CHAPTER EIGHT

 

“So, you’re really not going to tell me why you’re that dressed up?” said Crane, blowing vanilla-scented vapor out of his mouth. His electronic cigarette didn’t look a thing like a cigarette. It was the size of a cigar, chrome-colored and sleek.

I sighed. I’d been at The Remington for over an hour, long enough to have most of my drink. I was feeling a little buzzed now, and my tongue was looser. “I went to dinner at Pike’s parents’ house.”

“Whoa.” Crane raised his eyebrows. “I thought you two were splitsville.”

“We are,” I said. “But I’m working for him on his brother’s case—”

“Wait,” said Crane. “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize. But I guess his name was Gilbert Pike.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Anyway, so that’s all a little confusing.”

“What is?”

“Well, working for him.” I took a sip of my drink. “We don’t have to talk about this.” Crane and I didn’t often get into the nitty gritty of our various relationships. Both of us spent most of our time single, but occasionally, we’d end up seeing someone, really trying to make things work. Thus far, though, neither of us had managed to make anything stick. We’d come back to The Remington once our little fling was over, our tails between our legs. And one of us would be waiting for the other.

We didn’t have a problem talking to each other about the people we randomly fucked. (Because Crane took girls home too with some regularity. He probably didn’t get as much action as me, but that might have only been because it was often tougher for men to find willing women than it was for women to find willing men. Late bar ratios tended to be in my favor.) But when it came to relationships, that seemed sort of private. Also, though Crane and I were definitely not romantically entangled, we had enough of a connection that it seemed too much like talking about an ex with your current squeeze. So, usually, I didn’t talk to Crane much about Pike. Didn’t seem right.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s confusing about working for him? You mean the case? Like whether or not the brother did it?”

“No, I mean personal stuff between me and Pike,” I said.

“Oh,” he nodded.

“Like I said, we don’t have to talk about it.”

He sucked thoughtfully on his e-cigarette. “So, there’s still personal stuff between the two of you? I mean, you guys have been broken up for quite some time now.”

“Well, yeah…”

“Even though you aren’t together, things aren’t over,” said Crane. “I see.”

I sighed. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay,” he said. He downed his drink, and then stroked his chin. “Any ideas for a topic?”

I downed my drink too. “If I get this round, will you get the next one?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “I’m getting this round. You show up all down and out in a fancy dress and you definitely deserve a few free drinks, even if you don’t want to talk about it.” He got up and gathered our empty glasses. Then he headed for the bar.

I waited for him to come back.

When he did, with two vodka greyhounds, I said, “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s only that you and I don’t usually talk about this stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“You know, our relationships. I don’t ask about your ex-wives. You don’t ask about Pike.”

“Maybe,” he said, considering. “Maybe you’re right. But if that’s true, Ivy, it’s silly, because it makes it seem like we’ve got, I don’t know, feelings for each other that we’re hiding.”

“Well, I care about you,” I said. “Hell, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“But not in any like romantic way.”

“Exactly,” he said. “We’re friends. I’m not jealous of Pike. I don’t want you like that. I’m happy with what we have.”

I grinned at him gratefully. “You know what, Crane? You’re pretty much amazing.”

He shrugged. “I do my best. So, what happened?”

“He just…” I shut my eyes and then opened them. “I think that I keep deluding myself into thinking that something could happen between us. But he’s never going to change, you know? And sometimes, when I see that, it just hurts.”

Crane nodded. “To be fair, though, you’re not likely to change either.”

“True,” I muttered. I took a drink. “He hates it when I touch him, even to comfort him. He hates being close to me. It makes me feel soiled and unworthy, and it’s not fair.”

“That sucks,” said Crane.

“There’s no future for us,” I said. “We can’t be together. I don’t know why I can’t just understand that and let him go.”

“Hey,” he said, covering my hand with his own. “You’ll get there. Go easy on yourself.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m afraid of being alone,” I said. “I’m not normal, and I’ve always known that. Pike is all fucked up too, just in different ways, so I guess it makes me think we’re made for each other. And sometimes, I think about the future, and all I see is me sitting in this damned bar when I’m in my sixties, surrounded by college students. Because there are always new college students. Every year, a new batch, always the same damned age, always so young. It’s like I’m the only one getting older, and someday I’ll be too old. They won’t fuck me anymore. And then—”

“Hey, calm down,” said Crane.

I looked at him. “I’ll be alone.”

“You won’t,” he said. “I’ll be here too.”

