The Questionable Behavior of Dahlia Moss

by Max Wirestone

  “You’re a regular Houdini,” I told him. “Although I don’t think that this prestidigitation will show up especially well on audio.”

  “This?” said Daniel. “This is just fun. I suppose I could claim it was for the sense memory, but who are we kidding? So were you telling the truth about all the stuff in your evening?”

  “I’m telling you everything I know to be the truth,” I said. “Which I have found, in my limited experience as a detective, is an important and often relevant distinction.”

  “So maybe this woman really is dead,” said Daniel.

  “Maybe so. So did you two get married today?” I asked.

  “We decided not to rush into things,” said Daniel.

  “Oh good,” I said.

  “We’re doing it the day after tomorrow,” said Charice.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next morning I was back at Cahaba Apps. I had once again stopped by the bakery on my way in and came prepared with delectables, which I felt were a necessary implement against reality. Gone was the naive ingenue of yesterday, who imagined that an office would not be filled with insane, possibly sleeping people and disguised corpses. This time I was prepared for insanity; I had brought sprinkles.

  And yet, even with all of that, I managed to be weirded out, first thing, right as I walked in. I headed to the coffee machine in the back offices, having also brought coffee grounds, because I was in no mood for candy-cane-flavored nonsense. Instead I opted for hot buttered rum. As a coffee flavor—not with actual rum, although now that you mention it, it’s not a bad idea. As I made my way back there, Quintrell King darted upward from his desk as though he had been hit with electroshock.

  “I’m awake!” he said.

  Frankly, it scared the bejesus out of me, and I dropped my bag of coffee, which was thankfully not opened.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

  That morning I had been mentally going over ways to break it to Vanetta that Quintrell had been arrested for murder. She had thrown a chair the day before, and so I had been contemplating the softest way to deliver this news. Perhaps a poem?

  “I have arrested / your employee / that was in his cubicle / and that you probably needed / for programming / or something like that. Forgive me / he was delicious / and sweet / and yet guilty.”

  But these plans were thrown right out the door. I had composed a poem for nothing.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I thought I would work,” said Quintrell, suddenly conscious of the fact that he hadn’t been working at all but sleeping. “I mean, I started out working, but I nodded off for a moment.”

  “How did you get out of jail?” I asked, although in retrospect I could have focused more on the “why are you here?” bit, because what kind of employee gets out of jail and then just goes in to work? I mean, that’s dedication. If you’re arrested for murder, you’re entitled to a mental health day, regardless of the circumstances.

  “I made bail,” said Quintrell. “Why do you look so surprised?”

  “I just,” I started. “I don’t know why. I suppose I thought you’d stay in the slammer a little longer. I imagined that jail would be a little less Monopoly-like.”

  “My parents are both lawyers,” said Quintrell, with a combination of pride and embarrassment, which is the proper reaction to having lawyers for parents. “And they’re pretty good at what they do. I don’t think the police knew who my parents were when they arrested me. Probably they wouldn’t have.”

  This made it seem like Quintrell’s parents were important people, although I was not familiar enough with the world of St. Louis criminal law to have any perspective on this point. A question for Emily later.

  “Also,” said Quintrell, not waiting for me to work through the maze of my thoughts regarding his parents, “the woman I was arrested for murdering is apparently not dead. This is the kind of detail that really takes the wind out of a murder case.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I met with Cynthia last night. I went to her knitting group, and she was there.”

  “Wait, after we were drinking?”

  “It’s a long story,” I told him. “So do the police think that you killed her—what, twin? Have we established that?”

  “No twin. It’s just her sister,” said Quintrell, “and who knows what the police think? They didn’t seem to want to overshare with me as I was checking out.”

  There was a certain blasé delivery to this statement that ran fundamentally counter to my experiences with Quintrell thus far. He was almost calm, which was odd given that he had been a bundle of nervous energy this time yesterday.

  I asked him about it.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was nervous for a while, but then, honestly, it just hit me that it was nicer in jail than in my real life. I mean, there was a bed, Dahlia, and I just lay on it, and I fell so asleep. I think it was probably the most comfortable bed in the world.”

  “Probably it wasn’t,” I ventured.

  “Probably not,” said Quintrell. “I felt bad about falling asleep. There’s that line in The Usual Suspects about how you can recognize a guilty man in prison because he sleeps like a baby?”

  “Don’t know that one,” I said.

  “Really?” said Quintrell, who seemed surprised by this. “Well, I hope the police don’t know it either, because I slept like I was in a coma. It wasn’t even really a bed. Just a bed-shaped thing. But when you’ve been chained to your workstation for a week, bed-shaped goes a long way. And then when I slept, I don’t know, I started feeling really good again. Feeling like myself. They woke me up and told me I was free to go, and my first thought was: What’s the rush? I could sleep a little longer.”

  Quintrell still seemed a little delirious, now that I was listening to him, given his propensity to string sentences and thoughts together, but he was a genial delirious now, not manic. The rest had changed him.

  “Wait, so you’re on bail,” I asked, “or is it that they dropped the charge?”

