Page 38 of Dead & Breakfast
“Arthur, darling,” Salvatore admonished him. “At least say hello before you go diving into all the depressing you-know-what business.”
Lore gave Arthur a crooked grin. “I get it. And I’m eager to get to work, too.” She glanced around. No one was close enough to overhear, but she lowered her voice anyway. “I found two things you’ll wanna hear about. First, the body was moved. They tried to be subtle, because whoever moved him put him in almost the same position, but there was a little blood pooling that didn’t make sense with how we found him. And second, I pulled this from his head wound.”
She held out her phone. Arthur and Salvatore crowded close to get a look, nearly knocking their temples together. On the screen was a photo of a very unassuming splinter of wood. One side was painted an unattractive gray-blue. It reminded Arthur of the smudge of blue ink on the mayor’s sleeve, but that had been a far more vibrant shade.
“I’m not sure where it came from, but look around us.” Lore gestured to the riverfront. After a moment, Arthur understood. The boardwalk was a dark blue, the street lamps a sky blue, the tourist information signs, the benches. Trident Falls had a theme, and by god they stuck to it.
“He could’ve been killed on city property,” Arthur whispered, nodding. “Not terribly surprising considering who he was.” The mayor likely spent most of his workday surrounded by shades of blue. “And I recognize the color. A bench, maybe?”
There were a few scattered along the boardwalk, though these were of a darker, more oceanic blue. Most of the benches in town were the gray-blue on Lore’s phone, however. He and Lore had sat on one just yesterday.
“Do you think he was killed at city hall?” Lore asked, eyebrows rising.
“How ghastly.” Salvatore shivered. “To spend so much time working in a place only to be killed there as well. I was lucky enough to be killed in the most thrilling of locales.”
“So…what, like, Greece?” Lore asked.
“No, my dear, at aparty.” Salvatore threw his arms wide as if conducting an opera of his own triumphant demise. “It was at a luxurious château—on a velvet fainting couch, if you’ll believe me.”
“Wait a minute,” Arthur interjected against his better judgment, reticent though he was to allow Salvatore’s change of subject to derail the conversation. “I thought you were turned in Italy, not France.”
“Oooh, Paris?” Lore guessed again.
“A fart of a city, if you ask me.” Salvatore stuck out his tongue. Rumble mimicked him from her backpack.
Lore waggled her eyebrows. “I sense a story.”
“Stories, plural,” Arthur muttered. “For someone who purportedly hates France, you do talk about it a lot.”
“Yes, well, just because I spent a great deal of time there doesn’t mean I liked it—not the art, not the architecture, not the language—”
“Hang on.” Arthur held up a finger, eyes narrowed. For once, he thought he might have actually caught Salvatore in a lie. “You told me you taught William Shakespeare French.”
“My dear, I taught himhowto French.” Sal winked at Lore. “The one solidly good export of theirs.”
Arthur might have mentioned the many bottles of French winethey currently had in their pantry or the gusto with which Salvatore consumed croissants, but it would only take them farther from the task at hand. “Anyway,” he said pointedly.
“Yes, anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I had the grace to be killed somewhere interesting, unlike the mayor.”
“It’s an awfully public place for no one to have noticed.” Arthur jumped on the opportunity to steer the conversation back to their real purpose. “Even if he was killed at night without any witnesses, surely there would be some evidence of a fight.”
“Or the gallon or so of blood he lost,” Salvatore added.
“There are benches all over town.” Lore glanced at her phone and frowned. “I wish I could help search, but I have to get back to work. Sheriff wants my full report done as soon as possible.”
“But it’s the weekend!” Salvatore clutched his hands to his chest.
“That’s the gig. Dead bodies don’t care if it’s a Tuesday or a Saturday.” Lore shrugged. “I’m sending you a list of all the places around town that have this color bench. If you find the crime scene…be sure to report it, okay? Otherwise it might look like you’re trying to hide something.”
“Of course.” Arthur appreciated her warning. He didn’t need the sheriff suspecting Salvatore any more than he already did.
“Do text again, Lore, my dear. I grow lonelier by the second!” Salvatore waved like a war-weary lover as Lore retreated back toward downtown.
“Where do you suppose we should start?” Arthur asked, less because he thought Salvatore might have a reasonable answer and more to fill the silence. His mind was liable to run in terribly inconvenient directions if left unattended for too long.
Salvatore took out his phone. “Rest assured,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.
“What?”
