Murder in Real Time

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  A middle-aged man held a trash bag in front of him, stuffing the memorial inside, one item at a time. His face was red with effort and the bag dragged against his feet.

  I maintained my distance as a number of ideas ran through my mind. Was this man a crazed fan? Was he a lowlife who stole tributes like these and sold them on eBay to the highest bidder? Had he rushed over here in a rage after shooting Adrian?

  “What are you doing with those things?” My voice hardened with each word.

  The man glared at me over tearstained cheeks. Purple crescents underlined each eye. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m destroying this abomination. Look.” He motioned to the lacy underwear hanging on the fence and goodbye notes signed with lip prints. “It’s disgusting. The man dies in bed with my daughter, and women still come to leave this...this...trash for his memory.” He wiped his face with a handkerchief.

  “You’re Anna’s dad?”

  “Yes.” He pulled a fresh bag from the pocket of his coat and shook it open. “She was a nice girl before all this. She had real friends, good grades and a future.” His voice broke on the last word. “A year after joining up with this show, she dropped out of college and moved to L.A. permanently. She traveled everywhere with these gypsies, and we were lucky to see her twice a year. At Christmas she announced her love for Rick Fitzgerald. He was nearly twice her age, for crying out loud. Her mother almost had a stroke. We said he was too old for her. She didn’t want to hear that. True love, she said. She called all the time crying after she took up with him. Rick cheated on her, but she could never prove it. They’d fight and make up. We begged her to come home. She wouldn’t.” He shook his head and ripped notes off Mrs. Moore’s fence. “Next thing you know, she says they’d made up for good, and that all the suspicions she had about him were misunderstandings on her part.”

  He stood poker straight and stared at the house before us. “I can’t believe she’s gone. That she died here, like this.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” The words were stupid. Not enough. He’d lost a child and all I had to offer him was “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry” worked when you stepped on someone’s foot or spilled their drink. There weren’t words for what had happened to him.

  I turned away, dumbfounded, and moved toward my apartment. My heart grieved for Anna’s father, but I couldn’t help wondering how long he’d been in town and if there was a chance he’d waited on Rick Fitzgerald in Sebastian’s room that night. It was dark when the shots were fired. If he believed Rick was cheating, ruining his little girl’s life, would he come to confront the man breaking his daughter’s heart? Would he come with a gun? Could he have made a terrible mistake?

  Flick’s Funeral Home came into view and I walked along the farthest edge of the sidewalk, unwilling to cross the street. The old empty home seemed to watch me approach. A handful of The Watchers staff lined the walkway to the front door. Lights were on inside the house and stagehands positioned silver canopies on the yard.

  I recoiled. The little old lady who owned the place had lost her mind last month and tried to kill me. She was in jail now, but I’d seen her at a serious level of crazy. Part of me imagined she somehow got free and waited inside the funeral home for me. I’d never step foot in that place again. I had nightmares about her.

  Adrenaline replaced defeat in my bones. As I turned to run, my nose bounced off a familiarly scented shirt. Todd Ramone caught my shoulders in his palms. “Slow down, speedy. Where you off to in such a hurry?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I wailed. “Why are you still following me? Didn’t you hear there was a shooting today?”

  “Yep. Saw the whole thing, including a little blonde racing against the crowd, despite a gunman on the loose, trying to save her one true love.”

  I squared my shoulders. “I thought he was dead. Also, I’m not blonde. I spend a lot of time in the sun.”

  Todd snorted. I scooted around him on the sidewalk. “Stop following me.”

  He matched my pace. “What if the gunman had shot you while you were laying in a heap over your ex-lover?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. Don’t call him that. His name’s Adrian Davis.”

  “Fair enough. What were you thinking?”

  How I needed him. That I couldn’t lose him. To lose Adrian again would be like ripping my soul down the center. I faltered and then regained my speed. Clearly I was traumatized.

  “What does your boyfriend think of your attachment to your ex?”

