A Little More Dead

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  “What are you two whispering about?” Anna asked from the other side of the kitchen.

  “Apparently one of the taps in Bridget’s bathroom is leaking. Petal, can you take over for a moment?” Oz asked without taking his eyes from me.

  “But I’m eating,” she whined as Pam got up from her stool and held out her hand for the spatula.

  “Thanks, Pam.” Oz handed over the kitchen utensil. “We’ll be quick.”

  Oz left the kitchen and I dragged my feet as I followed him, like a woman on her way to the gallows. It wasn’t like I hadn’t planned to tell him. It was just that I’d wanted to tell him in a manner that wouldn’t incriminate me. If I’d had tea first that would’ve helped. I was still working on climbing the first few stairs but I could already hear him pacing on the landing. I wondered if I could just turn tail and head back into the kitchen and out of the door before he could catch me. I hesitated and glanced up the stairs. Oz loomed at the top. He pointed to me and then to his feet. Yeah, I wasn’t getting out of this. I sighed again and forced myself up the stairs.

  “What makes you think someone was spying on you from the garden?” he asked when I was still three stairs from the summit.

  What to say? What to say? I climbed the last stairs slowly because everyone knows you can’t climb stairs and talk at same time. During the four seconds it took me to climb the last of the stairs I had a loose plan in place.

  “I saw a shadow so I went outside to check it out. There was no one there but there were imprints from shoes, roughly my size, scuffed in the dirt.” I gave myself a mental pat on the back for not incriminating myself. And I flat out wasn’t telling him Crazy Katie’s feet were more dainty than mine.

  Oz put one hand on his hip, covered his mouth with his other and stared at the floor. I waited. Finally, he straightened up.

  From the tightness in his expression I was pretty sure he was working super hard to keep his tone even. “Why would you go outside to check?”

  “I don’t know.” Which was true – the checking, not the being outside. “I just, I guess I thought if it was Crazy Katie and I could catch her then everything would go back to normal.”

  “And what if it wasn’t?” Oz asked.

  “What do you mean? Who else would be spying on us?” And in that moment I remembered I didn’t know for certain who the murderer was. Lily had said Katie had killed her. Actually, she hadn’t said that exactly, I’d just assumed that was what she’d meant. Even then, that didn’t mean that she was the one doing all the murdering now. “Oh.”

  Oz nodded. “Yeah, oh.”

  “I had my pepper spray,” I said.

  “Great. You could season them while they kill you.”

  I pointed in his face. “Hey, it’s effective.”

  “You’ve never had a reason to use it, so how would you know?”

  Oh, damn it. See, this is what happens when you get interrogated before tea. Maybe Oz would let me get a kettle for my room so I could be fortified before I even went downstairs.

  “I may have accidentally discharged it,” I admitted quietly.

  Oz stared at me. For a reeeeeally long time. “Okay, I’m going to assume that no one was severely injured by that accident or you’d have told me about it, right?”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “Okay. What else can you tell me about whoever was spying on you?”

  “Nothing, really. I just saw a shadow and went out to investigate. All I saw were shoe prints in the soil. It might not even have been from last night. Maybe they’ve been there a while.”

  “You didn’t tell your housemates, right?”

  “Of course not, I’m not stupid,” I snapped. Oz arched an eyebrow as if to question that but since I had rushed toward a possible murderer I was letting it go.

  I hovered in the stairwell, equally split between going back down and telling him in super broad strokes about what we’d learned from Lily. He watched me doing my awkward stop-and-go dance for a few moments and then reached out for my hand. He narrowed his eyes on me. I did my best to not look away. “Do you want to tell me something?” He watched me carefully as he asked, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

  I made a non-committal noise and pulled a face that I was pretty sure made me look constipated. The constipation face was me trying to get the words out and keep them in at the same time.

  “Okay, if you volunteer this up, I promise I won’t be mad,” he encouraged, his eyes still searching my face.

