Chapter 32
Okay, that came out wrong.
It’s not that I’m thrilled he got murdered, but I am SO pumped that I figured it out. I’ve got to tell somebody.
Me: Big news, Cran WAS murdered
I get an automated response.
Marlowe: By order of her tyrannical parents, Marlowe is currently not getting notifications. Will respond once workaround has been
achieved.
Well, I guess it serves me right for having a sidekick capable of being grounded.
Good thing I have a backup sidekick.
Me: Drink? Dickie’s?
Benny: Still hungover, can’t afford to have you buy me more drinks
Me: Do I look like one of those rich crossing guards?
Benny: Also I’m sort of in the middle of something
Well, nuts.
But then my phone pings again.
Benny: You could come by here
Benny: Bring the dogs
Benny’s place is only a few blocks from me, but it feels like a different world, and my jaw drops when he lets me into the
largest studio I’ve ever seen, tucked away in a building that he says used to be a dance studio, and before that, a paint
factory. It’s got crumbly brick walls, tall ceilings, and dark wood beams overhead. One wall is a mirror with a bar running
across it, which Benny says is great for when he’s painting self-portraits.
The mirror also happens to be right across from the very sturdy-looking bed.
I mean, it’s not on the ceiling over the bed, but . . . that could be hot.
WAIT A SEC, is it possible this is a booty call? I am a little tense. Sounds like just what the doctor ordered, honestly. A perfect way to make myself forget about how I ruined
things with Tasha, so I can clear my mind and fully focus on the double murder aspect of things. I mean, if that’s what it
takes.
I decide to play it cool for now and spend the next moment focusing on the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the
El tracks, as though it’s a view I’ve always been deeply curious about. “Very nice, very nice,” I say and keep moving around
the room.
I guess it’s a studio and a studio, so there’s art and art supplies everywhere. Stacks of canvases lean against the walls. There are easels of all
different sizes, including one that he seems to currently be working on right now, a sort of abstract cityscape that’s dripping
paint, but that’s not the one I find myself in front of.
It’s the half-finished painting of Claudia. I’m tearing up before I realize it.
Benny notices and comes to join me. “I know,” he says softly. “I can’t bear to put it away. Somehow if it stays in-progress,
it’s like she’s not really gone.”
I nod.
“So,” I say, wiping my eyes. “What’s your project tonight?”
“I’m in the middle of this one”—he points at the cityscape—“but sometimes it takes a while for an idea to really take shape
in my head. I have to do a lot of staring, and I can sit around for days and not make much progress. That’s why it’s nice
to walk dogs—I can still be in my head. But I figured if you came over, we could hang out and I could still be available for
the muse.”
“The muse?” I say, grinning.
“Don’t worry, we’re not monogamous,” he jokes.
Helloooo I guess I don’t need to play it that cool.
He is standing really close to me. I can practically feel those forearms flexing. But he doesn’t make a move. I’ve never been part of a straight-up booty call before. Is there something I need to do, or is my showing up enough evidence that I’m interested?
“Cran got murdered,” I blurt.
Nice, Mo. Very sexy.
He jerks back. “What?”
“Someone defiled his pickles,” I say, trying really hard to thread that needle between murder investigation and possible hookup.
“Wow.”
“Yup.”
“I mean . . . really? Wow.”
Wow indeed. You could cut this sexual tension with . . . a really dull butter knife.
Oh well, now or never.
I step closer, slide my hand around the back of his neck, and lean in, lips first.
“Hang on, whoa!” he says, pulling away so fast I stumble and nearly headbutt him on the way down.
Ah. Not a booty call.
The humiliations pile up faster than bodies in this neighborhood, and that’s saying a lot.
“Soooo you have a lot of art supplies,” I say, staring at his shelves of paint and craft supplies so I don’t have to look
at him. “What’s your, ah, favorite?”
“Mo,” Benny says quietly. “I had no idea you were interested. I’m sorry if I led you on.”
“No no,” I say, my face hot enough to melt the ice cream I’m going to bury it in later. “My fault. I don’t know why I did
that. Force of habit, I guess.”
“Habit?” Benny laughs. “Uh, thanks?”
It’s true though. Since the moment Chris and I broke up, I’ve been on the prowl. I thought I was just massively horny but is that all it is? Holy crap, am I . . . afraid of being alone?
Dammit. I do not need more personal growth to think about right now.
I turn back and thrust out a hand. “Friends?”
“Yeah, obviously!” He hugs me. It feels good, actually, to not think of him that way. He pulls out of the hug and grins. “But
if you don’t start taking care of the dogs, I will call the cops on you.”
