Retool, p.9
Retool, page 9
part #12 of The Last Picks Series
“What did she get wrong?” I said.
“No comment,” Steven mumbled, still shaking his head. He dropped his shoulder to force his way between us. “Leave me alone.”
I slid off the stool, but Bobby held out a hand. “He’s too wound up. Let him go; we’ll hit him again after he’s had a chance to stew.”
“Bobby, that’s diabolical.”
He shrugged, but his eyes tracked Steven as he left the bar, and he turned to follow him through the windows: Steven a bent, huddled figure, as though he were fighting against a headwind. And then he passed out of sight.
“Don’t look now,” Bobby muttered, “but I think we’re on Candid Camera.”
It took a lot of willpower not to start rubbernecking.
“South corner behind us,” Bobby said. “You can see him in the mirror.”
Since I had no idea which direction was south, I checked both corners.
And there was Julian, recording us on his phone.
“What in the world?” I said.
“Great question.”
“Should I talk to him—” I began to ask, but my phone buzzed.
I checked it and saw a number I didn’t recognize. I showed it to Bobby, who said, “Answer it.”
(This is why I keep him around.)
“Dash,” Thatcher said, and his voice was strange. Wrong. The words tumbled out too fast. “Someone attacked Charlie.”
Chapter 11
Charlie had a semi-private room at Klikamuks General Hospital. It had walls in a soothing neutral that wasn’t quite brown and wasn’t quite gray. It had big windows to let in the light. It had a whiteboard with a note that said MANDY and then some scribbled reminders—I was guessing Mandy was the nurse for this shift. Gift-shop flowers—roses, lilies, lots of green filler—leaned precipitously in a vase. Charlie’s bed was near the windows. The privacy curtain was drawn around the other bed, but I could tell you one thing: whoever was in there was wearing some knockout perfume.
Charlie was propped up in the hospital bed, frailer than usual in the thin gown, and they had a bandage around their head. Dark circles ringed their eyes, and the way they held themselves suggested stiffness, maybe pain. They were clutching a stuffed animal—an otter—to their chest. It looked like it had come from the gift shop too. But Charlie’s eyes were open, and they smiled at us.
“Mr. Dane!”
“Just Dash,” I said. “Charlie, thank God you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you?”
Thatcher was leaning against the windows, beanie pulled low, brooding like the troubled young artist that he was. “They could have been killed.”
AJ—busily typing on a tablet—glanced up and said, “The doctor said Charlie has to stay overnight for observation, but she thinks Charlie will be fine.”
“The murderer did this,” Thatcher said. “The killer. They knew we were investigating, and they tried to stop us. This is it: when we look into the jaws of death and, in the final instant, know the real meaning of life.”
Bobby squeezed my shoulder. “I’m going to call the sheriff.”
I nodded as I sank into a seat next to Charlie’s bed.
“Staring at my friend in the hospital bed,” AJ read from the tablet, “I realized it could have been me. In a way, it was me. I was as much a victim as Charlie.” She tapped her lips. “I think I’m going to talk about how my grandpa died.”
“AJ, you’re not as much a victim as Charlie,” I snapped. “Nothing happened to you. You’re fine.” I turned to Thatcher. “You didn’t stare into the jaws of death. Charlie did. And button up your shirt before all your chest hair falls out.”
(I don’t think that’s actually a thing, but I was on a roll. And Thatcher did button up his shirt—most of the way.)
“I’m fine, Mr. Dane,” Charlie said. When I held up a finger, they smiled and said, “Mr. Dash.”
It was a compromise I was willing to take. Settling into my seat, I said, “What happened? What were you doing? And did all of you somehow miss the part where I told you not to investigate?”
“When life’s sun begins to set,” Thatcher said, “a man only has one person to answer to—”
But the words dried up when I turned toward him.
“We’re writers too,” AJ said. “Did you stop when people told you not to investigate?”
