Archer
ARCHER
A s a group, all six of us leave the apartment as one and head downstairs. Like a procession of stomping footsteps and bellies filled with pancake batter. I know, in an hour, I’m gonna have to find some protein so I can get through my day. Which means in an hour, I’ll have to find protein for Minka, too, since we both know she won’t feed herself or consume anything except a double shot coffee and a pill for the headache she’ll have later, because she rarely, if ever, drinks enough water.
But for now, everyone smiles. Everyone is sated on butter and syrup and flour mixture.
“I’ll be twenty minutes behind you.” Fletch carries Mia on his hip, walking behind the doctors and their forever escort, the best damn point forward in the game . “I gotta get Moo to school for the nine o’clock bell. Then I’ll meet you at the station.”
“I’ll take her.” Cato spins, precariously risking his neck on the flight of stairs as he slams a basketball to my chest and reaches out for Mia instead. “I’m heading that way.” He takes her, despite Fletch’s lack of offering, and plops her on his hip. “Her school isn’t far from mine, so I can drop her over the fence as I wander past.”
“Over the fence?” Fletch stumbles after the pair as Cato turns and continues down. “Dude! You don’t drop her over a fence!”
“He’s kidding, Daddy!” Mia giggles when the boy speeds his steps and bounds past a chattering Aubree and Minka. Words like semen and blood count bounce between the pair. Hemoglobin. Toxicology. All the normal words normal women say on their way to work. Not . “He doesn’t throw me over the fence.” Mia clutches to Cato when his body goes one way and the laws of physics leave her body almost floating in mid-air, road-runner style. “He walks me all the way to my classroom, Daddy. Then he talks to Ms. Harmon for a minute.”
“Why are you talking to my kid’s kindergarten teacher?” Fletch chases after the duo, descending the stairs at an unsafe speed. “Dude! You better not be?—”
“She’s nice. And she has such lovely, long brown hair. Doesn’t she, McStinkerson?”
“That’s not my name!” Mia howls, but it mixes with laughter and breathlessness as her daddy turns their trip downstairs into a game. “And yes, Ms. Harmon’s hair is super pretty. A bit like Ms. Minka’s.”
“Cato!” I follow them down. “You better not be hitting on Mayet lookalikes still!”
“Good lord,” Minka growls as I pass. “This much noise in the morning is exhausting.”
“This much noise in the morning is disruptive.” Steve, the rumpled landlord, steps out of his apartment with a furrowed brow and a look in his eyes that has Cato and Fletch silencing. Mia giggles still, because Steve has never given her those eyes. But the guys who fight over her find a sudden ability to shut the fuck up and step back as I continue down.
I’m their sacrifice. So easily discarded.
“I’m sorry, Steve.” I fake a smile and shoot it across to the others. “They’re a little hyped on maple syrup and hot chocolate. They don’t know how to act in public.”
“My name is not Stinky McStinkerson,” Mia faux whispers. “He’s being silly. I shower almost every single day.”
“ Almost every single day?” The wrinkles lining Steve’s face only grow more pronounced when he smiles. “That’s a lot! Well done.”
“Do you shower every single day, Mr. Steve?”
“Most days,” he whispers back. “If I don’t, I start to smell a bit musty and old.”
She cackles, throwing her head back and nearly tossing herself, body and soul, out of Cato’s arms. But of course, he’s an agile athlete, and she’s not going anywhere. “Ms. Penny also smells a bit funny sometimes. And she’s really old, too.”
“That’s enough of that.” Fletch grabs the glass door and swings it open to reveal a windy day. Gales blow the hair back on anyone who walks by, and leaves flitter along the street, despite the lack of trees as far as the eye can see. “You have to go to school, Mia. Cato has to go to college. And the rest of us have work.”
“Ms. Minka.” Steve grabs my wife, that old dog, and pulls her in for a hug that doesn’t seem to make her tense up the way others do. If anyone else touches her—besides me—even if that someone else is Aubree or Fletch, she turns to stone and merely tolerates the physical contact. But when it’s the rumpled and warm Steve, she folds into his embrace and smiles. “They’re expecting a storm later this afternoon. Lots of rain. So you’ll be careful out there.” He pulls back, but holds her arms in his hands. “Won’t you?”
