Killer Content

by Olivia Blacke

  “That’s Rufus. My aunt’s cat. Don’t let him fool you. He’s not starving to death no matter what he says.”

  “Gotcha,” Izzy said, giving Rufus another big squeeze before putting him back down. “Aren’t you the most perfect kitty in the whole wide world?”

  “I had no idea you liked cats so much. Do you have one of your own?”

  Izzy shrugged. “Can’t afford a pet deposit. Besides, there’s lots of feral cats in my building, and some of them are real friendly. They wander in and out through the broken windows in the basement. Keeps the rats at bay.”

  I shuddered. I wasn’t afraid of rats, per se. I was used to nutria, the giant rodents that infested Louisiana parks and waterways. They grew up to twenty pounds and resembled a nightmarish cross between a beaver and a rat, with giant buckteeth and a long, snakelike tail. I just didn’t like the idea of rats in my house. Or nutria, for that matter.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to have the landlord fix the windows?” I asked.

  “Landlord? I live in an old abandoned public school, along with a few dozen other people. I shower in the gym locker room, and make food in a galley kitchen. I share a science classroom with another girl and an articulated skeleton we call Mandy Funnybones. We don’t exactly pay rent.”

  And I thought Bethany’s living situation had been rough.

  “You’re a squatter?” I’d heard of squatters, people who take over otherwise unused buildings and made them their own. In New York, they had the same legal rights as paying tenants under certain circumstances. It wasn’t exactly the same as being homeless, but close enough in my sheltered opinion.

  “Yup.” Her brow furrowed. “I’m hoping the fumigators do their job and leave, but if one of them is a stickler and reports back to the city that people are living there, we’re all screwed.”

  “If they are sending out fumigators, then someone cares about the building, at least a little, right?”

  “City-owned property has to be maintained, even derelict schoolhouses,” she said with an unconcerned air.

  I don’t know how she did it. I didn’t expect I’d ever be rich, but so far I’d always known where I was gonna sleep that night, and I didn’t miss a lot of meals, even when money was tight. “What will you do if they board the doors and windows up tight?”

  “I’ll figure something out. Always do.” She looked around. “Which room’s mine?” Izzy jiggled the handle of the closest door. It didn’t open.

  “Technically, it’s a two bedroom, but Aunt Melanie converted one room into an art studio. It’s locked, and she didn’t leave the key,” I explained.

  “No problem. Couch is fine, I’m sure.”

  “You can have the bedroom,” I told her without hesitation, good old Southern manners rearing their head. Izzy was my guest, and more importantly, she was my friend. Guests don’t sleep on the couch.

  “Nope. Wouldn’t think of it.” She stretched out on the couch, her feet propped up on one arm. “Comfy. You had lunch yet? My treat.”

  “I’m good.” Maybe I should have mentioned that Bethany’s ex-boyfriend had bought me tacos, but then I’d have to admit that I was sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. “Seriously though, the bedroom’s all yours. Hey, I was heading to the pool to try to cool down, if you want to join me.”

  “You’re kidding me? This place has a pool? I mean, my building has a pool, too, but it’s just the southeast corner of the cafeteria where the floor caved in and rainwater puddles there after a storm.”

  “I’m not sure I can beat that,” I said, trying not to cringe. “But on Wednesdays there’s a Mommy and Me class that meets up at the pool, and those mothers are savage.”

  “I’ll bet. Give me a second to change.” Izzy rifled through her suitcase, came up with a scrap of cloth, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  I went into the bedroom and changed into my favorite suit. It was a cheery orange plaid with a vintage-inspired cap-sleeved top and high-waisted bikini bottoms.

  Izzy let out a wolf whistle when I emerged. In contrast to my classic swimsuit, she was wearing an itty-bitty white string bikini. I realized for the first time that she had a sentence tattooed in flowing script on her ribcage.

  “Back atcha,” I said, taking a bow.

  I was feeling cute and confident, until Izzy gave me a concerned look and asked, “Um, Odessa, do you have, like, a low-key skin condition or something I should know about?”