I gave him a tiny smile. “You promise?”

“Definitely.”

We sat like that for a minute, just smiling at each other.

“And hey,” said Crane, “you never know. Maybe we’ll both meet the perfect partner next year. Maybe we’ll get hitched and make babies and be having Christmases together watching our kids run around.”

“Yeah, right,” I said.

“All right, so probably not,” he said. “The point is, you’ll always be in my life, Ivy. No matter what.”

I smiled at him. He was right. Crane and I might not have a romantic connection, but we were bound together nonetheless. I raised my glass. “To us, then. To always being together.”

He clinked his glass against mine. “To us.”

We drank.

“Okay,” he said. “You feel better now, right? So, I’m completely willing to accept your offer of buying another round now.”

I laughed. “More vodka?”

“You know it.”

* * *

“So, she’s dead,” said Brigit, tossing her purse strap over the back of her desk chair.

“Who is?” I called from my inner office. I thought maybe she was talking about Kitty, but that was old news. Then I had a horrible thought. Maybe she meant the dog. I jumped up out of my chair. “Is the dog dead? How do you know that? Did the shelter already put her to sleep? Shouldn’t they give her more time to find an owner or something? Geez.”

“Not the dog,” said Brigit. “Cori Donovan.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “The drug dealer. Dead, huh?”

“Yeah, since January,” said Brigit.

“And you didn’t know this?”

“No, I had no idea. Like I said, I’m out of the loop. Plus, after the Ralph the Hatchet case, we were swamped here for months. There were people calling us left and right trying to get the famous Ivy Stern to take their case. I was busy, and I lost touch with a lot of my old contacts from college.”

She was right about the follow-up cases after Ralph the Hatchet. We’d gotten a lot of work from that case. It had eventually tapered off, but for a while there, we were going gangbusters.

“Well, so how did she die?” I said. “Overdose?”

“Murder,” said Brigit, sitting down behind her desk.

“Whoa,” I said. “Who killed her?”

“That’s not important,” said Brigit. “The important thing is that she’s out of the picture, and I didn’t have a lot of luck trying to find out who else might be taking her place.”

“No?” I said. “That sucks.”

“Most people are pretty sure that she and Bix have to be getting their stuff from the same place. It’s identical product, apparently.”

“Well, there you go, then. Bix replaced Cori.”

“No, it’s not like that. Bix and Cori apparently co-existed. Bix is higher up the chain than she is. He’s the dealer you go to if you’re in the know. Cori was the kind of dealer who’d show up at parties in town and have some pills. She was hit or miss. He was a sure thing. Apparently, being in with Bix is being one step closer to the source of it all, meaning that his stuff is purer and cheaper.”

“Huh,” I said. “Well, then what the hell was he doing in that dorm room?”

“He did admit that it was out of the ordinary for him,” said Brigit. “But it’s completely suspicious. I mean, he never goes out and sells stuff at parties, so it makes it all the more likely that something bad went down.”

“Like maybe he went out specifically to shoot Charlene Jarrett.”

“Maybe.”

“He could have used Gilbert’s gun because it was better than using his own. It gave him the perfect cover-up,” I said. “Maybe he was ordered to kill her, to send a message to the O’Shaunessys, tell them to back off and cede the territory.”

“Who would order that?”

“Whoever he works for, this person that is the source of it all, like you’re saying. Do you know anything about that?”

“People just call him Professor X.”

I shook my head. “I always thought that was an urban legend. You think there’s really someone behind all that?”

“Well, the drugs definitely come from some place other than the O’Shaunessys, and there’s definitely another network of dealers working the college. They only seem to sell ecstasy, and they seem to be everywhere.”

“Man, that’s so shady,” I said.

“It’s weird all right.”

“Well, we’ll keep looking,” I said. “If there’s something here to be discovered, we’ll figure out what it is.”

“Okay,” said Brigit. “I mean, I can try, but the thing is, I don’t even really know where else to look at this point. I’ve kind of exhausted my resources, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, we’ll just—”

I was interrupted when the door opened and Eden walked in.

“Hello, my lovelies!” said Eden. She was sporting a blue-tinged spiky mohawk. She was the kind of person who liked to do weird things with her hair.

“Eden!” Brigit ran over to give Eden a hug. “It’s so good to see you. How are you doing?”

“Oh, good,” said Eden, “I’m actually here to give you some good news about Kent Mercer.”

“Oh right,” I said. “Man, I’ve been meaning to follow up on that with you.”

