Page 18 of Always Murder (The Last Picks #9)

The cottage was barely visible from the street, even though the day had reached eye-watering brightness. In part, that was because of all the brush growing where a front yard should have been—several bushes in the mix clearly had aspirations of becoming trees. And in part it was because of the house’s color. If they ever started making a lime-flavored Laffy Taffy, I thought, that’s what it would look like. But the mailbox had the right number on it, and although the cottage looked old, it also looked well-maintained. There was no clutter, no trash, no weeds. The driveway had been freshly swept.

I parked the Pilot and began searching for a front door. A worn concrete walk forked off from the driveway, and after pushing my way through most of a rhododendron, I found myself in front of the porch.

(Also lime green, in case you were wondering.)

With the brush screening the sounds from the street, the silence thickened. No sounds filtered out from the house. I knocked, and the thud of my knuckles against the wood seemed smaller than it should have.

The door flew open.

It took me about half a second to swallow my scream. Then I settled for a glare.

Three was one of those middle-aged guys who never actually look middle-aged. He was White, a little taller than me, and he typically dressed in what might best be described as gay chic. Today, that meant pointy black boots, tight black jeans, a boxy black blazer, and a T-shirt that said HIGHLY FUNCTIONING INTROVERT. (Yes, the T-shirt was also black.) He wore little steel-rimmed glasses that somehow looked cool and futuristic, and his fade was so tight, I was pretty sure barbers wept when he passed them on the street.

“Oh. Hey, Dash.” Three glanced past me—although what he thought he might see, with all those bushes in the way, wasn’t clear to me. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m sorry to drop in like this. I needed to ask you something in person.”

Three’s eyebrows went up. And then they went up some more. “I thought—I mean, I assumed—you and Bobby—”

It was actually a little insulting.

“Not that,” I said. The relief on his face was even more insulting, so I rushed ahead with “I had a question about your package that got stolen the other day.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. Wait, did somebody get murdered?”

“This freaking town,” I said, only partially under my breath. “No, Three. I just wanted to ask you about it. Could you tell me what got stolen?”

“That’s what’s so annoying; it was only a book. I mean, it’s going to be an inconvenience to get it again, and I’ll have to wait. Meanwhile, I hope that guy who took it is excited to read the thirty-seventh volume in a gay manga about a werewolf who can only eat fish and a sushi chef who can only walk backward.”

“I—” But then the summary caught up to me. “What?”

“It’s so good!”

“Uh huh. I don’t suppose you know if the package had anything on the outside that might make it appear valuable.”

“No, it was your standard padded envelope. I’ve never had anything happen like this before; I mean, people can’t even see my porch from the street.”

I gave another look over my shoulder. Three was right. I hadn’t been able to see the porch until I’d gotten past the rhododendron. That didn’t necessarily mean anything; if whoever was stealing these packages had been watching Paul’s live streams, then they wouldn’t have been operating like an ordinary porch pirate, and so the cover provided by the bushes wouldn’t have made any difference. The same was true if this was some kind of inside job through CPF. If nothing else, it reinforced my suspicion that this wasn’t chance and it wasn’t run-of-the-mill package theft—but I suppose the attack on Paul had already confirmed that.

I was still trying to decide if what Three had told me was actually helpful when Three said, “I’ve got to be honest, it’s been kind of scary.” With a sheepish grin, he reached through the door and brought out a curling iron. “Home defense. I can’t get over the fact that this guy walked right up to me in the middle of the day. I like my privacy, but the fact that nobody even saw it happen is making me think maybe I should trade some privacy for some safety.”

It took me that long to process what he’d said. “Wait, you saw the thief?”

Three considered me. “I thought that’s why you were here.”

“What happened?”

“I was off that day, doing stuff around the house. You know how exciting it is when one of your favorite series has a new book come out? So, I was kind of waiting for the delivery. And it’s not like I get a lot of people coming up to my door, so when I heard someone on the porch, I knew that’s what it was. I went outside, and I picked up the envelope. And then this crazy Santa came charging out from behind the blackberry bush.”

“Santa?”

“The hat, the suit, the whole thing.”

“Okay. What happened next?”

“He ran straight up onto the porch and grabbed the envelope. I was still in shock. I tried to hold on, but he shoved me, and I stumbled and let go. Then he ran off.”

A million questions raced through my head. “What did he look like?”

“Santa,” Three said miserably. “I keep trying to see his face, but he had one of those big fake beards.”

“White, Black?”

“White, I’m pretty sure.”

“How big was he?”

That got me an even more miserable shrug. “I mean, I think I thought he was big. But that was probably the suit. When I try to think back—I don’t know. It all happened so fast.”

