17. Emmie
17
EMMIE
“ W e need to just confront her,” I said, barging into Marius’s great-aunt’s apartment. Frances was out at bingo night with my grandmother. I knew I shouldn’t bother Marius, but I could feel it. We were close to solving this thing.
“Confront who?” he asked.
I walked into the kitchen, where he was standing shirtless at the sink with a big tub of soapy water, giving Moose a bath. “You bathe your cat?”
“Yeah, because you clearly don’t,” he said. “They all reek of that almond spray.”
“You ever tried to bathe a cat?” I complained.
Then it hit me.
Marius was standing in front of me with no, zero , shirt on.
Droplets of water from where the cat had splashed him clung to his chiseled chest. The muscles in his forearm worked as he shampooed the black-and-gold cat’s head.
“Guess he doesn’t sit in front of a computer all day,” I croaked.
Marius gave me an odd look.
I tried not to think about how he’d almost kissed me.
“You still owe me dinner,” the deep voice purred.
“Of course! I’ll cook for you anytime.”
“No,” he said, fishing the sopping-wet cat out of the bucket. “I still want to take you to dinner.”
Forget dinner—I wanted him to take me to bed.
He was literally all my favorite things in one perfect Christmas package as he stood there in front of me, just in the dress pants and barefoot, cradling his cat to his chest in a towel as he gently dried him off.
Marius kissed Moose’s little velvet nose.
My heart clenched.
My ovaries exploded.
“You’ll, um…” I stammered, “have to teach me your tricks.”
“You want to hop into a bath with me…?”
“Yes.”
“And bathe a cat?”
Minus the cat? Yes, right now.
He looked down at Moose. The Bengal cat extended his neck to give Marius a kitty kiss.
Ugh, so freaking adorable.
The man’s and the cat’s eyes were almost the same green-gold color.
I am not thinking about all that shifter-romance soft-core porn I consumed after my breakup.
“I, um… think we should do it tomorrow.”
“The bath?” he asked.
My ovaries started building him a shrine.
“Uh, the confronting of Rosie?”
The toweling of Moose paused.
“If she is the murderer, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“So, I think my fertility issues are cured. I felt my ovaries wake up from the infinite boot loop they were stuck in,” I said to Zoe, sitting down across from her at Girl Meets Fig. It was early for the restaurant, but the Santa Claws Café was hopping. The Svensson sisters were excellent at being shop girls and also seemed to be unnervingly good at coercing tips from people.
“You never had fertility issues,” Zoe countered as we shared the leftover twice-baked potato bites from dinner service the previous day. “You had a shitty piece of shit of a husband, and your ovaries were looking out for you. Now that you have a hottie who likes cats and has a job, the baby-making factory is back in business.”
“Marius doesn’t just have a job—he has a smoking-hot body.” I sighed then looked down at my own stomach and thighs. Even when I was at my thinnest, Gran liked to assure me I was sturdy.
“Gran always said you need a working-class guy. She’d advise, like, a roofer or an electrician. They like a girl with some meat on her bones. ‘Honest men like honest women,’” I said, quoting Gran. “Marius isn’t a firefighter or even blue-collar adjacent. He’s used to those New York City women.”
“What guy doesn’t like tits and ass?” Zoe countered. “Brooks is dead, gone, and buried. Don’t let his ghost live rent-free in your head, fucking up your self-esteem. Marius was absolutely flirting with you. He literally asked you out.”
“I don’t know…”
“He was bathing a cat shirtless. He was so doing that on purpose.”
“He said he doesn’t sleep with clients anyway.”
“He’s a lawyer. He’s probably already found the loophole to exploit. I bet he just wants to make sure you’re not going to freak out and report him to the bar.” Zoe glared at me. “You aren’t, right?”
“I’m not reporting him.”
“No freaking out either?”
“Maybe.” I chewed on my lip. “Maybe I need to just concentrate on clearing my name. I’ve only been a widow a week.”
“Funny,” Zoe said flatly, “because Brooks has been dead to me for the past three years.”
“Maybe Marius was right,” I hissed as we stood outside of the Essence we were in love.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, thinking back to Beatrice taking a lock of his hair. “I guess Beatrice was snipping a lock of hair off Brooks’s corpse to give to you as a memento, then.”
Rosie’s eyes went wide, then her lips curled back. “That man-stealing bitch.”
“You dodged a bullet,” I told her kindly.
Her face went cold. “I think you need to leave now.”
“If she wasn’t a murderer then, she is now,” I joked as we headed into the Christmas market.
I needed nourishment, and the cupcake shop was a zoo.