“I was out of the house for a bit,” said Eden. “Thought I’d stop by. It’s good to see you guys.” She came over to give me a hug too.

“So,” I said, “good news, meaning?”

“Yeah,” said Brigit. “Is he married or not?”

“Oh, no, he’s not married,” I said. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

“No,” said Brigit. “You haven’t told me a damned thing.”

“Well, I had Eden find that out ages ago,” I said. “And I went and checked out his place. He totally lives alone. But he’s, uh, not well off. His apartment was pretty shabby.”

“He’s an artist,” said Brigit. “Artists are poor. It’s a cliche for a reason.”

“Well, I thought maybe he’d been married, got divorced, got kicked out, and was living alone because of that.”

“No,” said Eden. “Doesn’t look like he was ever married.”

“Great,” said Brigit, grinning.

“But what’s up with that ring?” I said. “He was very obviously missing a ring.”

“That’s why I dropped by,” said Eden. “I found something out about that.” She handed me a file folder, and I opened it up.

Brigit crowded beside me, looking over my shoulder so that she could see it too. “This is an eBay listing,” she said.

“Yup,” said Eden.

“What’s Cross and Flame?” I said.

“Oh, come on, I can’t believe you’ve never heard of that,” said Brigit. “It’s this secret society in several of the Ivy League schools.”

“Right,” said Eden. “Half of the presidents of the United States belonged.”

“Sounds like something you’d be interested in, Eden,” I muttered. “So what’s this all about?”

“The guy sold a ring,” said Eden. “A Cross and Flame ring.”

“They’re in a secret society, but they all wear rings to proclaim the fact that they’re in it?”

“No, no,” said Eden. “Not while they’re active members. But after they’ve graduated from college, they wear the rings so that they can recognize each other. They’re worth a lot of money. I’m guessing this guy sold his to pay the rent if he’s really as bad off as you say.”

“So, there’s nothing wrong with him at all!” said Brigit, grinning. “Good, then I can call him back.”

“Yeah, he seems okay,” said Eden.

“We give you permission to date him,” I said.

Brigit rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

But she was glad, and I felt good.

* * *

As I was leaving the office that evening, Miles called. I’d read this study about how it was incredibly dangerous to talk on the phone when driving, whether you had a hands-free device or not. So, I sat in the parking lot to talk to him.

“What’s up?” I said. “If this is about the case, I’m sorry I don’t have anything concrete for you, but I’m working on it.”

“No, that’s not why I called.”

“By the way,” I said, “you said you’d help us get Gilbert’s phone and computer.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “I did check on that. The computer is indeed in his room at home, and I tried to take it, but then I got into a ‘discussion’ with my father, and it slipped my mind. I’ll get it for you.”

“And the phone?”

“In evidence, like you said. I can’t get it, though. They haven’t released the personal effects. But I’m working on getting the phone data to you. Apparently, there’s a way that you can copy everything that’s on the phone and look at it on a computer or something. Your friend Eden will know about it.”

“Great,” I said. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“But this isn’t why I called,” he said. “I called to apologize.”

“For what?” I was confused.

“You ran off pretty quick after the dinner the other night. I know it was because I was an ass to you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have refused your comfort. It was rude.”

“Whatever,” I said. “I know you don’t like to be touched. I shouldn’t have gone there.”

“I want to want to be touched, though,” he said.

“What does that even mean?” I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “No, you’re the way you are, and that’s that. I know I shouldn’t expect anything different.”

“I don’t want to be that way,” he said. “Look, a long time ago, I went into therapy, and I got myself to a certain point with it. I was in a bad way, and I couldn’t leave my room, and I had a therapist come and visit me, and she helped me. But eventually, I decided it was good enough, and I just stopped. Still, I know that I could change. I should change. I’d be happier in the long run. It’s just scary, and it’s a lot of work.”

“Miles, I’m not asking you to—”

“I know that,” he said. “I’m sorry I got into that. I know that there isn’t any chance for us to ever make this work, no matter how much I change. I just wanted to apologize.”

“Well, you don’t have to. Because there’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s really okay.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Miles?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really think about us making it work?”

“Of course I do,” he said.

“Because I do too,” I whispered. Outside my car, the darkness was gathering, and it made me feel like I was being wrapped in a tight, safe cocoon.

“You do?”

“Yes. All the time.”

“Because I don’t really see you… taking steps,” he said.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I keep telling myself that it’s not enough to accuse you of things or demand that you change. That maybe if I show you it’s possible to change, you’ll work on your shit. But sometimes I feel like I’m an idiot for even bothering.”

