Pop Goes the Murder

by Kristi Abbott

  The walk over to Garrett’s from Dan’s office helped clear my head. I tried to make my way as quietly as possible, but the heels of my boots echoed on the sidewalks. There’s something about cold night air that makes everything sharper. Smells, sounds, sights, all of it seemed to have harder edges. The streetlights left pools of yellow on the cracked sidewalks that made the dark seem all that much darker as I passed. Someone had a fire going. I could smell the smoke of it over the scent of the fall leaves that crunched underfoot.

  I felt a little bad now about assaulting Marisela. She’d only been doing what she thought she had to do to save her marriage. Of course, a lot of it could have been avoided if Jason had told her what was going on with Melanie. It wasn’t good to keep secrets. At least, not from the people you cared most about. Except, of course, the kind I was keeping from Dan. That was okay, right? That tight feeling in my chest didn’t mean anything.

  Garrett’s entrance was on the left side of the house. The blue light of a television flickered from Mrs. Patrick’s living room window. What did she watch? Was she a true-crime aficionado? Did she like cop shows? Lawyer shows? Doctor shows? I tried to peek into the window, but couldn’t quite make out what it was. I really wanted it to be Kardashian related.

  I went up the stairs, avoiding the fourth step because it creaked crazy loud, and knocked on the door. I heard one small yip and then Garrett opened the door. I kissed him hello and then bent down to get kisses from Sprocket, too.

  “How are my men doing?” I asked.

  Garrett raised his eyebrows. “Maybe I should ask you that?”

  I stood and leaned my head against his chest. “Please don’t,” I said.

  His arms wrapped around me. “Okay,” he whispered into my hair.

  He was cozy and warm, wearing sweats and socks and not looking corporate at all.

  “We need to talk,” I said into his chest.

  I felt the tension in his arms, but all he said was another quiet, “Okay.” We sat down on his couch—which was shockingly not leather. At one point, I had a theory that all single men must own leather couches.

  He sat down next to me and I felt my heart do a little dance move. I liked him. Maybe a little more than I’d realized or even wanted to. I also hadn’t realized that while my life was an open book—you don’t get to divorce even a minor celebrity like Antoine without it showing up in a few tabloids—Garrett’s was one of those diaries with a lock on the outside. It might not be too hard to break in, but it made you want to stop and respect his privacy. Until there was a reason not to. Like, you know, the diary’s ex-girlfriend being in town and making everyone make choking noises every time you mentioned it.

  “You know, there are very few sentences that strike more fear into a guy’s heart than We need to talk.” He rested his elbows behind him and stretched his long legs out in front of himself. He didn’t look at me, which allowed me to study his profile for a moment. Like Dan, he played his cards pretty close to his chest. It was hard to know exactly what was going on behind those dark eyes.

  “I’m not pregnant, if that helps any.” I leaned back, too.

  He laughed. “It doesn’t hurt. What’s up?”

  “I want to know about Cynthia,” I said, turning to look straight ahead instead of looking at him.

  “She’s a great lawyer.” His response was instant.

  I was fairly certain he knew that wasn’t what I was asking. “I was hoping to hear more about the personal side.”

  “Oh, that.” His voice was flat. It was impossible to read anything from those two words.

  “Yes, that.” I sat up and opened the container next to me and handed him a cookie.

  He laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to save the reward for after I cooperate?” He took it anyway.

  “I trust you.” I did. I just needed to know.

  “But you still want to know about Cynthia. I don’t suppose it would be enough to tell you not to worry about it.” He bit into the cookie. “Gingersnap?”

  “It seemed like a solid autumnal choice and no, you can’t just tell me not to worry about it after seeing Haley’s face the night Antoine was arrested.”

  “You Anderson girls and your glass faces.” He shook his head. “Neither of you should be lawyers or poker players.”

  “Noted. Now cough up the goods.”

  Garrett straightened up and leaned forward on his elbows. Tension bunched his shoulders. “We had a client, one we were both pretty sure was guilty.”

  “That can’t be the first time that happened.” Defense attorneys probably ran across that scenario every day.

  He laughed. “Oh, no. No indeed. Not everyone accused of a crime is guilty, but a fair number of them are. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a good defense. It’s how the system was constructed.”

  “I get that.” Maybe even a little more now with Antoine sitting in jail. “But this client was somehow different?”

  “He wasn’t. Not really. We’d represented a dozen people like him. What he had was a brother that looked enough like him to almost be his twin.”

  I felt like I had a glimmer of where this was going. “Was there eyewitness testimony against him?”

  “Close. Security camera video.” He let out a deep breath. “You know how footage from those cameras is always at an odd angle because the cameras are up high in corners?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And they’re kind of fuzzy? Not the best definition?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well, looking at the video, it could have been this guy or his brother. Plus it just so happened that the brother was visiting. Home from school on fall break.” He sighed.

  “So you used the brother to create reasonable doubt?” I watched almost as many legal thrillers as psychological thrillers.

