Bookman Dead Style

by Paige Shelton

  “Why’s he coming back?”

  “Got Judge Serus to see us. Daryl was an only child. It might be quicker if the judge wants it to be.”

  “You didn’t want to just give it to him yourselves?”

  “Nope. Don’t want that kind of responsibility if there’s some sort of problem. Though you should have called us sooner, good job turning it in at all.”

  I blinked. “I’m no saint, Jodie—you know that—but there’s no way I would have kept that money. If it had been a ten-dollar bill, I might have, but even that would have bothered me. I couldn’t sleep nights knowing I had one hundred thousand dollars that wasn’t mine. Chester and I talked about calling you, but we didn’t want to drudge up some old mystery that might have included Daryl’s mother doing something illegal.”

  Jodie shrugged. “Might have been kind of fun to solve an old mystery. And you’re a good person. There are plenty of people who aren’t.”

  “It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with my peace of mind. And I’m sorry if we got in the way of you solving something.”

  “I’m busy enough. It all worked out okay.”

  I took a sip of my own hot chocolate and savored the warm liquid as it mixed with the cool cream. Neither of us had ordered anything to eat, but I was still thinking about it. We were at the diner across the street from The Rescued Word, so I could watch out the window and run over if Marion got swamped with customers.

  Every shop on Bygone Alley was put together in the fashion of an older time. It hadn’t been on purpose at first. After Chester opened The Rescued Word some sixty years earlier by converting an old mining-office building into the store, the diner moved in with pink vinyl upholstery and a filled jukebox. The upholstery had been redone a couple times, though it had remained pink, but the jukebox was still the original one. Elvis Presley was currently crooning in the background.

  The cobblestone road, the old-fashioned streetlights disguised as gaslights, and the storefronts, most of them with wide front windows and carved wooden signage above, added appropriate charm. Dubbed Bygone Alley back in the day by someone I hadn’t known, the side street had been given a perfect moniker, and when I wasn’t going in thirty different directions with work projects or crowds of visitors, I could take a second or two and feel a real appreciation for where I lived and worked. Sitting in a pink booth with Jodie and enjoying some delicious hot chocolate was one of those times.

  “Listen, I need to tell you something,” Jodie said, threatening to ruin the moment.

  “That’s your serious face,” I said. “That face worries me.” I pushed my mug away.

  “No need. It’s not a big deal, but I just want you to know that . . . well, Creighton has started seeing someone. A woman. More than one date. More than two.”

  “That’s good. Really good,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, have you somehow missed that I’m seeing someone too and I’m really happy with him? His name is Seth, just in case you haven’t been paying attention.” I pushed up my glasses and gathered the hot chocolate.

  “I know, but, well, you and Creighton really had something.”

  “That was a while ago.”

  “I know, but he’ll never get over you—you know that.”

  “Didn’t seem to be on his mind much when he was with the other woman back then, while we were supposedly still together.”

  “He made a big mistake.”

  “One of the biggest.”

  “Right. But. Well.”

  “Jodie, I think it’s great. Actually, I don’t think that. I think it just is. My feelings for your brother left the building a long time ago. I’m including the bad feelings I had for him after he cheated on me. I had to let go of those too. Well, sometimes I remember them, but not often.”

  “He’d dump anyone to be with you again.” She smacked her lips.

  “That’s not . . .” Actually I didn’t know if it was true or not, but I didn’t care. “Thanks for telling me, and I’m happy for your brother if you’re happy for him. Now, can we talk about something else?”

  “Wanna hear about me and Mutt?” she said with a wry smile.

  “No details, but I’d love to know if it’s going well.”

  “Great. Perfect.” She reached into one of the pockets on her uniform shirt. “He gave me this.”

  Once I picked my jaw up from the table, I blinked a few times. “He proposed?”

  “He did.”

  “What did you say?”

  She handed me the solitaire diamond, which was at least a carat. It looked real. “I told him that a few months isn’t enough to determine if we should spend the rest of our lives together, or at least be each other’s first exes.”

  “You did?”

  “I did.”

  “I don’t know what to say. This isn’t how I imagined you telling me you were getting married. I pictured a different scene.”

  “Like what? And you missed the part where I didn’t tell him yes.”

  “I don’t know. Something Victorian, traditional, I guess. Not over hot chocolate at the diner.”

  Jodie lifted one eyebrow.

  “I know. Weird. Victorian’s not you at all, but that’s what I pictured. Oh, Jodie, this is a beautiful ring, and he’s a good guy. You’re really going to wait?”

  “I think so. I think it’s for the best. It’s only been six months, Clare. Not long enough to know.”

  “It’s not that I disagree or want to argue, but you two make a good match, and your family likes him.”

  “I know. Can you believe they like a long-haired motorcycle guy named Mutt? It’s crazy, but I think we need more time.”

  “Just going to carry the ring in your pocket?” I handed it back to her.

  “For now.” She took it and stuck it back in the pocket, finishing with a quick pat.

