Chapter 3 #2
Arthur cleared his throat and flipped open his little black book of notes. Time to show this buttermilk Nathan Fillion what a real detective could do.
Salvatore beat him to the punch. “The problem is the dead man in our flower bed.”
“It’s Mayor George Roth,” Nora added. “We came out here earlier to tour the garden, and—”
McMartin cut her off. “That’s the mayor, all right. What was he doing here?” He turned to Arthur and Salvatore, eyes lingering unkindly on Arthur’s admittedly loud paisley umbrella.
“Do I look like a medium to you?” Salvatore asked. “He’s dead. How are we possibly to know why he decided to take a walk in our begonias before expiring?”
Arthur cleared his throat, the gesture as pointed as his fangs.
“What my husband means to say is, we don’t know why he was in the garden.
He was given a personal invitation to wine and cheese night yesterday evening, but he didn’t show up.
” He glanced at his notes. “There was a stray cat here this morning, which is suspicious—”
“How dare you call Rumble suspicious!”
“I meant the cat’s sudden arrival was unusual.” Arthur gave Salvatore a broiling look. “And it could be linked to George Roth’s death.”
McMartin stomped around the body, stepping on a few of the surviving begonias. Salvatore whimpered quietly with each flower’s demise. Finally, McMartin crouched next to Roth’s lifeless body and felt the corpse’s neck for a pulse.
“He’s ice-cold, definitely dead,” McMartin said, flinching back from the body.
Arthur thought he’d taken an awfully long time to come to that conclusion, but kept it to himself.
“Do you need our statements—?” Nora began, but once again the sheriff cut her off as he radioed for the coroner and a few deputies as backup.
The sun had risen enough to make Arthur adjust the angle of his umbrella. Now wasn’t the time for a daytime energy crash.
All around them, the birds sang as though they were afraid one might forget it was spring, and a few bees flitted between the undisturbed flower beds.
If not for the body in the begonias, it would appear as though nothing was amiss, like Arthur and Salvatore’s budding dream of a quiet retirement wasn’t in jeopardy.
“I’ll take your statements now,” the sheriff said, adjusting his belt and puffing out his chest. He turned to Nora, acknowledging her existence for the first time. “Is your husband inside?”
“I’m not married.” Nora’s brow furrowed, as though she was trying to ascertain if she should be offended. Arthur rather thought, yes, she should.
“Oh, sorry.” But McMartin didn’t sound in the least bit apologetic. “Your boyfriend, then?”
“I’m staying here alone.” Nora crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “I checked in around five, then I attended the wine and cheese night. I texted the mayor an invitation to join us. But he never came, despite saying he would.”
Arthur scribbled her response in his notebook and shot an appraising look at the sheriff. McMartin wasn’t writing anything down. Every good detective kept notes.
“How many other guests do you have?” McMartin sounded almost surprised at his own question, as if he couldn’t believe he’d thought to ask.
“None.” It was difficult to admit, especially without qualifying excuses. But those weren’t facts, and the sheriff would want only relevant information. “Though Quinn Clark attended our evening entertainment for a few hours.”
“We didn’t see the mayor here at all,” Salvatore added.
“That’s right—my husband and I were inside all night,” Arthur said.
But that wasn’t true. Salvatore had gone to the dentist.
Arthur glanced at Salvatore, searching his eyes, but there was nothing there save for the usual sparkle of intelligence oft ignored and the good—if no longer beating—heart Arthur had fallen in love with. Sal wouldn’t have hurt the mayor, surely.
There was no reason to hide anything from the sheriff if they were innocent, and they decidedly were, so Arthur continued. “Except Salvatore had a dentist appointment with Dr. Young at seven thirty, but he was back before nine thirty.”
“I’ll be checking that timing with the dentist.”
Arthur bit his lip. The appointment should have only lasted an hour, and even traveling by tandem bike, it shouldn’t have taken Salvatore so long to return.
It was unlikely there would be witnesses to account for the full two hours, so Arthur simply had to hope the mayor’s time of death wouldn’t match up with Salvatore’s excursion.
Then again, perhaps the sheriff wouldn’t put two and two together.
He wasn’t overly bright, except for his luminescent platinum hair.
Perhaps the frosted tips glowed in the dark.
“Did you notice anyone in the garden when you came back?” Arthur asked instead, hoping to steer the conversation away from the more delicate areas.
“No one, darling. You know I would’ve said something.”
“We were awake all night,” Arthur continued. “But I didn’t hear anything strange, and no one knocked on the door—”
“All night?” McMartin’s expression shuttered. “Are you two, um…” He seemed to struggle to find a polite word.
“Vampires?” Arthur supplied. “Yes.”
McMartin’s face clouded. “Well, you should’ve led with that.”
“We’re also terribly queer. Did you want to ask us questions about that, too?” Salvatore sneered, his fangs sneaking out from beneath his upper lip.
“Why does it matter?” Nora snapped.
“Calm down, honey.” McMartin raised both palms and lowered them slowly, as if he could control her emotions with the gesture.
Arthur glanced at Nora just in time to see the moment her restraint snapped. Even the stray cat—Rumble; he might as well get used to the name—took a step back before she exploded.
“Excuse me, Sheriff. You might want to consider being a little more respectful to the people you’re supposed to work for.”
“This again.” McMartin rolled his eyes. “I’m an elected official, yeah, but the public doesn’t sign my checks, the city manager does, or he did, until he took that job in Bend—”
“What a coincidence.” Nora’s lips twitched into a triumphant smile.
