by Elise Sax
I kneeled down and searched the area to see if something was dropped, like a driver’s license or something else that would pin the attempted murder on Wade and Steve. “Do you smell that?” I asked Faye.
She squatted next to me and sniffed the air. “What? Maybe juniper?”
I sniffed the air, again. “It’s gone, now. Perhaps it was juniper. But I don’t think so. It was more man-made. I can’t place it, and now it’s gone. Drat.” A whiff of a scent didn’t seem like a big deal, but something told me that it was.
We moved on to the edge of the roof where Silas had been pushed off. I found a half-smoked cigar, which was obviously Silas’s. “I found something!” Faye yelled. She pointed down, and I followed her finger to a spot on the roof. There was a torn piece of paper. I picked it up and then remembered about possible fingerprints.
“Let’s not tell Amos about this,” I said. Screwing up fingerprints twice wouldn’t get me on his good side.
Faye winked at me. “I got you. We’re undercover. Top secret. My lips are sealed. What is it?”
“There’s no words on it, but there’s part of a picture here. I can’t make it out. Can you?”
She studied it. All I saw were a couple black squiggly lines and a splotch of color. “I have no idea. Do you think the killer dropped it?”
I folded it and put it in my pocket. “I’ll show it to Silas. It might be his, and if not, he might have an idea what it is. Wow, it’s higher up here than I thought.”
We inched closer to the edge and looked down. Norton was outside by the flying saucer, regaling the crowd with his story of the fallen UFO. He was also telling them about the coming of the next intergalactic war.
“Isn’t he wonderful?” Faye gushed over her husband. “We’ve been married for five years, but it’s like we’re still honeymooners.
“He’s a great guy,” I agreed. “Very nice.”
“He’ll give you the shirt off his back.”
Been there. Done that.
Faye’s phone rang, and she answered it. “Yes, she’s here. Hold on,” she said.
She passed me the phone. “Hello?” I said.
“Matilda, this is Rocco Humphrey. How’re you today?”
“Well…”
“Good. That’s grand. Can you meet me over at the Friends of Daisy Giraffe?”
“I guess so. When?”
“Now, of course.”
“Actually, I’m working. Can we make it in a couple days?”
“Matilda, I’m trying to revitalize the town,” he said like that said it all. “We have very important things to discuss. I need you here pronto.”
I wanted to yell at him about poor Silas and Jimmy and the importance of finding justice for them, but then I remembered about Rocco’s conversation with Wade at Jimmy Sanchez’s house. While Rocco was wasting my time, I could grill him and get closer to getting the dirt on Wade. I could also get Rocco’s rundown on what happened in the Gazette office from the moment that Silas handed out the cigars to when Jimmy died.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said, and returned the phone to Faye.
“He’s a jerk, but I make a ton of money off of him renovating his house,” Faye said. “It’s like the Rocco Mystery House. He’s never satisfied. He imported rocks for his front yard that have to be polished every week. I mean, Goodnight has no shortage of rocks, right? Did he need to import rocks that have to be polished? Between you and me, I charge him triple. That’s my funding plan for your house.”
“It is?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I can’t wait to get my hands on your place. It’s historical, you know. It’ll be a gift to Goodnight to have your house restored to its previous glory. Besides, Rocco is a jerk who bleeds money. If he can import rocks like an asshat, he can pay me two hundred dollars to install a television.”
“I guess you have a point,” I said, slowly, imagining my house restored to its previous glory. I gnawed on my cheek. This was probably how the mafia started, with a promise of new flooring.
We went downstairs and visited the shop. Norton was ecstatic about the wave of business. Faye gave him a kiss, and he wrapped her in his arms, making her completely disappear in his girth. He was at least three times her size around. Two older men who looked just like Norton and were about the same size as him walked over.
“Dad, Gramps, this is the new girl in town,” Norton said, introducing me.
“The one who dressed like a monkey and threw her poop?” the grandfather asked.
“I didn’t do that,” I said.
