“I wouldn’t saysevere,” I muttered.
“I don’t notice nystagmus with you,” he stated, pocketing his phone and staring at me.
Nystagmus was the involuntary movement of the eyes, sometimes calleddancing eyes.
“My, I’m flattered,” I replied while mockingly holding a hand to my chest. “I had it as a child. It got better as I got older. Only happens once in a while.”
“No color, huh?”
“Nope.”
He nodded thoughtfully and drank his coffee again. “Interesting.”
“Is it?”Not really.“I’d say it’s more of a pain.”
“Has this been officially diagnosed?” Calvin asked.
“Of course it has. You think I play blind for attention?”
“People do a lot of crazy things for attention.”
I snorted and crossed my arms. “I’ll give you the number of my ophthalmologist. Can we talk about the cat, please?”
“The cat was black,” Calvin answered. “Is this your theory? Some crazed madman is reenacting stories of Edgar Allan Poe?”
“I, uh, not exactly,” I said.Wasthat my theory? All I knew was the resemblance to Poe’s writing was uncanny and disturbing. “‘The Black Cat’ is often compared to ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ because of the similar guilt the narrator experiences over his murder.”
“Is that so?” Calvin didn’t sound interested.
“‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ is about—”
“I know what it’s about,” he said over me. “I had English 101 too.”
“Then you’ll find it hard to deny that what happened in my shop on Tuesday morning is exactly like that story.”
“Notexactly, unless you found the rest of a body today,” Calvin said.
“Er, no, but the focus of the story is the heart.”
“It was a pig’s heart.”
I threw my hands up. “Look, all I’m saying is, it’s weird.Reallyweird. Have there been any other deaths lately that—”
“You’re not privy to that information,” Calvin quickly answered.
“I’m not asking for case details.”
“You’re a civilian. I appreciate your theory, but let this go. Don’t start thinking you can play amateur sleuth just because you know a thing or two about crime scenes.”
“I’m not!” I protested.
Max dropped a box in the back, and the crash echoed through the shop. Calvin startled abruptly, almost comically, and dropped his coffee. The lid popped off, and the hot liquid shot all over my counter. He was frozen in place for just a second, long enough for me to see the noise had actually,truly, frightened him.
He blinked and looked down. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” I left to fetch a roll of paper towels from the office and brought them back to soak up the sugary, sticky mess. “Max?”
“Sorry, sorry! It was only books!” he said back.
