Murder, Wrapped Up

by K. J. Emrick

  He eyed me suspiciously, but he slowed the car down and pulled over to the side. “Let me guess. Ya need to talk to Alfonse, the new owner of the Thirsty Roo.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  He didn’t argue with me. He just nodded his head and wisely kept his thoughts to himself. “Mind telling me a bit of the story before we go in?”

  “We?”

  He turned to me in his seat. “Yes. We. The two of us, together. I figure it can’t hurt to have someone there with ya. I’ll be your witness, and maybe I’ll know to ask a thing or two that you’d miss otherwise. I am a reporter, ya know.”

  I really loved this man. “Fine. You can come. On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You have to give me a kiss first.”

  Not that I needed to ask him. I could’ve just stolen it from him. Sometimes I like to make him work for my kisses, though. I think it’s good for a man to know they have to put in a little effort now and again.

  After a long, intimate kiss that left my lips all tingly, we sat there and I told him everything that Cutter had said to me, everything I had seen in the photograph, and an edited version of what I already knew thanks to Jess and my dream. Like I said. Still not ready to have that conversation with James.

  That secret kept growing, but what could I do?

  When I was done talking he whistled, low and soft, and tapped a finger against the steering wheel. “Ya know, this used to be just a quiet little town.”

  I knew from experience that Lakeshore had never, ever, in all of its history, been a quiet little town. I had a ghost haunting my Inn who was murdered by his brother in the 1800s, after all, so I knew that murder and bad blood was rooted deep in Lakeshore’s soil. But I used to think it was quiet here, too, just like everyone else. Not anymore.

  Now there was one more murder to make the headlines.

  Hard to call Lakeshore quiet anymore.

  “Come on,” I said to him, opening my door. “Let’s go see what Alfonse can tell us.”

  I waited for him on the sidewalk. Sliding my arm around his waist I turned on my flashiest smile. “So what’d you get me for Christmas?”

  He winked, and kissed the top of my head. “Just have to wait, won’t ya? If we didn’t live in separate places, maybe ya coulda snuck a peak through my closets to snoop for it.”

  There it was again. James had started dropping not-so-subtle hints that we should take our relationship to a deeper level. Moving in together. Him and me. Sometimes when I thought about him I wanted nothing more than to be with him twenty-four hours a day. Together, as a real couple. Maybe even something more. Other times...I knew I just wasn’t ready for that step. It wouldn’t be much longer before I was. Our love was the most surprising and wonderful thing in my life.

  Of course I wanted more from him.

  At the same time, I didn’t want to ruin a good thing.

  I didn’t know how to explain that to James. I’d tried, and it always came out jumbled and upside-down. Thank God he was the kind of man who could be patient with my troubled heart.

  After a moment of silence as we walked up to the pub, he cleared his throat and changed the subject. “What’d ya get me?”

  “Guess you’ll just have to wait,” I teased, throwing his own words back at him.

  Sliding my hand across to James, I twined my fingers into his. Christmas couldn’t come soon enough.

  Chapter Four

  I couldn’t believe it was only nine-thirty. I was sure Cutter had left me in those bare cells at the back of the station for half the day. In reality it had hardly been any time at all. Guess I’m not made out for a life of crime. Can’t imagine spending months or years behind bars like that.

  The Thirsty Roo opens up around eleven in the morning and stays open until, well, whenever they feel like closing up. They serve things like burgers and chicken wings and wraps for lunch and dinner, all of it greasy and overdone. There’s twenty kinds of beer. Harder stuff, too, for a price. It’s the definition of a tourist trap. I wouldn’t eat a meal here if somebody paid me. If I want to step out for something I go over to the Milkbar and get one of Cathy Morris’s fine sandwiches.

  The doors to the Roo were open, just the half doors across the entryway, even if it’s not officially open for business. Inside the place was dark and gloomy, with all of the chairs on the tables, upside down, and the lighted neon signs behind the bar turned off.

  The only sound was someone humming a song. The rest of the place was quiet as a grave, which I supposed was kind of fitting.

