Murder Before Marriage

by Raven Snow

  “It’s nice to meet you,” said Rowen, hearing Rose echo those same words.

  Kitty offered them all a strained smile and stood before anyone could tell her that wasn’t necessary. Rowen shook her hand as Tina went in for a hug with Peony. Peony was there to intercept her and squeezed her tight in return. Like Ernie, both Kitty and Tina’s eyes were very red. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, shaking Rose’s hand next. “I’ve especially heard a lot about you, Peony. It’s a shame we all had to meet under these circumstances.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss.” It felt like a lame thing to say, but Rowen felt weird not saying it. “I didn’t really know your son, but I do know he was well loved.” That was a bit of a fib. From what little Rowen had seen of the guy, there wasn’t much to like. She certainly didn’t like him. The fact that he was dead now didn’t do anything to change that. All that aside, his family was clearly mourning him. That alone was a testament to the fact that he was loved in life.

  “He was a good boy.” Kitty had to step away. She turned her back on her guests and took a handful of tissues from the nearest end table. Her shoulders heaved as she silently sobbed.

  Ernie went to his wife and laid a hand gingerly upon her shoulder. “Why don’t you go wait in the bedroom, Honey? I’ll take care of this.”

  Kitty turned to her husband. She shook her head. “I should be here. I should—”

  “I know everything you’d like to say already. If you feel up to it, you can come out later.” Ernie lifted his hand from her shoulder and ran it gingerly through her hair instead. “All right?”

  Kitty was silent for a few seconds. Finally, she nodded. “All right,” she agreed. She turned and looked to her daughter. “Are you all right? Do you need to come with me?”

  Tina quickly pulled herself away from Peony. “I’m all right,” she assured her mother. “I’ll stay and help Dad.”

  Kitty nodded again. “I’m sorry,” she told her guests.

  “It’s fine,” Rowen assured her. She heard Rose saying the same. “Don’t worry about us. Take all the time you need.”

  Kitty turned and hurried from the room then, disappearing down the hallway. A door shut a few seconds later.

  With his wife gone, Ernie motioned toward the sofa. “Please, he told his guests. “Sit down.”

  Rowen, Rose, and Peony all sat down on the sofa. Tina bit her bottom lip. She hesitated for a moment, looking tempted to sit down next to her girlfriend. In the end, she decided against it and sat down beside her father on the loveseat instead.

  The living room was large but open to the rest of the house, and Rowen could see the kitchen from where she sat. The countertops were laden with foil-covered food. They had had plenty of guests before the Lainswich Inquirer team, it seemed. At least they had plenty of support. Not that that could be much of a consolation. The loss they had experienced was substantial.

  “Do you mind if we set up a recorder?” asked Rose, sitting up straight, prim and proper on the sofa. “We won’t be adding any soundbites to the blog or anything,” she assured him. “The recording is just for us to refer back to later.”

  Ernie nodded. There was a somewhat perplexed expression that never left his face. It was like following the conversation was taxing for him. “That… That should be fine.” He looked to his daughter as if for a second opinion. Tina nodded her approval.

  Rowen opened her bag and set up the recorder. She was the one who normally held interviews like the one they were conducting now. Rose usually had plenty to do back at the office. Today she had made an exception, likely for Peony’s sake. “There,” said Rowen once the inner mechanism of the machine was rolling. “We’re ready whenever you are… or now.”

  “Good.” Rose reached into her own purse and removed a pad and pen. “What subjects would you like us to cover?” she asked Ernie. Her voice was gentle. She might have been a therapist trying to coach him through the loss rather than a reporter trying to get a story. “You were the one who asked us here, so I want to let you lead this interview—assuming you’re comfortable with that, of course. I don’t want any of what we publish to be in poor taste. Your comfort is important to us.”