  I hustled around the corner toward my apartment. “There was a shooting,” I growled. “My love life is hardly interesting in comparison. I’m not the story here.”

  He laughed. Loud. “Come on. You’re smarter than this. You want to know why I’m interested in your story? Let me see.” He tapped his chin. “Someone’s trying to kill one of your boyfriends. Three times this week, in my humble opinion. That puts you at the center of my investigation. Aside from that, your island interests me, and half the shenanigans I read up on lead back to you somehow. You’re like the linchpin of all strange happenings. Where were you when Rick and Anna were shot?”

  I skidded to a stop. “You think I’m a suspect? I was in the Range Rover with Adrian the other night, and I ran to help Adrian today. You stink at your job, buddy. I mean, Lou.”

  “Getting mad won’t change the fact you know exactly what I mean and why I’m following you. Those men orbit around you like you’re their home planet. If I stick to you, this story will unwrap itself and land in my lap. The icing for me is that following you is fun. Your parents are a hoot. People randomly corner you to unload personal and, let’s face it, kind-of-funny stories. Some lady in skintight sequins wants you to be her spokesmodel so bad she put you on her store window. I saw you hiding at a food truck from her. Some angry guy made fun of your hair for no reason. Your life’s got spunk.”

  He was right about that last part. My life was bananas, but they were my bananas, and I didn’t want them posted online.

  “Fine.” I tightened my ponytail. “You’ll post whatever you want online anyway. Lou.” I dragged out his pen name.

  “With you as my subject, I don’t need to invent anything. People can’t make up the kind of stuff you get into. In the interest of fairness, here’s a truth about me.” His voice slid into a sweet Southern drawl on the last few words. “I’m not from L.A. I’m from Alabama. Readers assume all the reporters for the Hollywood Watcher live in L.A. It’s not true. I travel as needed but, for the most part, you’ll find me in Birmingham.”

  I appreciated the honesty. “What’s your real name?”

  “Todd Ramone.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Really.”

  “Okay.” I looked him over, ideas buzzing in my head. “I’m short one partner in crime and, contrary to what it looks like, I’m trying not to get involved in this mess.”

  Todd widened his stance and folded his arms. His blue eyes twinkled with intense interest. “Go on.”

  “I have a proposition. What if I buy you lunch and we trade information over a friendly meal? I’m definitely not investigating this, but you are and I really want to know what’s going on. I suggest our lunch and the entire conversation should be off the record. You don’t mention it online or elsewhere, and I’ll keep it to myself, too.”

  He extended a hand. “Deal. Except, I’m buying lunch and don’t give me any feminism equality business. I buy women lunch and not the other way around. My mama taught me right.”

  His full Southern charm raised a smile on my lips. I didn’t trust him out of my sight, but I wanted to know what he knew. Bad.

  I called Mrs. Davis to check on Adrian. I was that desperate. She pointed out his shooting was my fault and then asked if I’d made a decision about her job opportunity. I hung my head and disconnected.

&nbs
p; “Adrian’s being discharged into his mom’s care,” I told Todd. “He’ll probably be at my place when we finish lunch, so I can’t stay long.”

  Todd pulled the door open to the Tasty Cream and stepped aside for me to pass. I chose a table with a view of my apartment so I could watch for Adrian, Claire or Sebastian’s return. We ordered burgers, fries and malts then got down to business.

  “To clarify—” Todd dragged a fry through ketchup, “—this is you not investigating?”

  I nodded sincerely. My mouth struggled around the melted Swiss, onions and mushrooms on my burger. I dotted the corner of my lips with a napkin and swallowed. “I’m staying out of this.”

  “Denial is one way to cope with your problems.” He chuckled. “Is there a reason you’re staking out your own apartment?”

  “Yes. I don’t want to be seen with you and a lot of vigilant people are staying at my place this week. If I spot them first, I can duck.” I tugged on the uncooperative straw in my malt. Working Mrs. Tucker’s malts out of the cup was sometimes painful, but always rewarding, like the soreness people felt after working out at the gym. My cheeks sucked together and my brain pinched.