“What the hell?” The cocoon was starting to feel less comforting and safe and more constricting and strangling.

“I did that whole fucking testosterone thing—”

“Yeah, and what was the point of that?” I said. “I mean, all that pain and agony just to figure out that you hate sex anyway?” What was I thinking? There was no way this was ever going to work.

“It showed me where the problem was,” he said. “It helped. Kind of. But whatever, that’s not the point. The point is that I tried. Have you tried anything at all? Have you even spent one night alone in the past two months?”

“Of course I have. It’s not like that. I don’t have to have sex every second of every day.”

“Have you considered going to therapy, Ivy?”

My mouth felt dry. “You know, for a conversation that started out with you apologizing to me, the tables sure have turned.”

“Well, if you want to talk about us making it work, then we can’t ignore the elephant in the room, which is the fact that you could never be faithful to me anyway. Making everything we’re doing pointless.”

“This is what sets me off,” I said. “Conversations like this make me feel so crazy. And then I just have to shut my head up. Because all I feel is guilt and confusion and… and badness. So, if you want me to sleep with someone else tonight, by all means, keep going.”

“Oh, no, Ivy, you don’t get to put this on me,” he said. “You’re responsible for your own actions.”

“You know what? Fuck you.” I hung up.

I was shaking all over. How had that conversation changed so quickly? One second, it had seemed sweet and soft and wonderful, full of promise, and the next, it had turned on me like a viper.

I guessed that was the way with someone you’d loved for a long time. They knew just how to push your buttons and wind you up. He didn’t have any right getting on my case like that. Miles didn’t even know what he was talking about. I didn’t know why everyone kept insisting that I had some kind of problem with sex. Maybe I was just a sexually assertive woman. Maybe everyone was just threatened by that.

But deep down, I knew that any man who had as much sex as I did would also have trouble creating a normal life. Hell, look at Crane, who didn’t even have nearly as much sex as me. He couldn’t sustain a relationship or start a family or anything like that. And ever since he’d gotten tenure at the college, he’d stopped teaching any classes before ten in the morning, which wasn’t the kind of lifestyle everyone on earth could have.

So, whatever, I was fucked up. But I knew what would happen if I tried not to have sex. I’d be trapped with my own thoughts, with the noise of my brain, and I would have no way to get rid of it. I couldn’t handle that. I’d go insane.

I turned the key in the ignition and drove back to Keene. I didn’t even bother to go home first. I went straight to The Remington.

Crane was standing inside the door at the bar. He had two full shots of whiskey in front of him.

“Bad day?” I said.

“You could say that,” he said.

“Mine was great until Miles called me and basically said that I was a whore and the whole reason that our relationship never worked.”

“Yeah, I missed a class this morning,” said Crane, “and the department chair called me into his office and said that they’ve been having too many reports of my not showing up, and that even tenured professors can be fired if they really want to.”

“No,” I said, shocked. “Didn’t you just blow off all your classes for a month once? Nothing bad happened then.”

“That was a different group of kids,” said Crane. “It’s give and take, really. Teaching freshmen 101 is hell, because they don’t give a fuck about learning and they don’t respect you. But when you cancel classes for three weeks in a row, they don’t so much mind and report you. When you’re teaching upperclassmen who are majoring in English, they get annoyed when they aren’t getting their money’s worth. So, yeah.”

I made a sympathetic face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It really upset me, and I think it might be kicking in a depressive episode, which I really just can’t handle.”

“Oh no,” I said. Crane was bi-polar. Depressed Crane was ridiculously bad. Manic Crane was fun for a while, but then Manic Crane would sometimes go and do super crazy things. Like marry twenty-two-year-olds. Thing was, I shouldn’t really compare the two of us, now that I thought about it. Crane really did have a problem. A real, honest-to-goodness documented issue. He took medication for it and everything. Crane was functioning as well as he was because of that medication. If Crane and I were similar, then maybe Miles was right, and I should be going into therapy for my sex addiction.

Ugh.

I grabbed one of Crane’s shots and took it. I did not have a sex addiction.

“Hey,” said Crane.

“I’ll buy you another one.” I was already signaling the bartender.