  Ernie’s broad shoulders fell into a slightly more relaxed position. “That’s good… I… appreciate that.” He took a deep breath and looked at his daughter again. She didn’t say anything, and it didn’t look like he expected her to. He was merely gathering strength from her presence. “I guess…” He looked back at Rose. “I guess I’d like to talk about what sort of boy… what sort of man he was.”

  Rose made a move with her pen and jotted something down. Rowen didn’t doubt she would keep the interview within the parameters Ernie set. She wasn’t someone who exploited stories like this one or went back on her word. “And what sort of man was he?” she prompted. “If you could use some adjectives, that is. Maybe you could tell me an anecdotal story or two.”

  Ernie’s eyes focused behind the three Greensmiths on the sofa. Rowen turned half around to see pictures on the wall. They were predominantly of Kyle Stenson. There was one of him kneeling in football attire. There was another of him in a graduation cap. A third had him posing outside of what might have been his first car. “He was a hard worker,” said Ernie. “And he dreamed big. He had plans. He always had plans.” Ernie had to stop then as his voice hitched a bit. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rose urged. “Take your time.”

  Ernie wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. “He played football for Tarricville growing up. He was one of their star players.” Ernie smiled faintly, proudly at the memory. “Of course, he didn’t play through to his senior year. I was a little disappointed, I admit. I’d gotten used to being the dad of a big shot football player. I had it in my head that he was going to be a star quarterback someday. He was going to make it into the big leagues.”

  Tina reached over and gave her dad’s hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to feel guilty for that.” She knew her dad well. Ernie’s face wasn’t really showing guilt. Rowen would have missed picking up on the emotion entirely if she hadn’t pointed it out. “He never thought you were really mad at him. It didn’t last that long either.”

  Ernie nodded, though it was hard to tell if he actually believed his daughter or not. If Rowen wasn’t mistaken, there was still a degree of guilt there. “We fought about it some. There was a lot of arguing. I’d sent him to Tarricville for all those years for the football team, and then he changed his mind suddenly.” Ernie sighed. “It was my wife who talked sense into me. Our son was just being more realistic. He wanted to hit it big. He wanted to be wealthy. He had a better shot at that with a business degree. Football wasn’t a sure thing, and it’s dangerous so…” Ernie trailed off. Mention of danger must have tasted wrong in his mouth. There wasn’t much point in mentioning the danger inherit to football now that their son was dead.

  “He went to college for a business degree,” said Tina, continuing in her father’s stead.

  Tina’s words spurred Ernie on. “He had a knack for business, I think. He was doing well for himself. Obviously, he had to leave Lainswich. I hated it, but there aren’t a whole lot of opportunities around here. Sure enough, he was getting offers left and right as soon as he left… He was doing so well. His mother and I were so proud of him. If this… If this hadn’t happened… His future was so bright.” Ernie rubbed at his eyes with the backs of his hands again. It took longer for him to reign his emotions in this time. “You’ll have to excuse me for a minute. I’ll be back.”

  “Of course,” Rose said as Ernie stood. “Take your time.”

  Ernie hurried down the hallway and into a room. The door shut behind him. “He’ll be in there for a while,” Tina said with a sigh, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. “He keeps disappearing into the bathroom like mother and I don’t know what he’s doing in there. He’s trying to be strong, but… Well… It’s a rough time for all of us.”

  Pe
ony moved toward the edge of the sofa cushion like she couldn’t decide whether she should go to Tina or not. She cast an anxious look back toward the bathroom. Obviously, she didn’t want Ernie getting wise, not at such an inopportune time. Tina caught on. She smiled weakly as she reached out across the distance between them. Loosely, they held each other’s hands.

  “How are you holding up?” asked Rowen. She felt like she needed to fill the momentary silence with something. “Sorry. That’s probably a stupid question.”

  “It’s fine. I’ve been asked that a lot today.” Tina gave Peony’s hand a final squeeze before leaning back on the loveseat. She pushed her fingers through her hair. “It’s… been a long day. I’m doing about as well as I can, I guess. I’m doing as well as any of us can be.” Her gaze moved to Rose. “Have you heard anything else? Do you know any more about what happened?”

