Chapter 11
For once in their undeaths, the drama wasn’t Salvatore’s fault.
Over the decades Arthur had spent with Salvatore, there had been lots of opportunities to practice conflict resolution.
Sal had caused many a public scene in his day, and Arthur had gotten pretty adept at stepping in to help defuse the tension.
He had a great deal less experience dealing with anger directed at him.
Brody charged with uncharacteristic fury toward Arthur, hands balled into fists, face reddening as he drew closer.
The stares of the other memorial service attendees bored into Arthur with almost enough force to make his undead flesh prickle.
He was unaccustomed to being the center of attention, and now that he was, he found it entirely objectionable.
It was a novel experience, surely, but one he was not enjoying in the slightest.
“Brody,” Arthur began in what he hoped was a reasonable and not patronizing tone, “perhaps we should talk about this later—”
“No.” Brody crossed his arms. “You don’t get to brush me off again.
I’m your client. Or, I’m supposed to be.
” He straightened his lanky form, clearly trying to appear bigger and older than his seventeen years, then snuck a peek at his palm, where Arthur spotted illegible ink scrawled.
Perhaps he’d made notes in advance of this confrontation, a possibility that quite endeared him to Arthur.
“I deserve to be treated like a priority, but clearly you don’t care. ”
“That’s not true.” Arthur glanced at the crowd, wishing he could disappear. Half of them were openly staring, and the other half were pretending (inexpertly) not to eavesdrop. He tried to push it out of his mind, to little success. Sensitive matters didn’t belong in a public forum like this.
Unexpectedly—probably due to his nerves—Arthur’s plate of snacks slipped through his fingers. He was agile enough at night to catch it before it spilled onto the ground, but his embarrassment tripled. Yet another thing he was fumbling.
Straightening up and glancing around, Arthur spoke in a low voice. “I’ve been searching for her for two months now. There isn’t a lead I haven’t exhausted.”
Brody snorted and rolled his eyes in the fashion only teenagers seemed able to truly master. “I didn’t come here to listen to excuses, Detective Miller.”
“This isn’t the correct venue for discussing the case.
” Arthur glanced at Sal, who was watching their exchange like it was a tennis match—although Arthur had never known Sal to care overmuch about sports.
“Why don’t we step outside, and I can bring you up to speed on my progress without an audience? ”
“What progress?” Brody’s anger hadn’t ebbed.
Arthur couldn’t understand where it was coming from—not this much of it, at least. Things between them had been a little strained for the past month or so, which came as a surprise despite Arthur and Sal being the main reason his father was behind bars.
If anyone had bothered to ask Arthur, he would have said Brody was better off without a murderous parent, and it didn’t seem a far stretch to say Brody agreed.
He’d said he’d testify against his father, and he was eager to correct the record on his own diverging beliefs about paranormal equality.
The tension had only arisen after Arthur accepted the job to search for Brody’s mother, and it heightened the longer it took to track her down.
Perhaps Brody had placed the blame on Arthur as his hope faded in the face of how hard it really was to find someone who didn’t want to be found.
This level of animosity was new, however.
“I wrote a letter to your mother some time ago,” Arthur said evenly, though he still felt all those eyes on him.
Perhaps if he could give Brody even a disappointing update, they could delay further discussion until they weren’t surrounded by mourners.
“I received a reply, but it wasn’t from her, I’m afraid. ”
“And how exactly does that help me?” Brody spat out.
Arthur sighed. It didn’t. That was the only honest answer. He glanced at Sal once more, this time with pleading in his eyes.
It took a moment, but Sal put down the sliced salami from his plate, then backed away slowly.
He gave Arthur a wink before making his way to the front of the tent, where someone had set up a microphone and had been careless enough to leave it on—not that the average person could know to guard against such things while Salvatore Conte was around.
Truly, it had only been a matter of time.
Like a moth to a flame, Sal was to a rapt audience.
Or an indifferent audience. Sal wasn’t picky in this particular regard as long as there were people watching.
“Good evening, fellow enjoyers of the nighttime,” Sal said in a sultry lower register Arthur hadn’t heard before. He sounded not unlike a jazz performer in a speakeasy announcing his next tune. “It is my great privilege to stand before you—”
As heads turned toward Sal and attention bled away from Arthur and Brody, Arthur tuned his husband out.