  “No.” I contorted my arm so I could feel the back of my exposed shoulders. “Am I having a breakout? Ugh. Bacne is the absolute worst.”

  “You’re green.”

  “I’m what?” Then I remembered. Neon shirt. Caught out in a downpour. Green-dyed skin. “I thought I’d gotten it all.” I was more than half tempted to let it wash off in the pool, but if I had spots that hadn’t faded after last night’s epic shower session, it wasn’t going away without a fight. “Help me scrub it off?”

  “Sure.” We headed to the bathroom, and I dropped the shoulders of my suit while clutching one arm around the front to prevent a wardrobe malfunction. “This stuff is stubborn,” she commented. Maybe I should have given her a Brillo pad and bleach instead of a washcloth and mild soap. “What on earth happened to you?”

  “It’s dye from an Untapped uniform shirt.”

  “Ugh. I despise those shirts. I mean, neon green isn’t flattering on anyone, except maybe a frog. Or a turtle. You have really nice shoulder blades, you know. Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?”

  “Never thought about it before.” Tattoos looked great, on other people. I couldn’t imagine one on me, though. “Besides, I can’t think of anything I like well enough to permanently etch on my skin.”

  “Fair enough. Although a bunch of us were talking about getting matching owl tattoos.” She cupped the underside of her left wrist. “As a tribute to Bethany.”

  “That’s sweet,” I said, wondering why no one had included me in that discussion. I guess between being the new girl and not having any tattoos already, they thought I wouldn’t be interested. And to be fair, they were right. I’d never even been in a tattoo parlor before. Back home, they were in the sketchy part of Shreveport. Here, they were everywhere. “Maybe I can come along, just to watch?”

  “Of course.” She finished scrubbing my back, rinsed off the washcloth, and draped it across the sink. “All done here.”

  “Thanks a bunch. Come on, let’s go hit the pool. Don’t worry about towels, they have them up there,” I told her, leading the way up to the roof.

  8

  Dizzy Izzy @IsabelleWilliamsburg ∙ June 25

  after much contemplation, i’ve decided i’m done adulting 4 the day. i’ll be poolside working on my vitamin D deficiency. send sunblock. #metime #dontforgetthesunblock #thestruggleisreal

  THE ROOFTOP POOL deck was a lush oasis compared to the scorching city below. My aunt’s building wasn’t particularly tall. Unlike nearby Manhattan, with a few towering exceptions, most of the real estate in Williamsburg was in the three- to five-story range, which put us well above street level but not dizzyingly so.

  On a clear day, I had a view of the Manhattan skyline from the rooftop. Not as magnificent as the view from Domino Park, but it was pretty good. Once night fell, the not-so-distant lights from the skyscrapers dominated the sky. But on a hot, humid day like today, everything was hazy and gray.

  The rooftop deck sported several leafy green plants, colorful beach umbrellas, two large grills, and of course, the pool. It was a few feet shy of Olympic-sized, a long oval with a thatched tiki hut on one end and comfortable lounge chairs arranged around the sparkling water. There was even a small bathroom—not much bigger than a porta potty, but cleaner—so residents didn’t have to go back to their units, dripping wet, to use the restroom. We had the place to ourselves, as most of the building residents were at work in the middle o
f a weekday. The water was cold, but only five feet deep. Unlike the pools back home, I didn’t even have to check for gators or water moccasins before diving beneath the glassy surface.

  “This is amazing,” Izzy said, levering herself up on the side of the pool. “Is that a bar?” she asked, pointing at the tiki hut.

  “Weekends after five it is,” I told her. I took a deep breath and slid under the water. I surfaced every few kicks for a quick breath of air before submerging again. I reached the far end of the pool, flipped, and headed back.

  “Where’d you learn to swim like that?” she asked when I surfaced next to her, holding on to the edge while my legs floated behind me.

  “Dunno. Never did really learn how to swim like the athletes do, just picked it up from hanging out at the lake back home.” Most of the lakes in Louisiana weren’t entirely safe to swim in, unless you liked being gator bait, but the way I saw it was that plenty of people went swimming in the ocean all the time, alongside tons of critters a lot more dangerous than gators.

