By the Book (The Last Picks #7)

Chapter 7

Deputy Tripple got there first. He was middle-aged, White, and completely bald in a way that was slightly upsetting because sometimes you could see his whole scalp quiver. He separated us, and since there was nowhere to hold us, he spaced us out on the mayor’s lawn.

“Date night, huh?” he said as he left me.

I didn’t respond.

Deputy Dahlberg got there next—a ’90s blonde whom I’d once seen break a board with her bare hands. An ambulance came, lights flashing but no siren. And then Sheriff Acosta herself, looking every inch put together, from the little baby hairs gelled to her forehead all the way down to her perfectly polished boots.

The sheriff took our statements. She started with Bobby, and then my mom, and then my dad. It was moderately awful, having to stand there, shivering every time the wind picked up (which was all the time), while the ambulance lights spun across the grass and the distant sound of voices floated out of reach. What made it worse was that, even though I couldn’t hear what my parents were saying, I could tell from their body language that they were somewhere between total shock and about to throw up. As I’d learned myself not so long ago, writing about murder didn’t make you immune to the impact of discovering a real body.

“Mr. Dane,” Sheriff Acosta said as she approached me.

“I’m really sorry about this.”

She nodded and glanced at the notebook in her hand and said, “Why don’t we start at the beginning?”

I walked her through it, all the way from when I’d agreed to let Mrs. Shufflebottom use Hemlock House for the fundraiser, and working my way to the end, when we’d found the mayor.

“Just to confirm,” Sheriff Acosta said, “no one saw the mayor go into the billiard room, correct?”

“No.”

“And no one saw her with this diary? At any point in the evening?”

“No. But, I mean, she pushed me, didn’t she? She wanted to cause a disruption with the cupcakes. And she’s dead. And someone was obviously looking for something in her house.”

The sheriff nodded and said, “I’ll probably have follow-up questions for you tomorrow.”

“Wait, what does that mean? You don’t think she stole the diary?” A beat passed. “What’s the other explanation? This was some kind of robbery gone wrong?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Dane. I’m still gathering information.” She closed her notebook with a snap, but then she seemed to struggle with what to say next. “Mr. Dane, I hope I don’t have to tell you that this investigation is going to attract a lot of attention.”

I waited, and when nothing more seemed to be coming, I said, “I could help. If you wanted, I mean.”

“I don’t want to put you in a bad situation.”

“I’d be happy to help.”

“You have your parents visiting.”

“Honestly, this is the perfect excuse to spend less time with my parents. You’re doing me a favor.”

With a hint of a weary smile, she nodded. “If you don’t mind…then thank you. Take your parents and go straight home, please.”

My parents had apparently parked their RV on a fire road at the other end of the mayor’s property, so we drove that way to drop them off. I waited for the flurry of observations and notes and plans for how to harvest every second of what they’d been through for future story material. But it never came. When I looked back, my dad was staring out the window, his face slack. He was holding my mom’s hand, and my mom had her head back as she pressed a tissue to her eyes.

Bobby rubbed my leg, but he didn’t say anything either.

We dropped them at the RV and followed them home. The silence trailed us into the house. I made sure my parents didn’t need anything. Bobby was waiting for me in our room. We didn’t even have to talk about it. I showered, and then he showered, which pretty much killed the last of the hot water. I lay in bed as he padded around the room, turning off the (battery-powered) lights. When he climbed in next to me, he was still warm from the water, and he smelled like his very manly soap (it came in a black box, so you knew it was serious stuff). We moved around a little until my back was pressed to his chest. His breath was pleasant on my neck and shoulder, and his arm heavy and solid where he drew me against him.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

I nodded.

His breathing evened out quickly, but sleep eluded me. It was the shock of finding another body, sure. It still hit me every time. Maybe there was something wrong with me, and that was why I never got used to it. Or maybe it would have been worse if I had gotten used to it. And it was my parents, too. My dad’s face on the drive to their RV. My mom silently wiping her eyes. Death connects us to each other in ways that don’t always make sense. A part of me wanted to cry. For my parents. For a woman I’d never even known. For the crack that ran through everyone’s lives, waiting to open. One day it would be my parents. One day it would be Bobby. One day it would be me. All I knew was that I hoped I died before Bobby, because I couldn’t imagine living through that grief. (Was that morbid or romantic? Both?)

