A Friend in Death--A Short Read

by K. J. Emrick

  “Thank you. As far as the turnout… I just don’t know. I mean, The Mob’s Calling did really well, so I’m hoping that Dance With The Devil will do the same.”

  The Mob’s Calling, her first novel, had been a hard-won victory for Miranda. After much research and two years of careful writing, it had finally secured her a great publisher. There was no looking back after that.

  “Can’t you just rub your crystal ball and look into the future?” Kyle gave a laugh.

  “Funny!” Miranda scoffed. Leave it to Kyle to make an off-color joke like that one. “And anyway, I don’t have a crystal ball. That’s not how it works.” Miranda was a psychic medium and her gift allowed her to talk to ghosts that either came to her or that she summoned for whatever reason.

  “It doesn’t work at all, you crazy lady.”

  Kyle had always poked fun at Miranda’s assertion that she was psychic, but since he didn’t believe in such things, they had always amicably agreed to differ on the subject.

  They laughed together for a moment, until Kyle fell silent and his face seemed to flatten into a much more thoughtful look.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Miranda asked.

  “Yes. Well, no.” Kyle screwed up his face a little more. “Look, I know I give you a hard time about the psychic stuff but… well… have you got any kind of bad feeling about the next couple of days?”

  “What?” Miranda felt odd even talking to him about this. Kyle just did not believe in her other world. So why was he even asking?

  “Just, well, have you?”

  “No, Kyle. I mean, sometimes I get a feeling about trouble coming or what-have-you, but usually it’s more specific than just badness coming over the next few days. Why? What’s worrying you?”

  “I just can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen.”

  “Oh, maybe you’re psychic.”

  “Miranda!” Kyle tried for a laugh, and almost made it. “You know what? I’m probably just in a weird mood about the break-up with Markus. He and I were… well. We were. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Stranger things have happened.” Miranda said, taking a sip of her wine.

  Kyle’s cell phone suddenly trilled, making them both jump.

  “I’ve got to take this,” he said, with an apologetic raising of his eyebrows. Miranda just nodded.

  He jumped up and walked away into the living room. Miranda could see his agitated pacing as he was talking animatedly to the person on the other end of the line. The call was short and she watched as Kyle violently ended it with a stab of his finger to the screen of his phone. He pushed impatient fingers through his hair, leaving it messier than usual.

  “Everything okay?” Miranda asked when Kyle returned to the table.

  “Sure. Just fantabulous. That was my editor at The Chronical. You know Stewart Carter? The manager at The Coffee Ambience? Well, he’s looking to sue the paper for my review.”

  “No way! That seems kind of petty.”

  “Oh, he’s petty all right,” Kyle said, with a sigh. “Anyway, it looks like the paper is going to cave and we’re going to maybe print some kind of retraction or happy, smiley, let’s all eat the food even if it makes us barf follow-up.” Kyle paused for a moment and then looked sideways at Miranda. “Well… I take that back I guess; the food wasn’t that bad, actually. Everything else about the place was though. Either way, this little deal can’t be made public, so Stewart Carter comes up smelling like roses.”

  “That stinks. Literally!”

  “And I’ve got to meet Carter first thing in the morning to discuss it,” Kyle winced.

  “Not good,” Miranda winced back.

  “Maybe it’ll be for the best in the end. I’m tired of the weird emails.”

  “What emails?”

  “Oh, sorry. Probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Kyle,” she pressed. “Come on, we’re friends. Who else can you talk to?”

  She bit her tongue before she could add, now that you and Markus are no longer together.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Well. I’ve been getting hate mail. Can you believe that? Actual hate mail from someone at The Coffee Ambience who got fired because of my review. They were getting a bit aggressive, too.”

  “Kyle!” Now Miranda was getting concerned. “That’s serious! Have you reported them to the police?”

  “No, and I don’t intend to. Maybe it’s best to just put this thing to bed and get on with life, hmm?”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Shouldn’t you report it?”

  He just shook his head and Miranda could tell that he was done talking about it. She didn’t press it further even though she wanted to. They continued with their meal, making less than convincing small talk, until Kyle finally rose to his feet.

  “Look, Miranda, the meal was just lovely, but I’m going to make tracks. I want to prepare myself to talk to this yobbo tomorrow, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow after I’ve seen this Carter fellow for the after signing party,” Kyle smiled at her. “I promise.”

  Miranda averted her gaze from the gaudily printed sign outside The Coffee Ambience promising a book signing by local author Miranda Wylder. There were fewer people here than she’d hoped for, but it was still pretty early, just gone nine o’clock, and Miranda knew how these crowds could grow.

  Inside, she found that a long folding table had been set up for her to use. She smiled slightly at the sight of several stacks of her books waiting for her signature. It never failed to make her feel all fluttery on the inside to know that people wanted to read her stories.

  She took her place behind the table and was settling down for a long session of scrawling her signature when she reached into her handbag for the stack of bookmarks she’d brought with her. She’d had them created for just this occasion and they had the details of her website, Facebook author page and Twitter account printed on them. They were important for her marketing efforts. Only… they were nowhere to be seen.

