Chapter Fourteen. The Body with The Knife
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE BODY WITH THE KNIFE
On the walk back from the thrift store, Felix gallantly offers to treat me to lunch before remembering we blew all our cash buying his grandfather’s painting.
“I could cook for you,” he says, like it’s a consolation prize.
“Yes,” I reply, with zero hesitation. My tastebuds are already doing a happy dance at the memory of those black beans.
Each of the units at Castle Claude has a small private kitchen, but the big industrial space on the main floor belongs to everyone. All the post–Killing Me Softly buffets get prepped down here, where Mr. Namura has spices and sauces to fit every theme.
“You like grits?” Felix asks, pulling a saucepan out of the cabinet next to the stove.
It’s clearly a test. He’s really asking if I’m about to have my temporary Southerner card revoked. “Um, yeah.”
“All the way?” He must see the blank look on my face. “Can you handle some heat?”
“I’m not a wimp or anything.” That I know of.
“We’ll see about that.” Felix sets a package of bacon on the counter, next to a small white onion and a can of jalapenos.
The painting has been carefully placed outside the splatter zone, at the far end of the long communal table. Felix said he needed to figure out the least upsetting way to present the discovery to his grandfather.
“Do you want some help?” It’s partly politeness, but I also need something to do with my hands or I’m going to fidget myself to distraction.
“I assumed you were planning to sit and criticize my technique.”
“I can multitask,” I assure him.
Felix must suspect that I’m overselling my abilities, because he assigns me all the entry-level jobs.
Finding the can opener. Measuring the water.
Getting two bowls out of the cupboard. A four-year-old in Montessori could handle any of this, but I don’t complain because I’m not that great in the kitchen.
Especially compared to Felix, who is clearly in his element.
Maybe cooking is close enough to art that the skills transfer: a splash of this, a smattering of that.
Not like that guy who threw paint at a canvas in big drippy splotches, though.
Felix is a neat freak, wiping the stove and the counters as he goes.
“Do you do this a lot?” I ask, trying to sound only moderately impressed.
“Only when my stepdad isn’t home.” He’s busy turning down the heat under the pan, so I can’t see his expression.
“Because … he likes to cook?”
That makes him snort. “No way. He’s not big on blurring traditional gender roles.”
“Isn’t the restaurant industry male-dominated? All the top chefs used to be men.”
“Yeah, but cooking isn’t white-collar enough.
It’s almost as bad as wanting to be an artist. Either way, you’re getting your hands dirty.
Plus it was my dad’s thing, so obviously it’s all wrong.
” He finishes shredding the cheese (also too high-level for me) and carefully rewraps the block of cheddar before returning it to the refrigerator.
“Is that why you haven’t been around?” I ask, while Felix sautés the chopped onion. “Your stepdad doesn’t approve?”
“Depends on the day. Don has his moods. At first he was like, ‘Is his grandfather even here legally?’”
I suck in a shocked breath, like I just kicked something hard with my bare toes.
“I know.” He shoots me a grim smile. “Of course, he changed his tune when he found out Grandpa G owned part of this place. ‘Make sure you stay on the old man’s good side.’” The last bit is relayed in a cheesy car salesman voice, in case I didn’t already have a read on his stepfather’s personality.
“Touching.”
“Real family values.” Felix stirs the onion, adding a dash of some earthy-smelling spice. “It’s a long-term investment strategy for guys like that. Buttering up the old folks enough to make sure you’re in the will.”
“He’s your grandfather. He comes pre-buttered, by definition.” That sounds a little messy, but Felix shrugs like he knows what I mean.
“I guess that’s not how it works in Don’s family. He’s big on ‘locking down the money.’ Lawyer,” he adds, as if that explains it.
“Maybe that’s why Bradley was hanging around Claude’s sister.”
Felix shakes his head as he crumbles a strip of perfectly cooked bacon. “Didn’t sound like he was planning to wait for his inheritance. I’d honestly be worried if he was still—you know.”
I do know, and I’m not going to make him say it. The feeling is complicated enough without trying to put it into words.
“I’m sure that’s partly why it was suddenly okay for me to spend the summer here,” Felix says, jumping back to the subject of his family drama.
“What’s the other part?”
He doesn’t answer right away, moving the pan off the heat and shutting off the timer. “It’s easier when I’m not there.”
Another feeling with which I am uncomfortably familiar. Newlywed PDA is not a spectator sport.
Felix sets a bottle of hot sauce on the counter before sliding a bowl over to me. “This place is more than a building.”
“A lot more.”
We’re both silent, stirring our cheesy grits. I blow on the spoon before taking the first bite. “It’s good.”
This is a massive understatement; I want to shove my face into the bowl and inhale.
“It’s just grits.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “But thanks.”
Who knows how goopy the moment would have gotten from there, but no sooner have we made eye contact than two people walk into the kitchen.
Felix and I hastily set down our spoons, mumbling greetings to a scowling Bernie and unreadable Detective Ortiz. I have no idea why we’re both acting like we’ve been caught red-handed. Maybe detectives have that effect on people.
“Is everything okay?” Felix asks.
