And Death Goes to . . .

by Laura Bradford

  “And here, the ceremony is starting.” Sam’s voice pulled me out of my head and focused me on the stack of photos once again—the top picture now of Carl Brinkman, the local news anchor-turned-master of ceremony as he welcomed the crowd.

  My grandfather cleared his throat and leaned forward, his breath skirting the side of my face. “Little did that fella know his promise of an eventful evening would be such an understatement, eh?”

  “Truth.” Sam shuffled the picture to the bottom of the stack to reveal the show’s first presenter as she walked out to the podium with a Golden Briefcase in one hand and the famous white envelope with gold, sparkly edges in the other. “I think this one was for”—he leaned in for a closer look, only to tap the tip of his finger on the envelope’s gold lettering—“yup, Best Fifteen Second Spot.”

  Sam moved on to the next picture and the beaming forty-something winner as he accepted the award from the presenter and victoriously held it over his head. “Mom loves this shot. Says I need to track down an address for this guy so he can have it. I told her they take pictures of all the winners backstage with their award, but she thinks this is better than a staged one.”

  “I agree with your mom.” I watched as he moved on to the next award and yet another action shot of a winner’s face as she accepted her award. “I suspect everyone who won that night would love one of your pictures. In fact, if you want, I’ll have JoAnna compile a list of all the winners and their agency’s address so you can send the appropriate winner their picture.”

  “And include one of them cards of yours with each picture.” Grandpa Stu helped himself to two cookies but handed one to Sam.

  “One of my business cards?” Sam asked. “Why?”

  I took the stack of pictures from Sam’s hand so he could enjoy his cookie. “Grandpa Stu is right. Your award put you on their radar, kiddo. Your card will tell them how to find you.”

  “But I work for you, Tobes.”

  “When I have a job I need you to shoot, yes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take jobs from other people, too, Sam. You have a college education to be saving for, yes?”

  He tried to play it off, but I could see the smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “You really think other people would hire me to do the kind of stuff I do for you?”

  I handed him his glass of milk, waited for him to gulp it down, and then took the empty glass from his hand. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “Just how good your photography really is.”

  At his sheepish shrug, I moved on to another photo and the award I suspected came next. Sure enough, the presenter for Best Photograph in a Print Ad stood at the podium with the Golden Briefcase in one hand, and the sparkly gold trimmed envelope in the other. A peek at the envelope confirmed the category. I slid the picture to the bottom of the stack and then held the next image in front of Sam—his enthusiasm as he accepted his award plain to see despite Carter’s shaky picture-taking hand. “Do you see this? You getting this award? This isn’t an award everyone gets simply for showing up, Sam. There are thousands of pictures taken for advertising agencies in the metro St. Louis area every year. Pictures that are used in print campaigns for magazines, newspapers, and signage. And out of all those pictures, yours was one of only four that were nominated for this award. And you, my friend, won. Against professional photographers—people who have been doing what you do for far longer than you’ve even been alive. Yet you”—I shook the picture at him—“my just turned sixteen-year-old friend, won.”

  Sam looked from me, to the picture, and back again. But before he could say anything (or grab another cookie), I hooked my finger under his chin and held his gaze steady with mine. “Trust me, Sam, people will most definitely want to hire you to do what you do for me.”

  I sat back so as to keep my face from getting in the way of Sam and Grandpa Stu’s cookie high-fiving, and continued moving through the pile of pictures, smiling at the winners as they stepped onto the stage, and laughing at the little pictorial asides Sam took of our tablemates along the way.

  Eventually I came to my category and the moment Cassie Turner appeared from backstage in her form-fitting gown with her blond hair cascading across her shoulders in long flowing waves. In her left hand was the most coveted award of the evening—the Golden Storyboard. Even now, a full forty-eight hours after witnessing the moment firsthand (and losing), I still felt my palms moistening in anticipation.

  “Your campaign was better than all the rest of them, Tobes.”

  I lifted my gaze to Sam and rewarded his sweet loyalty with the smile it deserved. “Thanks, Sam. But I’m okay. Did I want to win? Of course. I’ve been wanting that since the moment I learned these awards existed. But I just need to work harder, dig deeper, give the judges a campaign that’ll blow them away next time.”

  Sam’s nod told me he understood. That he got that kind of drive.

  My grandfather’s nod told me he was proud.

  “And I will,” I added as much for myself as Sam or my grandfather. “Because as cool as it is to be one of the best… I want to be the best.”

  I allowed myself another moment or two to study the trophy and then shifted my gaze to Cassie’s other hand—the hand holding the plain white envelope.

  Confused, I pulled the picture closer, confirmed the plain edges, and then looked at the words scrawled across the front in a thick black ink: Best Overall Ad Campaign. “Do you see this?”

  Sam pulled his cookie out of my milk glass and leaned in for a closer look. “See what?”

  I pointed. “This envelope.”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “It’s different than all the rest of them.”

  “So is the trophy,” Sam reminded.

  “But the trophy has always been different for this particular category. The envelope hasn’t.”

  My grandfather shifted in his seat next to mine. “What are you saying, Sugar Lump?”