“I have a dozen guard dogs anywhere I go.” She wrinkles her nose and gifts him with a playful expression. “I assure you, I don’t have any option but to be safe.”
“We’ll get a car to bring us back if it’s raining when we clock out.” Aubree steps in next and accepts a hug. It’s smaller. Faster. Not because Steve has a problem with the autopsy tech. But simply because he saves most of his affection for the unaffectionate Minka. “We’ll be safe.”
“Good girls.” He winks and releases her. “Looks like it’ll hold off for a few hours yet, so you’re safe to make the trek to the office.” He brings muddy brown eyes over to me. “I saw you on the news last night, Detective. You caught that case with the young lady?”
Fletch steps through the door and waits for Cato to follow. “You know we can’t talk to you about an active investigation, Steve.”
“Oh, I know.” He turns to watch us file out. “Doesn’t mean I’m not curious. I saw you outside that house when it was on the television. So that means you caught it.”
“Do you know her?” I step to the door last, holding it against the wind gusts outside. “Ever met her?”
“No. Never met her. Makes me sad, though. She was so young. And they say she was pregnant.”
“It’s especially sad when they’re young. We’ll do our best to find her justice. And you’ll do your best to keep these stairwells warm in the winter.” I move onto the sidewalk and glance back inside as I wish, momentarily, for a coat. But I’ve come too far. And it’s not really all that cold. Just chilly. “Have a good day.”
He tips his chin and winks when his and Minka’s eyes meet. “And you too.”
I release the door and sling my arm over her shoulders. Because if I’m cold, she is too. But she’s way too fucking stubborn to admit it, and not at all inclined to head back in for a coat. “Today’s gonna be a good day. Moo’s gonna learn Pythagoras’ theorem and Cato’s not gonna hit on anyone’s teacher. We’re gonna solve a crime, and Ms. Minka is gonna put her butt inside her building and stay out of the storm.”
She stretches her arm across my back and tucks her hand into my pocket. Acceptance, almost. But she’s too proud to say, ‘ yes sir ’ out loud.
“I’m actually mostly focusing on Jenna.” Cato spins and walks backwards. Risking his basketball career and Mia’s cranium as we pass the bar. But he’s not at all worried about falling. “She’s a total cutie, Arch. She’s my own age. Her step-daddy is basically owned by Felix, which means she basically owes me a bl?—”
“Swear to god.” Aubree balls her fists. “I will end your life if you finish that sentence.”
“What?” Tossing Mia into the air, he turns and quickens his steps to put space between him and his future murderer. “She owes me a hello when we pass at the stadium.” He casts a look over his shoulder. “What were you thinking? You dirty girl.”
“ M rs. Wallace. Thank you for having us.” Fletch and I step inside Naomi’s childhood home, crossing the threshold and entering a world of warmth. The house is nice, if not a little under-maintained. The carpet on the stairs to my right, worn in some spots. And the banister, missing a few rails that would probably raise flags during a building inspection. Though no one is inspecting, so it’s a thing that goes unnoticed and unworried about, considering all three children are now practically grown.
Pictures litter the walls, and rugs scatter throughout the foyer to collect dirt and mud before visitors take their shoes off.
“The hospital administrators informed us of your release this morning,” Fletch tries, gentle. Calm. “We were happy to hear you’re doing okay.”
“ Okay ?” The woman walks ahead of us in a frumpy cardigan and a floor-length skirt that kind of reminds me of a tablecloth. Her hair is messy. Her face, swollen. It’s like she’s aged a decade in less than twenty-four hours. “I’m not okay, Detective.” She turns left, into what I discover is the kitchen, but she glances back and hits us with fiery, red-rimmed eyes. “My daughter was murdered last night. No parent will ever be okay after something like that.”
