Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
T he next morning Eli received a text from Sheena. It had been such an eventful 24 hours that it took him a moment to remember that she was his last date, before it all began. He’d mentioned something about doing it again, hadn’t he? Yes, he had. Was it poor etiquette that he hadn’t contacted her yet? Was it too eager on her part that she had? In her defense, the text was neutral and casual and cute.
I slept so hard after our outing. Pretty sure it was all the tryptophan in the creamed corn and roasted turkey. You?
He thought of his nights lately, interrupted by Darby and her quasi confession. There was no way to tell her about that, especially after all the hours he logged with Darby after that. Even if there was nothing between him and Darby—and there wasn’t, he was certain—it wasn’t the sort of information women liked to hear.
Maybe someone actually drugged you and my presence prevented a kidnapping, he sent, sidestepping the tricky question of how he’d slept. As he pulled out to head to work, he saw the sanitation company Tristan suggested, their giant truck already stationed in the parking lot. He wondered how long it would take them to ready the apartment, and was surprised to see Tristan’s car in the lot when he arrived home. He must not have been the only one who was shocked because Mack and Anthony stood together, staring at the apartment, too. Eli meandered to them. They shifted, allowing him into their gossip circle.
“New tenant in Asher’s place. That’s callous, man. Body’s barely cold,” Anthony said.
“I guess our little landlord is a mercenary, can’t get enough of the pretty money, know what I’m saying?” Mack agreed. They turned to Eli, waiting for his take on it.
“Actually,” he began slowly. They hadn’t decided if he was going to pretend not to know Tristan or not. Tristan himself answered the question when he emerged from the apartment, set eyes on Eli, and gave him a heads up nod of recognition. “Actually, he’s a friend of mine who’s been looking for a place. I mentioned there was an opening in my building and he must have made the call to Darby that set things in motion.”
Mack whistled appreciatively. “Wonder what that call to Darby was like? Maybe she took a look at him and decided she was interested.” The three men watched Tristan, his massive biceps flexing as he picked up what probably would have taken Eli three trips and carried it back into the apartment.
“Eh, I don’t think so. Plus he’s dating a friend of mine, that’s how I know him,” Eli explained.
Mack and Anthony studied him, as if reassessing his status, in light of his connection to the testosterone-laden newcomer. “You’re really friends with that guy?” Anthony said.
“Yeah, he’s dating one of my oldest friends,” Eli said. They were watching him skeptically, forcing him to maintain eye contact. He was telling the truth, but the situation was riddled with so much subterfuge that it made him feel sketchy. Remembering the true reason for Tristan’s appearance in their lives, he shifted and changed the subject. “Pretty crazy about Asher, right? What do you think happened there?”
“I don’t know, man,” Mack said slowly. “It’s pretty freaky. Could have been any of us, yo?” His eyes scanned the lot, as if looking for possible assailants.
“Could it have, though? Do you really think it was random?” Eli asked.
“Don’t you?” Anthony returned. “I mean, who’s going to murder Asher?”
“Someone did. It has a better chance of being someone he knew than someone random. I didn’t know anything about him. Did either of you?”
They shook their heads. “We’ve talked. He was into lifting, kayaking, the usual stuff,” Anthony said.
“He kept to himself, but…” Mack began, then lowered his voice again and looked around. “He always had a lot of money, you know what I’m saying? And that car.”
“What car?” Eli asked. He wasn’t a car guy, went more for serviceable than awesome. That was reflected in the matching looks Mack and Anthony gave him.
“The Lotus Esprit,” Anthony said, in the tone of someone saying “the air that we breathe.”
“Oh, right. I didn’t know that was his,” Eli said, nodding. In truth he still had no idea what they were talking about, but he assumed it was the cherry red sports car that had always been parked in the lot.
“Yeah, it was his, and it was crazy that he parked it here, in an open lot,” Mack said, motioning to the lackluster parking lot.
“How much do you think it would go for?” Eli asked.
“A hundred thou, easy,” Anthony added.
“What?” Eli exclaimed, spitting a little as his brace-addled lips gave way. “How would he afford that? And if he could afford that, why did he live here ? And, good point, why did he keep it in this lot, begging to be noticed and stolen?”
“What are you, the lost Hardy Boy?” Mack said, staring at him with barely disguised amusement.
“It invites a lot of questions,” Eli said. “Aren’t you curious about it? The money? The, I don’t know, nighttime stabbing a hundred feet away from your dwelling?”
“Hey, it’s none of my concern,” Mack said, putting up his hands as if to make it clear he wanted no part of it.
Anthony looked away, also dissociating from the scene. “Huh,” Eli said, uncertain of what to do with their extreme disinterest. “I guess I should see if Tristan wants some help.” He eased by them and went to the apartment, pausing to knock on the open door.
In reply, Tristan made some sort of male sound Eli couldn’t discern, maybe a “yup” or “sup” or something similarly guttural. It was a sign of how far their acquaintance had progressed that Eli took it as a sign of welcome and walked further into the dwelling.
“Smells like a swimming pool in here,” he noted, grimacing at the overt scent of chlorine.
“I had one installed,” Tristan deadpanned, thumbing over his shoulder toward the bedroom.
Eli shuddered, remembering the tinny smell of blood the new scent covered. “Doesn’t it creep you out to be here?”
