Loving Daylight

by Ryan Field

  Avenir didn’t want to talk about Larson or Jaydin anymore, so he reached into his pocket and said, “I’d like to put this on for you.” He tapped the side of the car and said,

  “Lift up your leg.”

  Sienna hesitated for a moment, and then she lifted her leg and rested the tip of her small foot on the rear fender of the car. She was wearing black shoes, with a medium- sized heel. When he unclasped the bracelet and bent over, she pulled up her pant leg a few inches to expose her ankle. Avenir wrapped the gold chain around her ankle, barely touching her leg. And when the clasp was fastened tightly, he reached up and squeezed her calf. He smiled and said, “You should really get another safety clasp so you don’t lose it again.” His voice was soft and even, but his heartbeat increased in rapid succession and he suddenly felt out of breath.

  “I will,” she said. She gazed at her own ankle, as if she were afraid to look him in the eye.

  “You have beautiful legs,” Avenir said, still holding her calf in his strong palm. How simple it would have been to slide his hand up and reach for more of her. He had the power to seduce her with just one quick stare. He could have hypnotized her into doing anything he wanted her to do. But he didn’t.

  “I have to go home now,” she said. “I have to get up early for work tomorrow morning.” Her voice was soft and she seemed to be hesitating.

  He removed his hand from her leg and stood up straight. Then he squared his shoulders and tipped his head to the side. This time she smelled like rose water and honey. He inhaled and held his breath for a moment. He wanted to lean forward and kiss her pink lips again. But he didn’t make a move. He just stood there and said, “I’ll follow you home to make sure you get in okay.” He knew now that if he was ever going to win her heart, he’d have to win her trust first. Then he took the car keys from her hand, opened the lock, and helped her into her seat.

  And this time she didn’t resist his help.

  Chapter Six

  On Saturday morning, Sienna received a frantic phone call from Jaydin. “Get over here as soon as you can, please.” He spoke fast and his voice was high. And Jaydin never raised his voice for anything. He was the type of man who could sit through a bomb raid and never flinch.

  She sat up in her bed and glanced across at the clock on her nightstand. It wasn’t even seven. “What’s wrong?” She rubbed her eyes and yawned. She didn’t have to be at work until nine on Saturdays and she could have slept for another hour.

  “Just get over here right now,” he said. “It’s bad, really bad.” Then he hung up.

  Sienna jumped out of bed and dressed without thinking. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, then grabbed the same high heels she’d been wearing the night before. She stopped to write a short note to Karla LaFramboise, to let her know that there was an emergency and that she might be late for work that day. And on her way down to her car, she slipped into the main house through the back door and left the note on the kitchen counter where she knew Karla would see it. Sienna placed it next to the coffee machine, between the cream and sugar containers, and bit her bottom lip. Karla hated it when things didn’t run on schedule, and she would probably pound her fists and tear the note to shreds the minute after she read it.

  When Sienna pulled into the parking lot at Applejacks, there were two police cars parked out front and an ambulance was backed up to the side of the building. She hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath. This did look bad. Then she parked beside one of the police cars and jogged to the side of the building. The back doors of the ambulance were wide open and there was a group of police officers and EMT technicians standing near a wood pile that had been haphazardly stacked next to the side door of the bar. Sections of the side yard were marked off with thick yellow tape and everyone spoke in soft murmurs. Sienna noticed that Jaydin was sitting on a large tree stump next to the firewood, and a police officer was asking him questions. Jaydin leaned forward, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

  She crossed to where he was sitting and asked, “What happened?”

  He looked up at her with a sudden jerk, as if the sound of her familiar voice had pulled him out of a daydream. His handsome face was ashen, his soft eyes were red, and his short blond hair was disheveled and greasy. He wiped his eyes with the side of his hand and pointed to the edge of the parking lot near the woods. His hands were shaking. He tried to speak, but his lips were quivering so much he had to stop and take a few breaths.