  “The winner’s name is always in an envelope trimmed in this gold-sparkly stuff. I know because the first time I went to this thing a few years ago, I saw that gold stuff catch the light as the first presenter came out onto the stage and I vowed right then and there that my name would be in one of those envelopes one day.”

  “Okay…”

  I tapped the envelope in the picture. “This one. In Cassie’s hand. It’s not trimmed in anything. It’s a basic white envelope. And the category isn’t written in gold, either, see?”

  “Looks like it was written in a regular black marker to me.” Sam placed the entire cookie in his mouth and, after a quick chew or two, swallowed it virtually whole. “The kind mom uses around the store all the time.”

  “Exactly.” I set the picture in question down on the table and pulled out ones depicting each of the night’s presenters. When I was sure I had them all, I set them down around Cassie’s picture and waited.

  “Maybe they ran out of envelopes.” Sam pointed toward his empty glass and, at my nod, headed for the refrigerator for seconds of milk. “I mean, when I can’t find a pen that works, I grab the next best thing—pencil, marker, a tube of my mom’s lipstick, whatever.”

  “But this is special.”

  “Are you sure they’ve always done that with the gold? For this category?” my grandfather asked, his voice still void of its usual pep.

  It was a valid question. Especially since my memory of the whole gold-sparkly envelope thing was specific to the first presenter of the first show I’d attended as an industry professional. Which meant I’d kind of just assumed the gold-edged thing was standard operating procedure for the award night. Still, it seemed weird they’d only do it for some categories and not others.

  “Tobi?”

  I looked at my grandfather and shrugged. “I think so. I don’t know why they wouldn’t.”

  “
We could check.”

  I slid my focus on to Sam. “How? By calling past presenters? I think I’d look like a psycho if I started asking them about gold sparkly-edged envelopes—”

  “No, we can check on the computer.” Sam gulped down his second serving of milk and then pointed toward the living room. “Can I use your laptop real quick?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I flipped through the last few shots from the award ceremony—Cassie opening the envelope, my face as I waited to hear whether I’d won, Deidre’s joy as she accepted the Golden Storyboard, Deidre walking up the stairs with tears running down her eyes, Deidre on the platform looking back at the screen, and then finally Deidre as she looked back toward the crowd, her brow furrowed.

  “Is that what you were talking about?”

  I glanced up at my grandfather. “What?”

  “That expression.” I followed Grandpa Stu’s finger back to the picture that had unknowingly captured the last second or two of Deidre Ryan’s life. “It’s like you said. She looks confused.”

  I started to nod but stopped as my focus shifted to the screen just beyond her head—a screen depicting a father and son decked out in Cardinals gear. “And I think she was confused because that ad playing right there”—I pointed at the picture’s background—“wasn’t hers. It was Lexa’s.”

  “Tobes, come here… You were right,” Sam called from the living room.

  “I’ll be right there.” I waited for my grandfather to soak up the image frozen on the screen behind Deidre’s head and then gathered up the pictures I’d displayed across the table, keeping Deidre’s last shot on top.

  “Seriously, Tobes, you need to come check this out.”

  I set the pile of pictures to the side, tossed the empty cookie sleeve into the trash, and led the way into the living room. Sam was seated in the center of the couch with my laptop on his lap.

  Once we were seated on either side of him, Sam pointed at a picture on the screen. “You were right about the gold sparkly edged envelopes being a thing. See?” He leaned back so Grandpa and I could both get a better view. “They were definitely used for the big category as recently as last year when Cassie Turner won. And this one, here”—he clicked on an open tab at the bottom of the screen to reveal the image of yet another winner of the prestigious Best Overall award—“is from like three years ago.”

  Sure enough, the envelope containing the winner’s name in both images Sam unearthed were just like the ones depicted in each and every one of the pictures he, himself, had taken on Saturday night.

  Except the one for this year’s winner of Best Overall Campaign.

  For the first time in years—if not ever—that one envelope was different than it had ever been before.

  Now, two days later, the winner was dead, her plummet to the stage below being ruled a homicide.

  Coincidence?

  Perhaps.

  But I didn’t buy it. Not by a long shot.

  And judging by the way my grandfather reached into the front pocket of his flannel shirt for his trusty notebook and his magnifying glass, I wasn’t the only skeptic in the room.

  ~Chapter Fourteen~

  If I were an outsider with even a passing knowledge of my life, I would think something was really wrong with me. It would be the only sensible reason for why I was poised to walk out my front door a full hour earlier than normal.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not immune to the pull of getting to work early. I am, after all, a workaholic when it comes to my agency. But I live next door to a woman who sets her watch by her dog’s need to pee and, for whatever reason, seven-thirty (rain or shine) is that time (hence the reason I never leave before eight at the absolute earliest).

  Which brings me back to the must-be-something-wrong-with-me thing.

  It’s seven thirty.

  In the morning.

  My backpack is hoisted onto my left shoulder.

  My key ring is in my right hand.

  A paper cup filled with Cocoa Puffs is in my left hand.

