by Bill Alive
Gwen nodded to Ramiro, and he and Osprey hauled her away as she screamed her innocence. The Snarski followed, heaping words of justice on that wild red head.
As the shrieks faded off, Gwen examined the hallway in silence. She somehow found the exact spot where Roxanne had been standing with the gun, then looked out to the side door.
She eyed Mark. “You came through that door?” she said, quietly. “She had a clear shot that even an amateur might not miss. Care to share how you disarmed her?”
Mark shrugged. “Pete rushed her.”
“He did!” Vanessa said, and squeezed my waist. Which, yes, was semi-life-changing.
Gwen ignored us. “Really,” she said, still looking at Mark. Then she frowned. “What is it, Mr. Falcon?”
Mark gave Vanessa a sour look. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“Neither does owing you another civilian save,” Gwen said. “Sometimes the truth hurts.”
She cracked a smile.
Mark met her eye. His own lip twitched.
I was watching in awe. But then a whole other person vaporized the moment.
“Pete? Oh my gosh! Where have you been?”
At the side door stood Ceci. Hands on hips, bewildered, and upset.
“Ceci??” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here? We were going to get coffee tonight, remember?”
I went cold with dread.
I couldn’t actually have forgotten, could I? I ransacked my memory for the date we’d set … checked it … double-checked … oh, crap…
“I was sitting at the coffee shop for over an hour,” she said. “I’d given up and was heading home when I saw the cop lights. What were you doing? Didn’t you get my call?”
My mind flashed to my phone blaring and Roxanne whirling with the gun. “Um, I did,” I said. “About that—”
“Never mind, why would you pick up?” she snapped. “It’s only Ceci!”
That’s when her gaze slid down to Vanessa nestled on my shoulder. Her eyes, which I now noticed had eyeliner (for Ceci, eyeliner is Special Occasions Only), went hard.
“Ceci—” I pleaded.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said.
She walked out.
Chapter 28
“Ceci!” I bleated after her.
But the screen door slammed.
I agonized over whether I should follow. Here on the kitchen floor was this crazy new reality where Vanessa was clinging to me, needing me. Sure, Ceci had a right to be upset, but Vanessa had nearly gotten shot.
Vanessa was watching me, her look inscrutable. As far as I could scrute, she was thinking, “You should go to her … but deep down, I really do need you here…”
Mark cleared his throat.
Oh. He and Gwen were glaring holes in my head.
Decision made. I hustled out into the night.
Ceci was clip-clopping down the driveway in heels, which she hates. Oh man, she’d gotten all dressed up. Makeup too, the whole deal. When she gets dressed up, she puts on these pencil skirts that don’t really work for her muscular figure … she reminded me of an aggressive mom at a PTA meeting gone hostile.
Then I realized I might have written that same thought about her somewhere in Murder Feels Awful. Which I’d given her to proofread.
Great.
“Ceci, wait!” I called. “I’m sorry.”
She kept walking. “Sorry’s easy, Pete.”
“I mean it! And you got all dressed up—”
She stopped and whirled on me. “Oh, this?” she snapped. “Just my usual ‘PTA outfit.’ God forbid I look like a mom instead of a porn star.”
I winced. “Crap, Ceci, I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean what you typed out?” she said. “Slip of the keys?”
“Look, it’s not … I had to make up some character stuff, okay? It’s officially fiction!”
“You only called it fiction because I said you should!” she said. “After I read it!”
There was no way this could end well. I switched to my slightly less hopeless crime. “Ceci, about tonight — we had to interview this woman up in Woodbridge. And then Mark got all mad and I just forgot—”
“This isn’t Woodbridge,” she said. “So, what, the woman up there wasn’t hot enough, you had to check in here?”
“Ceci! We thought Vanessa had played us! Mark was going to ream her out.”
“Right. Then you saw her again, and decided a snuggle would be much more effective—”
“Do you not see all these cop cars?” I said. “The crazy ex-wife tried to shoot her! I just rushed a woman with a gun!”
A cloud of concern flashed over Ceci’s face. Then anger burned it off. “Great! I’m so impressed!” she snapped. “Do I need to start nuzzling you too?”
“Ceci!” I groaned. “Why the hell do you care?”
She jammed her arms across her chest, like she had to fend off a possible hug. “Maybe it just makes me sick, that’s all. Maybe once in awhile, a woman gets sick of seeing guys use us like a drug.”
“That’s crap,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re all glowy and flushed and happy over there, and why? Because she’s hot, Pete. That’s it. What do you even know about her?”
“Plenty!”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s … she’s super into health food.”
Ceci snorted.
“And she’s into working out, probably!” I said, talking fast. “And spiritual stuff! I think!”
“Wow! Plus, she might have murdered her husband!”
“She did not! Gwen just confirmed it, she’s innocent!”
“Fine. I’m sure you’ve been waiting for the all clear.”
I squirmed, but didn’t answer.
“If all men are like you,” Ceci said, “the human race is screwed.”
That hurt. “Well, all men are not like me. Plenty of dudes are like Theodore, they settle for some mediocre chick who gets fat, and then they want to cheat with someone they actually like. Except they don’t even have to, they can just jack off with their phone.”
