Adventures In Murder Chasing (Funeral Crashing #3) (9 page)

No. Ethan had found out what really happened to his half-sister Liz and although he was still struggling with it, it was better that way. He knew the truth. Maybe it was good that Fiorella found out now and I planted the seed of doubt before she accepted Nico's death the way it was, completely. I was about to open my mouth and tell her the truth, when I remembered Gabe. I had been wrong about his death. Of course, I hadn't known all of the details when I found out that I was wrong, but still. What if I was wrong this time too? What if Nico wasn't murdered and I made Fiorella suffer more? I shut my mouth. The decision was made, but almost immediately doubts crept in. Had Fiorella seen my notebook full of notes about Nico? Did she already suspect me of investigating? What should I do?

"Well?" Fiorella asked. "How did you know Nico?"

I looked at Fiorella as the debate continued to rage in my head. She had to be a freshman. She looked too young to be a sophomore, although it was possible. I'd know if she was a junior. I didn't know everyone, but you kind of knew who was in your class more so than any other class. I wondered if the freshman class knew who I was, like if my reputation as a graveyard girl funeral crashing teen sleuth extended to outside my grade. It had to. I didn't have many classes with people in the year above or below me, but if Fiorella found out my full name, would she know what I was doing anyway? The gossip had gotten around, especially after I saved Ariel and started officially dating Ethan. Although, currently, that sort of just meant that people didn't say anything good or bad to me. They didn't make fun of me, but they obviously still thought I was weird because they didn't praise me either or even say hi to me in the halls.

What should I do then? I had to get out of my head and just say something to Fiorella. Truth or lie? Truth or lie?

"We were there by mistake," I said. "We thought we were at another guy's funeral and then Nico's dad came up to us and it took me a second to realize we were at the wrong funeral and I know it's stupid, but we said we knew Nico."

"Oh," Fiorella looked taken aback. "Okay. I just..."

"Were you hoping I did know Nico?" I asked softly.

"I..." Fiorella started and then continued. "I guess I just wanted to hear more about him, not from the family, but from someone else who knew him. It probably sounds stupid, but Nico was more like my big brother than Antonio, my real big brother."

"It doesn't sound stupid at all," I said. "Wait, why aren't you at the funeral? Isn't it today? I thought I read..."

"Yeah," Fiorella said. "It's today. That's why I'm taking the bus. I almost never take the bus. My mom usually drives me to school unless she has a doctor's appointment or something. But anyway, my parents didn't want me to go to the funeral and they have this thing about missing school, so here I am, on the bus. I hate the bus."

"I hate the bus too," I said automatically since it was true, but my brain was thinking about something else Fiorella had said, "But, wait, I don't get it. It was your cousin's funeral. Why wouldn't your parents want you to be there?"

Fiorella shrugged, "I don't know. I've never been to a funeral before."

"What?" I asked.

I was surprised. I'd been to so many since my mom died that sometimes I forgot there were people who had never even been to one funeral.

"Some of my relatives have died, of course," Fiorella said, "But I've never gone. My parents really don't like us to go to funerals. I begged and begged to go to Nico's. He was my favorite cousin. They still said no. At least they let me go to the wake, though. That's something."

"But why don't your parents want you to go to funerals?" I asked.

"I don't know. They never said. I guess they just don't want me to," Fiorella said. "And I know it's sad, but I had to at least go to the wake. I begged for that. I really would have liked to be at the funeral too, but my mom said absolutely not and then my dad totally backed her up. Antonio wasn't any help either. He didn't want to go anyway. So, yeah, I'm here, going to school instead."

I nodded, but my mind was somewhere else. Wow, to never have been to a funeral. What would my life have been like? Would it be better to never know much about death? Were Fiorella's parents right to try and keep that pain from her? I thought about my mom. It would be better if she were alive. Still, it's not like even Fiorella could get away from funerals. Her parents just weren't letting her go to them. It didn't change the fact that Nico was dead and that Fiorella really missed him.

"I just really wish I could be there," Fiorella was saying. "I miss Nico so much."

