I caught up with him just as he set the boxes down in the hall. “You okay?” he asked.
No, I’m not okay. My life was finally coming together and everything was falling into place and then Danny Sledge and my cat grandmother and Dracula and you and Morrie and fucking Grey Lachlan had to go and throw a spanner in the works.“Why is Grey buying up the town?” I asked.
Heathcliff shrugged.
“I don’t like it. Something about it doesn’t sit right. He can’t get his hands on Nevermore, can he?”
Again, Heathcliff shrugged. “You’ve seen the accounts. How much longer can we hold on?”
I winced. I’d been hoping he had some magic plan up his sleeve, some secret deal with the bank he was going to pull out at the last minute. But of course, that was more Morrie’s style. “Maybe we ask Morrie to bail us out, just this once—”
“I’m not begging Morrie for his money,” Heathcliff snapped.
“All right.I’m sorry.”
“I thought you didn’t want to use his coin, anyway, seems as how it undoubtedly comes from the profits of criminal activity?”
“I don’t.” I buried my hand deeper into his pocket. “I also don’t want to lose the shop.”
As Heathcliff moved the empty boxes, I noticed a small square of paper laying on the welcome mat. ‘To the residents of Nevermore Bookshop’ was written in an elegant script. My heart beat faster, and my hand flew to my pocket, where I still kept my father’s letter.
But this wasn’t my father’s handwriting. “Heathcliff, did you see this?”
I handed the envelope to Heathcliff. Frowning, he ran his finger along the seal to break it, unfolding a small square of paper and a newspaper article. He handed the article to me.
I held it up to the light and scanned it. It was an article from theArgleton Gazette, dated fifteen years ago. It showed the headline, ‘Local teen sentenced on drug charges.’ This seventeen-year-old girl, whoever she was, had been in deep trouble after being caught selling to local kids. Because she was still underage, the paper didn’t print her name or show her picture, so I had no idea who it was. Abigail? Or someone else?
Weird. Someone wanted us to have this. But who. And why? Is it connected to the drug dealing Danny and Jim used to do?I turned to Heathcliff, who was frowning at the note.
“What’s it say?” I asked.
Heathcliff lowered the paper. “It says, ‘you’ve got a date with a funeral’.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Danny’s funeral attracted hundreds of mourners. He was the closest Argleton had to a real celebrity, so everyone wanted to be seen as his close personal friend. As Morrie and I entered the church, heads turned to watch us. My skin prickled from all the eyes on me. I grabbed Morrie and yanked him into the back pew.
“You can’t see from back here,” Morrie pointed out.
“It’s a funeral. I know how it ends,” I whispered back. “I just don’t think we should sit up the front when Danny was killed in our shop and everyone thinks Nevermore is cursed or whatever. Plus, from back here we can people watch.”
“True that.” Morrie nodded across the aisle as more people filed into the church. “There’s Brian and Amanda. My, they are the picture of marital bliss, aren’t they?”
I squinted, but in the dark church filled with black-clad mourners, I couldn’t distinguish anyone. “I can’t see.”
“Brian’s shirt is rumpled and he’s wearing mismatched socks. Amanda’s tits are spilling out of her dress, and she’s got on that grotesque necklace Danny bought her. She’s also recording something on her phone for her Youtube channel. And look,” Morrie flipped over the program, which was printed with a full page ad forThe Somerset Strangler. “Brian’s trying to drum up sales.”
“Gross. Do you see Penny Sledge anywhere?”
“Yes, she’s sitting down the front with Angus. She’s the perfect mourning widow, complete with black veil and everything. That purple-haired guy, Jim Mathis, is a couple of rows back, looking very dapper in a 20s cut suit. I might ask him for the name of his tailor.”
The service got underway. Instead of hymns, they played a Metallica song. The priest made a vile face as the congregation stood to bow their heads during the guitar solo. Despite myself, I nodded my head along with the drums. Danny may have been a philandering tosser, but he did have excellent taste in music.
After the priest spoke a prayer and made his usual speech about the journey of the immortal soul, Angus got up. He spoke with eloquence about Danny’s career, and what it meant to him to have seen Danny turn his life around and share his stories with the world. He even teared up a little toward the end. “I didn’t just lose an inspiration. I’ve lost a dear friend.”
Next was Penny. “Danny was a complete wanker with no sense of propriety or decorum. I don’t miss his stupid face or his crass jokes or the way he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. I will, however, miss his money. But the proceeds from his estate will buy me a respectable home amongst respectable people in London, and that’s as good a legacy as he can hope for.”
Wowsers. Danny was a dick, but that was a pretty harsh thing to say at his funeral. I reminded myself that although Angus and Amanda both had alibis for Danny’s death, Brian, Penny, and Jim were still unaccounted for, and all three had pretty strong motives for wanting to see Danny dead.
