Murder Feels Crazy

by Bill Alive

I cringed, flashing my final memory of said Ed. Very final. Suspects come and go, but corpses accumulate.

  Mark’s voice sank low. “And losing her hasn’t made you rethink using?”

  Katrina flared. She finally glared right into Mark’s face, and her intensity scared me. “Listen, Colombo. Roxanne was the smartest woman I ever met. She was business savvy, she could kick any suit’s ass. But the one thing she didn’t know…”

  She trailed off. As fast as the rage had risen, it burned off back into sadness.

  Mark watched her, then his eyes widened in surprise. “She didn’t know how to get a… a ‘good’ batch?”

  “Bingo.”

  Mark frowned.

  “Look, kid, you’re still stuck in some cop movie from the seventies,” she said. “It’s the twenty-first century. We’re consumers. We have options.”

  “I know,” Mark said. “There’s a new breed of dealers that run it like a real business, with friendly delivery boys that’ll meet you around the corner.”

  “Exactly.” She smiled, her lips crimping around teeth gone yellow. “It’s a lifestyle choice.”

  “Lifestyle?” I blurted. “Living off your aunt?”

  Now the rage eyes sizzled back to singe me.

  “It’s not my fault I got laid off in this damn recession,” she said. “And I work, damn it. I write grants for non-profits. And I only write for organizations I believe in, which does not make it easy.”

  But again the anger drifted off, and she dimmed back into sadness.

  “There’s no money for good people anymore anyway,” she muttered. “They’re printing up all these extra trillions, and this town can’t even keep a homeless shelter open.”

  Her eyes held a look that creeped me to my core, a knowing expression I’d only ever seen in parents and even sadder relatives, like I truly had no idea how the world really worked… and that finding out might crush me.

  Mark said, cautious, “I’m with you on the shelter. But isn’t more heroin going to make that problem worse? Even a ‘good’ batch?”

  Katrina shut her eyes, cracked a ghastly half-smile, and started mewling what I think was some old tune about the times “uh-changing”.

  Now Mark looked creeped out.

  “Katrina,” he said, with a sharp edge. “Someone killed Aidan with heroin. You can help me find the local dealer.”

  Her eyes flashed open. “So I can lose access? Dream on.”

  “Your friend died,” Mark said.

  “She got shit from Baltimore. I told her to order local but she was scared, she had too much to lose. These new guys are the best thing that’s happened to me in a long, long, long time. And not just me.” She shut her eyes again, and started to butcher “A Whole New World.”

  Mark stood up. “Okay, we’re done here.”

  “Not yet,” rasped a ghostly ancient.

  Chapter 23

  As I darted frantic glances around the dim furniture, the gravelly hoary croak spoke again.

  “Not until you have tea.”

  There she was. In the doorway to a gray kitchen. Unlike Katrina, this woman was really old, with wrinkles upon wrinkles, and she was short and thin and stooped. But her thick white hair was lovingly braided in a ponytail down to her waist, and her dress was cheerful with little blue forget-me-nots, and her smile was sweet. Or at least cordial.

  “You do have time for tea?” she rasped. Despite her friendly look, something about her voice still set me on edge. It wasn’t just Pete being ageist… at least, I hoped not. I really felt like there was something else wrong, something she could hide with her grooming and her smile that still leaked out when she spoke.

  Mark activated his own Client Mode smile. “Tea sounds perfect, thank you,” he said. “I take it you’re Aunt Dolores?”

  She dimpled in a pleased smile. “That’s right. Come on back.” She eyed Katrina, who was still engulfed in the chair and was now humming with her eyes shut. “I’d ask Katrina, but I think she has work to do.”

  Katrina ignored her.

  Aunt Dolores’ face twitched behind her smile, but she focused back on Mark. “Are you friends with Katrina?” she asked him, as she turned away to lead us into the kitchen. “I don’t see many of Katrina’s friends.”

  Turning away from us was ill-advised. Without her smile to mask it, her voice again sounded fraught with menace.

  But Mark was following her into the kitchen. I hesitated, then grudgingly traipsed in after him.

