Homicide and Hot Tubs

by Annabel Chase

  “Beautifully done, Eloise,” Gia added. “You’re a natural.”

  “And you’re a natural liar,” Jules said. “That painting is awful. I’ve seen better looking corpses.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Gia said.

  Akio must’ve sensed the tension mounting because he clapped his hands again. “That’s all we have time for today, I’m afraid. Please leave your canvases here to dry. You’re more than welcome to collect them later today or tomorrow. Just make sure you have them out by five tomorrow because Josephine needs this room for Zumba.”

  “Why can’t she use the Gods Complex?” Janine asked.

  “There’s a plumbing leak in that room, so the HOA moved them here,” Akio said.

  I slid off my stool and faced Gia. “Well, that was cathartic. Thanks so much for suggesting it.”

  “I can’t decide if you mean that sarcastically,” Gia said.

  I laughed. “Me neither.”

  Jules sidled up to me. “Where to now, marshal? Back to the crime lab? Should we see if Akwan’s body disappeared yet?”

  I peered at her. “Is that the real reason you were following me? You just want to spend more time in the lab?”

  The vampire shrugged. “I’m not on the schedule at Bloodlust today. I get bored easily.”

  It seemed dangerous to me to have a bored vampire in Divine Place. “I was going to go home and take a nap.”

  “I’ll join you,” she said, and walked alongside me to the door.

  “I’m a big fan of weird, Jules, but even I have boundaries.”

  As we passed through the doorway, I noticed a middle-aged man lurking in the corridor outside the room.

  A glimmer of recognition flashed in Jules’s dark eyes. “Hey Louis,” she said.

  He gave her an anxious nod. “How’s it going, Jules?” His focus shifted to me, which made me uneasy. “You’re the marshal, right?”

  Jules wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “She sure is. What do you need? Is there another dead body?” She sounded a little too eager to see it.

  Louis shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I need to talk to you about Akwan.”

  Jules maneuvered between us. “You don’t get to taste his blood. It’s evidence, so back off.”

  Louis shook his head. “I don’t want any of his blood, man. Especially not jinn blood. That stuff is potent.”

  I placed a gentle hand on Jules’s arm so that she didn’t instinctively break my bones. “I got this, Jules. How about I see you later?”

  This seemed to placate her. “Sure thing. I want to go over that blood spatter again. Make sure I got the pattern right.”

  I gave her a thumbs up and waited until she walked away to continue with Louis. “What is it?” I asked. “You have information that would help the investigation?” Because right now, it would be great to have more information than two confessions.

  Louis jerked his head up and down. “Yeah, I can help you big time.” He held out his hands. “You should arrest me because I’m the one that obliterated Akwan.”

  Terrific. Now I had three confessions.

  Chapter Twelve

  I motioned for Louis to step back into the art club room. It was only then that I noticed his T-shirt read Love, Prey, Eat. The vampire shuffled in behind me and I closed the door for privacy. The artists had all vacated the room by now, leaving only their paintings.

  “Let’s rewind this conversation,” I said. “What do you mean you think you obliterated Akwan?” I was dying to hear the latest confession—okay, poor choice of words.

  Louis appeared momentarily distracted and I followed his gaze to a painting in the back row of a werewolf humping a spouting fire hydrant. Well, someone’s emotion had clearly been horny today. I tried to recall which supernatural sat here, but I couldn’t remember.

  My head snapped back to Louis. “You need to focus. We’re talking about obliteration. Kind of serious.”

  He opened and closed his eyes as though trying to clear the image from his mind. “I was there, at your party.”

  “It seems like everyone in Divine Place was at my party,” I said. How many more would claim involvement in Akwan’s oblivion?

  Louis stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I only wanted to sideline him for a few days.”

  “Sideline him how?”

  “I slipped a tonic into his drink when we were standing at the bar together,” he said.

  At least it wasn’t another potion. “What’s the difference between a potion and a tonic?”

  He shrugged. “I think they’re basically the same thing.”

  Okay, so it was another potion. Barf. Yet another substance in Akwan’s drink that shouldn’t have been there. “Did you go to the hot tub with him?”

  He shook his head. “This was earlier. It might have even been his first drink. We toasted to his band, Hat Trick. I’m a big fan, which is sort of why I put the tonic in his drink in the first place. So it’s kind of ironic that we toasted to it.”

  “What was the tonic meant to do?”

  “It’s sort of like a reverse decongestant.”

  I played back his answer in my head. “What in the heck is a reverse decongestant?”

  “Instead of relieving the symptoms of congestion, the tonic gives them to you.”

  “Why would you want him to be congested?” Of all the answers I anticipated, that certainly wasn’t one of them. My money had been on diarrhea.

  “He played sax for Hat Trick,” Louis said. “I also play the sax and I’ve been wanting to play with Hat Trick for years.”

  “Don’t your fangs get in the way of the reed?” I asked.

  “I manage.”

  His problem quickly became clear. “And the band only needs one saxophonist at a time.”

