Murder Feels Bad

by Bill Alive

  “Um. I think so?”

  Too late, I noticed that the table’s offerings also included lumpy, homemade soaps. Helga had expanded her product line. I think they were meant to be shaped like cows.

  “How can you sell such toxin-steeped waste in good conscience?” Helga demanded. “The soap companies would still using be triclosan if not for the FDA ban!”

  Behind me, Vivian herself said, “Leave the kid out of this.”

  I whirled in surprise. My awesome superboss was right there, staring Helga down.

  Her mane of blonded hair was flaring in defiance, and her stern arms were folded over a rainbow tank top that looked disturbingly good on her, considering she has to be at least fifty.

  Actually, it wasn’t technically a tank top, there were these lacy frills fluttering over her shoulders, which are still miraculously smooth.

  Anyway, the point is, the hippie willowy waif was in Joan of Arc mode.

  Helga’s frown hardened. Now it was on.

  I stepped sideways, weak with relief. For the first time in what felt like an hour, I dared to hope I might escape Helga with my detective cover intact, not to mention all my major organs.

  Then a soft hand touched mine. A breathy near-whisper tickled my air.

  “Pete, I just need to check out that gorgeous table with the antique vase,” Vanessa purred. “Would you do me huge favor and hold onto Fabio?”

  A strap pressed into my palm.

  Here’s the thing. I’m not a big multitasker.

  Even at max energy levels. Let alone when the caffeine’s just starting to crash after an all-nighter. You give me two conflicting stimuli, I’m going to focus on one or the other. Not both.

  Vanessa was freaking touching me. So yes, that’s where I put my attention. The leash in my hand could wait a sec.

  “Sure,” I started to say, with studly calm. I searched my groggy brain for a winning line.

  Bad idea.

  The next moment was a blur.

  Short version: Fabio rocketed free.

  I.e., disaster.

  By the time I’d finished my one-word sentence, the former meat display was a smashed wreck of smeared soaps and bloody meat packs, all drenched with a murky blue-black dye that turned out to be homemade henna.

  Helga exploded.

  She roared at me, first with a barrage of English cursing I barely recognized, and then lapsing completely into German or Slavic or something. Her strange words of rage grew rhythmic and fierce, deliberate and sharp as knives.

  My chest contracted, icy with fear. What the hell was she chanting? An incantation? Was I about to drop dead on the spot?

  Then the flow broke, and Helga startled in surprise. Vanessa had placed a hand on the woman’s arm.

  “Mrs. Lubitsch, I am so sorry,” she said. She raised her sunglasses, imploring Helga with eyes stunningly contrite. “It’s all my fault. Pete’s only here because I’ve asked him to protect me. It’s his job.”

  As soon as she’d said this, she clapped a hand on her lush lips and flashed me a guilty look. But her eyes sparkled with mischief.

  Helga’s eyes did not sparkle. They bulged. “You hired little Pete Villette as your personal bodyguard?” she bellowed, loud enough to be heard through all Back Mosby. “Gott help you!”

  Every single shopper and vendor turned to stare.

  Chapter 10

  Helga had plenty more to say, but unlike me, you don’t have to suffer it all. In the end, Vanessa cheerfully bought the worst of the damaged meats, then handed me the heavy plastic bag slicked with ink and blood.

  I carried it, gingerly, and followed her away to her massive SUV. She opened the back and nodded with a smile to an empty space between huge bags of organic dog food.

  A surge of intimacy fluttered in my chest.

  This was the kind of domestic detail I yearned to share with a special someone. Just the two of us—

  “Nice work,” said Mark.

  I jolted, and almost dropped the damn bag. How did he do that? His smirk vaporized the moment, flooding me again with how badly I’d just blown it. “Dude, I’m so sorry—”

  He waved me quiet. Behind his back, over in the courtyard, plenty of people were still staring our way. I knew he was feeling the scrutiny worse than I was, and hating it.

  Vanessa was urging Fabio into the car, seemingly oblivious. But I had a weird sense she might be feeling the stares too … and loving them.

  Mark talked at her back. “You do realize you totally antagonized Helga.”

