A Dead Man's Favor by Chris Tullbane

Author:Chris Tullbane [Tullbane, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ghost Falls Press
Published: 2023-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

IN WHICH ONE FLYING PEST DESERVES ANOTHER

It wasn’t a great night of sleep, and not even the breakfast Pearl served us the next morning could change that. I was tired and a bit grumpy by the time we started our interviews and a solid four hours later, I was also frustrated.

“Was your murder case like this in Rome?” asked Juliette.

“Sort of.” I paused to finish chewing. We were back at Mama Nita’s, this time for lunch, and I was having a sandwich that seemed like New Mexico’s—or maybe just Nita’s—version of a Po Boy: fried pork, crisp bread, lettuce, tomatoes, and of course, chiles. Like everything else I’d eaten in Ghost Falls, it was good. “I think I spent two solid days interviewing. More, if you included the council members.”

“And that’s how you cracked the case?” Juliette was having some sort of stew. And a beer. On the table next to us, the jar of honey we’d bought at Ghost Falls’ general store remained unopened.

“Didn’t I already tell you all of this when I got home?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, you said a lot of things and I only listened to about half of them.”

“Right. Well, I didn’t so much crack the case as have most of the answers fall into my lap,” I admitted. “Courtesy of whatever the Rag Lady did to me.”

“So, we have no guarantee this approach even works?”

“I mean… no? But what else are we supposed to do?”

She replied with a grunt that told me she was as frustrated with our lack of progress as I was. We’d only been in Ghost Falls for about a day, but I think we had both kind of hoped that things would already be resolved.

“Anyway,” I said, “we have… what… three people left on our list?”

“How would I know? You haven’t even shown me the list. I’m just here to look pretty and keep everyone honest.”

So far, that last part hadn’t been a problem, for all the good it did us. Not all of Dulcinea’s friends were as enamored with Pedro as she was, but even his most vocal detractor limited her criticisms to his fashion sense and general lack of ambition. Nobody believed for a second that he would have done anything to her. As for Pedro’s brother, he’d been an unmitigated asshole—recalcitrant and lazy—at first. Once Juliette worked her mojo, he’d been as forthcoming as the others, with just as little insight to offer.

Dulcinea and Pedro loved each other. Everyone seemed to agree on that. They fought, like most couples, but never for more than a day, and their last blowup had been all the way back in the spring. Unlike many of their peers, neither had seemed interested in leaving Ghost Falls, Pedro looking to help his brother at their small auto shop, and Dulcinea having dreams of creating an online clothing business.

They both did have social media accounts, despite what Jeremiah had thought. I’d pored over the Instagram feeds, hoping to find a clue, but every picture had been filtered to within an inch of its life, rending them largely useless.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.