CHAPTER 3 MOST LIKELY TO BE SECRETLY GUILTY #2
I pause the show so we can play our traditional murder mystery game. “So, is he going to find the dead body or be the dead body?”
“Find the dead body,” Miles says with complete confidence.
I shake my head. “Definitely be the dead body. He said he was going to check the lighthouse. No one who checks a lighthouse during a festival survives the teaser.”
Miles raises an eyebrow. “Unless the lighthouse is where the body is.”
I study Miles’s face for a moment. “Your mustache matches your hair color perfectly.”
“Thank you,” he says, giving the side of it a stroke. “Suave is my middle name.”
I motion at his facial accessory. “And you just happened to have this lying around?”
“It’s good to be prepared.”
I shake my head. “I might have to step my game up a notch next murder mystery night.” I push play, and we watch as the councilman walks up to the top of the lighthouse and trips over a dead body.
“I do believe that is a win for me,” Miles says.
About two seconds later, a shadowy figure knocks the councilman out, and he falls right next to the dead body.
“Okay,” I say, “even though I’m a little offended that they just made both guesses true, I will also accept the win.”
“I’m sorry, but no,” Miles says, shaking his head. “As the person who correctly predicted the initial body-discovery event, I retain primary victory. You may file for partial credit through the proper channels.”
“Okay, primary win goes to you.” I lean forward and scoop dip onto a pita chip before holding it up. “And a snack-sized win for me.” Then I pop the pita chip into my mouth.
We settle into the show as the intrepid Roxie finds clues, questions witnesses, digs into the backstories of characters, and pokes holes in alibis, while Miles and I guess which details are important and which are just red herrings.
Then Miles pauses the show for one of our favorite games, Background Character Crimes, where we ignore the main suspects and assign elaborate crimes to random characters living in Havenridge.
Miles points at a woman crossing the street behind Roxie in a purple raincoat, carrying a casserole dish with the confidence of someone who definitely has something to hide. “Tax fraud.”
I nod. “Absolutely. She’s using the money to fund her illegal alpaca sanctuary.”
In grave seriousness, Miles says, “The alpacas are a front.”
I gasp. “For what?”
“Competitive jam sabotage.”
I grin widely. “I think that is the most Havenridge thing you have ever said.”
“Thank you. I’ve been studying the town’s criminal ecosystem.”
I’m the next one to pause the show, this time for Secret Lives of the Innocent, where we pick the least suspicious person in a scene and give them a dramatic secret life.
This time, Roxie is talking to one of the suspects—a woman standing on her front lawn while holding a fluffy little white dog.
A mailman is in the background, walking with a satchel full of envelopes and the bearing of a man who has seen some things.
I point at him. “Exiled prince of a very tiny country.”
Miles doesn’t even blink. “Mountain country or island country?”
“Island. It’s more strategic.”
“Ahh. Right. The postal job gives him access to boats.”
I raise my eyebrows a few times. “And secrets.”
“And the addresses of his enemies.”
“Which he doesn’t use yet. He’s biding his time for the perfect moment to take back his kingdom.”
Probably only two minutes of show-watching passes before I pause again and point. “The guy in the yellow windbreaker is in witness protection.” We try to pick one minor character each episode who might be on the lam.
Miles motions at the screen. “Obviously.”
I nod. “Too obvious, maybe. It’s the town sweatshirt he’s wearing that gives him away.”
“It still has fold lines.”
“New identity,” I say. “Weak cover story. Rookie mistake.”
“His name used to be Sebastian.”
“His name is still Sebastian. He panicked during relocation and chose it again.”
Miles shakes his head. “That is such a Sebastian thing to do.”
This is why I love watching murder mysteries with Miles. He doesn’t just tolerate my side quests. He embraces them. Plays along. Multiplies the amount of fun. Spends all evening wearing a fake mustache (that is weirdly kind of growing on me).
Three-fourths of the way through the episode, I’ve turned so that my back is resting against the side arm of the couch, my legs across Miles’s lap, and we’ve each voiced many guesses about the mystery.
Some of mine have already proven to be very wrong—one mere seconds after I voiced it. A couple, though, have been spot-on.
I know when my predictions are insightful, because Miles looks at me like he’s half impressed.
The other half is… I’m not sure. Worried about how well I can see what a person is hiding?
Maybe he figures it won’t be long before I’m getting all the guesses right instead of us each getting half and half.
By the time we get to the end of the episode, which took us ninety minutes with all the pausing, even though the episode is only 42 minutes long, we discover that the killer was the Harbor Lights Festival coordinator, in the lighthouse, with the mayor’s commemorative plaque.
Apparently, the mayor planned to move the festival away from the harbor, which, according to Roxie, was “not murder-justifying, but certainly murder-explaining.”
Miles’s guess was the closest. Maybe he shouldn’t start worrying anytime soon about me getting so many more guesses right than he does. Especially if he’s going to wear the overconfidence mustache again.
After we finish creating a much more elaborate motive-based storyline for the festival coordinator, Miles turns on the couch so his back is against the other side arm, and he’s facing me. Our legs overlap in the middle of the couch.
He asks, “Have you ever thought about why you like murder mysteries so much? I mean, aside from our commentary, of course.”
I guess I’ve thought about it, but I haven’t put it into words before.
I pause a moment, then say, “I think maybe I like them because you get to experience danger without any actual danger. And there’s the puzzle-solving aspect—I like that.
And it feels like big stakes, because it’s a murder, but since it’s just a show, it’s not.
So, you just get to enjoy the thrill of it. ”
Miles is nodding thoughtfully.
I give him a sly smile. “Plus, I’m pretty good at it. You know—the whole solving mysteries thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I think I gained my skill from all the kids at the middle school giving creative reasons as to what happened to their library book.”
Miles is looking at me, and there’s something in his expression I can’t quite identify.
Something too still. Too unguarded. Softer.
Like he’s really looking at me. Not the version of me who talks too much during murder mysteries or invents royal scandals for background mailmen.
Like I’m a clue he’s been trying to solve for years.
My chest goes weirdly tight. “What?” I ask.
He blinks, and just like that, the expression is gone.
His mouth curves into the easy Miles smile I know better than any other smile in the world—even with the bonus mustache.
“I’m just trying to calculate how long it would take you to overthrow a very tiny country in order to help an exiled prince/mailman. ”
I snort. “Three days. Two if I had top-notch outfits.”
“See?” he says, gesturing at me. “That’s why we’re friends. You make fictional political instability feel completely doable.”
Friends. The safest word in the world.
This is what Miles and I are good at. This easy, ridiculous, perfectly comfortable friendship.
The kind where I can show up in a themed outfit and fuzzy socks, accuse background mailmen of royal exile, and have someone build the theory with me instead of looking at me like I’m too much.
This is the kind of friendship people spend years trying to find, and most people never do.
And I’m smart enough to know that when you have something this good, you don’t mess with it.