“The thing is,” said Crane, “if I start getting really depressed, I’ll start canceling more classes. It’ll just become a vicious cycle.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “Because Miles tells me that I should stop sleeping with people, and it just makes me feel guilty and awful. And the only thing I can do when I feel guilty and awful is sleep with someone. So, then it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Of course,” said Crane, “what they were complaining about wasn’t really my canceling classes. If I show up and put a note on the door, it’s not a big deal. But if I don’t show up at all, and then the kids come in and just sit in the classroom for twenty minutes waiting for me, then that’s a big problem, apparently.”

“You still call them kids in college?” I said.

“They’re always kids,” he said.

“You really did that?” I said. “Just didn’t show up for class? More than once?”

Crane downed the shot. His shoulders slumped. “I always mean to get up for class. It’s just sometimes, I’m so fucking hungover.”

I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I can see how that might happen.”

The bartender put two more shots of whiskey in front of us, as if to emphasize my point.

“Oh, hey,” said Crane. “You know how you were talking about drugs at Keene, and how everyone’s doing ecstasy?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I know a girl who’s dealing that stuff. Her name’s Molly Colligan, and I think she’s pretty close to the source of the stuff, whether that’s the famed Professor X or not. I know how you can get in touch with her too.”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” said Molly Colligan, “I thought that you wanted to purchase some product. I’d be happy to help you with that. But I’m afraid I don’t really know much of anything about Gilbert Pike or the shooting.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s just a few questions. And it’s really more about your relationship with the O’Shaunessys.”

“My relationship?” She furrowed her brow. “Why would I have a relationship with them?”

“Not you personally,” I said, “but your supplier. You’re selling ecstasy, and that’s encroaching on the O’Shaunessys’s territory. There’s bound to be some animosity between you.”

“Well, I suppose so,” said Molly. “But if there is, it’s all on their side. We’re slaughtering them in sales. No one wants to buy their X. It’s an inferior product.”

“Well, so have they made any threatening advances toward you about that?”

“Not since Cori, no,” she said. “I think they didn’t enjoy the heat from that murder investigation.”

“The O’Shaunessys killed Cori?” I said. How had I missed this? Had I really been so busy with Ralph the Hatchet follow-ups that I hadn’t heard? I must have, but it was strange, considering not very many people died in Keene every year.

“Oh, they weren’t arrested or anything,” said Molly, which really didn’t answer the question, “but Cori was all messed up in a relationship with one of the guys.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I remember.” I’d overheard a conversation in Shamrock’s about that, back when I was investigating the Ralph thing. “Well, anyway, are you guys afraid of the O’Shaunessys?”

“Like I said, we’re slaughtering them in sales. If anything, they’re afraid of us,” she said.

“Have they tried to do anything to hurt you? Anything that might require retaliation?”

“No,” she said. “Be serious. Look, the O’Shaunessys aren’t all that interested in selling molly, anyway. It’s not their style. They’d prefer to get people hooked on the harder stuff—cocaine, heroin, crystal—nasty drugs like that. They’re a huge crime organization. Losing some sales of X is a minor annoyance for them. They make up for the difference with all their other enterprises. They don’t care about us.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think you’re downplaying this a good bit. I’m not sure why.”

“I’m not sure why you’re asking these questions.”

“Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, one of the victims of the shooting was Charlene Jarrett, who’s related to the O’Shaunessys. She’s the big guy’s granddaughter, in fact. Now, if someone wanted to really stick it to the O’Shaunessys, killing her would do it. If someone was responding to some form of threat, for instance.”

“You don’t think the shooting was just a shooting?”

“I’m exploring all the angles.”

She nodded slowly. “Well, listen, here’s what I think. If someone was going to try to send a message to the O’Shaunessys, then why would they cover up that message? A hit on Charlene Jarrett should look like a hit, shouldn’t it?”

I didn’t say anything. Maybe she was right.

“Besides, there’s no violence between us and the O’Shaunessys.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Let’s just say that we work with another… family, and the O’Shaunessys are not interested in getting involved in a war with that family.”

“Another family…” So, they must be backed by one of the O’Shaunessy’s rivals. There were other crime families that had influence in this region. “I see.”

“We’re on fine terms with the O’Shaunessys, thank you very much.”

There hadn’t been an all-out mob war in quite some time, and there wouldn’t be one in the near future either. The families were smart enough to realize that it only brought attention to all of them. Lots of dead mobsters made for easier arrests, and the family members were happy to testify against each other. Overall, it was better left alone. So, she was right. If she was working with another mafia family, then there wasn’t any retaliation going on between them.

This end was dead as a doornail.