  Rose shook her head. “No, Ben hasn’t told me anything else. I’m sorry… He’ll almost certainly go to you with news before he comes to me, though.”

  “Yeah?” Tina didn’t sound particularly satisfied with that answer. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s normal,” Rowen said, stating the obvious. “I mean, given what happened…”

  “I know, but… Who would murder him?” Tina looked out into the distance, like she was considering the answer to that question herself. “He made a lot of people mad, me included. I don’t know who would have wanted to have him killed. It just doesn’t make sense… Or… I don’t know. Maybe it does…”

  Rowen waited for Tina to continue that thought. When she didn’t, Rowen tried to get her to elaborate. “Who might have wanted him dead?”

  Tina looked back to Rowen suddenly, snapping out of her momentary daze. “Oh, I don’t know. I already mentioned it to the police, and I don’t want it in the paper.”

  “We won’t put it in the paper,” Rowen assured her.

  Tina looked to Peony and then back to Rowen. She had no reason not to trust them. “Well, like Dad said, he was really focused on making it big. He wanted to be wealthy. Dad’s kind of sugar coating it, though. He and Mom both do that. They always did, and they’re probably not going to stop now. If anything, I imagine it’ll only get worse from here on out. Now that he’s dead, they won’t want to say anything negative about him.”

  “That’s normal,” Rowen offered. “We see it a lot with families we interview. People don’t like to think ill of the dead, much less talk about it. Like Rose said, though, we won’t publish anything you aren’t comfortable with. If anything, all it can do is help us figure out who might have done this.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it since I… since I was there when the body was found. I still can’t figure it out. I guess you guys do this stuff for a living, though. Maybe you’ll see something I didn’t.” With one final glance toward the bathroom to make sure Ernie wasn’t coming to rejoin them any time soon, Tina elaborated. She lowered her voice just a little further, making sure they couldn’t be heard beyond the living room. “Kyle always wanted a lifestyle he couldn’t afford. Our parents paid for his schooling, and, Dad was right, he did have job opportunities. He worked, but he still spent more than he made. He started gambling. He made a good chunk of change to start with. I guess they call that beginner’s luck. It wore off.”

  “He told you all that?” asked Rowen.

  “He tried to get me to spot him some money not long after he moved out. He didn’t want to go to Mom or Dad for it. Of course, he ended up having to do that anyway. I wasn’t going to loan him the money. Like I even had that much to spare. He promised he would pay it back with interest, but I didn’t believe that for a second. That’s probably what got him in trouble in the first place. Interest. He started promising he’d pay people back but couldn’t get the money together so he’d just promise more and more people he’d pay them back.”

  “He told you all that?” asked Rowen.

  “It’s what I can only assume happened. He didn’t really go into a whole lot of detail with me. If he had, I wouldn’t have known what the truth was anyway. He lied through his teeth a lot, like I didn’t know better.” Tina glared at the floor. She had grown tense, like she wasn’t sure where to direct this sudden surge of anger she was feeling toward her brother. “He ended up asking our parents for money. They weren’t happy about it, but they gave it to him. They made him swear he wouldn’t get into that sort of situation again.”

  “So they paid off all his debts?” asked Rose.

  “I guess so. As far as I know they did. This was a while back, though. I’d believe it if you told me Kyle had racked up more debt since then. Actually, I would be more surprised if you tried to convince me that he hadn’t. I figure that’s what he was waiting outside for. He was waiting for me to come out so that he could ask me for money… Or try to blackmail me for it if he could figure out who it was I was dating. He had to have known that I wasn’t just going to give him money out of the kindness of my heart.”

  Rowen considered all that she had been told. She had given it some thought before Tina had gone into more detail about the reasons for Kyle attempting to blackmail someone, anyone for money. It still didn’t quite add up to anything she could use. “And you think that maybe he wasn’t borrowing money from legitimate sources?”

