by Bill Alive
“She was already doing that without my help,” Fidelio muttered, sullen. “At least she wasn’t waking up alone.”
“What was your exit plan? Divorce with a generous settlement?”
“It definitely wasn’t ‘get set up for murder’! I got played, don’t you see that?”
“No. I don’t. What I see looks more like you hired a hit man and your lover-slash-alibi got spooked.”
“I wouldn’t have used Jivanta as my alibi, she was already blaming me for her father! I went to the wake and she’s like, don’t you ever touch me again.”
Mark frowned. “Why would you kill her father?”
“I know, right? It makes no sense! She was playing me, that’s the thing, it was her all along. The two of them.”
“Two of whom?” Mark snapped.
“Whoa, you just dropped a whom,” I said. “In the wild. Nice.”
“Fidelio,” Mark said, with rising impatience, “what are you trying and failing to say?”
“Think, man,” Fidelio said. “Sibyl had been using his product for years, always behind on payments, promising his dealers the moon when she hit her payday. Well, payday came, and all I can think is that she tried to back out. So he got to Jivanta to get me away and set me up.”
“Who’s ‘he’?” I said. “You mean Numb?”
Both Mark and Fidelio flinched. It was creepy.
Mark said, “So you’re saying that Numb got your secret ex-ish girlfriend to lure you out to her townhouse so he could both execute Sibyl as an example and then pin the murder on you?”
“I’m the perfect suspect! I kill my new miserable wife and rake in the cash! And why else would Jivanta call me like it’s all urgent when she’d just told me never to talk to her again?”
“Because she’s a woman?” Mark said.
I riled. “Because she’s a human being, and she’s going through a difficult time, maybe?” I said. “Her father being murdered and all?”
“But what would Numb have on Dr. Kistna?” Mark said. “Was she involved with him before? That’s a big deal. I thought you were the one getting blackmailed for drug stuff.”
Fidelio looked surprised, and then scared. He frowned. “You said you guys believed me about being with Jivanta that night.”
“I do. Mostly,” Mark said. “But are you sure Numb didn’t have some extra reason to find you a particularly attractive fall guy? Another old score he could settle in the same stroke? Because then if you do manage to dodge the murder charges, he might not feel entirely satisfied.”
Fidelio gaped. His big eyes bulged with fear.
Then he lunged back into his house and slammed the door.
“Hey!” Mark said. He shouted through the door. “Hey Innocent Guy! I can’t save you if you don’t talk to me! Hello? Hey!”
No answer.
“Fine,” Mark said. “YOU’RE WELCOME!” He stomped down the steps back to Thunder.
I stood alone on the empty, oversized porch, taking in the glower of the encroaching woods. I wondered how Fidelio could even bear to see this place now, much less shut himself in to feel safe. Up on a mountain top, totally alone. Until you weren’t.
Not unlike our house.
In the car, Mark sat and pecked irritably at his phone. “What a tool,” he muttered. “Didn’t even give us the details for Sibyl’s funeral. And the website for this funeral home is like digital pepper spray, right in the eyes.” He squinted at the screen and winced.
I tried to muster some nonchalance. “You think Numb will have any people at the funeral?” I said lightly.
He shrugged.
“I just mean, if he did go to all this trouble, don’t you think he’d monitor the aftermath? And anyone trying to trace it back to him? Especially any non-cops?”
“That would be smart,” Mark said, still swiping the phone.
“I take it he’s smart?”
Mark finally eyed me. “Yes, Pete,” he said quietly. “He’s very, very smart.”
I swallowed. For real. “But we’re still going?”
“No one said we were smart.” Mark focused again on the screen and added casually, “Besides … whoever strangled Sibyl already has my phone number.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
Chapter 32
I spent the next several days trying not to think about it.