  “All right, then. Let’s get started before you’re spotted sharing a meal with a handsome reporter. No need to stir up any more jealousy.” He winked and pushed another fry into his mouth. “If Rick and Anna’s death wasn’t an attempted hit on one of your boyfriends, I think it was about the show’s award money.”

  I put the cup down. “Thank you. There’s always money involved somehow.”

  His eyes twinkled. “We agree on something.”

  “Yes.” I tried the straw again, earning a little taste of the joy to come when my malt melted a bit more. “So good.”

  “I think there’s magic in here.” He tilted the cup and looked down the open end of his straw.

  The chair beside me scraped back and Henry Franks fell into it, looking like he’d fallen into a vat of paint. His coveralls were splattered and doused in white. The same color was smeared across his cheeks and forehead. “Thank heavens I found you.”

  Todd leaned away and wedged an elbow over the back of his chair. A crooked smile lit his face.

  “Hi, Mr. Franks.” Awkwardness dropped over me. Mr. Franks was a client who loved his wife more than anything, but she constantly accused him of cheating, most recently with me. She was also my client, unbeknownst to him. She acknowledged her tendencies toward paranoia and anger management issues, but she sometimes egged and graffitied my car if she saw me talking to her husband. He did handyman work in exchange for our impromptu sessions. Confidentiality kept me from disclosing our true relationships to either of the Franks.

  Mr. Franks slumped. He heaved a sigh and landed his weary gaze on me. “The town hired me to paint over some of the spray paint the ghost hunters and fans are leaving around the island. They keep painting those creepy eyes in glow-in-the-dark paint. It’s hard for me to see it in the daylight, so I go out after dark. My wife thinks I’m cheating. She’s losing her mind over it. I can’t sleep when I’m home because she yells all day. At night I comb the island looking for the eyeballs. It’s giving me nightmares, so when she does let me sleep, I still don’t rest.”

  Todd lifted his eyebrows.

  “Well.” I pulled in a deep breath, unsure how to proceed with an audience member who doubled as a reporter. “You need to get proper sleep. Please make taking care of yourself the priority. Without enough rest, you’ll get sick easier and feel disoriented, nauseous and moody.” The list sounded a lot like my life. I took another long breath. “Have you told your wife what you’re up to at night? Maybe she doesn’t understand your sudden change in work hours.”

  “I have. She doesn’t believe me. She thinks I cover myself in paint as some kind of kinky role play or an elaborate cover-up. You know how she is.”

  That earned me another looked from Todd.

  I needed to get rid of Mr. Franks before his marital troubles became a news story. “Well, have you considered taking her with you? Invite her along. Ask for her help. Maybe she wants to feel needed.”

  He perked up. “You think? She’s been making big dinners and doing things for me, then getting mad when I can’t stay awake to enjoy them.”

  “Definitely tell her you need her help.” I sucked on my malt to consider my own feelings about being needed. The chocolaty heaven rushed to my tongue.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Patience. I can’t thank you enough. Really. Lunch is on me. Thank you.” He patted Todd’s back. “Sorry I interrupted your date, buddy. She’s a good one. Hold on to this girl.” Mr. Franks dropped a line of twenties on the table between Todd and me, before disappearing around the corner.

  Todd fingered the money and whistled. “Nice scheme you got going here.”

  I slapped his hand and pocketed the money. “It’s not a scheme and that encounter was none of your business. Got it?” I leaned across the table with my angry face. “Also, this is not a date so don’t say a word.”

  He stuffed a handful of fries between his lips and talked anyway. “You’ve got your hands full in the date department. You know what I found interesting about your advice? I learned you like to feel needed. It explains a lot, really. Counseling is the perfect profession to fulfill that internal craving, but I guess you know that. You know another way to feel needed? Crime solving. Saving the city. Superhero stuff.”

