Chapter 28
I don’t breathe normally again until Tasha reemerges from the alderman’s private office, all in one piece and holding a thick
stack of official-looking documents. She gives me an apologetic smile as she plops them on the desk and sits. “I’m sorry,
but I have to go through and notarize this whole pile. It’s going to take forever. But thanks for coming by?”
“Anytime,” I say, trying to sound breezy. “It was good to see you too. But also . . . I wonder if I could get your professional
help? Before you start notarizing? Just for a second.”
“For you?” She smiles, for real this time, and her voice curls around me. “I’ve got at least seven seconds.”
“Dang, it is easier to get in your pants than get on your calendar.” Even with a murderer in the next room, I cannot stop
flirting with this woman. What is wrong with me?
She laughs, and it takes everything I’ve got, but I resist the urge to tell her the professional help I need most is to rip her clothes off in the office supply closet. I’m pretty proud that instead, I tell her the story I’ve been practicing.
“So you remember the guy who died at my intersection? Cran Johnston?”
She nods.
“I know this sounds sort of silly, but . . . his brother is trying to find out what his last words were. It’s a whole grief
thing.” I pull out the okra-stained calendar and flip through the pages. “This is Cran’s calendar, and it has this entry.”
I point to the morning of the accident. It says, Meeting at Merle’s. I shake my head. “I couldn’t believe it, but I told the brother I knew just who to ask.”
I could believe it.
Because I wrote it there this morning.
Eat your heart out, Rodney O’Malley!
Except . . . I’m discovering in real time that lying to Tasha feels bad. Very bad. Much, much worse than I thought.
Just then, beige pantsuit lady—Val—walks through, a fat brown envelope in her arms. I think of the brown envelope in Benny’s
abs and get the shivers. “Running to the post office,” she says to Tasha, and then wrinkles her nose. “Why does it smell like
the butt end of a pickle jar in here?”
“Long story,” I say, gesturing toward the calendar, as if that explains it all.
“Gross,” Val says as she leaves.
Tasha shrugs in apology. “She grows on you.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“So this thing says they had a meetup, huh?” Tasha slides into her chair and squints at Cran’s calendar. “That’s weird. I’ll
check Merle’s calendar, but I honestly don’t remember scheduling anything for them that week.”
“That would be a huge help—I figure if anyone knows Merle’s every move, it’s you!” I immediately bite my tongue, realizing that I’m drifting into “too much truth” territory.
Lie better, I scold myself.
Practice makes perfect, I snark back.
Look, it’s not like I’m lying to get into her pants. And I’m not lying about me, or us, so maybe this isn’t so bad? Even so, it still feels like I’m setting up a fuzzy gray cubicle wall of dishonesty between
us. I’ll knock it down later, I tell myself as she closes a document. It’s for 11.5K, I think as she clicks into his calendar. I can buy her so much Malort with that money.
“I doubt it would have been Merle,” Tasha says. She clicks around. “Yeah, according to his calendar, he and Cran Johnston
met every other week, and the last time was eight days before his death.”
I stare over her shoulder, scanning as quickly as possible. I’m not looking for a meeting the day he died. Obviously.
I’m looking for the day of the funeral . . . and . . . found it. Dang it. That day is blank.
But it’s completely blank. No meetings whatsoever. Even the funeral isn’t on there.
So maybe . . . Merle has a personal calendar? Where he keeps records of funerals and side hustle meetings with henchmen?
Henchpeople, I correct myself. The patriarchy can suck it.
Now that I think about it, that would make sense. If I was a murderer, I’d keep a secret calendar for my murdering to-dos instead of the official one my assistant
manages. Damn. Wonder if I can somehow break into his back office . . .
Tasha catches the look on my face, thankfully misunderstands, and makes a sympathetic noise. “Sorry that didn’t help with
your mission.”
“It’s okay,” I say, quickly. “I’ll let the brother know. Thanks for your seven seconds.” I meant it to come out flirty, but
it sort of just sounds sad. All this lying, for what?
She’s looking at me intently, and I’m sure she’s seeing right through me, and I’m sweating right into my sleek fashion T-shirt that shows off my clavicle—but then she
puts a hand on my arm and says gently, “You know, it’s possible you were the one who heard his last words. Do you remember the last thing he said to you?”
And suddenly, I do remember. He was spitting venom about the fact that I’d stopped him from running over that kid, and the
very last thing he said to me was that he was friends with the alderman.
And that the alderman knew where I lived.
It wasn’t an idle threat.
Cran knew Merle could make people disappear.
The vibes just keep piling up! If only I could find some freaking proof.