I would get it out of my head, get totally absorbed in the real-life moment … arranging a display of affirmation CDs at the store, or tweaking the perfect comment for a reshare on Tribesy, or obsessing about that one cashier girl whose smile is like an out-of-body experience but I think she smiles that way at everybody, even old ladies…
And then I’d realize I was back in the car that night, with Mark gasping and choking, and his phone trapped in the crack.
And then, before I could stop it, I’d see a hand swiping Sibyl’s phone, looking up the number, pulling up Mark’s face … my face…
The worst was trying to get to sleep.
You might have thought, all things considered, that Mark would have shared my concerns. For one thing, it was his stupid phone number.
But when Sibyl’s funeral night finally came, Mark was humming. And cheerfully buttoning himself into his only collared shirt, the one he normally reserved for church. Next thing I knew, he’d be donning a tie.
“Why are you in such a good mood?” I said, as he gave his head a fresh shave in our tiny bathroom. “Aren’t you nervous?”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “This funeral could be the jackpot, Pete! Case closed!”
“Maybe. Lindsay’s funeral didn’t go so great.”
He scoffed. “That was weeks ago. I’ve had all kinds of practice. And I’ve been thinking about this … Sibyl got strangled, Pete. That meant some serious, up-close-and-personal emotions. This killer’s going to vibe like crazy. I’ll shield enough to handle it, then pinpoint the source. Done. This could actually, finally work.”
“Your shielding wasn’t so hot the other night,” I said quietly.
He flicked me a glance in the mirror, then looked away. “Yeah. Thanks, by the way.”
“No problem.”
We shared an awkward guy moment.
I broke first. “What about Gwen? She’ll be there too, and she’ll be pissed. What if she finally finds some pretext to take us in custody? You’re not going to shield your way out of handcuffs.”
“She won’t have time,” Mark said. “She’ll be too busy admiring our genius and handcuffing the murderer.”
“You mean the possible trained assassin?” I said. “Who possibly hates us?”
“And definitely choked me?” Mark snapped. He frowned, abruptly grim. “That’s the one. And tonight, he is done. Or she. They can hate us all they want in jail.” He patted his pockets and pulled out his keys. “Come on. I’m driving.”
My gut twinged. I’d gotten so used to driving that somehow Mark at the wheel seemed like a bad omen. It didn’t help that he was a bit manic.
But I still trailed after him and got in the car. “Couldn’t we just have no one hate us?”
“Sure. If we taught kindergarten.”
He fired up Thunder and we rushed down the gravel hill.
“Can we slow down a little?” I shouted.
He laughed and sped up.
For the first time, I had a glimpse of Mark as … wild. Beneath all his superficial snark and computer skills, he might be an angry, lonely mountain man who’d be better off driving a pickup with a shotgun in the rack.
“Once in awhile,” he said, “I see how far I can get down this first slope without using my brakes.”
“Seriously?” I shouted. “If you miss that turn, it’s like a cliff!”
He smirked, but he did tap the brakes. The car jerked and slowed. I relaxed a little.
Then he slammed the gas and we lurched even faster.
I squawked, but he only laughed. “Focus, Watson! Focus! The case! Is the scammer Fidelio the obvious villain? Or did t
he grieving grandfather Mackenzie kill his own daughters, gambling on the scammer looking guilty enough to launch a lawsuit? He is a high-stakes gambler, obsessed with his own failure.”
“You’re going to kill your suspension!”
“On the other hand, suppose Dr. Kistna really is embroiled with Numb. Debt makes people desperate, and Fidelio does make the perfect patsy. Why else would she be lying to the police? She could get him executed!”
The turn was rushing up toward us. Mark punched the gas again.
“Dude!” I shouted.
“And what of our mysterious Jonas Lynch, old boy?” he blathered on. “Will he dare to show his face at the funeral? Or will his very absence confirm his guilt, when no one present vibes the telltale vibe?”
“That doesn’t work, it could be anyone who doesn’t show up!”
“Ah, but my dear Watson, he deliberately threatened you.”