  “Bail, right now,” said Quintrell. “I don’t know, I don’t think they had much of a case when they thought it was Cynthia. It seemed to me that the plan was arrest the black guy and see what they could make happen.”

  “You seem to be taking that awfully well,” I said.

  “It’s amazing what six hours of rest will do,” said Quintrell. “Probably I will be upset or angry later. But I’m not at that stage yet. Plus: you know, freedom and sleep? What more do you want?”

  I could think of many more things I would want, such as:

  not being arrested for murder

  job security

  not returning to work immediately after being released from jail

  But what do I know?

  “You hear back from Gloria?” I asked, feeling guilty about that pine emoji text.

  “She came to the police station. She’s a lawyer too. Criminal,” said Quintrell. “That’s fremeny Gloria, not electrical engineer Gloria. She’s actually weirdly excited about the development. Me getting arrested, not your weird text. She didn’t ask me about that. I guess it got overshadowed.”

  “That must have been quite a party,” I said.

  “And all it took was a murder charge,” said Quintrell.

  “You seem to know a lot of lawyers,” I observed.

  “They run in packs, and it was lucky to have Gloria around. My parents are mostly torts.”

  “Why didn’t you become a lawyer?” I asked.

  “If you met my parents, you’d understand.”

  The next person to come in was Vanetta Jones, who also appeared to be benefiting from a night away from the office. It struck me, suddenly, that my impressions of everyone except perhaps Lawrence, were probably pretty jaundiced. I would hate for someone to meet me after a few weeks of sleep deprivation and try to form opinions based upon that. Sleep-deprived Dahlia does not resemble actual Dahlia very much. I’m not wacky at all—I just sort of become depressed and self-loathing,
which accounts for much of my college experience, now that I think about it.

  Rested Vanetta looked very different. For one, she was dressed very casually, in a gold “Afrofuturist Affair” T-shirt, white jeans, and blazer. Also, no makeup. A low-key Vanetta, although it suited her. It also made me wonder if nice clothes and makeup were her armor. Now that she was rested, she didn’t need the crutch.

  “Dahlia,” she said, seeing me. “I owe you some baked goods.”

  She sounded nice, and friendly, and seemed unlikely to throw a chair in any immediate circumstances. She was also holding a cake pan.

  “What did you bring?” I asked.

  Vanetta placed the cake pan on my desk and opened it to reveal this yellowish cheesecake-y thing that was molded into a Bundt shape. “Orange Bavarian cream,” said Vanetta. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s cheesecake.”

  I was actually thinking: Put it in me, but Vanetta’s guess was reasonable. In terms of cake, I’m perfectly willing to eat first and ask questions later.

  “Did you bake this?” I asked.

  Vanetta made a horse noise with her mouth, which I took to mean: “To hell with that.”

  It clearly wasn’t store-bought, or if it had been, Vanetta had taken great pains to disguise it. However, this is me focusing on the wrong mystery. It’s a weakness of mine—focusing on whatever puzzle is in front of me as opposed to my long-term goal. Sometimes it even works out in my favor. But today I was keeping my eyes on the prize.

  “I’ll be sure to share this with everyone as they come in,” I said.

  “No, we’ll have it at the staff meeting,” Vanetta said. “Let everyone know.”

  “Are you abreast of the news of the evening?”

  “Are you?” asked Vanetta, delivering the line in such a way as to suggest that she had a secret.

  “Let’s compare notes, then. Let’s see, Quintrell got arrested for Cynthia’s murder,” I said.

  “They think it’s Quintrell?” said Vanetta. “Quintrell King?”

  “I was there when they cuffed him,” I said.

  Vanetta couldn’t believe it. “Quintrell-cries-in-the-bathroom-King? That’s the guy they think killed Cynthia.”

  Poor Vanetta, she was behind. She had probably spent her evening sleeping somewhere, and disguising store-bought cake.

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Well, no. I mean, yes to Quintrell, no to Cynthia. Apparently the body is not Cynthia.”

  “That’s monstrous. We have to do something to help Quintrell!” said Vanetta.

  Vanetta didn’t seem to entertain the idea that Quintrell was guilty for even a millisecond. Good for her. “We don’t need to do that; he’s made bail.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I think so. You can talk to him yourself. He’s just over there.”

  We both looked over at Quintrell’s cubicle, and he waved at us.

  “What’s this about me crying in the bathroom?” he asked.

  “On second thought,” considered Vanetta. “Perhaps I will have some of that cake now.”

  “I’m sorry, I could have broken it to you more gently. I guess I thought you were in the know. What’s your news?”

  “We don’t have a deadline anymore,” said Vanetta.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “No deadline. DE says to take the time we need.”

  “Wow,” I said. No wonder she looked rested. “Behold the power of whistle-blowing.” This invited a number of questions, all of which I had the good grace to not ask aloud. Was DE being benevolent all of a sudden because of the whistle-blowing? Or was it because of the murder? Or, heck, was this all to do with Lawrence’s efforts to tie the game to a TV pilot and a cereal? I’d ask about it later.

  “Yes,” said Vanetta.

  “It’s nice to be surprised by something that’s not awful,” said Quintrell. “It will be great to have a chance to breathe.”

