Page 8 of Always Murder (The Last Picks #9)

As I drove home, I took inventory.

I had not found Paul.

Ryan had managed to sneak away before I could confront him about the conversation I’d overheard.

I was covered in evergreen needles and sap and dirt. I was cold. The fog had settled into my clothes, and even with the heater running, I couldn’t seem to shake the damp and the chill.

I had been drafted into the Naught family’s Christmas pageant.

And I was starting to seriously suspect I’d made a mistake when I’d chosen manger instead of barrel. Barrels didn’t have to hold babies. Barrels could probably close their eyes and take a quick power nap and nobody would notice.

But it was hard to hold on to all of that when I reached Hemlock House. It looked magical—trimmed in lights that Bobby had hung (while I helped by reminding him repeatedly how dangerous it was to be on a ladder), the windows varnished with a warm, yellow glow, with wreaths and bows to add a touch of holiday color. Its weird chimneys and turrets poked up like ruffled feathers, which only added to the effect, so that the house looked like something you could have plucked out of Dickensian England. (With less tuberculosis and child labor—although if you asked me and Keme, when Bobby really got going on his chore list, we could have used a little more child labor around the joint.)

Inside, the scent of coffee and the sound of voices drew me toward the servants’ dining room. Fox and Indira were sitting at the table there. Fox wore a candy striper pinafore over a whispery concoction (that’s the kind of word you use, as a writer, when you don’t know exactly what something is called) of green velvet. Their hat, which presumably completed the ensemble, sat on the table—it looked like a clock had exploded inside a giant red bird, all plumes and gears and heavy enough to cause serious damage to the cervical vertebrae. I decided I’d tell Fox about the exploding clock description later, when they needed a pick-me-up, because (I’m being one hundred percent serious) they would be thrilled. Indira, in contrast, wore an oatmeal-colored sweater that managed to look chic and fuzzy at the same time, with a pair of jeans.

I had caught them unawares, and for a moment, the two of them existed in their own world. Fox was laughing at something, and Indira wore a smile that seemed strangely…unguarded. She sat there, hands wrapped around her mug, and looked happy. Not that Indira usually looked un happy. But sometimes, it wasn’t until you saw the difference that you understood what you’d been missing.

“There he is,” Fox said and burst out laughing again.

Indira’s smile grew wider, and she ducked her head to take a sip of her coffee.

“Great,” I said. “What now?”

“Mr. Cheek was at the market,” Fox said through fits of giggles. “He said—he said—he said if Deputy Delectable was going to throw his life away with a little tart who would never be able to make him happy—that’s you, by the way—”

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “I got that part.”

“—the least Mr. Cheek could do was make sure the little tart was dressed appropriately.”

I didn’t groan. Not out loud. But I did wonder what this meant. Mr. Cheek owned Fog Belt Ladies’ Wear, and he’d had a not-so-secret crush on Bobby since, well, forever. I wasn’t worried; Bobby had laid down some, uh, clear parameters for Mr. Cheek, and when Bobby used his deputy voice, people listened. (Including me.) This new information, however, was worrisome. Not least because what came to mind, when I tried to picture Mr. Cheek’s idea of the height of male fashion, was Catwoman meets an aging Liza Minnelli. But gayer.

“How was the market?” I asked, instead of following up on that nightmare.

Indira and Fox had spent the day there; Indira made her living—from what I could tell, since she’d told me to mind my own business—from selling her baked goods at various local markets. This time of year, when a holiday market was open every day in Hastings Rock, was a windfall for her, although it also meant she was busier than ever. Fox sold some of their art at the markets, but often they did other things too—activities for children, little crafts or games. You might have thought children would find Fox off-putting, what with the exploding-clock-bird hat (or, on another memorable occasion, what could only charitably be described as a Willy Wonka suit, but with more garters). Not the case—kids loved Fox, and from what I could tell, the affection was mutual.

“Busy,” Indira said.

“Exhausting,” Fox said. “Summon a chamber boy to draw me a bath.”

Sometimes, you just had to ignore them.

But now Indira was looking at me more closely. “What happened to you?”

“I got into a fight with a pine tree,” I said.

“A pine tree is like the aging twink of the tree world,” Fox declared.