  James and I exchanged looks. Whoever it was, they were in the back room off to our right, past the end of the bar. It was a man’s humming, very melodious, and we both knew it would be Alfonse Calico.

  “Kinda chipper,” James remarked, “for a man who just had someone murdered in his establishment, wouldn’t ya say?”

  “Yes. I would.” I looked around the big open room again. No police tape. No police officers dusting for fingerprints or taking pictures, or anything like that.

  Of course, if the murder took place upstairs they might have one of the rooms taped off up there. I had a suspicion that, more likely, it was just Cutter not doing his job. He’d caught his suspect already. Namely, me. Didn’t matter whether he could prove it or not. By the time he was done, my name would be ruined and my reputation wouldn’t be worth spit in the desert. So why bother processing the actual scene of the crime?

  I was in deep trouble if I couldn’t prove who really killed Officer Bostwick. Would I go to jail in the end? Probably not. But my life would be Hell from now till then, and my business would suffer when word got ‘round I was charged with murder, which meant the people who worked for me would suffer, too. Like Rosie. I couldn’t let that happen.

  I was just wondering if we should barge back there and talk to Alfonse, or wait for him here, when the door to the back room opened and out he came.

  He was quite the sight. The broom in one hand and the green plastic dustpan in the other seemed really out of place, considering he was already dressed for the day in satin slacks and a sequined blue shirt that left his sculpted chest and abs exposed. His expression froze when he saw us, his lips pursed for the next part of whatever song he’d been humming.

  “Uh, hi there,” he said to us, setting the broom up against the long polished countertop and tossing the dustpan over in a corner. “G’day. Not open for another hour or two, but I don’t mind pouring a drink for me neighbors. What’ll it be? Beer or whisky? Dell, I’ll bet yer a white wine kinda woman, am I right?”

  “Not here to drink,” James told him, with a smile on his lips that wasn’t in his voice.

  Alfonse’s eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch. “Dell can answer for herself now, can’t she?”

  I could see James clenching his jaw as Alfonse pushed at his buttons. Yeah. Alfonse had that same effect on me.

  “Maybe some other time,” I said. Boys and their little pushing contests. I just didn’t have time for it. “Listen, Alfonse. I want to ask you about Officer Bostwick.”

  His eyebrows climbed higher towards the tight curls of his hair. “Bostwick? Ya heard the news, right? Man’s dead. Yer gonna have a hard time talking to him.”

  “We know,” James answered. “We just came from the police station.”

  “Did ya, now? Why... oh.”

  His body language shifted. He took a step back from us, and leaned one arm up against the bar, and I was sure that he had figured out I was the one Cutter was trying to finger for the murder. He was going to kick us out, and that’d be the end of our finding out anything from him...

  “You’re the reporter, right?” he asked James.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. Maybe rumors didn’t fly around this town as fast as I thought they did. Or, maybe Alfonse just wasn’t in the inner circle of Lakeshore yet. He was still an outsider, even if his previous star quality had taken him a long way so far. I remember how long it took me to be ac
cepted here when I bought the Pine Lake Inn.

  For now, all I cared about was that he hadn’t heard about me being arrested. His sudden interest was in James, his newspaper, and what that could mean for him. It had probably been a long time since Alfonse Calico’s name was in the news.

  That was something I could work with, to be sure.

  “So he was killed here?” I asked Alfonse. “In the rooms upstairs?”

  The man shrugged, his eyes still on James. “Yup. Makes me an eye witness, don’t it? You’re gonna want to ask me a whole bunch of questions, I bet. I suppose I can give ya some time for an interview. Just be sure ya spell my name right.”

  “Interview?” James blurted. Before he could say anything else and ruin the whole thing I kicked him in the ankle. “Oh. Right. For the paper. Because I’m a reporter. Right. So. Uh. Was he killed in his room?”

  For a reporter who was usually very sharp, that was a pretty lame opening questions. Guess I’d caught him off guard. Still, Alfonse preened with the chance to make himself sound important.