I must have been moving around too much because Bobby’s breathing changed. His hand moved across my belly. He pressed his lips to my nape and, after the kiss, made a small, shushing noise.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He mumbled, “’sokay.” And then, more clearly, “Want to talk about it?”

“No, I’m all right. Go back to sleep.”

He didn’t say anything for what felt like a long time, and eventually, I thought he’d dozed off again. But then he pressed his lips to the spot where my neck joined my shoulder. And then he kissed me again, on the side of my neck. His hand slid down my belly, and I made a quiet sound and turned to face him.

My reaction might not have made sense to someone else. Then again, though, maybe it would have. Death roused all our old, animal parts. Death reminded us of life. Death brought people together.

Bobby got himself up on one elbow. His glossy dark hair spilled over his forehead, and it made him look younger. His eyes were still soft with sleep. He had the tiniest bit of stubble, and when he kissed me, it rasped pleasantly against my chin.

One thing I’d been learning about Bobby Mai?

He didn’t always want—or know how—to talk about his feelings. But he was very good about expressing himself in other ways.

I slept better than I had a right to, and when I woke, Bobby was gone. If I remembered his schedule for the week—and that was a big if —he was off this morning and would work second shift. The sheriff’s office had what they called rotating shifts for the deputies—meaning, for two weeks, Bobby would work first shift, then he’d work two weeks on second shift, then two weeks on third, and then back to first. It sounded great in theory, since it meant nobody was stuck working overnight permanently. The problem, though, was that the sheriff’s office was still understaffed, which meant Bobby was picking up extra shifts whether he liked it or not.

All of which meant that, in theory, Bobby was probably at the gym. If he hadn’t been called in to work.

One glance at the clock told me two things: first, the power was on (I suspected a Bobby-related miracle); and second, it was still horrifyingly early (the fact that it wasn’t even eleven yet and Bobby was not only out of bed but actually exercising was still relatively mind-blowing). In spite of the hour, I didn’t feel like going back to sleep. There was a strange disconnect between the mental cloud hanging over me and the fact that my body felt pleasantly loose, relaxed, and rested—still coasting on the hormones from certain late-night adult activities. (And believe it or not, this time I’m not talking about eating ice cream in bed.)

After showering and dressing, I made my way out into the hall. The door to my parents’ room stood open, and when I checked, the room was empty. The servants’ dining room was empty as well, but I found Indira in the kitchen. She had buckets—literally—of huckleberries on the counter, and something was baking in the oven. At the smell of warm, delicious carbs, my stomach gave a preparatory grumble.

“Oh no,” Indira said. “That’s dessert for tonight. There’s a peach coffee cake in the dining room. I think Keme left you some.”

That didn’t sound particularly auspicious—Keme had the appetite (and killing instinct) of a velociraptor.

“Have you seen my parents?”

“I think your dad went for a walk.” Frowning, Indira turned away from whatever she was doing with the huckleberries. “You might want to check on your mom. She found the secret passage in the den, and she’s been gone for a couple of hours.”

“I don’t know. How long can people live without food?”

It’s surprisingly hard to win a staring match with Indira, in case you didn’t know that. She’s got this insanely strong mom energy sometimes, and that lock of witchy-white hair doesn’t help.

I tried for an adorable, winsome smile. “I’m only saying it would be fine if she was lost in a maze of secret passages for days and days so long as nothing bad happened to her. Nothing permanent, I mean.”

“Get out of my kitchen, Dashiell.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

For the record, there was still some of the peach coffee cake, and it was amazing. Indira understands one of the core principles of cooking with fruits and vegetables: add extra sugar to diminish the risk of accidental healthiness. For example, carrot cake. With carrot cake, you’re dangerously close to overdosing on vegetables. Solution? Cream cheese frosting. Or zucchini bread—add chocolate chips. The coffee cake probably neutralized the peaches, but just to be safe, Indira had added a glaze.