This was how parents felt, I decided. It was also why—if I could ever trick Bobby into having kids—he would be in charge of all the parental conversations. The best response I could come up with was “I know what I’m doing.”
(Which might not have been precisely true.)
“Did you see who did this?” I asked Charlie.
They gave a miserable shake of their head.
“A glimpse? Or an impression—even something that might seem vague, like they were tall, or they moved fast?”
Charlie adjusted the blanket across their lap. “I don’t remember anything; it’s all a blank.” They sounded like they were on the brink of tears when they added, “I’m sorry.”
“Show him,” Thatcher said and kicked AJ’s chair.
AJ glanced at the door. Bobby had shut it behind him. Slowly, she drew a rectangle of folded paper out of her pocket and handed it to me.
I unfolded it. It was several sheets of paper that appeared to be a printout of a Wikipedia article. The title was Murder of Robert Kessler. I scanned the short summary at the top:
The Robert Kessler murder took place at the Snitches and Stitches Conference in October 2009. Kessler, editorial director of Langstaff and Lock, was found dead in his hotel room by literary agent Margaux Mendez. According to the coroner’s office, Kessler died from a blow to the head. Writer Simona Wolf was convicted for first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. Celebrity mystery writer Vivienne Carver, who was attending the conference, assisted police with their investigation into the murder. The Robert Kessler case was Carver’s seventeenth public case. Carver went on to describe the case in her book Dropped Stitches, which was an instant New York Times bestseller—
I stopped there. “What is this?”
“It’s a Wikipedia article—” Thatcher began.
“I know what it is,” I said. “I meant, where did you find it?”
“We all had a copy,” AJ said. “Charlie made the connection.”
“But whoever attacked me took my copy,” Charlie said. “I don’t even know why—it’s all on the internet.”
I wanted to rub my eyes, but instead, I found them falling back to the article. “Why? Why this case out of all the ones Vivienne solved?”
Thatcher rubbed his chin. AJ pursed her lips.
“We took a picture of Mr. Graeme’s list of Vivienne’s one-on-ones,” Charlie said. “I pretended to fall down, and Thatcher started yelling, and AJ took it right off his clipboard.”
A sparrow fluttered at the window as though peeking in.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“But he didn’t notice,” Charlie said, “because then AJ put it back.”
“What did you not understand about don’t investigate—”
“We googled all the names on the list,” AJ said, “and guess what? This Wikipedia page popped up.”
I had to take a centering breath. “Which name?”
“I think this should be a moment of self-awareness when you acknowledge that we have every bit as much of a right as you—”
“Which name?”
AJ clutched her tablet. “Whitney Smith.”
I didn’t recognize the name, so I scanned the article until I found the longer summary, which listed key people in the investigation. Vivienne was there, of course, and a longer description of Kessler that didn’t add much, and a section on Simona Wolf, who was—according to the article—a rising star in the world of literary crime fiction. Margaux didn’t receive any further treatment aside from that mention. Whitney Smith was there too, listed as one of Simona’s friends, but as I started to read the paragraph about her, Thatcher spoke again.
“I tried to read one of her books,” he said in the tone of a twentysomething who has figured it all out. “But I didn’t care for the prose.”
“She’s got to be the killer,” AJ said. “She’s here.”
“But why would she kill Vivienne?” I said.
“Because she wants revenge!” Thatcher shouted. And then, lamely, “Or something.”
That seemed like a fantastic example of jumping to conclusions, but, on the other hand, what did I know?
“And someone didn’t want anyone else to know about this,” AJ said. “That’s why they had to stop Charlie.”
I almost pointed out that they hadn’t stopped Charlie—they hadn’t even managed to get rid of the Wikipedia article. But now didn’t seem like the time.
“Where did you find Charlie?” I said. “You’d better tell me the rest of it.”
Thatcher and AJ exchanged a look.
