I suddenly got the kind of tingles that could usually only be achieved by having a hamster named Midnight murmur all the secrets of the universe in my ear. “Who’s there?”
“Owl.”
“Owl who?” I said.
“Owl be seeing you soon, right?”
I groaned. “Are you sure you aren’t a dad?”
As I pulled the car out of the lot, his reflection waved, then did a quick little “Gangnam Style” dance move.
I was absolutely, positively not going to take my girls to join the Saber-Toothed Turtles soccer team. Nate Duran might be a manicorn—single, smoking hot, adorably goofy, and apparently heterosexual—but at this point, an ill-fated flirtation with a federal agent could land me in prison for the rest of my life.
So why was I still smiling?
Eleven
Hopefully Shade could tell me where I’d been all Sunday night (and maybe how I’d ended up wearing the dead guy’s vest). If not, my near miss with Agent Nate Duran had shown me I couldn’t leave the corpse in the Impala. Countless murder mysteries had taught me a chest freezer would be the best option for hiding a body, but I didn’t have one. Luckily, during a Boise winter, the whole damn town was a chest freezer. And so was my backyard shed.
This was what I was thinking about as I pulled the Impala into the snowy spot behind my duplex and spotted trash strewn around my garbage cans. I cursed under my breath. As I started picking up broccoli stalks and errant used tea bags, Oat Willimena appeared through her back gate wearing jeans, a brightly embroidered huipil, and no jacket. She was a libertarian potter in her early seventies who’d recently moved to Boise from Austin, claiming any town with double-digit billionaires was no longer a place for an artist.
“Raccoons in the garbage again!” she cried. “I’ll help you clean up.”
“You don’t need to do that,” I said. But Oat Willimena joined in anyway, grabbing empty cereal boxes and a deflated milk jug half covered in coffee grounds.
“Oh, raccoon, friendly neighborhood bandit!” she cried. “Mija, raccoons wash their produce more thoroughly than my second mother-in-law.”
It did make me feel good when Oat Willimena called memija. As if for that one moment I wasn’t an adult with more grief and responsibility than I could bear.
“Come by my place anytime,” she said as we threw the final bits of trash in the can. “I can give you a tour of my pottery studio. Bring your foxy neighbor too.”
Did Oat Willimena have a crush on Emmylou? “I’m sure Emmylou would love to see your pottery studio,” I said. “Anyway, thanks for your help. I gotta go make some calls.”
“Sure, sure,” she said, looking disappointed to see me go.
As I hurried through my back gate, my phone did actually ring. Miley O’Riley. We’d been friends in high school. Not besties, but we’d often sat with the same gaggle of misfit pals at lunchtime, forever debating whether Ani DiFranco’s new album was more of a reflection of our souls than her last. Miley and I had lost touch once I moved to LA, but she was now the only person in town who didn’t want to talk about how my career was DOA. She was obsessed with some stand-up reels I’d posted on Insta over a year ago, and she’d asked me to perform a set at Boise’s Winter Will Never End Festival. I’d told her I wasn’t up for it, but she kept trying to convince me. Fresh off making a hot fed laugh until he cried, I thought for a second it might actually be exciting. But I had no new material and more pressing things to deal with—like how to avoid being charged with murder. I sent the call to voicemail.
In the backyard, the storage shed hunkered alongside the privacy fence. Technically I shared it with Emmylou, but she only kept garden tools in there. A few boxes of my mom’s things collected dust inside, but otherwise it was empty.
My key was hovering at the storage shed lock when Emmylou popped her head out of her back door. Now in her mid-seventies, she’d aged naturally and her beautiful skin was rosy pink and soft with wrinkles. She was solidly built and still strong. Even though it was thirty-five degrees out, she wore a silk kaftan splotched with giant scarlet roses, her silver hair upswept in a vintage turban à la Greta Garbo. Her philosophy was that hanging out around the house in winter wear was dressing to depress.
“Want to come in for tea? I need the skinny on Job Talk Tuesday,”she called. “Were there any hot firefighters there? Or even a good-looking electrician?”
Instead of inspecting the shed, I headed into Emmylou’s side of the duplex to tell her all about Agent Nate Duran.
After I picked Phoebe and Alice up at the bus stop, the twins and I played approximately seventy-six rounds of indoor cornhole as I counted down the hours until I could go to Pole Kisses and secure proof I hadn’t killed anyone. (I won most of the rounds, with Phoebe coming in second. Alice was a distant third because she insisted on wearing her latex Betty White face mask, which has very small eye holes.)
Once we’d finished an uninspired dinner of frozen fish sticks, I put onThe Parent Trapagain to distract the girls. They looked so innocent snuggled up on the couch. I could imagine how their lives would soon be ruined by my absence and the ensuing media frenzy: MOTHER OF TWINS COMMITS BRUTAL STRIP CLUB MURDER.
Desperate to prevent this outcome, I popped open my laptop to cyber-sleuth. For starters, I googled the dead guy’s neck tattoo—23/16—which led me to the online database of hate symbols. There I read that twenty-three stands for the twenty-third letter of the alphabet. Sixteen for the sixteenth letter. WP for White Power. At least the guy I might’ve murdered was a legitimately terrible person. That part at least was a relief.
I read on until Emmylou breezed in, arms loaded with ingredients for caramel brownies. The girls weren’t allowed to go to Emmylou’s side of the duplex much, on account of her crossbow. Mommy blogs had a lot to say about the dangers of keeping firearms in the house with kids, but much less guidance about weapons originating in the first millennium BC.
The twins squealed, rushing to hug her.
“Emmylou, I meant to tell you earlier,” I said. “Oat Willimena wants to give you a tour of her pottery studio.”
“Really?” Emmylou said, setting the baking ingredients on the kitchen counter. “Did she say that? How did she say it exactly?”