He had no idea where Sal was going with his speech, but as long as he kept people focused on him, Arthur didn’t much care.
He turned back to Brody, hoping he hadn’t lost his chance to make things right.
“I haven’t given up on finding your mother,” Arthur told him, meaning it. “But it will take time.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have a lot of that to spare.” Brody crossed his arms and slumped, the teenage pout returning to his demeanor.
“I know you’re upset I’m working another case, but with murder, time is of the essence.”
“Don’t talk like you’re some seasoned homicide detective from a TV show.” Brody scowled. “You lucked into figuring out…” For the first time this evening, his anger gave way to something deeper. “…what happened to the mayor.”
It wasn’t only what happened to the mayor, though.
It had happened to Brody, too. Brody’s own father had tried to frame him for the murder, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d attacked Brody.
If not for Arthur and Sal coming across him in a timely manner, Brody might have died.
Though Brody had made a full physical recovery, Arthur wondered now if the boy might benefit from some more extended trauma counseling.
None of what had transpired would be easy for anyone to process, let alone a teenager.
“Brody, I—”
Before Arthur could adequately convey his sympathies, Sal began to sing “Dancing Queen,” claiming that it had been a favorite of Lola’s and inviting everyone to join in if they knew the lyrics.
Sal, for his part, clearly only remembered about one word in three, not that it slowed him down in the slightest. He sang with abandon: “You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventy!”
Brody glanced at Sal, then rolled his eyes again. “If time is of the essence, why are you both screwing around like this?”
“It’s…our process.” Arthur cleared his throat as Sal sang tangerine instead of tambourine.
“Maybe your other clients don’t care, but I don’t have time to let you drag your feet.” Brody hesitated, casting his gaze down.
It was odd, his urgency. Brody claimed to have a few more months before a change in custody, so Arthur took a stab in the dark. “Is there some reason you need this resolved quickly, Brody? Something you’re not telling me?”
Brody didn’t look up, scuffing the ground with his shoes.
“My aunt is moving to California in July because her shitty husband got a job there. She sucks, and she blames me for her brother being in prison, but according to the state, she’s my only legal guardian.
Theo helped me look into emancipation, but it’ll take too long, and with my court date coming up… ” Brody trailed off.
Emancipation might be risky as well. Arthur didn’t know the legal ramifications, but he wondered if it might allow the state to try Brody as an adult.
He wanted to say that no one would fault Brody for his part, especially in light of his father’s manipulations, but that wasn’t entirely true.
Brody was in a very precarious situation, and even though Arthur—one of the vampires Brody had, at his father’s command, tried to frame for the mayor’s murder—could let bygones be bygones, that didn’t mean the legal system would do the same.
“I…I’m sorry to hear that,” Arthur said stiffly. The end of June was less than two weeks away. If Arthur couldn’t deliver, Brody would have to leave the town he’d called home his whole life, the school he knew, and all of his friends.
“Cool. I’m sure your ‘sorry’ will bring my mom back home,” Brody huffed. “What did the letter you got even say?”
Arthur was a little taken aback by his asking, but he supposed now that Brody’s anger wasn’t so strong he was curious.
Arthur would have been, too. “The writer was brief, but they said your mother was no longer part of their organization. I’m afraid that’s not much to go on, as they didn’t say what organization it was. ”
Brody blinked at him. “Wow. That’s some detective work.”
Up by the screen and projector, Sal was now leading everyone in the Macarena.
Some people seemed very engaged in the activity, while others had gone back to their conversations.
A few glanced at Arthur and Brody, not particularly covert about their nosiness.
It was to be expected. Brody wasn’t making pains to be quiet, unlike Arthur.
“You’re a hack!” Brody said, voice rising.
The words stung, perhaps mostly because Arthur feared them to be true. What sort of VAMP PI was he if he could only solve the one case?
Before Arthur could reply, Nora slipped into the tent, followed by Quinn, matching expressions of concern on their faces. They’d apparently solved the electrical issue only to find a new problem in their midst. They headed straight for Arthur and Brody.