“No, I’m sorry.” Dave swiped at his eyes. “I didn’t mean to lay all this on your shoulders. I don’t have many people to talk to these days. Kate and I convinced all our friends to invest in our events company, and when that went under… Anyway, I have to stay strong, and it’s hard sometimes. You seem so nice, Mina, and I—”
I’m not as nice as you think.I wrapped my arms around Dave, squeezing him tight. I didn’t normally hug strangers, but in this case, it felt right. “Thank you for opening up to me. I’m happy I could be here when you needed someone, even though we don’t know each other very well. Sometimes it’s easier to open up to strangers, you know?”
He sniffed. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“You’ve got my number. If you need anything, let me know. I’ll call you next week with details about the event.”
I waited for Dave to close the door before I headed back across the road. Heathcliff glowered at me as I sat down opposite him and started to pull the pins from my hair.
Quoth stepped out from behind a shrubbery in his human form, tugging down his t-shirt. My mouth watered, and I almost begged him to leave it off. That boy was too beautiful to exist.
“Did Mina’s feather-brained scheme turn up anything?” Heathcliff growled at Quoth.
“Dave’s closet is a strange and remarkable place. He has two drawers full of what I’d call normal clothing and the rest is skintight catsuits and superhero capes.” Quoth plucked a black feather from his hair, then bent down to tie the laces on his New Rock boots. Since he started art school he’d been dabbling in gothic fashion – floaty poet shirts and leather pants – and I had to say I approved. “He’s still got Kate’s costumes, too, unless he likes to wear school-girl uniforms.”
“Having Kate’s costumes nearby probably helps him grieve,” I said.
“That’s not all I found.” Quoth straightened up. “University transcripts and job applications in the office drawer – Dave has a Master’s in computer science, but it looks like he couldn’t find a job, so he’d been working for his dad’s plumbing company. I also found bills. Lots and lots of bills. Kate was top of her class, as well, but that couldn’t keep them out of financial strife. Kate and Dave sank a ton of money into putting on a fan convention in Crookshollow, and it tanked, big time. They lost all their investors’ money along with their own, and they still have debts to pay. Even with the two of them working they couldn’t stay above water, and now that it’s just Dave things are a hundred times worse.”
“Didn’t he get the insurance money?” Heathcliff asked.
I shook my head as I tore off the Leia outfit and replaced it with my Joy Division shirt. “Nope. The insurance company wouldn’t pay without a body. It sounds like a new policy – Morrie couldn’t have known that. Although now that Kate’s shown up dead Dave will get the money after all.”
“You realize that gives Dave motive to murder his wife.”
I snapped my head up. “I don’t think so. You had to meet him. He cried when he was talking about Kate. There’s no way Dave’s the murderer. But I do have a couple of leads.” I told them about cosplaying rival Tara and Grant, Kate’s boss at Ticketrrr.
“Neither of those people has any connection to Morrie,” Heathcliff pointed out.
“We don’t know that for sure, and besides – they don’t have to be connected with Morrie to want to frame him. That’s what Sherlock doesn’t understand. This doesn’t seem like it came from the criminal underground to me – I think someone saw Morrie as a convenient scapegoat, nothing more.”
“They do seem like solid possibilities,” Quoth said. “Although those footprints at the scene… whoever framed Morrie took the time to steal his shoes. This was carefully planned, and that means that at the very least the murderer had to be close enough to Kate to know she faked her death.”
“If Morrie were here, he’d volunteer to interrogate the scantily-clad one,” Heathcliff said.
“Not strictly true,” I grinned at the memory as I linked arms with Heathcliff and Quoth, and the three of us meandered toward the train station. “Remember when he made you have dinner with Amanda Letterman to find out if she knew who garroted Danny Sledge?”
Heathcliff shuddered. “My body still bears the scars.”
From the train station, we took the long way back to Nevermore, circling through the back streets on the edge of the village to avoid the town green and any nosy villagers. We walked down beside the abandoned station where the local homeless population congregated. I waved at Earl Larson, who hung out the window of a rusting train car, smoking a cigarette with his kitten curled on top of his head.
“At least we get a few days of peace and quiet,” Heathcliff muttered, pushing open the door to the shop. “Without Morrie around—”
He stopped dead, his body stiffening as his head swooped in all directions, taking in the damage my mother had wrought.
I squinted, trying to see what he saw, but the place looked almost… normal. If a little bare without all the weird taxidermy and Quoth’s art on the walls.
Heathcliff clearly saw something I didn’t, because he stomped through to the main room, practically bowling over two customers who scrambled to get out of his way. I raced after him, grabbing his shoulders as he loomed over the desk. My mother yelped as she looked up from behind a stack of envelopes in fright.
Heathcliff slammed his fist on the ancient till. “Ms. Wilde, what have you done to my shop?”
Chapter Ten
Mum’s eyes widened as she set down the envelope she’d been addressing, peering at Heathcliff over the top of her reading glasses. “Whatever do you mean?”
What is it? What’s happened?
In a panic, I raced around the room, flicking on all the lights and lamps so I could peer into every corner. Istillcouldn’t see anything wrong. The shop was neat – tidier than when we left it, actually. A few of the shelves seemed a little out-of-order, but that was typical after customers came in and messed them up.