“Oh, I see. Now you should get the Purple Heart for not using porn. But only if you get your own live porn star.”
“Do you not see all the gazillions of miserable married couples?” I said. “I want to marry a woman I’m actually going to stay in love with.”
“What is wrong with you?” She was staring now, like every single thing I said was only making her more angry and confused. “Your parents are super sweet.”
“Sure, and my Dad has the little dresser we don’t talk about.”
Ceci looked shocked. “No way.”
“Would I make that up? Nothing violent, of course. Nothing ‘vile’. Just an ‘abundance of beauty.’ That’s his big line, he puts the porn plentitude right up there in human achievements with running water and mass literacy. We actually have talked about it. Sometimes with Mom there.”
“Your mom’s okay with it?”
“They’re super pragmatic, Ceci. They still love each other, right? Somehow. But I mean, geez, they’re in their fifties. He says life’s too short to never see another young and gorgeous woman. She feels the same way about carbs.”
I’d never really talked about this with anyone, but Ceci was looking more horrified than I’d anticipated. It made me feel defensive — I mean, my dad’s a good guy.
“So that’s it?” she said. “That’s how you see your fifties?”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “But if the whole love thing is real, I only get one shot. I look around and everyone is miserable, everyone knows they could have done better. There’s like a billion possible women out there. I have to find the actual one.”
“And then what?” she said. “Then your wife’s going to be in a lifetime competition with every other hot girl? Every video? Every airbrushed model perfection?”
“There won’t be a competition if we’re actually in love!”
“OH MY GOSH you have NO IDEA what you’re talking about!” She clapped both hands to her head, like trying to talk to me might make it explode. “I see eighty-year-old men sitting round the clock with their shriveled wives, stroking her hands while she hacks up phlegm. I see comatose teens in ICU, swimming in tubes, kids who got high and totaled the family car and now they look like dead aliens, and their huge fat moms are reading them The Giving Tree over and over and over and over … that is freaking love, Pete. But you’re so damn terrified that it can’t be real if for one damn second you don’t get your dopamine rush…”
Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat and fisted out the water that was glistening her eyes.
I felt terrible for making her so sad. “Ceci,” I said gently, and reached to hug her.
But she flinched away like it was a slap.
“Go hug one of your billion possible girlfriends,” she said, not looking at me. “This one’s out of order.”
She slammed herself into her car and drove away.
I stood alone in Vanessa’s driveway, my gut churning.
Sometimes, the more I try to tell the truth, the more I feel like a lie.
Or at least, like there’s a big lie somewhere, so obvious and huge that I’m never going to see it.
Kind of like trying to catch a murderer. And failing big-time.
The cold night air made me shiver. Then I felt that tingle of a hidden gaze, and I darted a glance at the house.
At the screen door, Vanessa was watching.
Our eyes met.
She smiled, and raised her hand in a shy wave.
Chapter 29
I admit, that wave made my heart pitter-patter. Even while I was still smoking from Ceci’s barrage.
Vanessa’s smile sparkled. But she turned and vanished into her house.
I ached to rush right back to her, but Ceci’s anger held me back. It was swirling in my chest like a snow globe of spikes.
The door banged open, but instead of Vanessa, out sauntered Mark and Gwen. For some reason, Gwen’s sisterly likeness to Ceci leapt out at me even more than usual. Maybe because it hurt. Or maybe because for once, Gwen looked almost happy.
In fact, she and Mark were chatting it up. Like they were normal or something.
A stab of utterly irrational jealousy twisted in my chest. Of course Mark would finally hit it off with Gwen just when her sister was hating my guts.
“So how do you handle holiday dinners?” Gwen was saying. I had never, ever heard this almost-casual voice from her. And the key word was almost.
This new “Casual Gwen” sounded so awkward and unpracticed that hearing her was physically painful, like watching the Statue of Liberty try to chitchat over a beer.
“Do you just … huddle in a corner reading a book?” she ground on.
Mark twinkled. “You have no idea.”
“Maybe I should hire you for next Thanksgiving,” Gwen said. Her Southern accent, usually clipped, was veering dangerously toward an imitation lilt. “You could tell me what the hell my stepfather is thinking.”
“You could never afford what I charge for family dinners.”
A bizarre sound squawked through the night air. After some serious confusion, I realized it had come out of … Gwen. She had snorted. Like, a laugh. I think.
This was getting apocalyptic.
They drifted toward the cop cars, totally oblivious that Ceci was gone and I was standing there miserable.
Gwen nodded at Roxanne, who was stewing in the backseat of the nearest car. “I suppose you’d say you can ‘vibe’ that woman’s guilt already, right?” she said lightly. “No confession needed?”
Mark shrugged and squinted at Roxanne, who was slumped and cuffed.
He lost his smile.
“What is it?” Gwen said. The banter vaporized.
Slowly Mark approached the car, frowning and focused.
Roxanne snapped up. I flinched. She looked so devastated. Even in the shadows and the insane blue of the cop lights, her raw grief made you want to cry too.