  “We should throw a party or something. It would be a riot!”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip. “I’m not supposed to have visitors, remember? Besides, I don’t know anyone to invite.”

  “You know me. And the rest of the crew at Untapped. Parker. Andre. Kim and the rest of the night crew. Even Todd, if you’re feeling charitable.”

  “The timing doesn’t feel right. Isn’t it a little, you know, insensitive? I mean, Bethany’s been gone what, a day? We should be in mourning, not arranging a pool party.”

  “Odessa, you’re a genius.” Izzy pushed off the lip of the pool and splashed into the deep end, treading water to stay afloat. “We host a memorial service. Poolside. BYOB. A wake.”

  “Good idea, but still . . .”

  “Don’t fret, I’ve got this,” Izzy declared. “We’ll keep it small, just a few of her closest friends. I’ll take care of everything.”

  My aunt was gonna kill me.

  Then again, Izzy’s idea wasn’t the worst I’d ever heard. We could celebrate Bethany’s life. And, it wouldn’t hurt to gather all of Bethany’s friends in one place. What better way to get more information about her death? The more I considered it, the more I realized it was a great opportunity to interrogate everyone Bethany knew in the city. “We’ll have to reserve the pool, and we might have to bribe Earl the concierge, so he doesn’t rat us out to Aunt Melanie.”

  “Consider it done,” Izzy agreed. “This place is the actual bomb. I mean your aunt’s bathroom alone is bigger than my last two apartments. I can’t believe she doesn’t have a roommate or seven.”

  I dipped my head under the water to avoid Izzy’s next question, but I knew what she was thinking. This building wasn’t cheap. I didn’t want her thinking that I was loaded just because my aunt could afford a place like this. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I popped up.

  Izzy continued chatting as if I hadn’t disappeared for a little over a minute. She was telling me a horror story about some apartment she used to rent in Manhattan’s Alphabet City. For two grand a month, she got a ninety-nine-square-foot hovel in the basement. It had its own bathroom—a minor miracle in that neighborhood—and its own kitchen, although the appliances never worked. She had two tiny windows that peeked into a courtyard and provided a handy-dandy way for burglars to break in every other week or so. She spent more money replacing the security bars than ever got stolen from her, so after a while she stopped bothering.

  I could imagine living in a tiny studio apartment barely large enough for a single full-sized bed, but with roomies? Especially if I had to share with two people I’d met on Craigslist. What was it that Cherise had told me? Bethany’s most redeeming quality was that she was never home, because she spent most nights at her boyfriend’s house.

  What had I learned in the park today? Taking up too much space in Brooklyn was the biggest crime of them all.

  I needed to talk to Marco again and find out how long ago they had broken up. If I was squeezed into a tiny living space with a complete slob who never paid her rent on time, and I had just found out that she was going from part-time to full-time resident, I’d be pretty upset. Not murder-someone upset, but upset nonetheless. I needed to interview the other roommates to see how they’d felt about these new circumstances.

  “We should invite Bethany’s roommates to the wake,” I suggested, interrupting Izzy’s description of a rat the size of a loaf of bread dragging a whole bag of groceries out the front door while she was busy putting her other purchases away.

  “There you go again with another of your fabulous ideas. Of course we should invite them.”

  “And her boyfriend, too.” Sure, he was the ex at the time of her death, but two birds with one stone, right? I’d rather not have to traipse all the way out to Astoria to talk to him again.

  “Yes! Wait a second. I thought they broke up?”

  “Why did they break up, anyway? What happened?” I should have known that Izzy would have all the answers. She was easy to talk to, so people told her everything.

  “Bethany was terribly upset about the whole thing. Her man, Marco, read some thirsty DMs on her phone and dumped her. She swore she would never cheat on him, but apparently, he didn’t believe her. It’s tragic, like Romeo-and-Juliet tragic.”

  “Uh-huh.” Star-crossed lovers never ended well. “You don’t think . . .” My voice trailed off. It was difficult to imagine, but I saw three distinct possibilities. It was an accident, it was a murder, or it was something much too horrible to contemplate. “I mean, if she was upset over the breakup? That maybe she jumped? On purpose?”