  I winced. “Pretty sure you will be.”

  Oz gave my hand a small tug. “Tell me anyway.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the stairwell. Why hadn’t I just told him about the footprints and gone to get some breakfast? Why did I hesitate? I turned back with a sigh.

  “So, you know that medium that I know,” I said and Oz’s whole body tensed. I was pretty sure even his fingers twitched against my hand.

  “Go on …”

  “Well, we—I—thought it would be a smart idea to get her to summon Crazy Katie so we—I—could apprehend her and get back to our lives.”

  “Since Katie is still at large I’m guessing that didn’t go quite to plan.”

  “Not exactly. It turned out that it was Lily’s diary, not Katie’s, so that was who showed up.”

  “What diary?”

  “Oh, we—I—found a diary in my room and I thought it was Katie’s. I gave it to the medium because she needs something that belongs to the person she’s trying to summon if she’s not met them before.” I thought about that for a second. “Maybe that was what whoever was looking for when they searched my room.”

  “Okay. What you’re telling me is that last night you found a diary, sneaked out of the house, illegally haunted your medium friend, got her to summon a murder victim back from a different plane of the afterlife, came home, found someone spying on you from the garden, then tried to chase them down before coming inside and having a sleepover. Is that about right?” Oz’s voice was so very level and so very calm. His hand holding mine was still gentle. Maybe everything would be okay. Or maybe he was lulling me into a false sense of security before deciding that murdering me and burying me in our garden would solve most of his problems.

  “She remembered who killed her,” I offered quickly.

  “Who was it?”

  “Katie.”

  “Katie? She said Katie killed her? She actually said those words?”

  I hesitated. “Not those exact words, no. She more, sort of, implied Katie killed her.”

  “People who’ve been murdered don’t always have the clearest recall of those situations. Just because that’s who she accused doesn’t mean that’s who did it.”

  “You let them imprison Katie in an asylum for eternity even though you weren’t sure whether she was guilty?”

  “The welfare of everyone in this house is my responsibly. Katie wasn’t stable enough to stay here. I thought re-education would help her.” Oz looked directly into my eyes as he spoke. I wasn’t sure if I heard a challenge in his tone. As though he were waiting for me to tell him he’d been wrong to do that.

  “I’m not judging. I just want to be clear we’re on the same page.”

  Oz nodded. “In this instance, I think we are.”

  “Why did you think re-education would work for her but not for me?”

  “Because as far as I’m aware you’ve not attempted to murder any of your housemates,” Oz said. I was about to say it had been touch and go for a while but I doubted Oz would appreciate that exaggeration.

  “So …” I dragged the word out and eyed my escape route down the stairs. “We’re okay?”

  “Yes. We’re okay. But today, how about you go to work, do your job and then come home without doing anything illegal. Just for today, okay? Let’s try that.”

  I made a non-committal noise and turned to head downstairs. Oz pulled on my hand to get my attention.

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “I e
xpect more shorts in exchange. Maybe some T-shirts too. And please can I have some new underwear?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I get to choose my own underwear, right?” I asked as we headed back downstairs. It was his turn to make a non-committal noise.

  Anna was making tea when we emerged into the kitchen. Not for everyone, just herself.

  “Did you manage to fix it?” she asked, leaving another red lipstick mark on the already lipstick-stained cup as she sipped.

  “Yep, disaster averted,” Oz said and thanked Pam as he returned to his cooking.

  “Well, that’s a relief. Personal hygiene is important. Especially if you sweat a lot,” Anna said with a nod to me.

  “You would know,” I agreed.

  “I would and now I’m glad we won’t have to have that conversation.”

  I really should have thought of a comeback to that, but I just couldn’t stop staring at the lipstick stains on the opposite side of the mug she was drinking from. Why wouldn’t you drink from the same side? Was she trying to mark all of our mugs? Oz handed me a plate with four small American pancakes on it and gestured to the huge jar of Nutella sitting in the centre of the breakfast bar. Petal placed a mug of tea next to me as I scooped a huge dollop of Nutella onto my pancakes and everything was right with the world. I ate in silence while everyone chatted around me.