  Sienna turned to the woods, where there was more yellow tape. There were two EMT technicians zipping a black body bag. She’d never seen a body bag before, but she knew what it was. Her mouth opened wide and she pressed her palm to her chest and said, “Who is that?”

  Jaydin looked down at his shoes and said, “It’s Mickey. He’s dead.”

  Sienna spread her arms out and looked at the police officer who had been talking to Jaydin. She didn’t know him well; he hadn’t grown up in Glendale Harbor. But she knew his name was Kevin Orlowski. He was a portly man, in his mid-forties, with a round face and thin lips. Glendale Harbor was a small town, and it was no secret that Kevin Orlowski had just been promoted to Chief of Police.

  Kevin frowned and said, “We’re not sure what happened. But it looks like all the blood was drained from his body. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I thought I’d seen it all.” He rubbed his jaw a few times and stared at the body bag. “And there’s no sign of the blood. We can’t find a trace of it anywhere.”

  “How did it happen?” Sienna asked. Though she’d never liked Mickey very much, she was still shocked to learn that he was dead. “Could it have been suicide?” She wasn’t a lawyer yet, but she knew how to ask the right questions.

  Kevin shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll have to take him in for a complete autopsy to find out more. There are no visible signs of struggle and the only marks we found on the body were two small puncture holes on his right wrist. We’re not ruling out anything.” Then he sighed and said, “We’ve been trying to find out where your brother was last night, and he’s not cooperating.”

  Her arms fell to her sides and she said, “You’re not suggesting that my brother had anything to do with this. Clearly, he’s in shock. He’s just lost his life partner.” She crossed to where Jaydin was sitting and put her arm around his shoulders. Jaydin was quirky. He was like her grandmother, with that carefree, artistic attitude that made him more vulnerable to life’s unpleasant experiences than most. He wasn’t the best businessman, and sometimes he drank too much. But he was the gentlest man she’d ever known. Jaydin couldn’t even watch a horror movie without having nightmares for a week. And he passed out cold at the sight of blood.

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” Kevin said. “I’m just trying to find out where he was last night, is all.”

  She pressed her lips together and took a shallow breath. Then she squatted down and said, “Jaydin, everything is going to be okay. You just have to answer these questions. The police want to find out what happened, and if you don’t cooperate they can’t do their job.” She held him tighter and asked. “It’s okay; just answer a few questions and I’ll take you back to Raspberry Hall and you can rest at my place this weekend.”

  Jaydin lifted his head and nodded yes. He told Kevin about the fight they’d had at the bar the night before, and that Jaydin had been very drunk. His hands were still shaking and his voice was weak and soft.

  “Where did Mickey go after the fight?” Kevin asked.

  Jaydin shrugged. “I guess upstairs, but I’m not really sure.”

  “Why was he so angry?” Kevin asked.

  “He thought I was flirting with one of the customers,” Jaydin said. “I wasn’t. I swear I wasn’t, but he wouldn’t believe me. He grabbed me by the back of the head and shoved me into the wall after that. If it hadn’t been for Larson, he would have hurt me.”

  “Larson?” Kevin asked.

  “Larson LaFramboise,” Sienna said. “He w
as here last night, at the bar, and he broke up the fight.”

  Kevin wrote something down on a sheet of paper and said, “I see.”

  “But Larson went right home after he broke up the fight,” Jaydin said. “He just left the bar. I haven’t seen him since.”

  Kevin gave Sienna a look, and then he asked Jaydin, “Where did you go after the fight?”

  “I went out,” Jaydin said. “I didn’t want to go back upstairs right away, so after I closed up the bar I drove around. It was sometime between one-fifteen and one-thirty. I don’t remember the exact time.” The bars in Glendale Harbor closed at one.

  “Were you alone all night?” Kevin asked.

  Jaydin shrugged and stared down at his shoes again. “Yes,” he said. “I was alone.”

  Sienna frowned. She had a feeling he was lying to Kevin, because he couldn’t look him in the eye and the right side of his face twitched a few times. Jaydin had never been able to lie well, and when he did, there was always that same twitch.