  “Breathing is good,” I said.

  “Let everyone know what’s up when they come in. I’ll be in my office. Meeting at ten.”

  I spent the next few minutes answering emails and phone calls about Cynthia’s death, although I should say Joyce’s death, as Joyce was the name of the dead woman in question. There was a little journalistic interest in the story, which I fended off by saying that we could not comment at this time.

  I also got an email from Cynthia herself, which was weird in this context.

  Dahlia:

  I’d like to come by today to pick up my things. Is there a time of day that would be the least disruptive? I really don’t want to see Vanetta or Archie, and I don’t want people making a scene over me.

  Cynthia

  I responded by letting her know about the staff meeting, which was probably her best bet, and by telling her that I was willing to stay late, although I couldn’t guarantee she’d miss the rest of the staff this way. She’d have to come in very, very late if she wanted to do that. Then, it struck me, suddenly, that perhaps this is how her sister had gotten in. I didn’t get much further down that line of thought when I looked up to see that Gary had come in.

  Of all the Cahaba-ers, it seemed to me that Gary was the least transformed by sleep. He looked as rough as ever.

  “Didn’t get quality shut-eye, Gary?” I asked.

  “No,” said Gary. He sounded not exactly angry, but certainly very peeved.

  “Too upset about the murder to sleep?” I asked.

  “Up all night with an eight-month-old,” said Gary.

  “You have an eight-month-old?” I asked.

  “Apparently,” said Gary. “I really should get home more. I’m like Odysseus. Although, since I had been sleeping here so much, my wife decided that I should be ‘on-duty’ last night. Which apparently means not sleeping. Babies are tiny harbingers of disease and evil.”

  “At least you’re acclimated to it. You want a pastry?” I was happy that I had a good target for my pastries, since my baked goods had been shown up by Vanetta’s fancier dessert.

  “Yes,” said Gary, taking a strawberry twist out of the bag. “God bless you.”

  “Staff meeting at ten!”

  Tyler and Lawrence entered together, which I thought was a bit curious, although it could have been that they just happened upon the stairs at the same time.

  “Good morning, Cynthia,” said Lawrence, who must have been putting me on at this point.

  “Did you get my voice mail yesterday?” I asked, because I really didn’t want to go over the murder situation a third time.

  “I did,” said Lawrence. “Thanks for the heads-up. Yes, I had a very productive conversation with the police yesterday afternoon. And, since I was the ranking person around here, they had me identify her body.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “They think she was poisoned, you know.”

  “No one would poison Cynthia,” said Tyler. “Everyone loves Cynthia.”

  “Hidden depths,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lawrence. “Quintrell hated her, didn’t he? He was always going on about how pushy she was.”

  “Quintrell said that?” I asked.

  “Yes, didn’t he? Or maybe it was Jason, now that I think about it. I always confuse those two. Which one did we fire?”

  “I’ve never met Jason,” I said.

  “Yes, I guess I mean Jason. Oh well, I told the police Quintrell. Que será, será.”

  “How do you confuse those people? One of them is black and thin, and the other is white and large,” I said. I felt a bit like I was arguing with Charice, which was never a good idea. Lawrence, like my roommate, had a performative quality to him. I couldn’t quite tell when he was being genuine and when he was putting me on, and I suspected that he didn’t always quite know the difference himself.

  “Well, you see, Cynthia,” said Lawrence loftily, “unlike you, I don’t see color. I just see people.”

  Incidentally: “I don’t see color, I just see people”
is a line that is exclusively spoken by rich white guys. I believe it’s the motto of at least three secret societies at Harvard. In Latin.

  “Right,” I told him.

  “You ratted out Quintrell?” said Tyler, shocked.

  “I didn’t rat him out,” said Lawrence. “I’m just providing the police with valuable information.”

  “Which was wrong,” said Tyler.

  “Well, possibly,” said Lawrence.

  “He got arrested because of you,” said Tyler.

  “That seems like a stretch. If he were arrested, I’m sure the police had lots of reasons.”

  Lawrence was a jackass, but this was a good point. Even allowing for a little racism within the St. Louis police department, which, if you follow current events, has not proved itself to be a bastion of nondiscrimination, surely the police had more evidence pointing them to Quintrell than him allegedly calling her “pushy.”

  “You smug self-righteous bastard,” said Tyler. “This is someone’s life you’re playing with.”

  To judge from Lawrence’s face, he liked being called a bastard, but the bit about playing with someone’s life was a little too on the nose for him, and he darkened.

  “Careful, Tyler,” said Lawrence. “You should stay in my good graces.”

  “Quintrell is out on bail,” I told Lawrence. “I don’t think the case is going anywhere.”

  “See,” said Lawrence, summoning his grinning Buddha. “It’s all working out. I didn’t sell anyone down the river.”

  “It’s very callous of you,” said Tyler.

  “That’s my brand,” said Lawrence.

  “How did Quintrell get out so quickly?” asked Tyler, and it pleased me to see that other people also thought this strange.

  “I guess Cynthia being alive sort of deep-sixed the case.”

  “Cynthia’s alive?” spat Lawrence. “But she was dead for, like, six hours!”