  “See,” Alfonse said with a twist of his hand in the air, “I renovated the Thirsty Roo as soon as I bought the place. Put in them rooms upstairs where it used to be just storage. Been a nice addition to the community, I think. Rent one or two a week, I do. Mostly to tourists. This Bostwick gent came in, wanted a room. Said he had business in town.”

  And he paused, waiting for James to ask the obvious question.

  This man had an ego the size of Hartz Mountain.

  “Did he say what it was?” James indulged Alfonse. “This business of his. Did he tell ya what it was?”

  Alfonse shook his head, slowly, and spread his arms out wide. “No. ‘Fraid not,” he explained quickly. “Secretive type. Ya know how government blokes can be. No idea why he was here. I can tell ya this, though. He recognized me from my days with Commonwealth. Always nice to meet a fan. Er, ya will make sure to spell my name right when ya print this? Shouldn’t ya be writing this all down? I could maybe talk about Commonwealth and all the tours we did. Make it a human interest piece.”

  Before I could think up some credible excuse about why we’d come in here to interview him without a notepad or a voice recorder or anything at all except my winning smile, James tapped a finger to the side of his head. “I’m filing everything away up in me head. No worries, Mate. I’ve been doing this long enough to know what’s important and what’s not.”

  I forced myself to keep a straight face. Just about everything Alfonse said was unimportant, but James had phrased his words to make the ex-singer feel like he was hanging off every word.

  James went back to stroking Alfonse’s ego. “So. Alfonse Calico. One part of the group Commonwealth. Brilliant solo career, after that amazing success ya had with your partner... what was his name?”

  Alfonse’s face darkened. “Noah Altman. Carried him through all those years, then he up and quits on me for no reason.” He snapped his fingers through the air. “Just, poof. Gone. Left me to my own devices. Well. Everything turned out apples for me, but where’s he now? Eh? Answer me that.”

  Forget Hartz Mountain. Alfonse Calico had an ego the size of the Outback, and it was working to our advantage. I pressed a hand to the small of James’s back, encouraging him to keep asking questions.

  “Ya know, that’d make one fantastic article.” James tilted his head to one side and then sunk the hook in deeper. “Tell ya what. Why don’t we get through this bit with Officer Bostwick’s death and then I’ll call my editor to talk ‘bout a feature length article on your career. How’s that sound?”

  I had to look away, because I knew what James was doing and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide my amusement at the eager light that danced in Alfonse’s eyes. I really did love James. He was more than just a perfect example of Australian manhood. There was a brain behind that pretty face.

  Alfonse started rubbing his hands together and after that we couldn’t stop him from talking. Yes, he saw Jason Bostwick come back to the Thirsty Roo last night, and saw him go upstairs. Yes, he was alone. No, Alfonse hadn’t been here when the murder happened. He’d closed up the bar and gone home. When he came in the next morning, the police were already here, and Bostwick was dead.

  “Wouldn’t have seen nothing,” Alfonse said, practically rushing through his story now, “except I had to come in early today for inventory. Nobody told me owning my own business would be so much work. Ain’t that right, Dell? Anyway, one of Cutter’s boyos was here. Not sure which one. Big lump of a man. Bald head. Looked like he had a bilby curl up and die on his lip.”

  “Bruce Kay,” I said, knowing the man by the description. Kay was Cutter’s kind of cop. Which was to say, he was a bumbling oaf who did whatever Cutter told him to. He’d been trying to grow in that mustache of his in to look like the Senior Sergeant’s handlebar for months now with little success. Alfonse was right. It looked like he was holding some dead animal pinched between his nose and his upper lip.

  “Sure. Officer Whatever-his-name-was,” Alfonse said, obviously unconcerned with anyone else in this story but himself. “He tells me to stay out of the upstairs, there’s been an incident. Says nobody goes upstairs ‘til they get the body removed. Well, I’m no dope. Only got me the one guest upstairs, so of course Bostwick’s dead. Guy in a black van came not an hour later and took the body away.”

  “Did ya see who it was?” James asked him.

  Alfonse stared back at him like James had grown a second head. “Didn’t ask for his autograph, Mate. Man comes to pick up a dead body, it’s the Coroner. I didn’t pay him any mind.”