  “I hate you.” I busied my mouth with the burger and Todd laughed. I looked out the window for a sign Adrian had returned. Nothing.

  “Ah, but we’re a dynamic duo. United for a common goal. We seek the truth.” He smiled. “Now, who’s on your suspect list?”

  We agreed about the suspects, assuming the initial gunmen meant to kill Rick and Anna. Most likely: another contestant. The contestants all had alibis, except Vance. A crazed fan was less likely, but possible. Dan and Elisa both had solid motives. Elisa admitted her anger with Anna for sleeping with Rick. If Dan knew about Rick and Elisa, it was a reasonable assumption Dan would feel betrayed too. Todd and I both questioned the strength of their video chat alibi. Todd dished the inside scoop on the cast dynamics, hookups and breakups, and the ongoing frenemy status of everyone on set. Traveling and living together made them friends, but ultimately the cash prize kept their friendships in a strange limbo, where trust was always an issue. Complicated.

  I told him about the hidden stairway and lack of hiding places in the room.

  He already knew Anna’s dad was on the island. Todd had a contact at the closest airport watching for his name in past and current logs. Mr. Copeland had arrived this morning on a direct flight from Minnesota. I sighed in relief as I mentally crossed him off the list of suspects.

  Todd provided far more details than I had to offer in return. He impressed me. “You’re good at this.”

  “I used to be a cop.”

  I put my burger down. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-one. I did four years in the army after high school. My parents couldn’t afford college. They didn’t even suggest it. I was the first in my family to go to college, but one in a long line of soldiers. I used the GI Bill for tuition. Got a degree in criminal justice, went to the police academy and was issuing parking tickets in no time.” His lips turned down.

  “Not what you expected.”

  “No.”

  “So, why didn’t you shoot higher? Detective, or law school, or another branch of government?”

  “Like the FBI?” He smiled. “Look at you. You get canned and you’re still recruiting.”

  As human resource manager, I’d recruited college students across the country, seeking the best and brightest, and enticed them to use their powers for good. I wanted a strong frontline for our Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’d loved my job. Seeing that first glint of possibilities in students’ eyes. Shaki
ng hands across my desk when new agents were hired. Even though the bureau had nixed me, I still believed in them.

  “Speaking of the FBI, it was a little humorous that the candidate, also known as your ex-lover, dressed up as your current lover.” He wiggled his brows.

  Had Adrian dressed as Sebastian? FBI, yes. Did he intend his costume to be Sebastian? Maybe. Even injured, Adrian made me crazy. What was his point with that getup? I shook off the thought. Adrian’s mind was a carnival. Who knew why he did anything? Besides, this particular decision probably saved his life.

  I focused on the important questions. “What do you know about the insult guy from yesterday? He didn’t look like a reporter. Everyone else with a press badge either dresses to fit in or is wearing a cheap suit and is followed by a cameraman. That guy had on thousand-dollar loafers.”

  Todd rested his elbows on the table. “A thousand dollars? Really?”

  “Yeah. I’m almost positive. I’d need to confirm with Claire, but yeah.”

  “Interesting.” Todd leaned forward and looked around us before opening his mouth.

  “Patience!” Frankie dashed to my side. “Are you okay? I looked all over for you.” She rubbed my back, then leaned over and hugged me.

  “I’m okay. They’re releasing Adrian into his mom’s care.” I peeked out the window again. Still no sign of my houseguests or Adrian’s mom coming to blame me somehow. I turned back to Frankie and smiled. “Look at you in your uniform. I’m not used to this look, but I love it.”

  She stood to her full six feet, looking proud. “We didn’t catch the shooter, but we know where he was standing and we confiscated about a hundred cell phones with cameras. We’re comparing the footage from today with the footage captured outside Sebastian’s Range Rover the other night. I’m picking up milkshakes and heading back to look for anyone present at both shootings. Maybe we can identify the gunman.”