Niki wasn’t following. “So… we need to look for a car in the water?”
She shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again. “Nik, you’re not hearing me. We already know about the car in the water. I think that whoever killed the Gilmans… it’s the same person who killed Tod.”
17.
The sun was starting to set, so it was getting dark inside Castaways in the shadow of Capitol Hill. Grady Merritt followed Leda and Niki inside, past Tiffany (who was doling out drinks to the happy-hour regulars), past Matt (who blew Niki a kiss), and past Ben’s office. Ben wasn’t in, and Leda seemed relieved about it.
“Ben’s a sweetheart,” she told him as she hustled past the cracked door. “But he has opinions about branding, and I just don’t want to deal with it right now.”
“Branding?” Grady asked, wholly confident that he was in for something ridiculous.
Niki snickered. “Psychic psongstress.”
Oh boy. He’d been right on the money.
Leda said, “Stop it, Nik. It’s bad, but he likes it, and it’s his venue. He can call it whatever he wants.” She stopped at an office door with a sign that read MATTHEW CLINE. The sign was written in marker on a Post-it note with its nonsticky end secured with a piece of tape. “Klairvoyant karaoke is a mouthful, and… and something about the letters fitting neatly onto flyers. I don’t know.”
Her best friend shook her head. “Yeah, but klairvoyant karaoke doesn’t come with a lisp. You should push back.”
“I don’t care enough to.”
“Yes, you do. It’s eating you up.”
“It isn’t.”
Grady followed them inside the small, cramped office. It was about the size of a good walk-in closet, with barely enough room for a desk, two chairs, and a big whiteboard. The board was turned around, facing the wall—until Leda shimmied around the desk and spent a minute and a half trying to flip it over without knocking anything off the walls.
When she’d finally accomplished her task, she announced with great gravitas: “This… is my murder board.”
Her murder board was a hodgepodge of brightly colored index cards and novelty magnets. It needed only a few lines of string to make for a grand conspiracy theory.
Grady tried not to smile, because it seemed important to her. “That’s quite a murder board you’ve got there.”
Niki put her hands on her hips and cocked her head at it. “Every bit as good as something you’d find downtown at the station, eh?”
“Every bit,” he agreed. Mostly they did use whiteboards, but with vivid dry-erase markers instead of index cards. “Looks like you’ve done some good work here. What have we got?” he asked, turning sideways to pass the desk and get a little closer. “Okay, I see how you’re… how you’re getting at that, yeah. You’ve got the two columns of…” He scanned them quickly. “Gilman details and details about your fiancé, each in their own distinct group. What’s all this stuff over here?”
Leda followed his pointing finger. “Oh, those are just…” She swallowed. “Some things I found the other day. I didn’t know where to put them, so I stuck them here.”
Held up by one large round magnet with a picture of a hammer that read THIS IS NOT A DRILL, Grady saw a snipped-out bit of newsprint with an engagement announcement. On either side of it were stashed more bits and pieces of their life together. A receipt from a restaurant. A birthday card. A bookmark. “It’s a lovely memorial. Except for all the stuff about murder.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s kind of morbid.” She shrugged and hugged herself. “Anyway.”
“Yes, anyway,” he said. “The only thing you’re missing, from where I’m sitting… is anything much that… well, that connects the two cases.”
Niki snorted. “I told you, you need cop string.”
Leda sagged. “I don’t have any cop string, and even if I did, he means figuratively. Nothing connects the cases except for my ridiculous inconsequential psychic vibes.”
“So far,” he added. “We’re making progress, though. And you said on the way here, something about a more concrete connection to Tod’s murder? I’d like to hear more about that.” He backed away from the board and settled into the nearest chair. He folded one leg up and rested it atop his other thigh.
Leda half leaned, half sat on top of the desk. She balanced on one butt cheek. “Okay, I had a flash when we were out at the bar, and I saw the Gilman killer pushing Tod’s car into the water.”
“You’re sure it was—”
But she was not having any interruptions. “I’m not sure of anything. Here’s what I think is true, but I can’t prove: I think Christopher Gilman was using the person who murdered Tod and Amanda to do his dirty work. Hell, for all I know, he might’ve been blackmailing him.”
“Because he knew about the murders?” Grady asked, perplexed.
She picked up a pen from a mug shaped like a Star Wars porg, and she pointed it at him. “No, just the theft. At least at first. Christopher discovered some skimming, and he looked a little closer at the skimmer. Figured he might be useful to him.”
“You should write that on an index card and add it to your murder board,” Grady suggested. “There’s plenty of room over there on the right. Start a new column. No, start two columns—one for unknown details, and one for things you know but can’t prove.”
“Good idea.” She opened a drawer underneath her rear end and pulled out a pack of cards. “I’m running low on magnets, though.”
Niki said, “There are more in Ben’s office. He has a stash, but they’re boring. Just round dots and stuff.”
Leda frowned. “Why does he have round dot magnets?”
“They came with this whiteboard. It belongs to him, you know.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot.”
Niki squeezed past Grady. “I’ll go get them, hang on.” She returned a few seconds later with a handful of plain black dots.
“Aw, these are boring.”
It was true, but Grady gave her some encouraging spin. “They’re dignified and tasteful.”
“What are you trying to say?” Leda asked, her frown unmoved. “My magnets aren’t dignified or tasteful?”
Oops. He’d played that wrong. “No, no—nothing at all. These look stuffy and dull, compared to your previous efforts, but they’ll have to suffice for now.”
“That’s better,” she said, lightening the frown. “Yes, they’ll do for now. Give ’em here.”
Niki handed them over, and onto the board they went—along with new index cards with new information.
“Can I have a card?” Grady asked, hand outstretched and fingers wiggling. When one was provided, he pulled another pen out of the mug and started writing. “We suspect that Christopher was blackmailing an employee. We have a list of all murder-contemporary employees at the precinct, and they’ve all been checked out. That means we need to check again, because we missed someone.”