  After that, Sienna watched them load Mickey’s body onto a stretcher and place him in the back of the ambulance. Kevin told Jaydin that he’d probably have to come back and ask more questions after the autopsy, and Jaydin agreed to cooperate any way he could. Kevin didn’t seem sure how to handle this case, mainly because the blood in Mickey’s body appeared to have been drained completely; there wasn’t a drop of blood on the ground near his body, or anywhere else on the property.

  When the police cars and the ambulance were gone, Sienna put Jaydin into her car and drove him back to her apartment over the garage. She’d wanted to put up a sign that said the bar would be closed for two days, but Jaydin had insisted that it had to remain open. He had a mortgage to pay and he couldn’t afford to close on Saturday and Sunday night. So they’d compromised. And instead she’d put up a sign that read, “Open at six p.m. this Saturday and Sunday.” He’d only lose three hours of business each day, and Sienna could manage the bar both nights while he recovered from the shock of Mickey’s death.

  After she got Jaydin settled, Sienna put on her simple black work uniform and went next door to face Karla’s wrath. It was a little before noon, and Karla was waiting for her in the kitchen. She was sitting on a stool at the center island sipping a cup of black coffee. When Sienna rushed through the back door, Karla tapped her long red fingernails on the counter and said, “I’m glad you finally decided to show up today. I had a long list of things for you to do…”

  But Sienna didn’t give her a chance to finish. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “But Mickey, over at Applejacks, was found dead this morning.” She knew that the only thing Karla loved more than playing the insulted, innocent boss was listening to local gossip. Of course, Karla had never even stepped foot in Applejacks; it was beneath her standards. And she barely knew Mickey.

  But that didn’t stop Karla from sitting up straight and gasping. “Ah well,” she said. “Found dead.”

  Sienna crossed to the sink and put on an apron. The sink was filled with dirty breakfast dishes and she wanted to get them out of the way before she began her regular Saturday routine. “And listen to this,” Sienna said. She wanted to build the suspense so Karla would forget about the fact that she’d been late. “He was found drained of all his blood, in a section outside the bar near the woods.”

  Karla leaned forward and rested her elbows on the counter. “You don’t say.”

  Sienna began to stack the dishwasher. “And they have no clue as to how it happened.”

  While she was placing a dirty coffee mug in the top shelf of the dishwasher, Larson entered the kitchen. “How what happened?” he asked, as he reached into the pantry for a cookie. He looked tired. There were dark circles beneath his eyes and he had a large love bite on the left side of his neck. Evidently, Larson hadn’t gone right home. He’d been out fooling around with another one of his many female conquests.

  Karla stared at her son and frowned; she ignored the love bite. You couldn’t miss the vulgar distraction, but she wasn’t going to mention it aloud in front of Sienna. “Mickey, the one from that bar, was found dead this morning in the woods.” She knew the name of the bar was Applejacks, but she refused to say it out loud.

  Larson stopped eating and swallowed hard. “Mickey’s dead?”

  “If you ask me,” Karla said, “it should come as no surprise to anyone. These men who live these lifestyles are only asking for trouble. It’s just not natural, and no good ever comes from it.” Karla was extremely homophobic.

  It was a good thing that the front doorbell rang, because Sienna was about to lose control. She didn’t like Karla judging her brother or his lifestyle and she was about to tell her so. But she held her breath, counted to ten, and left them both in the kitchen to answer the front door.

  When she opened the door, Kevin, the police chief, was standing there. Her head jerked back and her eyes opened wide. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  He smiled. “I’d like to ask Larson LaFramboise a few questions. Is he home? It will only take a minute.”

  She escorted him into the house and left him waiting in the library. Then she went into the kitchen and told Karla and Larson the police chief wanted to ask Larson a few questions. She shrugged and said she didn’t know why. Larson looked at his mother and they both exchanged serious glances. Then they went into the drawing room together.

  When they were out of sight, Sienna crossed down the hall on her tiptoes to listen to what was going on in the library. Kevin’s voice was polite and soft; he didn’t want to offend anyone. He knew they were powerful people. But he wanted to know all about Larson’s fight with Mickey.

