The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss Read online

  It seemed even harder to imagine someone as classy-looking as Ophelia Odom—even her name seemed classy—stealing a spear, but it was worth knowing. Tambras could use the spear, unlike Kurt. And maybe she could have gotten the password. She lived in Boston, but maybe she had come to visit.

  I was going to call it quits there, but there was something about that card. “Embroidery in childhood was a luxury, but sometimes you need luxury.” It felt like an inside joke, but I couldn’t make any sense of it.

  Anyway, I was feeling pretty clever about all this, until I got to the bottom of the bin. Because here was a clue that dwarfed everything else. It was a small teardrop-shaped ruby. Exactly like you would find on the bejeweled spear.

  Charice had been downstairs, washing the dye out of our curtains. I had a terrible feeling that this meant that everyone in our building would suddenly have yellow-tinted clothing, but I did not address this point. Instead I showed her the gem. She was delighted, if a little uncomprehending. She had pointed out to me, savvy jewel person that she was, that it wasn’t a real gemstone, just cheap glass. But the spear wouldn’t have been made with real jewels, anyway, or so I assumed. So this was the real thing. The fake, real thing. I went back to sleep excited, but I tried very hard not to overreact. I hadn’t seen the “real” jeweled spear yet, so I didn’t know for certain that my gem went on it or not. And if even if it did, that didn’t necessarily mean anything. But I couldn’t figure out any other reason Kurt would have a paste gem in his car.

  I felt like I was onto something.

  As a way to ward off my thinking about the murder, I decided to focus on thinking about the theft. The theft I could handle. Or so I thought. This put me, more or less, instantly asleep.

  When I got up, I made a list of the folks in Jonah’s guild. I then went through each class, one by one, and figured out who could wield spears. There was no way to find an alibi for any of these folks but I could at least determine motive. I knew already that Kurt couldn’t use the spear, since ninjas aren’t allowed to use spears in the game.

  When I was done, I had three names. Clemency, Threadwork, and Tambras. Tambras was tingling my danger sense like Dr. Jekyll frolicking on a three-legged trampoline, but I’d look at everyone. Just two more people to interview, and I’d have my primary suspects. Of the non-Chinese-gold-farmer variety.

  In addition to fretting about the case, I also checked my phone to see if Nathan Willing had messaged me. He hadn’t. This was something I was going to have to take into my own hands.

  Did I message Nathan because he had cute spindly limbs and reminded me of a slightly sexy walking stick? Or did I have some professional purpose? I suppose the truth was mostly column A. I told him I wanted a little more insight into Jonah’s life. But I could have gotten that from lots of places. It was just that Nathan seemed a lot more promising than a lot of my other options.

  He responded to my FB message instantly, which should maybe be off-putting but wasn’t.

  “How about you crouch in front of the doorway of a fine Saint Louis eatery?” I messaged him.

  “When and where?” he had responded.

  Yes, this was going to be bad indeed. I put on my sexiest clothes, then, worrying that I had overshot the mark, opted for my Jigglypuff cap. It was cold, and Jiggly helped send the message I wanted to send, which was apparently that I would like Nathan to fall asleep so that I could write on his face. (This is a hard-core Pokémon reference and if you do not get it, I apologize. If you do get it, I apologize even more deeply.)

  We met at a Thai place on the Loop that I liked. There are better places for Thai, fancier places, tastier places, but there was something nostalgic about the joint for me, although I couldn’t have told you why. Just Friday nights with friends, I suppose, but sometimes that lends enough memory that you’re willing to overlook lousy service.

  Nathan had arrived before me and was sitting there in a striped green polo, smiling at me as I came in. He was also munching on a piece of celery, which they did not serve here. Did he just travel around with healthy food?

  “What inconsistencies in my story have you come to grill me about?” asked Nathan as I sat down, a little too hopefully, I thought.

  “Is that what you were looking for? A grilling?”

  “Is that something you offer?”

  “I’m more of a gal who singes lightly, but arrangements can be made.”

  The tone of this was probably flirtier than I can easily describe here. Professionalism had gone out the window. Somewhere, the scowling disembodied head of Jonah hovered disapprovingly over us. His parents’ money was buying this meal. Perhaps I should bring it down a notch.

  “Okay,” I said, “so we’ve established that you’re adorable.”

  “Adorable, really? That’s not a word that’s usually used to describe me.”

  “How about narcissistic?”

  “Closer.”

  “That’s not the point, Nathan. The point is that you’re adorable, and that I’m single, and what was I saying?”

  “You have a job to do?”

  “Right.”

  “So the grilling?”

  The waitress came over and took our orders, which for some reason or another seemed to put sort of a chill on our conversation. She always seemed not very far away, just looking for an opportunity to refill my glass of water. It was unnerving. It’s not as if I thought she was eavesdropping, and judging from her accent, I’m not sure she would have followed much if she had been, but it made the dinner feel more illicit to know that there was another set of ears not too far away.

  My voice dropped a little closer to whispering when I resumed our conversation in earnest.

  “So, Nathan, I think I should begin with a confession.”

  “I like confessions.”

