Calvin was crouched in the open doorway, phone in-hand. He looked up and frowned.
I slowed to a stop, stood behind him, and peered inside. An overhead light had been turned on, casting a harsh illumination over the billowy drapes, the table and chair I’d occupied earlier in the day, and a body splayed on the floor like a fly caught under the mesh of a swatter. Rose was wearing the same long skirt and blouse, as well as a head scarf and big hoop earrings that I hadn’t originally noticed, due to having only seen her shadowed silhouette during the reading, but besides those additional details, something wasn’t…rightabout her. And it wasn’t only because of the carving fork protruding from her jugular. Both arms were extended, palms up. In one hand was what looked like a coin—a quarter, judging by the size—and in the other—not a spiritoscope, but what looked like a really long, wound-up rubber band. Maybe three or four feet in length. Rose’s head was tilted toward the door, eyes and mouth wide open as if she’d been taken by complete surprise. The shape of her face was surprisingly square, and one boob seemed to have… er… fallen off? It was still inside her blouse, that is, but on the floor. And while I’m no expert, I was quite certain it was supposed to beonher chest, not beside it.
“Rose,” I said quietly.
“Also known as Brad Habel,” Calvin answered solemnly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Once uniformed officers and CSU had shown up, we’d taken the party back outside, where the beat of radio static, disco lights of patrol cars, and competing conversations from both LEO and bystanders alike really did make me feel like I was at a party. A totally sober party that was about as fun as an eighth-grade school dance, except instead of a bake sale serving up chocolate chip cookies and double fudge brownies to hyper preteens outside the gymnasium in between hits by the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls, it was freshly baked murder, and there wasn’t a single pop superstar from my childhood in sight.
I was leaning against the passenger-side door of Calvin’s car, swiping on his phone. While he’d been crouched in the doorway, avoiding further contamination of the crime scene, he’d taken several zoomed-in photos of the fork that’d killed Rose. Or was it Brad? I was keeping one ear on the conversation currently being had with Harmony, who was doing her best to explain that very question.
“No, no, Brad was definitely a he,” she said to both Calvin and Quinn, the latter of whom was taking notes. “It wasn’t a drag thing either. It was… like… a disguise, I guess.” She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a tissue that was mostly waterlogged and covered in mascara. “Brad had been the business and marketing brains behind Readings by Madam Sandra. He always said he was the one with the gift too, not Sandra, but… I don’t know… clients seem to trust women mediums more. Maybe it’s because we have more female customers and they don’t want a man having an in on their hopes and dreams and fears? I’m not really sure.”
“But the Habels decided that Sandra would be the face of their enterprise?” Calvin asked.
“Right,” Harmony answered. “And whatever they were doing for the last few years, it worked. Business at Midtown Mediums tanked. You saw reception when you came in! Not a single client. Five years ago, we’d have been packed with bar-crawlers, no matter what day of the week.”
“So what led to Mr. Habel working for you?” Calvin prompted.
Harmony wiped her nose next and said, “He and Sandra had irreconcilable differences. About three months ago, maybe? And then Brad asked to be put on our freelance list, out of the blue. I think the owner told him it might cause drama—you know, since he’d had a hand in stealing clients? And then—bam! Brad’s wearing bangles, fake boobs, a dress, and calling himself the Mystifying Rose. But since I do all the appointment scheduling, the owner told me what was happening, only I had to swear to keep it a secret.”
“And what was happening?”
Harmony’s lip quivered and her breathing quickened a little. “H-he was going to help Midtown Mediums p-put Sandra out of business.” Then she started crying again.
I returned my gaze to the phone.
“He really was a nice guy!” she wailed. “Once you got to know him!”
“He called his wife a fraud, a con artist, and a bitch,” I interjected, glancing up.
Calvin gave me a pointed look.
I shrugged before returning my attention to the phone again and swiping to an extreme close-up of the two-pronged fork and the handle’s pattern. It looked similar to what I recalled of the hone, but I’d never say they were a match without conducting a closer inspection of each. Still—a knife, a hone, and a fork? Sure sounded as if they all came from the same flatware set. It’d be incredible if there was something noteworthy about the pieces, something that marked them as being one of a kind, as traceable to a single owner. But what were the odds of it being so easy? I wasn’t feeling lucky enough to buy a Powerball ticket, let me put it that way.
Calvin said, after Harmony had seemed to tucker herself out, “We’ll need the name and contact information of Mr. Habel’s last client.”
Harmony’s expression contorted a little and she pointed at me. “It was him.”
I immediately raised both hands in an act of innocence. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I know that,” Calvin said with a chastising tone. He looked down at Harmony again. “Our forensic team will no doubt confirm this, but Mr. Habel appears to have been recently deceased. Mr. Snow was in your shop—”
“Almost nine hours ago,” I answered.
Calvin nodded and didn’t break eye contact with Harmony.
She gnawed on her lower lip a moment before shaking her head. “I swear there were no other clients.”
“Were any of the other mediums scheduled to see a client today?” Calvin suggested.
“It’s been dead all day—oh shoot, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Did you leave the shop unattended, for even a moment,” Calvin tried next. “A bathroom break, cigarette break….”
Harmony began to shake her head again, then froze like a deer in the headlights.