  Vanessa sighed. “I had to talk to her. I had a question about my milk.”

  “You’re still buying her milk?” Mark said. “From the woman you think wants to murder you?”

  “She’s the only local source for raw milk!” Vanessa said. She slammed the door shut, then faced Mark with her hands on her hips. “And I don’t know she’s a witch, she’s just my best theory for the threat I feel. My premonition.”

  Mark grunted, his angry I-miss-being-a-skeptic grunt.

  “Besides, I can’t cancel now,” Vanessa said. “Helga would know I was suspicious.”

  “No, but you can tell her you hired a bodyguard.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” she whined.

  I cut in. “Vanessa, don’t you think getting her milk is dangerous? What if she puts in poison?”

  “Or you could just die of raw milk poisoning anyway,” Mark said. “Save her the trouble.”

  Vanessa stiffened, and her eyes flashed with the light of battle. “Do you have any idea of all the good bacteria that pasteurization kills?” she demanded. “When our internal fauna are already devastated by an epidemic overdose of antibiotics?”

  Mark backed off a step, palms raised in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. I never interfere with people’s personal fauna.”

  Vanessa’s anger flicked off as fast as it had roused. “So did you figure out who wants to kill me?” she asked, excited.

  I thought, Everyone. Then I wondered if that had been Mark.

  He was hunching his brows in hesitation. At last he said, “I’ll have to review the evidence. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Wait! You can’t go yet!” Vanessa said. “I still have more errands!”

  “I’m not sure we can handle any more this morning,” Mark said. “Pete here might collapse.”

  “I’m fine!” I said.

  “Your eyes were just closed,” Mark said.

  They were? I thought. “I was resting them. It’s bright.”

  “Please?” Vanessa pleaded. “You won’t even have to get out of your car!”

  “That’s not how it works—”

  “And I thought we’d agreed on all day.”

  Mark clenched his jaw. Quietly he said, “That’s true.”

  Vanessa’s next errand was a vet appointment for Fabio, and over half an hour away. She led us toward Northern Virginia, not directly east on I-66, but still in a northerly nosing toward wealth. We wound past posh horse fields with picturesque fencing, punctuated by smug clusters of ski chalet McMansions. In the distance, the Blue Ridge Mountains rested and watched, and though the sun was summer hot, the browning slopes whispered that our time was shorter than it seemed.

  Mine especially … I totally fell asleep.

  I woke up groggy and grumpy as Thunder was growling into a wide parking lot. A hundred feet away, Vanessa was leading Fabio into a long, low office building that looked almost new. The side facing us was a wide wall of windows.

  “I’d hate to have an office like that,” I said. “Like living in a fishbowl.”

  Mark smirked. “No, you just live with an empath.”

  “Fine, All-Seeing One, what’s the real verdict on Vanessa? You think Helga hates her?”

  “Well, it might have been easier to get a clear read if—”

  “Hey! I said I was sorry!”

  “That’s great, very nice. But you didn’t have to walk over to her and Helga.”

  “Dude! Did you see those eyes? H
elga has the ORGANIC STARE!”

  Mark looked confused. Then he said, “I’m not going to ask.”

  “It’s all the organ meats—”

  “Seriously, don’t. Besides, it was hard to get a read even before you blew everything up. If Helga were a witch, which I’m not saying is an actual theory, but as a total alternate universe hypothesis, if an actual witch wanted Vanessa for some … project … she wouldn’t really feel hate. More like desire. She’d see Vanessa as an object.”

  “Yeah,” I said, wondering if Mark was trying to drop any personal hints.

  “Plus,” he continued, “Vanessa was managing to piss off everyone with that damn dog.”

  Through the glass wall of the waiting room, I watched as Vanessa brightly dragged in the unwilling Fabio. The skittish receptionist, who you’d think would be used to animals, cringed behind the desk, then scurried away toward a back office.

  “Shouldn’t we get closer?” I said. “What if someone here’s a suspect? Can you vibe much at this distance?”

  “You think some vet hates her guts?” Mark said. “That’s just it, I’m not sure Vanessa has enough depth to trigger real hate in anyone.”