  I still had one pancake left when Anna ushered me out of the door, claiming we were going to be late. We weren’t but I got up and left anyway, mainly because I was able to take my chocolatey pancake with me. I collected my assignment sheet from Alexander, who made a show of ignoring Anna, which gave me a small thrill of delight, and then headed to the tunnelling room.

  The first hour of assignments was easy. Simple things like move a pen, pick a flower, move a pair of glasses, leave fridge door ajar. Nothing to cause me any panic. I tunnelled to a supermarket to move some cereal but the supermarket had been redecorated and someone had taken all the aisle signs down. Anna went one way and I went the other to cut down on the time it would take to find it. I found it on the second aisle I checked and I really should’ve called to Anna to let her know but I just wanted to enjoy a few moments free of snide “hon” remarks.

  I bent low to move one cereal packet in front of another on the bottom shelf when someone wolf-whistled. I turned more to check I wasn’t being observed than because I thought it was at me.

  “I always seem to catch you at a great time,” Gary said with a grin. “I’m still waiting for your call.”

  “What do you think of Burt?” I asked, completely ignoring Gary’s comments.

  Gary wagged his finger at me. “Ah, I see your game. Throwing up a little competition for me, eh?”

  “Exactly. He asked me out as well. He says he knows way more about Lily than anyone so I should have dinner with him instead.” I figured that might be the best way to get some info out of Gary without having dinner with him. And this was merely me making the most of an opportunity that had presented itself. There was no way I could get in trouble with Oz for this. No way. Probably no way.

  Gary snorted. “That wouldn’t surprise me. Burt is a snoop. He’s a goody-goody-two-shoes. Always ready to drop you in it unless you have something better to offer. You said he asked you out?” Gary clicked his tongue at me. “Maybe he just wants you alone so he can blackmail you. I’m a much better bet.” Gary flashed me a grin.

  “Prove it.”

  “Right here? Now? That’s my kind of girl.” Gary checked over his shoulder and then stepped forward.

  “No!” I exclaimed and held up my hand to stop him from getting any closer. “I meant tell me something about Lily.”

  Gary licked his lips. “You’re such a tease. I love it.”

  “Focus.”

  He shrugged. “She was having an affair with someone she shouldn’t have been.”

  “Pretty sure that’s the definition of ‘affair’,” I mumbled. “Do you know who with?”

  “Yep. Meet me later and I’ll let you tease it out of me.”

  “Okay,” I agreed with a nod. Oz had said to go to work and come home without doing anything illegal. He’d mentioned nothing about going back out afterwards to do something illegal. So, technically, I was doing what he’d asked.

  “Great.” Gary’s grin almost split his face into two. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t last when I turned up with Sabrina, her stun gun and my pepper spray to “tease” the information out of him. “You’ve got my number. Call me later so we can arrange.”

  I forced my face into a smile. “Will do.”

  “Oh! This is for you.” Gary handed me a letter. “You were getting me sidetracked.”

  “I thought you were a nurse.” I took the letter and turned it over in my hands. The envelope was bare of anything but my name. I’d learned that good news did not come in that type of envelope.

  “I am but if you request visitation, a tour or anything that requires approval, we usually deal with it in house.”

  “Ohhh,” I said, opening the envelope and finding another visitor’s pass inside. Sabrina worked fast! Although did we still need something of Katie’s? Summoning her still did make the most sense. Maybe now Alex was sort of fully on our team he could get something of Katie’s. Yes, we could have Alex smuggle an item that belong to a crazy, possibly murderous, escapee mental patient out of a mental asylum rather than me go back inside and do it. That was definitely my preference.

  “So, you’ll be coming back to visit us?” he asked and then grinned. “Great. If you’re nice to me later maybe I’ll buy you lunch while you’re there.”

