“How can he be the headless horseman if all he has is a head?” Jesse sassily asks.
“Because we have the wrong half of the horseman,” I explain.
He just sighs. “I got you donuts. There’s an extra one in there for Matthew.”
“Oh, don’t you want to give it to him?” I ask, unsure why I’ve become his errand boy. Does he not understand how blackmailing works? Maybe Robinson should give him a lesson or two because that man is fantastic at having my coffee ready on time.
“Give me what?” Matthew asks as he walks in.
“Jesse wants to give you his cream stick.”
“I’m listening,” Matthew says while Jesse glowers at both of us.
Jesse clears his throat. “Anyway,I found the smallest trace of what I believe is rust in the hair of the victim… killer… what do we call him at this point?”
“Headless horseman’s head,” I say.
“How do you accomplish anything?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’m honestly not even sure why I try when I could be playing Minesweeper. Like at this point, we know the guy deserved to die, so why do I waste my precious minesweeping time finding his killer?”
“I feel like we should just pretend we didn’t hear any part of that,” Jesse says.
“Rust… so trauma from some kind of blunt object, then,” Matthew muses, successfully pretending not to hear me. “So maybe like a bat or rod.”
I stare at Matthew, wondering why he went with two unlikely items. Does he think someone was just trekking through the zoo with their favorite rusty bat strapped to their back in case they needed to beat away some lions?
The look I’m giving Matthew seems to make him reconsider all of his life choices before he hastily continues, “A hammer would be small and discreet and not at all uncommon. Especially with the crew who’d been working with the lights and were there fixing things.”
“No, no, I liked your baseball bat theory best,” I say with ample sarcasm. “You just never know when you might need to smack off a polar bear.”
“I’m ignoring your sassy ass.”
“Let’s see if we can check the equipment,” I say. “Let’s go, Matthew. You can be like my sniffer dog. Wait… don’t forget to grab Jesse’s cream stick. Look at the way you’re holding it… I’m not quite sure he likes his cream stick to be squeezed like that. Itismaking the cream come out, though, so maybe I’m wrong.”
“I’m going to push you in the fucking lion’s den and look the other way,” Matthew growls.
“I’ll lock up here and join you,” Jesse says, and when I reach for the donuts, he pushes them out of my reach.
I give him a look. “Jesse… I think you are highly confused.”
“I’m thinking I’m not,” he counters, but he eventually slides them over to me so I can grab one for me and one for Gabriel.
Boy, do I love blackmail.
“I think we did a splendid job on getting the info about the hammer to spread quickly around the zoo,” Gabriel says. “But when you call in a tip, how are you planning on sounding like an old man?”
“I have a voice changer. I’ve used it to scam your father into not asking me to go fishing,” I inform him.
“You’ve done what?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not even sure if worry is my issue. I’m very fascinated by how this worked, and whether I can use it to get out of that horrendous dinner I have to do with my aunt next month.”
“I will make her never speak to you again if you would like,” I offer.
The look on Gabriel’s face oddly informs me that would be a no. “Definitely not where I was going with that. You are… beyond helpful.”