After a slice (okay, three) of coffee cake, then some coffee, then eating some of the glaze (if you pick off the drizzle that hardened on the plate, the calories don’t count), and then more coffee, and then asking Indira what she was making with the huckleberries, and if she needed any help, and where she’d gotten so many, and then after getting kicked out of the kitchen again and told not to come back until lunch—I decided it was time to get serious. Time to do some work. Crack down and really get some writing done.

To make sure I wouldn’t be interrupted, though, I checked to see if Keme was home. He wasn’t. No Fox either. And still no sign of my parents. By that point, I figured my dad had probably gone full Rambo and was hunting Sheriff Acosta in the woods, and my mom was living out a Charlotte Perkins Gilman nightmare and chewing her way through the drywall. I even texted Bobby to see how his workout was going.

He didn’t even answer my question. He wrote back, This is your writing time .

Which—just one guy’s opinion—I thought was kind of rude.

On the other hand, he wasn’t wrong.

I even listened to the new voicemail on my phone from an unrecognized number. I expected it to be robo-sales or a quick survey or my surprisingly persistent optometrist, but instead, it was George Chin.

“I’d love to stop by and talk to you about your books,” he said. “If you’re interested, I think I could help connect you with some very interested collectors.”

It took me about half a second to realize he meant the old books at Hemlock House, not my books (which, to be fair, collectors probably weren’t interested in collecting because, well, I hadn’t written them yet). Since I hated phone calls and casual acquaintances and anything approaching a social visit, I didn’t return the call, even though the way he’d said very interested made me suspect he meant mucho moolah.

I ended up in the den. I got myself comfy in my favorite chair. I adjusted my favorite blanket until it was exactly right. I opened my laptop and navigated to my current manuscript.

The blank screen stared back at me.

I took a sip of my coffee and considered getting a fresh cup.

And then I decided: No. I was a writer. I was going to write.

The screen stayed stubbornly blank.

See, the problem was that I had most of a good idea. Just not all of it.

Earlier that year, I’d made (what I considered) a major breakthrough with my writing. At the time, I’d been co-writing a novel with my ex, Hugo. The book had actually been pretty good—if you like bleak, unremitting existential despair. It turned out, I didn’t like bleak, unremitting existential despair. I liked books that, well, made me happy.

Sounds super obvious, right?

Well, it was a breakthrough for me. And once I started thinking about the kinds of stories that made me happy, the ones that I enjoyed and wanted to spend time with and thought about after I’d put them away, I started to see a pattern. Yes, there was a part of me that was drawn to elements of the noir type. I liked protagonists who had a strong—albeit tarnished—moral compass. I was drawn to characters who were brave, who took risks, who were willing to face personal and social and even spiritual danger in the name of what was right. (This from a guy who spent fifteen minutes getting his favorite blankie exactly right.) And I was also drawn to characters who were kind. Who were empathetic. Who were compassionate. That was something that Bobby had taught me about myself, actually. Maybe because he was so compassionate. And because, of course, the people who love us see us better than we see ourselves sometimes.

All those traits didn’t necessarily show up in every single book I liked. But they were things I valued and enjoyed and wanted in the stories I told. Once I knew that, a lot of the uncertainty in my work fell away. I knew more about Will Gower, my fictional detective, and who I wanted him to be. (And some of my more, uh, outlandish ideas—like Will Gower the tosher—were quietly put to bed. Also, I want to remind everyone that there are no bad ideas in brainstorming, even though one time Keme told me yes, there were, and that I was living proof.)

So, I’d already figured out a lot about this new project. I knew it was going to be about Will Gower, a private detective in—

I wanted to say Seattle? I mean, Vivienne had kind of made her name writing about mysteries in Portland, and it felt a little too close to home sometimes.

