I tiptoed down the stairs and followed him into the garage, where I saw exactly what was making that thumping noise. Barry Fenton was splayed out on the floor. His lifeless body was jolting, his foot hitting the drum set next to him. Barry Fenton, head of the Neighborhood Watch, was dead. On our property.
“What the fuck?”
Fox locked the garage door behind us and motioned toward the bolt-cutters on the floor by Barry’s right hand. The guitar amp wire was tangled up round him. He had a deep cut on his forehead.
“He could’ve been cutting the wire…” Fox pointed at the slightly shorn wire resting on Barry’s stomach. “…and it…well, electrocuted him. And then he hit his head on the way down?”
We both stood there for what felt like three minutes staring at fried Barry. How the hell had this happened?
I shook my head. “This can’t be an accident.”
“You think someone dragged Barry in here and forced him to cut the wire? Someone who just so happened to know how much he hated our family’s musical talents?”
I did not think this was the right time to question exactly whatmusical talents he was referring to. His sporadic strumming of a guitar and Bibi’s whacking of a drum were both as tone deaf as my singing.
“What are the statistics for getting electrocuted from a household accident? It can’t happen that often. Or maybe he was already dead when he was dragged in here, and this was all staged?”
Fox picked up a broom from the other side of the garage and poked at the cut wire until it was off Barry’s body. He stopped jerking.
I tried to process it all. Barry. Dead. In our garage. “This doesn’t make sense!”
“We need to forget about working outhowthis happened and focus on getting him out of here.”
“Do you think that’s what The Chameleon wants? Do you think he’s already called the police?”
“I don’t think we should wait to find out.”
“For fuck’s sake. You mean we’ve got to dump another body?”
We looked at each other. Our hearts really weren’t in it.
Fox sighed. “We could just cart him back to his house. Make it look like he electrocuted himself there.”
“This is literally shitting on our doorstep.” I poked at Barry with my foot. “But we didn’t do the shitting, so why are we clearing up the shit?”
“Trash can,” said Fox
“What?”
“We can put him in the trash can.” Fox motioned to our black wheelie bin, which stood in the corner. “Wheel him over and then find a way into his house.”
That seemed blissfully simple compared to what we were used to.
Fox leaned forward and patted down Barry’s pockets. He pulled out a set of house keys. “We don’t even need to break in.”
I looked from the bin to the keys. “Wow. Dead neighbors are so easy to dump.”
We yanked the wheelie bin onto its side and, working together, we half rolled, half shoved Barry into it.
“Lucky he’s so short,” I huffed. I wanted him out of the house as soon as possible. This was not the type of bringing your work home I was ever up for.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Fox
It was ten feet toBarry’s house. It was 3:44 a.m. I was standing just past our front doorstep wearing a dressing gown and white tennis shoes, and gripping a wheelie bin filled with Barry. I looked back at our house. Haze was peering out through our living-room window, on the lookout for anyone who could be watching us.
I didn’t like any of this. We’d been so distracted by everything we had going on, we hadn’t clocked someone swooping in and killing a man not just on our home turf, but in our actual home.
