Page 34 of Wham Line
The night before.Bobby rolling onto his side.His back toward me like a wall.
He was hurt.He was grieving.Obviously.Of course.And he’d be the first one to admit that he had trouble expressing his emotions, especially when they got too big, when he started to feel like he was losing control.
So, it all made sense.If someone had asked me how I thought Bobby would handle a tragedy, I would have said exactly like this.
Which didn’t help at all with the fact that I felt like somehow I’d done something wrong.Or maybe better said, I hadn’t done the right thing.Whatever he’d needed me to do, I’d dropped the ball.Or maybe I’d done something I wasn’t supposed to do.
Because if Ihaddone the right thing…what?What would be different?
I didn’t know.It wasn’t like I expected Bobby to sob uncontrollably for days.But maybe some touching, some cuddles.Bobby had so many feelings, and his favorite way to share them was through physical contact.A hug.Or simply his hand finding mine.
Of course, that wasn’t Bobby’s responsibility.Bobby was grieving.I needed to be the one initiating.I needed to be the one reaching out—literally and metaphorically.
The conclusion probably would have been obvious to anyone else, but since I had the relationship skills of—to borrow Keme’s favorite word—a donkey, I was kind of proud of myself for figuring it out.
Now that I had that settled, I could watch him work—he was shuffling an indignant blue-hair away from her platter of coconut shrimp—and enjoy the familiar sights of Bobby doing what he did best: being kind and firm and literally the best deputy in the history of the world, even though this lady was really mad about her shrimp.
The fish and chips.
The thought popped into my head.
Myfish and chips.
Cold sweat made my underarms clammy.The voices in the room dropped away to nothing and then swelled until they were too loud.
That wasn’t possible, I told myself.There was no way.This wasn’t some—some Agatha Christie novel.This was the twenty-first century.This was an upscale restaurant.This was Hastings Rock, for heaven’s sake.People just didn’t get poisoned.
Except.
It was a restaurant owned by a potential suspect in another murder.Someone who had a great deal to gain by her husband’s death, someone with anger issues, someone who had access to the food.
I shook my head at myself, the gesture reactive, instinctive, an automatic no.
It had to have been a heart attack.Or a stroke.Or some other, equally accidental and unexpected death.People died like that all the time.They bent over to pick up the paper, or they twisted the wrong way, or they tried to lift a heavy TV.
Maybe I was thinking of back pain.
But itdidhappen.People could die from all sorts of things.All the time.It was basically one of the foundational rules of human existence.
On the other hand, my brain suggested, you’re investigating the murder of a restaurateur, and everyone around him has some connection to the food industry.Poison might not be too much of a stretch.
I found myself moving through the crowded dining room toward the bar.Clothing whispered against me as I brushed against winter coats and heavy jackets, the different textures brushing the back of my hands—cool, slick polyester; the nap of microfiber; ruffled faux fur.The bartender had dark hair spiked up in front and the kind of nice guy face that wasn’t quite the same thing as handsome.I thought I’d seen him at the Otter Slide once or twice.
“Excuse me,” I said.“Dash Dane.Are you the bartender?”
His eyes widened, and he said a word you can’t say in church.
“Uh—” I began.
“No way,” he said.“Is this a murder?”
Around us, ears pricked up, and a little vibration worked its way through the crowd.
I lowered my voice.“Okay, well, I don’t know about that—”
“That’sinsane!”
“Again, not really sure—”