“WHO CARES WHO THREATENED ME IF YOU RUN US OFF THE ROAD?” I shouted.
He chuckled. “If you insist.”
The car didn’t slow.
His face dropped.
“What? What is it?” I shouted.
“Shit,” he said.
He was stomping the brakes.
And we were hurtling towards the turn.
“Brake! Brake! Brake!” I shouted, but it was pointless, I was powerless, I was eight years old again and strapped into my first roller coaster, except this one was going to jump the track for real.
He yanked the emergency brake. Nothing.
“Swerve into the gutter!” I shrieked.
“No! I can make the turn!”
“Are you crazy?! What the hell are you thinking?”
“The car’s not insured, okay?”
“WHAT???”
“Damn it!” he bellowed, and swerved off the road into the deep inside gutter plowed by decades of erosion. The gutter thrashed and slammed us like human pinballs, but we still kept careening down the slope, and when the road turned, the car jumped the gutter back onto the road, spinning sideways toward the cliff. It scraped diagonal across the gravel, hit a tree, spun back the other way, and finally pitched nose first into the gutter.
We sat and breathed.
At last, Mark said, “Good call on the suspension.”
I tried to answer, but my mouth was dry. After a good moistening, I said, “Seriously. You don’t have car insurance.”
“Don’t start with me—”
“What if I’d gotten pulled over? I’ve been driving this car!”
“That’s clearly no longer an issue.”
“Friends don’t let friends drive uninsured cars!”
He twisted toward me, eyes blazing. “Are you trying to get me to emotionally skewer you? Cause I’m this close, Pete, I’m this close to using my magical empath powers to craft the perfect mind virus insult that’s going to worm into your little preppy New Age woo-woo brain and fester and metastasize and make this whole relationship completely toxic, because that’s what I do, Pete, and the madder and more self-righteous you get over there, the more I get—”
“Really? Now it’s my fault?”
“You’re the one who wanted to live with a damn empath, Pete! It’s so amazing, it’s so fucking special—”
“Dude! Enough!”
He stopped. He actually looked surprised.
“All that matters right now,” I said, as calmly as I could, “is how do we get to that funeral?”
“If only we were insured,” he said. “If only I’d reactivated my policy before some murderer cut the brake lines, the little insurance fairies would come and whisk us away, blessing us for our financial foresight.”
“We’ve got to call a taxi.”
“It’s crap reception out here.”
“We can walk up to the house! Do you want to go or not?”
“Of course!” He tried to get out, but the lock stuck. He punched the door, then covered his face.
“Dude, you’re shaking,” I said.
“I’m fine!”
We sat in silence.
I sighed. “A taxi would cost a ton anyway.”
“I’m fine.”
“Then maybe I’m freaked out. I’m sure people try to kill you all the time, but for me, it’s a first. Let’s just walk home and watch Unwinnable State.”
He scoffed. “You’re such a boring girlfriend.”
That was it. I stormed out and marched up the long gravel trek through the night.
About halfway up the hill, I turned to look back. Mark sat alone in the car in the darkness, stranded near the edge of the cliff.
Chapter 33
The next morning, I woke up shaking. I’d never woken up shaking before. It’s bad.
I hesitated outside Mark’s door, hearing him snore. I didn’t knock, or text, or even try to think him up. I’d fallen asleep before he got back, and I didn’t feel ready to talk yet.
I decided to do some meditation to calm down. My phone had at least three different meditation apps, but since it had been awhile, it took some time to find the one I liked. When I finally found it, I sat cross-legged on my mattress, started the timer, and took a deep breath. I felt great.
My phone pinged with a text.
So much for the app blocking notifications. It was Vivian. Hi Pete! I know it’s Saturday, but I need you at work ASAP. Already busy. Thanks!! :)
I groaned. With no car, I was alone and trapped on a mountain, in this shabby excuse for a house that wasn’t even mine.