This was what I was talking about: sometimes you just had to let it flow past you.

“Are you all right?” Indira asked. “What’s going on?”

I told them about my visit to GaGa’s tree-farm-wonderland-whatever-it-was-called. I left out the conversation between Millie and Keme because I still wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I explained how I’d gone there looking for Paul, overheard Ryan’s strange conversation with a man I didn’t recognize (in a Santa suit, no less), and then lost Ryan before I could talk to him. I must have been on a roll because I even (unintentionally) told them about the Christmas pageant.

“Always pick barrel,” Fox said. “Rookie mistake.”

I nodded glumly.

“Do you really think something’s happened to Paul?” Indira asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I do think it’s strange. All of it, actually. Paul getting fired, but not seeming to care. Paul not being worried about the package thefts. And then Millie and I go to ask a few simple questions, and Paul disappears. Whatever is going on with Ryan is super strange too. Hard to believe it’s not connected.”

Indira’s eyes were unfocused as she looked out over her mug of coffee. In a distracted voice, she said, “Those two have always had a way of getting into trouble. Millie had her hands full getting them through high school.”

“Not to mention the sisters.”

Indira wasn’t one for making faces. But she did take a communicative sip of her coffee at that moment.

“Getting them through high school?” I said.

“Millie’s probably the only reason the two of them graduated,” Fox said. “Paul and Ryan, I mean.”

“Why?” I said. “I mean, I know why they needed help. They’re practically the definition of numbskulls.”

“They’re the definition of toddlers.”

“But what about Christine?”

Fox glanced at Indira, who was still peering out over her coffee, lost in thought. “Well,” Fox said slowly, “Christine is, uh, hands-on, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“I’m playing the role of a manger,” I said. “Trust me: I noticed.”

“Right, well, Christine is hands-on about her…projects.”

“The girls,” Indira said absently.

“And the girls,” Fox said. “How to put it to a young person—”

“I’m not that young,” I said.

“I know,” Fox said and mimed touching their jaw. “Your jowls.”

I squawked. (Silently.)

“Christine only sees—and hears, and talks about—” Indira said.

“And cares about,” Fox put in.

“—the things she cares about.”

“And she always gets her way.”

I thought about what I’d seen at Millie’s family dinner. And then again at the tree farm. “She does seem to be a bit of a…steamroller.”

“A bit?” Fox asked. “She was the student council president in high school—”

“Hold on, you knew Millie’s mom in high school?”

“—and I remember once, the principal at the time, Mr. Westergaard, was trying to suggest a theme for the winter dance, and Christine waited for him to finish, turned to the rest of the group, and told us what we were going to do. And it was not Mr. Westergaard’s vision of ‘An Evening in Paris.’”

“The point is,” Indira said, “Christine’s not going to be worried about Paul and Ryan until they get in the way, so to speak. Whatever her current project is, that’s what she’s focused on.”

My initial impulse was to say that she was a terrible mother. And maybe she was—I didn’t love how she’d treated Millie the few times I’d been around her. But in terms of what I’d seen so far, it didn’t seem quite so cut-and-dried. Sure, Paul hadn’t shown up to pick out the Christmas tree. But maybe Christine thought he was working. Or maybe she was used to her boys failing to show up at family events. The only reason I was worried was because I knew about the package thefts and because—let’s be real—I’d made a massive leap in logic.

“I’d say,” I said slowly, “Christine’s current focus is trying to get Kassandra and Angeline hitched.”

“I hear Angeline’s dating a lawyer,” Fox said with a grin. “The girls take after their mother, you know.”

“Oh my God, not you too.”

“Is the other one really a rock star?” Indira asked. At my surprised look, she said, “Everyone was talking about it at Krabby Kuts.”

“Well, he’d probably be offended if you said ‘rock’ instead of whatever weird music he plays. I get the impression that he’s a star the same way every teenager with a phone is an influencer.”

“Mee-aow,” Fox said.

“I guess it’s good for Christine to be so focused on those two,” I said. “I hate to think what she’d do if she didn’t have something to keep her occupied.”

Indira composed her face into smoothness.

Fox’s mouth tightened with a hint of sourness. “Keme?”