* * *

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” said Brigit, chewing on her bottom lip. We were back in the office, and I was explaining to her what Molly Colligan had told me. “So, we don’t think the dealer did it?”

“Well, we don’t think the dealer did it because of a rivalry with the O’Shaunessys. I’m not opposed to the idea of thinking that he did it for some other reason.”

“Like what we said before?” she said. “Like it was all an accident?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But what if it’s still connected to Charlene Jarrett? Something that Molly said to me got me thinking. She said that if the shooting was meant to be a hit on Charlene, it wouldn’t have been made to look like a school shooting. We aren’t looking for a blatant killing, one that sends a message. Instead, we’re looking for something that needs to be covered up. But that could still be a hit on Charlene. It just might be for reasons other than having to do with drugs.”

“Okay,” said Brigit, “then why’s the dealer involved?”

“I just… have a feeling about that guy.”

“Yeah, he did seem shifty,” said Brigit.

“But, you know, maybe someone hired him to do it.”

“I don’t see how he could have gotten the gun from Gilbert if he was hired to do it,” she said.

Damn it, maybe she was right.

“This Charlene thing, though. You don’t just kill the granddaughter of the big O’Shaunessy boss for no reason.”

“Okay,” said Brigit. “Well, I guess we can look into her a little, see if she had any secrets, any enemies.”

“Right,” I said, “let’s do that. Grab your coat.”

* * *

“Enemies?” said Missy Corden, Charlene’s roommate. “What do you mean by that?”

“You know, people who didn’t like her,” said Brigit.

Missy knitted her eyebrows together, deep in thought. We were at the apartment she had shared with Charlene, off campus, but only a few blocks from the college. It was located in one of the apartment complexes in town. Lots of students lived here, but it wasn’t affiliated with the school.

“Was there anyone she argued with a lot?” I said.

“Not really,” said Missy. “I mean, except her mom. She and her mom used to yell at each other on the phone a lot. I could tell her mom was yelling too, because she was so loud that I could hear the other side of the conversation.”

“What was she arguing with her mother about?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, the usual stuff,” said Missy. “What courses she was taking at college. How she wouldn’t live at home. The guy she was dating.”

“And who was she dating?” I said.

“I don’t really know his name,” said Missy. “She told me, but I never met him. He didn’t come here. She always went to his place. Anyway, I know he was really rich, and she said that she was ashamed to take him around her family and stuff. That’s ‘cause her family is, like, the mob.”

“Yes, we know that,” said Brigit.

“No, seriously, it’s like The Sopranos, only the Irish version,” said Missy. “I used to watch The Sopranos on Amazon Instant Video. My family didn’t even know that we could stream video with the Prime subscription, but I found out, and I would tell them that there were all these HBO shows on there. True Blood was on there, you know?”

“I didn’t know, but thank you for telling us that.” I might have sounded a little sarcastic.

Missy didn’t seem to notice. “No problem. Honestly, sometimes, I wish I still lived at home so that I could watch that stuff, but I don’t know my mother’s login for Amazon, and she won’t tell me what it is, because she’s afraid I’ll use her credit card and order stuff and have it shipped to me. Which I so would not do. I just want to watch the videos, you know?”

“About Charlene,” said Brigit. “Anyone she argued with that wasn’t her mother?”

“Um…” Missy thought about it. “I don’t know. Not really. But if you’re looking for enemies, you should look for people who had something against her family, don’t you think? Some people didn’t like her just because of who her parents were. I don’t think that’s fair or anything, but people can be assholes. I mean, Charlene didn’t even want anything to do with what her family did.”

“I see,” I said. “So that was why she was paying her own way through college and refusing to take their money?”

“No,” said Missy, looking at me like I was insane. “Why would you say that?”

“Well, if she really wanted nothing to do with them… You know what, never mind,” I said. We were done here. “Thanks for your time, Missy.”

Missy beamed. “Sure, I hope I was helpful.”

We left her and went back to the car.

“So,” said Brigit, sliding into the passenger side. “We drop the Charlene angle?”

I sighed. “Looks like.”

* * *

When we got back to the office, Miles was there. He was leaning against the door, wearing jeans, with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. I was really not used to him looking so casual all the time.

“Are you ever in your office?” he said.

“What are you talking about?” I pushed him out of the way and unlocked the door.

“Because I could count on my hand the number of times I’ve come here and the place has actually been open. Half the time, I’m standing around waiting for someone to show up.”

“Well, you could call before you come,” I said.

“What good would that do if you’re not in the office to get the call?”

