Murder Feels Crazy

by Bill Alive

  “No, no,” Rachel said, drawing back. “Don’t let me wreck your night. Pete’s the one who dragged me out here.” She winced again… and leaned into me.

  “It’s cool, Gwen,” I said, trying to ignore the rush in my treacherous body. I mean seriously, this woman was going into labor… “I think I should just take care of this.”

  Rachel moaned again, really loud, and it’s weird how maybe it did sound kind of sexual, which is why I wasn’t going to use that word anymore. The distant bowlers all stared… Back Mosby is not super earthy.

  With a fresh surge of panic, I imagined the baby plopping out right here… the blood spraying across the cheap linoleum…

  Was there that much blood? If I didn’t get Rachel to the hospital, would she die?

  Rachel moaned again, hard.

  Gwen sighed. “Ms. Ferrari, if you’re that far along, I’m sure they have a back room here. I’ve delivered three separate babies on highway shoulders.”

  “No, no, I’ll make it,” Rachel said. She clutched me harder. “Please, Pete,” she muttered.

  It seemed like the right thing to do.

  Key word: seemed.

  Chapter 39

  Rachel and I lurched for the exit like a three-legged race. As I pried open the door with my free hand, I saw Mark striding toward us.

  “I got this,” I called.

  He stopped, and squinted… and shook his head.

  Whatever. Rachel pressed her car keys into my hand, and we made it to her cruddy car. As I pulled her rattling deathtrap into the street, I said, “Can I call anyone? Crap, I forgot, my phone’s dead. Do you have a charger?”

  “Just drive,” she hissed. She gripped my hand.

  I drove. Her palm burned.

  But before we got to the hospital, her breathing got slow and calm.

  “Forget it,” she said. “Just take me home.”

  “You sure?” I said. “But—”

  “Yes. Turn here. Here!”

  I braked hard and swerved down a dark neighborhood alley. There were no streetlights, only two glowering trees that towered on either side, entwining their bare ancient branches over the alley to make a massive gate.

  Massive and forbidding. I didn’t really want to drive through.

  But the alley turned out to be a back way to her apartment. I pulled up to drop her at the door, but she said she had a space and made me park.

  As I cut the engine, which was somewhat awkward, since she still hadn’t released my hand, I said, “It’s really no problem to take you to the hospital.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. She closed her eyes. “I just need to get in bed.”

  We sat. I guessed she’d forgotten she was still holding my hand. I didn’t want to move, it was like when a strange cat randomly deigns to sit on your lap and purr. The slightest jostle, and that cat is gone.

  (See? I don’t hate cats.)

  “Oh crap,” she said, with a quizzical look my way. “How are you going to get home?”

  “No worries, I can text Mark,” I said. “Except, um, do you have a charger?”

  “Not in the car,” she said. “Come on.”

  “To your place?” I said, and my voice may have squeaked. Which, sidebar, why is that still a thing? I’m in my freaking twenties. “I’m fine, you need your rest. I just need to text him.”

  “Don’t you think you should leave them alone?” she said. “You could at least let them finish one game.”

  “Crud,” I said. And I couldn’t exactly call Ceci for a ride either…

  “Come on,” she said again, but now she was frowning. “You can’t wait out here, it’s getting cold.” She tugged my hand, like I was a recalcitrant younger brother, and then let it drop and got out. My bereft hand ached.

  We trudged up the smelly stairs in an awkwardfest of silence. I had no idea what had gone wrong, but some interpersonal forcefield was keeping her two steps ahead of me and impossible to contact. I racked my brain for some conversational gambit that wouldn’t sound like I’d been dropped off after school with a new neighbor to wait until my parents got off work.

  Apparently, brains are like anyone else. They don’t respond well to torture.

  She unlocked her apartment and led me in. The living room startled me; I’d forgotten all about the fursuits. In the shadows, the draped creature parts lurked along the walls as if they weren’t necessarily dead.

  That might sound creepy. But it was more like the night was throbbing with life.