  Tina looked at the women assembled before her. There was a slight frown on her face, like she was worried she sounded foolish. “That sort of thing happens, right? That isn’t just something you see in movies. People really do borrow money from dangerous people when they’re out of other places to do it.”

  “Well,” Rose began in a tone of voice that suggested she disagreed but wasn’t eager to argue with Tina in her current state. “Normally they just go to those quick loan sort of places. I don’t think I’ve heard of any organized crime hits over several thousand dollars. At least, I haven’t heard about that sort of thing happening in Lainswich. As far as I know, we’ve never had an organized crime problem here. Even if he did borrow a great deal from someone like that, I doubt they would conduct their hit here.”

  “Oh,” said Tina. She sagged a bit but then perked up just as quickly. “What if it was an individual? What if he borrowed money from a friend or someone who used to be a friend? He was that kind of guy. Don’t let my father hear me saying that, but he was. He had no problem using up others. He made friends really easy, but he lost them just as fast.”

  “That sounds more likely than an organized hit,” Rose agreed. “Do you know of anyone that might fit the bill?”

  Again, Tina sagged where she sat. “No,” she admitted. “Not personally.”

  “That’s all right,” Rowen said quickly. “If all goes as planned we’ll be talking with one of his coworkers from outside of Lainswich tomorrow. She’ll probably be able to paint a clearer picture for us.”

  “Yeah?” That got Tina to perk up. “Can I come with you?”

  “I, uh,” Peony spoke before her cousins could. She glanced at them, throwing a pointed look their way like she was urging them to agree with her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Rowen didn’t need any convincing. “Peony is right. Your being there would just make things more awkward.”

  “You should be with your family right now,” Rose added.

  Tina sighed. “I’m about sick of being here. I loved my brother. I love my parents. I just don’t like pretending Kyle was something he wasn’t.”

  “You’re going home tonight, right?” asked Peony. “Do you want me to meet you there?”

  That got the faintest of smiles from Tina. She nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice. I’ll call you when I’m headed that way.”

  No more questions of a hard-hitting nature got asked after that. Ernie emerged from the bathroom. There were droplets of water on his face like he had splashed it several times in the sink. He had forced a strained smile onto his face. “Sorry about that,” he told everyone. “Where were we?”

&nb
sp; ***

  There wasn’t a whole lot else to be done at the Stenson household. More nice things were said about Kyle. Afterward, Ernie allowed the Greensmiths to take some pictures he wouldn’t mind them making copies of. Rose accepted them reverently and swore to keep them safe until their return. The article would be written that night and be released the next day.

  Rowen didn’t say anything on the matter, but she hoped that she wasn’t the one asked to write an article about the life and times of Kyle Stenson. She had barely known the guy, but what she had known she hadn’t liked. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to write a puff piece on the guy. Her mind was too focused on other matters. Was there any truth to Tina’s suspicions? Had his death been some sort of hit?

  Rowen thought back to the body she had seen in the morgue. There had been no sign of what might have caused his death, at least not to her untrained eye. Ben hadn’t called with any news on the matter either. As far as Rowen knew, the jury was still out on an official cause of death. Was that how hits were conducted in this day and age? She doubted it, but only time and a little more investigating would tell.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rowen didn’t have to write the article about Kyle Stenson. Rose took that job on herself. It made sense. She was probably the best writer out of all of them. Given Peony’s relationship to the victim’s sister, it was also an article they didn’t want to mishandle.

  It was lucky Rowen got to go home early, and she had crashed only a couple of hours after getting home. That gave her exactly eight hours of sleep before her phone rang first thing in the morning.

  Rowen awoke with a start. She immediately began to get out of bed, assuming it was her alarm that had woken her. After eight hours of sleep she felt more well-rested than she did most mornings. It took her a few seconds to realize it was still dark outside and that the sound her phone was making wasn’t her alarm.