CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
There is, traditionally in my stories, a chase about now, in which the murderer, after being unveiled, pursues me through an unlikely setting, such as a video game convention or a steamboat. It does not happen here, but in an effort to maintain tradition, I acknowledge it here. If you like, feel free to imagine such a chase, involving myself as well as Gary and Lawrence, and if you like, assists from Cynthia. Here are some keywords to encourage you on your own imaginative adventure:
Lemarchand’s box
gateway to hell
actual hell
bumper cars
Chris de Burgh concert
confetti cannon
Please send your best chase stories to dahliamossrocks@gmail.com, where I will feature them in my delightful cavalcade of Things That Never Actually Happened.
The actual aftermath of the reveal was a little calmer than you might have expected, although given the status of things, maybe calmer was the only direction left to go in. Tedin took Lawrence and Gary to the police station. There were no handcuffs, no more fights. Lawrence seemed to think it would be fun to ride in the cruiser, and who knows, maybe he was right.
But Gary was incredibly anxious, and he was the person I was worried about.
“Don’t worry,” said Quintrell. “The beds in there are amazing,” he told his friend.
“Are they?” asked Gary.
“You’ll think so,” said Quintrell, who decided to also go along. There was no more room in the cruiser, so he followed along with Archie, who seemed happy that someone else’s drama had eclipsed his own.
Cynthia, I gathered, also came along with Joanne. It must have been quite a time.
I had expected Vanetta to follow the party to the police station, given the earlier concern she had expressed for Quintrell, but she didn’t. She instead looked at Daniel, of all people, and asked: “So are you still getting married today?”
“I can’t imagine a reason why we wouldn’t,” said Daniel, despite pages and pages of reasons.
“There’s an actual wedding?” asked Masako. “I thought this was some sort of theater thing.”
With Charice in a wedding dress and Daniel in a tux, this could have been a ridiculous question, but given Charice’s penchant for pageantry, it really wasn’t.
“We are going to city hall,” said Charice. “I am renewing my boat license.”
“She’s kidding,” I said. “She’s getting married.”
“Although I am also renewing my boat license,” explained Charice.
“You want to come along?” asked Daniel.
Masako looked to Tyler, who nodded.
Vanetta—who again, I’m not sure how, ended up in this party asked, “What are we going to do about him?” meaning Ignacio, on the floor.
“I can hear you,” said Ignacio. “It’s not like I can’t hear you talking about me.”
“Maybe we just leave him here?” wondered Tyler.
“Don’t leave me,” said Ignacio. “I want to go. It’ll be good journalism.”
And that’s how we all showed up at city hall, for a wedding. There was a couple in front of us, two guys in their seventies, named Lloyd and Edgar, who somehow also wound up in our wedding party, and us in theirs.
The wedding itself was quick and un-notable, which is the way of the city hall wedding, and I think, for whatever reasons, that’s how Charice wanted it. But the pictures were fabulous—Vanetta looking exhausted, Daniel looking romantic, Charice looking beautiful, Ignacio looking confused, and Edgar and Lloyd mooning at each other in a way that was very appealing.
I had, once upon a time, been anxious about Charice’s wedding myself, and it was perhaps for the best that it came after such a climactic event because I did not have time to worry about it or make it about me, which is a thing that I am capable of doing.
I didn’t have a date to the wedding, such as it was, but I found myself wanting Nathan there. I had solved a case and managed a little bit of heroism, admittedly a very little bit, and who else could I tell the story to? Okay, yes, reader, there’s also you, but you and I can’t really transition into making out on the sofa after.
After the wedding was over, Charice and Daniel went down the courthouse stairs and got into a goddamned horse and carriage that had been ripped straight out of Cinderella. That’s Charice for you—it never looks like she’s planning; but trust me, she’s planning.
Charice persuaded everyone to throw rice (even though it’s not good for the pigeons).
“Where are you going?” I asked as she was guided into her carriage by a straight-up, real-life footman.
“Reykjavik,” said Charice.
“Iceland?” I asked. “Is it nice this time of year?”
“It’s cheap this time of year,” said Daniel. “And we can live like kings!”
“Thank you for all of this, Dahlia,” said Charice. “This has been a big day for us.”
“Yes,” I said. “You got married.”
“Well, yes,” acknowledged Charice, “but I meant about becoming a mother.”
“You’re pregnant?” I gasped. No wonder she was in such a hurry about the wedding.
“No,” said Charice. “Vanetta’s baby. I’m going to adopt Vanetta’s baby, assuming that it sticks. She didn’t tell you about that?”
“That’s what you were doing with Vanetta when I was—”
“—solving a crime? Yes, well, we can’t all go around working out who committed accidental manslaughter, can we? Some of us are looking out for the children of tomorrow!”
This sounded awfully haughty, but then Charice winked at me.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “That’s a really big life change. Really big. And probably a pretty complicated legal arrangement.”
“I have never been scared of being big.”
“Don’t you want to be married to Daniel for a while without having kids?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Charice, who at this point was being lifted into her carriage.
“When are you coming back?”
Charice looked me and smiled: “We’ll be back; don’t worry. But let’s just say, don’t wait up for us.”
I threw rice at her, and she was gone.
When it was all done, I called Nathan.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry I’ve been weird lately.”
“Lately?” said Nathan, although I could tell he was joking.
“Charice just got married. She’s aboard a horse to Iceland even now.”
“What?” said Nathan, sounding the most upset I’ve heard him to date. “She didn’t invite me?”
“It was kind of a flash mob,” I said.
Nathan considered this and said: “That sounds about right. So, what else did you do today?”
“I caught a whistle-blower, exposed an accidental death, lied to a reporter, and got yelled at by Morgan Freeman. What did you do today?”
“I gave a lecture on punctuated saltwater incursion events in the Southern Coastal Plain,” said Nathan.
“That sounds amazing,” I said, and I wasn’t even lying.
I would love to tell you that I figured out who my mystery client was during my parade of deductive reasoning. It would make a better scene, but that’s not how it happened. I did figure it out, but not until days later after I had emailed the stolen code to Emily and we were closing out the case.
I was nervous about talking to Emily. This is nearly always a sensible attitude to take, but I was worried that I had screwed the pooch. Yes, I had figured out who the whistle-blower was, and yes, I successfully managed to lift a little code, but I had also told everyone that I was a private detective.
Emily was surprisingly happy with me, though.
“It was great work, Dahlia. I’ll pass along all that info to my mystery client. They’ll be happy to know that the whistle-blower is out of the picture. And from what I hear, there’s probably no saboteur—just lots of errors introduced by sleepy programmers.”
“You don’t have to keep calling them your ‘mystery client,’ Emily,” I said. “I’ve figured out who I’m working for.”
“Oh?” said Emily.
“Well, it’s not DE, so the only other party that would make any sense would be the company that was looking to buy them up. The hidden object people—what was their name again? Dixon?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” said Emily.
“You can’t confirm that they’re the client, or you’re not sure of their name?” I asked.
“Why is it,” asked Emily, “that I feel I have to be so careful what I say around you?”
This was, as far as I was concerned, the highest possible praise I could receive.
“I suppose you think I’m clever?” I ventured.
“Yes,” said Emily. “And loose lipped.”
“Thanks for the job,” I told her.
And there was a pause. I think if there’s anyone who really has my back in these books, it’s probably Emily Swenson, even if she is vaguely criminal.
“You know, Dahlia. You’re really not bad at this. You could keep moonlighting on the side, but you ought to consider going into business for yourself.”
“You know,” I said, thinking of Shuler. “I’ve been having a conversation about that.”