He pats Jean’s head, and I finally see what he’s talking about. Their fur is gnarly and dirty and Jean has an actual pretzel
stuck in there. Their legs are stubbly, and they look like they’ve gone feral.
I may be a hot mess, but they don’t deserve to suffer for that.
Benny’s shelves and shelves of art supplies aren’t just paint—my eyes rest on a cubby of craft supplies, including wacky hair
dyes, and a very bad idea hits me.
“Hey, does the muse allow you to do other projects while you’re waiting on her feedback?”
It only took a little arguing before I got my way.
Turns out, Benny is a real pushover.
We’re on the floor, on a tarp, and he’s holding a pair of shears. I’m holding Louis XIV. Louis XIV is holding grudges.
There are puffs of dog hair all around us.
At first, Benny pointed out that he couldn’t possibly give the dogs haircuts because he’s “not a professional.” We weren’t
going for conventional, I explained. We’re going for punk.
I still had Cran’s pickle-scented calendar in my bag, and since it features a month-by-month display of the poodles at the height of their well-groomed days, we propped it up as a basic guideline and then riffed.
At this point, Jacques is already sporting a powder-blue 1950s pompadour.
It looks great, and he knows it too. He’s been posing in front of the mirror ever since.
Louis is a little less sold on the whole idea.
“Can you go any faster?” I ask as Lou squirms in my arms.
“No,” Benny says with a grunt as he carefully applies the clippers to one of the dog’s legs. “I cannot.”
“Maybe you could just try?”
“Have you ever tried to give a dog a haircut?”
“No.”
“Then take your Yelp review elsewhere.”
We finish up Louis with a cotton-candy-pink undercut that I am frankly a little jealous of, and then pull out the calendar
again before we start on Jean.
“He’s going to be the real trouble,” Benny says, switching out blades. “I’m not even sure we should try, honestly.”
“Oh, I have a plan,” I say and hop up to check out Benny’s pantry. It’s surprisingly well stocked, and I make a mental note
to not let him see my pantry, which makes me look like an orphaned eleven-year-old.
Bingo. I hold the jar of creamy peanut butter in the air. “Ta-da!”
Benny waffles for a moment, and then he gives up with a shrug. “We’re already in this deep, might as well go all the way.”
I unscrew the lid, and Jean starts to hyperventilate with excitement—once I put the jar down, he flops to the floor, grabs
it with two paws, and then nothing else exists for him. This is definitely going to work. “Okay, you start on his legs, and
I’ll have a plan by the time you’re done.”
I reach for the calendar, flipping to this month for reference.
My eyes drift from the photo down to the individual entries for the month.
A few days ago, I was so busy forging an entry of my own that I didn’t appreciate how spooky it is to see everything Cran had planned for his alive self this month.
Spooky and bittersweet. All the details of a life, crammed into each little box: exercise, heart rate stats, fasting—
Wait.
I reread the cramped, angular penmanship from the week Cran died.
Benny’s talking to me, but I’m not hearing him.
My mind is reeling.
Whoever poisoned Cran—they didn’t get to him through the pickles. He wasn’t eating pickles, not that week.
He’d been fasting.
According to his own handwriting on his calendar, Cran was on a lemon juice fast the week he died. I know all about that!
I squirted lemon water into Chris’s eyes right before the Zoom penis debacle. When you do that fast, you don’t eat. Nothing.
Not a single pickle.
But the medical report wouldn’t have been wrong, so how would Cran have gotten botulism if he wasn’t eating? Is there another
delivery method than pickles?
And that’s when I belatedly put two very important pieces together.
Botox is made of botulism. Obviously. It’s the same bacteria! Or whatever!
It’s been such a whirlwind of murders and money and low-level government corruption that I somehow didn’t make the connection.
But you know who did? Chris. So when I asked him about fatal botulism rates, he thought I was thinking about getting Botox,
and he figured, in classic me fashion, I was panicking about dying from it. That’s why he sent me the texts about makeup and
Kendra’s Groupon after we talked at the Petty Pig—he wasn’t trying to be a dick, he was trying to be supportive.
I mean, he was also kind of being a dick.
Oh shit.
I don’t realize I actually said it out loud until I hear Benny ask, “What’s up?”
Cran was obsessed with his appearance. He probably got Botox. So what if someone paid off Cran’s aesthetician or dermatologist or whatever to inject him with too much
Botox? And that’s how he died? It’s the perfect crime! Even better than a gas leak!
I frantically flip back and forth through the months. I just need to find the appointment.
“What?” Benny says again.
Shit. Nothing. No doctor appointments. No Botox.
Okay, Mo. Breathe. Don’t be a Tond. Don’t spiral. Don’t jump to conclusions, because that just makes people mad at you.