  The receptionist fluttered into a windowed office a few doors down. At the desk, a white-coated woman looked up. She had a narrow, middle-aged face, and even at this distance, she seemed to be overdoing the cosmetics. Too much mascara, too big glittery hoop earrings, too much heaping hair in a huge frizzy ponytail dyed too red.

  The receptionist spoke, and the vet scowled. Her black eyebrows bristled to her fierce nose.

  Mark gasped.

  “Okay,” he rasped. “The vet does hate her guts.”

  “You can tell from here? It’s that intense?”

  He grit his teeth. “Pretty much.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “Awesome.”

  The vet marched into the lobby and greeted Vanessa with a huge smile that even from here looked fake. But Vanessa tossed her own gorgeous hair and chatted with blithe confidence.

  Then she pulled out her phone to read a text.

  She turned away, giggling, and thumbed a reply. The vet’s mask strained … her eyes blazed … and I almost thought I could vibe the rage myself.

  “I’m going to have to start bringing antacids,” Mark said.

  I wasn’t sure he was joking. Sweat had beaded all across his bald head.

  “What do we do?” I said.

  In answer, he pulled the car around the lot, so we couldn’t be seen from any of the windows. Then he texted Vanessa.

  When she finally came out, she spotted us and cheerfully minced over as Mark lowered his window.

  “What’s up?” she said. Her lips curled in a half-smile. “Sorry if I’m boring you boys.”

  Mark watched her carefully. “Is everything cool with that vet?” he said.

  “Oh my gosh, of course! We love each other to death!” Vanessa laughed, almost with relief. “It’s not her I’m worried about. She’s the best vet in northern Virginia!”

  “But—”

  “Mark, listen.” She laid a hand on his muscular forearm. “If you want to grill me, let’s at least go for coffee.”

  Mark hesitated. “I’m not paying ten dollars for a latte.”

  “Mark! What do you take me for?” she said. “I’ll pay.”

  Mark frowned, then forced a smile and said, “Sounds good.”

  As Vanessa happily sashayed back to her SUV, I said, “What’s the matter? Can’t say no to free coffee!”

  “I’m not sure it’s safe to sit with this woman in public,” he said. “Have you noticed the effect she has on other women? The barista’s probably going to poison her coffee.” He scowled. “And nothing is ever free.”

  Chapter 11

  I told myself that Mark was seriously overreacting. On the other hand, I did make a mental note to make sure Vanessa ordered first and I got something different. I know that sounds paranoid, but you didn’t see that vet. We really had to find out what was up with her and Vanessa.

  Vanessa led us another half hour or so into Leesburg, which is a northwestern outpost of the Northern Virginia Sprawl. The eastern, Sprawl-facing side has mushroomed into the required rat maze of strip malls, but to the west, several blocks of authentic brick Old Town still pretend to stand alone.

  Deep in this walkable warren of colonial ambiance, Vanessa picked a cute little coffee shop where the menus were chalked with so much care and flair that I thought they might charge me just for looking. Not that they’d bothered to include any prices.

  I’d been hoping for a barista dude who was reassuringly smitten with Vanessa, but nope, this lady had stern gray bangs and did not smile. Great. My gut quivered with irrational dread.

  Vanessa blithely bought us coffees that each exceeded my hourly rate, and we squeezed around a corner table, sitting on chairs made of reclaimed barn wood. They were gorgeous, but I wouldn’t have minded some reclaimed barn cushions.

  Vanessa sipped her latte and practically purred. When she didn’t keel over, my paranoia relaxed from boiling to a bubbling simmer … just enough for my usual longing to take over.

  She had to know I was mesmerized, willing her to look my way with every neuron. But she focused all her attention on Mark, with soft eyes and a hinting smile.

  “Where do you want to start?” she said, and my beleaguered mind swarmed with double entendres.

  Mark frowned. “Are you sure everything’s cool with that vet?”

  Vanessa rolled her eyes, then smirked. “Mark! Why this persistent interest? I can get you her number.”

  “Give me a break,” Mark said smoothly. “I’ve already got yours.”

  Vanessa flounced a little flutter of appreciation.