“Yeah, she does not like him. And if this is a passive effort at getting rid of him—which it kind of seems like it is—then I’d hate to see what happened when Christine brought out the big guns.”

“Did Keme—” Indira began. She stopped herself. Her hands were very still around her mug. “How is he?”

“I mean, he hasn’t tried to cut her hair while she was asleep or climbed on her back and used her ears to steer her.” (Both of which, I feel the need to add, he had done to me.) “He’s been pretty quiet, from what I can tell. Even for Keme.”

“A quiet boy without a prestigious career, without even the prospect of one, who makes zero effort to schmooze the mother,” Fox said. “If Christine weren’t trying to get those two serpents out of her nest, she’d be boiling in her own rage.”

“I think she might be doing a little boiling already,” I said. “It’s so weird. I mean, most of the time, she acts like Millie’s not even there; why does she care who Millie dates?”

“Because Christine wants to control everything,” Fox said. “And Keme doesn’t fit into her plan.”

Indira set her coffee down. “That’s not fair. People are complicated. I’m sure Christine loves Millie deeply and is worried about her. She doesn’t know Keme except for stories she’s heard around town. He’s not like the young men her other daughters bring home. I’m not saying she’s right, or that she’s acting appropriately, but she’s not a monster.”

I stared at her. “This is Keme and Millie we’re talking about.”

“I know, Dash.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I don’t want to sympathize with her as a human being. I want to talk crap and point out all her failings and pretend I’m perfect.”

As Indira stood, she patted my shoulder. “Life is full of disappointments.”

I had a response to that—something about Indira challenging Christine to pistols at dawn—but before I could say it (probably for the best), the back door opened, and Keme stepped into the house. His hair was down, wet from the fog, and where the light bent along one long, dark wave, it had an iridescent shimmer. He looked at each of us, shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, and headed into the kitchen.

We watched him go.

For a moment, in his wake, Indira’s facade cracked, and a hint of heartache showed.

Fox snapped his fingers at me and hissed.

“What am I—” I began.

“Get in there,” they whispered furiously.

It wasn’t fair. Indira was a mature, responsible, emotionally stable adult. And Fox was so much older than me.

But Fox kept staring at me. And Indira looked so sad.

I dragged myself into the kitchen.

Keme had pulled a plate of sandwiches from the fridge, and he was transferring what looked like the bulk of them to a separate plate. His shoulders were high and tight, his body rigid—pretty much all the signs that he knew I was there and was hoping I would spontaneously combust or get picked up by a tornado and dropped in Oz or, maybe ideally, drop dead on the spot.

“Hey,” I said.

He dropped a final sandwich on his plate, returned the rest of them to the fridge, and headed straight for the door. It was simultaneously defensive and combative—shoulders slumped, cradling his food, eyes fixed on something behind me, but walking with a grim determination like he was going to plow through anything, including me, that got in his way.

“I was wondering if you wanted to play Xbox—” I began.

“Move.”

Ladies and gentlemen: I moved.

He passed through the servants’ dining room, and the sound of his steps moved upstairs.

I slunk out of the kitchen. Indira was collecting mugs from the table. Her face was back in its usual impassive control. Fox was glaring at me like I’d done something wrong.

“I tried,” I protested.

“You tried,” they said scornfully.

“What did you do? You just sat there!”

“I was guarding the back door.” And then, a heartbeat too late: “And providing moral support!”

“It’s all right, Dash,” Indira said. “I’m sure he’s fine. It can be stressful, meeting a new partner’s family. And Millie’s family is close-knit and very involved. And it’s the holidays, which means lots of demands on their time. He only needs to make it through a few more days.”

Neither Fox nor I had anything to say to that.

Indira headed into the kitchen, carrying the coffee mugs. Fox rubbed their face and said, “What are you going to do now?”

“Oh, I’m definitely sending Bobby to talk to him. The last time Keme cornered me alone, he tried to stick my head in a toilet. The only reason I escaped was because Millie was laughing so hard she fell down, and Keme was so worried about her that he forgot about me.”

Fox stared at me for several long seconds.

“You meant about Paul,” I said.

“Never mind,” they said. “I don’t want to know.”

