Chapter 8 #2
Especially that I was able to buy it with cash. (Very rudely, nobody would give me a car loan based on a few months’ worth of royalty payments. Mrs. Hines at Hastings Rock Savings and Loan was very nice about it even though she used the phrase “credit history” a disturbing number of times.)
So, we barreled down the state highway in the Jeep—the wind whipping at the soft top, the engine roaring, the Jeep bouncing every time we went over the slightest bump.
It was heaven.
(In unrelated news: Bobby always offered to drive.)
When we got to the college, campus was quiet.
A few students, geared up against the cool autumn morning with backpacks and coffees and, in one case, pulling a wagon full of books, made their way among redbrick neo-Colonials.
Dew glittered in a thousand points of distilled sunlight, and the grass was that rich green that you know means somebody is taking serious care of the lawn.
When I opened the Jeep’s door, the air held a cool, wet scent, a welcome contrast to the smell of the heater.
(Also, full disclosure, it did sometimes smell like gasoline.)
“What’s the plan?” Bobby asked.
“Start with Graeme. He’s the conference organizer, and I saw him talking to Vivienne yesterday not long before she, uh—”
“Was murdered?”
“Passed that final boundary all men must cross?”
“Is that Shakespeare?”
“It might be? I read it in a Walt Longmire book.”
Bobby didn’t miss a beat. “Graeme sounds like a good place to start. If we hurry, we can catch him.”
“Oh, he’ll be here all day. That’s kind of his job.”
Pointing, Bobby said, “He just got on that bus.”
“Change of plans,” I said and started to run.
We got to the bus as the driver—Mrs. Nelson, who also worked at the Super Suds, spotted me and closed the doors.
(One time—one time—the washer had been out at Hemlock House, so I’d gone to Super Suds, and my pajamas had gotten all twisted up around the wringer, and now I’m a criminal for the rest of my life.)
(Also, one time I forgot some Legos in my pocket, and they got stuck in the hole thingies, and you would have thought I’d intentionally sabotaged the entire Super Suds operation.)
I tapped on the glass.
Mrs. Nelson looked at me.
I called, “Sorry we’re late.”
Mrs. Nelson turned to face out the windshield.
“Uh, could you—”
The bus lurched forward.
“Hi, Mrs. Nelson,” Bobby said.
And presto-chango, the doors opened.
We got on the bus. Mrs. Nelson let the bus rock forward as I was climbing up, and I would have fallen if Bobby hadn’t caught my arm, and I swear to God: she did it on purpose. When we reached the seats, two dozen faces stared purposefully around me.
(As an aside: we writers wear a lot of cardigans. And glasses. And, apparently, hats. One woman had a hat that looked like the one Jennifer Aniston had in that movie—Keme knows which one I’m talking about.)
“Sorry,” I said to the crowd.
They still didn’t look at me. The woman in the hat actually tilted it forward so that the brim covered her face.
Mrs. Nelson grumbled something, and the bus lurched forward. Bobby steadied me and turned the movement into a nudge to keep moving.
At the back of the bus, Charlie poked their head out into the aisle and waved. “Mr. Dane! Back here!”
Graeme was sitting at the front of the bus, a clipboard in hand, a massive backpack occupying the seat next to him. He gave me that smile again—the one that was more like baring his teeth—and said, “Were you signed up for the expedition? You’re not on my list.”
“Uh, no,” I said. “Last-minute change of plans.”
To judge by Graeme’s face, last-minute changes of plans were for imbeciles, but he flashed his teeth at me again and said, “Find a seat.”
“Sure,” I said. “Actually, do you mind if I take this one—”
“Uhn-uh,” Bobby said and gave me a less polite nudge.
“There’s plenty of room back here, Mr. Dane!” Charlie did a two-armed wave this time, in case I missed them.
I subvocalized a groan. Bobby chuckled as he followed me down the aisle.
(Mrs. Nelson, by the way, was hitting every bump and pothole she could find, likely in the hope of shooting me out a window while everyone else remained safe and sound. She also liked to ride the clutch.)
“Hi,” I said as I reached the back of the bus.
“Oh my God, Mr. Dane,” Charlie said. “We’re so glad you’re okay!”
“Just Dash,” I said. “Hi, Charlie!”
“Everyone said you got arrested for killing Vivienne Carver!”
“You didn’t kill her, did you?” AJ asked. Today’s septum piercing had a lot of yellow crystals and looked uncomfortably heavy. “Because everyone says you did.”
“Do you actually believe—” I began.
“No one can understand what happens in a moment of life-or-death conflict,” Thatcher said, shoving his beanie back. “No one except the man who lives it. And he’s the only one who can judge his actions in that moment.”
