My Favorite Suspects: End (Part 15)

"Maybe we should use our actual names," I said to Luna. "If you call me Terry, I can call you… let's see…"

We’ve reached the end of the first story in the Terry series. Thanks for sticking with it!

Based on reader response, I’ll expand the novella published here on MFS into a short novel and publish it separately.

I also have more stories planned for the series, which I’ll publish here on MFS.

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I didn't know what to expect from the day manager. A thank-you would've been nice.

I could’ve told a different story and made Miller the center of it. But that's not where the evidence led. Miller was being coerced. No other way to paint it. Maybe, at the beginning, he'd committed some minor crime, something that got him on Soft's radar. After all, everyone is guilty of something. But Soft was ultimately behind the cigarette thefts. Not Miller and not AJ.

I'd emailed AJ's mom earlier about the video evidence. Hopefully the cops would drop his charges after they saw the video.

I made my way through the store and out to the stifling parking lot. My knees ached. I'd been awake for two days straight. The smell of garbage trailed me as I went for the bus stop. It must have been in my hair. My phone chimed out a broken rhythm, announcing a series of unread texts from my brother. I hoped it was nothing serious. If it was, I didn’t have the energy.

I'd nearly made it to the bus stop when a red Fiat 500 hatchback pulled up beside me.

"Price Check!"

Luna had an odd disguise this time. She wore simple makeup, dark sunglasses, a plain blue t-shirt, and had her hair parted to one side. She was playing at being someone, but not someone in particular. She could've been anyone passing by in a car on her way to anywhere.

She took off her Wayfarers and waved me over.

“That play you just made with Miller,” she said. “I'm surprised you didn't pin everything on him. Why didn't you?"

"He had to have done something illegal to get Soft's attention. I guarantee that he's not getting a pass. He's going to be punished. He'll be out of a job in about an hour."

"So what's in this for you, Price Check?”

"I got Soft off his back. I'd say he owes me a solid. That's how it works, right?"

"It can work that way," she said.

"Besides, AJ's always talking about forgiveness."

"He does play that religious card a lot."

"I figure he'll get a laugh out of this. If he ever talks to me again. What about you, Luna? You're not upset?"

She made a pffft noise. "I was never going after Miller. That was your thing."

“Well… wait. Does that mean you're going after someone? Is that why all those slices of paper I found in the trash are important?”

“If you really want to know, you have to, you know, get in the car.”

"Before I do that, I have a question." I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand which did nothing to relieve the sweat trickling down my face. "You said Soft is a street name. Is Luna your street name?"

She looked at me sideways. "What're you getting at?"

"Is that why you call me Price Check? Is that how street names happen?"

"Sometimes."

"Feels weird to use street names. Maybe we should use our actual names. You can call me Terry." I reached into my back pocket and unfolded a post card. It was the only interesting thing I'd gathered from the blue bins outside her apartment building, when I made the run over there on the Vespa earlier that morning. The card contained an offer for a free car wash, which would've been completely innocuous, except for the printing at the bottom of the card, which read: An Exclusive Offer For, and showed a name.

"If you call me Terry," I said, making a show of reading the card, "I can call you… let's see… Camille?"

She laughed and tapped the frames of her sunglasses against the dimple on her chin. "Nice try, Price Check. Are you telling me I should be more careful with my recycling?"

Her laugh reminded me of the night outside the supermarket, when, for the bargain price of thirty bucks, she let me search through her backpack, and I didn't know what to make of her, and she didn't know what to make of me.

"I’m only saying I pay attention."

"How 'bout I call you Terence?"

"Nah. That's what my mom called me. Let's stick to street names."

"Deal. And back to this: What's your next move, Price Check?"

What I really wanted to do was scrape those damn contact lenses out of my eyes. “Ask for my job back, I guess.”

"Funny you should mention…" She held up a letter-sized envelope and flicked it back and forth. Papers slid around inside. "I've got an opportunity."

"What is it this time? Someone stealing two-liter bottles of cola?"

She dangled the envelope between us. Like everything else with Luna, it presented questions: What was inside? What if I accepted it? What did it mean in the bigger scheme of things?

I squeezed into the passenger seat.

She handed me the envelope and merged the Fiat with traffic leaving the lot. The envelope held a stack of twenties. I fanned them out. I caressed the texture of the ink with my fingertips. I held one bill up to the sun and, looking through it, traced the telltales like veins in a leaf. If the bills weren't real, my cashier training told me they were pretty good fakes.

In that moment, I realized that I'd finally, in an unexpected way, escaped the liminal world of night crew and entered a new world. A world where my actions, my decisions, and my mistakes, had effects on others: On AJ. On Miller. On my brother. Even, perhaps, on Luna herself. And also, looking back on it now, that moment was the last time I could simply jump into a car with someone I barely knew and not give a thought to the destination or the consequences.

Luna accelerated up the ramp for 490 East, darting between cars and trucks until she found a wide open lane. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she brushed aside an errant strand of dark brown hair and slipped on her Wayfarers. She turned on the radio, hunted for a station, then settled on a local gospel choir singing "A Ship Like Mine" by the Williams Brothers. She cranked the volume and I realized it was Sunday.

Go tell all my friends

That my ship just came sailin' in

It came filled with the Holy Ghost

It came filled with joy divine

Wouldn't you like to sail on a ship like mine?

A corner of her mouth drew back into an ironic smile.

Of all the suspects I’ve known, Luna remains my favorite.

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MY FAVORITE SUSPECTS by Todd Brasel

Images

Artificial images created with Midjourney and processed with Preview for MacOS and photocollage.com. All human-created images are attributed in the chapter in which they appear.

Production

Story composed in Scrivener 3 for MacOS and Apple Notes.

Without Whom

Special thanks to Gayla Brasel for support, beta reading, and feedback.

Soundtrack

"Middle Man" by Living Color

"Up the Down Escalator" by The Chameleons

"Glass (Live from Studio S2)" by Hania Rani

"A Ship Like Mine” by The Williams Brothers

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