Brigit spoke up. “I reroute the phones to my cell so that I don’t miss anything.”

“Oh,” he said, looking at her. “That’s smart.”

“Yeah, I’m not an idiot.” She turned her back on him and headed for her desk.

“I didn’t say you were,” he said.

“Whatever,” Brigit said, not turning around. “I can tell you don’t like me.”

Miles furrowed his brow. “What is she talking about?”

“You tend to pretend she doesn’t exist when you’re around,” I said. “Is there some reason you’re here, or did you just come by to tell me in person how substandard of a person I am?”

“When did I ever say you were a substandard person?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Last night on the phone? When you were attempting to ‘apologize’ and somehow ended up insulting me.”

He pressed his lips together in a firm line. “If that’s what you think I said last night, then you’re delusional, because all I said was—”

“Let’s not rehash it,” I said. “I assume there’s a reason you’re in my office.”

“Actually, yes,” he said. “I brought you Gil’s computer and the data from his phone.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “Finally.”

“Finally?” He glared at me.

“What?” I said. “I asked you for that computer quite some time ago.”

“Yes, and you’re working for me, here, so maybe you should give me some respect, what do you think?”

“I respect you, Miles. I don’t know what you’re whining about. Maybe you should stop letting our personal issues affect our working together.”

“I should stop?”

I shrugged.

We squared off in the middle of the room, both of us stiff and angry. I couldn’t believe he’d come here and act like this. After everything he’d said to me the night before, well, he didn’t have the right.

His jaw twitched. “You know what? I’m not giving you this computer until you give me an update on what you actually know about this case.”

“Update?” I said. “What?”

“I gave you those files that you wanted,” he said. “There’s some O’Shaunessy angle—”

“Well, that’s probably dead,” said Brigit.

“Oh.” He folded his arms over his chest. “So, do you know anything?”

The anger was draining out of me. “Look, we have some theories, Miles, but we don’t have any proof yet. If we’re wrong, well, I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“Tell me your theories,” he said.

I let out a breath. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to tell Miles this stuff or not. I was afraid that once he knew everything we were doing, he might laugh us off the stage, tell us we were barking up the wrong tree. I was afraid that he’d be angry, because we weren’t doing what we set out to do, we weren’t investigating where his brother’s head was at when he shot five people.

But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t think that Gil had been the shooter.

“Okay,” I said. “Well, the first thing you should know is that Gilbert woke up that morning and went and bought tickets for Keenefest. Which doesn’t sound like something that a person does who isn’t expecting to live out the day, you know?”

Miles furrowed his brow.

“The second thing,” I continued, “is that there was a drug dealer in that room. People saw him come in, but they didn’t see him come out. He claims he left before the shooting started, but I think he’s lying. I think that he took Gil’s gun, and I think they struggled over it. I think that’s how Gil shot himself. I think it was an accident that he pulled the trigger. And I think that the dealer shot the others.”

Miles swallowed.

“Now, I don’t know if he saw the gun and panicked, and this is the result, or if he was working for someone. Maybe he was sent there to kill a certain person, maybe Charlene Jarrett, and then he freaked out when he saw the gun and everything went crazy. I do know that it wasn’t typical for him to be making house calls. I don’t have anything concrete, though. It’s all speculation, and maybe it’s crazy. It’s only that everyone we talked to said that they couldn’t believe your brother would do something like this. No one had any idea why he would have done it. Everyone said that it hit them hard, that he wasn’t the sort of person to do it. No one thought he was depressed or angry or anything like that. It doesn’t make sense to them that he’d do it. So, I started thinking that maybe he didn’t. But if I can’t prove that, then I’ll have to let it go, and if I’m wrong, I didn’t want to tell you and have you think—”

“No,” said Miles. “No, I’m glad you told me. It’s good that you told me.”

“It is?”

He passed a hand over his face. “I’m… Geez, I really hope you’re right, Ivy. It doesn’t make any sense for him to have done this, so if you could find some evidence about this dealer, well, that would be fantastic.”

“Yeah, we’re doing our best,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said. “I knew that it was a good idea to hire you. I knew it.” He gave me a small smile.

I couldn’t help but smile back. I was so glad he was all right with this.

* * *

“Food’s here,” called Brigit.

“Excellent,” I said, coming out of my office, toting lots of printouts, which I’d highlighted to death. Brigit and I had been going through Gilbert’s computer and the data from his phone all afternoon. I had told her that we would take a break to eat dinner and go over what we’d found. I’d managed to dig up some good stuff, but I’d also gone through a bunch of crap as well. Sorting through a person’s entire digital life is an exercise in banality.