  Karla sounded stunned. “You were in a fight last night? Why on earth would you get into a fight that type of person?” she asked Larson. Sienna wished she could have seen Karla’s face.

  “Because he had Jaydin pinned to a wall and he was hurting him,” Larson said. “I wasn’t about to stand there and watch Jaydin get beaten up by a filthy, nasty drunk.” Then he turned to Kevin and said, “Jaydin has never been a fighter. He’s not strong that way. I had to do something.”

  And Karla said, “You’re such a good boy. But you shouldn’t have gotten involved. Those people dig their own graves in the end, and there’s nothing a nice boy like you can do to help.”

  Then Larson told Kevin that he went straight home after the fight, and Karla swore to it without even being asked. She said, “I was up late and I heard him come in around one-thirty. I went downstairs for a glass of water and saw him standing in the kitchen.”

  Sienna furrowed her eyebrows and lowered her chin, then she slowly backed into the kitchen so they wouldn’t find out she’d been eavesdropping. She knew that Karla was lying. She never got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water. Karla didn’t even drink water. She kept stacks of diet cola in the pantry at all times, and always brought a tall glass of soda with her to bed at night so she wouldn’t have to go downstairs.

  Applejacks was more crowded than usual that Saturday night. Everyone on the Island had heard about Mickey’s unusual death, and they all came out that night to see if they could find out more information. Was it murder? Did he kill himself? The rumors had multiplied and the story had become so embellished that Sienna was shocked to learn that some people were saying Mickey had been found dead, hanging upside down and naked from a tree. Another customer told her they’d heard that Mickey had been decapitated and no one knew where his head was. She shook her head and frowned, and then tried to tell them the truth. But she knew that half of them weren’t listening. This event had the makings of what would one day become an urban legend in Glendale Harbor, a town that hadn’t seen a murder since the turn of the last century. The most mysterious event that had taken place since then was when the first Avenir LaFramboise had disappeared into thin air.

  And the only one in town who didn’t know anything about Mickey’s death was Avenir. He seemed to have lost the entire day while he was home sleep
ing, and the way his eyes opened wide when Sienna told him about it made her wonder why Mickey’s death would be so important to him. Avenir had barely even known Mickey.

  “All the blood was drained from his body?” Avenir asked. He leaned forward and opened his eyes wide.

  “Yes,” she said. It was shocking news to hear about anyone, even a stranger, but Avenir seemed too curious.

  “Were there any marks on his body?”

  She gave him a sideways look and said, “Yes, actually. There were two small marks on his wrist that looked like punctures. I didn’t see them because his body had already been bagged. But that’s what the police chief told me.”

  “Ah well,” Avenir said, “very strange indeed.” He was sitting at his regular stool, sipping another vodka and tonic. He sat up straight and asked, “Do you need any help with the bar tonight? I’m more than willing to roll up my sleeves and help out while Jaydin is away.”

  She smiled. It was nice of him to offer. “No, we’re fine. Grace and I and the other part-timers can handle things. You may or may not have noticed this, but Mickey and Jaydin have never actually worked the bar. They always walked around and checked things out, but they never physically did anything.” She lowered her head and laughed. “And that’s because Mickey didn’t want Jaydin to do anything. He thought it looked bad to see the owner working in his own bar. And Jaydin always did what he was told.”

  “I see,” he said. “Then I’ll just sit here quietly and help you and Grace close up later.” He smiled and sat back in his chair. “If you need anything, just yell.”

  Two hours later, Sienna noticed an unfamiliar face enter the room. She was mixing an Appletini for a regular customer when she looked up and saw a tall, dark-haired man cross toward the bar. You couldn’t miss him; half the customers turned to stare at him. He had pale skin and was wearing an expensive black suit, with a bright, white shirt open at the collar. And no one dressed this way in Glendale Harbor. His jaw was strong, his dark hair fell over his eyebrows in thick shocks, and he walked with a sense of entitlement you didn’t see often in a place like Applejacks.