  And gasped.

  Every square inch of every wall in the wide old kitchen was plastered with family photos. Everywhere.

  They weren’t even framed. She’d just gotten stacks and stacks of old photos developed and stuck them right up in a gigantic mural montage.

  I couldn’t imagine doing that; I’d go crazy with so many faces always watching me. The repetition made me dizzy, the creepy family resemblance morphing across so many eras and ages and weights…

  Then a garish outside face broke the pattern. Roxanne.

  There was a whole cluster of Roxanne pics, rocking her red hair and aggressive makeup. Some had to be from college, and Katrina looked so much younger than she did now, practically baby-faced. It made me sad.

  Aunt Dolores followed my gaze with a piercing look, then her own face darkened with sadness.

  “Roxanne was like family,” she said.

  Mark nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “That young woman was making something of herself,” she said. She hefted a battered cast-iron kettle that looked old and sturdy enough to have brained a Nazi, and then began to fill it at the sputtering faucet. “And how did you two know Roxanne?”

  I resisted the urge to say, Mainly from her trying to shoot me in the face.

  (I know, I know, I keep bringing that up. Sorry.)

  Mark said, “We didn’t know her well, unfortunately. We met through a mutual acquaintance.”

  Acquaintance? I thought. More like suspect.

  As Aunt Dolores gathered tea cups from a cabinet, Mark rolled on. “And then we were surprised to find she had meant so much to Luther and Rachel.”

  When he said Rachel, a cup cracked.

  And Mark winced.

  He kept it quiet, but I caught it. “What is it?” I whispered.

  Luther told her, he mind-blasted. About Rachel and Aidan. Now she HATES them.

  A chill iced down my back. Aunt Dolores was still rattling the cups at her cluttered counter like any shaky old lady.

  But my mind was buzzing a full red alert. I was seeing something. I just hadn’t seen it yet.

  There.

  On the wall. There was a hole in the mural. A missing photo.

  And then, naturally, smoothly, like I’d already seen all of this before, my gaze fell to the round kitchen table where Mark and I were waiting on our tea. Right beside a newspaper lay a photo of Luther grinning.

  A photo cut carefully in half.

  The missing half was gone. But the remaining arm around Luther’s shoulder ended in a slender hand that, yes, I did recognize. With sparkly purple painted nails.

  The overall effect was like Luther had gleefully ripped off Rachel’s arm.

  My neck hairs bristled.

  But it wasn’t just the photo.

  When I looked up, Aunt Dolores had fixed me with a silent, watchful glare.

  Chapter 24

  We managed to get out of that claustrophobic kitchen without tipping Aunt Dolores off. She didn’t seem to guess that we were detectives… or that her precious Luther was now a murder suspect.

  As a bonus, her tea didn’t kill us. Another thing I’ll never get used to: taking free drinks from murder suspects.

  Is this just a Southern hospitality thing? I don’t remember the Maltese Falcon guy having to worry about free drinks. But it’s been a long time since I read it. I should read it again. When we’re not actually solving murders.

  Anyway, as we roared off in Thunder, I said, “That aunt is crazy! I almost vibed t
he hate rays myself!”

  Mark nodded. “She is one hundred percent certain that both Aidan and Rachel are scum.”

  “Yikes,” I said. “You think she really could have killed Aidan?”

  “All it would take is one phone call and some cash savings,” he said. “With Katrina in the house, she’d have access to the number.”

  I imagined her twisting the dial of the ancient rotary phone I’d seen mounted on her kitchen wall, the handset clutched close to her lips, that voice croak-whispering the order…

  “She’s not going to talk, and neither will Katrina,” Mark said. “But it won’t be long before Katrina needs a delivery.”

  “Wait,” I said. “No.”

  Mark nodded. “Time for a stakeout.”

  I hate stakeouts.

  For starters, we had to schedule ours around work. Which, I’m sorry, that’s just pathetic.

  Mark even had work stuff on Saturday (which also served as his lame excuse with Gwen for skipping Aidan’s funeral). Then, on Sunday, Vivian made me catch up on all these hours… anyway, by Monday, we were finally ready to stake.

