by Ivy Thorne
“Excuse me,” she said to the hostess. “Are there any tables available on the patio? I have one other person joining me.”
She glanced at her watch. It was now five minutes after seven. Marla could feel a nervous sweat creeping across her forehead.
Oh, God, now if Dane does show up he’ll see me with a sweat mustache!
“Are you by chance Marla?” the hostess asked.
Immediately, Marla’s anxiety dissipated. “Yes!” she declared.
The hostess led Marla around the back of the grill house, where Dane was inspecting a menu at a square table just big enough for the two of them. Overshadowing the patio was an awning that offered adequate shade.
When Dane looked up from his menu, Marla was pleased to notice his eyes travel up and down her frame. He was checking her out. The hostess presented Marla with a menu before leaving.
Dane smiled bashfully. He tore his eyes away from Marla and cleared his throat. “It’s good to see you out of uniform,” he said. Marla hoped he was trying to be professional by not admitting just how hot he thought she looked.
“It feels good to be out of uniform,” she said.
Dane stared down at his attire, which was a simple T-shirt and shorts. “To think, I was afraid I was underdressed for this meeting.”
“You’d only be underdressed if you’d neglected to put on pants,” Marla joked.
The remark managed to produce a chuckle from Dane. It was the most adorable sound Marla ever had heard.
“What do you recommend ordering?” he asked.
“I’m a vegetarian, so I tend to lean toward the veggie burger,” Marla replied. “The patty is a portobello mushroom, which, although it sounds kind of gross, is very well done. It’s also fried, so you can’t go wrong.”
She watched as Dane squinted at the menu in search of the veggie burger.
“It’s on the third-page midway down, under the burgers heading. It’s fifteen dollars and comes with a choice of fries, a salad, or, for an extra two dollars, sweet potato fries,” she told him.
Dane cocked an eyebrow at her. “Wow. You didn’t even look at the menu. How often do you come here?” he inquired.
Marla almost had forgotten he didn’t know about her photographic memory. She laughed. For anyone who didn’t know her well, her scarily accurate detailing of the menu would make her seem like a regular customer. After glancing at a restaurant’s menu once, Marla didn’t need to look at it again since she could remember it perfectly. Still, she’d accepted the menu.
“I don’t get out much,” she admitted. “I’m just good at remembering things.”
She avoided using the term ‘photographic memory’ so as not to freak out Dane. She’d learned from past incidents that people tended to look at her funny when she informed them of her ability. People tended to either be skeptical of her and constantly test her or be in awe and ask too many questions.
Once the two of them had decided on their meal options and placed their orders, Dane went into detective mode.
“You mentioned over the phone that you had relevant information to tell me. Care to share?”
“Right,” Marla said.
The information she had for Dane pertained to a predicament she’d found herself in when she’d been one of Reggie’s tenants. At the time, she’d just received her funeral director’s license and was struggling to find a job as a new licensee. She’d found that it hadn’t been easy to find a job with the little experience she’d had.
For a while, she’d had to work at a fast food coffee joint to pay the bills. Finally, that winter, she’d managed to get a contract job out of town. There’d been only one problem: She’d already signed a lease agreement to stay at Reggie’s for another year. To get out of her lease, she’d have to find someone to take her place.
While Marla was telling the story, a waiter arrived with their food and drinks. Naturally, Marla had ordered the veggie burger. Dane had gone with kabobs.
There had been a time before Marla became a funeral director that she too had consumed meat. Her choice to make the lifestyle change came about because of her embalming experience. During her first autopsy case, when she’d viewed the ribs and musculature of a human for the first time, she’d realized how similar it looked to a rack of ribs she could order at a restaurant. Ever since making that connection, she found herself feeling ill whenever she was presented with animal flesh. She also adored animals and never had liked the idea that she’d been eating their slaughtered bodies. If it hadn’t been for her condo’s restrictions on pets, Marla would adopt a cat in an instant.
It wasn’t until Marla saw how large the veggie burger was that she began to regret her choice. How was she supposed to look cute unhinging her jaw to eat such a big sandwich?
“Something wrong with your food?” Dane asked. He’d noticed the concern on her face.
“No,” Marla said, “I’m just trying to figure out how to eat it without looking like a slob.”
Again, she’d made Dane laugh. She was on a roll.
“Tell me more about the tenancy debacle,” he said.