  “Here’s your charger,” she said, formal and cold, as she flipped up a wire onto the table beside her sewing machine. She clicked on a lamp, and the glow cast her glare into harsh shadow. “Sorry you’re stuck in my crazy apartment.”

  “What? No!” I said, as I fumbled to plug in my phone. Was that why she thought I’d been hesitating? “Your place is great!”

  She eyed me. “Really?”

  “Yes! Seriously, I wasn’t kidding about your art,” I said, and that was honestly true. “Like, that one where the girl’s riding the dragon, it’s amazing. How do you do all that with pencils?”

  She studied my face for a long moment.

  Then she shrugged… but her eyes were warm. “It’s charcoal,” she said. “I use a lot of charcoal.”

  “Cool!” I said. “Which ones?”

  And that changed everything. She totally thawed. One by one, she led me through her drawings, and I basically just kept exclaiming, because she really was spectacular. Most of the drawings were for clients, which meant animal characters with very particular details. But whether it was a bear dressed as a cowboy or a cat with a blond pixie cut, she somehow infused each sketch with this wistful ache. And as she showed me all her work and told me all about each quirky client, she warmed and warmed to a rosy glow.

  I guess I did too. Every so often she’d touch my arm, and the warmth would flare all over from the point of impact.

  The last sketch was one I’d noticed from the start, the pack of wolves running through the moonlit ruin. “Who wanted this one?” I said. “It might be my favorite.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That was just for me.”

  “Awesome, I bet that’s your best stuff,” I said. “What you draw for yourself.”

  She gave her classic Rachel shrug, but now she was smiling. “That’s all mostly in the back,” she said. “Just give me a second to change, these tights are killing me.”

  She brushed a hand on my shoulder, then glided off down the dark hall of furry parts. When she opened a far door, I glimpsed a moonlit room with a wide bed.

  She closed the door.

  I paced around the empty, cluttered room, trying to ignore the frantic energy surging through me and telling myself I was just excited to be actually connecting with someone over art, over something real. She probably didn’t show these bedroom sketches to just anyone, right?

  Desperate for distraction, I spotted my phone. I rushed over with relief; the thing had to be charged by now, at least enough to power up. When I turned it on, I had two waiting texts. The one I’d missed from Rachel… and also one from Mark:

  she faked those contractions. i checked.

  I must have read that text twenty times.

  My mind was saying, Why would she fake contractions?

  My body was rushing like it knew for sure.

  “Pete?” she called.

  I jolted. My phone clattered to the table.

  She was standing in the open door to her bedroom, and wearing just a long T-shirt.

  Actually… not that long.

  Chapter 40

  My brain, or what was left of it, struggled to navigate this alternate reality.

  I thought, there’s no way. You’re reading this whole thing all wrong.

  “Pete?” she called again. “You coming?”

  She sounded normal. Casual. I walked toward her, through the dark hallway stocked with furry parts. In the shadows, fur and hair and leathery bits were brushing my arm and cheek, and the goos
ebumps made me think, you don’t know this woman at all.

  But then, when I got to her, I felt like I did.

  She was standing in the doorway, and when I came close, she didn’t move aside, she just stood there and watched me.

  “Everything… okay?” she said.

  But her eyes and face were saying more… soft and open in the moonlight…

  “Wouldn’t it hurt the baby?” I blurted.

  Yes. I actually said that.

  I think after this book comes out, I might try writing, I don’t know, cookbooks. Under a pen name. And move to Bali.

  Anyway… Rachel kind of… gaped.

  “Oh my gosh,” I said. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry…”

  But then… she started laughing.

  Like, a happy laugh. A welling fountain of relief, even wonder. Who knew such hilarity could exist?

  “Oh my god,” she gasped, “you are such a boy scout.”

  Okay. Maybe the laugh was more like, you’re even more ridiculous than I thought…

  I was certainly thinking that myself.

  She staggered over to her bed, her laughs winding down, and even with the low light and shadows, I kept my eyes high as she crossed her legs.

