“Sure. Thanks.” As Dave pottered in the kitchen, I caught sight of a black shadow hopping down the hallway.Quoth is in the house.
Dave returned, carrying a steaming mug shaped like a cauldron. “I thought you’d appreciate the cup,” he smiled, and my heart broke for him. I couldn’t even imagine going through what he’d experienced, and yet, here he was being a gracious host.
“I do.” The mug was actually awesome. I’d have to ask him where to get one. “Thanks so much for seeing me. I know this can’t be an easy time for you, I heard on the convention grapevine about your wife—”
“Iwantto do it. Kate loved cosplay. She said it made her feel powerful to pretend to be someone else for a day.” Dave turned away for a moment, his shoulders sagging. I noticed a giant bald patch on the back of his head. “I think she’d be happy knowing I was helping other people to come out of their shell with cosplay. I keep thinking that maybe if she got into the scene earlier, she might not have done what she did.”
“What do you mean? I thought someone killed her.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Dave said.
Damn.“I’m sorry for prying. Let’s talk about the convention instead. It’s going to be smaller than the kind of conventions you’re used to, but I’ve got a couple of amazing science fiction authors I can invite along, and we’ll make a big book display. Maybe you could show some slides of the costumes you and Kate have done, and then talk about how people can create their own costumes, and then maybe you could judge the costume competition.”
Dave beamed. “I’d love that. Sometimes people think creating elaborate costumes requires lots of money, but it doesn’t have to. Kate was great at hunting out bargains at the charity shops and crafting details and realistic weapons from cheap materials. But if you really love a character you might want to spend a bit more. There’s this old castle up the road called Briarwood – a young Irish fella who lives there is an artist with a blacksmithing forge. He makes these incredible sculptures, and he’s done fantasy armor for a few members of our community.”
Hmmm. I wonder if the artist is one of Maeve’s boyfriends.
We hammered out some details, then Dave offered to show me some of the costumes he and Kate worked on together. I followed him into the hallway. Dave paused in front of the photographs. I recognized Kate from the pictures in the paper. In this one, she was dressed as some popular anime character in a short pleated skirt, white knee-high socks, and clutching an intricate magical staff. “There’s Kate on the happiest day of her life. She won the cup for the best cosplay at the London FanCon. This was six months before she…” he trailed off.
“Dave, are you okay?” I could hear rustling upstairs as Quoth searched the rooms, but Dave didn’t seem to register it. His eyes had glassed over, and he stared at Kate’s picture as if it alone could give him the answers he needed.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered.
“What doesn’t?”
“Last year, when the police found that note…” Dave’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed several times. “It hurt so much, but at least it made a kind of sense. Kate had been withdrawing from life, from me. Ever since she started working at that company, Ticketrrr, she’d been struggling with her mental health. I tried everything I could to make her happy. We even took all our savings to start our own fan event company – something she dreamed about doing her whole life – but it wasn’t going as well as we hoped. The money stressed Kate out, but I could tell that wasn’t the only thing bothering her. I tried to get her to talk to me, to a therapist, to anyone, but she closed herself off. And then I got the phone call…” Dave shuddered, bowing his head, lost in the memories.
I stepped up to him, placing my hand on his back, wondering if he’d appreciate a hug. Dave continued in a shaking voice. “I was devastated, but at least I could understand. Only, now I find out she’s been alive all this time – the police think she deliberately faked her death, which isinsane. It’s like something from a movie. And as if that wasn’t enough, someonemurderedher. She was the most precious person in the world to me, and someone hated her enough to…” he shook his head. “I didn’t know Kate at all. I can’t believe she would do this. We were in such dire straits with our finances, and it even crossed my mind she might have done it so I’d get the insurance money, but then we didn’t get a payout, so…”
My head snapped up. “No life insurance? But they pay out in the case of suicides if—”
Dave shook his head. “I thought so, too. But the insurance company refused to pay out because we didn’t have a body. They said that after the Canoe Man case a few years back, they were being more strict about suicides where the family was in financial trouble. I guess they were right to be cautious since it turns out she wasn’t dead at all.”
Shite. Morrie didn’t know that. He thought he was helping Kate get that money for Dave, but really her death just caused more pain.
“The irony is, now that she’s been murdered, I get paid out the insurance.” Dave’s lower lip trembled. “I’d much rather have my wife back. But I still can’t understand who would want to do that to Kate. The police think it’s the guy she paid to help her fake her death, but It’s just too unbelievable.”
“Surely the police must have asked you if Kate had any enemies? Anyone who would have wanted her dead?”
“They did, but they seemed convinced they already had their man. Apparently, he’s on the run now, which I guess means he must be guilty, but…” Dave jabbed the picture of Kate with her trophy so hard it rattled against the wall. I leaned forward, my nose touching the glass as I squinted where his finger was pointing. Behind Kate was a crowd of people in costumes, all of them grinning and applauding except for one girl wearing an identical costume to Kate. She scowled at the camera, her arms folded across an ample chest. “That’s Tara Delphine. She runs a popular cosplay Youtube channel, and she was a guest of honor at FanCon. She always has a line of adoring fans waiting to get her autograph, and you’d think that would be enough, but no. Tara couldn’t stand it that Kate’s cosplay won the grand prize. A few minutes after this photo was taken, Tara jumped on stage and tried to wrestle the trophy out of Kate’s hands. She threatened Kate right in front of everyone – you can see it on YouTube. Tara’s had it out for Kate for years, but of course, the police didn’t seem to think she was a suspect. There were some shoeprints at the crime scene, but they’re too large for Tara’s feet.”
The footprints Sherlock found, the ones that exactly matched Morrie’s brogues. But if someone wanted to frame Morrie, they could have just worn different shoes, especially if they were someone used to creating costumes…
My mind whirred with possibilities. “Anyone else?”
Dave tapped his chin. “Yeah. Kate wouldn’t talk to me about her job. After a while, she just shut down. But it was definitely a big source of her anxiety, and the main reason she desperately wanted our company to succeed. A few months ago she let slip that her boss, Grant Hosking, found a picture of her on the internet in one of her cosplay outfits and pinned it beside his desk.”
“That’s gross.”
“You’re telling me. I told Kate to make a formal complaint. She did, but nothing came of it. She worked for a tech company. It’s a boy’s club.” Dave’s face darkened, and his hands formed into fists. “Hosking told my wife it washerfault for having the photographs on the internet in the first place. She became known as a troublemaker, so she stopped being asked for Friday night drinks or given roles on important projects. I think she was only invited to the leadership summits because Grant wanted to sleep with her.”
“So this Grant was on the wilderness adventure with her?”
Dave nodded. “She went to two, including the one where she… Grant was at both. I didn’t want her to go. We had a big row about it, but Kate insisted she had to stand up to him. When Kate strode out the door that day, I thought she was determined that she wasn’t going to let Grant intimidate her anymore.” Dave turned away, his shoulders heaving. “I had no idea she meant to—”
As Dave broke into sobs, a small, dark shape appeared at the top of the stairs. With one hand making soothing circles on Dave’s back, I pulled open the front door. Quoth hopped down the stairs. His feathers brushed my ankle as he escaped out the door and dived into the rosebushes.
“I’m so sorry, Dave. I didn’t mean to bring all this up.”