  “Exactly. The band has a big gig coming up this week, so I thought if I gave him the tonic in enough time, that he wouldn’t be able to play and they’d need to find a replacement. I would’ve just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “That’s some hard-core strategizing for a saxophone position,” I said. “I almost want to give you props.”

  He gave me a sheepish grin. “I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with it. Of course, I had to buy the tonic on the black market. You can’t buy something like that in True Brew or any of the other potion shops.”

  “There’s a black market for potions here?”

  His gaze lowered to my marshal badge. “No. Did I say black market? I meant to say that I found it.”

  I folded my arms and gave him my full attention. “You found it?”

  Louis began to squirm. “Yeah. I found it in the sense that I paid someone money for it and they left the bottle for me in my mailbox.”

  I waved a hand. “Okay, we don’t need to get into that right now. Let’s focus on the more important topic. You slipped the tonic into his drink at the bar, yes?”

  He nodded. “We toasted. Everything was cool. The tonic wasn’t supposed to take effect for a few hours, so it didn’t even occur to me that it might hit him when he was in water.”

  Understanding swept over me. “And you think that Akwan got super congested in the hot tub and drowned?”

  He went to lean on the nearest canvas and nearly knocked it over. “I have no idea what happened,” he said, quickly trying to steady the painting before it collapsed. “I wasn’t there, but I heard that he died in the hot tub. What was I supposed to think?”

  “The tonic was meant to give him a stuffy nose and a sore throat, right? Why would you think it was bad enough to drown him?”

  He winced. “Because I may have given him a little bit extra to make sure that it was successful,” Louis said.

  “Got it,” I said.

  “It’s the black market. You never know what you’re going to get.”

  “No, that’s life,” I said. “And a box of chocolates.”

  “I thought it would be legit,
” he continued, “but maybe it was too legit?”

  I resisted the urge to add to quit. I doubted Louis would get the reference anyway. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to start your own band?”

  Louis gave me a dark look. “You only say that because you’ve never listened to Hat Trick play. They’re amazing. It’s been my dream to play with them ever since I got here. That’s the problem with the afterlife. Most of the time, nobody goes anywhere. We’re all trapped here unless we ascend or descend and this place is small.”

  “Doesn’t seem so small to me.”

  “Give it time,” he said. “It’ll feel like your backyard soon enough.”

  “So you haven’t played at all? You’ve been biding your time until something happened to Akwan?”

  He glowered at me. “No, of course not. I’ve played in several bands, but they’re not Hat Trick. Akwan isn’t the reason that band is so great. He was a hack.” His hand flew to cover his mouth. “Oh, sweet Lilith. I really shouldn’t speak ill of the obliterated. It’s impolite.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll be able to play with them now. Akwan was the jinni that made your wish come true, pal.”

  “I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen. I figured that if he had to sit out of a big performance and I filled in that I would blow everyone away with my skills and they wouldn’t want him back.”

  “Solid plan. Unfortunately, he has to sit out of every performance forever.”

  “So what happens now?” Louis asked. “Is there some kind of station where you need to bring me down to and book me?”

  I half smiled. “It sounds like you may have been through this before.”

  His eyes rolled upward in a thoughtful gesture. “I think it was in the 1920s. Something to do with prohibition. It’s only a faded memory now.”

  “Yeah, relatable. I have so many faded memories.” Okay, they were more blurry than faded thanks to the haze of alcohol that blanketed my youth but whatever.

  “Is that the only time you were arrested?” I asked.

  “Yes, but not the only time I broke the law. Just the only time I got caught.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, Eloise. Obliterating Akwan is the tip of the fang.” He tipped back his head and exhaled. “I’ve worked so hard to put the super back in supernatural, especially since I’ve been here.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but I felt a rush of sympathy for poor Louis. “Oh, really? What kinds of things have you done?”

  He brightened at the prospect of sharing his good deeds. “I used to volunteer at the homeless shelter.”

  “How is there a homeless shelter? They literally assign you a house the second you land here.”

  Louis splayed his hands. “That’s why I don’t volunteer there anymore. It was always empty.”

  “What else do you do?”

  “I teach music here, and sometimes I walk cats.”

  “Cats?” I repeated. “You’re a cat walker?”

  He shrugged. “Some of those witches work a lot of hours. I started out doing those things in order to tip the scales in favor of ascension, but after a few years, I realized that I did it because it felt good to do good. Plus, I like cats.”

  I couldn’t let Louis walk around the village believing he’d undone all his good deeds in a single moment of poor judgment. “I should probably tell you that I’m not one hundred percent sure that you’re responsible for Akwan’s obliteration.”

  Louis balked. “How?”

  “I can’t say too much. Just know that there were others with their own agenda.”

  Louis rubbed his cheeks with both hands, processing my statement. “How will you know for sure which one of us is guilty?”

  “I don’t know yet, but when I do, you’ll be the first one to hear about it.” I paused. “If you’re the guilty party. If not, you’ll be like third or fourth to know.”

  Louis appeared visibly relieved. “I’ll take those odds, marshal. Thanks.”

  I noticed a pot of black paint within reach and snatched it up.

  “What are you doing?” Louis asked.

  “We were supposed to take a sample home,” I lied. “I forgot mine.”

