Chapter Three
"Gary. I have been a loyal employee of yours for three years. Please do not make me participate in this charade of a party—"
"I'm going to stop you right there," said Gary, lifting a meaty hand. "Cor, please spare me. We are all going to have fun and pretend to be murder suspects, and you are going to stop being a stick in the mud, or I am going to fire you."
"It's illegal to fire me for that."
"It's illegal to be such a stick in the mud at your age."
"I am not going to respond to that comment."
"Good, I didn't want your opinion anyway. Now, please go make sure we have enough shot glasses for tonight. You can have a free shot, if that makes the night go by smoothly. Deal?"
"Deal."
Corvin could already tell that he was going to need a lot of alcohol to make tonight go smoothly. The kinds of people coming to help get ready for the party were the kinds of people who were too young to have kids to take trick-or-treating, or too old to take their kids trick-or-treating.
Corvin was probably being a wet mop about the whole thing. He used to love events like this. He had always gone to church events and birthday parties, he had loved to participate and be in the group. The problem was that he felt a bit heartsick, and it was making it hard to get in the spirit of things.
He made sure there were enough shot glasses. Jeremy, the dishwasher, hadn't yet shown up for work, and there was a pretty good chance he wasn't going to. Jeremy was the only underage member of the Redhead crew, and he was probably trick-or-treating or throwing toilet paper all over someone's house.
The other waitress on staff tonight, Tammy, was dressed as the character she was playing, which meant she wore knitted leggings, a knitted sweater, and gray chalk in her hair. Corvin thought she was a grandma or something. He went ahead and opened his character folder. He was playing a gardener who had been cheated out of a pay raise by the murder victim, Old Man Mackintosh.
Corvin looked at Mary as she passed.
"Who wrote this?"
"Tammy and her daughter."
"Old Man Mackintosh?"
"A corporate visionary gone before his time," she said wistfully, staring mournfully at the ceiling.
"Oh my God," sighed Corvin, putting away his papers. Picking up his nametag, he stuck it to the fabric of his shirt. He tucked the envelope away as a crew of young people came in the door.
There were two women and one guy, and Corvin glanced at the guy for a little too long. He had reddish auburn hair tied back in a knot. He had a runner's physique, and he dressed in a very tight shirt, loose jeans, and boots. When he glanced at Corvin, the bartender saw that he had green eyes and freckles. When he grinned at Corvin, their gazes locked for just a second, and Corvin felt something in him tweak ever so slightly.
The new guy hung his coat up, and Corvin busied himself wiping down the bar. He wasn't about to get caught up in that mess.
Hurrying up to the bar, Mary leaned over it and said, "Cor, could you go get me a pen?"
"Yeah."
Grateful for a reason to rush off for a minute, Corvin did as she asked, grabbing a couple of pens from the back room for Mary to stuff into her apron pockets.
***
The organizer of the party was a blonde girl who had moved to Bandon to take over the community organizer job on the City Council. She was peppy, and preppy, and Corvin saw her around town giving tours and doing community events a lot. She wore athletic gear most of the time. Her name was something like Ashley or Ashlyn. Most people called her Ash, so he did too.
Ash stood on a chair and shouted. "Hey everyone! All right guys, let's go!"
She clapped her hands twice, then stomped both of her feet, carefully so she didn't fall. It caught some attention, and everyone looked at her.
"All right guys, has everyone playing a character picked up their packet?"
A bunch of people either raised their envelopes, or nodded, or said yes.
"Great! Okay, so you can open your packet now. Inside, you will find your nametag, some paper and a pen, and a bunch of other little things. There's like, some fake money in there so you can bribe people. Remember, we are trying to solve a murder!"
She lifted a sheet of paper that had a script printed on it, and read from it.
"Old Man Mackintosh has been brutally murdered! He was found dead in his home by the police yesterday afternoon. Your job is to find out who the culprit was, without getting framed yourself!"
Ash went on to explain how the game worked, but an older man in a plaid flannel jacket came up to the bar and asked for a beer, so Corvin didn't catch any of it.
The older man decided that he was going to tell Corvin, who was a licensed bartender, how to correctly pour a beer. He adamantly refused to drink the first two glasses of expensive India pale ale that Corvin poured. As the old man mawkishly watched Corvin pour yet another beer, Gary walked up beside Corvin and told the man to either drink his piss-colored beer or leave. The man accepted the beer, though Corvin did not get a tip.
Corvin kept seeing the auburn-haired guy out of the corner of his eye. He was constantly laughing, or smiling this wolfish smile that felt like a punch right in Corvin's chest. His laughter was loud and infectious, and it was kind of hard not to smile when he did so.
The two women came up to the bar. One of them wore red glasses, and the other one had a bright, chipper smile.
"Hi! Can we get two hard ciders?" the blonde said, in the least threatening voice possible for a human to have.
Corvin cranked up the charm on his smile, and said, "Sure thing!"
The chipper blonde blushed a little, and looked at her girlfriend, the one with horrifying glasses. He grabbed two hard ciders from the fridge and opened them, setting them on the bar. The blonde handed over a ten and said, "Keep the change," with a wink.
The one with the glasses said, "Just so you know, our friend over there is single."
"I'll keep that in mind," said Corvin as he walked to the till.