“She’s not really crazy,” Faye said, coming to my rescue. “I haven’t seen her do anything crazy, yet, anyway. I’m sure the whole thing about lifting her leg and peeing on a taxi was completely exaggerated.”
“And not true,” I added. “I mean, none of these things about me are true.”
Norton’s grandfather nodded, but he didn’t seem totally convinced.
“Have you come for the sale?” Norton’s father asked me. “We’re doing bang-up business. We’ll finally be able to invest in an alien beam-up booth.”
Norton high-fived him. A couple of men in goatees brought a large pile of merchandise to the cash register, and Norton hopped to it. “You found the Venetian glass,” he said to them, happily. “Great purchase. It’ll keep you regular.”
They also bought a bunch of t-shirts. As Norton lifted each one up and folded it, I thought back to the mysterious girl in the courtyard and her Goodnight UFOs t-shirt. I described it to Norton’s father.
“I know that one. Remember it, Dad?” he said to Norton’s grandfather.
“Oh, yes. That’s an oldie but a goodie,” the grandfather said. “We haven’t sold that for at least ten years.”
“More like twenty, Dad,” Norton’s father said. “You know what? I think we have one in the stockroom.”
I followed him to the back, and he found the shirt quickly. He held it up for me, and I got chills. “You don’t sell this anymore?” I asked.
“Nope. We keep some stock back for our collection.”
It was the exact t-shirt that the young woman had worn that night in my courtyard, except that this one was clean. Somehow, the girl had bought the shirt at least ten or twenty years ago, or it was bought by her captor. It had to be her captor because she wasn’t older than eighteen.
Suddenly, I had the realization that all roads seemed to end at Goodnight UFOs. The disappearing girl wore one of the shop’s t-shirts, Wade met with Mabel at the store, and now it was the scene of Silas’s attempted murder. Was there something about the store that was the key to the murders?
Norton’s father was staring at me, either waiting for me to throw poop at him or he wasn’t as innocent as he seemed, and he wanted to do me harm. “Is it hot in here?” I asked. “Let’s go back. Thank you so much for showing me the shirt.”
I tossed it back to him and practically ran out of the stockroom. Back at the cash register, Nora was waiting for me to take up the chauffeur baton from Faye. I hadn’t seen her since the pool re-opening. She was holding a toddler in each arm, and three kids ran around her, like Abbott ran around me when he wanted a bone.
“Thank you for inviting me,” she said, brightly, raising her voice over her children, who were making a real racket. “Faye told me about our mission,” she said, leaning in, conspiratorially. One of her toddlers had a runny nose, and Nora wiped it with her finger and then wiped her wet finger on her jeans. “I don’t have to be back to the bank until two. This is a real treat for us. A field trip. A little adventure. Isn’t that right, kids?”
“I’m hungry!” one of the boys complained, which sent off echoes of “I’m hungry” from her other kids. Nora had a massive tote bag slung over her shoulder, and somehow she managed to dig out five granola bars without dropping one of the kids. She tossed the bars to her children, which made them happy.
“Nora has thirteen kids,” Faye whispered in my ear. “Three sets of twins.”
We went out the front door, and three of Nora’s kids ran around the downed flying saucer, shooting each other with invisible laser guns. The crowd had grown. It was the first time that I was up close and personal with the UFO in daylight. It was huge and probably weighed a ton. It was a miracle that Silas survived.
I followed Nora across the street. I turned around to see her three little ones still running around the UFO. “Are they going to be okay?” I asked.
She unlocked a large van and tossed her toddlers inside. “Oh, yeah. They follow the food. Kids, in the van!” she shouted, and the three ran across the street and jumped into the van.
“Do you need help getting them in the car seats?” I asked.
“Thank you, but no. The older ones handle the little ones. Hop in the front. We’re not going far.”
Sure enough, the older kids who were no older than seven belted in the toddlers. They were content, finishing off their granola bars. We drove a few minutes into the hills until we hit a long driveway. At the foot of it, there was a large sign announcing “Friends of Daisy Giraffe Home for Abused Wildlife.” It was right next door to my house, separated by acres of forest.