“Mom?” A younger girl, one of Naomi’s sisters, walks into her mother’s embrace and cuddles in as Fletch and I stop by the door. She looks to be about fifteen. Maybe sixteen. But the family resemblance between her and Naomi is strong.
Same cheekbones. Same eyes. Hair. Build. It’s easy to tell them apart—they’re not that similar—but it’s just as easy to know they share a biological connection.
“You’re the police?” She watches us warily. “You’re taking care of my sister?”
“I’m Detective Charlie Fletcher.” He takes a cautious, undemanding step forward. Careful not to spook either Wallace. “And that’s my partner, Detective Malone. We’re part of the homicide division, and we’re here to help find out what happened to Naomi.”
“Homicide?” She nibbles on her bottom lip and looks me up and down. “That’s another word for murder, right?”
At that, her mother breaks and sobs, her chest heaving, but her body remains upright, it seems, purely because her daughter holds her.
“Do you know what happened yet?” The girl, whose name is either Sandra or Heather, according to the bios Fletch and I have pulled since last night, helps her mother to the table, overflowing with things—photo albums, paperwork, boxes of photos, and school reports—and sets her down.
“We were sorting through some of Naomi’s stuff.” Releasing her mom, the girl circles around and heads toward the old island counter that fills most of the small kitchen. Taking down a mug, she moves to the stove and starts a silver kettle, old style. “I’m Sandy. Middle child.” She snags a tea bag from the cupboard and drops it into the empty cup. “My mom got home an hour or so ago. She wanted to grab that stuff down from the closet and look at it all.”
“Is this Naomi?” Carefully, Fletch reaches for a photo sitting close to Patricia’s arm. Her eyes swell and spill over. They watch his hand, preparing to snatch back the image of her baby. But she doesn’t grab it. Doesn’t snap at him for touching. “And Mason?” He turns the photograph for Sandy and me to see. “They were pretty young here, huh?”
“About ten, I think.” Sandy hovers her hands over the kettle, warming them, though the room isn’t cold. “That was taken just outside. Near the mailbox. ”
“They’ve known each other for a long time, right?”
“Their whole lives.” Shaky, Patricia brings her focus up and stares at Fletch through glistening eyes. “Their birthdays are just a few months apart. Mason is February,” she rasps. “And Naomi is June. I brought my baby home to this house, Detective. And Dora brought Mason home to hers next door.”
“Had a lot of playdates?” Fletch pulls a chair out at the table. Making himself at home. And yet, I see it more as him getting down on Patricia’s level. He’s meeting her where she is and not forcing her to look up. “I have a daughter. So I know that, often, I want to get her playing with other kids her age.”
“At first.” Patricia reaches to the middle of the table and snags a handful of tissues. Balling them, she brings them to her lips. “Back when they were young, Dora and I got along well enough. We let the kids play in the yard on nice days. We let them create cup phones and connect the houses.” She looks at me, “You know, with the string between both? Mason and Naomi’s rooms faced each other. And they were still only little. No cell phones yet. Everyone was fine with the string.”
“Did something happen in the later years?” Fletch asks. “You said you got along back then . Not so much anymore?”
She only shrugs, sniffling and wiping her nose until it burns red, raw. “Life just got away on us. Dora was busy with her stuff and I was busy with mine. Mason and Naomi were no longer playing in the street, so they didn’t need supervision like they did when they were little. Time just…” She shrugs again. “It happened. Before I knew it, months would pass between us even saying hi to each other. Usually when we were taking the trash out. Or collecting the mail. Or getting in or out of our cars.”
“Did you and your husband support Naomi and Mason’s relationship, Mrs. Wallace?” I lean against the counter and fold my arms. “Likewise, did Mr. and Mrs. Morgan support it?”
