Strangled by simile, p.6
Strangled by Simile, page 6
Her cell phone sat on the driver’s seat, and she moved it over to sit inside her car. “Siri, call Leslie.”
Emma listened to Leslie’s message again. “Congratulations, you’ve reached me. Now speak, and maybe I’ll call you back.”
She waited for the beep. “Now come on, lady! Where are you? I ditched my sweet honey, Hunter, because you took off like a bat outta hell, and now I can’t find you. I guess I’ll be forced to wander the streets until I do, and you know you can’t hide that fancy convertible for long.” Blowing her breath out in a whoosh, she drove by Leslie’s amazing Mediterranean-style stucco house. Olive-green awnings shaded the windows, and ivy crawled up wood trellises on either side, but it all seemed frozen—suspended in a picture frame instead of alive and on the verge of life and movement. No car in the driveway, no Leslie.
Emma drove her ancient green Honda aimlessly up and down the streets of Pinewood. Her blurry vision had cleared somewhat, but she could just be getting used to it, which scared her. She had no idea what was wrong. “Daddy, you simply would not believe what’s goin’ on here now. I’m not seein’ very well, and I don’t go to the neuro doctor until Thursday. And someone was murdered again, and I found the victim again, and oh, Daddy, then I found a clue and stole it right out from under the nose of that hulking, monosyllabic Officer Ted, and I, uh...”
Then she laughed sheepishly at herself for conversing with her late father. “Oh, well, Daddy. At least I know you’ll keep all my secrets, right? Just between you and me and the crisp fall air.” The Honda almost navigated itself as she returned both hands to the ten and two position, like he’d taught her at age fourteen, when they’d practiced up and down the farthest back streets of Old State Road in Holly Hill.
The leaves on the trees along Aspen Street were still holding on to their branches, and Emma could appreciate their burnished oranges and reds as she continued toward the outskirts of Pinewood. Their vibrant fall colors couldn’t hide the red convertible parked on the right side of the road as Emma parked behind it. It sat in front of a lemon-yellow double-wide trailer perched way back from the road, and Emma took care getting out of the car and walking the path because she didn’t want to trip.
Overgrown, tangled weeds covered the path like a stern warning to stay away then cleared in a precisely cut square of land surrounding the little trailer. As Emma reached the door, she noticed the trimmed grass and bright flowerboxes perched outside the windows and a bicycle leaning against the yellow side. The small American flag strapped to the corner of the metal basket behind the seat was the only clue she needed.
“Halloooo?” she called as she knocked on the door. “Leslie? Mr. Brookside?” Leaning over to try and peek into the window, Emma squealed as the door flew open, and Leslie’s hands popped out and dragged her inside.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re nosy as hell, Grasshoppah?” Leslie held Emma’s shoulders to steady her then pushed her down onto a small orange couch to the left of the door.
Between the yellow house and the orange couch, Emma felt like she’d entered a large citrus fruit. David Brookside, aka Speedo Man, sat shirtless at a small round table in the trailer’s tiny kitchen. Though Emma couldn’t see behind the table, she had no doubt he wore the infamous American flag speedo. She could see his sandaled feet peeking from underneath, though, and some part of her brain registered that it was autumn but not yet cold enough for Speedo Man to put on sheepskin boots.
“Good afternoon, Emma,” Speedo Man said.
David. Mr. Brookside.
“I’m so sorry about the death of your colleague.” His voice was warm and gravelly, almost James Earl Jones-esque. It was very disconcerting coming out of a skinny, long-haired man in a swimsuit. “I certainly hope your bad luck in that department hasn’t made you sour on Pinewood. T’would be such a shame.”
“Oh no, sir, Mr. Brookside. I love it here.”
He chuckled. “I’ve told you. The ‘Mr. Brookside’ doesn’t go with my wardrobe at all. Call me David.”
Leslie sat down in the seat opposite him. “I came to ask him about the scarf.” She knocked on the table, tap-tap. “It was in that pile of my old stuff I told you about in the teacher’s lounge—remember? I wanted to find David and see if he’d been able to use any of it.”