The Giraffe Home was a one-story round, wooden building. “Have you been here before?” Nora asked me.
“No.”
“Oh, you’re in for a treat. They’re hoping to bring back the town by making it up to Daisy.”
“What happened to Daisy the giraffe?”
“I’m thirsty!” her daughter yelled, and the rest of the kids joined the chorus. Nora dug five juice boxes out her tote bag and tossed them in the back while she parked the van. We got out, and she opened the van’s sliding door. The kids started yelling and jumped out. She corralled the toddlers, scooping them up in her arms.
I opened the door for Nora and the kids, and I followed them in. Once we were inside, Nora let the toddlers down and they ran after the other kids, screaming like banshees as they ran free. Nora stretched her back and straightened her hair, pausing for a second at the glob of gum.
“So, here we are,” she said.
It was dark inside, and somber music was playing. It was a lot like entering a funeral home. It made a statement, like I was supposed to be sad, or at the very least, pensive. We walked down a long hallway, and Nora stopped at a glass enclosure, which had a stuffed giraffe in it.
“Is this Daisy?” I asked.
“No, they ate Daisy. The museum bought this one to show. Probably not a good idea to have an actual dead giraffe here. A picture would have been good enough.”
We walked on to the next exhibit. “What is that? Some kind of artisan craft?” I asked. There was a tall ropelike sculpture about the size of a man behind the glass.
“That’s the noose.”
“What noose?”
“The noose. The one they used.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t you know about Daisy?”
“It’s a tragedy,” Rocco interrupted, joining us. “And the dumbest thing ever done. They cursed the town. Blackened Goodnight’s name.”
“It happened a long time ago,” Nora said. “In the 1800s. I don’t think we still need to feel guilty about it.”
“That doesn’t work,” Rocco said, wagging his finger at her face. “We have to be repentant. We have to show America that we’re truly and totally sorry about what we did, even though we didn’t do it because the ones who did it died before the turn of the 20th century.”
“What?” I demanded, growing impatient. “What did you not do to Daisy the giraffe?”
Nora’s kids ran past at us, miming getting hanged. They each had a hand up in the air, and their heads were cocked to the sides with their tongues sticking out. I looked at the noose. It was about six feet long, the perfect length to fit around a giraffe’s neck.
“No way,” I said, catching on. “You hanged a giraffe? You monsters!”
“See?” Rocco said, pointing at me. “It’s the go-to reaction. We can’t overcome until we wash the deed off us. We need to show that we love giraffes. Prove to the world that we’re giraffe lovers. That’s why the Friends of Daisy Giraffe Home for Abused Wildlife is essential, and that’s why we’re doing the giraffe parade on Saturday.”
“You hanged a giraffe?” I repeated. “I mean, really? You really hanged a giraffe? Who does that? How is it possible? And why? Why would you hang a giraffe?”
We walked to the next exhibit, which had three large photographs of the hanging.
Poor Daisy.
“Oh my God!” I shouted, looking at the photos. “You hanged a giraffe!”
After that, I had to sit down. Rocco brought us to the Daisy Mourning Room, which had black leather chairs and couches and a large fireplace under a portrait of Daisy in happier days. The sad music was even louder in here, presumably to drown out the sounds of mourning visitors. Rocco handed me a bottle of water from a custom refrigerator that blended into the cabinetry. When the kids saw the fridge, they attacked, cleaning it out of snacks and drinks. Nora leaned back in one of the chairs, like she was at a spa.
“Daisy was part of a circus,” Rocco explained. “They came into town, and it was time for the show, but Daisy didn’t want to perform.”
“What kind of performance does a giraffe do?” I asked.
“You’re missing the point of the story,” Rocco said.
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Let me tell it,” Nora said. “I’m used to getting to the point, and I promised the kids hamburgers.”
“Hamburgers!” they yelled.
