Page 52 of Always Murder

Matthew’s head was bobbling behind hisPopular Science.

“Sure—” I began.

Christine made a shooing gesture—along with this noise I’d heard a lady in a park make once when she didn’t want her dog to doo-doo in a flower bed—and I found myself rising from my chair and stumbling toward the door.

“He hasn’t solved a murder in months,” Christine was saying to JaDonna, who was offering sympathetic sounds.“It’s like he’s not even trying.”

Because I am a man of dignity and quiet self-respect, I didn’t look back.

I did find a vending machine, though, and I bought myself a Cloud Cake.It was a Twinkie knockoff, so you know: chemical sponge wrapped around sugary goop.I gave it an eight out of ten.I deducted one point for presentation and another because, honestly?It just wasn’t sweet enough.

After I’d done some responsible, healthy, mature self-soothing—I mean, how frequently did she want me to solve murders?Every month?Every week?Every day?It wasn’t sustainable!—I ambled around.I wasn’t in any hurry to find Paul his ice cream, but I figured I’d better findsomething.I mean, I didn’t want Christine to be any more disappointed in me than she already was.

When I realized that thought had passed through my head, I decided I was starting to get an idea of what living withthatyour whole life might do to a person.

I don’t like hospitals.I mean, nobody does except weirdos.But Ireallydon’t like them.I have too many bad memories of feeling alone and scared and abandoned, most of that coming from the time my parents had, well, abandoned me so they could run off to the Edgar Awards.

Wandering the halls brought it all back: the smell of disinfectant, the unrelenting buzz of TV, distant voices.I tried to think about it as a writer.I didn’t love the idea of putting Will Gower in the hospital (that didn’t feel right for my cozy noir), but some authors had their characters end up in the hospital every book.Sadists, I imagined.

But still, an opportunity was an opportunity, and at some point, Will Gower might get hurt, or he might need to visit a client who was in the hospital.What could I capture?What details could I carry over to my story to make it feel real and vivid and immersive?I passed a nurse’s station, where mellow little icicle lights outlined the desk.A pair of high heels peeked out from behind one of the chairs.Maybe someone had to do a quick costume change at the end of their shift, although I couldn’t imagine where they’d be going.Or maybe it was more of a morale booster to keep the male patients’ spirits up.A paper Santa had been taped to the particleboard, but instead ofHo, ho, ho,he was saying,Whoa, whoa, whoa—in my imagination, because the reindeer were getting a little too frisky.Leaning over the counter, a Black woman with her locs tied back was doing something on a chart; she didn’t even glance up as I passed.

No ice cream machines, by the way.

Slowly, what was bothering me worked its way to the surface: Paul wasn’t dead.

I didn’t like that.

Okay, that didn’t come out the way I intended, but you get the idea.Someone had attacked Paul.And I suspected whoever had attacked him would have finished the job if Millie hadn’t arrived when she had.On the one hand, this was good news.(I mean, not for Paul.) It was good news because it meant that we finally had proof that someone else was behind all of this.It was bad news because—well, because I had no idea whatall of thisactually was.Would someone actually kill to cover up the theft of a few packages?Maybe.People killed for all sorts of reasons.

The other, bigger problem with Paul being alive was that nobody had died yet.(And yes, I know how that makes me sound.) I didn’t want anybody to die.I love people.I mean, in theory.I’m a people person.I’m a peoplepleaser.I’m pro people, so long as they don’t call me or visit me or come to my house.And stay off my lawn, you dang kids!But leaving my personal feelings about people aside, I’d been to this particular rodeo before, and I had a sense for these things, and the fact that a body hadn’t turned up yet was making my hind end itch.(Is that a mixed metaphor?)

I was still thinking about how pro people I was when a familiar voice called, “Dash.”

I figured they might have meant some other Dash—hey, anything’s possible—so I power-walked toward an intersecting hallway, where I could cut right and—

“Mr.Dane.”

I didn’t exactly groan or stomp or slump.But I did have to remind myself I wasn’t four years old.

Sheriff Acosta was a stout woman with her dark hair in a sensible ponytail.She was kind.She was patient.And she was a consummate professional, which was why she’d won the election hands down and was officially the sheriff, not justactingsheriff anymore.She had this little scar near her hairline, and I desperately wanted to know the story behind it.I guessed that either she’d been a wild child growing up and tried to jump off the swings, or she’d done undercover work, probably drugs, and earned it in a back-alley knife fight.(Okay, look, Idesperatelywanted to know.)

As she came toward me, a little hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“I almost made it,” I said.

The smile was almost there.And then it was gone.“How are you doing?”

“All right.I feel bad for Paul.”

“He doesn’t look good, but the doctors say he’ll be all right.”If you spent enough time around law enforcement, one of the things you quickly learned was that they have this magical ability to make you feel like you’re under a microscope.I suddenly had the sense that I was being examined at 100x power.“Do you want to tell me what’s been going on?”

I didn’t.But I told her anyway.

“That’s more or less what Bobby told me,” she said.

“Excuse me, are you using my boyfriend to double-check me?”

I got that corner of a smile again.“I want you to know that we’re going to investigate the attack on Paul and what the connection might be to these package thefts.”

---