  I eyed Mark with astonishment. Was he flirting?

  Sure, he could flirt when he wanted to, but he was usually good at it. That was the kind of lame line I might have pulled.

  Actually, Mark did not look great. His brow was furrowed with extreme concentration, like he was trying to curl a hundred pounds under the table.

  Vanessa took a slow sip of her latte, giving Mark a cool stare. Unfortunately, she must have miscalculated, because she jolted and her coffee spilled. Her face twisted with annoyance. “Crap!” she said. “And no napkins! Hold on.” She hopped up and marched to the counter.

  “Dude,” I said to Mark, with genuine concern. “What was that about? Are you smitten?”

  “No, you are!” he snapped. “I can’t fricking think straight! Can you try to tone it down? I can’t vibe her if I have to shield your barrage of Desperate Yearn.”

  I flinched. Yes, this was awkward.

  Vanessa swayed back to us, restored to her usual smile. “Sorry about that,” she cooed … at Mark. She didn’t even favor me with a glance.

  Enough. It was time to go nuclear, to pull out an ancient strategy I’d first mastered in junior high.

  I tried to focus on some gross part of her face.

  First I had to find one. There had to be something … oh, there. Beneath the expert makeup, the skin under her eyes had the dark hints of insomniac shadow. Was she having trouble sleeping? If I stared right there, she almost looked tired. This was working!

  Then my gaze slid down to her full lips…

  Mark stumbled mid-sentence, and gave me a glare.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “For what?” Vanessa said.

  “Um,” I stammered. “My phone. Got to, uh, check this.” I pulled out my phone and pretended to swipe my gazillion notifications from Tribesy. Are you on Tribesy? You should friend me. Oh wait, I forgot, I’m totally fictional. Urgh. :(

  With a Pavlovian jerk, Vanessa whipped out her phone too and started to swipe. This broke her spell even better than staring at eye bags, and both I and Mark could breathe easy for a sec.

  Mark frowned thoughtfully. “That’s odd,” he muttered.

  “What?” I said.

  “Something’s not right.” He leaned back in his ch
air, squinting at the wall’s exquisite reclaimed wood paneling and stroking his righteous red mustache.

  He was facing the wall, but I was facing the aisle. So I had a wide, easy view as a huge linebacker of a dude came storming right toward us.

  His beefy face was fuming with 100% No-Joke Authentic Murderous Rage.

  And his blazing eyes were heat-seeking missiles pointed straight at Mark.

  “Uh, Mark?” I squeaked.

  “Not now, Pete,” he snapped. He closed his eyes to concentrate, clearly trying to vibe.

  The huge dude barreled up behind Vanessa and a clapped a meaty hand around her shoulder.

  Vanessa squealed in surprise and panic.

  I froze. For which I instantly hated myself.

  But Mark barked right up at the dude. “What the hell? Get your paws off my client!”

  “Client?” he boomed. His low voice growled like Fabio’s bark.

  Vanessa shook his hand off her shoulder and then shouldered a jab at the man’s thick thigh. “You scared the shit out of me,” she snapped.

  “You know this guy?” Mark said.

  “Uh, yeah,” she said. “Meet Ed.”

  “Ed?” I faltered.

  “My husband.”

  Chapter 12

  My chest clenched, and I slumped back into my painful cushion-lacking chair.

  So much for Vanessa.

  Yes, I know she’d been kind of ignoring me, and I hadn’t been picking out tuxes or anything, but still … I had definitely felt that I was orbiting closer than I had in forever to a real star.

  I tried to play it cool.

  “You’re married?” I shrieked.

  (I did say tried.)

  Her dear husband Ed’s thick black eyebrows scowled even harder, and his beefy cheeks flamed a deeper red.

  “Of course I’m married!” Vanessa said. “I told you that!”

  Mark said quietly, “I don’t think you did.”

  “Yes, I did,” she said, starting to sound really angry. “And anyway, what kind of detective misses a wedding ring?”

  She flaunted her left hand, where a diamond and a wedding band on her ring finger now seemed super obvious, even in the glittering jungle of her other jewels.