Charlie listened in, probably hoping we didn’t start talking about him.
“How long have you been an officer?” I asked her.
“Nine years,” she said. “College wasn’t really my thing, so I dropped out after a year. I thought it might be fun to do target practice for my job.”
I checked her expression to see if she was kidding.
Deputy Wright touched the taser at her belt and swished her ponytail. “How long have you known Charlie?”
“Four months.”
“We’ve been working together for six years,” she said. “We were paired together for a theft case in Mount Cedar. Some creep was stealing money—and anything else he could get his hands on—from his own mother. We put him behind bars and decided we worked well together.”
I hated what I saw as her smug expression, particularly because I couldn’t help but compare the length of our relationships, which, based on pure longevity, meant I was obviously the loser here.
“When he got the sheriff gig, he asked if I would join him, but it took me a while to finish things up where I was stationed.”
In the face of Jill’s prior claim, my lack was almost staggering. We didn’t even have a friendship to fall back on, and what we did have might not be made to last.
Mercifully, Gladys called Charlie and Jill to the bar to pick up their drinks.
“It was nice to finally meet you outside of an interview,” the deputy said in a tone I couldn’t read as she mixed a pack of artificial sweetener into her coffee.
Savilla started peppering her with questions and steering her toward the door so Charlie and I would be left alone. Gladys’s chatter and the grinding of the espresso machine sounded above the Halloween music coming through the overhead speakers.
Charlie looked around for a corner table where we could talk while “Monster Mash” rang out, but the few chairs were takennow. He raised his chin toward the ceiling. “You want to go upstairs to my place?”
“You live above the Morning Brew?” I was surprised by the fact, but more surprised that I somehow hadn’t known the location of my… Charlie’s apartment.
“Yeah, I thought I told you.” Charlie narrowed his eyes as if he couldn’t have forgotten to mention it.
I remembered him saying how much he loved the smell of coffee when he woke up in his new place, but I could have sworn he’d never mentioned he was literally living above a coffee shop.
“Maybe you did,” I said vaguely, following him out the door. We rounded the corner to a narrow alley and up a set of stairs to a second-floor entrance that spurred off into two different apartments.
“My neighbor is Gladys—she’s actually been letting Kitty out this weekend while I’ve been at The Rose. Our walls are so thin that I wake up when her alarm goes off at four in the morning. I’m always relieved when she’s not the first one on duty.” He pulled out his keys, opened the door, and flipped on the lights as he continued talking. “Gladys gives me free coffee though, and Joe’s batches aren’t usually as bad as this last one. She told you he burned the beans while roasting them?”
“Do you know Joe?” I asked, ignoring his question. “Like, are you two friendly?”
“I’ve seen him around. He’s a real hustler, a hard worker—and he’s at every town meeting.”
Charlie was the second person close to me who’d had something quasi-nice to say about Joe, but I couldn’t let go of the idea of him as a prime suspect. Largely because if I removed him from my list, it would make Lacy’s name rise higher.
As soon as I stepped into the apartment, Kitty crawled from the spot where he’d been lying on Charlie’s leather couch and stretched before meandering over to me, sniffing at my feet thenlooking up for an ear rub. Kitty had traveled up to New York with Charlie several times, so we’d become best buds.
With Kitty at my side, I allowed myself a second to check out Charlie’s apartment, which was distinctlyhim. A dog bed, rarely used since Kitty preferred one worn couch cushion, was in the corner. On the wall hung a black-and-white Ansel Adams photograph of a winding river with majestic mountains. On the end table was a dog-eared copy of a John Scalzi novel, and next to a speaker system was a Lowden guitar with a scarred spot on the body. Sometimes, Charlie would play me and Kitty a bedtime tune over Zoom. He wasn’t the most accomplished musician, but I enjoyed his faltering notes. More than that, though, I liked to watch how his face would change, relaxing into the melody as he let go of the day’s stress.
Now Charlie sat down on a loveseat, and I debated whether to remain standing. I didn’t want him to think I wanted to be here.
He watched me with curiosity, as if I were a scared foal about to bolt. Kitty nudged at the back of my legs, practically moving me to the edge of an upholstered chair, where I sat and he decided to lay his head on my knee.He thinks he’s a lap dog, Charlie had often said as Kitty tried to wedge himself between us while we watched a movie.
“Joe is actually part of what—or who—I wanted to talk about,” Charlie said. “I heard from the lab this morning, and there were no signs of poisoning in Brett’s system, which confirms that whatever he was drinking wasn’t the cause of death.”
“So he just choked?”
“No,” Charlie said. “It’s much worse and definitely foul play.”
“Meaning?” I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. I was no longer concerned about the status of my relationship withCharlie or the question of whether or not Deputy Jill Wright might be encroaching on my territory.