  The closest Coroner’s office was up in Hobart. Hour and a half drive, at least. Kay must have been left here with the body while Cutter did me the honor of coming over to the Inn to arrest me. Or was that after the body got removed?

  “What time was that?” I asked. “When you got here, I mean. What time was that?”

  “Always open up around six,” he answered me. “Came in earlier than that today. Around four, maybe? Hate getting up before dawn. Specially when I have guests upstairs. You know how it is, Dell. Have to take care of the people paying to stay with ya. Only had the one this week, but still. ‘Course, if I’d known he was dead, I might’ve slept in.”

  The joke fell flat, and I let it die there at our feet. Cutter had come for me around 5:30, right at sunrise, which was always early in the warmer months like December. If the police had known about Bostwick’s death before that, and the black van Alfonse had described came for the body that early, I suppose it all fit. Time for them to do whatever half-baked investigation they’d done. Then the Senior Sergeant came for me.

  But then, when had they had time to call for a Coroner?

  That wasn’t the only big question, though. Like, why was Bruce Kay the only officer here at the scene?

  And who discovered Bostwick’s body? Who called the police in the first place?

  Alfonse said his place didn’t have any guests except for Bostwick. The Thirsty Roo was closed, and Alfonse had been home in bed.

  Whoever had discovered the body would be our only witness.

  Or... the murderer.

  Because the only other person who’d been here had been Bruce Kay.

  Interesting.

  Cutter would know who called in the report, of course, but I doubted I would get him to tell me who it was by batting my pretty eyelashes. Chance would be a fine thing on that one.

  “Dell?” James said.

  “Hm? Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about... something.” Maybe James could do one of his official information requests to the police and get the information that way, but how long would that take? Cutter would just stall, if he even answered the request at all. “Anyway, Alfonse, do you think we could take a look at the room where Bostwick died?”

  “Uh, sure,” he stammered, confused. “I guess so, but why?”

  James saved me again. Taking out his mobile phone, he took a few quick pictures of Alfonse. “We
need photos for the article,” he explained. “A shot of the room would be excellent. Show off how nice your rooms are, too. Might help your business.”

  Alfonse’s face brightened. “Ah. Sure thing. Let me walk ya up.”

  He took us outside, first. The stairs to the rooms above the pub were attached to the back of the building. We walked through the alleyway between the Thirsty Roo and the business next door to get there. Back here, there were scruffy patches of lawns with weeds and dry grass and trash bins that were in need of being emptied. Food bits, rags, a Mister Clean Magic Eraser box, empty beer bottles, orange peels, and stuff I couldn’t even begin to identify spilled over the top of the bin from a ripped bag. Nice image for his guests, to be sure.

  But I could see where Alfonse really had started pouring in money to renovate the place. The stairs were sturdy, new construction, under a slanting roof to keep them dry in bad weather. Nice red carpeting had been added from the ground all the way up to a door at the top that Alfonse had to unlock with a key.

  “Security for my guests,” he said, proudly. “Each of the four rooms up here has a separate key, but they all work in this door, too. Although I tell my guests that I like them to be in before I close the pub. Just easier that way. Never know who’ll be back here come dark. Did ya see that garbage? Half of it ain’t mine. People sneak back here to dump stuff. I mean, Magic Erasers? Those ain’t mine! Who uses—”

  “And Bostwick was here before you closed up,” James interrupted him.

  “Uh, right. I was out here with the trash when he went up. Tucked in all toasty and warm in his bed, far as I knew.”

  Something about the keys tugged at my mind. They weren’t like the heavy, old-timey keys I use at my Inn, just regular door keys but still there was something...

  “What time was that?” James was asking. “When he came back to his room?”

  Alfonse shrugged. “Kind of busy in the pub last night. After dinner. It was still light out. Sorry. Best I can do.”

  After he’d sat down for a bowl of Rosie’s stew at my Inn, asked for my help, and then left when I refused. Probably right after. “How do you know he stayed in his room after that?”