“Scarf?” Emma asked, confused.
“The pink scarf. The one you said was used to strangle Charlie.” Leslie shook her head. “You really, really need to get to the doctor—I’m worried about you. ‘Had you been there, I think you would have begged the ring of me to give the worthy doctor.’”
“The Merchant of Venice!” David sat back and looked pleased with himself.
“Totally.” Leslie smiled. “I knew I liked something about you besides your blatant individualism. That’s Bassanio, and it really doesn’t apply to my overflowing mountains of worry about Emma or to Emma’s vision problems at all. It was the only one I could think of that used the word doctor.”
She guided Emma from the couch over to the table and sat her down in the same chair as she was using because there were only two. Emma wasn’t sure about Leslie’s tiny butt, but hers dangled halfway over the side of the chair.
“I know you told me when you found Charlie’s body that a pink scarf was the murder weapon, but until you said a pink scarf with turquoise flowers, I didn’t realize it was my scarf. It was in the pile I gave David last month,” Leslie said.
A sudden and electric tension rippled through Emma’s body. Leslie gave the murder weapon to Speedo Man? Then why are we sitting here alone in his house on the outskirts of town? She shifted her weight, nearly pitching off the chair as another thought struck her. The murder weapon was Leslie’s scarf? Leslie couldn’t have murdered Charlie... could she? I know they fought like cat shoes and dog dresses, but... She hitched a breath. Leslie was her best friend, a terrific person with a heart of gold. Certainly, a snark-filled, smart aleck heart of gold, but she could never kill anybody, not even Charlie.
Emma mentally catalogued the contents of her purse. The pink stun gun was still at Hunter’s—she’d meant to have him bring it to Durango Bagels. “Um, Leslie? Could I speak to you in private for a minute? Could you excuse us briefly, Mr.—David?” She stood and tried to pull Leslie up with her.
Leslie yanked her back down. “I know what you’re thinking. Calm down, Grasshoppah.” She gestured to Speedo Man. “Go ahead, David. Tell her. What did you do with my scarf?”
David mournfully hung his head. “I gave it away. All of the things Leslie so generously gave me, I couldn’t use any of it. I could’ve maybe tied that pink scarf around my sneakers, but it was an Hermes! Much too nice to be flapping around my wheel spokes.”
Emma couldn’t help but believe the sweet Speedo Man. He exuded an air of trustworthiness that was almost palpable.
“And to whom did you give it away, Mr. Brookside?” Leslie placed her fists on her hips in a posture that seemed to say See? See what kinds of craziness we find ourselves enmeshed in? But then she reached over and patted David on the knee, encouraging him to continue.
David rapped his knuckles on the table, emulating Leslie. “I gave it to a couple of kids from the football team. They were doing some sort of clothing drive for the Good Will and raising funds for the team simultaneously.” He hung his head again. “I didn’t have any money to give to their fundraiser, but I thought, since I couldn’t use the things you gave to me... I’m so sorry, Leslie! I can’t believe someone used your scarf to murder someone!” David spread his fingers out over the table like he might be able to reach out and grab the scarf back before it could be put to evil use.
He could be lying. TJ High has fundraisers like that all the time, and since he’s there regularly for the adult literacy program now, he’d have had opportunities. Emma tried to think. Though Speedo Man exuded trust, she didn’t really know him, and her heart still beat rapidly from the realization that the two other people in the room had a history with the murder weapon.
But Leslie was her best friend, and David had never been associated with anything negative or violent. Somebody who had so little and still spent his time volunteering to teach adults to read, well, that didn’t strike Emma as a murderer. But she’d been surprised before, so she tabled the thought for the time being, still keeping her guard up.
“Did you know the football players, David?” Emma asked.
“No, but I don’t really follow sports,” he said. “They were big kids, strapping, and kind of like opposite sides of the same hulking coin—the one was all surfer-boy blond, and the other one brooding and dark.”
Emma looked at Leslie. Sounds to me like Gino and Sawyer, her eyes said. The ones who maybe, possibly, threatened to kill Charlie when I heard them behind the stage curtains. “Did the dark-haired kid look Hispanic?”
