no, I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Those cards are collectible, so I meet more people who keep them wrapped in plastic than people who would ever deface them.”

  “Your attitude is very . . . nonchalant.”

  Oh, she was playing good cop, being my counselor and not my confessor. “I’m sorry,” I said. I almost was. “This has been a rough day already, and levity is my coping mechanism. I’m worried about my store and my employees. Whoever did this set it up without Bay—Bailey Adorno, that is, my employee—ever realizing they were there. It’s frightening, because it’s probably someone we know who has permission to be in the building.”

  The detective wrote all this down, then looked up at me, her expression serious. “I understand that in addition to the vandalism, you wanted to report some suspicious behavior.”

  I sighed, feeling like a narc. “Yeah, that.” I told her about Nick and Paige’s conversation, repeating it as near word-for-word as I could.

  She listened intently, writing nothing down, which gave me the bad feeling I’d be telling the story several more times over the next hour. “You never saw them?” she asked.

  “No.” For better or worse, my ninja act had kept me from ever seeing their faces—or whether they carried buckets of fake blood and a sheaf of damaged Spellcasters cards.

  “And, in your opinion, they suggested they had something to hide?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you get any sense of what they thought Wesley might have been hiding? Since they seemed to think knowing that information might have driven you to act?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Do you have any guesses?”

  “No,” I said. “I have no idea what they meant.”

  Detective Keller frowned. “Let’s talk about that phone call Miss Harding and Mr. Lawlis made to you the night of the murder.”

  “What about it?”

  “Miss Harding said she needed your help.”

  “Yes.”

  “And shortly after, Mr. Lawlis said it was all just a misunder-standing.”

  “Yes . . .” I didn’t like the turn this had taken, but I was the victim this time, and I needed the cops on my side.

  “Do you think it’s possible, Miss Sinclair, that Miss Harding called you after realizing Mr. Lawlis had killed Wesley Bowen? And she wanted your help?”

  Clearly, good cop had gone home for the night. I pulled back from the table. “Wait, what? No—is this a trial? Because I thought this was about the vandalism at my store. I’m trying to help here.”

  Detective Keller smiled and stood up. She linked her hands behind her back and leaned casually over the table. “Of course you are,” she said in a patronizing tone that made my attitude go from sour to downright curdled. “Earlier today, you said Miss Harding told Mr. Lawlis she, quote, ‘Didn’t want to do this.’ Do you think ‘this,’ might have been hiding their guilt? Are these acts of vandalism a way of threatening the people who might have known about their guilt?”

  “No, I—I have no idea. You know I can’t answer that,” I snapped.

  She drummed on her chin with one finger, as if thinking. “Is that because you’ve been helping them to hide the evidence of their guilt?” She dropped her hand, all pretense of consideration gone.

  “I am not answering that,” I said. I wasn’t a complete idiot.

  “Your store sells stage blood, Miss Sinclair,” she said, taking a sudden left.

  I blinked, stunned—we did, in stupid little costume kits in the kids’ section. She actually managed to surprise a real answer out of me this time. “Not the kind that would make pints of liquid fake blood, like the person who vandalized my store used. The stuff we sell is just for accent, for kids or—” Or LARPers.

  The detective smiled, like she knew the end of that sentence. “Did you threaten Meghan Kountz, Miss Sinclair?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said, fuming. This was too far. “I want a lawyer. I will not speak any more until I’ve had access to a phone.” I folded my arms across my chest, as if that would keep the words in.

  “I understand you and Miss Kountz have been longtime competitors, and now there’s this grant contest you two have been involved in. Miss Kountz said you were asked by your landlord yesterday to drop out of the race—she was worried that the vandalism might have been an act of aggression by you or your employees, meant as revenge for that request. But now—” Detective Keller leaned over me, murmuring in my ear. “I wonder if maybe it wasn’t just revenge for that—maybe you know some of your friends killed Wesley Bowen, and you’ve been helping them cover it up. Maybe you’re trying to pin the murder on Miss Kountz just because she has things you want.”

  I scooted my chair an inch away, trying to get out from under her Ronan the Accuser glare.

  “She has your ex-boyfriend. A successful store in the same building as you. She’s your top competitor for the grant money. Maybe you thought when your gamers came to you for help, it was the perfect opportunity to help yourself and them at the same time. If you raised suspicions about her role in the murder, you would get everything you wanted. She heard
your friends arguing that night, you know. She’s a key witness. They—and you—would have every reason to slander her.” She dragged one of the other chairs over next to me and sat down, like we were pals sitting in the park. “Aiding and abetting is a serious crime, you know. We’re aware of your attempts to ‘investigate’ this crime yourself, and interfering with a legitimate police investigation is also a serious crime. But if you wanted to tell us what happened, we’d be much easier on you—if you just help us to arrest Mr. Lawlis and Miss Harding, we will be much more forgiving of your role in all this.”

  I sucked in a breath through my nose, still refusing to speak. I had not expected this interview to go like this, had not anticipated any of this. I had to admit, it didn’t look good. I hadn’t bungled the police investigation like Jordan feared I would, but I had bungled my own alibi and visible innocence.

  Fortunately, a dozen people could attest that I’d never left the shop the night Wes died, had seen that I hadn’t gone to help Paige and Nick. Unfortunately, there were vast swathes of time when I was at home, alone, and no one could confirm that I wasn’t spending those hours sneaking off to conspire with my friends. It was a convenient story, and it would make Detective Keller’s job much easier. If I told a nice story about how the horrible gamers had killed Wes and tempted me down the dark path into covering it up, well, there was a neat case and a great headline. They could even make it look like I was an innocent victim, too.

  “It doesn’t look good if you won’t talk to us,” Detective Keller said.

  I looked over at her. “You’re speculating. And you know as well as I do that I shouldn’t talk without my lawyer. Now, do I get my phone call, or do you want to keep telling me that story?”