  Damn! This was inconvenient.

  She must have left them on her desk at home. Perhaps Kyle could swing by her place and pick them up for her. After all, he was headed to this café later anyway, what with his appointment with Stewart Carter and all. She snagged her cell phone out of her bag. Kyle answered on the second ring and she quickly explained the situation. He had a key to her place for emergencies and she considered this a huge emergency.

  He promised to get the bookmarks on his way in. He was a life saver.

  The store was filling up nicely. She said a few positive things about fans and writing and dreams and such, and then fell into an easy rhythm of meeting people and signing the inside cover of her books.

  Miranda was enjoying herself. The line of people was flowing smoothly and everyone seemed to be having a good time. She glanced at the clock on the side wall and was surprised to see that two hours had passed already.

  Having just finished signing for a smiling middle-aged woman she wondered where Kyle had got to. It shouldn’t have taken him more than an hour to get to the Coffee Ambience. She looked all around the store, by now milling with dozens of people, to see if she’d somehow missed him. Just for a brief moment, over at the other side of the store between two men that seemed to be having a heated discussion, she thought she saw him coming toward her.

  He lifted his hand as if to wave but a tall, rather severe looking woman crossed in front of his path and then he was gone. She stared at the spot where she thought she’d seen him but could only see the two men. Miranda felt there was something not quite right with the what she’d just seen but couldn’t put her finger on it.

  She looked for the next person in line and was surprised to see Debra Thomas, a waitress at The Coffee Ambience, hovering there little nervously.

  Debra was a young woman, in her middle twenties at most, with the smooth complexion and braided blonde hair of a model, and that frown she was wearing defini
tely looked out of place.

  “Hey Debra, what’s up? You here to have me sign a book for you?”

  “Sort of, yes,” she said, casting her eyes toward the back of the store where the café was. “I wanted to get a book signed, but I’m not sure I should really be here.”

  “Why? You work here.”

  “Not anymore. I guess you didn’t hear that Stewart fired me after the rough review we had.”

  “Oh.” So this was the ex-employee that Kyle had mentioned. Was this the one sending him the emails? She put on a guarded smile. “I’m so sorry, Debra.”

  She gestured helplessly with one hand. “It’s fine. No, really. To be honest, life has been a little hard for me lately and I was taking it out on the customers. I told Stewart all about it, and that I was sorry, and I thought we were fine but then that review came out and, well, I guess he needed someone to blame.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He just told me to get out.”

  How cold-hearted, Miranda thought to herself. Out loud, she said to Debra, “That hardly seems fair, but if he hasn’t barred you from the store, I don’t see why you can’t be here today. You’re a customer. Step on up.”

  “I guess, but I was only fired last week and I’m sure Stewart won’t be too pleased to see me here.”

  Miranda started to say something else encouraging, but a rush of activity at the front door caught her attention. “What’s going on…? Is that the police?”

  Miranda continued to stare as two police officers in their blue uniforms and baseball caps with the checkered band came walking straight for her table. A well-dressed man a bit older than she was following behind them. His suit was brown, and cheap, and that stern expression on his face told her he was a cop as well. His dark hair was shaved close to his scalp. His piercing eyes locked on Miranda.

  “Hello,” the guy in the suit said. He tapped one of her books on the table, pointing to the black and white photo of her on the back cover. “You’re Miranda Wylder?”

  “Of course. Why? What’s this about?”

  Miranda’s heart began to thump. As a psychic, she had dealt with cops on numerous occasions. They still always somehow made her feel guilty, even though she’d never broken a law in her life.

  “I’m Detective Joe Dixon,” he said. “This is about the dead man in your back yard, Miss Wylder. We’d like you to come down to our station, please.”

  “What!?” Miranda rose to her feet, which was a mistake, because she immediately felt dizzy and had to brace her hands on the table in front of her. She took a calming deep breath. “What dead guy?”

  “I believe you knew him,” Detective Dixon said. “A Mister Kyle Hunter.”

  Chapter 2

  “Can I have a glass of water please?”

  By the time Miranda had reached the police station on Flinders Street, the awful news had finally begun to sink in.

  “Sure.” Joe Dixon, the lead investigator on the case, nodded to one of the uniformed officers to get Miranda a drink.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Miranda said. The faint sense of dizziness she had felt at the book signing was now outright nausea. She was glad to be sitting. It didn’t make sense but it certainly explained her strange encounter with Kyle at the bookstore earlier. He’d already been dead by then and that is why something hadn’t seemed quite right to her.

  His ghost had come for a visit.

  The conference room at the police station was spartan and sterile, but adequate and Miranda was just relieved she was not being interviewed in the custody area where the real criminals were taken.

  Adequate ambience. Yes. That’s exactly what Kyle would have said.

  The water came not a moment too soon. She had just taken a sip when Joe Dixon dropped a handful of photographs down on the desk in front of her. Seeing Kyle in them, dead, made her stomach do flip flops. Suddenly she didn’t want the water anymore. With a shaking hand, she set the glass down in front of her before she dropped it and it smashed to pieces on the floor.

  “Please take a good look,” Joe Dixon spoke to her in a gruff manner, full of barely suppressed suspicion.