David nodded. “Latino or Spanish, sure.”
Looks like we’d better go find Gino and Sawyer and ask them some questions, Leslie’s eyes responded. “Don’t worry, David. I’m glad you found some other use for the items I gave you if they wouldn’t do any good for you. It’s not your fault one of those items was put to nefarious use. ‘The name hales them to an hundred mischiefs and makes them leave me desolate.’” She grinned. “I had to substitute the name of ‘My Hermes Scarf’ with Henry V to make that one work, but you get my drift, dontcha?”
David stood and thrust his patriotic-swimsuit-clad hip to one side like a runway model. “‘And for a name, now puts on a drowsy and neglected act, freshly on me. ’Tis surely for a name.’”
“Oooh, ooh, Measure for Measure. You’ve got it.” Leslie stood to go, nearly dumping Emma off the chair. “As soon as Emma described the scarf that killed Charlie in greater detail, I knew it was the one I gave you, David, and I was so worried something might’ve happened to you. Of course I’m aware you didn’t kill Charlie, even with that comment he made to you last week.” She brushed her hands down her pants. “Let’s go, Emma. We’ll visit again when we solve this murder because that’s what we do, right?”
“What comment?” Emma repositioned her butt so she could stand to go. “I mean, right. Of course.” I’ll ask her about that in a minute.
Leslie opened the small trailer door to let them both out just in time for a police car to screech to a stop out front, sans siren. The dust cleared, revealing Carl Niome and giant Officer Ted crouching behind their car’s open front doors, their guns peeking up over the doorframes.
“Freeze!” shouted Carl. “David Brookside, you’re under arrest for the murder of Charlie Foreman!”
“Yeah!” said Ted.
Chapter 8
Emma flung her hands to the sky, but Leslie simply cocked hers on each hip, elbows sharp with disapproval.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Leslie called from the porch. “This is not an episode of Dateline, Carl. I don’t doubt you have no adequate cause to arrest a jaywalking armadillo, much less David Brookside. Come out from behind there, and tell us why in the hell you’re all the way out here.”
“David!” Carl boomed again. “We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up.”
David held his hands sort of halfway next to his shoulders, fingertips limp, not up or down but visible. He was obviously annoyed but also didn’t want to get shot.
Carl stood from his position behind the door, gun still trained on the trailer. His thinning brown hair was ruffled, and the breeze blew one longer piece straight up. He leaned against the door, his protruding belly keeping his body from propping flush against it, and once again, Emma was unable to picture the man in any state of being that would attract Leslie, no matter how young and naïve she might’ve been.
I swear, the man would scare a buzzard off a gut pile these days. No wonder Leslie’s so impatient with him. I know she’s embarrassed.
“Listen, Carl—Ted. You’re just so wrong.” Leslie did show her hands to the officers as she moved off the porch toward the car. She wasn’t stupid. “I did give a pile of clothes to David the other week,” she said, “but he gave it all to the football clothing drive, including my scarf, which obviously you know is the murder weapon. Nothing gets past you, big guy.” She pursed her lips in distaste. Her flowy white sleeves flapped in the breeze, and Emma wondered if she was cold.
“But who told you about that?” Emma joined Leslie next to the police car. “About any of it—from Leslie’s pile of giveaways to David here?”
Speedo Man remained in his trailer doorway, shaking his hands loosely, as if trying to dry them, and keeping them visible as he watched the scene unfold.
Officer Ted rested his weapon against the door, either because he thought the threat had passed or because his wrists were getting tired. “Those other two football coaches—Norm and Andy—told us about how that guy brought the pile of clothes to the drive, and Charlie made a rude comment and, like—” He gestured to David with his gun.
Emma startled and ducked, envisioning Ted’s strong sausage finger accidentally pressing the trigger.
“That guy made a rude comment back—at least I think it was rude. Wasn’t sure ’zactly what he said. It just, like, sounded like it was prob’ly rude, ya know? We thought with all the rude comments flying around, somebody could prob’ly get themselves murdered, and so we... we...” Ted trailed off as he noticed his boss’s slashing hand gestures.