Marla continued. She told Dane about Ashley Tyler, the other tenant, who’d lived in Reggie’s basement. Ashley had requested that, for her comfort, Marla try to find another girl to take her place. Marla had attempted to do so, but every time she’d tried to set up a time for girls to meet Ashley and see the place, Ashley wasn’t available. As a result of not being able to meet Ashley, none of the girls who’d seen the basement were interested in renting it.
“I moved out into a new place up north and ended up having to keep paying my rent at Reggie’s because I couldn’t find a woman to replace me,” Marla explained. “There were months I couldn’t afford Reggie’s rent on top of the rent I was paying at my new place. It was ridiculous. Eventually, after texting Reggie to tell him I couldn’t pay my rent again, he told me to just find anyone. So, I made my rental ads open to men.”
Marla went on to tell Dane about how Ashley had reacted to her new male roommate, once Marla had found one.
“One day Ashley texted me a picture of a letter,” she continued. “The letter had been written by a lawyer. She’d threatened to take legal action if I sub-leased my room in the basement to the man I’d found. I did it anyway because, according to the laws, a landlord cannot discriminate against renters based on gender. Also, there’d been nothing in the lease about Ashley having control over who her roommate was.”
Dane appeared to be listening intently to Marla’s anecdote as he ate his meal. Marla had been talking so much she’d scarcely had a moment to take a bite of her burger. Now she took the opportunity. She was hungry and no longer cared how sloppy she looked shoving the massive sandwich into her mouth.
“Do you have a contact for Ashley?” Dane asked. “I’d be interested to ask her some questions about Reggie. Perhaps she’d have some insight into his murder.”
Marla recited Ashley’s phone number off of the top of her head.
“Wow! Hang on!” Dane blurted. “I have no way of recording this. I don’t have as good a memory as you do.”
Marla had forgotten that most people had to write down phone numbers to remember them. She opened her purse, digging around inside until she found an old receipt and a pen to write down the number.
Dane thanked her. As he took the scrap of paper from her, he accidentally clutched her hand for a moment. He blushed, apologizing. Marla could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. Never had she met a guy so utterly adorable.
“What happened with that whole rental situation anyway?” Dane asked.
Marla shrugged. “Reggie had texted me telling me he wasn’t about to get in the middle of a catfight. He’d made it clear he wasn’t taking responsibility for my choice in subtenants, even though it legally was his responsibility. No lawsuit ever was pursued. I also haven’t heard from Ashley since.”
“How long ago was this?” Dane questioned.
“About five years.”
&nb
sp; “You still remember her number? That’s remarkable. You must have a photographic memory,” Dane said. He sounded impressed.
Now Marla could feel herself going red. Her ears must have looked like they’d been burned by the sun. She caught a glimpse of Dane looking at her with a sort of longing in his eyes. The moment barely lasted a second. Marla couldn’t even be sure if he’d looked at her that way or if she’d imagined it.
“How is the investigation going?” she asked, ending the awkward silence that had followed. “Do you have any suspects?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about investigations,” Dane replied. “The information is classified.”
“That makes sense,” Marla said. “I sort of figured you’d say that, but I thought it was worth a try. I’ve always been intrigued by murder investigations.”
For the remainder of the dinner, Dane seemed uncomfortable with Marla, though she couldn’t figure out why. She’d asked him questions about his background, interests, and hobbies, but his answers all were rather vague, as though he didn’t want to reveal too much about himself to her. She also noticed him avoiding eye contact. Marla hoped she wasn’t doing anything to prompt his discomfort.
Maybe he’s feeling shy because he’s attracted to me, Marla hoped.
To have a chance at dating Dane, she needed to know whether he was available. Marla knew no way of delicately bringing up the subject, so as usual, she bluntly popped the question:
“Are you currently seeing anyone? Like, a girlfriend or boyfriend?”
Again, Dane’s face flushed red.
“Um, no. Not currently,” he said. He looked like he wanted to add more to his answer, but was restraining himself.
Marla left the restaurant with the feeling that the meeting had gone well. She couldn’t be sure that Dane felt anything for her. But judging by the way he’d looked at her when she’d first arrived, Marla thought he did. She’d also managed to get his cell number.
Chapter 6
Marla had sent Dane a text the day after meeting him to thank him for sharing his time with her. Since then, three days had passed, and she hadn’t heard from him.
