“You really did track that killer… Canceled Killer?” Gary ignored Bill and turned to me. “I heard that guy’s on the FBI’s most wanted.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to talk about it, and yet, I kind of did.
“Who is he, anyway?” Bill asked. “Does he go around canceling your streaming services? ’Cause then I could really use him, let me tell you. Streamberry charged me two subscriptions for three months!”
“No. He kills people who do bad things,” Gary said.
“Oh? Like you? You destroyed the Holy Water bathroom last week…”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny. No really. He killed… how many people now?”
Both men turned and blinked at me. “Eleven,” I answered. “And if you really want to know about the victims…” All I needed was an open door. This was my favorite subject, a case I’d obsessed so much over that Russo had warned me I was getting fixated, myopic.You’d better go sit on a beach somewhere, kid. Get your head outta this for a while.
I hadn’t taken his advice. Instead, I’d nearly gotten him fired. I should’ve learned my lesson, yet now I was babbling on about the lemonade stand.
“So, you see, all his victims are killed ironically, usually strangled or drowned but sometimes poisoned…”
I was so deep into the details of this particular string of murders that I ignored Bill’s uncomfortable clearing of his throat before he took a long drag of his beer and glanced around the room as if looking for a quick escape. Gary seemed to be the only one hanging in, but he wasn’t at all squeamish—being a retired paramedic. Still, probably even he was wondering when I’d stop talking about corpses. Spoiler alert: never. I just couldn’t help myself. Hello, rabbit hole. Meet me. I was so distracted, I didn’t notice the bar door swing open until it banged against the wall.
We all swiveled to take a look at the new arrival.
And it was the last man in Lake Sanguis I wanted to see. The Cheese Doctor himself.
Jude.
Five
The Canceled Killer’s ninth victim was a slumlord accused of making his residents live in rat-infested buildings without heat. He lived in a multimillion-dollar penthouse paid for by the poor. He was locked in the basement of one of his own buildings near a furnace leaking carbon monoxide.
—Crime Hivepodcast
Jude wasn’t wearing a bow tie—his usual dress-up attire—thank God, but he did have a half-zip sweater that looked straight out of the Eddie Bauer scientist catalog, and it matched his square black-framed glasses. He definitely had sexy nerd set to stun. Maybe Kenzie had molded him somehow by steering him to slightly better clothes or time at the gym. Whatever she’d done, it suited him.
Jude gave Mel a nod, and she flashed him a smile, even as Benji came up, tail wagging with excitement. He hopped up on his back legs and put his small paws on Jude’s jeans. Jude bent down and gave Benji an enthusiastic scratch behind the ears.
“Hey there, Benjamin,” he said, greeting the dog with his formal name. “And… hi there, El.” He nodded at me. “Still talking about murder and mayhem in public?”
Jude’s tone always hovered somewhere between annoyed and superior, because that’s where he spent most of his emotional life. Yet, I kind of liked it. I couldn’t tell you why.
“Where else would I talk about it? In private just makes it weird,” I quipped, and Jude raised a concerned eyebrow.
Gary cleared his throat. “How ya doing, Doc?” he asked, clapping Jude on the back.
“Fine,” Jude said, absorbing the blow.
“I heard you got your PhD,” Bill said. “Do we call you Dr. Cheese now?”
Gary burst out laughing.
“I prefer Dr. Curds and Whey, thank you very much,” Jude corrected.
Bill groaned.
“Too much of a mouthful,” I argued.
“That’s what cheese said,” Jude added. He wasn’t even a dad, but he hadallthe dad jokes at the ready.
We all groaned. “Not the puns!” I sighed. “I thought youlikedus.”