  He nodded. “Yes, Counselor. That’s precisely what we did.”

  “Did it work?”

  “A little too well. The brother came under suspicion, too. All of a sudden the cops were asking for his alibi—he didn’t have one—and interviewing his coaches and teachers at the university.” Garrett rubbed his face. “It wasn’t him. We all knew it wasn’t him. We all pretended like it could be him and because of how good Cynthia and I were at pretending, he was kicked off the basketball team and lost his scholarship.”

  “They can do that?” I sat up.

  “They had some kind of ethics clause. They felt he’d violated it.” Garrett remained slumped.

  “Because his brother committed a crime?” Bastards.

  “Or maybe him. We’d muddied the waters sufficiently that no one was really clear on that anymore,” Garrett pointed out.

  “So your client went free.” It wasn’t a question.

  “He did. Cynthia was ecstatic.” He took a deep breath and blew it out.

  “And you?” I asked.

  He winced. “Not so much.”

  “And you broke up over that?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “That is such a lawyerly response. I’m pretty sure you have to pick one.” I shifted away from him on the couch.

  “But I can’t. It started a whole set of conversations that made both of us realize that we didn’t see the world the same way.” He rubbed his face. “It made me realize that there were parts of the law I would do better staying away from.”

  “Like defense attorney-ing?”

  “I’m not sure that verb exists, but yes.”

  “You represented Jasper and you represented me.”

  “I represented Jasper as a favor to Dan.”

  “And me?”

  He looped his arm around me. “Let’s just say I was hoping there would be fringe benefits.” He sighed again. “It made me realize that we had to make some choices, and Cynthia didn’t choose me.” The words came out calm, almost flat.
>
  Looking at his profile, you’d never know what it cost him to say that out loud. No veins bulged in his forehead. His jaw wasn’t clenched. His hands weren’t fisted.

  We hadn’t been together long, but I had been getting to know my man. There was a quality to his stillness that spoke volumes. There was something he was holding very close and very deep inside himself. It made me want to wrap my arms around him and hold him close until he let that stillness go.

  I laid my head on his shoulder and he kissed my forehead. “So you broke up with Cynthia, gave up your practice with her and moved to Grand Lake?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

  “You could have gone anywhere, but you chose Grand Lake.” I shook my head.

  He nudged. “Uh, pot? Kettle?”

  He had a point, except for one detail. “I have family here.” At least, that was my story and I was sticking to it.

  Garrett stared straight ahead. “I don’t have family anywhere.”

  I’d known his parents were dead. It seemed like something we had in common. But no family anywhere? That was a cold world to survive in. “Not even a long-lost cousin?”

  “If there is one, he or she has been extremely lost for a long time.” He cracked his knuckles. “Dan always talked about Grand Lake like it was a little oasis of goodness in a crazy world. I figured I’d give it a try. If it didn’t work out, what would I lose except some time?”

  I would not have described Grand Lake in the same glowing terms that Dan would have. Despite growing up side by side, we’d seen things a little differently. Funny how your perspective changes when you get older and hopefully wiser. What felt constricting to me in high school felt like an embrace now. What had been claustrophobic was now cozy. “How do you think it’s going?”

  He put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close, his sweatshirt warm and soft against my cheek. “I think it’s going all right,” he said, and kissed the top of my head.

  * * *

  When Sprocket and I got home, Haley was sitting on the porch wrapped in a blanket. “How do you and Dan stand sitting out here for all those hours? It’s freezing.”

  I slipped inside the blanket, cuddling up to her. “It grows on you.” Sprocket settled on her other side and put his head on her lap.

  “I guess I can see that,” she grumbled. She held out her hand like an irritated schoolteacher confiscating gum. “Give me your phone.”

  “Why? I have plenty of battery power.”

  “Just hand it over.” She nudged me with her knee.

  I handed it over.

  “What’s your security code?”

  I told her. She punched in the numbers and then started tapping away.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m installing a program on your phone that will let me keep track of where you are.” My phone beeped and she tapped in a few more numbers. “There. You’ve given me the okay to track you with your phone.”

  I sat up a little straighter. “I have?”

  “Damn skippy you have. Now if I text you or call you and you don’t answer, I’ll at least know where you are.” She handed the phone back to me.

  I stared at her. “You’re LoJacking my phone?”

  “Actually, sweet sister, I’m LoJacking you.” She stood up, wrapped the blanket tighter around herself and went inside the house.

  Sprocket looked around as if he was expecting more, like maybe a treat. Haley had a lot to learn about front porch–sitting etiquette. “That’s it tonight, I guess,” I told him. I stood up and stepped down off the porch.

  Twelve

  During the night, someone had spray-painted “Popcorn Whore” across the front display window of POPS. It had taken me a minute or two to figure out what it said since I was trying to read it backward from inside the store. “I don’t even know what that is,” I told Dario. “Does it mean that I’ll do anything for popcorn? Or that I do something dirty with popcorn?”