And my story was going to have noir elements: the solitary white knight fighting to do what’s right, a corrupt system designed to protect people with wealth and power, and victims who have nowhere else to turn. But it was also going to have some gentler elements as well. A lot of writers, when they start out, write characters who are poorly papered-over versions of themselves. (Look at all the middle-aged White men writing toxic alpha power fantasies about lone wolf ex-government agents who roam the country killing bad guys and bedding available, uh, lady cops.) To be fair, it was impossible as a writer not to let some elements of yourself creep into your characters. But I didn’t want Will Gower to be an avatar for me. I wanted him to be someone better, and since I was intimately acquainted with all my failings, I had a very clear idea how to do that.

This was where I hit a snag. See, I had my protagonist. I had my setting. (Okay, maybe Vancouver—or would Juneau be too much?) What I needed was a plot.

I had an idea. One of the things that had worked well for me in the few short stories I’d managed to get published was to update an idea from classic detective fiction. And for the first Will Gower book, I wanted to hearken back to one of the standout detectives who had shaped the genre—Sam Spade. And that meant also thinking about how to hearken back to The Maltese Falcon .

If you haven’t read it yet (or seen the movie!), spoilers ahead. The Maltese Falcon is a great example of what Hitchcock called a MacGuffin story. In a MacGuffin story, there’s an object that’s nominally valuable (usually, irreplaceably valuable)—the MacGuffin. It provides the impetus to set the plot in motion. So, in The Maltese Falcon , Sam Spade finds himself drawn into a search for a statuette of a black bird—a falcon, crafted by the Knights of Malta and covered in jewels. In poorly written MacGuffin stories, the author doesn’t use the MacGuffin for more than a reason to get everybody involved and set the story in motion. And it doesn’t always have to be money. It could be blackmail photos, or nuclear launch codes, or sometimes they don’t even tell you what it is at all. (The briefcase in Pulp Fiction , anyone?) When an author doesn’t know what he’s doing, the MacGuffin often fades out of the story by the end, which is one way you know it was a plot device, and it wasn’t really ever intrinsically important. That’s why Hitchcock called it “the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn’t care.” (Incidentally, actress Pearl White had her own term for a MacGuffin. She called any story object that was an interchangeable plot device a weenie. Since I had the maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy, I decided to stick with calling it a MacGuffin.)

In the best works, on the other hand, the MacGuffin’s significance carries through the story. At the end of The Maltese Falcon , for example, (spoilers!) the main characters discover that the statuette is fake. All the murder and betrayal has been for nothing. In fact, the possibility exists that the story of the statuette was only a legend, and it was never real. The falcon is a symbol of hope and desire and greed, and it shows us the world these people live in, and their moral bankruptcy, and suggests that maybe everything around us—society, civilization, even love—is nothing more than a cheap knock-off under a coat of black paint.

And that’s why Dashiell Hammett is a genius.

(Dash!)

Since I was not a genius, no matter what my parents said, I was having trouble coming up with a MacGuffin—and, more importantly, with a way to make the MacGuffin meaningful beyond being a, uh, weenie to get the plot rolling. So, I was going to do the good, responsible, writerly thing and sit here in the den, brainstorming, until inspiration struck and I came up with an idea that would revolutionize the mystery genre forever. (Maybe I needed to take up smoking. Maybe I needed a pipe!)

I spent a while researching pipes and decided they seemed gross.

Maybe I needed to smoke a really raw, rough cigarette. Maybe it would put hair on my chest. I bet Raymond Chandler smoked like a chimney while he was yelling at his secretary.

Fortunately, at that moment, someone rang the doorbell.

“I’ll get it,” I shouted as I scrambled out of my chair.

It was a delivery—a package I’d been waiting for. I’d recently discovered that Crime Cats (that’s a website, and it’s exactly what it sounds like) sold their own merch. They had this amazing T-shirt that showed a chonky cat wearing a fedora, and yes, I know what you’re thinking, the state of my bank account, etc. But hear me out: on the back of the shirt, you could see his tail!

I was trying to open the package with my teeth as I hurried back to the den. The tape was surprisingly strong. I was sure I owned a pair of scissors, but I had no idea where they were. Maybe Indira would hack it open with a knife, although the one time I’d used one of her knives for something not food related, I’d gotten a Talking To that still occasionally woke me up with the night sweats. Maybe Keme knew where my scissors were—

“Why aren’t you writing?”

