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Authors: Jessica Conant-Park, Susan Conant
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cocked her head to the side and blew her bangs out of her eyes. They fell neatly back in place and didn’t stick straight up at freaky angles the way mine would have. “I saw he was going to be at this gallery tonight with Simmer, and I knew this would be the right time for us to see each other again.”
I took a deep breath. Think about your social work training, Chloe. People deal with trauma in very different ways. Her head is probably spinning, and she is trying to regain a sense of normality by going back to something familiar, namely Josh. Except that this little snot had been eyeing my Josh before the murder. She is a dirtbag!
“I cannot believe Oliver is dead,” Hannah continued as though she were talking to herself. “This completely fouls up all my work for the Full Moon Group.” I expected her to stomp her feet and march off like a seven-year-old. Unfortunately, she remained where she was.
“I’m sure. It’s so irritating when your boss dies and interferes with your marketing campaign, huh?” What a bitch this girl was! I was considering smashing her head in with a Robocoupe when Sean showed up.
“Hey, weird night, huh?” At least we now had a topic of conversation other than my dumping him and breaking his heart.
“Sure is. Sean, this is Hannah,” I said dismissively. “Oliver was her boss.” Would she just leave already?
“Nice to meet you.” Sean held out his hand to monster girl and looked appalled at my insensitivity. “I’m sorry for your loss. What a dreadful night you’ve had. Are you all right? Would you like a glass of water or anything?” As usual, Sean was the epitome of caring and gentleness.
Hannah, suddenly demure, thought perhaps she should sit down for a moment. I rolled my eyes as Sean dashed off to find a chair for the damsel in distress.
Josh had finished with Detective Hurley and joined Hannah and me.
“They’re taking my Robocoupe and everything from my table, can you believe that? The Robocoupe I can understand. I don’t even want that thing back after what happened. But the platters? My butane burner? What a pain in the neck.”
“Chloe! They’ve confiscated our flyers!” Naomi had appeared, enraged that the police were collecting all of the Organization’s materials from the evening. I silently thanked the Boston Police Department for saving me from having to sort, file, lug around, and otherwise deal with the countless posters and papers from our table.
Eliot appeared, looking totally bedraggled and defeated by the night’s events. I couldn’t imagine how upset he must feel that his gallery had become a crime scene. Would the murder really hurt his business? Maybe it would attract ghouls and drive off the kinds of people who bought gigantic granite eggs and oil paintings of operations.
“Folks,” he said, putting one hand on Naomi’s back and one on Josh’s, “this is obviously a terrible way to end the evening. I know we all had high hopes for publicity and fund-raising tonight, but that all takes a backseat to Oliver Kipper’s murder.” Eliot’s protruding eyes produced a few tears, and he shook his head a few times as if to gather himself together. “I need to stick around, but I’m sure you can all go home.”
“Not all of you.” Detective Hurley interrupted. He peered down at his notebook. “Hannah Hicks? You’ll need to stay.”
S IX
T HE next morning, I woke up to Josh’s cell phone shrilly echoing throughout my apartment. Ugh. I was on school vacation and was not to be disturbed while catching up on post-crummy-evening sleep. By the time Josh and I had managed to slip past my parents and our exes without formal, awkward good-byes, it had been pretty late. Our drive home had been full of sighing and headshaking and the unspoken agreement that there was no need to pick things apart: not the reemergence of both Hannah and Sean on the same night and not the grotesque murder that had been committed with one of Josh’s kitchen
I took a deep breath. Think about your social work training, Chloe. People deal with trauma in very different ways. Her head is probably spinning, and she is trying to regain a sense of normality by going back to something familiar, namely Josh. Except that this little snot had been eyeing my Josh before the murder. She is a dirtbag!
“I cannot believe Oliver is dead,” Hannah continued as though she were talking to herself. “This completely fouls up all my work for the Full Moon Group.” I expected her to stomp her feet and march off like a seven-year-old. Unfortunately, she remained where she was.
“I’m sure. It’s so irritating when your boss dies and interferes with your marketing campaign, huh?” What a bitch this girl was! I was considering smashing her head in with a Robocoupe when Sean showed up.
“Hey, weird night, huh?” At least we now had a topic of conversation other than my dumping him and breaking his heart.
“Sure is. Sean, this is Hannah,” I said dismissively. “Oliver was her boss.” Would she just leave already?
“Nice to meet you.” Sean held out his hand to monster girl and looked appalled at my insensitivity. “I’m sorry for your loss. What a dreadful night you’ve had. Are you all right? Would you like a glass of water or anything?” As usual, Sean was the epitome of caring and gentleness.
Hannah, suddenly demure, thought perhaps she should sit down for a moment. I rolled my eyes as Sean dashed off to find a chair for the damsel in distress.
Josh had finished with Detective Hurley and joined Hannah and me.
“They’re taking my Robocoupe and everything from my table, can you believe that? The Robocoupe I can understand. I don’t even want that thing back after what happened. But the platters? My butane burner? What a pain in the neck.”
“Chloe! They’ve confiscated our flyers!” Naomi had appeared, enraged that the police were collecting all of the Organization’s materials from the evening. I silently thanked the Boston Police Department for saving me from having to sort, file, lug around, and otherwise deal with the countless posters and papers from our table.
Eliot appeared, looking totally bedraggled and defeated by the night’s events. I couldn’t imagine how upset he must feel that his gallery had become a crime scene. Would the murder really hurt his business? Maybe it would attract ghouls and drive off the kinds of people who bought gigantic granite eggs and oil paintings of operations.
“Folks,” he said, putting one hand on Naomi’s back and one on Josh’s, “this is obviously a terrible way to end the evening. I know we all had high hopes for publicity and fund-raising tonight, but that all takes a backseat to Oliver Kipper’s murder.” Eliot’s protruding eyes produced a few tears, and he shook his head a few times as if to gather himself together. “I need to stick around, but I’m sure you can all go home.”
“Not all of you.” Detective Hurley interrupted. He peered down at his notebook. “Hannah Hicks? You’ll need to stay.”
S IX
T HE next morning, I woke up to Josh’s cell phone shrilly echoing throughout my apartment. Ugh. I was on school vacation and was not to be disturbed while catching up on post-crummy-evening sleep. By the time Josh and I had managed to slip past my parents and our exes without formal, awkward good-byes, it had been pretty late. Our drive home had been full of sighing and headshaking and the unspoken agreement that there was no need to pick things apart: not the reemergence of both Hannah and Sean on the same night and not the grotesque murder that had been committed with one of Josh’s kitchen
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