  Dario stood looking at it, hands on hips. “You may once again be overthinking. How about we leave it at it not being a compliment?”

  I sighed. “Yeah. It’ll make great copy to show a photo of me washing it off the window, won’t it?”

  “Which is why you won’t.” He went into the kitchen and came back a minute later with a bucket and some sponges. “Can you handle prep without me?”

  “It won’t be as much fun, but I’ll handle it.” I went into the kitchen and put on the oldies station and started to dance while I popped and mixed, stirred and measured. Dario was back in before I finished making the pumpkin breakfast bars. He put away the scrub brushes and bucket and tied on an apron, which he somehow managed to make look studly.

  “So what’s up with not-your-man?” he asked.

  “Why do you think something is up?” I set the timer and stared at the caramel sauce as it bubbled.

  “First because something always seems to be up, but also because the morning headlines said that someone else was being questioned.”

  I dropped my head a bit. The press didn’t miss much, did it? “Dan had some questions for Jason.”

  “The cute one?” he asked, a smile quirking at his lips.

  “Yes, the cute one.”

  “And?”

  I glanced at the timer. One more minute. “Melanie was trying to force him to sleep with her.”

  Dario’s eyebrows went up and he snorted. “At least she had good taste. Does Dan think he had anything to do with it?”

  The timer finally went off and I started to stir the caramel and then poured it over the popcorn. Dario already had his hands greased and started to mix the sauce into the popcorn.

  “No, but it does explain the clothes all being laid out like she was getting ready for a date. She was.”

  “Was she planning on receiving him while she was still in the tub?”

  I frowned. It was a good question. Whoever had killed Melanie had come in while she was in the tub and she hadn’t gotten out when whoever it was came into the room.

  Haley and I had had more than our fair share of conversations with one of us in the tub and the other perched on the edge, but we were sisters. Was there anyone in Grand Lake who felt as close as a sister to Melanie?

  * * *

  Faith and Annie stopped in for their mid-morning coffee break at about the same time the rush ended. I filled them in on what had happened the night before with Jason and Marisela.

  “So where did the text that Dan received with the picture of Jason arguing with Melanie come from?” Annie asked.

  “Dan didn’t know. He said it was a blocked number.” That still didn’t sit right.

  “Whoever it was had good timing,” Faith observed. “Dan could have arrested you for being within twenty-five yards of that poor woman.”

  “Poor woman?” Annie snorted. “How about her poor husband?”

  “Oh, please. He may be saying he hated it, but I bet he liked the attention.” Faith waved her hand in the air as if to dismiss the notion that Jason might have actually been distressed.

  Annie shook her head. “You don’t give many men much credit for anything.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Faith sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Annie rolled her eyes. “You do, too. You’re letting one lying, cheating bastard make you hate an entire gender.”

  “You’re letting one smooth-talking silver fox convince you that men aren’t pigs,” Faith countered.

  “They’re not. At least, not inherently.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “Beg as much as you want.”

  I put my head down on the kitchen table and kept it there until they stopped.

  * * *

  That morning, I drove into Cleveland to meet with Cynthia. I stepped int
o her office and immediately felt inferior. It was tasteful. I knew that sounded like a compliment, but honestly that kind of tasteful makes me feel a little itchy. Everything was muted. Everything was soft. Everything had rounded edges.

  It reminded me a little too much of the house I’d shared with Antoine. There’d been a lot of shades of beige in there, too. It’s true I may have overcompensated at my shop and in my apartment, but now I’d grown accustomed to color and a lot of it.

  The receptionist looked vaguely horrified at Sprocket, but I couldn’t leave him in the car and I knew he wouldn’t do anything socially reprehensible. “May I help you?” she asked in a tone more suited to asking if she needed to call security to escort me out.

  “I’m here to see Ms. Harlen. It’s regarding Antoine Belanger. I have an appointment.”

  “Oh, yes. Rebecca. Just a minute.” She pushed a few buttons on her phone and then spoke in a hushed voice into her headset, but not hushed enough that I didn’t hear the word dog.

  She hung up. “Ms. Harlen will be just a moment.”

  I sat down on the couch and Sprocket lay down on my feet. I patted his head. It was more than a moment before Cynthia came out, but what can you expect from a busy lawyer’s office?

  “Rebecca,” she said striding in the room. “Is something wrong? Is Antoine okay?”

  “Mainly. He’s getting a little skinny.”

  “Oh, well, I can’t imagine that jail food agrees with him.” She sat down on the couch next to me and patted Sprocket on the head. “What’s up, then?”

  I looked around to see who might overhear. There was only the receptionist. Just in case, I leaned in and whispered, “Remember that chef, Sunny Coronado? The one Antoine doesn’t like?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, he’s here in Cleveland,” I said, leaning back in the chair to let my words have full drama.

  I was not disappointed. Cynthia leaned forward. “Really? How long has he been here?”