Chapter 13
Thirteen
Dennis had just finished forklifting pallets of paint when we approach him about Thanksgiving night.
I was so busy during the party that I barely had time to take a good look at him. Until now, he existed as ‘just a guy with a bad haircut’ in my peripheral vision. I’d immediately written him off as ‘not interested.’
The mullet put me off.
I’m not the mullet type.
There might be a loophole for a well-groomed, luxurious mullet, but Dennis’ hair was scraggly and greasy.
The squirrelly mustache was not helping.
If I were as shallow as my mom, I’d point my finger at him, too.
Dennis just looks like a suspicious character.
He looks like someone who would take a dump in a stranger’s home.
“Take a look at these photos,” Elliot says, handing over his phone to Dennis.
I study Dennis’ profile as he squints at the crime scene photos.
If you erased the mullet, the mustache, and the sleepy stoner expression from his face, Dennis is a surprisingly good-looking guy. Soft skin and great cheekbones.
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” Dennis shakes his head. “I was out back almost immediately after dinner.”
Elliot gives me a pointed look. “In the backyard?”
“With my vape,” Dennis says. “I’m not into big parties.”
“Why’d you go to this one?” Elliot asks.
Dennis leans against the steering wheel and gives me a bashful nod. “Cherry, her aunt, invited me. She’s a regular customer. Practically lives here.”
“At the hardware store?” Elliot snorts skeptically. “What does she buy?”
“Caulking material.” Dennis thinks for a moment, then adds, “And pipes.”
I chew on my inner cheek. “Aunt Cherry’s hands on when it comes to home improvement. She has to be. Uncle Tony is completely worthless. You’ll see when you meet him. She renovated her entire kitchen herself and she’s installing a sauna in her guest bathroom.”
“Okay…” Impressed, Elliot jots down the detail. “So her aunt invited you to the party to set you up with Holly?”
“Yeah,” Dennis says, not-so-subtly checking me out. “She said she had a single niece who was kind of old, but beautiful.”
I bite my tongue and level Elliot with a long-suffering eye roll.
See what I have to deal with here?
“I don’t think you look old at all,” Dennis says. “If I were still working as a bouncer, I’d card you.”
“Really?” I can’t help smiling. I take it back.
Dennis is actually quite handsome. In fact, he’s practically a Timothée Chalamet stand in…
Okay, that’s being generous. Let’s suppose you were casting for a Hallmark Christmas movie and needed the hero to look like a Timothée Chalamet type, but obviously can’t afford Timothée Chalamet, you can cast Dennis at a discount.
Dennis smiles back. “What are you? Twenty?”
Glaring at us, Elliot jabs his notebook. “She’s definitely not twenty,” he mutters. “Let’s get back on track. So the blind date didn’t work out.”
“It’s not that it didn’t work out,” I explain.
“I was just slammed with making sure the evening was perfect. There were so many fires to put out and…” I give Dennis’ forearm a reassuring squeeze.
Oooh. Hello there. That’s a solid forearm.
“I wasn’t ignoring you. You didn’t think I was ignoring you, right? ”
“It’s all good.” Dennis waves off my apology. “You’re the next mayor of Mapledale. Of course, you’re going to be busy.”
“I’m not mayor yet.”
“You’ve got my vote,” he says.
“You’re so sweet.” I squeeze his forearm again; he flexes beneath my hand.
“Ahem.” Glaring at us, Elliot flips to another page in his notebook. “So you were vaping in the backyard,” he repeats, clicking his ballpoint pen a little too aggressively. “For how long?”
“A few hours, man…” Dennis frowns. “I lose track of time when I’m working on my poetry.”
Elliot blinks. “Poetry? You write poetry?”
“Doesn’t everybody?” Dennis slips his hand inside his orange utility vest and shows us his pocket notebook. “I get lost in the zone and the world… disappears.”
“Wow,” I say, impressed.
“Wow,” Elliot shakes his head, clearly not impressed.
I watch Dennis thumb through page after page of cryptic writing. “Aunt Cherry never mentioned you wrote poetry.”
Dennis tips his head up at the florescent lights. A murkiness clouds his eyes. “Cassiopeia was twinkling bright that night…”
“Cassiopeia?” Elliot pokes his head up.
“It’s okay, man. Not everyone can be an astronomer,” Dennis says to me. Even though I know nothing about astronomy, I shake my head like it’s a great tragedy.
“The constellation Cassiopeia,” Dennis explains to Elliot with a long-suffering sigh, “inspired a sonnet. Would you like me to read it to you? I couldn’t get the iambic pentameter exactly right.”
“We’re fine,” Elliot mutters.
I elbow him in the ribs. “You’re being rude,” I whisper.
“Do you believe this guy?” Elliot whispers back. “He thinks he’s Shakespeare. I think he was hitting something stronger than a vape on Thanksgiving.”
“Be nice…” I smile sweetly at Dennis. “We’ll take a raincheck on the poem. When you were stargazing, did you happen to bring a sweater with you? In the photos, you wore a yellow T-shirt.”