I almost dropped the package. Then I glared at my mom, who was sitting in one of the chairs in the den. The secret passage in the fireplace was open, which explained how my mom had gotten in here without my noticing her. I took a quick look at my laptop, but it didn’t appear to have been touched.

I tried once more to get the tape with my teeth, and then I gave up. I grabbed my laptop and settled back into my seat. “I am writing. I had to grab that package. Also, what are you doing? Indira said you were exploring the secret passages. I thought you’d gotten lost.”

Because I’m a good son, I said thought , not hoped .

Then I remembered how she’d looked the night before in the car. I opened my mouth, with the intent of asking something like How are you? or Are you okay? On the tip of my tongue was something like I know how shocking it can be to find someone like that, and I’m worried about you and Dad, so I wanted to check in .

But what I said was “You and Dad were up early.”

“Someone needs to take a good look at this place. It’s got a lot of appeal—you can thank Vivienne for that—but you might need to talk to a lawyer who works with real estate law. I wonder if you need a disclaimer or something along those lines for interested buyers—it’s not exactly a traditional house, and some of the features might pose liability risks.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “If I were selling it. But I’m not.”

“Oh? Did you come into some money recently? Did you get a job?”

“I’m trying to work right now. Can we talk about this later?”

My mom studied me. The playful self-indulgence from yesterday was gone, scoured away, and it was hard to reconcile the severity in her expression now with how she and my dad had been acting when they’d first arrived. She had dark, sharp eyes that didn’t miss anything. I hadn’t realized until I was older—in college, actually—that she observed me the way she observed everyone. And that those observations, crystallized and cut and polished, were the backbone of her books. The boy who’d been afraid to fly a kite because Ben Franklin had gotten himself electrocuted that way. The teenager who’d covered the living room floor with a map of the universe for his favorite fantasy novel. The Audi that got totaled because the idiot driving it was distracted getting a serious hickey and accidentally bumped the shifter. None of it was exactly me. It was always…sideways. Through the looking glass, so to speak. It had been a BMW, not an Audi. And it had been sci-fi, not fantasy. The Ben Franklin thing was spot on, though.

Finally, it was too much.

I closed the laptop with a snap. “What?”

“Tell me about your story.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not finished yet. Because there are a lot of writers—a lot of good, successful, respected writers—who will tell you exactly what I’m going to say right now: it’s not good to talk about a story before it’s done. Talking about it takes the place of writing it. It’s better to bottle up the energy and let it fuel your writing.”

She didn’t laugh or smirk or smile. Parents didn’t have to do that kind of thing to make sure you knew that they thought you were full of baloney.

“I think you should let me take a look at it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we already had this conversation. On the phone. When you were three thousand miles away. I don’t know why you drove all the way out here. And I don’t know what you thought that would change. I’m not trying to be a bad son. I’m not trying to be closed off. I love you, and honestly, I would have loved to have you come visit—if I’d known in advance. I’ve been wanting you to meet Bobby—”

“Really? Because you told us not to talk to him. Or, for that matter, to look at him.”

“I was joking. That was a joke.” But I had to struggle to make myself say, “Of course I want you to get to know him. I love him. He’s the most important person in my life.”

I didn’t realize, until I’d finished, who that sentence left out.

My mom did smile then—hard, unamused—but all she said was “Tell me about your current project.”

“I already said I’m not going to—”

“I’m not asking about the plot.” When I didn’t respond, she asked, “Is it a Will Gower story?”

Several seconds passed.

I said, “Yes.”

“Did you decide who he is? Or is that too close to telling me the plot?”

I had to wrestle with the strangely childlike desire to refuse to answer. A part of me thought that this was a trick—that slowly but surely, asking a million questions, she’d get everything out of me. But I’d heard my mom and dad have this type of conversation with fellow writers hundreds of times. And in spite of my annoyance, I was also, well, thrilled that she was talking to me like a colleague. Talking to me at all, actually, instead of holed up in her writing garret, lost in her own world, or off to New York to meet with her agent, or taking a trip with Dad, just the two of them, because it was a writers’ conference.

“He’s a private investigator,” I said.