  “Something tells me there’s more to this than you’re saying.”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I’m happy for you, Jodie,” I said. “We should have a party or something.”

  “Not yet. And it’s nice to have people happy for me instead of wondering when in the world I was going to figure things out.”

  “That’s not . . .”

  She put her hand up and shook her head. I got the hint.

  “Oh my gosh, I totally forgot. Guess who I visited today?” I said.

  “Who?”

  I told her about my visit with Linea. I tried not to be weird about all the kids, and shared her evident happiness and contentment with her choices. I also went so far as to tell her about running into Howie and Nell and the film crew, and how Nell gave me the cold shoulder and Howie came back to the shop and confronted me about the Christiansens.

  I did not tell her about the secret word or that Matt wished Howie had gone to see him. In fact, at one point I quickly decided it was time to change the subject so I wouldn’t slip up and reveal that I hadn’t been completely truthful to her or Creighton about my visits with Matt.

  My abrupt change of direction was interrupted by a woman’s screech that came from the front door.

  Jodie stood partway up in the booth and put her hand on her gun. I turned around to see what the commotion was about.

  “Adele White!” The young woman dressed in Goth attire just like I’d seen on Adele stood inside the front door and pointed at me. No, not at me, at the person in the booth behind me.

  We’d been sitting back-to-back, Adele and I, but this time she’d been dressed in pink Goth, blending her tiny self into the booth. She wore a bright pink hoodie over her black clothes with the hood pulled down enough to hide her face. Except from the woman who’d stepped into the diner.

  “Adele, it’s you! I’m your number one fan,” the young girl gushed as she came over to the table.

  I
watched as Adele removed the hood and looked up at her fan before looking at me with a guilty smile.

  How long had she been sitting behind me? Had I said anything that I shouldn’t have?

  As I waved and smiled uncomfortably at her, I was doubly glad I hadn’t mentioned the secret word to Jodie.

  14

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Adele said after the vapid fan left, Adele’s autograph written with a pink Sharpie on the inside of her wrist.

  “I saw you ask specifically for that booth. When you came in,” Jodie said.

  I looked at Jodie.

  “I’m a cop. I notice everything,” she said.

  “So?” Adele said. “I’d met her.” She nodded toward me. “It was good to see a familiar face.”

  “Why didn’t you just come sit with us?” I said.

  “I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Jodie had taken her seat again, but hadn’t removed the scowl from her face. She and I didn’t need to have a private conversation to know that both of us thought it was strange that Adele had requested to sit where she had. If she’d said hello, it wouldn’t have been nearly as odd.

  Adele had now twisted around, and so had I. We faced each other with only the backs of the two booths separating us. It was close quarters, but Adele’s “biggest fan” had left and no one else in the crowded diner seemed all that interested in Adele. Jodie remained on her side of the booth and I wished she wouldn’t scowl so deeply at the up-and-coming movie star.

  “How’s it going, Adele?” I said with so friendly a tone that it sounded phony. I cleared my throat.

  “Horribly,” she said with wide eyes.

  “Cassie’s murder. Matt’s arrest. Yeah, it’s been rough. I’m sorry,” I said.

  She looked at me as if she might have momentarily forgotten about the tragedies. “Right. And no one will talk to me. Howie’s ignoring me.”

  I shared another quick look with Jodie before I turned back to Adele. “Who is he to you?”

  “Matt’s guy, his assistant, but he knows people and . . . well, he was going to help me get some meetings, sit-downs, this week. He has lots of connections.”

  “Maybe he’s just busy,” I said.

  “He’s always busy. He’s like those movies that have the president of the United States in them. You have to take a minute or two when he can fit you in.” Her voice was full of admiration.

  “Really?” I said.

  “Really?” Jodie said, her voice full of eye roll.

  “Yeah, he knows everybody and everybody knows him.” She sighed. “I think he lied to me. I don’t think he wants to do anything to help me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I was pretty sure Howie was only out for Howie, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell that to Adele. I hoped someone would tell her as much before she put too much stock in him, but it shouldn’t be me.

  She looked up at me as she bit her bottom lip. “I saw him go into your store just before you came over here. What did he want?”

  “Oh. Um, nothing really. Just checking on the note cards that Matt ordered,” I lied, thinking I must have kept my voice quiet enough that she really hadn’t heard the conversation between me and Jodie.

  “Oh. Did you tell him I picked them up?”

  “Yes,” I lied again.

  “Any chance he said anything about me?”

  I knew youth was all about self-involvement, but Adele took it to a new level. Maybe this was what happened when youth got mixed up with fame.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  She nodded sadly. “That’s what I thought. I tried to talk to him when he came out, but he wouldn’t stop walking even for just a second. He said he had another meeting to get to.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, though the urge to take her by the arms and shake some sense into her was beginning to build inside me. “You should have just come into the store.”

  “Again, didn’t want to disturb.”

  “Gotta depend on you only,” Jodie contributed. “Your future is up to you. Don’t wait for favors.”

