Chapter 4 #3
Arthur swallowed with difficulty, eyes darting back to where Sal was leaning with his face smooshed against the bars.
As usual, it would be up to Arthur alone to take this seriously.
“What evidence do you have? You can’t hold him without reason,” he said, turning to the sheriff.
At the very least, it would help to have a better idea of what they were up against. Clearing Sal’s name would be a simple matter once Arthur knew the facts of the case, assuming he hadn’t actually killed the mayor.
“Can’t discuss the details.” McMartin wouldn’t make eye contact, focusing on shuffling papers that didn’t appear to have anything written on them.
Nora pursed her lips. “Do you have a lawyer?”
Arthur shook his head. Since leaving his job in advertising back in 1959, he’d done his best to avoid all types of corporate professionals.
It wasn’t that he didn’t respect them, just that it reminded him too much of a time when he was profoundly unhappy.
He’d never enjoyed the boys’ club that was his advertising firm, nor had he particularly relished returning home to his wife, who was no more enthused by their marriage than he was.
Gladys had been as good a spouse as he could have asked for, all things considered.
They’d married with the joint goal of assuaging the meddling of tiresome parents and avoiding the aggressively heterosexual masses, but found, if not romantic love, then another sort that carried them through the years.
There was no awkward dancing around the question of separate bedrooms or the making of children, with their proclivities as they were.
They’d lived in quiet partnership, suffering through the ill-conceived notion of gelatin-based salads in relative harmony.
That was, until Arthur walked into the paranormal club on that fateful winter night and left with a little more than he’d bargained for.
“You might want to get one,” Nora said, unease in her voice. Rumble poked her head out of the purse and seemed to take in the room, then vanished back into the shadows. “A lawyer could help get Sal released sooner.”
“That would be best.” Salvatore’s countenance darkened. “Because if I stay caged any longer, my thirst might get the better of me. I don’t think the sheriff and his deputies will enjoy what comes after.”
Arthur’s stomach did something twisty. Asking Sal to take this situation seriously would be like asking Arthur to perform stand-up comedy, but still he wished Sal would tone things down.
Arthur’s nerves were fraying like the hem of an old sweater, and Sal’s flippant attitude wasn’t helping.
“Don’t joke about that,” he hissed. “He’s just kidding around, Sheriff. ”
McMartin puffed out his chest. “Well, he’d best stop kidding around. Could be considered threatening an officer of the law.”
Salvatore didn’t seem remotely curbed by the sheriff’s words, continuing to whine as though the situation wasn’t dire. “If you brought me some real coffee, perhaps that would slake my craving.”
Suppressing a sigh, Arthur muttered in an undertone, “Caffeine addict.”
“I saw a coffee shop around the corner,” Nora began, but just then, Rumble gave an uncharacteristic yowl and leaped out of the purse.
“What—oh, it’s my phone.” She pulled a vibrating mobile from the bag and glanced at the screen.
She let out a groan and wrinkled her face.
“Quinn’s on her way over. I guess someone told her. ”
“Mr. Miller,” Sheriff McMartin said, “you should go. We need to continue our questioning.”
“I don’t believe you can legally do that without his attorney present.” Arthur had watched a lot of crime dramas, and they were all very clear on the subject.
“He consented to it,” McMartin shot back.
At Arthur’s pained look of betrayal, Salvatore shrugged. “You know I can’t resist talking about myself. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll stop him if he gets too rough.”
Rumble stretched and slunk forward to investigate the sheriff’s ankles. McMartin flinched away from her. “Would one of you get this cat away from me?”
Salvatore shook his head, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I can’t believe you’d bring Rumble—she shouldn’t see her father like this! She’s at an impressionable age, you know—”
“We have no idea how old she is, Sal.”
“She should be at home, lapping milk or chasing birds. Oh! We should get her a cat tree—Gothic castle themed, or a mushroom forest. Do you think they make rainbow ones?”
“Shut up,” McMartin snapped, voice far nastier now.
“Don’t speak to him like that.” Arthur whirled around, his worry transforming into rage. “He’s done nothing wrong, and even if he had, you should treat him with respect. He’s a human being, after all.”
“Is he, though?” McMartin sneered. “It’s you who should be a little more careful of how you talk to people.” He showed his even, too-white teeth in an approximation of a grin. “Not that you’ll be here much longer.”
“Some civility would be nice, Sheriff.” Nora, who’d hung back with her eyes trained on the door, stepped between them. “There’s no need for threats.”
“You’re right. There’s no need.” McMartin barked a laugh and turned his gaze on Arthur once more. “Once word gets out that one of you killed George Roth, it’s over for you and any other vamps in town. The people won’t want dangerous creatures like you living among them.”
