To Helvetica and Back

by Paige Shelton

  Together, we went to the back and got to work.

  4

  “Clare, wake up, honey.”

  I jerked my body upright, but my fuzzy brain lagged behind. Once I realized where I was, I noticed that both of my arms tingled painfully and hung uselessly from my shoulders. I’d been asleep at the worktable, my arms up and my head on them.

  “Hi, Chester,” I said and silently told my arms that the waves of pins-and-needles pain would pass soon enough.

  “Late night?” he asked.

  I blinked behind the glasses that I hadn’t taken off and inspected him closely. Like me, he had on the same clothes he’d worn the day before.

  “You too?” I asked.

  He waved away my question and ran his fingers over the copy of Tom Sawyer on the side table.

  “I looked at the page. You finished it beautifully, Clare. You are very gifted.”

  “I learned from the best,” I said, trying to lift my arms, but they still hurt and were nonresponsive.

  “Well, you surpassed my skills a long time ago, but I’m thrilled to be outshone.” Chester smiled. “No one bothered you last night?”

  “No one at all.”

  “Excellent. I took a gander in your office, to see what the cameras recorded. It looks like your computer is off. Turn it on later and let me know if there’s anything to see.”

  “What? The computer shouldn’t be off, Chester. The monitor should be on. It’s supposed to be on all the time now. Maybe it’s just in sleep mode or whatever. The security system is an old setup, and it won’t work if it’s powered off.”

  I scooted away from the table and stood. I hoped my arms didn’t look too weird as I hurried to my office.

  I gained back a little control and put my hand on the mouse, moving it, and then moving it more forcefully, but nothing came up on the screen.

  “Shoot,” I said.

  With Chester watching over my shoulder, I pushed the power button. The buzz of the hard drive seemed to need to pick up steam before it could actually fire up.

  Finally, after what seemed like a bazillion seconds, the monitor came on, showing my screen saver, which was a picture of Jimmy and Marion making silly faces.

  I moved the mouse again and then clicked on the security system icon, bringing a four-squared picture into view. We only had three cameras, so only three pictures filled three squares. The fourth one remained black. The first picture came from right outside the front door. Though it was daylight, it was still early enough that there was no foot traffic yet to see. The second camera was placed on the wall behind the cash register, and I saw the empty but now lighted store in a fuzzy black-and-white picture.

  I gave only a cursory glance at the third picture that displayed the back walkway before I clicked on the files-saved button. A few more frustrating clicks later, I was certain that the cameras hadn’t recorded anything since only a few minutes after the police left the day before.

  “Shoot,” I said again. “I have no idea why the computer turned itself off, Chester. It’s been so long since I’ve kept it on at night, I must have programmed in something to make it shut down if it doesn’t get used for a certain amount of time, but I can’t remember doing that. I’ll figure it out today and change whatever settings need changing.”

  “That works. No harm done. You’re fine. No one tried to break into the store. As you said yesterday, all’s well that ends well.” Chester smiled, but I could see a small bit of worry behind his glasses at the corner of his eyes.

  “I’ll fix it,” I said as I clicked back to the live pictures.

  Just as I was going to regroup and ask him again about his late night, my eyes landed on something unusual in the third picture, the one outside the back door.

  The camera was aimed down the skinny walkway that was currently only barely lit from the rising sun. My eyes had somehow been drawn to the bottom right corner of the picture.

  “Chester, does that look like shoes?” I pointed at two mostly shoe-shaped things in the corner.

  “Maybe.” He leaned in closer to the screen. “Maybe.”

  The black-and-white picture was less clear than the other two because of the lack of light and contrast. The walls, the windows, the ground, everything was crammed together with colors that were so similar that one item melted into the next.

  “I think we’d better check it out,” I said as I pushed the chair back.

  Chester followed close at my heels and Baskerville darted in front of us. I hadn’t noticed him yet this morning, but he moved as if he knew what we were doing and led us directly to the back door.

  Neither Chester nor I were cautious as we opened the door. I unlocked the locks, turned the knob, and yanked it open, propelling myself out of the doorway without even one small glance in either direction.

  The shoes I thought I’d seen on the screen would have been to our left, probably about ten feet away.

  “Uh-oh,” Chester said from directly behind me. He grabbed my arm and stepped around me, and with strength no seventy-seven-year-old man should have, pushed me back toward the door. But I didn’t go back inside like he probably hoped I would. I followed directly behind him and Baskerville, who still trotted ahead, all the way to the shoes—well, boots actually—and sniffed curiously.

  Chester crouched and put his fingers to the body’s neck. “Nothing,” he said.

  “That’s leather man,” I gasped. Though he was on his stomach, his neck was turned so that he faced sideways, and I recognized him, even with the piece of glass sticking out of his back He also still wore the leather he’d had on the day before. I crouched down and snapped my fingers, hoping Baskerville would come to me, but he didn’t. Instead he moved to a spot right next to Chester.

  “The man who came into the store yesterday?” Chester asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s dead now.” From his crouched position, Chester looked up and down the walkway.