The Christmas market wasn’t all that much better. We hurried to get in line at the Merry Munchies for a ho-ho hog roast sandwich, limited time only. Darren had gone out and hunted it himself last weekend.
“The person Brooks was texting has to be Beatrice, what with the stealing of a lock of hair from his literal corpse,” Zoe decided.
“That is clearly the action of someone who can commit murder.” I nodded as we hurried through the crowded market.
“Guess what!” Zoe said, looking at her phone. “Beatrice just started a new job at Svensson PharmaTech. She’d have access to cyanide.”
I looked over her shoulder, reading the LinkedIn app page.
I grunted when we ran into someone.
“I’m so sorry!” Cora exclaimed as I stumbled.
“I was meaning to talk to you. But not like this!” I joked.
“Oh yeah?”
“With the new cat café law expansion, Alice said you might want to open a sister cat café for adoption. I have some info here,” I told her, fumbling in my purse.
Brooks’s watch tumbled out along with my wallet.
Cora reached down for it.
“I’d love to!” she said then looked down at the watch in her hand. “Early Christmas present? From a certain lawyer perhaps?”
“It’s Brooks’s; we’re looking for murder clues. Seems like Oakley wasn’t the only person he was cheating on me with.” I took the watch back.
“How a man as dumb as Brooks could juggle three affair partners is astounding,” Zoe said dryly. “The women of Harrogate truly have no self-respect.”
“How horrible for you, Emmie,” Cora said, her eyes wide.
“Well, keep me posted on the cat café.”
“The ho-ho hog roast was worth the wait,” I said as we made our way back to the café, eating and window shopping.
The air dropped by ten degrees as a black cat crossed my path.
I shivered. “Are you lost, little guy?”
The cat hissed and did that weird thing cats do where they crab walk sideways like they’re possessed by the devil.
“Salem, did you find us a customer?”
Smokey incense wafted out of a stall.
“’Sup, Lilith?” Zoe asked the town’s resident potential witch and purveyor of the only decent spices you could get in Harrogate.
“I hope you didn’t come to finally take me up on the offer of the voodoo doll,” the black-haired woman said.
“Maybe we could go ahead and buy it,” Zoe mused. “You know, it could help you process your cheating husband’s untimely death, especially if he fucks you out of your own house.”
“As much as I would have like to sell you the doll, it’s gone. I can make another.” One of her black fingernails trailed along the shelves filled with creepy Victorian artifacts. “We’d have to do a little grave robbing.” Lilith smiled like that was all she’d ever wanted in the world. “Or we could make one of a living person. Perhaps Oakley. Or one of the other women who were sleeping with your husband.”
“I don’t have disposable income to spend on voodoo dolls that don’t work. I need to up my spice order. The cardamom buns are flying off the shelves,” I said firmly.
“Oh, they work.” Lilith’s eyes were pools of black.
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re implying,” I said sharply.
“I know you didn’t kill him.” She stroked the black cat with a pale hand. “I know who did, though.” She flashed an enigmatic smile.
“Who?” I choked out. “I need proof.” Suddenly, the thought that this could all be over was overwhelming.
“The man who bought Brooks’s voodoo doll made with hair and nails you gave me.”
“Who?” Zoe demanded.
“Marius.”
“That’s absurd.” I barked out a laugh. “Just tell me how much for the extra spices.”
“Ask your grandmother why a man who dresses like a boring corporate drone is buying a voodoo doll.” She pulled out a deck of tarot cards. “Read your fortune?”
“No, thank you. You can scam tourists but not me.”
I had another sandwich in my bag for Marius. It was getting cold as we walked quickly through the market.
“Voodoo dolls.”
“We should ask her for one of him but, like, a sex-doll version.” Zoe cackled.
“I don’t need a sex doll.”
“Why? Did you sleep with him?”
“No! He’s my lawyer. We’re not like that.”
Except for the dinner invitation and the cuddling on Main Street…
“What?” I asked Zoe.
“Ida saw you and told my grandmother,” Zoe said. “I think the entire town believes you and Marius are about to get married.”
“Santa’s balls. I can’t even buy a sandwich for the man who’s helping to clear my name without the rumor mill cranking up? Marius is being nice.”
“That blush says otherwise.”
“Actually, he’s being coerced by his aunt.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yes, that’s exactly it. He’s going to go back to New York City after the holidays and forget all about me.” I wrenched open the door to the café.
Marius was there next to the glass case, looking tastier than any of the cupcakes. He didn’t seem at all like someone who would buy a voodoo doll of my deceased husband.
He couldn’t be the killer, could he?
I did have terrible taste in men…
I smiled at him.
He didn’t return it.
“We received the revised toxicology report back.” He frowned. “With all the ingredients as requested. There’s a complication.”