Twelve
Some of the Canceled Killer’s victims turned out to be more sympathetic than they first seemed.
His first victim, Heather Johnston, who knocked over a little girl’s lemonade stand, was later revealed to be under the stress of having to care for her mother, who was dying of cancer.
Her mother complained about the traffic from the lemonade stand outside the window.
Heather had asked the parents of the girl to move the stand away from her mother’s window several times.
The parents refused and then even blasted music as an added insult.
—Crime Hive podcast
Oscar wasn’t happy I found a body.
And he was doubly unhappy that body was Alec Stokes’s.
I got that impression when he separated me from Jude and grumbled, “Do not say a single word,” then stuffed me into a police car almost immediately after he got to the scene.
Eventually, he had his deputy, Hector, drive me to the sheriff’s station and shuffle me into a tiny interrogation room.
That had been more than an hour ago. The camera hanging from the ceiling would produce the kind of grainy footage a director would kill to get for a ripped-from-the-headlines Streamberry documentary.
The bland beige walls and the slightly musty air with a hint of stale cigarettes in this room made me want to shout a false confession just to get out of it.
Also, the faint shouting from Wes Briton in lockup didn’t help put me at ease.
Wes owned the landscaping business that serviced many lawns in town, including our neighbors’, but he spent more time in the holding cell at the sheriff’s office than he did on the job, usually for drunk and disorderly conduct.
I strained to hear, but I was pretty sure he was singing “Can’t Touch This” off-key and as loud as he could.
I glanced back at the picture of the crime scene I’d taken with my phone. Something about it just didn’t add up.
I’d already gone through all Alec Stokes’s social media accounts but found no skulls. And while I certainly thought he should be canceled, there’d been no recent flare-up online about his abusing women. The last real scandal was the intern, over a year ago.
He hadn’t trended anywhere, as far as I could tell. He was just one more successful man with a trail of accusations behind him. I hated him, sure, but he was small fish, really, for the Canceled Killer. Plus, the Canceled Killer had marked Allen Gordon as the next victim. Not Alec Stokes.
Oscar burst through the door then, looking disheveled. Wes wailed the next bars of MC Hammer, off-key.
“What’s up with Wes?” I asked, nodding toward the door. “Did you tell him that you did, indeed, touch this, because he’s
in jail?”
Oscar groaned as he slipped into the chair across the table from mine. “He was pulled over for a DUI. On his riding lawnmower down Main Street.”
Under different circumstances, that would be funny.
“He’ll do the entire ‘Can’t Touch This’ dance, and then he’ll pass out. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.” Oscar rolled his eyes. Riding lawnmower DUI was what Oscar usually dealt with. Not murder. “You want to tell me what the hell happened with the mayor?”
Oscar slumped into the chair opposite me as I glanced up at the camera in the corner.
“I thought you said not to say anything.”
“Well, I’m asking you to talk now. And don’t tell me this is the Canceled Killer’s fault.”
“Aren’t you going to read me my Miranda rights?” I challenged.
“Do I need to?” Oscar retorted.
“No,” I said. “And this has everything to do with the Canceled Killer. Also, sidenote, the killer is getting sloppy, and that probably means he’ll make more mistakes and we can catch him then.”
“Sloppy, how?”
“Like stalking me all over town in a white Jeep Wagoneer,” I suggested. “Also, the lemon left at the scene doesn’t have leaves on it.”
“So?”
“The killer always leaves lemons with leaves.”
“Wait, the Canceled Killer leaves lemons at crime scenes? I don’t remember that in the news.”
“That’s because the police didn’t make it publicly known.
And he doesn’t just leave any old lemons.
” I dug in my memory for the specific kind.
“Sorrento. He only leaves Sorrento lemons, a special breed from the Amalfi Coast in Italy. And they always have a green leaf on them. There’s symbolism there, but I have no idea what it is.
The lemon at the mayor’s scene, I guarantee you, is not a Sorrento.
They’re a little larger than average lemons. ”
Oscar stared at me. “You’re an expert on lemons now, too.”
“Yes, I am. Plus, while I think Stokes is an ass, he wasn’t technically canceled. Not with how much he paid to reputation repairers to bury unflattering stories of him online. So, if this even is the killer, then that means he’ll make more mistakes. And maybe we can catch him. Finally.”
Oscar slowly pulled his gaze from the floor and back to me, his face a dark cloud of storms that promised to blow the shingles straight off the nearest roof.