  “Seriously,” I said. “I should go.”

  “Relax, you’re fine,” she managed to say. She smothered a final giggle. “That was actually very sweet.”

  “It was?”

  “Sure. And since you asked, the answer is that it’s totally fine. It’s actually a great way to induce labor.”

  She was saying this like it was utterly normal. Like we were just two old high school buddies having some hypothetical conversation, instead of her sitting there in the moonlight, mind-numbingly beautiful, and very much in need of said induction…

  … wait…

  … did she just want to be serviced?

  My ecstasy imploded.

  Of course, croaked my inner Gollum. You didn’t think some random woman who’s ACTUALLY hot would ACTUALLY want YOU?

  And all that fervent hope went straight to pain.

  I must have tranced out for a few seconds… because when I looked again at Rachel, she was scowling.

  “My bad,” she snapped. “You don’t have to panic, Pete. It’s okay to just say that you’re just not into enormous pregnant hogs.”

  Now I gaped.

  “But don’t stare,” she said. She lay down and rolled her back to me. “Go chill on the couch. I need to rest my massive mommy ass.”

  “Rachel, please,” I said. “You’re gorgeous.”

  She tensed, like someone splashed with cold water in the summer heat. Slowly she rolled over toward me. “Gorgeous?” she said, quiet.

  “Yes!” I said. “Geez! I’ve been trying not to stare since I first saw you. Can’t you tell?”

  “So come here,” she said.

  My blood thudded in my skull. This was it.

  This was like the Second Coming here… I’d been waiting for some truly hot girl to actually like me for pretty much my entire life.

  Why? Because… well…

  Actually, now that we were here, the why might be a good question…

  Moonlight slanted through the blinds, slicing her into separate lovely parts. Her baby bulge had vanished into darkness… all I could see were eyes, cheeks, the curves of lips and thighs…

  Parts? I thought, from the tiny mental bunker where a few remnants of reason could still post indignant editorials. You’re just pattern matching for parts? Finding combinations that can trigger the rush?

  Was I?

  I mean, a single art tour didn’t exactly qualify as an intimate friendship.

  Most of us would say (when the bed’s not right there) that sheer random sex with a complete stranger is pretty meaningless. And possibly toxic.

  I’d never thought I was like that.

  But how could “toxic” feel so AMAZING??

  I’d hardly ever felt this crazy alive with a crush… and at last, at last, the crush wanted me back. In that moment, it seemed like whatever Ceci had ever made me feel wasn’t in the same universe.

  Except… just thinking of Ceci somehow seemed to wreck this. Or at least wreck the hope it might turn real.

  Well, for all I knew, right this second, Ceci was deep in the sheets of a much more expensive bed.

  Maybe tonight we could all just feel amazing. And forget the pain.

  “Hey,” Rachel said. “You okay? What are you waiting for?”

  I thought, I wish I knew.

  And that’s when they pounded on the front door.

  THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD.

  I literally jumped, like airborne. Rachel cursed.

  “I’ll get it,” I chirped, and I hustled out through the hallway of animal parts. When I yanked the door open…

  Gwen was glaring skewers.

  And the cops behind her didn’t look super chill either.

  “Eep,” I said.

  “Where’s Ms. Ferrari?” Gwen demanded, with the ring of iron doom.

  “In the bedroom,” I blurted.

  Her eyes slit to lasers.

  “We didn’t… she’s got all her clothes on! I mean, yes, it’s a nightshirt—”

  “She’s under arrest,” Gwen thundered. “For the murder of Aidan Cull.”

  PART 4

  Chapter 41

  “You can’t arrest Rachel!” I said. “She’s… we were just…”

  “Enough, Pete,” Gwen said. “I can very well guess what you were about to do.”

  “I doubt that,” said Rachel behind me. “You don’t seem the type with much imagination.”

  She was leaning on the corner where the hallway met the living room, her short hair disheveled like she’d rolled out of bed (which she had) and her arms crossed over a belly so stretched I thought I saw the baby kick.

