Page 58 of Always Murder

I mean, maybe he wanted to confirm the package hadn’t been misplaced, or that someone hadn’t found it after filing a claim.I toyed with the idea of fraud—maybe Paul had suspected people were lying about their packages being stolen?But Dawn Skidmore didn’t lie.(Not even in the polite, we’re-a-society-so-let’s-get-along way.One time, I’d asked her about day-old discount muffins, and she said—prepare yourself to gasp—You don’t need them.)

The phone call hadn’t exactly cleared anything up.But it had made me curious, and I began working my way down the list.I’d wondered if I might have a hard time finding the people I didn’t know, but it turned out not to be hard in a town the size of Hastings Rock.Normally, I would have asked Millie, but I decided to leave her out of it for now—in the first place, because she had to be exhausted and stressed after what had happened to Paul the night before, and, more importantly, because I wasn’t sure who I could trust in her family, and there was a high possibility of Millie accidentally revealing what I was up to.(Honestly, it makes it even more shocking that she kept Paul’s secret for as long as she did.) So, instead, I did what any sensible person in Hastings Rock did when they wanted information about the town’s residents: I called Cheri-Ann Fryman, owner of the Rock On Inn and Hastings Rock’s single biggest gossip.

Each call went more or less the way the first one had, albeit without Dawn’s less-than-helpful attitude.(I was going to call it her’tude, because I think that’s what kids say, but then I imagined Keme reading this.) A pattern began to emerge—the stolen items were all relatively valuable, ranging from Dawn’s pricey waffle iron to Nike sneakers to a new tablet.A television had been stolen, which made me think that Santa must have put it in his magical sack of presents in order to carry it away by himself.Shelby Sellers had a two-thousand-dollar LED face mask from Sephora plucked off the porch—apparently, even Santa worries about fine lines and wrinkles.With Cheri-Ann’s help, I managed to talk to everyone on Paul’s list.

Almost everyone.

The only person I couldn’t reach was Three.

His real name—what Paul had written on the list—was Paxton Peabody III, but since you’re a human being and you have a heart, you understand why he’d chosen to go by a nickname.Three was a nice guy.He worked at A Whale of a Tale Books and Curios, and he was friendly and always had good recommendations.He was also a fellow gay, which meant that the Last Picks and I bumped into him from time to time at the Otter Slide.

I didn’t have his number, but instead of calling Cheri-Ann—which would have meant coming up with another excuse for why I needed a phone number—I called the bookstore.

A man’s voice answered, “A Whale of a Tale Books and Curios.This is Stephen.How may I help you?”

“Hi, Stephen.It’s Dash.Is Three there?”

“Well, hi, Dash.”Cue the tremulous enthusiasm.“He’s not here, I don’t think.Do you want me to check?I’ll check.”

What was he going to check, I wanted to know.It was a storefront bookstore; either Three was there or he wasn’t.But before I could say any of that, the phone clicked, and Stephen was gone.Ever since I’d failed at proving Stephen was a murderer (but succeeded at proving he was a thief), Stephen had acted like a baby bird pushed out of his nest every time we interacted.It was—frankly—exhausting to be so terrifying, and it was one of the many reasons I tried to do all my bookstoring via Three.

Several seconds later, Stephen returned to the phone, out of breath, to gasp, “He’s definitely not here.”

“Right, thanks.I need to talk to him—”

“He’s probably at home.Is it something I can help you with?”And then, without missing a beat: “Did someone get murdered?”

“What is going on with this town?What is this morbid fascination with—” I cut myself off.“No.Nobody got murdered.I just need to ask him about the package he reported stolen.”

“Oh, his book.”

“Do you have his number—wait, what book?”

“His book.The one that got stolen.That’s what you said, right?The package that got stolen?”

“Yes.It was a book?”

“Yeah.”

My brain tried to run ahead of my mouth, and the question that came out wasn’t exactly graceful.“An expensive one?”

Stephen laughed.“Not unless you count shipping.You know, normally we’d order it for him through the store, but this was one of those manga, and he wanted it straight from Japan.”

“Like, a rare edition?Or something new and exclusive?”

“I don’t think so.I mean, those print runs are pretty big; I think it’s a popular series.He didn’t want to wait for the US release.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

A book didn’t make any sense.A book broke the pattern.

Of course, the porch pirate wouldn’t have known that he was stealing a book.He would have grabbed the package, whatever it was, and taken it.If it was junk, he’d trash it later.There was probably some perfectly rational explanation for why he’d targeted Three.Maybe Paul had said something about the package being from Japan in one of his videos.I could go back and check—

But my gut told me no.

Until now, Paul’s guesses had been uncannily accurate.(Maybe, I thought in an aside, he had a future onThe Price is Right.) The proof was in the porch pirate’s success so far—a series of high-ticket items that could be resold for hundreds or thousands of dollars.I mean, Good God, the waffle iron cost more than the Nikes.Not a single miss or flub.Until now.

“Dash?”Stephen asked.“You know, if itisa murder, Pippi would love to talk to you about a sequel—”

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