  “Oh, God, you can’t expect me to…” Miranda’s voice was shaking as much as her hands.

  “Just look.” He barked.

  Miranda did as instructed, her heart thundering wildly. The first photo showed Kyle laying on the ground, on her patio, with his back to her. He was curled up in the fetal position. Her eyes couldn’t seem to look away from the blood-stained hole in his back.

  She could feel the color draining from her face. That photo showed her exactly what she had seen in her vision yesterday. The man she felt she had recognized had been Kyle.

  No wonder it had bothered her so much.

  A different photograph showed Kyle from the front, blood staining the front of his shirt, and there was no mistaking that it was, indeed, her friend who was dead in her yard. She swallowed hard to try and keep the nausea at bay.

  For a surreal moment, Miranda looked at the photo in her shaking hand with the eyes of a seasoned crime writer. There was a lot of blood on his shirt and on the flagstones of her patio area where his body was resting.

  Of course, she did not know yet how Kyle had actually died, but the profuse amount of blood would seem to suggest that he had been surely the victim of stab wound or gunshot? And those were some pretty big boot prints leading back to the house. Nobody she knew wore great big boots like that.

  She thought about mentioning the boot prints to Joe Dixon, to see if he had anything to say about them but she didn’t quite trust this man. Something about him rubbed her the wrong way. She was sure he was fitting her up for Kyle’s murder so the less she said the better.

  “You got anything you want to tell me Miss Wylder?”

  Miranda’s throat felt dry and with her hand over her mouth she tried to clear it by coughing so that she could speak. “Yes.” Her voice was barely above a squeak. Dixon sat up straighter in his chair sure he was going to hear a confession. “Well… not something to tell you actually but I do have a question to ask you.”

  He screwed up his face obviously disappointed. He sighed and then nodded before slouching back in his chair once again.

  “How did you know to go to my apartment this morning anyway?”

  Dixon sighed again. “We got a call from several of your neighbors about hearing a gunshot coming from your place. They were concerned as this is highly unusual in your part of town.”

  “Oh… okay.” Miranda sat back in her chair.

  Dixon shook his head. “Do you have anything else you’d like to tell me?” He said it so hopefully that Miranda almost felt sorry for him.

  Suddenly, the door flew open and a man in his late twenties strode in.

  “I hope you’re not interviewing my client without legal representation,” he said to Dixon in a nasally whine.

  Miranda was at a loss to explain what was going on. Was this child her attorney? He smiled at Miranda, and held out a hand. Of course, at forty-two, Miranda thought of everyone under thirty as still practically a child. “Ged Daly,” he introduced himself, only his accent was so thick that Miranda at first thought that he had said ‘G’day.’ It took her a moment to realize that was his name. Ged Daly.

  What sort of a name was Ged?

  “Interviewing her?” Dixon asked, as if that hadn’t been exactly what he was just doing. “By no means, counselor. I’m just showing your client some photographs of the murder scene at her home.”

  Miranda winced. How could this guy be so insensitive? After all, it wasn’t as if she’d killed Kyle herself.

  “So, now that your attorney is present, would you care to hazard a guess as to what actually happened here?” Dixon pushed the rest of the photographs across the desk at her.

  “Don’t answer that,” Ged Daly said curtly.

  “It’s a simple enough question,” Joe Dixon scoffed.

  The attorney shook his head. “No it isn’t.
You’re trying to trick my client. If she guesses correctly, you think you have a credible suspect and you’ll use it against her. Come now, Detective. We’ve danced this dance before, you and me.”

  Miranda raised her eyebrows; the child was more effective than she could ever have imagined.

  “So, Miss Wylder, when did you last see Kyle Hunter?” Dixon went on as if the last little bit of conversation hadn’t happened.

  “Last night. Kyle came for dinner. We had lamb and about a third of a bottle of wine.”

  Dixon made some notes by hand on a pad of paper. “How long have you known Kyle Hunter?”

  “Oh, about six years. We met at The Chronical. He was the food critic, as he still is… or was.” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I was writing a series of short stories for them. We met regularly to talk about our writing, and we just became really good friends.”

  “Just good friends?” he pressed.

  Ged leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Do not answer that if you were romantically involved.”

  Miranda scoffed. Out loud, she said, “Yes, just friends. I’m not his type.”

  Dixon’s pen hesitated, then continued writing. “And you always meet at your home?”

  “Mostly,” she confirmed. “Sometimes at his place.”

  Scratch, scratch, scratch went the pen. “Okay, I’ve got a couple of things I need to check, so I’ll leave you for a while. Just sit tight, please, Miss Wylder.” And with that, Joe Dixon left the room.

  Ged had waited for him to leave the room before saying anything. “Right, while we have a moment alone, is there any detail you can think of that we can use to try to show your innocence?”

  His nasally whine was seriously irritating Miranda.

  “My innocence?” she repeated, a little startled. “So, I guess you already think you’re representing a guilty woman, huh? It might have been nice if your firm had sent someone with a little more faith in me.”

  “It’s just standard procedure, Miss Wylder. I’m just trying to help.”