  A hot blush singed my cheeks. It was all quite embarrassing. At least she’d pulled on some sweatpants.

  Mark standing right there with the cops, looking at me all sad and disappointed. Then he frowned and felt his own cheek… which was looking a bit… blushy? “Damn,” he muttered.

  “Ms. Ferrari,” Gwen snapped. “You’re under arrest.”

  “This is sudden,” Rachel said. “We were bowling buddies, like, half an hour ago.”

  “That was before I got a call from Aidan’s mother.”

  Rachel went hard and still. In a low, cold voice, she said, “I knew she had it in for me. What’d she tell you?”

  “She didn’t have to say anything,” Gwen said. “She showed me.”

  Gwen held out a plastic evidence bag… with a pair of cat ears.

  “She found these behind her couch,” Gwen said.

  Now Rachel went pale. But she still scowled, defiant.

  Gwen said, “You were wearing this accessory on the night of Aidan’s death. On that night, you had a public argument, at which most of us were present. Aidan refused to pay you, and you revealed that he was the father of your child.”

  “And then you gave me a ride home,” Rachel said.

  “Yes. But you had plenty of time, all the rest of the night, to wait until his parents had left for the night, and then order the heroin delivery and return to the scene.”

  “Why exactly would I do any of that?” Rachel said.

  “Maybe you didn’t trust that Aidan would use the heroin without persuasion,” Gwen said. “Or maybe you just wanted to see it. You don’t seem like the type to let stuff go. But we can leave the details to the lawyers.”

  Rachel licked her lips. “Listen. I know you’re new to the fandom, but those ears are all over the place. See that rack? I hand them out all the time, they’re fricking free samples. I gave one to Pete here.”

  “But I didn’t take it!” I yipped.

  Rachel’s scowl snapped at me. “Thanks, Lancelot. You’re a peach.”

  Gwen said, “So your theory is that, instead of arresting you, the jilted ex who needed money—”

  “I’m n
ot Aidan’s ex,” Rachel said.

  “—we should instead round up every male in the area to whom you may have handed a pair of cat ears. I’m going to pass.”

  “She does really hand them out,” I ventured.

  “Enough,” Gwen snapped.

  “It’s okay, Pete,” Rachel said. She narrowed her eyes at Gwen. “You think locking up an overdue mom is great publicity for the local blue? Be my guest.”

  “We’ll see,” Gwen said, with a possible tremor of uncertainty. She slipped out a pair of cuffs.

  “Hey hey,” Rachel said. “Maybe you do have an imagination.”

  Gwen clenched her jaw, and a vein bulged in her forehead, but she managed to get the cuffs on with dignity.

  Rachel tried to keep up her scoff, but I could tell she was scared. As Gwen led her out past the backup cops and Mark, Rachel caught Mark’s eye.

  “I hope you enjoyed your bowling date,” she snapped. “No need to thank me.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He leaned toward her, clapped her on the shoulder like a friendly coach, and squinted.

  She squirmed under his grip. “What is it with you and shoulders? You have a real problem with touching, you know that?”

  “You have no idea,” Mark said. He let her go. “Just relax,” he said. “I think you’ll do fine.”

  Rachel’s face flickered with surprised relief.

  But Gwen groaned.

  “Anything wrong?” Mark said, all innocent.

  “Mr. Falcon. Care to share your… impression?”

  “Sure. She’s terrified. But…”

  “But?”

  Mark dropped his voice, quiet and sure. “I think she’s innocent.”

  Rachel caught her breath.

  “Of course you do,” Gwen said.

  Mark frowned, like that might actually have hurt his feelings.

  Gwen hustled Rachel past us and off down the hall. They’d only gotten a few steps when Rachel erupted in a bloodcurdling moan and collapsed against the wall.

  Gwen frowned with concern, then looked back to Mark.

  Mark gave his head a slight shake.

  Gwen scowled and yanked Rachel back to her feet.

  Rachel’s eyes went wide, and she stared at Mark with real fear. “What the hell?” she gasped.