“Why didn’t you come to me when those guys jumped you?”
“Because you’d want to interview everyone and file charges and… blah, blah, blah.” I made a blabbing gesture with my hand.
“Blah, blah, blah is the rule of law,” Oscar said, voice stern.
“So you and Jude keep telling me.”
“Maybe you should listen to one of us.” Oscar raked a frustrated hand through his hair.
It took me a second to realize this wasn’t the usual tired-older-brother lecture.
He was genuinely upset with me. And that meant only one thing: He was scared.
“And, Jesus, did it ever occur to you to run? Why did you try to take on three men by yourself?”
“They had us surrounded,” I pointed out. “Someone had to protect Jude.”
Oscar shook his head. “You are just like Mom.”
“Mom doesn’t get into fights!”
“Mom is completely overconfident about everything, which is why she thinks her cranberry scones are edible. Just like you are overconfident in your skills.” Oscar shook his head. “And you’ve got her temper.”
No need to tell me this. Mom would fly off the handle at any little thing when we were kids. If she could reach a wooden spoon, we were all dead. Best to run fast. I learned to sprint out of the house and head to the ginkgo tree. I could hang out in the highest branches until she cooled off.
“I just never thought your temper would get you into this kind of trouble.” Oscar shook his head. “I never thought you’d actually kill someone.”
I blinked, stunned.
“You think I did this?”
Oscar glared at me.
“I didn’t do this. I’m not a murderer.” I never thought I’d have to tell my brother this pretty basic fact about how I wasn’t walking human garbage.
That Oscar forced me to spell it out stung more than I’d like to admit.
“Also, how, exactly, was I supposed to murder him when I was fighting three of his hired goons?”
Oscar shook his head. “Maybe you killed him before you ran into his muscle.”
“And then I go back to the crime scene?” I scoffed. “I didn’t do this. Ask Jude!”
Oscar let out a frustrated sigh. “As if he would be a credible witness when it came to you.”
“What does that mean?” I asked sharply.
“It doesn’t matter,” Oscar said as he sank into the metal desk chair opposite mine.
“You come to town, you argue with the mayor, the mayor threatens to press charges and sue you, and then… totally unrelated… twenty-four hours later he’s dead in his office with a crime scene arranged to look like it’s the Canceled Killer—the case you’re obsessed with? ”
Oscar glared at me.
I couldn’t believe I had to defend myself like this. I couldn’t believe Oscar thought so little of me.
“I. Didn’t. Kill. Him. Believe me, I wish I had.
” Part of me did feel robbed. If he had to die, I would’ve liked to have been the last face he’d seen before he’d slipped into the black nothingness.
It would’ve been nice to whisper something like “Good luck in your next life as a roach” before he’d floated into the great beyond.
Except I didn’t really want that, because I’m not a killer.
And Stokes might be a piece of trash, but I would much rather see him rot in jail.
“You can’t go around saying things like that.” Oscar’s face grew red. He was furious. “It makes you look guilty, El.”
“Ugh!” I groaned. “First of all, if I did stage a scene, I’d do it better than with a grocery-store lemon. Second, I was with Jude all day, and the body was still in the pallor mortis state, and hadn’t moved to rigor mortis, so I’d say the man had only been dead a couple of hours at most.”
“I don’t want to know why you know that,” Oscar grumbled. “That also makes you look guilty.”
“I interviewed coroners like a million times for the podcast,” I protested. “I know things about crime scenes.”
“Right. Like how to stage one.” Oscar narrowed his eyes.
I burst out of my seat. “You can’t think I did this!” I shouted, slapping my palms on the table. “I am not a killer!”
Oscar pressed his lips in a thin line. “Sit down,” he warned me.
We stared at each other a beat. Then I sank back into my seat.
“You think I’m just another unhinged angry woman with an ax to grind, so that automatically makes me an emotionally unstable, hormonal killer?
” I said, crossing my arms across my chest. “Fun fact, Oscar: Women can be angry and just be fucking angry. Men don’t have the sole right to be pissed off. Don’t burn me at the stake for it.”
Oscar groaned. “Now is not the time for one of your rants,” he protested, sighing as he leaned back in his chair.
“Well, clearly you need to hear more of them, because none of them have sunk in.”
“You get so triggered—” Oscar began.
“You’re telling me I shouldn’t get triggered when my own brother accuses me of murder? Then when is it appropriate to get angry, Oscar? Tell me. I’d love to know.”
Oscar shook his head slowly but said nothing.