  “Wow, that sounds really special,” I said, giving him my most professional smile and returning my focus to my assignment sheet.

  “Actually, I’m about to take a quick break. I don’t suppose you fancy keeping my company?”

  I held up my assignment sheet. “Time specific assignments, remember? Sorry.”

  “I’ll just wait until later then,” he said, licking his lips as he looked me over before tunnelling away.

  I shuddered as I turned back to check my cereal was correctly positioned. How could someone be so sleazy but simultaneously likeable? I opened my mouth to shout for Anna and then closed it again. Did I really need to hurry that reunion along? She’d come back and find me in a minute. The woman was like a mosquito.

  I was browsing the boxes of cereal in glorious peace when Gary popped up in front of me again. I was about to explain that I didn’t have time to talk but there was something about the slack expression on his face that caused the words to get stuck in my throat. He reached out a hand to me and stumbled forward. I dropped my clipboard and reached out to catch him. He was too heavy. His legs gave out and I couldn’t hold him up. He flopped to the floor, trapping my feet between his side and the floor. I shuffled back to free my feet.

  And then I saw the bloody mess that was the back of his head.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I spun around in case whoever had used his head as batting practice had followed him and tried to treat me to the same brutality. I looked for my clipboard to use as the most basic of weapons but Gary had fallen on it. I dropped to the floor with my back to the opposite shelves and blew Oz’s whistle.

  Oz appeared in under five seconds. He took in the scene, pulled me to my feet and checked me over. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said.

  “Where’s Anna?”

  “She’s looking for cereal,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I had to move a box of cereal but someone took the aisle signs down so we split up to look for the cereal aisle.”

  Oz took a quick look at Gary and then turned back to me. “What’s your next assignment?”

  “What? Why?” I asked.

  “Because you’re going to carry on with your day and pretend this didn’t happen. Just go and find Anna and carry on with your day.” Oz lifted my arms as if searching me while he spoke.
“Where’s your clipboard with your assignments on it?”

  I shook my head, staring at poor Gary’s prone form. “We can’t just leave him.”

  “Bridget?” Oz stood directly in front of Gary’s body and took my face in his hands. “You can’t keep finding bodies. This isn’t flying below the radar. We have a chance to get out of the way of this so let’s do that, okay?”

  “But—”

  “Bridget,” Oz said, his voice soothing and calm. “Where’s your clipboard?”

  I pointed around Oz to the corner of the clipboard poking out from under Gary’s hip. “Under dead Gary.”

  Oz cursed. He let go of my face. It felt oddly cold without the warmth of his hands. He crouched by Gary and tugged at the clipboard.

  “I hope you’re not tampering with evidence, Officer Salier,” Officer Leonard spoke from the end of the aisle. How did he get here so fast? Was he following me? Or Gary? Or Oz?

  “I was retrieving Bridget’s assignment sheet,” Oz said, waving the clipboard at Officer Leonard. “She was worried that she’d get into trouble if anyone saw it. Her assignments are supposed to be confidential, after all.”

  “But she wasn’t worried about the dead nurse?” Officer Leonard asked.

  “Of course she was,” Oz said and moved to stand in front of me as Officer Leonard walked slowly along the aisle toward us.

  Officer Leonard crouched down over dead Gary and inspected his head wound. “What was he doing here, Ms Sway?”

  I hesitated. Oz turned to look at me with an expression that said please let it be nothing illegal. Even Officer Leonard looked up from the body at my pause.

  “He was delivering a visitor’s pass to Mendall Asylum,” I said. I didn’t even need to look at Oz to know that I was in trouble.

  “Did you know about this, Officer Salier?” Officer Leonard asked.

  “Of course,” Oz said, looking Officer Leonard in the eye while he lied to him.

  “And who was she visiting?” Officer Leonard asked.

  “Alex Monroe. We’d discussed it and decided that it would be good for them to clear the air properly before he was released,” Oz said.