“Everyone was fine with it.” She blows her nose and fills her tissues. “I mean, it was cute at the start. They’d been inseparable for years, so no one was surprised. Things got a little tense in high school once we realized things were a little more…” She looks at Fletch. “Serious. It was natural, I suppose. A couple of sixteen-year-olds. It happens. So as the girl mom, I made sure to talk to my daughter— daughters ,” she amends, looking at Sandra, “about safe sex. Condoms. Birth control. Consent. It was all discussed. And I assume, as parents to boys, the Morgans did the same. Naomi told me that Mason told her,” she pauses for a beat, smiling a little nostalgically, “it sounds so high school. Someone told someone who told someone else.” Swallowing, she looks down into her lap. “Naomi said that Mason’s parents gave him the talk around the same time we’d given hers. They mentioned condoms. The difficulties of co-parenting a child if things went awry. They focused on the career he had ahead of him, and how high school was just a blip in his life. So it was important he was making smart choices.”
“But both sets of parents liked the other partner?” Fletch presses. “You liked Mason, and the Morgans liked Naomi?”
“I think they tolerated her,” Sandy inserts, bringing three sets of eyes her way. She turns to the stove and lifts the boiling pot before it whistles. Then she pours. “Mason was here a lot. For dinner and stuff. But Naomi didn’t feel as welcome at his place.”
“They didn’t want her there?” Fletch questions.
“Not so much didn’t want her there. They just…” She glances up, shrugging. “It wasn’t as warm as it is here. We’re poor, Detectives, but at least we talk to each other. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan are corporate career driven. They had a cleaner. And often, a cook. They don’t have pictures on their walls, except for the few they had professionally taken. Like, the family empire, Schitt’s Creek style. It’s gaudy and cold in their house. Which is why Mason was always here.”
“There seems to be a distinct difference in economics,” Fletch tries again. “Respectfully. Typically, homes on the same street house similar families.”
“This street was one of the least developed in Copeland,” the girl explains. “Back, before I was born. Property prices were low, compared to everywhere else in the city. It was one of those worst houses on the best street type situations, but in our case, the worst street on this side of the city. My parents bought in. The Morgans bought in. Everyone else did, too. Our home is worth more now, but my dad didn’t become a lawyer, and my mom stayed home to raise us. Including,” she adds, pointing toward the wall. Which, I think, is her pointing toward Mason’s house. “Raising him, too. While Mrs. Morgan was working, my mom did school pickups. Mason was one of us a million times in my childhood. He was part of the family.”
“You don’t like them?” I turn to the girl and try to read her. Study her sharp eyes. Understand her mature vocabulary, despite her young age. “You hate them, Sandy?”
“I don’t hate them.” She adds a little honey to her tea, then picks up the cup and walks it around to her mother. “I don’t even dislike them. I just want you to figure out who hurt my sister. Which means you need all the information. Not the ‘ everyone is being polite ’ version. The Morgans are decent neighbors. They say hello when we’re outside. They would probably put our trash out if we were on vacation somewhere and they were here. They treated my sister well enough—she never complained to me about them—and they raised a nice son. But even if all that is true, it doesn’t mean they weren’t also more interested in their work than they were in the parenting part of having kids. They relied on my mom for afternoon child minding more times than I can count. They upgraded their SUV every year, while secretly pitying us for our two-thousand-and-two van. And if they had an event at their place, like for Christmas or whatever, we were rarely on their invite list. Not because they hated us. But because we didn’t meet the same aesthetic their other guests did.”
“Sandy—” Patricia scolds. “Enough.”
“It’s true!” She sets the tea down and heads back to where she started. “They’re snobs, and we’re still the worst house, but now this is the best street. If my parents hadn’t bought twenty years ago, there’s no way we could afford it now.”
“Do you have any resources for people like us?” Glassy eyed, Patricia looks at Fletch. “Funerals cost a lot of money. We could take out another mortgage, probably. Or sell the house and down-size. But my husband already works so hard. He just…” She sniffles. “There aren’t enough hours in the day. So maybe there’s something, a business that can help us through the steps and stuff?”
“We can definitely have someone come speak to you.” Fletch places his hand over hers and gently nods. “There are things in place to help people. We’ll have someone contact you soon.”
