Chapter Ninety-Nine - Dead Guys Know Everything

Shortly after I found the body, I olly olly oxen freed everyone via text. They came running, the detective winning the race. Dad won the race for pinching everyone’s noses though, something I’d nearly forgotten in the hubbub of finding Parker dead. Thankfully, we were all who we claimed to be.

“But no Studmuffin though?” Detective Palmer looked around as if searching for paw prints in the snow.

I joined him, but only found mine and his. Everyone else huddled up against the gas station, having no need to see this particular dead person. Smart. Lucky too. My quota for finding dead bodies had long ago been reached. No more for me, thanks.

“If he’s the catnapper and he’s now dead, then what does this mean? Where’s Studmuffin? Who killed Parker and why?” I blurted, my voice pitching near the hysterical zone.

Detective Palmer put a comforting hand on my shoulder, his gunmetal eyes full of concern. “Victoria, breathe. Please.”

“No good. I forgot how. What if Parker is the only one who knows where Studmuffin is? I should’ve made him tell me when I had the chance.” Except I hadn’t known then. Not really. Cat glitter, a water bowl, and a whisker hardly proved his guilt. Now though… “He must’ve known too much.”

“Or someone found out he was here to get the…well, you know.”

“Then why not stay and get it from me?” I gasped, a sudden realization striking hard. “Unless all of us here scared them off and they ran?”

“Ran where? There are no footprints here. If the snow already filled them in, then…” His gaze caught on the dumpster.

Specifically the lid of the dumpster.

Ew. There were worse hiding spots, but this one was still high up on the Nope, Never list. Even several feet away from it, the stench burned my nose holes.

Moving like shiny, warm water through snow, Detective Palmer un holstered his gun and flashlight on the way to the dumpster. Since a snow drift had taken over the top and weighted it down, he struggled a bit to get the lid open.

“Empty,” he called, shining his light around the inside. He let the lid close and then turned back to me, a grim expression pulling at his shiny features. “We’ll figure this out, okay? I’ll make a call and then examine the…Parker for any clues.”

“Okay.” Dazed by everything that had happened, I stepped back to my friends and family by the back wall of the gas station to fill them in on the latest. “He’s examining the Parker for clues. I mean just Parker. He doesn’t deserve a ‘the’ before his name.”

Dad tucked my Santa hat lower over my head, a soft smile on his face. “I’m sorry, Sunray.”

My chin wobbled, but I refused to crack under my defeat. I would not give up hope. This might be breaking news to some, but I. Am. Stubborn. Shocking, I know.

Travis took my hand, his hazel eyes sincere. “We’ll find him.”

“No doubt,” Cass assured me. “Just imagine the happy reunion when we do.”

Boxy rubbed my arm. “Should we get you all back into the car? Cass isn’t even wearing a coat!”

Cass waved his concerns away. “Oh, I don’t ever feel cold. Besides, coats chafe my yellow spots.”

Dad chuckled. “Of all the things I thought I would hear today, that was not one of them.”

Just then, my phone rang and made me nearly jump sideways out of my skin. But it was only Detective Palmer even though he stood just a few feet away. He was saying the very last thing I wanted to hear when I answered: “There’s something about the…Parker you need to see.”

“No, no.” I shook my head hard, dropping my cell to my side. “Nope, I definitely don’t need to see Parker’s dead body again.”

“What?” Detective Palmer asked over the phone and from his spot by the dumpster. “Victoria, are you there?”

Sighing, I put my cell to my ear again and grimaced. “I’ll be there in a second.”

I could do without this part of murder investigating. The whole dead body thing gave me the chilly willies.

I tromped through the snow anyway though because my curiosity was a stubborn thing. “What am I not looking at?” I asked the detective with my eyes closed.

“It’s not that bad to look at, I promise,” Detective Palmer assured me. “It appears he was shot in the chest, but since he’s wearing all black, it’s hard to see the blood. Just look at Parker’s right hand, which is over his head.”

I cracked open one eye, and then popped the other eye open too at what I saw. Parker’s index finger was outstretched, pointing north.

“Coincidence, or is he trying to tell us something?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but there’s something he’s holding in that same hand.”

“Oh good,” I deadpanned and then whipped my head around to gape at the detective. “Wait, you don’t mean…”

He nodded. “I’m not skinny enough to squeeze behind the dumpster and get it.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m not either.”

He tilted his head like he didn’t believe me. “Then we’ll have to wait for the medical examiner to come.”

“No, we won’t,” I said with a groan.

“Here, use this”—the detective handed me a pen—“so you don’t have to touch him.”

“Uck.” I took the pen from him, bent to all fours in the snow, and practically folded myself in half to squeeze behind the dumpster toward a dead circus man.