  “Then here goes: I’m not really a detective. I mean, I was hired as a detective by Jonah, and later, his family, but I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

  Nathan seemed to take this very lightly, clinking the ice around in his drink jovially.

  “That’s your confession?”

  “Yes. Were you expecting more?”

  “Well, the police did tell me that already.”

  “What? Those bastards.”

  Detective Maddocks just seemed like the sort of person who wanted fun to be stopped. I imagined him showing up at my high school reunion, explaining to everyone that I wasn’t a real detective, and telling people other true but embarrassing things like “Although Dahlia claims to speak German, she only knows like fifty words,” and “Those cool shoes she’s wearing are borrowed.”

  Nathan did not notice my furrowing brow and went on.

  “Anyway, I told them that I thought they were wrong. I think that you are a detective.”

  “They’re not wrong,” I said, sighing.

  “No,” said Nathan. “They’re wrong. What you’re telling me is that you don’t have a lot of experience as a detective. To that I say: No matter! There is something decidedly detective-like about you.”

  “Is it my hat?” I asked, tugging at my Jigglypuff cap.

  “You have an interrogative manner.”

  It had gotten a lot less flirty, but I was liking Nathan more and more by the minute. Then our courses were here. Nathan had gotten something complicated and unpronounceable, whereas I was sticking with my tried-and-true green curry with vegetables, which is the Thai restaurant version of ordering vanilla ice cream. I guess this place really was all about nostalgia for me.

  “Still,” said Nathan, looking thoughtful—and I liked boys who looked thoughtful—”it begs a question. If you’re so sure that you’re not a detective, why take Mrs. Long’s money?”

  I had planned to answer Nathan by telling him that I was basically a terrible person, but my lips went renegade and spit out something altogether different.

  “I want to know why Jonah hired me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Aha,” said Nathan. “I was
right! You are a detective.”

  What the hell was I saying? My brain took executive control of my lips again and tried to steer the conversation to the safety of the shore.

  “I’m not a detective. I’m an unemployed millennial with an overly expensive business degree.”

  “Nope. Painters paint; sculptors sculpt; and detectives detect. You are a detective, because you are detecting.”

  “I’m not doing it very well.”

  “I didn’t say you were a good detective. Probably you aren’t. But you’ve got a spark, a little glimmer. Why do you think Jonah hired you?”

  I probably should have found this patronizing, but I didn’t. And Nathan had distracted me with a question regardless.

  “Not because of a spark,” I said. “He had never even met me.”

  Nathan looked puzzled. “I hadn’t known that bit. That is a little weird.”

  It comforted me to hear this, because I’d floated the same theory to Charice, who lives a world of insane coincidences and would not accept anything unusual about it. Now that I had a receptive audience, I was willing to try out my actual theory.

  “Ever read one of those old private-eye mysteries where the detective gets double-crossed?”

  “I suppose,” said Nathan. “I’m really more of a sci-fi guy.”

  “But you knew all of those noir words!”

  “Google,” said Nathan.

  “Well, it’s a thing. Sam Spade is in his office, or wherever, and some dame with great legs comes in and asks him to find her sister.”

  “Did Jonah have nice legs?” interrupted Nathan.

  “He had nice pants, but let me finish. The dick takes the case, and when he finds the sister, he discovers she’s dead, gets framed, and besides which it wasn’t the dame’s sister anyway.”

  “And the great legs were prosthetic,” added Nathan.

  “Exactly,” I told him.

  “There never was a dame; she was a hologram.”

  “Yes, you’re moving into sci-fi.”

  “The sister was a Cylon.”

  “Now you’re just being derivative.”

  There was something catlike about the way Nathan flirted. Probably that he practically purred when you complimented him. I felt like if I rubbed his face, he would jump into my lap.

  “All right,” he said, stretching. “So that’s a thing. Are you saying that Jonah hired you just to frame you for murder?”

  “It sounds paranoid when you say it.”

  “I could try it again in a different intonation.”

  It did sound a bit half-baked. But there was something so smug about Jonah when he hired me—he was up to something. I was clearly supposed to find something, do something. Maybe it wasn’t Jonah who made the wrong step. Maybe it was me?

  “So I’m paranoid,” I told Nathan. It was feeling less like a date and more like a confession.

  “Well,” he said, not remotely put off by the suggestion. “It’s only paranoia if they’re not really out to get you.”

  Nathan and I talked for a few minutes about things other than the case, and out of privacy and self-preservation, I shall not mention them here. I did learn that he had a model train hobby, which is a positively ridiculous hobby for someone under fifty. I learned a few other things as well, including the existence of his half-Japanese ex-girlfriend who he had broken up with eight months earlier but who he was still sharing an apartment with. I couldn’t decide, and still can’t, if such an amiable breakup overrode the creepiness of living with his ex this many months later. But I digress.

  After I ditched the boy, I found myself lingering in the Loop before I headed back to my apartment. It was hours from when I could log back in to Zoth, and I felt that my investigation was pretty much stalled out until I got online and actually, you know, met some suspects. Perhaps it was my newfound optimism, or that my confession to Nathan went shockingly well, but I found myself wanting to hang around a bit.