  “No,” Izzy said, her voice firm. “No way. Bethany would never do something like that. Especially over a guy. She and Marco had broken up half a dozen times before, and they always ended up back together. Bethany even confided in me that she had a sure-fire plan to get him back.”

  “Oh yeah? She didn’t happen to share the details, did she?”

  Izzy frowned. “Well, no. But knowing Bethany, it was going to be extra.” Something glittered in the corner of her eye. It could have been pool water, but I didn’t think it was.

  Time to change the subject.

  “Got any plans for tonight?”

  Izzy climbed out of the pool and stretched out on one of the lounge chairs. “It’s too stinkin’ hot to do anything.” She sat up a bit so she could look at me. “I noticed the sewing machine on your aunt’s table.” I hadn’t thought of it before, but having enough space for a full-sized table in the living room was a luxury most New Yorkers couldn’t afford. “Maybe you could teach me to sew something later? Then I can teach you how to make my famous vegan pesto pasta. You’ll love it.”

  I wasn’t so sure about vegan pasta, as I normally dumped the entire contents of the cheese shaker on top of my spaghetti, but I was willing to try anything once. “Deal.” Refreshed, I got out of the pool and led Izzy to the stack of towels in a basket near the door that led back into the building, dripping as I walked. We dried off and left our towels in a bin.

  A pool that not only provided towels but also washed and dried them after use was a perk even better than the hallway trash collection, in my opinion. Then again, the bougie building was probably trying to keep residents from hanging beach towels on their balconies to dry. It might hurt their image.

  Dressed and hair as dry as my thick hair was going to get with just a vigorous toweling off, I started setting up my sewing supplies. “Back home, I hoard fabric. It’s so expensive, I try to only buy it on sale.” It wasn’t fair. Buying a few yards of fabric was more expensive than getting ready-made clothes at Walmart, but they bought in bulk. Besides, my creations fit me perfectly, and didn’t fall apart the first time I wore them. “But I didn’t bring any cloth with me, so I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.”

  “Oh
yeah?”

  “Come on. We’re going shopping.”

  Williamsburg was many things. It offered a wide selection of exotic foods. It boasted some of the greatest artists and art galleries I’d ever seen. Practically every block had a live music venue, a coffee shop, and a holistic spa. There was something for everyone, from jogging clubs to escape rooms. But one thing that Williamsburg had in spades, above all else, was killer thrift stores.

  Only they didn’t call them thrift stores here. They had second-hand stores, upcycled boutiques, and consignment shops. The granddaddy of them all was Brooklyn Flea, but it was only open on the weekends.

  Luckily, smaller thrift stores were everywhere, and I led Izzy to one of my favorites. As I opened the door, my senses were assaulted by the sparkly glass jewelry in a display case under the cash register, strange pipe music wafting out from tiny speakers, and that underlying scent of age that never fully goes away no matter how many times you wash something. Better still was the twinge of anticipation, not knowing what hidden gems I might discover today.

  I made a beeline for the racks of clothes in the back, but got distracted by a pair of six-inch shiny red patent leather platform shoes. I reached out and caressed one of the buckles before turning the shoe over. As luck would have it, they were two sizes too small. “Drat,” I said, picking up its mate. “Maybe if I stretched them out?”

  Izzy took them from me and placed them back on the shelf. “Eyes on the prize, Odessa. Besides, you’re the only person I know who can pull off cowboy boots and not make it look like you’re trying to be ironic or something. You don’t need those platforms.”

  “You’re right,” I grudgingly admitted. “But if the shoe-size fairy visits me tonight and shrinks my feet, I’m coming back for these.”

  “Deal. Now, what are we looking for?”

  “Look for colors or material that catch your eye. Don’t worry about what it is, just that there’s plenty of it. If you shop up a size, it’s easier to repurpose and make a unique garment of your own.” For Izzy, that would be easy. Between a high metabolism and her vegan diet, she could probably shop in the kids’ section.