Maybe this will be short-lived.
Maybe I am just play-acting as a brave person.
But I would like to know one way or the other.
“Sorry, Jude. I’ll tell you next time.”
My brother stares without blinking, amusement making his eyes twinkle. “Next time?”
“There isn’t going to be a next time,” states old gravel-voiced party pooper, aka the bounty hunter. “Give me what I need so I can leave.”
I ignore him, still speaking to my brother, because we weren’t finished. “I promise not to let this interfere with your vacation. I want you to go home relaxed.”
“We both need to relax, all right?” Jude says softly. “Not just me.”
“I know, it’s just…that.”
“It. Yeah, I know.”
Silence lands in the room. The bounty hunter treats both of us to a frown. “Are you two talking in fucking code or something?”
Jude chuckles. “That’s probably what it sounds like.” He pushes off the wall and moves into the living room, dropping down onto the opposite end of the couch from the hunter, ankle thrown over knee. “My sister used a big chunk of her savings—despite my protests, I might add—on this vacation because I lost someone close to me.”
The surly man sort of chugs through an apology. “Sorry.”
That word appears to taste like old bathwater in his mouth.
“It’s fine. It was time,” Jude sighs, looking down at his hands. “Bartholomew made it all the way to twenty-two.”
The bounty hunter’s frown deepens. “Twenty-two?”
“Bart was a panda. I’m a panda caretaker.”
“You’re more than that,” I say, trying and failing to keep the pride out of my voice because I don’t want to embarrass him. I’m the queen of embarrassing my brother. When they called his name at his college graduation, I leapt onto my chair and screeched louder than anyone. I was sobbing so hard, I knocked over a tuba player and twisted an ankle trying to get down. Never stand on a cheap plastic chair in high heels. “Displaced or abandoned pandas are brought to the animal sanctuary where Jude works. Some of them are so young they haven’t learned to survive on their own yet. So Jude dresses like a panda and teaches them.”
“You dress like a panda?”
“Yes. Teach them how to forage, eat and climb, socialize with the other pandas.” Jude winks at the man on the other side of the couch. “The suit looks great on me.”
“Bartholomew was sort of the…unofficial forest dad, wasn’t he?” I dab at the moisture in my eyes. “He was sort of disagreeable, like you, bounty hunter, but once Jude taught the newbies the ropes, he started to warm up to them.”
“Hate to break it to you, but none of that heartwarming shit is going to happen here.” Our guest appears to be contemplating the peach-flavored beer out of pure desperation. “I’m a bounty hunter and you are some of the weirdest people I’ve ever met.” He’s silent a beat, then looks at Jude. “Do you actually eat the leaves?”
Jude grins. “I don’t swallow.”
The bounty hunter does a double take at that, then abruptly points at me. “Guest book. Now.”
“Okay, okay. It’s upstairs.” No one has ever risen from a chair more slowly in their life. “I’ll just go grab it now. But while I’m still here in the living room…” One step toward the staircase. Pause. “You don’t seem quite as sold on the original trucker dad theory anymore.”
“I’m just performing my due diligence.” He scratches his upper arm absently, giving me a more complete look at his tattoos. Wow. That skeleton has fireballs for eyes. “The working theory stands, though. As far as we know, no one else had a motive to murder Oscar Stanley.”
“See, that’s what I thought.”
“But then we lived on this street for two days,” Jude drawls.
“And we met some of the permanent residents. You might say one of them stood out.” I wiggle my fingers in my brother’s direction. “Show him, Jude.”
“I don’t want to be shown anything,” gripes the bounty hunter.
I shush him.
He gapes at me.
Jude’s finger moves across the screen of his phone, locating the music streaming app. He hits play on the first song on his list and Bleachers begins to drift through the Bluetooth speaker situated on the fireplace mantle. After a nod from me, he cranks the volume—and right on cue, there is a loud crash outside. A door slamming. And then the side of our rental house is being bashed by the handle of a broom.
“That would be Sal,” I inform the hunter. “Our neighbor. He also does this when our tea kettle whistles and when I…” Great. I’m blushing. “When I sing in the shower.”
Do I detect a slight lip twitch from the big tattooed meanie?
That burgeoning smile disappears when Sal begins his tirade.
“Keep it down in there. I can hear your music through my walls! This is supposed to be a quiet community and you fucking renters are ruining it! I’m sick of this shit!” That’s when he really starts to wail on the house. “I’d like to kill the bastards who allow this. What about my right to peace on my own property, dammit?”