  The Loop, incidentally, is a straight line. It’s a little neighborhood of shops in University City that is named for the fact that once, billions of years ago, streetcars used it as a point to loop around. Now it was just odd little shops with great antiquarian books and hipster stores. I had always liked the place, but I hadn’t actually been down here in ages, and I suddenly wanted to see it again.

  Yes, it was probably optimism. If they say pride comes before a fall, cheeriness surely comes before massive depression. But God help me, I was cheery.

  I was in one of those stores, looking at a naked magnetic refrigerator David, who I had dressed in magnetic pink boxer shorts. I thought the look suited him, and I was contemplating his eyewear when I heard a voice.

  “Investigation coming along nicely, then?”

  Occasionally, even idiots like me have good moments. And this was one of my rare good moments. I knew who was behind me; I recognized the voice. That, or I just imagined who would be the worst person to be behind me and just ran with it. It was an intuitive leap that would have made me look stupid if I had been wrong. But I went with it without even a moment’s thought. When you’re juggling flaming torches, why not throw a knife into the mix?

  “Just you today, Detective Shuler?”

  I did not turn around—in part out of fear that I had screwed up—but instead deliberately focused on sliding oversized white sunglasses onto David’s perfect little face.

  “Did you see me come in?”

  And I turned around now. He was alone and looked surprised and impressed. In my heart of hearts I wanted to do a little dance, maybe shout “Boo-yah!” or words along those lines, but I felt pretty certain that it would blow the moment. Instead, I was honest.

  “I just had a feeling you would show up.”

  “Good God, are you wearing a Jigglypuff cap?”

  Right. I made a mental note not to wear Pokémon-related headgear while conducting future investigation. But given that the game was up, I sung a quick bar of the Jigglypuff song. “Oh-ho-o!” When Shuler grinned, I asked:

  “Why do you know who Jigglypuff is, anyway, Detective?”

  “Everyone knows who Jigglypuff is,” said Shuler with fake nonchalance. “He’s famous.”

  “No,” I told him. “Only geeks and children know this.”

  Shuler cleared his throat. “Well, I picked it up somewhere.”

  Yeah, I thought. Somewhere like an unabridged Pokédex. I knew a closet geek when I saw one, and Shuler was a classic example. Usually I ride folks like this to the point of tears, but today, I decided, I was going to show compassion.

  “What exactly are you doing, Dahlia Moss?”

  It was not a question I had expected. I was originally planning to answer it in a glib way, like, “I’m putting sunglasses on Michelangelo’s David, you?” but there was something so unexpectedly genuine about his tone that I just looked at him.

  “Where is Detective Maddocks?” I asked. Not able to come out in daylight?

  “It’s funny you should ask that. Because if he finds out that Jonah’s parents hired you for ten thousand dollars, he’s going to murder you. With his eyes.”

  I considered this. It seemed plausible.

  “How did you find out?” I asked him.

  “Jonah’s mother told me. The family has hired all sorts of people. There’s a private detective looking at their business; there’s someone looking at—” Here Detective Shuler paused, thinking. After a second he continued. “Another angle I shouldn’t mention to you. And some other detectives, investigating things that”—he paused again—“I also probably shouldn’t mention.”

  So I wasn’t the only flower in Emily’s garden. It made sense, but I felt a little betrayed nonetheless. One more professional who thought I didn’t have what it took.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “Well, hopefully I’ll just get lost in the mix. Hey, you can’t, by any chance, let me see the murder weapon that Jonah was killed with?”

  Detective Shuler’s eyes boggled at me.

 
“I grant you that was probably a reach,” I said. “Could you maybe just show me a picture?”

  “No,” said Shuler with a finality that I frankly hadn’t expected from him. “That would not be a good idea.”

  There was a pause, as if he were considering his answer to my question after rather than before making it, and Shuler looked very worried. I liked Detective Shuler. Maybe they were just playing good cop/bad cop on me, but Shuler’s furrowed brow of worry was more compelling to me than Detective Maddocks’s angry hypno eyes. (Although I probably was just saying that because he wasn’t around.)

  “Do you think that it’s that bad an idea to investigate the Zoth angle?” I asked.

  “I think it’s a terrible idea for you to investigate the Zoth angle, even under the cover of being a funeral planner. Especially under that, actually,” Shuler answered, still looking worried.

  “If not me, then who? You guys aren’t taking it seriously.”

  This snapped Shuler out of his concern for me and back into his proper role of being suspicious.

  “Where did you hear that?” he asked.

  “Jonah’s mother told me,” I lied. It was a lie that came to me easily, which is the best kind. Shuler obviously went for it, because he visibly relaxed.

  “I don’t think Detective Maddocks realizes how fanatical people can be about games like Zoth. To him, they’re just, well, games. As far as he’s concerned, it’s just a complicated version of Candy Crush, and no one ever got killed playing Candy Crush.”

  Shuler had obviously never met my aunt Lorraine, who played Candy Crush while driving seventy and passing slower traffic. But I knew what he meant.

  “If that’s as close to your approval as I can get, I’ll take it. Honestly, I just don’t want to cheat the Longs. If I find the first remotely interesting thing, I’ll be sure to pass it along to you.”