Serious Moonlight(11)

Grandpa is nuts about mystery novels and noirs too. He tried to get my mom interested in whodunits when she was my age, but the whole teenage pregnancy thing drove a wedge between them. After she died, when I moved in with my grandparents here, I inherited some of her old mystery books. Which made Grandpa happy. I think he was just so relieved to find a shared interest with ten-year-old me, a virtual stranger with whom he’d spent little time. Mom had just died, and being able to read and talk about death, bodies, and murder in a way that was removed and clinical was strangely comforting. Maybe for both of us.

And now that Grandma was gone, our love of mystery continued to be common ground. We had an ongoing friendly competition to identify potential unsolved mysteries around the island. Petty theft. Disappearances. Affairs. Why Mrs. Taylor moved her car out of her driveway in the middle of the night. You’d be surprised what you can learn about your neighbors when you stay up late.

“What about that old Hollywood starlet’s murder? Tippie Talbot. Any hotel secrets about her?”

“The room she died in was converted into a big suite with the room next door. Completely renovated. Doubt there’s anything to find now.”

“That’s unfortunate. What else?”

“There’s a mysterious sewage leak in the hotel garage,” I informed him as heavenly steam rose from my mug. “According to the building plans, there isn’t a sewage pipe down there. It’s coming from an area of the garage that they can’t access, and it would cost too much money to investigate fully, because they’d have to close the garage and tear out ceilings and walls. So they keep blindly spraying some sort of industrial-strength liquid rubber until the leak temporarily stops. Apparently, they’ve done this twice before.”

The wind fluttered his dark gray hair. “Sounds unsanitary.”

“I caught a whiff of it from the lobby a couple of times,” I said, grimacing and shaking my head. “Anyway, that’s all I got. Not an interesting case.”

“No, it’s not.” He squinted at the orange sun peeking out from trails of gray clouds covering the sky. “You need a proper summer mystery. One involving a big downtown corporation and a missing briefcase of money.”

“An animal rights group has been protesting our goldfish rental program, but I don’t think that’s much of a conundrum.” I took a sip of hot tea, strong and floral, trying to think of anything else that might be intriguing. “Daniel said cars have been stolen from the hotel garage and taken on joyrides.’?”

“Who’s Daniel?”

I hesitated. “Just some guy I work with. The hotel van driver.”

“Interesting.”

“What is?”

“Nothing. It’s funny what you can tell about someone’s thoughts when you pay attention. The way their voice changes. The way they avoid your eyes.”

“I’m not avoiding your eyes.” I was. “He’s just a boy. It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.”

I shouldn’t have mentioned him. I’m not even sure why I did. If Grandpa knew what I did . . . His mind and spirit were far more rational and modern than Grandma’s had been, but he’d still be disappointed. And—worse—he’d question my ability to make good decisions for myself. What if Daniel had been a bad person? Ted Bundy was charming, after all. What if I’d ended up dead in a ditch or stuffed into someone’s refrigerator? It’s not as if I hadn’t thought those things myself. But if Grandpa thought them, he would make me quit the hotel job. Talking him into the idea of me working the graveyard shift in the city wasn’t easy—Aunt Mona had to get involved, reminding him that I grew up in that neighborhood and that the walk from the hotel to the pedestrian bridge to the ferry terminal was only two blocks on a busy, well-lit, well-patrolled street. But he’d finally caved because he trusted my judgment. He had faith that I’d be mindful of my surroundings, that I’d be cautious—that I wouldn’t be lured into a proverbial ice cream truck by a stranger with a fruity rainbow pop.

I was supposed to be smarter than that.

What neither of us took into account was the rush of excitement that came with my newfound freedom. Or my rabid curiosity. Or Daniel’s infectious smile.

“Well, I’m sure Mona will get an earful about this Daniel boy. Lord knows you could never talk to your grandmother about these things when she was alive,” Grandpa said, wistful.

“Too late now,” I said bluntly. “She’s gone.”

“None of us are ever really gone, sweetheart.”

I’d heard that from him a hundred times. My grandmother had been religious. However, Grandpa veered toward angel sightings and UFOs and people communicating with their long-lost Aunt Margie from Topeka. Too much talk radio was probably to blame. He used to listen in his room after midnight while Grandma was sleeping. Sometimes he’d let me stay up with him, reading mystery books and scrolling through my phone while he built model ships at his work desk.

That was the first time I realized how satisfying rebellion could be, even quiet ones.

“Birdie?” Grandpa said. “Did you hear me?”

“Sorry,” I said, mentally wiping away my stray thoughts. “What were you saying?”

“Did you want to walk down to the supermarket with me?”