Actually, most of being a detective is dull. However, figuring stuff out is such a rush that it’s worth all the boring parts.

Brigit had ordered food from the Thai place in town, and I wasn’t sure what she’d ordered me. This was because when she’d asked what kind of food I wanted, I’d been preoccupied, and I’d said, “Order from wherever you want, and don’t ask me any more questions.” When she had asked me what I wanted to order, I’d said, “Didn’t I tell you not to ask me any more questions!”

So, I guess I deserved whatever I got. I just hoped it wasn’t disgusting. I didn’t think Thai people ate live octopuses or anything, but if they did, I wouldn’t put it past Brigit to order that for me just in revenge.

“I got you pad thai,” she said, handing it over.

“Oh, thank goodness,” I said. “I like pad thai. It’s delicious.”

Brigit had some kind of curry. We assembled our food and settled down to eat and talk.

“Okay,” I said, “so I found two things that seem interesting. One is that there’s some issue with the Tekes.”

“The fraternity?” said Brigit.

“Yeah,” I said. The Tau Kappa Epsilons or TKEs were somewhat infamous on the Keene campus, and they had been for decades. They had a reputation for being the most unruly fraternity around. Lots of rowdy parties, lots of crazy drinking, lots of questionably consensual sexual partners.

“Oh, those guys,” said Brigit, wrinkling up her nose. “They’re the worst.”

“They were the worst even when I was going to school.” I took a bite of my pad thai. Ah, peanutty goodness.

“So, what’s the issue?” said Brigit.

“Well, I’m going off of a bunch of texts and emails that he got, and no one’s really spelling it out, but what I’m thinking happened is that Gilbert seems to have been caught with marijuana by the campus police. And when they asked him where he got it, he said that he got it from the Tekes.”

“What? The Tekes are selling pot now?”

“No, I think it was more like it was a joint or something. He was at a party there, and someone gave him a joint for later. At least, that’s how I’m reading it.”

“Oh, okay,” said Brigit.

“Anyway, apparently the Tekes have been caught with pot before, so this was the last straw, and they were kicked off campus. They took away their campus housing and everything.”

“The Teke frat house isn’t the Teke frat house?” said Brigit. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I checked on the Internet as well. There are some articles in the Keene paper about it and everything.”

“Whoa. That’s crazy. That frat house is like an institution.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “So, as you can imagine, the fraternity was pretty angry with Gilbert. Angry enough to kill him? I don’t know.”

“Wait, you don’t think the Tekes are somehow responsible…?”

“I’m just throwing this out there,” I said. “But I’m not completely on board with that theory, because I found something else on the files that I had.”

“What did you find?”

“Oh, only that he was sleeping with Charlene Jarrett. There are jillion texts between the two of them, and some of them are kind of dirty.”

“Oh, man. I saw that he was calling her all the time,” said Brigit. “So, the rich guy that Charlene was seeing was Gilbert?”

“Seems that way,” I said. “Now, how that helps us, I don’t know. But it does seem to make it less likely that Gilbert shot up all the people. He’d want to protect his girlfriend.”

“Unless he did it because he wanted to kill Charlene,” said Brigit. “If they were sleeping together, doesn’t that make him more likely to have a motive?”

She was right. I made a face. “Yeah, maybe.”

Brigit shoveled some curry into her mouth.

I ate some rice noodles.

“So,” I said, after I’d swallowed, “what did you find?”

“Well, there is this number that he called all the time,” she said.

“No name attached to it?”

“Nope, just the number. I haven’t had the chance to really look into it, though, because I found something much more interesting.” She handed over a print out to me.

“What’s this?” I said.

“It’s an internal memo from Quikslim Incorporated,” she said. “It’s talking about covering up the fact that their new product line of energy shakes contains ephedra.”

“Ephedra?” I said. “But that’s illegal. You can’t put it in dietary supplements anymore. It was killing people.” I scanned the memo. “Holy shit, you’re right.”

“That was on his computer,” said Brigit, “and it was in a file folder with a letter that he had written to his dad. Obviously, he intended to send the letter to his father accompanying the memo. Basically, the letter said that he was ashamed of his family and his legacy and he wanted nothing to do with the family anymore. He said he was going to do whatever he had to do to stop the sales of that energy shake and to take down the entire Quikslim empire.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Holy shit.”