His lack of response was starting to worry Marla. Perhaps she’d been wrong about him. Maybe he hadn’t found her attractive in the slightest. Every moment when Marla wasn’t busy at work, she would review the conversation she’d had with him at the restaurant and examine it for anything she could have said or done that could have turned him off. He had spent the latter part of the dinner behaving in a reserved manner. Could this have been an indication that she’d offended him in some way?
Now that she was on the later shift with Jackie, Marla invited her colleague out for breakfast to see if Jackie could help Marla determine whether she’d done something wrong.
The breakfast place was a hole-in-the-wall type restaurant where every senior in town went to get their morning grub. One of the unique details of the interior décor was the many egg pun paintings on the wall. One of Marla’s favorite paintings was the image of the egg frying in a pan. Instead of a regular yolk, an eyeball had been substituted. The extraordinary art piece was entitled ‘eggcentric.’
Walking into the restaurant and smelling the fried eggs, coffee and bacon reminded Marla of when she was a child and would wake up to the smell of her parents cooking her breakfast.
“God, I love breakfast,” Jackie said after ordering a waffle with fruit. “I only ever get to eat it properly when I work the one-to-nine shift.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wish I was a morning person. But then again, with all the nightly removals I’ve had to do, it might be a good thing that I prefer staying up late.”
Jackie voiced her debate regarding whether to get whipped cream on her waffle. When she turned to Marla for an opinion she noticed her staring woefully into her coffee mug.
“Something tells me you didn’t decide to treat me to breakfast just out of the kindness of your heart,” Jackie said. “What’s eating you?”
“Mosquitos, for one,” Marla answered jokingly. She scratched at a bite on her arm. “But also, Dane isn’t messaging me. I think I might have screwed up our meeting.”
Jackie had been the first to know about Marla’s dinner with Dane.
“Did you make any funeral director jokes?” Jackie asked.
Marla shook her head. “I stayed clear of those.”
“What makes you think you’ve done anything to put him off?” Jackie said after taking a sip of her coffee. Having decided she did want whipped cream, she flagged down a server and ordered a side of it.
“Maybe the man’s just busy,” Jackie offered. “He is working a murder case, after all.”
This was an obvious possibility that Marla had failed to consider. It was also possible that he was playing hard to get.
Marla had learned from previous experience dating boys that men thought they became more desirable if they ignored a girl’s texts and phone calls. It worked to some extent, but for the most part, Marla found this deliberate behavior frustrating and unnecessary.
“Just be patient,” Jackie said. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like you were perfectly pleasant to the boy. You even paid for his dinner, did you not?”
“I did,” Marla said. She smiled upon remembering how pink Dane’s face had gone when she’d insisted on paying. He’d become flustered when she’d forcibly taken the bill from the waitress.
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Jackie. “I seem to pay for other people’s meals a lot.” Marla was referring to a few instances where she’d bought Jackie’s burrito with the promise of being repaid. Except Jackie had yet to do so.
A guilty look appeared on Jackie’s face. “I still haven’t paid you back, have I?”
Marla shook her head slowly. “You owe me twenty-five dollars and seventy-three cents.”
There was a pause in their conversation as Jackie took a moment to digitally transfer the funds she owed Marla using the Internet on her phone.
“There,” she said, emphasizing herself tapping the send button on her phone, “you have been paid in full.”
Marla grinned cheekily. Jackie didn’t remember, but she only owed Marla twenty-three dollars from the burritos. The other two dollars and seventy-three cents came from the time in January that Marla had paid for Jackie’s coffee and biscuit, again, with the promise of compensation.
After receiving her order, Jackie fell silent because she was stuffing her face with waffles and fruit. She wiped her mouth with a napkin at one point and looked at Marla with a question on her face.
“Exactly how much did you tell Dane about your past with Reggie?” she asked.
“Just the story about how Ashley tried to sue me. I told you that story, didn’t I?”
“I vaguely recall it,” Jackie responded. “It’s probably best you avoid talking too much about the murder. You don’t want to make yourself look like a suspect. He might get the wrong idea if he thinks you disliked Reggie. That would give you the motive to have killed him. I doubt he’d think that, though. He’d have to be reaching for a suspect if he were to think you capable of murder.”
“Yeah, tell me about it!” Marla remarked. She finished the last of her veggie omelet. “I don’t exactly look daunting. I’m a pipsqueak!”
“You’re surprisingly strong for a pipsqueak,” Jackie pointed out. “I’ve seen grown men struggle to lift a stretcher containing an oversized person. You’ve done it without so much as breaking a sweat.”