14. Marius
14
MARIUS
I ’d only had half a glass of that punch, and I had a splitting headache when I woke up the next morning, partially smothered by Moose, who had draped himself over my chin.
“Off.” I pushed the cat away and stumbled through my great-aunt’s small apartment.
“When you have a baby, I hope you’re not going to let that cat smother the poor mite,” Aunt Frances told me disapprovingly as I blearily searched for coffee.
“What baby?” I sat down hard in the kitchen chair, and she handed me a cup of coffee.
“You’re not even trying. You’re a catch! Women in this town are throwing themselves at you. You could be engaged by Christmas if you wanted,” Aunt Frances railed. “I don’t know how much longer I have left in this world.”
“That’s what got me in trouble the last time,” I reminded her dryly. “I am not falling for that again.”
“Well, shit. If you’re out today, go buy me a lottery ticket at least.”
“What kind of lawyer are you, buying a lottery ticket?” Emmie tapped me on the arm when I was in line at Ida’s general store.
“Buying boxed cake mix?” I teased her.
She hit me lightly. “Shh! You’ll start the gossip mill, and then where will my twenty cats and I go?” She held up a bright-yellow package. “I need to hack Brooks’s watch.”
“What?”
“Brooks’s watch was one of those fancy smartwatches. I don’t know the password, but I found this YouTube video that tells you how to crack into a smartwatch. Then I can read his text messages,” Emmie said excitedly.
I grabbed the little child’s-magnet-science kit. “That is not going to work. I’ll send it out to some of my techs in New York.”
“I feel like I already owe you a lot.” She wrinkled her nose.
It was cute.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Yes, I do,” she insisted. “After this is over, I’m going to really spoil you. I’ll make all your favorite foods, do your laundry, clean your bathroom, give you massages on demand…”
I raised an eyebrow, making her stammer.
“A massage, like a spa-day massage, not…”
“Too bad.” I winked at her.
She gaped as I paid for the lottery tickets. “Do you, in your lawyerly opinion, think that we’re getting closer?”
“Closer to solving the murder? Not really,” I told Emmie. “Closer to having evidence where a jury would find you not guilty? Depends.”
“On what?” she asked desperately.
“On if the trial stays in Harrogate or if the county takes it over.”
“Oh.”
“Where are the magnets?” Zoe asked when we walked into the café.
“Marius is sending it out to his special secret crime laboratory.” Emmie gave me that smile like I was her entire world.
“It’s not that secret. They have a website.”
“And how long will that take?” Zoe demanded.
“A week, maybe? If they’re not backed up. I’ll have to check,” I said with a shrug.
“Not soon enough.”
“This isn’t the movies,” I told Zoe. “These things take time.”
Zoe thrust the watch at Emmie. “You lived with this motherfucker for years. What’s his pin code?”
Emmie made a helpless gesture.
“You’re going to lock it,” I warned.
“Brooks is… well, was dumb,” Zoe said. “He probably used the same pin for everything.”
“He didn’t like me going near his laptop.” Emmie chewed her lip.
“Probably because he was sending nudes to half of the women in Harrogate.” Zoe sniffed. “It needs a six-figure pin code. Birthday? Anniversary?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“You only get three attempts before you’re locked out,” I warned again.
“It could be anything,” Emmie fretted.
Zoe rubbed her hands together then picked up the watch and typed in a code.
“What are you—” I reached for the watch. The guys couldn’t hack it if it was locked.
“In!” Zoe crowed. “Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six, baby, because your ex was a basic-ass Brandon.” She scrolled through the miniscule text messages on the smartwatch. “Here are the messages to Oakley.”
“Anything incriminating, like, ‘I know you’re about to murder me’?” Emmie asked dejectedly.
“No, just a lot of whining and complaining about how much money she’s spending on shopping. Oh, look at that. Quelle surprise. He was cheating on Oakley.”
“Those are explicit,” Emmie said, picking at her fingernails as Zoe scrolled through the text messages between Brooks and someone he had labeled Tits in his contacts. The messages were borderline pornographic.
I gave Emmie a concerned look. Her face was blanched, lips pressed tight as she and Zoe skimmed the messages for a clue about who this person was.
“Whose number is it?” I asked.
Emmie checked it in her phone. “No one I know. It is a Harrogate area code, though.”
“Are you all right?” I asked Emmie, tentatively cupping a hand on the back of her head.
“I’m fine.” She nodded.
Zoe was scrolling through the rest of Brooks’s contacts.
“I bet he told Theo who it was,” I said. “He could never resist bragging.”
“This thread is with Theo. Just a lot of misspellings. The literacy levels in this country really have gone to hell.”
“Brooks could never read well,” I interjected.
“You knew him?” Emmie was surprised.
I cursed inwardly. “Just in school. You know, small town. Everyone knows of everyone.”
“Jack-fucking-pot!” Zoe whooped, saving me from more prying questions from Emmie. “Look at that. That is a motive for murder!”
Theo: You’ve been saying for months you’re going to get me my money back.
Brooks: You know I’m good for it.
Theo: Just pay me back.
“Why would Theo kill Brooks if he owed him money? He’d want him to pay it back.”
“Maybe he couldn’t.”
I frowned. “Then you’d think they would get in an argument because Brooks can’t pay and start fighting, and maybe Theo accidentally punches him too hard. This was premeditated. Brooks was poisoned.”
“Theo can make a claim against the estate for unpaid debts if Brooks is dead,” Zoe argued.
“Yeah, but how much money are we talking?” I argued. “No one’s going to plan a murder over a thousand dollars. But a hundred thousand? That’s a different story.”
“Does it say how much money?” Emmie asked.
“Nope.”
“I think,” Emmie said slowly, “we need to go back to my house and look for more clues.”