Mark sighed. “It’s no good, Gwen,” he said. “She didn’t kill Ed.”
“What?” Gwen barked. “We just caught her trying to gun down Vanessa. She nearly shot you and Pete.”
Oh yeah, I thought, that. My impulse to cry with the woman took a notable dip.
Gwen said, “Her best case scenario is prison for a very long time.”
“I know,” Mark said. “And all she can think about right now is how much she misses Ed.”
Gwen scowled. “That is not possible, Mr. Falcon. It was vet poison in that milk.”
“Anyone could get that poison,” Mark said.
“But Roxanne was seen in this garage! When the milk was right there and unattended.”
I was still too upset about Ceci to care that much about all this, not to mention that I was maybe starting to feel the shock of, you know, almost getting shot. But I interrupted anyway. “Gwen’s right, Mark,” I said dully. “Remember? At the game store, Roxanne thought only Vanessa drank the milk.”
“Thank you, Pete,” Gwen said. “It’s very simple, Mr. Falcon. She was aiming to poison for Vanessa, hit her ex instead, and then came back to finish the job.”
Mark shook his head. “She came here to avenge her ex. Roxanne is sitting there convinced that Vanessa killed the man she loved. She’s hated Vanessa for years, but she never could have wound herself up to kill the woman if she hadn’t thought Vanessa was, well, getting away with murder.”
Gwen groaned in exasperation. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”
Mark shrugged. “I can’t help how I feel.”
Gwen folded her arms and glared. “Fine. If the fine, upstanding Roxanne is innocent, as well as your devoted client Vanessa, who is also apparently Pete’s new ladyfriend, would you care to enlighten me on who did kill Ed Kimm?”
Now Mark drooped. He kicked a pebble and muttered, “I don’t know.”
“Come again?”
“I don’t know!” he said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I see,” Gwen said. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Falcon, this is a crime scene, and we police do have work to do.”
She knocked the passenger window. In the driver’s seat, Osprey gave her a questioning look.
“Get her out of here,” Gwen told him, waving him to hurry. “Before Mr. Falcon here decides the woman is a secret nun.”
The police car rumbled off into the night. The lights stained each prim house as they passed, but when the car was gone, each house looked smug and prosperous again, as if the cops wouldn’t have come here in a hundred years.
All at once, the crisis felt over. I had a sudden urge to see Vanessa again before I left, but Gwen gave me a sharp look to stay away, then strode back to the house and shut the door.
Mark glanced my way, then winced with my disappointment. He forced a smile. “Those Jensen sisters, huh?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “Do you really have no theory at all?”
He looked back at the house, and his face went grim. “As far as I can tell,” he growled, “the damn thing’s impossible.”
Chapter 30
We drove back home, making the long climb up our mountain in glum silence. How could we both feel so crappy after saving someone’s life? Not to mention my crazy new possibilities with Vanessa…
Except, now that she wasn’t actually nuzzling her forehead into my chest, that part all felt like a dream. The kind of dream so sweet that when you try to remember it later, you only feel worse. My brain was totally not calibrated for the goddess to like me back.
When we got inside, Mark cast a longing look at the TV.
But then he sighed, rifled through a teetering pile of books and papers, and pulled out a shabby notebook. He had to dig through several random drawers around the room to find a pen. Finally, he sat at the crappy kitchen table.
“Okay,
Pete,” he said. “We need to figure this out.”
I shrugged. “Can I at least get official beverages?”
“We’re out,” he said shortly.
The familiar pang of financial worry gnawed my gut. The money thing was getting to be like a tooth that hurts more every time you bite there. You keep hoping next time it’ll all be fine, and meanwhile you just keep chewing on the other side.
Mark was scribbling all over the page. “Okay,” he said. “The way I see it—”
“Whoa, hold up,” I said. “I can’t read any of that.”
Mark frowned. “Oh. Sorry. Should I get a calligraphy pen?”
“Can’t we just make a spreadsheet?”
Mark started to snark back, but he restrained himself, and managed to ask, almost politely, “A spreadsheet?”
“Put each suspect in a row,” I said. “And for the columns, do the standard suspect questions: MEANS, MOTIVE, and OPPORTUNITY. Anyone gets YES on all three, they’re it.”
Mark considered this. Finally he grumbled, “It only takes one NO to prove they’re innocent.” But he fired up his computer, and set up a spreadsheet on his huge screen.
I wish I could just put the spreadsheet here in the book, but I tried and it looked all squished. Ebooks really don’t play well with tables. Fortunately, we pretty much talked through everyone in order.
“Let’s start with the murder weapon,” Mark said.
“You mean the milk?” I said. “Yeah, ‘murder weapon’ does sound a lot cooler.”
Mark ignored this. “It came from Helga’s farm.”
He typed “Helga” in the first row, in the SUSPECT column.
“Did she have MEANS?” he said. “Sure, she could have poisoned the milk. Screw it, any of these suspects could have poisoned the milk.”
“No, they’d have to get access to the milk.”
“That’s not MEANS, that’s OPPORTUNITY.”
“I thought OPPORTUNITY was something else,” I said.
“Well, on this spreadsheet, that’s what it means.”
