Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
CASEY – WEDNESDAY EVENING
Not only did Casey stop and pick up a large pizza with all two of Gabe’s favorite toppings, but while the cooks at The Pizza Joint were busy putting together the order, he jogged over to Norskland General Store, hoping they were open.
They were, so Casey picked out a couple pints of Jewel Creamery ice cream.
No one could say he didn’t know how to cheer up his boyfriend.
“Casey Lundin, you are my hero,” Gabe said when he opened the front door.
Impatient to greet Keith or, more likely, to check the state of the cat’s food dish, Bowie squeezed past Casey and ran into the house.
“Hi, doggo. Glad to see you too,” Gabe said as Bowie completely ignored him and shot into the kitchen. “Learning from Keith, are you?”
Keith was nowhere in sight. She was probably sitting on one of the windowsills in the bedroom. Soon enough, she’d make her appearance and join Bowie, both of them lobbying for a morsel of Italian-style goodness.
While Casey set the pizza down on the counter, Gabe went into the kitchen area to grab some plates.
Due to the continued lack of a dining table, the choice was to either stand up and eat at the counter or retreat to the couch.
Gabe kept making noises about finding one he liked, but when he returned from his various excursions, his haul was just more kitschy mugs and beat-up paperback thrillers.
The boxes they’d picked up from Seattle were stacked exactly where they’d been left after they combed through them Tuesday evening. Alfred the Ugly Chair glowered in its spot alongside the boxes.
“I got us some ice cream too,” Casey announced, opening the paper bag and popping the two precious pints into Gabe’s freezer.
The boxes needed to be gone through again, more slowly this time, but that was a topic Casey was going to bring up after pizza and ice cream.
“Is there something even more amazing than a hero?” Gabe asked with a tired sigh. “Because that’s what you are.”
Casey took another second to really look at Gabriel Karne. Aside from the obvious gouge and dark purple bruise on his forehead that hopefully had peaked, there were dark circles under his eyes, and he seemed dispirited. Tired. “How did it go with Eagan?”
While he waited for Gabe to share his take on the day, Casey transferred a few slices of pizza from the box to the plates and handed Gabe one of them.
“Fine, I suppose,” he said, accepting his dinner and staring at the plate without moving to pick up a piece of pizza.
A sure sign that Gabe was dragging. “Turned out she had questions for me because my name was on a piece of paper in the dead body’s pocket.
And yeah, it was Juliet Carter or whatever her real name is.
Eagan showed me a picture I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. ”
Morgue photos were never flattering. Casey hadn’t seen many, but those he had stuck with him.
“I’m sorry you had to do that. Come on, let’s get some food in you.”
Casey led Gabe to the couch and plopped down, then patted the empty spot next to him as if it was his couch and this was his house.
He was beginning to understand that there were times when Gabe needed Casey to take over for a little while and take care of him, and he was happy to oblige.
Gabe was always quick to do the same for him too.
“Sit down and put your feet in my lap. I’ll balance my plate on your ankles. ”
The couch was barely bigger than a love seat, which meant only one of them at a time could stretch out, and Gabe got the honors tonight. Once they were situated—without pizza slipping off plates and into Bowie’s or Keith’s mouths—Casey said, “Tell me what happened.”
“Not much to tell,” Gabe mumbled around a mouthful of pepperoni and black olives.
“They say she was killed Monday night or Tuesday morning, a lot of hours after she left here. No ID on her. I think Eagan will tell me if the name Juliet Carter checks out, although I have my reservations there. You know, it wasn’t official, but the usual ‘stick around in case there are more questions for me’ was mentioned. ”
“Did you talk to Elton? Did he find anything out from the Old Codgers Club?”
Gabe’s eyes widened. “Shit! I totally forgot to call him. I can’t believe he hasn’t called me already. Unless Althea told him or he heard it on the scanner, he doesn’t know about the body. We should talk to him now.”
He started to move, but Casey grabbed his ankles, stopping him. “Calling Elton can wait until the morning. If Elton learned anything, he won’t forget it by tomorrow. And if he had found out something important from Althea, he would have been here already.”
“Truth.” Gabe blew out a big sigh and tilted into the back of the couch, semidefeated.
“Juliet was absolutely trying to con me, and she wasn’t very good at it.
Who let the baby grifter out on her own?