  Her inspirational-poster comments caught me off guard, but the words were appropriate.

  “Oh, I know. I’ve done all I can. I just need a break, one big break,” Adele said.

  “You got rave reviews with that movie you did last year,” I said.

  “That’s old news. Now I need another break.”

  “It’ll happen,” I said.

  “We’ll see.”

  I’d never been more grateful to hear Jodie’s radio fuzz followed by the pleasant-toned voice of the dispatcher.

  “Jodie, you there?”

  “Yeah,” she said into the mouthpiece attached to her shoulder.

  Sometimes the way they talked to each other seemed far too casual.

  “You have a visitor. One Daryl Brewsberry. Want me to keep him here before Creighton runs him up to the judge?”

  “I’ll be right down,” she said. “Ask him and Creighton to wait just a few.” She looked at me. “Come with? It might be good to have you there too.”

  “All right,” I said. I looked at Adele. “Hang in there.”

  “I will.” She looked at me with a fearful determination; it was a strange combination. “I’ll make it happen.”

  “Of course you will,” Jodie said.

  To counter Jodie’s sarcasm, I smiled at Adele. She smiled back, kind of. She didn’t make a move to get out of the booth, so I didn’t think she would follow us, but I wondered about her sneaky ways.

  There was something about her stalking that seemed to rattle another idea in my mind that wanted to make its way forward, wanted me to notice it. But it was like it was only on the tip of my tongue and wouldn’t fully reveal itself.

  “Clare, you coming with?” Jodie said from the door.

  I’d stalled. “Sure. See you later, Adele,” I said to the young woman, who now seemed like a tiny pink and black dot melting into the pink booth.

  “Right,” Adele said absently. She started chewing on an already short fingernail.

  I wished I had her mother’s phone number.

  “Too much Hollywood, too young,” Jodie said when we were in the police car.

  I nodded.

  Jodie flipped the lights and the siren on and the waves of visitors parted so we could make our way through. Today, I liked the rush of good adrenaline and wished to see someone I knew so I could wave, but no one familiar came into view.

  Until we reached the police station parking lot.

  “Is Toby still being held?” I said as I looked at his parked van.

  “No, but he couldn’t get the van to start. Creighton called a mechanic to stop by. It seems that since we are pretty sure that Toby is innocent, Creighton’s taken the kid under his wing. He got him a sandwich too.”

  “Hope he really is innocent.”

  “Me too. If he has his way, he’ll be marrying your niece soon, and none of us want a thief in the family. I think his plans were to head back to The Rescued Word when he was done here.”

  My first reaction was to say, Over my dead body, simply because I wanted Marion to do about a million more things before she got married. I didn’t say the words out loud. Jimmy would faint if I told him all that had happened with his daughter and the wannabe blog writer.

  I followed Jodie into the jail. Her heavy footfalls made me extra conscious of my own and sometimes I tiptoed behind when I was with her at work just to compensate.

  She blew through the door to her office.

  “Hey, thanks for waiting, Creighton,” she said.

  “Sure,” he said, but he gave me a slanted look.

  I wanted to explain that I’d been invited, but I didn’t.

  “So, you must be Daryl Brewsberry,” Jodie said to the
man sitting in the chair next to Creighton’s desk. His back was to me as he stood.

  He was tall, probably about six foot five, with wide, muscular shoulders. As I looked at his arms, I wondered when a busy geologist had time for such copious amounts of weight lifting.

  “Yes, nice to meet you,” he said. Jodie didn’t extend her hand. These police officers didn’t do that sort of thing. It had something to do with safety, so even in what might be considered the least threatening of situations, they didn’t shake hands.

  “This is Clare Henry. She’s the one who found your money.” Jodie signaled toward me.

  Daryl turned to look at me. “You must be Seth’s friend,” he said as he smiled and shook my hand.

  He was gorgeous, disturbingly so actually. I felt like I needed to look away from the penetrating brown eyes, the square jaw, and the dazzling teeth. He was almost more Hollywood than Matt Bane.

  “Daryl. Thank you for the ribbon tins. They are extraordinary.”

  “My pleasure. I feel a bit wrong coming back for the contents of the one.”

  “I’m glad you were still close enough to come back.”

  “Actually,” Creighton interjected, and looked at me, “you could come with us to talk to the judge. It might make this easier.”

  “That’s what Jodie thought,” I said.

  “Let’s vamoose,” Jodie said.

  Once again sirens and lights were involved, but that was only because the festival crowds had continued to grow. The snow had stopped, but the clouds hadn’t dissipated. I wished for the sunny sky I’d been under in Purple Springs Valley.

  The courthouse wasn’t up the hill but farther down it, part of a cluster of the few government buildings needed to run the small town. It was rare that traffic was heavy in this direction, but anything was possible this time of year.

  The offices had all been built to resemble ski chalets: sturdy pointy roofs and winter-ready siding that looked like clapboard but was made of a material that didn’t allow moisture to seep in.