Nora counted on her fingers and spoke quickly, getting to the point, just like she promised. “Daisy was pissed off. She didn’t want to perform. Her trainer was a douche nozzle. She killed him. The townsfolk tried her and sentenced her to hang. And voila! They built a gallows for two solid months that would do the job. And then for some reason, they took a lot of pictures.”
Rocco nodded, sadly. “And that’s when the town died, and it never came back.”
It was the craziest thing I had ever heard. Much crazier than an intergalactic war. “And this happened in the 1800s?” I asked.
Rocco nodded. “It’s a black cloud on our town. Otherwise, we could be the UFO town. Everyone loves Star Trek. We could have been the Leonard Nimoy of American towns. I mean, instead of the giraffe killer town.”
“I loved Leonard Nimoy,” I said. “Okay. I’ll do whatever you want. But not because it’s PR for the town. I’ll do it to make it up to Daisy.”
I know I sounded stupid. Why did I care that the jerky town hanged a giraffe a hundred and fifty years ago? But I had recently seen a young man’s life cut down in front of me, and Silas had almost died. Not to mention that my husband was a killer. Daisy’s demise touched me, and I was feeling melancholic. Besides, how could I face Abbott and Costello if I didn’t do something? So, I was going to do whatever it took to make it up to Daisy the giraffe.
“I’m not doing this,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me. “Nuh-uh. Daisy can go to hell. The town can die and stay dead. Who cares that some yahoo country bumpkins hanged a giraffe? She probably had it coming. I mean, she killed a trainer. Live by the sword, die by the sword, baby. I’m out of here. Screw Daisy.”
“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” Nora said. “And I’m afraid for you to tell me, Rocco.”
We were in the employees’ lounge. Two ladies with measuring tapes were standing next to Rocco, who was holding what looked like a BDSM outfit. I saw rubber and latex and a lot of straps.
“We ran into a snag with the giraffe saddle,” Rocco explained. “But never fear. This is going to work. It’s a custom-made sling. We’re going to measure you for it.”
�
�I’m going to ride a giraffe in a sling? A BDSM sling?”
“Right,” Nora said. “This can’t possibly go wrong.” She rolled her eyes for emphasis.
“I’m going to ride a giraffe in a BDSM sling?” I asked, again. “At a parade for the town to show that it’s wholesome and kind to animals?”
“I have to hand it to you,” Nora said to Rocco. “You’ve picked a genius way to fix Goodnight’s reputation.” She rolled her eyes again.
I had to get out of there, but I knew Rocco was going to argue the situation. So, I needed to bring in backup. I needed a diversion. “Kids, hamburger time!” I yelled. They ran in and yelled “hamburger!” over and over and pushed Nora and me out of the room, like they were a tsunami.
“Smart,” Nora said, as we walked out of the Daisy Home. “Faye said you were smart, and she was right. I’m glad you’re not crazy, too. That’s a plus.”
“Thanks,” I said, opening her van’s sliding door.
“I totally understand why you forgot to ask him about the murder,” she added.
I slapped my forehead. “Oh, no. I forgot to grill him. I was going to interrogate him about Wade and the cigars and Jimmy’s death. I’m a total failure.”
We got into the van. “Totally understandable,” Nora said, starting the van. “It was your first Daisy experience. It threw you. But now you have something over Rocco. He wants you to ride a giraffe in a kinky sex sling, and you want information. It’s a good trade.”
She had a point. I now had leverage. “But I’m never going to ride a giraffe in a kinky sex sling,” I said.
“Of course not. Nobody is. But Rocco doesn’t need to know that.”
“You’re a genius, Nora.”
“Thank you. Finally, somebody noticed.”
Chapter 8
Nora dropped me off at home on her way to get her kids fast food. The dogs greeted me at the gate, and I sat down on the ground to pet them. I was feeling guilty for being out so much and not giving them the attention they deserved. Distracted by the dogs, it took a moment to realize that my car was parked next to Klee’s Cadillac. It had returned, somehow, under mysterious circumstances. The damaged hood had been removed, revealing the motor, but otherwise, it looked pretty good. I peeked through the driver’s window. There was no sign of a rattlesnake.
