Chapter 21
We shakily thank Mrs. Warren for her help and then leave through the playground exit, somehow keeping our shit together until
we reach the jungle gym, where I have to grab a monkey bar to steady myself.
“Benny killed Claudia,” I say out loud to see how it sounds.
“But why?” an anguished Marlowe demands, kicking a stray dodgeball hard. It bounces off the gate and then rolls to a stop.
She’s right. We need a motive. What do we really know about Benny?
“Benny’s a dog walker,” I say slowly. “He was recently fired—by dead Cran—as the poodles’ handler. So I bet he needs money.”
I just so happen to know that motive very well.
Marlowe begins kicking other assorted playground equipment as she mumbles bitterly, “But Claudia trusted him.”
“Yeah, exactly. She trusted him. So he was the best person to convince her to sell her house,” I say, warming up to this idea. “And maybe if he succeeded, Tond would pay him big bucks. But Claudia was stubborn, and when Benny lost his job, he was desperate, so he had to use more drastic measures.”
I replay the conversation in my head when Claudia made us walk around in a circle. Benny had definitely muttered something
about how it wouldn’t be so terrible for Claudia to downsize. And it was clear this wasn’t their first argument about it.
And wait.
Oh my god. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this.
Benny made a case against me going to the funeral.
Why? Not because it would be bad for the poodles. Not even because I’d quote-unquote make everything worse.
Because it would be bad for Benny. He wanted me to stay out of his business.
Cran fired Benny.
And then at the funeral, Leslie wrinkled her nose when I mentioned him. Not because she knew him biblically. She knew he was bad news.
Because Benny is Funeral Deep Throat.
Except—wouldn’t I have recognized him in the crowd?
Well, hang on. I didn’t recognize his photo at Dickie’s, or his cheekbones (and ass) on the statue. He’s got one of those
faces, handsome but forgettable.
Holy cow—did I just crack this case??
I’m about to hyperventilate, but in a good way. We have the perp, we have the motive, and we have actual proof.
“We need to send that doorbell video . . .” I force myself to say the words casually. “. . . to the cops. Can you do that?”
Marlowe nods and then kicks a plastic dinosaur—but not as hard as she could’ve. I figure giving her something to do will help.
I have a brief spasm of guilt at making a tween protect me from the cops.
But if the rest of the cops are anything like Mierzwiak, they’re going to need some convincing to take this seriously. Ideally by someone who’s not me.
And Marlowe’s not the only one who feels helpless right now. I need something to do too. I take a deep breath to clear my head.
“Okay,” I say. “The video puts Benny at the scene of the crime, so next step, maybe the cops’ll bring him in for questioning.
And I’ve got, not to brag, a pretty airtight theory here, but we still need proof. Something concrete. Otherwise the video
is just, what’s it called—”
“Circumstantial evidence,” says Marlowe.
Something’s been nagging at me about the video. I feel like I’m missing something. Something important. I run through the
video in my head. Benny comes to the door. Ducks down. Opens the mail slot. Pops back up—
Bingo. I snap my fingers. This is a toothbrush situation.
“What?” Marlowe says.
“Benny put something in the mail slot. Maybe it’s still there.”
“Still? No way.” Marlowe frowns. “That place was crawling with cops and firefighters and gas company people. They would’ve
found it.”
“I don’t think so.” I start running, Marlowe close at my heels. We jog through the playground gate and around the side of
the school, back toward Claudia’s house across the street. The gas van and cop car are gone, and only the fire truck is there.
The front door is still wide open, confirming my suspicion. “They’ve had the door open this whole time. They weren’t searching the house, they were airing it out—they probably just threw the door open and left it that way. Whatever the thing is could still be wedged behind the door.”
Marlowe jumps from foot to foot excitedly. “They’re gonna seal up the house,” she says. “We don’t have much time.”
My phone buzzes in my pants pocket, and it’s a number I don’t recognize. I’m thinking (hoping?) it’s Tasha, so I answer it, still peering around the corner.