  And my ear is cocked toward the front left window, waiting for the stomach churning sounds that mean Rapple is moving about on my front lawn. After a moment or two of nothing, I relaxed my pose just enough to afford a view of my grandfather sprawled across my pull-out couch.

  His weathered face, pillowed by his age-spotted hands, looked sad even in his sleep, and I made a mental note to push the issue with him the next time we were alone. On the floor, no more than an arm’s length from his body, was his trusty magnifying glass and his favorite notebook. Even without moving any closer, I could tell he, too, had spent some of those final pre-sleep moments working through what we know/don’t know about Deidre’s death. I also knew, without seeing his notes, that he, too, had probably determined Cassie Turner to be our next step. And as I stood there, taking it all in, I found my throat starting to constrict and my eyes starting to mist at the realization that yet another visit with Grandpa Stu was rapidly drawing to a close.

  I took a step toward the couch and the cheek I wanted to kiss, but stopped as a familiar sound wafted through my slightly opened front window and greeted me with a less than pleasant reminder as to why I was standing where I was in the first place.

  Rapple was loose.

  Or, rather, Rapple was out and about as she always was at this time.

  I mustered a fortifying breath, squared my shoulders, pulled open my front door, and made myself step out into the vestibule I shared with Carter. If Carter were awake, he’d check me for a fever. Since he wasn’t, I checked myself and then continued through the outer door and onto my front porch.

  Sure enough, there, not more than five feet from my minuscule patch of landscaping, was my next door neighbor, sporting one of the trillion hideous housecoats (this one in turquoise) that had become her uniform in life. Why my lawn had become Gertie’s personal toilet was still beyond me, even now, two years after taking up residency in the ground floor apartment.

  Carter’s theory was that our lawn gave the old biddy a better vantage point of the neighborhood thanks to the placement of our lone front tree in relation to the one in front of the house she shared with Mary Fran and Sam.

  Sam’s theory centered on the movement-monitoring band she wore around her wrist. By having Gertie pee in my yard, Rapple gained an extra twenty steps (round trip), he surmised.

  But honestly, I’m confident my theory was the most accurate: the un-peed-upon plants in front of her house looked superior to the not so fortunate plants in my yard.

  Welcome to 46 McPhearson Road—home (I mean, front lawn) of the criminally insane.

  I forced myself over to the porch steps even as I visually perused my daffodils and snowball bushes for any sign of turquoise. When my search turned up nothing, I lifted my gaze to Rapple. And that’s when I remembered Gertie wasn’t here. She’d spent the night at the vet’s, undergoing more tests.

  Why it had taken me this long to realize a) I’d heard no barking, b) Rapple wasn’t gesturing toward the lone remaining, still-green side of my snowball bush (hence, my theory), and c) said still-green side wasn’t jiggling, was beyond me. But now that my brain had finally caught up with the reality bus, I was noticing all sorts of things.

  Like the fact Rapple’s eyes were puffy and red-rimmed…

  Like the fact she was literally carrying a box of tissues in her hand…

  Like the fact that the area around my dead and dying plants was littered with balled up (ewww) tissues…

  Like the fact that—

  “Oh, Tobi. I was wanting to knock on your door this morning but I didn’t want to wake you if you were still sleeping.”

  I took advantage of the sniffles that followed to rein in my desired (and oh so sarcastic) retort about Gertie’s morning barkathons having set my internal alarm clock a long time ago. Instead, after a few deep breaths, I made myself s
tep all the way off the porch and reach (trust me, I know) for the woman’s trembling (non tissue-holding) hand.

  “Mary Fran told me about Gertie. Is there any word yet?”

  Ms. Rapple swiped her current tissue across her nostrils and, yup, tossed it onto the ground at my feet. I considered lambasting her for littering but, when I looked at her—really looked at her (sans shudder, believe it or not)—empathy overtook irritation in short order.

  “N-no. N-not yet. They s-s-said they’d c-call at”—Rapple hiccupped a few times and then returned to her sniffle-laden sentence—“eight.”

  I spread my hands to indicate my lawn and did my best not to fixate on the tissues. “I’m so used to seeing you out here with Gertie that I almost forgot she wasn’t here.”

  “I-I’m hoping that by f-following her n-normal routines, she-she’ll feel me somehow. And-and f-fight this.”

  “Mary Fran said something about her being fine one minute and lethargic the next?”

  More sniffling eventually gave way to a tortured nod and a voice with more rasp than usual. “I noticed her acting a little odd at your house on Sunday night, but thought she was just reacting to the unpleasant smells associated with your cooking. But then lethargy set in Monday morning. I looked everywhere, thinking she got into something she shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t find anything.”

  “I’m sorry Rap—I mean, Ms. Rapple. If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know, okay?” I heard the words as they left my mouth. Even considered reaching into my backpack for my handheld mirror just to be sure I hadn’t succumbed to one of those stupid zombie apocalypse things. But I refrained. I was, after all, trying to take JoAnna’s advice—to trust my grandfather. Assuming of course, their thing wasn’t already over.

  Please, God.

  Please…

  I started to launch into a full-blown mental prayer, when I suddenly stopped, the memory of my grandfather’s sad face as he slept slapping me upside the head.