“Do you know who killed my sister?” Sandy draws our focus again, staring hard and demanding to be treated as an adult. She’s only sixteen. But she’s long ago grown accustomed to being treated as a mature adult. “Like, apart from Connor. We know he did it. But he didn’t actually do it. Ya know?”
“Connor is seventeen.” I hold her stare and wonder, “Do you know him? He goes to your school, right?”
“I know who he is. I see him in the halls and stuff. And my little sister used to have a bit of a thing for him, like, she’d say hey and bat her lashes at school. But he’s older and was never interested. He’s not part of my group or anything.”
“Did he and Naomi ever socialize? Friendly? Not friendly? A relationship. Shared classes. Anything?”
She shakes her head, even before I finish speaking. “He didn’t share any classes with her. Same as he doesn’t share any with me. He doesn’t live in our neighborhood, so we didn’t hang out outside of school. I’m certain he knew who she was, just as I know who he is, but there’s no connection there. He’s just someone we go to school with.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt your sister?” I try instead. “Anyone she’s fought with? Anyone who had beef with her before the end of high school? Politics,” I remember our conversation from earlier. “Everywhere we go, politics exist. So maybe she annoyed someone? Maybe someone wanted Mason to look at them instead? Maybe someone wanted to hurt her, purely because she wasn’t the same aesthetic as the other students you were in school with. She was pretty, and social, but one’s economical place on the ladder matters, right? Especially in high school.”
Sandy nibbles on her bottom lip, thinking about my questions, and resting her elbows on the counter. She bends and sets her chin in her hands, but just as I expected, she shakes her head again. “No one. Mason and my sister have been a thing since forever, so it’s not like he was out there taunting other girls. There was no ‘ I almost had him, but you stole him ’ drama. My sister was a cheerleader and on a kinda bitchy squad. But she never took part in the crazy stuff. Her friend, Kallie,” she meets my eyes, to ensure I know who she means, “she was more of a crossover. She’d play in the social stuff sometimes. But that also meant she was a shield for my sister. Kallie would dabble in the gossip—create it, or put it out—then she’d spend time with Naomi, because it was peaceful to be around her. There’s no one, Detective. No one I can think of that would want to hurt my sister. High school is about slapping notes on someone’s locker or, at the extreme, deflating a person’s tires. Not stabbing an expectant mom to death when she isn’t even in high school anymore.”
“ I t could be someone at Copeland U,” I ponder, moving toward the car parked on the street and keeping my ears pricked as Sandy closes her front door with a gentle snick. Her mother howls in the kitchen. Completely broken and incapable of existing in a productive way in the aftermath of her daughter’s murder.
Her granddaughter’s murder, too.
I come to a stop at the edge of the Wallace’s yard, but I turn and look back at the house, leaning on the car as I study two homes, side by side. The houses themselves aren’t wildly different. Both two stories. Both with timber porches and pretty little gardens. The Wallace’s garden is tended to by Patricia and her daughters. It’s easy to tell. The mismatched plants, not at all like the masterpiece my brother has created over in New York. Small patches of dying grass in some spots, purely because maintaining a flawless lawn is an expensive task. Rose bushes that need a trim, and daisies that spring up in random patches that bring color and vibrancy to an otherwise neat yard.
The Morgans’, on the other hand, comes with a more Micah Malone flavor. My brother is gifted with a green thumb, so he doesn’t pay for gardeners. But not everyone possesses that same thumb, and the Morgans seem to have acknowledged that and hired someone who knows better.
Lawn stripes prove the mowers rolled across in the last twenty-four hours. Ornamental trees line the driveway, and the edging is cut to perfection.
Both gardens are pretty. Both frame a home filled with family.
But the Morgans prefer perfection, while the Wallaces create comfort.
“She’s only been at Copeland U for a couple of months,” Fletch murmurs, stopping on my right and pinching his lips between his thumb and finger. He does it so we can converse without anyone peeking through the curtains and knowing what we say. “Some folks can develop a grudge in a split second, so I’m not saying it’s impossible her killer was somewhere at college. But it all seems a little… extreme.”
