by Josh Lanyon
“I’ll get a hotel room.”
He said that sounded like a good idea, and disappeared through the French doors. I stared up at the sunny sky. Such a pretty day. Birds singing, flowers blooming. Sun shining. A good day to be alive and not dead in a crate in a stranger’s basement. I pulled my phone out. After I’d called the police, I had phoned J.X. But he hadn’t picked up. I tried him again.
And once more the call went to message.
Maybe he was busy. Maybe he wasn’t taking my phone calls. I did an internal taste test as I considered that possibility. The flavor was bitter.
Anyway, this was not news I wanted to leave in a message. I disconnected and began to search for a place to spend the night. Was it insensitive to splurge on a really nice hotel? I began to surf hotel sites.
The Suites at Fisherman’s Wharf sounded pretty good: dining area, living room, and a kitchenette offering a 2-burner stovetop and dishwasher. 42-inch flat-screen cable TV and free Wi-Fi, and decorated with floral patterns and beige accents. Maybe I could just move in there and J.X. could come and visit on weekends.
I sighed and changed my search criteria to “very nice hotel.” I felt in urgent need of some very nice right about then. Vaguely, I was aware of the crime scene folks continuing to mill through the house. Lots of vehicles and plenty of personnel in attendance when someone dies a violent death. No privacy or dignity for the dead. Or the living.
“Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!” called a familiar voice.
I looked around, but saw no one. I rose and finally pinpointed the yoo-hooing to the other side of a four-foot-tall hedge that divided our property from Emmaline Bloodworth’s. I could see her coolie hat floating just over the edge like a flying saucer looking for a safe place to land.
“Christopher? Hellooo?”
I walked up a couple of small terraces and leaned across the perfectly clean-shaven expanse of twigs and leaves. Emmaline’s bright blue eyes blinked up at me.
“What’s happened? I was afraid you’d had some kind of accident.”
“Not me. Not this time.” I explained as succinctly as possible what had happened.
“Good heavens. Are you all right?” She seemed genuinely concerned, which was nice. And there’s no better security system than nosey neighbors.
“Yes. Fine.” That probably sounded heartless, but if I told her it wasn’t my first murder, she would need some kind of explanation, and I really didn’t have the energy. I said off-handedly, “It’s just the shock of it.”
“I should think so. Murder,” she breathed. “Do they—?”
“It didn’t happen here,” I tried to reassure her. “He must have been dead when he arr—a while.”
Truthfully, I had no idea how long he’d been dead. It did seem to me that for a stabbing, there had been relatively little blood. Nothing had leaked out of the crate. That I’d seen, anyway. My stomach gave a queasy shudder. As frozen pizza toppings go, murder is the least appetizing.
“Will they let you back in the house?” Emmaline asked.
“Once they finish processing the crime scene.”
“How long does that take?”
I shook my head. From our vantage point between the two houses we watched as the satellite dish people arrived—late as usual—and were turned away. They were just disappearing from view when the furniture delivery people arrived and were also declined entrance.
“Oh dear,” Emmaline said. “Don’t you think you should talk to them? Set up another delivery time?”
“Probably.” But I made no move. Sometimes you have to consider that maybe the cosmos is trying to tell you something.
“Is it possible the crate wasn’t one of yours?”
“No. It had my name on it. And I remember seeing them packing my china.”
“I wonder where your china is.”
“Good question.” That china had traveled all the way from Switzerland, and though it was not something I would have chosen for myself, it was mine and I wanted it back, down to the very last saucer.
Eventually Emmaline’s feet began to hurt and she excused herself with an invitation to drop by anytime, unless I ended up being arrested.
I thanked her and continued to hover at the side of the house, watching uneasily as the coroner’s van arrived and was loaded up and sent on its merry way.
Inspector Jones came outside again and located me lurking in the hydrangeas.
“Hey there, Christopher.”
“Oh, there you are,” I said.
“The good news is the ME is sure that the vic was killed offsite. The bad news is we’re not going to finish processing the crime scene tonight. But you should be back home by—at the latest—end of day tomorrow.”
He gazed at me expectantly. I realized that because of my connection to J.X., I had been bumped from coach to first class, and they had even thrown in complimentary champagne. All this speed and sensitivity in a preliminary homicide investigation was not business as normal. Heaven and earth was being moved to return me to safe haven as soon as reasonably possible.
“That’s…I don’t know what to say. Thank you. All of you. I appreciate it.”
Jones winked. “Nothing’s too good for J.X. Man, we had some times together.”
“I can imagine.”
“Did he tell you about that time we chased that dumbass junkie up to Coit Tower?”
No. J.X. had not told me about that time. Or about almost any other time when he’d been on the force. Possibly because we were always too busy with my latest drama.
I said, “I think he’s always using that stuff in his books.”
“You know it,” Jones laughed. “You know it.”
Reporters crowded the sidewalk when I finally flung open the front gate and departed 321 Cherry Lane. Maybe it was a slow day for news in The City. Fortunately they didn’t seem to know who I was, beyond the unlucky homeowner, and I ignored the clicking cameras and questions thrown my way. I tossed my laptop and leather carryall in the back seat, jumped in my car, and sped away to the Fairmont hotel.