  So, there we were, on a cold gray November morning, parked a few houses down in a sketchy neighborhood, just two dudes in a beat-up old car that dated from the Nixon era, trying not to look suspicious.

  We tried to keep the heater running, but since Thunder’s idle could easily be mistaken for ground artillery, Mark had to cut the engine. In about thirty-five seconds, we were freezing. The tip of my nose was turning to frost.

  Out of nowhere, Mark pulled on this thick red wool hat. With a white pom pom.

  “Whoa! Nice!” I said. “You never wear hats.”

  He shrugged and looked aloof. “Sure I do.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Did you start reading The Happiness Project? It’s like the wool socks!”

  Mark frowned. “There’s no point in freezing out here.”

  “You did start reading it!”

  “Can we please stay focused?” Mark snapped.

  Silence.

  Mark sighed. “I can’t believe you already have to pee.”

  “I didn’t say anything!” I said. “And that’s kind of gross!”

  “Yes, it is.”

  I could bore you with all the intricate tedium of the next several hours, but unless you’re a student of rural traffic patterns, mild claustrophobia, or incipient hypothermia, we might as well skip to the good part.

  Mark and I did at least take the time to review our list of suspects. The problem was, anyone could have done it who:

  - Hated Aidan.

  - Knew he had an opiate addiction.

  - Had the phone number for the local heroin dealer.

  - Had a bit of cash to afford the delivery.

  In theory, this could be almost anyone who’d ever known the guy. An old college roommate. A jilted high school girlfriend. A vindictive grade school piano teacher.

  Okay, probably not the piano teacher. But if you’d had Ms. Mittelbacher when you were in third grade, you’d be tempted to leave this option on the table.

  Katrina’s comment that pretty much everyone hated Aidan was disturbing. Both on a cosmic scale, and also because it could mean an insane amount of work.

  On the other hand, Katrina was Luther’s sister, and Aidan had gotten Luther’s (ex?-)girlfriend pregnant. So Katrina wasn’t exactly unbiased.

  For now, that whole love triangle mess seemed like the super obvious festering motive. Especially given the epic argument, revelation, and, you know, death threat, all the night before.

  This made Luther our Blindingly Obvious Suspect Number One. His hatred for Aidan seemed visceral, he’d shouted he’d kill the guy, and his own sister Katrina was a regular customer of the local dealer. Plus, he’d called Katrina that night. Then disappeared.

  If Lestrade were on this case, he’d be hunting Luther to the bitter end.

  Which of course made one cautious. Luther was almost too easy.

  (Even though, in real life, murders apparently tend to be either super easy or never solved.)

  What about Rachel? Rachel could have done it, but her motive was murkier. Unless the whole “Aidan and I were ancient history” thing was an act, and his final public rejection that night had made her go lethal beneath that cold mask.

  Mark decided that he hadn’t gotten a sure vibe from Rachel either way. He was inclined to think she was telling the truth, and that the only thing she’d wanted from Aidan was money. I wanted to agree with him… but I was also pretty sure that, despite my best efforts, I was biased to believe Rachel over, say, Aunt Dolores.

  To be fair, Mark’s vibe with Aunt Dolores had been straight-up lethal. She might do anything to protect or avenge her family.

  Then there was Katrina. She hated Aidan too, and was maybe the most likely of all to think to call the dealer. But she seemed a little self-absorbed to orchestrate a murder. She was not, say, ripping out photos of Rachel.

  For now, our core suspects were Aunt Dolores and Luther.

  Neither seemed exactly flush with cash, but the price wouldn’t have been insurmountable. It wasn’t like Aidan had been killed with a Picasso. Besides, for all we knew, Aunt Dolores might have a coffee can packed with Benjamins squirreled away in all that bric-a-brac. She had to be living on something.

  We knew there could be plenty more suspects, since we had no way of knowing who else Aidan might have pissed off. Any one of those furries, for instance. Or someone at the rehab center. Or even Ms. Mittelbach.