Carl glared daggers at Ted, his face turning purple as he tried to get Ted to shut his mouth.
Emma couldn’t help smiling. Guess you’re not supposed to be barfing up investigative information to any ol’ Tom, Emma, and Leslie—or Speedo Man.
“It came to our attention,” Carl said icily, “that the murder weapon was in Mr. Brookside’s possession.” He holstered his weapon, marched around the front of the car, and reached over to Ted’s gun hand, pushing it back and down. “If it was any’a your damn business to know where we came into the info, we damn good and well woulda told ya. But it ain’t.” He swiveled his evil eye back to Ted, who unsuccessfully tried to shrink himself, then again to Emma and Leslie. “So we won’t. Got it? Good.”
“Obviously, Officers,” called David from his trailer, “I should have just tied the scarf around—around something over here, the old oak tree, to quote Tony Orlando and Dawn. I’m so sorry this ended up like it did. I was just trying to help.”
“The assistant coaches—erm—I mean, the witnesses who gave us the information didn’t have a list of all the items in the bag of clothes, just that it was a bag of clothes,” Detective Niome said. “How do we know for sure the scarf was in there?”
Leslie shrugged. “You don’t. Is this uncorroborated rumor enough to arrest him?”
Niome’s face clouded, the grooves between his eyes deepening farther. “Maybe, maybe not. He just confirmed he had your scarf, though, and so did you. That’s not uncorroborated. That’s corroborated.”
Leslie shook her hands like she was flinging sludge. “My scarf that’s now been in the company of at least four people—that we know of.”
“It seems to me, Detective,” Emma said sweetly, turning up her accent, as was her specialty in times when extra convincing was needed, “you have more corroboration that it could easily be a football player who snuck that ol’ scarf out of the bag and strangled Charlie with it, a teenaged football player who maybe didn’t get enough playing time?” she wondered. “All adolescent hormones and head-cracking muscles—the strength to tear up a railroad track with rubber hammers, almost? Surely that makes more sense than that skinny man”—she gestured to David—“or that skinny woman”—she nodded toward Leslie, who looked like she was ready to offer some proof as to how strong she was then thought better of it—“havin’ the strength to strangle poor Charlie Foreman.” Emma shook her head. “You know better ’n that. You’re a much better detective than that!” She clucked. “Nobody here killed anyone.” I guess I could be tellin’ him about Sawyer at this point. I just don’t think it’d do any good. He only ever makes things worse.
“Well, I have enough to arrest any of you,” he grumbled. He gestured to each person in turn. “You because you were at the scene ‘discovering’”—he made air quotes—“Charlie’s body. You because you had the scarf and because of what he said to you, and you,” he growled at Leslie, “because you owned the scarf, and everybody knows you hated the man. Hell, I could prob’ly find a good reason to arrest my deputy here, there’s so much motive brewin’ in this field!”
Officer Ted’s mouth dropped open, but rather than argue his innocence with an angry boss, he ducked his head back in the car and sat down.
“Nobody better so much as set one little pinkie toe over the county line until I talk to Judge Cross. Ya hear me?” Carl glared at the group, slamming his palms on the top of the car. “And don’t call me Shirley!”
Leslie nodded. “Okay, Carl. No Shirley. Not one pinky toe.”
Emma curtseyed. “Yes, Chief Detective, sir. We’ll stay put.”
David made an affirmative motion from the porch. The two policemen slammed their doors and stirred up more dust peeling out.
David joined Emma and Leslie in the yard as the car faded from view. “I do think any one of those things—yours especially, Leslie—could constitute probable cause to pursue an arrest. I’m surprised he left empty-handed.”
“I’m not!” Emma chirped. “I cranked up that Southern charm, which gets people all kinda kerfuffled.” She giggled. “And everybody knows Miss Leslie here can talk a dog off a meat truck.”
Leslie swung her arms back and forth across her front and rolled her neck. “But do you think I can talk you into going to the doctor? No sirree, Bob.” Her flowy white sleeves flapped as she stretched. “Stubborn, stoic, worry-inducing... drive us all crazy—”