The Fairmont is a San Francisco icon. It’s on Nob Hill, no less, and the cheapest room is $549. A night. Worth every penny, in my opinion. It was just what my shattered nerves needed. I checked in, had a G&T in the Laurel Court bar while I booked myself an in-room massage. Then I had another G&T before I trudged up to my room in time to take a hot shower before the masseuse arrived.
My room was on the seventh floor and it was lovely. Quiet and comfortable with a pillow-top bed, a marble bath, flat screen TV and Keurig coffee maker. What more could a lost and lonely wayfarer require? A minibar? It had that too. The décor was in soothing tones of platinum and pewter with royal-blue accents. The carpet was a tone-on-tone floral paisley pattern. How sad was it that I felt more at home in a hotel room than I did in my nice, new house?
The massage was heavenly, the nap that followed even better. When I woke up, I ordered room service: the citrus-charred breast of organic chicken and—because any entrée with the word “organic” in it grants you permission to have dessert—the lemon and mixed berry cheesecake. After verifying that J.X. had still not left word, I ordered another gin and tonic.
Clearly I had crossed a line from which there was no coming back. Which is what I had expected from the first, though not quite this soon. I’d expected enough time to organize my half of the medicine cabinet before the wrecking ball fell.
Or maybe he was just…busy. Conventions did keep you…busy. We had kept each other busy that first convention.
That didn’t make me feel a whole hell of a lot better. But sitting around thinking about it wasn’t going to help. While I waited for my dinner to arrive, I got out my laptop, and reluctantly checked my email. Rachel had sent me three notes. The first two urged me to grab the first plane out to Las Vegas. The third requested a genealogical search of my Swiss heritage. I sighed.
Nothing from J.X., but getting an email rather than a phone call from him right now would only have increase
d my anxiety.
Dear Christopher,
It has come to our attention that as boyfriends go, you leave a lot to be desired.
Yours Truly,
Your Soon-to-be Next Ex
No, I could do without that. I signed out of email and did some online shopping, downloading a couple of bestselling Scandinavian crime fiction titles, including The Boy in the Suitcase, The Keeper of Lost Causes, The Dinosaur Feather, Death Angels, and The Devil’s Star. Danish, Danish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish. That was a pretty good sampling, and a couple of Glass Key Award winners to boot.
When in doubt, work. That had been my mantra for most of my life, and it had never failed me yet. Of course, if I was being strictly accurate, it hadn’t done me a lot of good in the affairs of the heart department. But if there was one thing I had learned over the years, relationships came and went. Work remained constant. Work was my pole star.
Not that I had any intention of writing Nordic noir, or whatever the hell it was Rachel wanted me to crank out this month, but it couldn’t hurt to see what the kids in the winter parkas were writing.
Lene and Agnete led off: Holding the glass door open with her hip, she dragged the suitcase into the stairwell leading down to the underground parking lot.
I skipped ahead and yes, a boy in a suitcase. Alive. Which made a nice change. I would wait till after I had my dinner to see if he stayed that way.
Jussi wrote: She scratched her fingertips on the smooth walls until they bled, and pounded her fists on the thick panes until she could no longer feel her hands.
Right. Well, that was marriage for you.
Next S.J. Gazan’s The Dinosaur Feather. This sounded promising: Anna Bella Nor was dreaming she had unearthed Archaeopteryx, the earliest and most primitive bird known. Very good. An intellectual puzzle. I much preferred not to start out with people in agony, at least not until I was sure my hotel room minibar was stocked to see me through to the end.
I clicked out of the other books and settled down to read The Dinosaur Feather. Room service arrived and carried in my supper. I scribbled my signature, closed the door firmly, and returned to my book and dinner. Lost china, dead bodies, and even the house on Cherry Lane seemed a long way away now.
The next time I looked at the bedside clock it was nine. Only nine o’clock? I could hardly keep my eyes open. I wanted nothing more than to crawl between the sheets, bury my head in the pillows and lose myself in deep, deep sleep. But that had to be the strain of the last few days, not the book.
Clive gave Fjeldberg a horrified look.
“Parasites?”
“Yes, his body was supposedly riddled with them,” Fjeldberg snorted.
Or maybe it was the book.
Someone was knocking on the table next to my head. I could just make out the tap-tap-tap in the great distance beyond the rushing wind of my snores. I snapped my mouth shut, unstuck my eyelids, and listened doubtfully. There was something distinctly police-open-up! about that knock.
Shit. My cell phone was on vibrate. I tore off my sleep mask, flung myself over, knocking the glass of melted ice water to the plush carpet, and grabbed my phone. Even in the gloom of the room I could make out the outline of J.X.’s fuzzy photo. I clicked to accept the call and before I could croak out anything resembling words, J.X. roared, “Where the hell are you?”
I fumbled my glasses on, threw a hasty look at the shadowy interior of the room, and said, “The Fairmont.”
“The Fairmont? The fucking Fairmont?”
“It’s actually really nice.”