I nodded, but I was trying to make sense of what he’d told me. Why risk an assault—in broad daylight, for that matter—for a gay manga? Why risk an assault at all? The whole point of package theft was that it was supposed to be low risk. That’s why so many porch pirates pretended to have a legitimate reason for being on the property: in case they got spotted, they’d have an easy out. Dressing up like Santa and wrestling a delivery out of someone’s hands wasn’t just dumb, it sounded like—

It sounded—if I were being totally honest—like the kind of thing Ryan would do.

I dragged my attention back to the conversation. “Did you report this to the sheriff?”

Three shook his head.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I don’t know. At first, I was in shock. And then I was kind of embarrassed—I mean, he took it right out of my hands. I know I should have reported it, but…I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I finally decided I’d report it missing to the delivery company. Because it was missing. And they’ve got insurance for that kind of thing.”

“I think you should call the sheriff now. I get it, Three—it’s scary when something like that happens, and it makes you feel vulnerable, and I understand wanting to move on with your life. But if you don’t report it, the sheriff can’t do anything about it.”

He fiddled with his glasses and then sighed. “Now it’s going to be even more embarrassing.”

“It really won’t be. Everyone knows how it feels.”

Three glanced off into the distance, his expression tight.

“You’ll call it in?”

“Yes, Dash.”

“Thanks. I can stay with you if you want.” A thought occurred to me. “Actually, I might take a look around while you make the call. Can you show me where he was hiding?”

“The big blackberry bush right there.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Grimacing, Three nodded as he took out his phone.

As I stepped down from the porch, Three began to speak into the phone, his voice low and chagrined. In summer, the blackberry bush was probably pretty—green and full of life and bursting with berries. But in December, it looked like something that you’d find in a video game set on an alien planet: brown, twisty and creepy, and surprisingly dangerous looking. I had to give it to the thief—it was so dense that I couldn’t see through to the other side, and so it provided good cover.

I circled around it. A few winter weeds rustled underfoot. Twigs snapped. Branches scraped against my coat. I wasn’t exactly a master of woodsmanship, but even I had enough sense to decide this wasn’t exactly a great spot if you wanted the element of surprise. You had cover, sure, but as soon as you started to move, someone would have heard you. But then, dressing in bright red velour wasn’t anybody’s idea of camouflage either (except, possibly, Mr. Cheek, who would probably have considered red velour a bit toned down). As a disguise, it had been effective, but it was almost like whoever had stolen Three’s package had wanted to be—

Under a tangle of brittle canes, a rectangle of white caught the thin, cloudy daylight. It had the sheen of plastic, and it looked new—or new ish. Not something that had been lost and forgotten and left out here for years, deteriorating from exposure.

I told myself to stop. I told myself to think about what I was doing. I was probably ruining footprints. I was probably compromising trace evidence. Maybe Santa’s suit had gotten snagged, and the sheriff might have been able to match the fibers to his cap, except now I was violating the integrity of the crime scene.

On the other hand, I was here, and the deputies weren’t.

I crouched and worked one hand under the blackberry bush. Even though I was trying to be careful, I quickly found out the thorns were as sharp as they looked—they scratched the back of my hand and caught on my sleeve. Then my fingers touched cold plastic, and I reversed the process, acquiring several more scratches along the way.

It was the shape and size of a credit card, but thinner. It reminded me of when I’d first opened a checking account, and the credit union had made me a temporary debit card to use until the real one came in the mail.

When I flipped it over, it said PIRATE’S COVE in big, pirate-y letters. I’d seen these before. Keme had used one the other day—that’s how he’d paid for our laser tag passes. The modern version of the arcade. You didn’t carry around a bucket of tokens anymore. No more trying to get a tired five-dollar bill into a change machine. You loaded money onto one of these cards, and you were ready to go.

At the bottom of the card, it said PAUL NAUGHT.

My first, clearest thought was: why hadn’t I worn gloves?

And my second wasn’t even words. It was just that sensation of your stomach plummeting.

With my non-bleeding hand, I worked my phone out of my pocket and called Bobby. He answered on the first ring.

“Mr. Intuition,” he said.

It was a strange response. And his voice was strange, too. But those details only registered peripherally, and I said, “Bobby, I—”

“I don’t know how you found out. I probably don’t want to know. But yes, we caught him. I was about to call you.”

For what felt like a long half second, my brain tried to catch up. “You caught him?”

“The porch pirate, Elliott. We impounded his car because it was illegally parked, and when we did the inventory search, we found a Santa suit and several recently stolen packages. The sheriff just arrested him.”