Page 11 of The Accidental Detectives

For a bachelor, he was mostly clean. No empty pizza boxes and beer cans strewn across the floor or on his Ikea coffee table. There was a well-used plaid couch, with the cushions opened up and tossed, obviously from a search by the cops, but it wasn’t exactly aHome and Gardenphoto shoot, either.

I pulled the plastic gloves from the pocket of my uncomfortable blazer and put them on. I don’t know if I still have fingerprints as a vampire, it wouldn’t be the first thing I no longer had since I’d been turned, but better safe than sorry.

Heading to the kitchen, I was grateful for my vampiric vision, because Jesus and some Swedish fish, it was dark in there. I began pulling open his crooked, creaky cabinets to find a minimal number of dishes and cooking utensils.

Lots and lots of boxed macaroni and cheese and instant potatoes. Even when I could eat, I didn’t eat shit like that, but I’d probably choke a bitch out for a chicken wing. His fridge held some juice boxes, half a gallon of milk, and a six-pack of non-alcoholic beer. All mostly unremarkable.

My phone buzzed then to the tune of “I Like Big Butts,” Marty’s ringtone. I dug it out of my pocket and answered, “Yeah?”

“What are you doing?” she hissed into the phone, the crackle of her voice grating against my ear.

“Getting my prostate checked. What areyoudoing?”

I heard her rasp a sigh, meaning my work here was done. “Shut up, meaniebutt. Stop being a jerk and tell me where you are. You were supposed to be getting lip stain!”

I peered in a drawer in the kitchen, where I found coloring books and some crayons, and jiggled them around to make it sound like I was digging through stuff in the car. “I’m still looking for it. It’s the puuurfect color for Sonja. If you taught menothing, you taught me flippin’ color wheels. Am I making you proud, sensei?”

“You are not either in the car, Nina Statleon! I can see it from Sonja’s bathroom window. But youarea liar-liar-pants-on-fire!”

“Why are you in her damn bathroom, Marty? I thought the Bobbie-Sue rule was no using a potential client’s private facilities no matter how bad you have to go? Remember Hackensack, where Wanda almost peed herself?”

“I make the rules now, Nina! Now get your butt back here before Wanda has a nervous breakdown trying to make Sonja look like you. I only have so much magic, and while Sonja is perfectly lovely, she’s never going to look like you!”

“Then as the great RuPaul says, you bettah werk! Gotta go. Bye!” I clicked the phone off before she could protest.

I decided to give up on the kitchen. So far, I was batting a thousand because there was nothing to see in here but the sad life of a bachelor dad just tryin’ to get by.

Bedrooms were up next, there were two of them.

When I poked my head around the corner of the first one, I was surprised. He’d decked this out for his kids with hanging lights and a tent.

One half of the room had a bunch of superhero posters and the other half was covered in Barbie. The tiny, pink single bed had some frilly pillows Wanda and Marty would snatch up before you could blink.

The boy’s bed had a comforter of the solar system and some red and blue pillows. There was a train track on the floor beside his bed, and a big Barbie playhouse by his daughter’s.

All tossed by the cops.

If nothing else, Owen had been trying for the sake of his kids, which left me feeling kinda shitty for him. It also made me wonder what was up with his marriage and his wife. Could she be a suspect?

What if she’d found the fake account the catfish had set up and saw all those private messages between him and Brenda, and thought he was cheating? I wondered if she’d talk to us. Maybe I could smell if she was lying.

Jealousy, according to Marty and her true crime shows, was one of the top five motives for murder.

While I considered what undercover crazy Marty might come up with to get Owen’s wife to talk to us, I moseyed to his bedroom, where I found he’d def poured his heart only into his kids’ room.

His room was a depressing disaster of rumpled bed sheets and comforter, and a scarred wood nightstand with all the drawers yanked open. But when I sniffed, I discovered it was also where he’d been strangled. I stood in the spot where his essence had been drained from him.

Damn, damn, damn. My throat tightened up. I think I’ve said I can’t cry, but I can get choked up, and I was choked up. I got the sense this separation had been hard on Owen and his kids. His misery lingered.

But that’s also when I saw it.

Our first legit clue.

If the forensic people had been in here and done their jobs, I don’t know how they could’ve missed it. Or maybe it was just my vampiric eyesight. But there it was, stuck to the backside of the nightstand with only the very tip sticking out.

A fake nail, just like the ones Marty and Wanda wore.

A red one with a white tip.

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