Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
JACKSON
Sophia does some weird sidestep thing and waves toward the hallway as though it’s the greatest thing she’s ever seen. Like she couldn’t be prouder to have Patel peruse her house.
Patel dodges right around her arm and heads toward the very room Leland had disappeared into. That’s when I hear a glass shatter and Patel rushes forward to see what it is, only to find Leland standing in front of the fridge with the fridge door open as far as it can possibly go.
Leland looks up when we enter and somehow pulls off looking natural.
“Oh fuck. Sophia, I really wanted some jam, so then I grabbed the jar and it just like shot between my fingers… why was it so slick on the outside? Why the fuck was your jam all lubed up, Sophia? What were you doing with the jam?” he asks as he looks down at the red jam splattered all over the floor then looks at his hand in horror.
“Hon, you’re letting all of the cold air out of the fridge,” I say, bewildered by this spectacle. If his plan is to horribly confuse Patel, he’s accomplishing it.
“It’s fine, it’s fine! He’s more than welcome to do that,” Sophia says.
“Thank you, Sophia! I knew I liked you more than Tavish!”
“Haven’t you known Tavish like… a while? That’s sure some compliment!”
“Too long, actually. Detective Patel, if you want to arrest someone, may I suggest Tavish?”
“Leland, be nice to Tavish,” I say.
“Let me help you with that,” Patel offers, reaching for a paper towel just as I watch an arm peek out from behind the fridge. And with the arm comes a head. Like… some man just doing a good ol’ “Peek-a-boo!” to the detective. The main problem with this is the man looks none too alive.
Leland, who I realize is pinning the body against the wall with the fridge door, doesn’t notice the man waving for help from the afterlife. I dive across the kitchen, nearly plow Patel to the ground, and shimmy in front of the body.
“No, really, it’s okay! We got it. Finish your house sweep,” I assure her. “I’ll help Leland. You have more important things to do than clean up some jam.”
Her eyebrows knit just a little for some unknown reason.
Like how could she possibly think any part of this is suspicious?
How could she think two men who are body blocking a fridge door that’s wide open—while staring down at jam that I now realize is covering up a fucking blood spot—could be suspicious?
She gives a nod and follows Sophia, who looks ready to tear her hair out. The second Patel turns to her, Sophia’s entire expression turns from Shrek who just had someone waltz into his swamp and then died on his doorstep to Snow White welcoming the wildlife into her home.
“This way,” she says. “Anything you want to look at or see, feel free to open it up.”
Seriously? Could she not be so welcoming to the detective? Leland and I have nothing to do with this murder, but we’ve now joined in on it with open arms for some reason!
I wait until I hear their footsteps disappear before turning to look at Leland with the widest eyes. “What. The. Actual. Fuck?” I mouth to him.
“You like Buck? Who the fuck is Buck? I will fuck Buck up, Jackson. How dare you! My heart! Is this Buck?” He jabs a finger at the dead guy.
“I said what the fuck!” I hiss.
“Oh. The body?” he whispers.
“Yes, the fucking body.”
“I know, right? Like I didn’t know which way to go, and then she was coming and none of the cupboards would have fit him, so then this is what I got. Now… where the fuck do we take him?”
“Garage.”
“Is there a place to hide him in the garage? You know her nosy ass will be in there before we know it.”
“We’ll… throw something over him. Fuck if I know. Just… we can’t stand here with the fridge door open for the next twenty minutes and expect her not to notice something is wrong!”
“I think I played it off very naturally.”
“Did you? Did you, Leland? With his arm and head falling out from behind the fridge?”
“Natural at its finest.”
Leland peeks around the corner to make sure Patel is busy and then quickly swings the fridge door shut.
We check that he hasn’t smeared any blood on the wall or fridge, then he grabs the bottom half and I grab the top half and begin chugging toward the garage door right before I hear a phone start ringing.
“I’m so sorry, that’s mine,” Patel says as I hear her thundering her way toward us.
Like who the fuck walks that fast? And why is her phone out here?
There’s no way we’re making it to the garage in time, and now we’re holding a body between us like we’re waiting for someone to start jump-roping him.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
The couch in Sophia’s living room sits off the wall, breaking up the living room and the path to the garage, so Leland stops right behind the couch.
I don’t realize he’s stopping and shove the body at him, causing Leland to stumble back and then swing an arm around the couch to catch himself just as Patel reaches the living room.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Dandy, honestly,” he says as he lowers the body and begins wandering around, leaving me with it. “Sophia, do you have a little dustpan?”