“Hello there,” I say, in a smoldery but quiet voice.
“Hi, is this . . . Mo Ellery?” Ah crap, it’s a dude. At least it isn’t Mierzwiak.
Marlowe makes a hand gesture like she’s going to run across the street and distract the firefighters. I try to stop her but
she’s too quick.
Shitballs.
I realize I’ve said this out loud into the phone, when the voice clears his throat awkwardly.
“Anyway,” he says, “this is Eddie from LookShopNow—”
“Oh, no thanks, I’ve already got one,” I say.
“Wait!” he says as I’m about to hang up. He chuckles nervously. “No, you don’t understand. You applied for our marketing writer
position? We’d love to schedule an interview.”
Oh . . .
Right. I sent out tons of applications weeks ago, right after Kendra canned me. Most places didn’t even respond. I should jump on
this. Like Benny, I need money. I don’t want to end up vulnerable to bribery, especially with how rampant bribery seems to
be in this neighborhood.
I can do this. I’ll schedule an interview real quick. Just put on my corporate-whisperer voice and pull out my calendar, and—
Across the street at the front of the fire truck, Marlowe gives me the all-clear signal.
“You still there?” Eddie says.
“Um . . .”
Marlowe takes a few steps in front of the firefighters—the mountainous man and a small but clearly very strong woman—so they’re facing away from Claudia’s house, and starts crying convincingly.
The woman crouches in front of her, and the man is rubbing the back of his neck and looking very uncomfortable.
Marlowe has put her trust in me. She expects me not to leave her hanging. She needs me. And so does the ghost of Claudia.
Nuts.
“Can I call you back?” I say. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“Oh,” Eddie says. “Sure, I’ll be around from—”
Three-weeks-ago me wouldn’t believe it, but I hang up on him. Something small and feeble inside me, oh let’s call it my grown-up brain, squeaks nooooooo but I quickly squash it and make an appointment to regret this decision later.
Instead, I run across the street and slip behind the truck. My heart is pounding as I count down from three for courage and
then run into Claudia’s house, no hard hat needed. I close the door slightly and look behind it.
Yes.
There’s a thick brown envelope, with a solid layer of packing tape keeping it closed. Centered on the envelope is a label
with Claudia’s name. And under her name are scrawled the words: This is just for starters—T.J.
Holy crap.
This is definitely a clue.
And I know who T.J. is because Mo Ellery wasn’t born yesterday.
It’s Tond Johnston.
God, isn’t it nice when the pieces of the puzzle just snap cleanly into place?
Benny and Tond. In cahoots. Tond ready to do whatever it takes to get his dirty real estate dealings done, Benny desperate
for Tond’s money, willing to deliver secret packages while pretending to be an innocent hot neighborhood dog walker. It practically
writes itself.
Mystery solved, bitches.
I give myself a mental high five and glance around to see if there are any scissors I can use on this tape, when my phone
buzzes again. Oh my god, Eddie, give it up already—but when I check the screen, it’s Marlowe.
“Marlowe?” I ask.
“Code red!”
“What? I don’t know what that means, Marlowe!”
“They’re coming inside!”
I don’t say anything else, just shove the phone in my pocket, grab the envelope, and do the only thing I can think of—I race
through the kitchen, out the back door, into the yard, and past Claudia’s back gate into the alley.
I hide behind a neighbor’s garbage bin to catch my breath, and my phone buzzes again.
“What now,” I wheeze.
“Code, um—” she starts.
“Forget the code, dude, just tell me what’s happening!”
“Okay, Code I Might Be in Trouble.”
“Yeah, that’s good,” I say. “See? Now I understand what you’re trying to tell me. It’s a little long, but it’s very clear.”
“Mo,” she whispers. “For real, I might be in trouble—”
“What do you mean?”
“Hey—” She breaks off, and I hear the grunts of a struggle. Her voice gets distant. “Let go of me!”
“Marlowe?”
The phone goes silent.