“Besides my nephew dying?” Bernie snaps.
“Ye-es?”
I don’t blame Felix for hesitating; there’s no good answer to a question like that.
“Routine inquiry,” the detective assures us. “A missing item we’re trying to locate. Maybe you’ve seen it around?”
I’m trying so hard not to look in the direction of the painting, my neck feels like a steel column. “What is it?” I ask, in a pale imitation of my normal voice. Luckily, Detective Ortiz has no way of knowing I don’t always sound like I’m talking through a pair of socks.
“Bradley’s EpiPen. It had a distinctive leather case. He was vigilant about wearing it.”
“No.” I shake my head for emphasis. Both responses are too emphatic, but hopefully he can tell it’s from relief rather than dishonesty. Beside me, Felix has also gone full bobblehead.
“Is that mine?” Bernie must have been looking around for things to bitch about, because she’s pointing at the painting. “Did you steal it? Are there thieves running around this place too?”
That gets the detective’s attention.
“We bought it,” I volunteer, before he can ask. “At the thrift store.”
“Which one?”
I tell him, then answer a few follow-up questions about when this went down and whether we recognized anything else from this building. What he doesn’t ask is if we know how the painting turned up there.
Felix and I exchange a worried look.
“Anything else?” Detective Ortiz asks a little too perceptively.
“Um, it might have been her nephew,” Felix says in a rush. “Who brought it there.”
“What are you talking about?” Bernie scoffs. “Bradley didn’t shop at thrift stores.”
Felix shrugs. “Just kind of sounded like him, from the description.”
“Bradley was from a wealthy and prominent family,” she says, as if that precludes the possibility of him doing anything wrong.
Detective Ortiz has been quietly observing this exchange. “I’ll head over there now,” he says, tucking his notebook in his pocket. “See what I can find out.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Bernie calls after him. “Someone here is responsible. That’s where you should be looking!”
His response floats back to us. “Your concerns have been noted.”
Damn. Savage politeness. I make a mental note to tell Mr. Namura about that one.
After she huffs out of the room, Felix looks at me with his brows raised.
“Which part?” I ask, since there are so many options to choose from.
“Is she just trying to stir the pot, or does she really think somebody here was responsible?”
“I could believe either one, honestly.” I think of what he said before, about not having to worry about Bradley being a threat to Castle Claude. Maybe we aren’t out of the woods yet.
“Okay, but she can’t accuse people without any proof,” I reason. “Which they won’t find because I can’t imagine anyone here—strike that, I can imagine them doing a murder, but only if the murder was also imaginary.”
He pokes at his grits, now congealed into a far less appealing form. “Plus, if they were going to bump someone off it would be Bernie.”
It’s a fair point. “I wonder what happens if she dies before the three months are up?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitates. “Her nephew definitely won’t inherit.”
We let that sink in for a minute, with all the possible ramifications.
Felix pushes his bowl away. “Maybe we should ask Mervyn. About all of it.” As soon as the words are out, he winces.
“What? You don’t like him?”
“No, he seems like a nice guy. I just made it a personal mission to always do the opposite of what my stepfather thinks is right. Like that would be my moral compass. ‘What would Don do? Okay, I’ll go the other way.’”
“He says chocolate, you say vanilla?”
“More like he says ‘ROTC’ and I say ‘ceramics.’ But yeah. He’d lawyer up at the first sign of trouble.” Felix slides me a worried look. “Do you think he’s rubbing off on me?”
“No.” I answer without hesitation, because sometimes you have to tell people what they need to hear.
“It’s for a good cause, right? The end justifies the means. Shit.” His eyes squint shut. “That’s totally something he would say.”
“Listen, if math would help, I would bust out some algebra right now. Totally playing the stepfather card. No shame.” I make an expansive hand gesture worthy of Grandma Lainey. Sky’s the limit.
That surprises a laugh out of him. “Now I know who to call if there’s a quadratic equation emergency.”
“Maybe we both take after our grandparents,” I suggest, because it feels like an okay moment to share one of my pet theories, while we’re out here being all sincere.
“Like the coolness skipped a generation?”
“Sounds plausible to me.” Plausible, wishful thinking: It’s a fine line. And yet I can practically feel my grandmother’s essence rising within me as I nod at his phone, face down next to his bowl. “I’m sure there’s something on your Ancestry app about that.”
Felix shakes his head. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“Why would I?”
“Grandpa always said Lainey was sharp as a tack.”
“Did he now?” I add that to my growing evidence file before getting back to business, aka my grandmother’s other potential suitor. “Do you want to call Mervyn or should I?”
“You do it,” Felix replies. “I’m pretty sure he has a soft spot for your grandmother.”
“You noticed that too?”
“Uh, yeah. If Mervyn could win your grandma a giant stuffed animal at the county fair, he totally would.”
“That’s your definition of love? A big mangy teddy bear?”
“I’m easy. You could buy my affection with a Jellycat.” He dances his brows up and down like I might want to take special note of that fact.
“Fascinating,” I reply with maximum coolness.
“I know you are, but what am I?”
I shake my head, because I am too smart to incriminate myself.