Chapter 17 #2
“I paid him off way before the mayor died!” McMartin shouted. “What kind of fake detective are you? The check was dated weeks ago.”
“Paid him off, eh?” Arthur asked, suppressing a grin.
McMartin shrank a little. “That’s just an expression.”
“Did he ask for more money?” Arthur said. “Is that why you tried to kill him tonight?”
“I didn’t hurt him. He didn’t ask for more, said he didn’t even care about—I mean—I fired him for incompetence.”
“You said he was a model employee.” Arthur took a step forward, forcing McMartin to fall back into the chair. “What did he discover? Was it a secret worth killing over?”
“Maybe you’re not a McMartin at all,” Salvatore guessed. “But the product of an extramarital affair, and if your granny finds out, she’ll disinherit you.”
“If I find out what?” Granny McMartin reappeared in the doorway, holding a tea tray with an assortment of straws.
“Oh, yay!” Sal wiggled his fingers and bounded forward to select one for his drink.
“Nothing, Granny. He’s just making a joke, that’s all.” McMartin stared at Arthur with pleading eyes, his jaw clenched, expression tight.
“This isn’t about your movie being canceled, is it, dear?” Granny McMartin placed a hand on her grandson’s shoulder and squeezed. “He’s bursting with talent, you know. It’s not his fault one of the producers pulled out.”
McMartin slumped, all the fight seeming to leave him.
Sal took another straw from the tray and pocketed it.
“Is that…a big deal?” Arthur asked hesitantly.
“Are you kidding?” Sal guffawed. “Hollywood is fickle. Poor Ricky. I can’t imagine anyone is banging down your door for any other roles, are they? Your little movie was the most exciting thing to happen to anyone in this town since we moved here—well, except the mayor’s murder.”
“The mayor was murdered?” Granny McMartin’s smile fell. “Why didn’t you tell me, Ricky?”
“I did, Granny. This morning at breakfast, remember?”
“Well, I must not have been listening.”
Arthur wasn’t sure if Granny McMartin had a faulty memory or if she’d simply lived with her grandson long enough that tuning him out had become habit.
“What does this have to do with Brody?” Arthur asked.
McMartin sighed and leaned forward on his elbows. “Well, I’ll be up for reelection soon, so I didn’t want people to find out until after. I had to let Brody go because without the movie, there’s really no need for me to have a personal assistant, but I paid him extra to keep the news quiet.”
Arthur took a step back. “Really? That’s it? You thought people wouldn’t vote for you because of this?”
“That’s ridiculous! No one will care about that.” Sal nodded in vigorous agreement.
“You think so? I wasn’t sure. It seems like sometimes that’s the only reason people might know me,” McMartin said, a red blush sneaking into his cheeks at the admission.
“Not at all,” Sal said. “There are much better reasons to not vote for you. Like your gross incompetence, for example. This movie business is just silly.”
McMartin looked up sharply. “It’s not silly. It’s a big deal to some people. To me. Anyway, earlier tonight, when I got the call about Brody, I was here, at home.”
Granny McMartin nodded along with her grandson’s words. “He came home at the usual time, then holed himself up in his room.”
“Did you see him again?” Arthur asked her.
“No, I was asleep until you two started banging on the door.”
“So you wouldn’t have noticed if he slipped out before we called the attack in to the station.” Arthur narrowed his eyes at McMartin.
“I was here. You’ll have to find someone else to pin it on, or just admit your guilt so we can get this over with.” McMartin stood again. “I think it’s time you two leave. Go home.”
“Now, hang on,” Arthur began, but McMartin ignored him and stormed out of the room.
“Lovely to meet you both,” Granny McMartin said as she shuffled them to the door and out onto the front porch. “Ricky’s under a lot of pressure, you know. Don’t hold it against him.”
“Well, we certainly won’t hold it against you.” Sal plucked an orange flower from a nearby plant and tucked it behind Granny McMartin’s ear.
A flush filled her cheeks. “You can hold anything you like against me.” Then she straightened, seeming to have realized she’d said that out loud. “Another one for the road?” she asked, holding out the tray of straws.
Sal selected a bendy straw and put it between his teeth like it was a rose and he was a tango dancer.
“Please, Sal. You’re embarrassing yourself. She’s got to be at least ninety years old,” Arthur muttered as they returned to the bike.
“What, do you think I’m too old for her?” Sal removed the straw from his mouth and placed it in his pocket with the others. “You know how I love a May-December romance.”
“Well, that was a bust.” Arthur pedaled with reduced fervor as they navigated the dark road back to town. “I don’t know why I thought that would work. McMartin’s not going to just confess because we asked him nicely.”