“We were going to meet up at AJ’s car,” Thatcher said. “When we got there—” He stopped, and for a moment, the Hemingwayesque bravado drained out of him until he was so pale I thought he was going to pass out.
“Charlie had been hurt,” AJ said softly. And then she squeezed Charlie’s hand. “So, we called nine-one-one.”
Before I could ask another question, Bobby poked his head into the room. “Can I talk to you?”
In the hall, Bobby’s expression was grim as he shut the door—and, I noticed, he didn’t say anything until he was sure it was shut.
“I’ve got to go; the sheriff called me in. But I don’t want to—”
“No, Bobby, go. I’ll be fine. Is everything okay?”
He shook his head. “I know you’re not going to go home, but please, Dash—please be careful. This is getting dangerous.” It must have cost him a lot to add, “I could tell the sheriff I’m not available—”
“Don’t do that. I’ll be safe. I’ll be smart.”
Bobby nodded unhappily.
“What happened?” I asked.
He drew a deep breath and said, “That’s the thing: Steven Block is dead.”
Chapter 12
Unfortunately, Bobby didn’t have any, you know, useful information to add after that little revelation. All he knew—and what he told me—was that some Arcadia students had spotted Steven in the creek and called for campus security.
After Bobby left, I said goodbye to the ducklings and made my way to the Jeep. I got in. And then I sat there for a while.
I’d hardly known Steven. I wasn’t his friend. But he’d seemed like a decent person, a person who loved books and stories, and one who had taken a real tumble in life. And while he hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with the incriminating details, he’d been a human being, with his own hopes and fears, and now he was dead. I didn’t want to pretend I was devastated. I wasn’t trying to manufacture grief. But there was a certain…heaviness.
He'd fallen in the creek and drowned.
Maybe.
It was awful, yes. It was also convenient.
I mean, an hour before, I’d been talking to Steven in the conference center bar. He’d been drinking steadily, that much was obvious. But he hadn’t been drunk. Not fall-down, blackout drunk. And I got the feeling that heavy drinking wasn’t anything new for Steven. I suppose it was possible that he’d taken a spill, rolled down into the creek, and been unable to get out—because he was disoriented, or because he hit his head, or for some other reason. But I couldn’t buy it.
I needed to get back to campus to see if I could find out anything about what had happened to Steven. And I needed to track down this mystery author, Whitney Smith. And—
And I’d promised Keme I’d go to his surf competition.
Okay, I told myself. Priorities: Keme first.
Then, straight back to investigating.
As I reversed out of the parking stall, my phone buzzed with a call from my parents. I sent it to voicemail, but a moment later, it started to buzz again.
My shoulders sagged. I groaned. I melted into the seat—and then sat up straight so I could turn out of the parking lot. My parents are Jonny Dane (of the Talon Maverick, shoot-first-ask-questions-later series) and Patricia Lockley (of such mind-bending titles as The Dermabrasionist, The Girl in the Byre, and We All Have Amnesia.) They had a charming habit of simultaneously neglecting me and meddling in my life, and now was not the time.
“I’m busy,” I said as I answered the phone.
“Hello to you too,” my mom said. “I understand you’ve killed Vivienne again.”
“I didn’t—”
“Hey, Dash!” That was my dad. “Great news!”
“It’s not great news!”
“About the TV show.”
“What? How did you hear about that?”
“Hugo,” my mom said. “This is how I have to find out my son is a murder suspect and has been offered a major rights deal: from his best friend and collaborator.”
“Okay, in the first place, Hugo is not my best friend. I don’t have a best friend.”
(Oh my God, did I not have a best friend? If I did, was it Keme?)
“You don’t?” my dad said. “Why not?”
“Because this isn’t second grade,” I snapped. “And in the second place, how does Hugo know about Vivienne? Or the show? Or anything? And in the third place, why are you talking to Hugo at all?”
“We always talk to Hugo,” my mom said.
“What does that mean?”