So not how I thought tonight would go.

“If you move, even just a little,” I muttered to Parker, “you and I are going to have serious words.”

He didn’t, luckily.

I reeeeaached for Parker’s hand with the detective’s pen. Something thin and brown trailed from within his palm. What was he pointing toward exactly, if he was pointing? The wooden fence maybe? The direction his killer had gone? It was snowing so hard now that all signs of footprints had vanished.

With the tip of the pen, I snagged the thin, brown…thing. As I brought it closer, I realized it looked like braided leather. Metal clasps connected the two ends, and another clasp dangled from the center, only it was missing what had once hung from it. It was a necklace, or it had once been when part of it wasn’t missing. He had appeared to be looking for something at Age Is Just A Number Antiques & Appraisals. Could it be that the missing part of this necklace was what he was looking for?

What if though…? Before I could change my mind, I flashed out my free hand and pinched his nose. Nothing happened. Dead Parker was definitely still dead Parker.

Quickly, I backtracked my way out of there with the necklace and deposited it and the pen in the detective’s waiting, gloved hands. “So, don’t ask me how I know this, but he was missing something at Age Is Just A Number Antiques & Appraisals, maybe the missing part of that necklace.”

He narrowed his flinty eyes at the braided leather in his hand and then at me. “Something important?”

“Important enough to search for it instead of running away like a normal circus man.”

“Run away from—” He sighed. “Never mind. I don’t want to know what you’ve been up to. Any idea what the missing piece is?”

“No, but maybe he’s trying to tell us where it is by pointing north. Except…why would he bother helping us? It’s not like he’s one of the good guys.”

“Maybe he’s helping for the same reason he’s now dead. Someone else was obviously here. Maybe Parker threatened to tell the police about Studmuffin and the…you know. Maybe he didn’t feel right about his involvement in all of this.”

“But he did at one time. He sounded really excited to dance at night when I overheard him at the police station, whatever that means. So why back out of all this now?” I rubbed my temples through my Santa hat as though that could make me figure this out faster. “Think, Victoria. Think.”

“Hey.” Detective Palmer said gently and ducked his head to look me in the eyes. “Go home. We can work on this tomorrow after you’ve slept.”

“But…he was my only suspect, and now he’s dead. He has all the answers, but he’s not talking.” I shook my head hard, feeling crushing helplessness threaten to wash over me. But I refused to let it. I refused to give up hope that Studmuffin would be back in my arms again safe and sound very soon. “Okay. Maybe you’re right.”

Other than poke a dead body, I couldn’t do anything else here anyway.

* * *

Back home, I fell face-first into bed. My thoughts jumbled into one big worried knot, but then somehow unraveled enough for me to doze.

“Oh…Victoria…” a dreamy, ethereal voice called.

Wait a minute. Hadn’t I already had this dream?

Just like the first time, I stood in front of Eleventh Chocolate in the snowy street and Lucy walked backward along the side of the empty building.

“Lucy, you visited my dream again, and it’s the exact same one I had before. Why?”

“You…tell…me.”

“But…I don’t know. Is there something about Eleventh Chocolate?” Even though I knew it was locked, I quickly tried the door. Yep, still locked, so I skidded around the side of the building after Lucy. “I don’t know why I keep showing up here in my dreams. This place is empty. It’s…”

It’s not where I was going.

In front of me, across the alleyway, loomed the police station. All those nights I’d time-traveled, I came to Eleventh Chocolate first and then…

“The police station,” I whispered.

Which direction had Parker been pointing to while dead? North. What was north from Gas, Guzzles, & Go? The police station. Where were the first and second times someone had tried to steal the Ring of Everlasting Night, once from the evidence room and once from my pocket? The police station.

Detective Palmer himself said the jail cells were magic-proof, thus sealing my familiar up from all sorts of spells.

Was that where Studmuffin was? Why hadn’t I figured this out sooner?

“Lucy,” I breathed. “Thank you.”

“For…what? You…led…me,” she said from behind me.

I turned from the wire fence that separated the station from the alley. Sure enough, her tail end was moving toward me through the snow. She turned her sapphire eyes on me and winked.

“I led you? But you’re the one in my dreams.”

“Nope,…you…led…me.”

“I led you…because my subconscious knew where he was before I did.” I smacked myself in the forehead. “Thanks, brain. Super helpful.”

“Good…luck,” Lucy said, sideswiping my leg with her warmth. A burst of magic tingled up from where she touched, and it looked like sparkling snowflakes floating upward through the regular kind.

I smiled down at her. “Thank you. I’ll likely need it. Okay, Vic, wake up. Wake up. Wake. Up.”