  There really wasn’t much to see—a couple forgotten garbage cans, a broom. An old window frame leaned against the back of the post office. The glass had been broken out of it and made a puzzle-type pile on the ground around it. A piece of the window’s glass had probably served as the murder weapon. There were lots of closed back doors and back windows, most of which had security grates over them. There was a general sense of old and grimy, abandoned but not filthy. At the far end, the walkway led to Main Street, and currently a slice of light shone from there. It seemed farther away than the five buildings between us, a long journey back to civilization even if it truly wasn’t.

  “Are you sure our cameras were out all night?” Chester said.

  “One hundred percent positive,” I said as my knees began to shake again.

  “Let’s get inside, call the police,” Chester said as he stood, picking up Baskerville on the way.

  • • •

  Officer Creighton Wentworth operated differently than his sister, Jodie. They shared the same heavy walk, but for some reason Creighton’s footfalls—even though he was six feet, five inches and two hundred thirty pounds of policeman buff—were less obnoxious than Jodie’s. That was the only thing about him that was less obnoxious than his sister. He was big, overbearing, and awful, except that back when he and I had dated, I’d found him teddy bear adorable, both gentle and kind. When he cheated on me, those traits transformed. And when I wouldn’t forgive him for cheating, he quit being so nice to me.

  “Hang on a second, the officers didn’t take the typewriter with them yesterday?” Creighton asked.

  We’d already shown him the body and had had to listen to his exasperated questions as to why we’d run toward possible danger instead of immediately calling the police. Those questions had gone unanswered; even we didn’t understand why we’d done what we’d done.

  The body was now being attended to by Kell
y, Creighton’s partner and an even less-friendly person to be around. Kelly had become Creighton’s partner about the same time of the breakup, so in all fairness I knew he’d only heard Creighton’s version of events. It was understandable that he might think less of me, and I didn’t much care.

  Creighton and I were in the workshop. I was telling him what had happened the day before, the day I’d first met the live version of leather man.

  “No,” I said. “The police didn’t take the typewriter, but it got a thorough inspection.”

  “Let me guess. My sister came out?”

  “Your sister was thorough, Creighton. You know she’s a good cop.”

  “She’s also your best friend and not the person who should have come out and investigated a potential crime.”

  “So you should have been the one?” I said as I folded my arms in front of myself.

  Creighton’s brown eyes squinted briefly and the back of his cheek jumped as he gritted his teeth. “No, Clare, it should not have been me either. It should have been someone with no personal ties to you or your family, but apparently Jodie doesn’t understand that rule. I’ll be sure to tell her all about it.”

  “I know you will.”

  Creighton looked away as the line of his mouth went straight and hard. He looked back at me a moment later. “What else can you tell me? You said your security cameras didn’t catch anything?”

  “No, come to my office and I’ll show you when they stopped working.”

  Creighton followed me to the office. Baskerville was perched on the edge of the worktable, next to the No. 5. He didn’t quite hiss as Creighton walked by, but he certainly sent him a dirty look.

  “Stupid cat,” he muttered quietly.

  Baskerville was far from stupid. Snotty and standoffish, but not stupid. I didn’t bother to point this out to Creighton though. I had done as much a time or two before. I’d save my sparring words for something else—I was sure he’d give me another reason to be irritated soon enough.

  I sat in the chair and rolled it tightly up to the desk as Creighton moved behind me. He had to move in way too close to be able to see the screen properly. His chin was directly above my right shoulder and I squelched an urge to lean to the left.

  “I’m pretty sure this time notation is correct,” I said as I pointed to the red neon-ish numbers and letters in the bottom right corner in the fourth square of the screen, “because that’s right after Jodie and Omar left. And then, look, everything just goes black. I think I had it set to turn off, but I don’t remember doing that. It’s also an old computer. It could have done it on its own.”

  “I see. Well, it was good that you tried to have something working at least.”

  Now I did lean to the left and looked up at him over my right shoulder. I was able to inspect him from the farthest distance possible while still being seated. He was being complimentary and it sounded and looked sincere.

  “Thanks,” I said warily. “I did walk to the front and look out of the windows at around eight o’clock. I saw Anorkory leave his place, but he didn’t see me watching him. I didn’t see or hear anything suspicious all night.”

  “You were here all night?”

  “I fell asleep at my table while I was working.”

  “I wonder if Chester heard or saw anything.”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell Creighton that Chester had been gone all night, at least as far as I knew. The two of them could discuss that little tidbit.

  I hadn’t allowed myself to dwell on the fact that someone had been killed behind the building while I’d been in the workshop. Their life had been taken from them as I either worked or slept, with one mere wall in between me and the awful deed.

  “Well, nevertheless,” Creighton continued, “I’m pleased you have some sort of security system at all. Most businesses around here don’t. Star City might be a quiet ski town, but we see crime, plenty of it. So good job to you and Chester.”