Where was she between the time she left and”—he waved a hand—“you know. Was she killed because I didn’t fall for her con?
I’m feeling obligated, like I was the last one to see her alive so it’s up to me to get to the bottom of what’s happened.
No one deserves to have what I saw in that photo happen to them. ”
“Gabriel, and I cannot emphasize this enough,” Casey began, “the ultimate responsibility for her death lies with the person who killed her, not with you.”
Casey was starting to see a pattern with Gabe when it came to situations like this one.
A dead body showed up, and Gabe would feel like solving the why of it was his burden to bear.
For reasons Casey still didn’t quite understand, the murder of “the baby grifter” seemed to be hitting Gabriel extra hard.
“It only makes sense that I’m the one who needs to get to the bottom of this current round of fuckery.”
“Why?” Casey was curious why Gabe felt this way.
“I don’t want to think that this murder has something to do with Heidi, from back when she was a Pritchard, but I’m afraid it might,” Gabe admitted.
“Which means ultimately it does have something to do with me.” He gestured at Alfred and the boxes with the last of his pizza slice.
“So it only makes sense that I’m the one who needs to get to the bottom of this capital F fuckery.
” He popped the pizza into his mouth and began to chew defiantly.
Gabe shifted his feet and stood up, then grabbed the empty plates and took them back over to the counter. “More pizza? Or should I break out the ice cream?”
“Gabe.”
“What?”
“Why do you think there’s a connection between your mother and this person’s murder?”
Gabe pulled another piece of pizza out of the box and took a big bite of it.
Swallowing, he said, “The timing is fucking suspicious. Monday, this Juliet person shows up. I send her away and head off to Westfort.”
Casey made a disapproving sound in the back of his throat.
“Yeah, I know, the B and E. Bad Gabe. Then Elton brings that letter over in the afternoon, and suddenly I’m off to Seattle the next day to pick up stuff my mother didn’t want me to have until she was dead.
” Gabe looked up, a mix of hurt and frustration clouding his expression.
It made Casey’s heart clench. “Why did she make sure I get to Heartstone in the first place and then get all of this”—he gestured at the boxes and the chair—“if she didn’t want me to follow the trail to the bitter end?
The timing is fucked. Juliet’s appearance wasn’t random, and I want to know how she found me and why she pulled the dad thing.
I need to know. Heidi would be the first to point out that fucked-up timing is no coincidence. ”
Instead of returning to sit next to Casey again, Gabe stayed where he was in the kitchen, one hip propped against the counter, the piece of pizza dropped back into the box, forgotten.
“How did Juliet find me? I only put in a change of address a couple of weeks ago. Does that information immediately go public? Was someone sitting around waiting to find out where I really lived so they didn’t have to use Elton as a conduit like our friend Lynn did?”
“Do you still have that envelope?” Casey asked.
“Yeah.” Gabe swiveled his head to cover the entire kitchen with his gaze, as if the envelope would magically jump up and show itself. “It’s here somewhere.”
“Maybe you stuck it back into the fruit bowl?’ Casey suggested. He was starting to learn that Gabe’s filing system was less a cabinet and more whatever container was handy.
“Oh yeah, here it is.” Gabe plucked the envelope out from underneath a bag of oranges. “And why am I looking at this?”
“To see when it was sent.” Casey walked over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Gabe, leaning in so he could see the envelope and offer support.
It was a regular letter-sized envelope, although a bit grubby and creased where it had been folded at some point.
Gabe flipped it over to the front. There, in the middle of the front, just like Casey had learned in elementary school, was Gabe’s name and Care Of Elton Cox above Elton’s address.
The handwriting was shaky, as if the person was ill, old, or both—much like Lynn Schmitt.
“Basic postmark from Seattle.” Casey pointed to the top righthand corner where the postage stamp had been affixed. “Nothing else looking suspicious.”
“That doesn’t explain if Juliet’s tied to it. She showed up before he brought it over.”
“So…” Casey said, thinking out loud. “They got their timing off. Or there are more unknowns in play.”
“I do not like unknowns,” Gabe complained.
Right on cue, Bowie let out a sharp bark and a growl, startling them.
“What’s up, dog?” Casey asked.
Bowie shot to the front door to sniff along the bottom edge, his tail straight up and out, as if someone was on the other side. The hairs on the back of Casey’s neck prickled.
“Maybe Alfred spooked him?”