Seven
Monday, Presidents’ Day
My headache could cleave a boulder. My mouth filled with nausea water. I had the kind of hangxiety that can only be achieved
after blacking out and finding a murdered man in your trunk. And my Next Right Thing was searching Mr. Neck Tattoo’s phone
and wallet for clues as to who might’ve wanted him dead. But luckily I hadn’t forgotten the iPad. If there’s one thing that
could buy me a few precious minutes, it was plugging my kiddos into the Matrix. With The Parent Trap playing, Phoebe and Alice would happily sit alone in the back of the Impala until frostbite set in.
Layna and I stood by the trunk of my car. For a moment I hesitated to bring her further in on this, but since she’d seen the
body, I figured I might as well. There were no passersby, no one watching, no nosey co-op cashiers having a smoke break behind
the dumpster. I hit the key fob and the trunk unlatched. At the sight of the dead guy’s contorted face, I shuddered and turned
away. But then I forced myself to look again.
“It’s him,” I repeated. “For sure, it’s him.”
“That is not good,” Layna said. She reached right in, wrenching a wallet and phone from his pocket. “It’s creepy his pants
are undone, right? He might’ve deserved it.”
A bloodstain on the front of his checked flannel and another on his thigh had dried to a dark maroon. The purple egg on his
forehead was nasty, but hardly looked lethal.
My stupefied brain tried to understand why this man was dead in my car.
This guy and I. We’d fought in the club.
He’d been thrown out. Then what? He could’ve waited for me in the alley behind the club.
I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not under normal circumstances.
But to fight him off? Maybe. And my pole dancing alter ego, Nikita? She wouldn’t hesitate.
I couldn’t confess this worry to Layna. To anyone. “Do you think someone really stabbed him to death with my scrapbooking
scissors?” I asked. “There’s not that much blood.”
Layna shrugged. She glanced side to side to watch for passersby.
This was absolutely one time in my life where I could not misstep. I needed to pull it together and make good choices. As
a solo mom, I’d spent the last seven years handling any disaster life threw my way. I forced myself to click into that competent-adulting
mode now. Leaning forward, I pulled down his T-shirt to study his neck. “No strangulation marks. No obvious bullet wounds.
Maybe someone smothered him.”
“Without a forensic exam, who knows?” Layna said.
A forensic exam might prove I’d killed him. I mean, I didn’t think I had. But before I acquired a pole alter ego, I would’ve
sworn I’d never get in a bar fight with a strange man either. I held his phone up to his face to unlock it.
“Come on, baby,” Layna said.
I glanced at the screen. “Bingo!”
Thankfully, it seemed All-Business Layna was back online too. She shut the trunk, and I followed her to her car. I hadn’t
imagined Layna as a purple Porsche kind of gal, but it suited her. She started the engine so we could run the heater. From
the passenger seat I had a clear sightline to my Impala, and thus my kids.
“I’ll look through my phone for clues about where the hell I was last night. You look through his. Okay?” I said. Layna nodded.
Emmylou had said I’d stumbled in at 4:30 a.m. and headed straight to my room, swearing I’d give her a full report in the morning.
The “My Trips” tab of my Uber account revealed I’d been picked up from Huckleberry’s at 4:16 a.m. But according to Layna, I’d left Huckleberry’s with Shade at 9:30.
What had I been doing for almost seven hours?
Layna was equally absorbed in the dead guy’s phone. “He deletes his text threads so there’s not all that much in here.”
“What kind of psycho doesn’t have thirty-two thousand text messages on his phone?” I said.
“Well, here we have a chivalrous flirtation—your mansicle sent a contact called Baylee a picture of his junk. Wanna see it?”
Another wave of nausea hit. I fought back a tiny retch. “No thanks.”
“And Baylee wrote back: ‘Not tonight. He’s home.’ Sounds like somebody’s getting cuckolded.” Layna kept scrolling. “Sexting.
Sexting.”
A whimpering sound escaped me. If we couldn’t find any clues, my situation was completely untenable. I could not have a corpse
in my car and no alternate suspects. I could not.
“Here’s a thread with a woman named Korielle,” Layna said. “If I’m even pronouncing that right. But yeah, I’m going with Korielle
rhymes with L’Oréal.”
“My mom dyed her hair with L’Oréal,” I said.
“Interesting, but not relevant,” Layna said as she studied the phone. “The dead guy’s all: ‘I’m still thinking about you,
baby. Please can we meet for a coffee.’ And she’s like: ‘No. You know I’m not allowed to have you in my life.’ And he’s like:
‘Don’t listen to that stupid controlling—’ He used the C-word! And not in a complimentary Gen Z way! What a charmer.”
I was starting to suspect Layna was enjoying this. “At the bar, he told me he went to Huckleberry’s to forget ‘the one who
got away.’”
“Sounds like Korielle’s got good instincts,” Layna said. “Run, girl, run.” She turned her attention back to the phone. “Okay.
Here’s a text from someone called Natty Lite who’s all: ‘Let’s meet up this week to discuss some plans.’”
“That sounds depressingly not that suspicious,” I said.
My headache blazed but I forced myself to look through the dead guy’s wallet as Layna plugged in his phone so it wouldn’t run out of juice.
I found an Idaho driver’s license. A Visa debit card.
A stack of ones. “His name was Connor Johnson. And I don’t think he was a big tipper at the club. I might be sick.”
Layna reached over to the glovebox and pulled out a piece of candied ginger. It was a tiny act of kindness. But still it felt
wonderful to have someone taking care of me, even just a little bit.
“I don’t want to lean in to the diabolical stripper trope,” I said. “But Cheyenne—the bartender Salma Hayek is so hot for?
She poured the drinks I had before I blacked out. She could’ve roofied me and stolen my car keys so she could murder him and
pin it on me.”
“Hmm. Do you have any evidence to support this theory?”
“She said the world would be better without guys like him in it. Do you think that’s enough?”
“To take the suspicion off you?” Layna said. “No, hon. I don’t think so.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” I’d stayed calm when my appendix was about to rupture and I’d had to find emergency childcare
for my kids and get myself to the ER. I could stay calm for this. “Maybe there’s security camera footage from the alley behind
Huckleberry’s,” I said.
“Yes!” Layna yelled. “If there’s video of someone else stuffing this guy in your trunk, you’d be off the hook.”
I started to cry. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just—that would be amazing.”
“Want me to follow you over there?”
“You don’t mind?” I said, letting out another little sob of relief.
“I’ll need to go to the police station with you after that anyway. They’ll want my statement. Now pull yourself together.
For your kids.”
I nodded and wiped my tears. “Of course,” I said. “It’s what moms do.”