“I’m going to find Ryan tomorrow and make him tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re going to make him?” Fox got to their feet, stretched their back, and in a tone that was insultingly amused, added, “I hope he doesn’t shove you in a locker.”

As Fox sauntered into the kitchen, I called after them, “Very funny, but this isn’t high school.”

On the other hand, Ryan did seem like the type. And he and Paul were, like, always wrestling.

So, great. I had a new fear to contend with.

I went into the den and tried to write for a while. I didn’t get far; I was still trying to figure out when Will Gower would find his first dead body. (Well, I was also trying to figure out who was going to get murdered, but that seemed like something I could figure out down the road.) I didn’t make much progress, though; I couldn’t focus, and I found myself replaying the events of the day—my little bout of failed corporate espionage, learning from Luz that Paul had lied to me, and of course, the weird stuff at the tree farm. In the end, I left Will Gower where he was (brooding in his office, waiting for a client to hire him for some innocuous task), and I went upstairs to get ready for bed.

Bobby came home when I was brushing my teeth. He looked good in his khaki uniform, with his duty belt and his gun and the unmistakable air of authority, which was only slightly undermined by the fact that he’d already shed his boots and was standing there in his socks. He also looked tired, which made sense, since he’d worked sixteen hours.

“Hi,” he said and kissed my cheek.

I mumbled a hello around the toothbrush, and Bobby started changing out of his uniform.

I got a slightly longer—and more interesting—kiss when a naked Bobby padded past me to take a shower. I washed my face. I took a peek in the shower, and Bobby grinned at me before he stuck his head under the spray.

“You need to talk to Keme,” I said.

“What happened?” he asked as the water sluiced away soap.

I told him.

“Tomorrow,” Bobby said and grabbed his shampoo.

I let Bobby finish his shower, and I got in bed. I fluffed the pillows. I thought about picking up my book, and then I thought maybe I’d wait and see. I mean, there was tired and there was tired .

When a naked—and now clean—Bobby emerged from the bathroom, he took one look at me and burst out laughing. “Babe, I’m beat.”

“What? I didn’t—I wasn’t—” It was better to end on a note of outrage: “I never!”

“You never, huh?” he asked as he climbed into bed next to me.

“Never ever,” I said. I had to pause while he kissed me again, and I wondered if this was some sort of mind game—if so, I was into it. “How dare you?”

His answer was to scoot both of us around until we were lying down together, my back pressed to his chest. He did a little more wiggling. He made this sound of pure contentment that, I had to admit, raised certain ideas again.

“You had a long day,” I said, and I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed his knuckles.

“I’m going to turn into one of those hunched-over old men if I keep sitting in that cruiser,” Bobby said. “I think I need to see a chiropractor.”

“Want to go tomorrow?”

“Can’t.” A yawn interrupted him. “Salk is sick.”

I tried not to groan or moan or protest that this wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to Bobby. It wasn’t fair to anybody in the sheriff’s office, who were all pulling extra shifts. But the part I was particularly emotional about was that it wasn’t fair to me.

Keep your mouth shut, I told myself. Be supportive, I told myself. The last thing Bobby needs is someone nagging him about how much time he spends at work. And it’s not like he wants to do this.

“I know you were busy,” I said, “but did you get a chance to submit your application for the detective position?”

Bobby made a sleepy sound. “Didn’t have time.”

“When’s the deadline?”

Another, even sleepier noise.

“Bobby?”

Several seconds passed before, a little too clearly, he said, “What?”

“When’s the deadline to apply?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“That’s what I said.”

It was such a strange, un-Bobby-like thing to say. With a strange, un-Bobby-like edge. I thought I could feel the tension in his body, but then I realized I couldn’t tell because I was so tense.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought you wanted to apply.”

Bobby’s breathing changed. After several seconds, he rolled onto his back and adjusted his pillow. Finally, he said, “Yeah.” And then, in that same tight voice, “Can I turn off the light?”

I nodded. He must have seen the movement, because a moment later, darkness swallowed us.

It felt like a long time before his hand slid across my stomach in a silent question. I laced our fingers together and squeezed, and he squeezed back, and his breathing softened into sleep.

But I was awake for a long time.