  “Don’t you want the other colors?” he asked, nodding toward the rest of the palette.

  I pictured my sparkly golf cart. “Black will do.” We walked to the exit together. “You should talk to Lauren-Ann about auditioning. She seems pretty cool.”

  Louis offered a grateful smile. “Yeah, she does. Awesome. I’ll hit her up today.”

  As I left the building, it occurred to me that I felt good about easing Louis’s fears—that it did, in fact, feel good to do good.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I woke up the next morning feeling an emotion I hadn’t felt since I borrowed one of my dad’s cars without permission and dinged the driver’s side mirror.

  “Now that I’m dead, I resent waking up feeling stressed,” I moaned to the cat.

  Mischief opened one eye in acknowledgement.

  “I promised Gia I’d play pickleball today,” I continued. I had no idea what pickleball was, but the goddess had invited me enough times to join their game that I felt compelled to show up. Gia said it would only take about fifty minutes per match and then I could go straight back to the investigation. I wasn’t accustomed to pleasing anyone except myself, so juggling these competing demands on my time was a foreign concept.

  I dressed in what I imagined was appropriate pickleball attire—shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers. Because I couldn’t resist a bit of flavor, I made sure to wear my T-shirt that read I Hate Most People. The Others I Just Haven’t Met Yet. I’d found it in a novelty shop in Zone 2 that catered to supernaturals who’d spent their lives in the mortal realm.

  I managed to locate the outdoor pickleball court with the help of a Zone 1 map and a centaur on Madison Avenue that I asked for directions. GPS had been a game-changer for me because I was a terrible map reader. Having a polite woman read directions to me while I drove was a dream come true. It was like having a helpful best friend that could come anywhere with you at a moment’s notice and never question your fashion choices.

  Gia was so genuinely thrilled to see me that I felt a twinge of guilt for putting her off. She’d been nothing but kind to me and I didn’t want to reward her good behavior with my usual resistance.

  I tried to pay attention as the rules were explained to me. It looked like a combination of tennis and badminton. Although the game could be played with singles, today involved doubles because of the number of participants. Most of the players were less enthusiastic than Gia in their welcome, which I understood. Even though they were all different species of supernaturals, they were still supernaturals, which made me the odd one out. I was relieved when a nymph named Mara offered to be my partner, although I had a suspicion that Gia had bribed her with the promise of free flowers.

  I practiced holding a paddle and swinging it back and forth.

  “You look like you’re trying to catch flies,” Gia said. “It’s not a swatter.”

  I watched the players on the court and tried to mimic their moves.

  “Now you look constipated,” Gia said.

  I dropped my arms to my sides. “How does swinging a paddle make me look constipated?”

  “It’s your expression,” Gia said. “You’re concentrating too hard.”

  That actually made sense.

  “Use the Force, Luke,” I said, wielding my paddle.

  “Hey, human,” Mara said. “Someone appreciates your weird moves. That guy is totally checking you out.”

  I turned to see a man with a slight build a few yards away. Mara was right. The intensity of his stare was unsettling. I was surprised I didn’t sense it myself, but I was probably too focused on mastering the pickleball paddle.

  “Hey, buddy. Something catch your fancy?” I yelled.

  He seemed startled that I’d noticed him and cautiously waved me over.
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  “I’ve been playing here for years and no guy has ever waved me over,” Mara complained.

  “Maybe you need to try the constipated look,” Gia advised.

  “You’re the marshal, right?” he asked, as I approached.

  I glanced down to point at my star badge, but realized that I’d taken it off in order to play. “That’s me. How can I help you?” Like Randolph, he had pointy ears and an angular face.

  He glanced helplessly around the busy court. “Is there somewhere we can talk without being overheard?”

  “Listen, Will Ferrell. You sought me out in the middle of a pickleball game. Of course it’s busy.”

  He squinted at me. “Who’s Will Ferrell? My name is Jakob.”

  I heaved a sigh. “He’s an actor from a movie called Elf where he played…Forget it.” I gestured to a cluster of golf carts. “Let’s talk over there.” It seemed far enough away to allow for privacy but not so private that he could obliterate me without witnesses.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your game,” he said, sounding sincere. “I just have to get this off my chest.” He swallowed as though he had a baseball in his throat. “I’m the one that obliterated Akwan. You need to arrest me.”

  My paddle slipped to the ground. How did I end up in the supernatural version of Spartacus? “You’re serious. You’re confessing to the crime?”

  He inhaled sharply, shaking his hands in the process. He seemed to be psyching himself up. “Yes,” he said firmly. “I did it. You need to put me before Rada and the rest of the tribunal. I deserve all the judgment.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, dragging out the word. I wasn’t convinced anyone needed all the judgment. “Walk me through this, Jakob. What makes you think that an elf like you single-handedly obliterated a jinni like Akwan?”

  Jakob turned and pressed his forehead against the side of the golf cart, avoiding eye contact. “I turned up the heat on the hot tub until it was an unbearable temperature. I basically boiled him to death.”

  “Like a frog,” I said, thinking of Mitzi’s statement.

  He frowned. “What kind of monster boils frogs?”