“You want me to get him on the call?” my dad said. “Hold on. Patricia, how do you do a three-way with this thing?”
If you’ve never heard your parents use that expression before, let me tell you: it’s a choice experience. (By choice, I mean the stuff nightmares are made of.)
“Do not get Hugo on this call,” I said.
“He said Millie told him,” my mom said.
A series of beeps interrupted her.
“Jonny—” my mom said.
More beeps.
“Oh my God,” I moaned.
“I don’t even know if you can do a three-way on here.”
“Can everyone please stop?” I asked (it was kind of a moan again). “Dad, whatever you’re doing, knock it off. And is literally everyone talking to Hugo behind my back? Mom, I forbid you from talking to him.”
My mom laughed like that was the funniest thing she’d heard all day.
“We called to make sure you’re okay—” my dad said.
“I’m fine. Don’t come out here. I don’t need any help.”
(Sometimes it pays to be preemptive.)
In a slightly less enthusiastic voice, my dad continued, “—and to say congratulations about the offer. We’re not trying to overstep or interfere with your business—”
“Heaven forbid,” my mother said in the martyred tone of every mother everywhere.
“—but if you have any questions, we’d love to help. I’ve gone through this a few times with Talon Maverick, and your mom has had a ton of her books optioned. Oh, and Phil said he’d be happy to look over the contract with you—strictly as a family friend. I know you said you don’t want him as your agent.”
To be fair, I had said that—but did I still feel that way? As far as agents went, Phil was good, and I hadn’t been able to find one on my own. I didn’t necessarily have to decide now; if I did ask him to look at the deal, there’d probably be an implicit expectation that I’d eventually ask him to represent me, but he was a family friend, and there wouldn’t be an obligation.
“Okay,” I said. “I guess.”
“You don’t sound excited,” my mom said.
“It’s a big step,” I said. “I need to think about it.”
“Dash, these things are long, complicated processes,” my dad said. “Lots of moving parts. Usually, the project never ends up being made. You always take the money when they offer it, though, as long as the terms are good.”
“Right,” I said. “That makes sense.”
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” my mom said.
“Sorry, I’m driving. Gotta go.”
Were they right? Should I take the money, even if I wasn’t precisely excited about the whole idea? Unless Phil told me that the offer was a complete rip-off, the consensus seemed to be that the smart thing, the responsible thing, the career-minded thing would be to jump at the opportunity.
So, yeah. I thought about that as I drove the rest of the way to the college on autopilot.
Where I then proceeded to waste the day.
It didn’t feel like a waste at first. I found the spot along the creek where Steven had been found—not difficult, since it was swarming with law enforcement and taped off. I tried to talk to the sheriff, but she was too busy. I tried checking in with Bobby for more information, but he told me he couldn’t talk right then. I tried chatting up the other deputies, but Salk said I should probably go back to the conference, and Deputy Winegar spat on the ground—missing my Mexico 66s by about an inch—and told me to, quote, move along.
The sheer ingratitude.
As you might imagine, another death at a conference full of mystery writers drew a significant crowd—most of whom had pens and notebooks at the ready to jot down every little procedural tidbit for future reference. One industrious little guy had balanced his laptop on his friend’s back and was typing manically. Two women were frantically trying to fix their hair, checking themselves in their phone cameras, clearly preparing to record.
That was when the sheriff moved the perimeter of the scene farther out.
Lots of squawking. Lots of complaining. Frequent use of the words that’s not fair. One author, a balding, bespectacled man who must have been boiling inside his sweater vest, absolutely refused to move no matter what Salk tried. And Salk—who is basically the sweetest guy in existence—looked like he was about to give the guy an atomic wedgie.
It was so different from Vivienne’s death—Vivienne’s had happened at night, and it had been sequestered to the grotto, where the sheriff had been able to control access. But more than that, Vivienne’s death had been frightening, a shock. A second murder was, apparently, old hat.
Which got me thinking.