  But before we spent the rest of our lives doing interviews, we had to find the dealer. With any luck, the dealer would know exactly who’d made that call.

  This is the part where, for you, Katrina can slip out her front door with perfect timing.

  For us, we had to sit there going numb for hours. That must be said.

  But yes, finally, at some point between noon and six (it’s all the same on those overcast winterish eternal afternoons), the door did open at last, and Katrina booked it down the block. That woman was on a mission.

  “Yes!” I said, with a victory fist pump. I gamely ignored the pain as circulation returned to my hand. “Now what?”

  “Now,” Mark said, “we give chase.”

  He hit the ignition. Thunder roared.

  Katrina whirled around, like, What the HELL was THAT?

  “Duck!” I yelled, and we dived down as far as we could. We cramped there panting for what felt like five minutes, but then Mark peeked over the dashboard and sat up.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “She must not have recognized the car.”

  Katrina was booking it again, already halfway down the block.

  Very slowly, Mark started to follow her down the street.

  Very slowly. And roaring like a rocket.

  A senior lady on the opposite sidewalk tilted on her walker and eyed us. Her baggy sweatshirt read, “NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH”.

  “We’re going like five miles an hour!” I said. “How is this going to work? Shouldn’t we be on foot? Maybe we should be on foot.”

  Mark was gripping the wheel with both hands. “It’s fine,” he growled.

  “Don’t those lessons for your investigator license say what to do in this situation?”

  “They probably do, Pete,” he said, through grit teeth.

  “I just feel like we look suspicious.”

  Mark snapped me a fierce glare, which was only slightly softened by his ridiculous pom pom hat, and he clearly had plans to follow up with a choice zinger.

  Instead, his eyes went wide as he looked out the windshield. “Look! There!” he said.

  Beyond the corner lot at the end of the block, a car was pulling up to the curb on the cross street. A hybrid, ghost white.

  “Golitsyn,” Mark said. He twitched a half smile. “Got you, balloon boy.”

  Thud thud thud.

  We both jolted and looked around. What the hell?

  Oh. Someone had tapped my window.

  Dustin
Hannigan-Quinn.

  The editor of the Brown County Gazette, wearing his classic fedora with the “PRESS” card, was keeping pace with us on the sidewalk and scowling down over his bristling mustache.

  Great.

  Chapter 25

  Mark gave the glaring Hannigan-Quinn a curt nod, as if it were totally normal to be driving so slow that he could exchange pleasantries with a pedestrian (and equally normal for Hannigan-Quinn to be rocking a hat that belonged in a Frank Capra movie).

  Hannigan-Quinn scowled and tapped my window again, hard.

  “Get it over with,” Mark said. “Before he trips and rolls into the road.”

  I cranked down the window.

  “Car trouble?” Hannigan-Quinn huffed. The huff was partly skepticism and partly the exertion of his semi-jog.

  “No, we’re good, thanks,” Mark said. “Just going easy on the engine.”

  “Humph,” said Hannigan-Quinn, who must have read that word somewhere and thought it was something humans actually said. He turned ahead and frowned down the street… right toward Katrina. She’d almost reached the corner where Golitsyn was parked.

  “I find it a remarkable coincidence that you’re driving so slowly, almost walking speed,” he said, “when you just happen to be in the proximity of that woman.”

  Mark startled. But he recovered himself and smoothly parked and cut the engine. There was no point going farther anyway; behind Hannigan-Quinn, we still had a clear view of Katrina crossing the street and getting into the white car.

  The whole plan here was to tail Golitsyn; he was the most likely link to the murderer, and he’d probably delivered the fatal dose. But if he or Katrina noticed us here with Hannigan-Quinn squawking, we might never see him again. So how were we supposed to ditch this stupid editor without making him even more suspicious?

  Mark said, “Which woman would that be?”

  Heh. Score one for mental enervation.

  Hannigan-Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s make this easy. What exactly are you doing?”

  Mark frowned. “I could ask you the same question.”

  “You could,” Hannigan-Quinn said, smug.

  There was an awkward pause.