I can feel Merle’s presence at the back of the office, and as I reach out to grab the pickled okra calendar, I see that my
hand is shaking. I’m not being as cool about all this as I planned.
And I’m not the only one who notices.
“Hey,” Tasha says softly and turns my chin so we’re forehead to forehead. “What’s really going on, Mo?”
Shit.
I didn’t mean for this to be a whole thing. It was just going to be a teeny tiny forgettable lie along with some light calendar
forgery. But now I feel miserable, and that teeny tiny lie is taking up all the space between us. Not even the lie itself; it’s the fact that I lied to her at all. If I want to actually date her, I have to stop lying.
And I do. I really want to date her. Desperately. Which is also kind of a revelation.
I have to fix this.
Time to bring the walls down for the second time today.
“Don’t be mad,” I say, keeping my voice quiet but talking fast, so I don’t chicken out. “I haven’t been totally honest with you. I’m not here to find Cran’s last words.”
“Aha,” she says softly. “I thought it might be—”
“I’m here because of Claudia, who is dead from legit murder.”
Tasha blinks rapidly. “And Claudia is . . .”
“Was. Wait, let me back up real quick. Claudia was bribed and then murdered—but she never got the money. I have it. Temporarily. I put it inside a statue in Claudia’s basement. But it’s Tond’s
money—that’s Cran’s brother, Tond—and if I can keep Tond safe, I get to keep the money. As a payment, not a bribe. I’m not
someone who takes bribes, that’s one thing you should know about me.”
I pause to make sure that sinks in, but it’s hard to tell because Tasha’s just frowning at me. I try to take things a little
slower. “To keep Tond safe, I have to figure out who killed Claudia, which I know is technically outside the scope of my crossing guard duties, but it’s also kind of a public service if you think about it that way? Especially
since the gas company is apparently full of hit men, and . . .” I take a deep breath for this last bit. “All of the clues
I’ve found are pointing to—I’m very sorry to say this—Merle.”
She squints at me.
“What I’m saying,” I whisper, “is that Merle merldered—uh, murdered—Claudia.”
I feel like I laid it all out pretty well, but Tasha still looks confused.
“I . . . I-I thought . . .” she stammers. “I thought you wanted to talk about our relationship.”
“Oh,” I say. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Like a—”
“Like a ‘what are we’ or perhaps a ‘do you have time for a relationship’ type conversation.”
“Oh. Wow. Yes. You know what? Let’s do that instead. We can circle back to murder.”
“I’m at work, Mo.”
I nod, deeply relieved that she’s not dumping me, even though I lied a teensy bit. I totally made the right choice to tell
the truth afterward. “We’ll stick to murder for now. Relationship talk later.”
“I don’t want to be rude or anything,” she says, “so I’m asking this in the least stigmatizing way I possibly can: Is it possible
you have been prescribed a medication that you aren’t taking?”
“I really hope we’ll get to know each other better,” I say, squeezing her arm tenderly, “so another fun fact about me is that
I always take the full dose of any medication I’m ever prescribed.”
“Ah.”
“So back to the murder stuff: I know it’s a lot to take in,” I say.
“Mo,” she says, not unkindly, “this isn’t old-school Chicago. There aren’t hit men at the gas company anymore. Actually, I’m
not sure that was ever a thing. There are rules and laws and checks and balances. One of which is me. I know everything that happens in the office. I would have known if Merle was . . . killing people.”
“You don’t believe me,” I say, my heart deflating in my chest.
She bites her lip, like she’s wrestling with something for a minute, and then says, “I want you to have faith in city government,
but I also want you to feel heard.” She blushes a little bit and then clears her throat. “Truth is, Merle’s a little out of
it these days. Val and I are kind of picking up the slack.” She puts her hand on my arm. “Only temporarily; I swear he’s not
always like this.”
I shiver. “Like what?”
She holds up a finger and then calls, “Merle? I’ve got a constituent who wants to meet you.”
“Tasha!” I squeak.
I know there’s fight or flight, but is there also pee your pants a little?
Seriously, what is she doing?
“Oh goody!” calls a booming voice from the back. “Never miss the chance to meet a voter!”
And following that is about three solid, uncomfortable minutes of clanking, banging, and groaning noises. When Merle finally
emerges from the back office, I see him for the first time: a small, rosy-cheeked, gray-haired man, who hobbles his way past
the cubicles, leaning on crutches that he’s using to accommodate, that’s right, the giant cast on his entire right leg.
“Here, let me help,” Tasha says.
“Now, Tasha, I’m not a feeble old man,” he says, just as he catches one of the crutches on the floor and nearly goes down.
“I have to figure this out by myself.”
“What happened to you?” I ask. “Er, Your Honor.”