I stared at the three of them. I bounced when Mrs. Nelson ran over what sounded like a small car.
“I did not—”
“Quietly,” Bobby murmured behind me.
It reminded me that approximately two dozen people were actively trying to eavesdrop without admitting they even knew I was on the bus.
“I did not,” I repeated in a whisper, “kill anyone.”
“I know,” Charlie said.
“This is totally going in my memoir,” AJ said.
“It’s only when we’re locked in the ultimate struggle that we fully come alive,” Thatcher said. And then he held out his fist to me and said, “I got you, brother.”
“Oh my God,” I said under my breath.
“You need to sit down,” Graeme called from the front of the bus.
Bobby and I took a pair of empty seats in front of the ducklings.
Peace and quiet didn’t last long; Charlie tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Are you here because you’re investigating?”
“No, I’m—wait, what is this? Where are we going?”
“It’s a morning at the farmer’s market,” AJ said. “It was an optional expedition. You were supposed to sign up in advance.”
“Why are you going?” I said. “You live here; you don’t need an expedition to the farmer’s market.”
“Because we’re investigating!” Charlie announced.
I twisted around in my seat to get a good look at them. They were flushed with excitement and beaming at me.
“Are you insane?” I asked.
“No, we’re totally going to figure out who did it. Like Detective Dragon!”
“In the first place, you are absolutely not going to figure out who did it because you’re going to stop this immediately. In the second place, do you have any idea how dangerous it might be to investigate a murder while the murderer is still loose?”
“You do it,” AJ said. “What makes you so special?”
“I don’t want to do it!”
“Dash,” Bobby said. “Volume.”
A few heads had turned. Graeme was glaring at us.
“Listen, Dash,” Thatcher began in the tone of someone about to explain something totally obvious.
I fought the urge—suddenly powerful—to tell him to call me Mr. Dane.
“This is our chance,” Thatcher continued.
“Your chance?”
“To have an adventure!” Charlie said.
“To do something cool to put in a query letter,” AJ said. “Do you know how easy it would be to get an agent if I can say I solved Vivienne Carver’s murder, and that was part of my healing process from my trauma?”
I bit back a comment about a twenty-year-old’s need to write a memoir.
“This is a chance to break the bones of life,” Thatcher said in what he probably assumed was his world-weary voice. “And suck out their marrow.”
I honestly didn’t have anything to say to that, so I spun back around in my seat and faced forward.
Bobby, who was wise as well as handsome and strong, chose not to say anything.
I, on the other hand, said in a low voice, “Do I sound like that?”
“Not at all,” Bobby said.
“Is this how you feel when I get dragged into these things?”
“How do you feel?”
“Like I want to send them to bed without supper. Slash, I want to murder them.”
Here’s the thing about Bobby: he’s not petty at all. But right then, he had the hugest grin on his face, and he didn’t try to hide it.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Did you, like, have any ideas?” Charlie asked. “Of what we could do? To help, I mean.”
“We’re not helping them,” AJ said. “We’ll figure it out on our own.”
“Every man must live or die by himself,” Thatcher said.
That did it. I spun around in my seat again.
“You absolutely will not trample all over an ongoing investigation. Do you understand me?” And because I knew, from years of dealing with Keme, how well that command would go down, I decided to add a little manipulation into the mix.
“How about this? There’s something you can do that would be a huge help. ”
“What?” Charlie asked.
“What?” AJ asked in a different tone.
“I think I could help the most by doing whatever you’re doing,” Thatcher told me.
I pulled out the conference schedule I’d picked up the day before in my author packet. “What I want you to do is see if you can figure out why Vivienne was at the grotto last night. Like, was there an event, that kind of thing.”
Charlie nodded eagerly.
AJ folded her arms and said, “Are you serious?”
“That’s easy,” Thatcher said. “Just look at the schedule.” Charlie reached for my schedule, but Thatcher snatched it first, scanned it, and said, “Author one-on-ones were at seven.”
The pizza-protective nerds from the night before had told me the same thing. But I said, “Vivienne was there almost an hour before seven, though. And why would she be having her one-on-ones out at the grotto?”
Thatcher surrendered the schedule to Charlie, who examined it more carefully.
Fiddling with one of her ear piercings, AJ said in a tone that conveyed a conviction of my complete incompetence, “Because they can have their one-on-ones wherever they want.”
“She probably got there early,” Thatcher told me. “Man, I can’t believe you needed us to figure that out for you.”
“Let it go,” Bobby murmured.
“But they—”
“I know. You tried. Let it go.”