McMartin was an asshole and not terribly good at his job, but he wasn’t wrong about this.
They hadn’t received the warmest welcome to Trident Falls, and Arthur had seen how the other paranormal folk skirted the edges of the community to avoid conflict.
Those who didn’t—like the werewolf who owned the Big Bad Brew—fielded picketers and anti-paranormal graffiti.
It was a miracle of caffeine dependency that the coffee shop was still in business.
The Iris Inn wouldn’t survive the same treatment, and Sal and Arthur would have to start over somewhere else.
Arthur met Salvatore’s eyes. His mouth was a thin line and his gaze somber.
Arthur’s insides curled painfully. This was not the Sal he knew, not the Sal he loved.
It would break him if his vibrant, humorous, beautiful husband went down for a murder he didn’t commit—almost as much as it would if Sal went down for a murder he did.
“Even if you were normal,” McMartin continued, “who would want to stay at your little bed-and-breakfast now that there’s been a murder there?” An unkind laugh accompanied his words. “Might as well rename it the Dead and Breakfast.”
“Sheriff McMartin.” Salvatore pulled back his shoulders, a glint returning to his eyes. “That’s the first intelligent thing I’ve heard you say. A rebrand is absolutely in order. I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.”
Before Arthur could advise his husband to stop antagonizing the local law enforcement, the door swung open and Quinn entered, bringing with her a gust of wind and a chilly demeanor.
“Congratulations,” she said with funereal enthusiasm.
“Con…gratulations?” Nora asked.
“Why, thank you!” Salvatore, it seemed, had fewer qualms about accepting her felicitations.
Arthur turned to face his husband and asked, “And what exactly have you done that’s worth commendation?”
“I should think it is my existence alone, dearest. Indeed, I am a rare combination of beauty and brains. Quinn here obviously recognizes she is in the presence of greatness, and I—”
“City council made you acting mayor.” Quinn’s lips thinned into a severe line.
“Me?” Salvatore exclaimed. “Whyever would they do that? I suppose my work experience is impressive, but I don’t think managing an unruly pirate crew in the eighteenth century is comparable to running a town in the twentieth.”
Arthur couldn’t help himself, the correction on his tongue before he could properly think it through. “It’s the twenty-first century, actually.”
“Not you. Her.” Quinn pointed a shaky finger at Nora, tone souring as if she’d just eaten a particularly nasty Warhead.
“Me?” Nora’s eyes widened. “But I’ve only just—”
“Yes, you’ve only just.” A sneer painted itself across Quinn’s face, eyes narrowed in an exacting stare. “But what else is new? Nice Nora always ends up on top.”
“Always?” Salvatore pressed his face against the bars, smashing his nose awkwardly in the process. “Do you two have a past? Oh, don’t hold out on little old me. I promise not to tell a soul.”
Arthur coughed. “Really, Sal.” For all they knew, Quinn might be in mourning. Teasing could wait for a less somber day.
“What? I said I wouldn’t tell a soul. Didn’t say a thing about the soulless.”
Quinn ignored them both. “It’s only until we can hold a special election, so don’t get too comfortable.”
“Comfortable? Working with you? I wouldn’t dream of it.” Nora crossed her arms, but there was a lingering softness in her eyes as she glared down at the shorter woman. “Why don’t you go back to being a pain in someone else’s side while I deal with this situation?”
“That’s the other thing I came to tell you. There’s no need to deal with any of it. Someone called in the feds.”
“That was me, ma’am.” A rosy-cheeked deputy raised their hand, as if volunteering to answer a question in class. “Standard procedure whenever one of their kind is involved in a crime.”
Arthur took a step back. The feds. Not the FBI; they dealt only with humans.
There was a special branch of federal law enforcement for anything involving paranormals, or suspected paranormals—the FPI.
They had a habit of ruining lives and driving people from their homes, whether the paranormals were guilty or not.
Arthur had dealt with the FPI before, most recently when they’d had to leave Chicago after their apartment complex had burned to the ground.
They’d been officially cleared of arson, but the local rumor mill hadn’t been so kind.
They had incurred some uncomfortable lingering stares and some cold shoulders that had nothing to do with undeath, but in a place like Trident Falls…
well, it was already hard enough as it was without the FPI showing up.
“They’ll be here Monday,” Quinn said, and Arthur braced himself for the rest. “Sheriff McMartin, you’ll turn the investigation over to them when they arrive.”
A disappointed frown made its way across McMartin’s face. “Guess I’ll just have to wrap up this investigation before they get here if I want this done right.”
For once, Arthur agreed with the sheriff. In a few short days, the Federal Paranormal Investigators would be in Trident Falls, and they’d rip Arthur and Salvatore’s life apart.
Again.
Unless Arthur could solve the murder of George Roth first.