Tristan’s eyes narrowed slightly on him, as if he didn’t understand the words.
“Right, never mind,” Eli muttered. Apparently only he was soft enough to be bothered by the fact that a man had been murdered in this room less than forty-eight hours ago.
“Maybe if I believed in ghosts,” Tristan conceded. “Otherwise, circle of life and all that.”
“One time I gave Josie a ride to school, and we hit a bird, and she cried all the way through first period. Don’t know why I thought that story was relevant in this moment, but it seemed like I needed to say it out loud.”
“Opposites, etcetera,” Tristan said.
“You have a poet’s heart,” Eli declared, which earned him a cheek tick. “What can I do here?” He scanned the interior and saw a few boxes stacked haphazardly and labeled with words like, “Plates. Cups. Books.” When he saw one marked, “Fall Décor” he knew exactly who had labeled them. He snickered and pointed.
Tristan sighed. “I told her to make it believable.”
“This is believable. For Liberace.”
Tristan scraped his hand over his ridiculous beard stubble. Eli tried to copy the move once and cut his palm on one of his brackets. That was another of those pivotal moments when he realized they were better off staying in their own lanes. “I could hang pictures,” Eli offered.
Tristan squinted at him like he’d offered to gut trout in the living room. “Why? I’m not staying, and even if I were…” He motioned helplessly to the bare walls.
“I’m not saying you have to install a montage of Monet’s water lilies, but a little bit of something makes it feel more homey. More real. ”
“What’s on your walls?” Tristan asked with what was probably a knowing smirk.
Eli sighed. “A montage of Monet’s water lilies. But I went to the MoMA in high school; they have actual meaning to me.” Here he tapped his chest with his fist.
“Keep your lilies. I’m sure Josie will hang stuff when she gets here. It’s more her thing.” He checked his watch, probably to see how long he had to endure time without his girlfriend. “Did you talk to Darby today?”
Eli froze. Did Tristan think he and Darby had the type of friendship where they checked in on each other? Were they supposed to? “No,” he said, but it came out like a question, causing Tristan’s brows to raise.
“Is that a hard question?” Tristan queried.
“No, I just, ah, don’t know exactly how to be normal with her.” He held up his hand, warding off Tristan’s commentary. “Don’t say I don’t know how to be normal with anyone.”
“Get out of my head, devil man,” he said instead, which was so unexpected Eli snorted a laugh and had to wipe a bit of drool from his chin.
“It’s the braces,” Eli explained.
Tristan didn’t reply, merely went back to moving boxes. He was rather inexplicable, Eli realized. Things that should embarrass him and lead to mocking—drooling, for instance—Tristan ignored. But he had spent an entire evening giving him derisive looks when he realized Eli couldn’t drive stick shift.
“Should I go check on her, do you think?” Eli asked.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Tristan said. “Something weird going on there.”
Eli froze. “You don’t actually believe she killed Asher, do you? There’s no way.”
“I keep an open mind until I’ve done a thorough investigation,” Tristan said evenly. “Regardless of the murder, there’s something up with her.” He paused and regarded Eli. “She hasn’t seemed off or strange to you lately?”
“I don’t know her, never talked to her until a few days ago. I have no idea what her normal might be.”
“Doesn’t something seem odd or off to you?”
Eli raised his brows. “You know Josie, you’ve met our friends from high school, and you think I’m going to find Darby odd?”
“Fair point,” Tristan said. “But as a former cop, I’m telling you there’s something off there, something pinging on my radar. How deep it goes, how serious it is, I won’t know until I dig into it. But I get the feeling she was hiding something.”
“Her husband is dead,” Eli blurted.
“I know,” Tristan said easily. “Heart attack.”
“He must have been really young,” Eli noted.
“Fifty eight’s not so young,” Tristan returned.
Eli’s eyes bugged. “Her husband was old?”
“Fifty eight’s not so old,” he said now.
“She must have been…” Eli tried to do the math, but Tristan saved him the trouble.
“She was eighteen when they got married.”
Eli’s eyes remained buggy. Eighteen, married to an old guy, widowed as a child bride. “I guess you never can tell about some people.
“What can’t you tell?” Tristan asked. “If they were married as babies and widowed soon after? If they might have committed murder? If they sleepwalk into their tenant’s apartments and have blackout episodes?”
“No, all that’s easy to tell. I meant you never can tell if some people like coconut or find it repulsive.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course the other stuff. She looks so…perfect.”
Tristan snorted. “No such thing. The hidden things I learned about people as a cop would curl your hair.”
Unconsciously, Eli touched his hair. “Maybe I should get a perm.”
“Maybe you should get neutered, save yourself the trouble of a visit to a salon,” Tristan muttered.
“Gee, I’m all kinds of glad to have you here, neighbor. I sure do hope we spend more time bonding over insulting me this way,” Eli said, but he didn’t really mind. He’d always had a self-deprecating sense of humor, and it was kind of nice that Tristan was thawing enough to jostle him. With everyone else, he was so reserved and silent. In a weird way it seemed like an in to be roasted by him. “I guess I should go check on Darby.”
Tristan didn’t reply.
“Right?” Eli tried, desperately needing or wanting a word of advice. When Tristan put his middle finger and thumb together and made a punting motion toward the door, he figured it was as close as he was going to get.