I struggled to think of a solution besides begging Ceci for a ride. But eventually I gave in and called her up.
We hadn’t talked since that phone call with Sibyl, and at first she was miffed that I hadn’t called her with any updates on the murder investigation. It didn’t help when she found out I was calling for a ride.
I hadn’t planned on telling her about the attack last night, but somehow she pried it out of me.
“Oh my gosh, Pete!” she said. “Are you both okay?”
Just then, Mark shuffled out in his boxers, glowering in a pre-coffee, post-someone-tried-to-kill-me stupor. He gave me a curt nod like nothing had happened last night and scrounged around in the cabinets. Looked like he was down to his last coffee.
“We’re fine,” I said. “Thunder’s not so great.”
“You’ve got to tell Gwen!” Ceci said.
“I know, I know,” I said. “We’ll report it.”
Mark scoffed. “You really want to hear Gwen say, ‘I told you so’?”
He sounded like we were still unofficially pissed at each other, but he was going to be big and act like everything was okay. While also being super surly and sullen. For no official reason.
“I think we should tell the cops,” I said to Mark.
“You think we should?”
I bristled at the implication, but I kept my cool. “I’ll call Gwen,” I told Ceci.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll take you in to work, try not to get murdered in the next twenty minutes.”
“You’re awesome,” I said, and hung up.
Mark slouched at the table, shirtless and morose. He sipped his coffee without making eye contact.
“Need anything in town?” I said.
“Nope,” he said, staring straight ahead.
Pause.
“Is that your last coffee?” I said. “I can pick up grounds and filters, they’re a lot cheaper.”
“I’m good.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to call Gwen now.”
“Whatever.”
With him on one side and Gwen on the other, I was dang near shaking again, but I dialed her number and focused on a slow breath.
“Pete?” she said briskly. “What is it? I noticed you two didn’t come to the funeral last night. Glad you’re finally showing some sense.”
“Well, actually, someone cut our brake lines—”
“What?” she barked. “How do you know? What happened?”
“We were driving
down our hill to the funeral—”
“You tried to come?”
“Yeah, we just, we thought if Mark could get a vibe—”
Mark leapt up and snatched my phone. “Leave the kid alone!” he snapped. “If it were up to Pete, we’d be hiding in the Witness Protection Program.”
“I’m not a kid!” I said.
“Oh?” Mark said, but to Gwen. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Mark’s face was flushing with anger. “Right, sure, you all in uniforms can put yourselves ‘in harm’s way’, and that makes you heroes, but then when I do, all you can say is … What’s that? … What? Hold on, hold on, Pete’s right here—”
He jabbed the phone onto speakerphone.
“…I have no idea why my sister’s so attached to that kid, but you’re putting him in danger—”
“I AM NOT A KID!” I yelled.
“—and for nothing,” Gwen said. “You haven’t found one piece of evidence that we couldn’t have found ourselves.”
“For your information,” Mark barked, “we did see Dr. Kistna making out while Sibyl was getting strangled, and she was making out with Fidelio Samson! So your star informant lied to your face, and you’re all on track to execute the wrong man while the murderer goes free.”
There was a deadly pause.
In a voice of ice, Gwen said, “Pete, is this true?”
“Yeah,” I said miserably.
Still quiet, Gwen said, “You two lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie—” Mark said.
“I knew you two were lying to me! I asked you point blank—”
“What do you expect, when you bust into my house the morning after I get empathically choked?” Mark said. “And I did not lie, I expertly evaded your fumbling attempts at interrogation. The one who lied was Dr. Kistna, and I wanted a chance to talk to her first.”
“That’s my job!”
“And you suck at it! You interrogated us all and put the wrong man in jail!”
“I was doing what I thought was right! You endangered innocent people.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call Fidelio Samson innocent.”
“The real murderer is still out there,” Gwen said. “While you’ve been playing detective, the real police have lost precious time. You could have bought this killer all the time he needs to strangle another victim.”