“Nope. No sweater.” He flexes his arms. “I don’t get cold.”
Elliot opens his mouth, then shakes his head and mashes his lips together. “Were you alone in the backyard?”
“Mostly alone.” Dennis nods, then snaps his finger. “Wait, I saw the mayor dodge out back for a while.”
Elliot and I both straighten up. “Mayor Thornberry?”
“Yeah.” Dennis frowns. “Thornberry. That’s a weird name. Reminds me of a pie.”
“Did he join you?” I ask. “He puffs on a pipe on occasion, but he quit years ago. Maybe he’s fallen off the wagon.”
Elliot looks at me incredulously. “Puffs on a pipe?”
“Well, yeah.” I don’t know why Elliot is being deliberately dense. Pipe smoking is not so unusual a vice.
“Is he Professor Plum from Clue?” Elliot asks.
“He didn’t have a pipe on him,” Dennis says. “But he seemed like he was in a hurry.”
“Why’d you say that?” I ask, eyeing Elliot.
“He scurried across the lawn… he was crouched like this…” Hopping down from the driver’s seat, Dennis mimics Mayor Thornberry’s crab walk. “Looked like he was hiding out or hiding from someone. Pretty sus stuff.”
Elliot’s pen flies through his notebook. “Where was he headed?”
“To the far end of the yard,” Dennis scratches his scalp, “disappeared between the bushes and that was that.”
My heart races a mile a minute. In my excitement, I grab Elliot’s arm and shake it. “The break between the bushes, Elliot! That was him.” I want to run up and down the aisle screaming, “It’s Ivan! We caught him!”
Elliot keeps calm. “How long was he gone?”
“I can’t really say.” Dennis loops his thumbs through the armholes of his vest and frowns. “He was gone for a long time. I don’t think he ever returned.” Then he looks up apologetically. “Your Aunt Cherry joined him a little later…”
My knees threaten to buckle and it was all I could do to stop myself from swaying. “Wait! You mean you saw Aunt Cherry sneak out back? Are you sure it was her?”
“I know Cherry,” Dennis says. “She was having a hard time walking on the grass.”
“Why?” Elliot asks. “Does she have a limp?”
“Aunt Cherry has a memorable collection of shoes…” If I recall, Aunt Cherry wore a pair of three-inch clear plastic heels to the party.
She has tons of them. Her ‘stripper shoes,’ as my mom liked to call them.
At five feet and one debatable inch, Cherry liked a boost in the height department.
I explain Aunt Cherry’s footwear choices to Elliot, who jots ‘Heel. Gives aunt limp’ down in his notes.
“And she was carrying her bulldog,” Dennis adds. “They disappeared into the bush and…”
“And?” I ask.
Dennis shrugged. “I resumed composing my poetry. Never saw them again…”
I meet Elliot’s eye as a barrage of questions zooms through my head. What was my aunt doing sneaking off with the mayor?
Does Uncle Tony know anything about this? I chew my thumbnail. Of course not. From the photos, he was parked comfortably on the sofa and engrossed in the ballgame.
I suppose this clears her dog from the crime. Not only was Mochi diaper-bound, but Aunt Cherry had whisked her away from the crime scene. But to where? For what purpose?
Dennis checks his watch. “Hey, breaks over. Hope that helps.”
“Just one moment…” Elliot follows him down the aisle. “By now, you’ve probably heard about what Holly found under her tree after the party.”
Dennis blanches. “That’s a foul deed. I’m sorry that happened to you, Holly. If I could’ve caught the animal who’d done it…” He cracks his neck muscles, hands furling into fists. “Let’s just say he won’t be shitting again for weeks.”
“Thank you, Dennis.” I’m blushing. Why am I blushing? I toe the linoleum floor. “Can you imagine the audacity? To do that in a roomful of people?”
“That’s really sick.” Dennis looks like he’s about to hurl on my behalf, which I find touching.
But Elliot doesn’t seem to think so. Just like my mom, he has it out for Dennis. Mullet profiling.
“Funny you should mention that,” Elliot pulls out his phone, “because according to Mapledale court records, you’ve been in trouble with the law before, haven’t you? This is your mug shot, right?” Elliot reads the identification, pronouncing every syllable. “Dennis Buckminster III.”
He flashes us a mug shot of Dennis (now we know his last name), mullet a little fuller, no mustache, eyes bloodshot to hell.
I whirl on Elliot, furious. “You did a background check on him?”
“It’s public record,” Elliot says. “You have many spots on your record, Mr. Buckminster, don’t you?”
“Elliot! Stop being a jerk to Dennis!”
I try to grab his phone. He blocks me with his shoulder and keeps reading:
“2009: Vandalism and destruction of private property at Inkblot Books. 2011: Public urination at Ikea.” Elliot eyes me meaningfully. “Care to explain your colorful past, Mr. Buckminster III?”
“Elliot…” I grit my teeth together. “Cut it out!”