“How long is it going to be?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t finished it.”

The slight blip of her silence was the only indication of her surprise.

“How did your release go?” I asked. The question was only a formality; Is My Son Real? had made it to number two on the New York Times bestseller list, and the publisher had sent Mom on tour for a month to promote it. “Congratulations on the starred reviews.”

My mom waved my words away. “The tour was a disaster.”

“What? Why?”

“What genre is it?”

“Noir.” Honesty compelled me to add, “Ish. Wait, why was your tour a disaster?”

“I collapsed backstage on the Today show,” my mom said, like she was telling me she had a headache. “Al Roker tried to give me mouth to mouth, not that I needed it. If only I wrote horror. What do you mean ‘ish’? Is this a cross-genre story? Are you doing that fantasy angle we talked about? When cross-genre hits, it hits big.”

“You collapsed? Oh my God, are you okay?”

“What’s your timeline on this project?”

“Mom.”

“I’m fine. You’re still in the drafting stage, right? So, you might have something for Phil to look at by…December? Hold on, let me text him.”

“Did you see a doctor? What did they say?”

She tapped and swiped at her phone’s screen.

“Mom!”

But she didn’t respond until her phone buzzed. “He thinks he could read it the week between Christmas and New Year’s.” The phone buzzed again. “Oh, right. I forgot—Phil’s coming to the farm for a few days after Christmas. I assume you and Bobby will be there, so you can give him the manuscript in person.”

Would Bobby and I be there? I had no idea. I mean, Bobby and I hadn’t talked about holidays yet. Would Bobby want me to spend the holidays with him? We’d only been dating for a couple of months—was it too soon?

The phone buzzed again. “Phil wants to know if it’s under ninety thousand words. I’ll tell him yes, shall I? We can always cut it down. I assume it’s the beginning of a series, correct? You’ll want a three-book deal to start, minimum.” The phone buzzed again, and she gave a little laugh. “Phil said the exact same thing.”

“Will you stop talking about the book? I don’t want to talk about the book. I want to talk about what’s going on with you. Did you see a doctor?”

My mom looked at me, and I had a disorienting moment when I realized I recognized the expression on her face—because it was the same expression I got on my face when I dug my heels in. (Fox had once, memorably, described it as a badger trying not to do-do , and let me tell you, Keme had laughed for a week.)

“Yes,” my mom said. “I saw a doctor. He was useless. Are you up for a quick chat with Phil? He wants to make sure the project is commercially viable, and I realize now you never answered my question about the genre.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You’ve known him since you were a child, Dashiell. He just wants to ask a few questions.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about—what do you mean the doctor was useless? Did you get a second opinion? Do you need to see a specialist?”

She glanced down at her phone again. “Oh, Phil wants to know if you’re using Dane or you want to go with a pen name—”

“I don’t want to talk about Phil right now. I’m not even going to use Phil. And I don’t care if the project is commercially viable or if he thinks it’s got series potential or if it would be better if he were a werewolf detective who can only solve cases during the full moon.” (Okay, not to get sidetracked, but that was actually an incredible idea.) “I’m trying to have a conversation with you!”

“And I’ve been trying to have a conversation with you for the last ten years of your life,” my mom snapped. “It’s frustrating when the other person won’t play along, isn’t it?”

It might have been my imagination, but in the silence, I thought I could hear the faint hum of the old light fixtures.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it, planning to silence it, but when I saw Millie’s name on the screen, I answered.

“Dash, you have to get over here RIGHT NOW!”

By some miracle, she didn’t blow out the speaker on the phone—but she might have gotten my ear drum.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the library, and they’re ARRESTING MRS. SHUFFLEBOTTOM!”

I got to my feet. And then I stood there, staring at my mom. All the different things I wanted to say got caught in my throat.

She stared back at me, her mouth an uncompromising line. She must have heard—I mean, we’re talking about Millie here—but nothing had changed in her expression. And then, clearly and distinctly, she said, “Sit down and get back to work. You can’t go running off to play detective every time the writing gets hard.”

For someone who cared so much about words, I still couldn’t seem to say anything. So I left.