“Like who?” I lean my ear her way.
“Like Thomas.” She glowers at the bottle in her hand as if it had managed to morph into the man himself. “He and Wyatt had a very strained relationship.”
Juni’s jaw glides forward. “Like how strange?” It figures. The vodka is affecting her hearing. Brooklynn said strained, not strange. “Like eating raw onions together before starting a shift strange, or secretly playing Christmas carols year-round strange?”
“You take that back.” Georgie wags an unsteady finger at the fruit of her womb. “Bizzy loves to listen to Christmas carols year-round. That does not make her weird.”
I’d swear on all that is holy, an entire bottle of vodka just emitted from Georgie’s mouth.
She lifts a hand my way. “The mind reading she’s capable of makes her weird.”
I suck in a sharp breath and hold it.
Georgie Conner! If I weren’t already a suspect in a homicide investigation, I’d kill you.
Of course, she has no clue what I just threatened her with because she’s not the one who can read minds.
Brooklynn laughs as if it were funny. “Don’t worry, Bizzy. I hear that same thing from other customers not too long after they get a bit of Purple Rain down the drain.” She winks. “Hazard of the job. So where were we?”
“Thomas.” I nod, choosing not to acknowledge the fact both Georgie and Juni are starting to sway. I figure I have about a ten second window to button this up. “How well did you know him?”
Wait a minute. Brooklynn leans back and stares at me through slotted lids. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this were an interrogation. She exhales a moment. What am I saying? Paranoid much? Of course, this isn’t an investigation. I’ve given them nothing to investigate.
“I know Thomas,” she says. And now I’m going to make sure these three ladies know a little about him, too. “He and Wyatt were in some creepy fraternity together. Wyatt mentioned it once during a meeting.”
Now we’re getting to the good part.
“Creepy fraternity?”
She nods. “Order of the Skeletons, or Skulls, I think it was. Anyway, they were both at Somerset together, and all of their disagreements always seem to point to the past.”
“Brooklynn”—I tap my fingernails over the granite counter as if trying to hold her attention—“what do you think happened?”
She gives a quick sweep of the vicinity before leaning in. “I think either Molly or Thomas did it. I mean, think about it. Molly was obsessed with the guy to no end, but recently, rumor has it, Wyatt was caught with his hand in the cookie jar—the cookie jar of one of his co-workers.”
Juni gives a haphazard nod that looks as if it has the power to knock her right off her chair.
“That’s right.” Juni holds up her drink. “It was the Stormy Westin cookie jar. Good news travels fast.” She gives a wink and ends up keeping one eye closed as if she were too lazy, or perhaps too drunk to reopen it.
“Let’s see…” Brooklynn glances to the side as she picks apart suspects in her mind. “Molly was more than just the jealous type. People are possessions to her. And then Thomas”—a dry laugh rattles through her—“he was simply irate. I don’t know specifically what they were arguing about, but whatever it was, it always managed to draw the entire bookstore into their tension.”
“Brooklyn, do you know anything else about the fraternity they were in?”
She wags a finger. “It wasn’t a fraternity. God no. There’s not a university on this planet who would sanction their behavior. This was more or less like a bad boy society. Or at least for those who wish they could be bad boys. Supposedly, they did things—permanent things to people.” She cocks her head. “People who wouldn’t be able to say anything about the things that happened to them.”
The pieces to the puzzle she’s giving me are beginning to click.
“Are you saying those people are dead?”
She gives a single nod. “But hey, they were only rumors. I mean, what are the odds of this secret skull society actually removing people from the planet?”
“They were scholars, though,” I say. “I mean, they were also just starting off their lives. It’s hard to believe they’d want to ruin their bright futures by committing a homicide.”
“You’re right.” She pours another drink and slides it to Juni.
“What about that book Wyatt had upstairs? The Agatha Christie first print run?”
“What about it?” Her eyes grow large and stay that way for a little too long.
“It’s missing.”
“No!” she gasps as if the thought truly frightened her. “That’s interesting.” She shakes her head. Knew it.
She averts her eyes, and now I want to know exactly what she knows.
“Who do you think took it?” I ask. “Do you think the killer has it?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know who the killer is. But the book? I’m pretty sure Thomas has it. The way he doted over it you’d think it was his copy. And now it very well may be.” She inverts her lips a moment. I do my best to pick up on her thoughts, but she’s gone blank. “I’m still not convinced Thomas was capable of something like that. There was the young girl he was having an affair with. Let’s just say Molly wasn’t the only one that was a little miffed about that one. Stormy, that’s the girl he was caught with”—she nods to Juni because she was right—“her boyfriend is a notorious hothead. They used to come by this place on occasion, but some poor fool tried to dance with Stormy and her boyfriend, Dax, pulled a knife. The bouncers here kicked him out and made sure they never came back.”
“A knife?” I startle. That’s exactly what sent Wyatt over the rainbow bridge. “Do you think Dax could have killed Wyatt Sanders?”
The tips of her lips curl. “I think we’re both wondering. I’m just not sure if the sheriff’s department is savvy enough to wonder about it, too.”
“I’ll make sure they’re