“Extreme. Like how this person snuck into a haunted house, planted a weapon where a prop should have been, and hoped a teen would pick it up and kill a girl who was expecting a baby with her boyfriend. Who, according to the vic’s little sister, always only ever had eyes for her?” I glance to the side and meet his gaze. “This whole fucking case is extreme. The risks. The payoff. The victims—not just Naomi, but her baby, her boyfriend, her family, and friendships. The collateral on this one is extreme .”
His focus flitters across when the Morgans’ front door opens and a man steps out and stares. Then he peeks my way and continues to roll his lips. “Let’s go talk to them since we’re here. Their son lost the woman he loved. They lost the grandchild they were expecting. Probably time we get their take on all this.”
“Lead the way.” I push off the side of the car and dig my hands into my pockets as we cross the Wallace’s yard and mess up the stripes on Old Man Morgan’s luscious grass. Then we step onto a pebbled walkway and approach the porch .
“Daniel Morgan?” Fletch shows the man his badge, though I doubt he needs to be told. “My name is Detective Charlie Fletcher.” Then he tips his chin my way. “Detective Malone. We’re the detectives running Naomi Wallace’s case.”
“I’m certain you know who I am.” Morgan sets his hands on his hips and looks down his nose at us both. “What I do for a living. The things I know.”
At that, Fletch nods. “We do.”
“So it won’t come as a surprise when I decline the opportunity to chat with you about an open investigation. It could be detrimental to us both.”
“Is there a reason you’re concerned about anything except us solving the murder of a girl who, in all likelihood, would have become your daughter-in-law someday? She was the mother of your grandchild, Daniel.”
“You can call me Mr. Morgan. And yes, I’m concerned about my son’s future.”
Curious, Fletch moves onto his back foot and studies him through narrowed eyes. “What are you worried about, specifically?”
“My son being accused of any wrongdoing, specifically .” Morgan wears black dress pants and one of those long sleeve sweater shirts only the truly rich enjoy. Rolling the sleeves up to his elbows, he reveals an expensive watch and takes his time to consider his words. “My son has a very promising future ahead of him, Detectives. The events of the last twenty-four hours will affect that future, purely because of what’s been lost. But if you think adding a deep-dive investigation into his life, perhaps accusing him of being the perpetrator, and slapping conspiracy charges against his name in hopes something sticks, then that is something I will not allow to happen.”
“I don’t recall ever slapping charges against anyone unless we had irrefutable proof of wrongdoing.” Fletch looks at me, a furrowed line digging between his brows. “What about you, Arch? You often make accusations prior to investigation?”
I shake my head and bring my focus back to Morgan. “Not once in my entire career. Perhaps you should take comfort in the fact that, one, we’ve already interviewed your son, Daniel. As you know, he remains free of cuffs and charges. And two, each and every person we’ve questioned on this matter has confidently expressed their belief that Mason loved his girlfriend very much.”
“We understand your line of thinking,” Fletch adds. “To be a lawyer, in your case, or a cop, in mine, and be a parent means you’ll use your skills and determination to keep your child safe. But roadblocking and giving us attitude when we’re searching for answers for that poor girl is not how you make friends.”
“So how about you drop the shit?” I flash a feral smile when Morgan’s eyes swing to me. “And help us out. Because there’s no way you knew that girl for the last eighteen years, and aren’t broken hearted today, knowing what happened to her.”
“Unless, of course,” Fletch takes over, “you were the one who orchestrated all this.”
“I assure you,” Daniel blusters, reddening in the cheeks, “I am not that person.”
“So I guess we’re all friends then.” I drag my hands from my pockets and gesture up the stairs. Since the self-important prick has kept us at the bottom, and he, at the top. It’s a power play he thinks makes him slick. “Could we come in, Daniel? We’d like to get your observations not only on your son, but his relationship, too. As well as your thoughts on the Wallaces in general. The more information we have, the fuller our picture can be. And once we have a picture, we hope to solve a crime.”