I was verbally treading water, stalling, not giving him a serious answer, and certainly not intending to be a smartass, but that was my mistake because he needed a serious answer. There followed a torrent of words unlike any I had previously heard from J.X.—and with that kind of breath control he was probably an amazing long distance swimmer. The gist of his “argument”—though brawl-with-broken-beer-bottles—might be a better word for it—was his sincere bewilderment that I had not called him the previous day. He made this point several times, though the volume faded with each repetition as he grew hoarser and hoarser.
When he’d finally worn himself out and I could wedge in a word, I said, “I tried calling you. You didn’t pick up.”
From the sounds on the other end he was either spluttering his disbelief or suffering what my grandmother used to quaintly call “a conniption.” Finally he managed a strangled, “Kit. Why didn’t you leave a message?”
“You must admit that’s not an easy message to leave on voice mail.”
More spluttering. He wasn’t usually so inarticulate. I deduced he was short on sleep and probably hungover from discussing fine literature into the wee hours.
“Well, why the hell didn’t you call me?” I demanded. My own grievances kicking in.
“I did! I phoned the house four times. Because you never answer your goddamned cell phone. You never even have it on.”
“Well, I did have it on.”
“I had to hear from Izzie Jones that you found a body. In our home!”
“In a moving crate, but yes.”
“And I called your cell. How do you think we’re talking right now? You sure as hell didn’t call me. I must have phoned you six times last night. If your goddamned cell was on how could you not pick up? I was starting to think something happened to you.”
There was a note in his voice… I realized this was about him being scared not about him being inconvenienced.
I automatically clicked over to check if he had left messages and, not being all that familiar with my cell phone—as J.X. would have been the first to point out—disconnected the call.
Chapter Four
“Oh shit.”
Worse yet, J.X. had called eight times last night. I stared in horror at that long list of missed calls, panicked, and began scrolling through contacts for his number. Somehow the damn phone had scooped up all the names and addresses from my email and dumped them into my contacts list. When had that happened? How had that happened? Everyone I had ever emailed seemed to be listed as a contact.
“No, no. Please, please. Where are you—”
The phone vibrated again, nearly jumping out of my hand with the ferocity of that ring. Or maybe it was just that my palms were starting to sweat. A lot. In fact, my glasses were fogging. I think my eyeballs were sweating too.
I clicked to answer. “Sorry,” I gulped. “Sorry about that.”
I could hear him heavy-breathing on the other end. But those years of police training stood him in good stead.
“Kit.” He got the syllable out with great control.
“I know. God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hang up on you. This time. Yesterday I was mad, I admit it. But just now, that was an accident. And if I’d heard the phone last night, I’d have answered. I have the damned thing on vibrate, and I guess I didn’t hear the first…few times you called. I took a sleeping pill.”
And slept like a baby, but it didn’t seem tactful to mention it.
“Look, I’m going to try and get a flight back this afternoon.”
Yes. I felt weak with relief. That was exactly what I felt he should do. No way should I have to be dealing with this myself.
But contrariwise, dealing with what? I’d had an unpleasant experience, yes, but it was all over now except for the shouting. And we’d nearly finished the shouting. In fact, all that was left was fumigating the basement. What was J.X. going to do other than lend moral support? It wasn’t like I was involved in an actual murder investigation, and even if I had been, it wasn’t like I hadn’t been through that a time or two before. The police didn’t really think I was involved, and dragging J.X. away from his conference was just…cowardly.
I said sturdily, “No. Come on. There’s no need for that.”
“No need? You found a body in our house!”
“In a moving crate. It doesn’t have anything to do with us. You’re at the convention for a reason, right? So let’s
stick to the plan. You come home on Monday after the signing at Cloak and Dagger.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. I’m not. I’m serious. And sober. Which right there should tell you something. Because I wasn’t last night.”
“I don’t feel right about this, Kit. I feel like I need to be there.”
“Now listen. You’re the one who said it was important for you to attend this conference. So if it was important yesterday, it’s still important today, right?”
“It’s not more important than you.”
It was the way he said it. So staunch and unhesitating, like he’d never have to think twice about it. Not a compliment, not making nice after a spat, just the way J.X. saw it. It was unexpected and it closed my throat for a second.
“Well, okay,” I said gruffly. “But it’s not either or. I grant you, I was kind of freaked out yesterday. But I had a good night’s sleep and I’m okay. Seriously. It was just a gruesome coincidence. It’s over and done and you should carefully consider how much you’ll regret the decision to come home once you’re stuck with unpacking two hundred boxes of books.”
He made a semi-amused sound, but his voice was still troubled as he said, “It’s your call, I guess. I do have a couple of meetings set up with my agent, and my editor, and my publicist and some power bloggers. I don’t want to miss them if I don’t have to. But—”
“But nothing. It’s fine. I wouldn’t say it, if I didn’t mean it. Right?”
He said honestly, “I’m not sure. I think you might.”
That made me laugh. “Call me tonight. Okay? I promise to take your calls from now on.”
“All right. But if something happens—”
“What else could happen? A major earthquake followed by raging fire? Wait. I’m in San Francisco now. Forget I said that.”