“Oh! Yes! Sorry!”
Patel grabs her phone. “Sorry, when I heard that crash coming from the kitchen, I dropped the phone and rushed forward, but it was just Leland… breaking the jam,” she says, like she’s disappointed it wasn’t a murderer.
“What’s that door over there?” She points toward the garage while I wonder why the fuck she hurried out here to grab the phone yet is refusing to answer it.
Sophia makes eye contact with me, and I can tell that the very last thing any of us want her to see is the garage since she would have to walk past me and the dead man I’m still holding up.
Like how do I even make this work? Do I try out my hand at being Leland and kick it off with, “Sophia, your Halloween decorations are so realistic! You have to tell me where you got this body!” Like hell is Patel going to believe that, and now I’m an accomplice to murder!
“Did… Did you hear that?” Leland asks as he freezes.
Patel stops on her journey to the garage. All she’d have to do is turn her head to the left and she’d be looking the dead man in the eyes, especially because I’m still holding on to his hands for some fucking reason.
Did I ever imagine I would be standing in the house of a former contract killer, holding hands with a dead man, while an extremely suspicious detective snoops around the house? No… no I didn’t. But then again, I should have known better now that I’m with Leland.
Patel follows Leland while Sophia rushes over to help me.
“She’s going to check the garage next,” I whisper.
“Fuck. Fuck. Why’s she so nosy?”
“Leland wants to know that as well.”
“There’s a cabinet in the garage that I can lock. Go quickly. I hear her coming.”
“Patel! Hold on!” Leland calls.
“What is it?”
“Did I ever tell you how I met my husband?” Leland asks.
Sophia grabs the other half of the body, and we rush for the garage. She scurries over to the cabinet and opens it only to reveal that it’s packed full of shit.
“Under the body of the car,” I say, setting him down and beginning to shove. He’s not sliding with ease and his shoe gets stuck on something when I hear a hand on the doorknob. Sophia drops to the ground and shoves him the rest of the way just as the door opens.
Patel looks in at where Sophia’s lying on the garage floor and I’m patting the open hood of the car.
“So… that’s where the leak my husband was having trouble with is,” she says.
“Must just be a problem with the oil filter. When Nathan gets here, we can look at it better,” I respond.
“The oil’s not on that side of this kind of car,” Patel says. “Do you want me to have a look? I happen to know quite a bit about these old cars.”
Of course she does.
“Detective, did I tell you that I once stopped a robbery with a tornado?” Leland asks.
“What?” she asks, confused. I don’t blame her; we all are.
“Yep,” he says then finger-guns the air.
“You shot someone during a robbery?”
“I fingered them. Like finger-gunned them. The only one I finger is Jackson. He likes it.”
I’m well aware that he’s using this as a tactic, and I think it’s just horrifying the lady, so… I guess tactic well done.
“Oh, my husband is like that too,” Sophia says as she finally gets up.
And now the two of them are over here with some strange plan of making Patel uncomfortable enough she’ll leave. Patel is standing stone still, like if she doesn’t move, she won’t play a part in this hell.
All the while our dead body lies mere feet from her. Really, she could probably bend down and touch it from here.
Sophia smiles as she walks over to Patel. “I just… I really want to thank you for being so concerned. It makes me feel safe. Do you think I need to take Cam and go somewhere else for a bit? Maybe I’ll go stay with my mother. I think maybe that’d be best.”
“If you do, please let me know, and I’d love to know the address. I just want to keep an eye on you and your son,” Patel says.
I can’t figure out whether that is packed full of concern or that’s her way of being even more nosy.
“I really appreciate it. I will,” Sophia promises while we usher the woman out of the garage and over to the front door. Just as Patel’s opening the door and relief is washing through us, the door swings open and Nathan nearly runs into her.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Detective, I didn’t know you were here. Is something going on?” he asks, immediately on edge.
“No, I was just making my rounds and checking in on your wife,” Patel says. “We had an incident where some people attacked Jackson and Leland, so we wanted to make sure you all were safe.”
“Oh my god. Are you two okay?” he asks.
If being okay includes helping your wife hide a dead body then… maybe.
“We’re fine. Jackson simply tossed his smolder their way and they collapsed,” Leland says for… some reason.
Nathan looks confused. “Oh, that’s… good?”
It’s okay, we’re all confused.