Page 5 of Southernmost Murder

“I see,” Tillman said in asovery unimpressed tone.

“I’m not joking! As soon as I found it, I immediately ran outside. The house was locked—you saw yourself. No one went in or out until you got here.”

“With Herb watching the front door?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“He’d sleep through a hurricane,” Tillman answered.

I stepped out of the closet and turned to stare into the dark space. “Itwashere.”

Tillman let out a deep breath. “I’ve heard around that you have narcolepsy, isn’t that right?”

“Excuse me?” I looked at him. “How is that at all relevant?”

“I’ve heard narcolepsy can cause hallucinations.”

“Not hallucinations while I’m fully awake and going about my daily routine,” I argued. I could feel my cheeks getting warm as my blood pressure rose. “It’s called hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. They happen sometimes when I fall asleep or am just waking.”

“Perhaps you were falling asleep, then?” Tillman suggested.

“I was perfectly awake,” I spat. “And with all due respect, my sleep disorder is none of your business.”

That was true enough. But at the end of the day, Key West was a small town and people knew all sorts of shit about one another. And since I was the property manager to one of the most important historical attractions on the island, basically everyone knew of the dick-loving narcoleptic who drove a pink Vespa. It was inevitable.

Tillman put his hands on his hips. “I’m not sure what you expected to gain by having me sent out here.”

“There was a skeleton!” I shouted, waving my hands at the closet.

“I’d ask you to mind your tone.”

Oh, this was not going to end well if Tillman kept talking to me like I was twelve. Some locals really hated us transplants. Maybe Tillman was one of those guys.

“Itwashere,” I said again, because what elsecouldI say?

“What would you like me to do?” Tillman asked in a tone I chose to ignore.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have security footage that can be reviewed?”

I looked up. “We have cameras, but they’re trained on specific artifacts in the house. Maybe I can run through them anyway. Perhaps whoever got inside moved into one of the camera’s points of view while looking for the skeleton.”

“Maybe,” Tillman agreed without sounding like heactuallyagreed at all. “How long was the house locked up?”

“Fifteen minutes? And before that, I got in at six and we opened at a quarter to eight.”

“Why’d you arrive so early?”

“I’m leaving at ten today and taking some time off. I wanted to get work done before that.”

“Going somewhere?” Tillman asked.

“No. My… uh, friend is visiting.”

Tillman gave me a curious expression.

“He’s a friend,” I insisted again, which was only half-true but also not Tillman’s business either.