  I twisted my neck and looked up at him again. It was an awkward position and the space was too small and we were too close. I rolled the chair back a little and expunged myself from the crowded pocket. I slipped past him and stood on the other side of the desk, placing my hands on my hips in a pose that didn’t hide how uncomfortable I was.

  “Well, thanks,” I said. “I’m glad we have something too, but we need something better.”

  Creighton shrugged. “Probably.”

  He took a few long-legged and authoritative steps out from behind the desk and led the way out of the office. I hesitated just long enough to keep the distance between us as far as might be considered acceptable. The back door to the building was open a crack since the crime scene people were still gathering evidence. He pulled it open wide and peered out.

  “The body’s gone,” he said to me after he closed the door again.

  “Did they take him out through the walkway, not through the building?”

  “Must have.”

  I nodded.

  “You can do whatever you need to do out there once everyone leaves. You won’t disturb the crime scene. The techs won’t go until they have everything.”

  “I haven’t opened that back door in probably a year or so. I can’t see why we’d need to go out there at all. At this point I’d like to seal it off, maybe cement it closed.”

  “Nope. Fire code won’t allow that, but you can get some stronger locks and a security gate if you want.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “Now, I’m taking this typewriter. I’ll deal with Mirabelle if she doesn’t like it,” Creighton said.

  “What will you do with it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Give it to our crime scene people so they can look it over thoroughly. My sister’s a knucklehead. She should have known better.”

  We’d been doing so well. For a good few minutes, Creighton and I hadn’t said anything to each other that could be considered grounds for a fight. It might have been a record. But the insult to his sister irritated me just enough that I decided not to tell him about the scratched writing on the key bars. Even if they proved to be some code for finding a killer, I was just stubborn enough to want Jodie to figure it out before Creighton had the chance.

  “Okay, but try not to tear it apart. Mirabelle has had that thing for a long time, and it’s worth a lot to her, if not monetarily at least sentimentally,” I said.

  “No promises, but I’ll pass that along.”

  Creighton lifted the typewriter like it was as light as an empty shoebox and placed it under one arm.

  “Clare, call me if you need anything or if you hear anything or if you’re concerned or scared. Or anything,” Creighton said. “My cell number hasn’t changed.”

  A flicker of regret over not telling him about the letters and numbers flashed in my chest, but then I remembered that not only had he just insulted my best friend, but he’d cheated on me, so I managed to douse that flicker pretty quickly.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Without further good-byes, he marched out of the workshop. I followed behind slowly, only reaching the middle door as Creighton’s feet hit the sidewalk outside The Rescued Word.

  “Oh, hello, I’m sorry,” I said to the man who was perusing our shelves of old-fashioned pens and ink bottles. “I didn’t know we had a customer.”

  Technically, we shouldn’t be open for another half hour, but with all the police activity in and out, the front doors had been unlocked.

  “No problem. I was just looking around at all your stuff. What a great place,” he said.

  I’d never seen him before, and though he was dressed oddly, he wasn’t wearing leather and didn’t have a glowering look on his interesting face. And he wasn’t Creighton. I decided that he was a welcome new sight.

  He wore torn jeans that weren’t torn in any fa
shionable way. They were also dirty. No, not dirty—dusty. His T-shirt had seen better days, and I did a double take when I read the words emblazoned across the front. “Geologists make the bed rock.” I stifled a smile. He had to be at least in his midthirties, I thought, and was very tall, probably around six feet, five inches. He wasn’t necessarily thin, but he was trim and in shape, the muscles in his arms well defined but not enormous. His skin was pale though I thought he might be sunburnt in a couple places; it was difficult to tell with all the dust. His dark, wavy hair was messy and needed some attention from a good pair of scissors. His blue eyes made a surprising contrast with his skin and hair. They were difficult not to stare at. He was handsome, but that wasn’t the first adjective that came to mind as I looked at him. “Interesting” was the first word I thought of, followed by “handsome,” then “tall,” then, of all things, “cute.”

  “Thanks,” I said as my eyes landed on the contraption that he held under his arm. I thought it was a mining helmet light, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Oh,” he said as he noticed where my eyes had gone. He lifted the thing from under his arm, looked at it, and then put it back where it had been. “It’s a mining light. I was at the mine all night. Anyway.” He shook his head. And then as if the transition made all the sense in the world, he continued, “I’m Seth Cassidy. You have my book, Tom Sawyer.”

  “Oh! Yes, of course. I finished it last night. Let me go grab it.”

  “Thanks.”

  I’d never seen Seth before, but I’d met a geologist or two. Even an old mining town that didn’t really do much mining anymore had need for them every now and then. We’d corresponded via e-mail and he’d sent the book via snail mail. He’d mentioned that he’d be in town to pick it up this week but hadn’t given me any more details than that. I gathered the book, looked it over one more time, and then carried it out to him.

  Seth had changed. He had somehow smoothed out his hair and the T-shirt slogan was no longer visible. Had he turned the shirt inside out, right there in the middle of the store?

  “It’s a beautiful book,” I said as I handed it to him. “Very well taken care of.”