“I’m the new city manager. Lovely to meet you.
” She held out her hand and set her shoulders in a stance that conveyed exactly how lovely she thought it was.
“And as far as I’m concerned, you work for everyone in this town, whether they can vote or not. ”
Sheriff McMartin deflated as he shook her hand. “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t realize who you were. Could’ve mentioned it on the phone,” he added in a low grumble.
“I thought reporting the dead body was more pressing,” Nora replied, as if he’d challenged her at full volume.
“It won’t happen again,” McMartin said, suitably chastised. He glanced at Arthur and Salvatore. “Don’t know why you’d get mixed up with these types.”
“The Iris Inn has the best lodgings in town,” Nora replied, voice icy. “The mayor said so himself.”
“It did, before it came under new management.”
“Now, wait just a minute.” Salvatore gripped Arthur’s arm tighter. “My husband did an awfully good job of renovating this place. Took him months of labor—I should know, I watched! I won’t have you slandering his hard work!”
McMartin glanced at the body, then at Salvatore. “You’ll need to come down to the station with me.”
“Why on earth would I do that?” Salvatore looked aghast, as though McMartin had asked him to take a multivitamin.
McMartin raised a too-thin eyebrow. “Well, I’ve got to question you, don’t I? You said so yourself—you left the inn on your own yesterday evening and a dead body turns up in your garden this morning? I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“We had nothing to do with this.” Arthur puffed out his chest, trying to appear larger.
Overblown machismo wasn’t his usual cup of tea, but when it came to McMartin, it was better to fight fire with fire.
Besides, he couldn’t deny the burst of indignation that rose in him at the sheriff’s insinuation.
“For you to cast suspicion on us simply because we’re vampires is unacceptable.
For all you know, he might have died of natural causes. ”
“Well, the body of George Roth implies otherwise,” McMartin snapped.
Arthur opened his mouth to argue, but his eyes fell on the corpse and he looked—really looked—at George Roth, who in death was very different than he had been in life: pale, motionless, silent.
As Arthur peered closer, his eyes caught on something he hadn’t seen before, because it had been hidden by the collar of Roth’s shirt.
On the corpse’s neck, there were two small red marks.
Someone less observant—or less bigoted—might have mistaken them for insect bites.
But Arthur was observant, and McMartin, it seemed, was both.
Salvatore let out a little “oh” of surprise as he, too, noticed the bite mark.
“Is he a suspect?” Arthur asked.
“Of course I am!” Salvatore threw his arms around Arthur’s neck. “I should’ve expected this. They always blame the spouse!”
“You’re my spouse, not the victim’s,” Arthur said in a low voice. “This is serious, Sal.” But Salvatore was the type to decide for himself which things mattered, and McMartin’s authority didn’t seem to rank among them. Turning to the sheriff, Arthur said, “You can’t—”
“I can.” McMartin removed a shiny set of handcuffs from his pocket.
“I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I’m monogamous these days, and— Hey, those are cold.” Salvatore struggled against the restraints as McMartin snapped the cuffs around his wrists. “That’s not fair! I can’t pick the lock with my hands behind my back.”
“You’re coming with me.” McMartin’s voice deepened, each word enunciated as if he were delivering a dramatic line before a commercial break.
“What?” Salvatore gasped in faux shock. “Hang on, you can’t arrest me; there’s biscuits and clotted cream—and I had a nap planned for later—”
“Sheriff McMartin, please, there’s no need for this.
” Arthur tried to follow him to his car, a shamelessly polished green Mustang—“Highland Green,” McMartin would tell anyone who listened—but his path was blocked by the arrival of the coroner’s van.
It rolled to a stop inconveniently in front of him, and as Arthur rounded it in a huff, the door opened.
“If I’d known you were having a garden party, I would’ve worn a bigger hat.
” The coroner, dressed in a knit beanie, drapey sweater, and Doc Martens, hopped from the driver’s side, landing directly in a shallow puddle.
Rainwater splattered up the legs of her black jeans, but her smile remained undisturbed.
“Lore’s the name, corpse collector, mortician, and aspiring soaper. ”
Arthur had met Lore on a few occasions—first at a city council meeting where the “paranormal issue” had been discussed at length by mostly non-paranormals, and then every other Tuesday or so in the baking aisle of the grocer.
She always bought gluten-free flour and wore a series of gold hoops in her pointed elf ears.
Beyond that, though, she wasn’t much more than a stranger to him.
Still, he thought it odd that she introduced herself, until he realized her outstretched hand wasn’t for him, but for Nora.
Rumble hissed and darted between Nora’s legs as she stepped forward to accept Lore’s hand. “Nora Anderson, city manager.”
“Charmed,” Lore said. “Not literally, obviously. I don’t mess with spellwork anymore. Now, I’m here to pick up a body?”
“Over here.” Nora waved her forward.
Arthur ducked back around Lore’s van to see Salvatore being forced into the Mustang.
“My safeword is bourgeoisie.” Salvatore waggled his eyebrows as McMartin secured his seat belt and closed the door.
Salvatore caught Arthur’s eye through the window, which was half-occluded with the stark reflection of the Iris Inn.
“Avenge me, my love!” he shouted loud enough to startle McMartin as he revved the engine.
Before Arthur could explain that avenging was usually reserved for more fatal encounters, the McMartin-mobile blared to life and tore down the driveway, leaving Arthur behind to consider the impact a dead body and an arrest for murder might have on business.