“Don’t give up hope, my dear. I know you can do it!” Sal reached for him, pawing at his arm like a needy kitten.
“Hold on to the handles, Sal!”
“We literally can’t die. If I fall off, I’ll just get back up.”
“Pavement is an unforgiving mistress.”
Sal’s touch vanished. “Well, maybe she’d like to hold my hand.”
“I’m sorry,” Arthur said through his teeth. “I’m just frustrated.”
“I have an idea how we might fix that…”
“Really, Sal? Now isn’t the time for euphemisms—”
“Who said anything about euphemisms?” Sal took his feet off the pedals and let them drag until Arthur squeezed the brakes. “We just need another clue to follow.”
Arthur clambered off the bike and turned to face his husband. “It’s not as though clues grow on trees.”
“Come on!” Sal palmed Arthur’s sides and squeezed. “Surely there’s someone else we can question.”
“I suppose we could try to find Brody’s less agreeable friends. They’re the only ones we haven’t spoken to, and if Theo was right about Brody being the one to paint over their graffiti, they might have had it in for him.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“I doubt we’ll be able to find them at this hour. They could be anywhere, defacing some wall or another.” Arthur shook his head and cast his gaze down. “Let’s just go home. Perhaps some sleep will do me good.”
“Giving up already? That isn’t the Arthur Miller—no relation—I know and love.” Sal narrowed his eyes. “Come on.” He marched out in front of the bike and waved for Arthur to follow.
“Sal? Salvatore?” Arthur called after him. “Where are you going?”
Sal turned, not stopping his momentum as he flashed Arthur a winning smile. “To ask the locals!”
“What locals?” This late the streets were deserted, and all the stoplights had become flashing yellow or red. Arthur doubted very much that anyone else was awake, let alone willing to offer their assistance to two wayward vampires.
“Oh, darling, sometimes I forget how young you are, but when your powers kick in, you’ll understand,” Sal said with the air of someone with a great amount of maturity, which he assuredly was not.
“When I say the locals, I don’t mean our human neighbors.
I mean the most informed residents of Trident Falls, the town’s natural spies. ”
“Ah,” Arthur said, understanding washing over him. “The raccoons. On Fourth Street, I think you said?”
They ambled that way and soon arrived near the infamous dumpsters, positioned at the apex of four different alleys.
Raccoons were indeed ransacking them—that was, until Arthur and Sal approached.
The critters paused their plundering to peer at them over the rim of the dumpster with glittering eyes.
Arthur was struck by how utterly adorable he found their little furry ears, even in the midst of so much chaos.
Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise; he’d married Salvatore, after all, and he was the most chaotic thing around for miles.
“Good evening, gentlemammals,” Sal said with as much decorum as he would use to address royalty—or perhaps more, given how many beheadings of nobles he’d attended while on holiday in France. “I was hoping you might aid us in a very important matter.”
Most of the raccoons just blinked at them.
“Are you sure about this, Sal?” Arthur asked, stopping a few yards from the dumpsters. “Perhaps the raccoons don’t care for vampires.”
“What?” Sal clutched at his nonexistent pearls. “All animals love vampires!”
“That’s not even a little bit true.”
“All animals love me.”
Arthur arched an eyebrow, recalling with perfect clarity the time Sal had taken him to visit a beekeeper.
It had been their fiftieth Valentine’s Day.
A terribly romantic gesture, if Arthur was being honest. Unfortunately, the bees hadn’t loved Arthur as much as he loved them, and he’d walked away puffy and in pain.
Sal had sustained only two stings, but Arthur still spent the evening tending to Sal’s wounded pride.
“There’s only room for one queen in a hive, I suppose,” Sal had eventually conceded.
And Arthur had put his closely held dream of one day being a beekeeper himself to rest.
Bees weren’t the only creatures with a distaste for vampires.
As they’d discovered upon moving to Oregon, nutria, though an invasive species themselves, were particularly inhospitable to newcomers.
Additionally, when Arthur had first become a vampire, he’d been gobsmacked to learn that most bats held vampires in low esteem—they couldn’t take the competition, as Sal put it.
“Some animals fear us, you know,” Arthur said, unwilling to bring up the bee incident again. “Deer and the like.”
“Deer are afraid of everything, Arthur.” Sal tossed his hair back, the light from the moon catching in its shiny waves.
“Face it, darling. You may be the expert in all things flora, but you really ought to leave dealing with fauna to the expert.” He turned back toward the dumpster and cleared his throat.