"It's really sad that he died," I said. "It's normal that you miss him."

Fiorella nodded, "But, I mean, in my head I just keep thinking: what if that bookshelf hadn't fallen on him? What if it fell when he wasn't there? What if he had moved a little to the left?"

"You can't do that - the what-ifs," I said. "There are no what-ifs. What happened, happened."

Fiorella nodded and sighed, taking a deep breath. She wiped at one of her eyes. It was funny. I had been to so many funerals and seen so much of loss, but I still didn't know quite what to do when someone had an emotional breakdown in front of me because of it all. There was really nothing that was going to make it all okay, you know? Well, except maybe more time. Even then, it wasn't like you didn't still miss the person that died.

"But, I mean, like what if Antonio had met him to study for their math test like he was supposed to instead of going to hook up with his girlfriend, you know?" Fiorella was sniffling, tears slowly welling up in her eyes.

Wait. Antonio was supposed to meet Nico? My mind was back on the case. Did Antonio have a reason to push a bookshelf over on his cousin?

"Fiorella," I started and then stopped, trying to choose my words wisely. "Does Antonio blame himself for Nico's death?"

"No," Fiorella said. "He's such a jerk. He doesn't blame himself at all, but if they had met up, maybe Nico wouldn't have died. Maybe the bookshelf would have just fallen on the floor."

I didn't quite get the answer I was looking for. I tried again. "Did they get along - Nico and Antonio?"

Fiorella frowned, "Not always. Okay, sometimes they did, but they were really competitive with each other, probably because our dads are always competitive. Our dads are brothers and Nico and Antonio were just like them. I'm sure that Antonio only agreed to help Nico so that he could only hold it over him."

"Wow, you don't have a high opinion of your brother," I said.

Fiorella shrugged, "We don't get along much either, I guess. He can be such a jerk. Although, now since he's away at college, I don't have to see him as much, which is a good thing."

I mentally put Antonio's name on my list of suspects. Still, I really couldn't see all that much of a murder motive in just being a competitive cousin. That didn't rule Antonio out, though. Who knew what people were really capable of if the right buttons got pushed?

I wondered if I could ask Fiorella about Ed Patawak. I couldn't think of a way to bring him up. Besides, Nico probably wouldn't share information about a bully rival to his younger female cousin. Although, maybe he would share something like that with Antonio, that is unless they were too busy being at each other's throats. Yet another reason to eventually find a way to talk to Antonio. In the meantime, though, I'd definitely be investigating him. I wondered if I'd need Fiorella's help with that. Maybe I could get an invite to her house. We'd need to talk more than just about funerals in that case.

I changed the subject. It was time to, anyway, even if I might not have an ulterior motive. Fiorella and I talked about books and movies the rest of the way to school. She was a sweet girl and we kind of connected on the last ten minutes of the ride. I hoped I didn't need to cause her any more heartache and I hoped I could help her find closure with the death of her cousin. Well, and I also hoped that she didn't find out what I was doing and get mad at me.

I was actually in a pretty good mood when we got to school and Fiorella and I parted ways to go to our lockers. I was thinking that maybe my bad luck from the morning was gone. That is, until I got to my locker and found Ariel waiting for me.

Ariel looked amazing as always and that's what was so surreal - her looking perfect and popular, all while she was stalking me at my locker. Seriously, why was she waiting for me at my locker? Up until a few weeks ago, I would have thought it was to torment me, but in light of recent events, I wasn't sure. It freaked me out. I didn't know whether to start putting my guard up and prepare for torture or to let my guard down and be friendly. Maybe it was easier letting Ariel just be my evil ex-bff. I knew what that Ariel was capable of, at the very least. The unknown was so much harder to figure out. I walked up to my locker with a feeling of trepidation.

"So? Was he murdered?" Ariel asked as soon as I was close enough to hear her.

"Who?" I asked like I had been accused of murder, automatically clutching my crime notebook. I had been surprised one too many times already today. Did the whole world suspect I was a funeral crashing, murder chasing freak?

"Gabe," Ariel said. "The guy who worked at Wired with Suzie Whitsett. Remember from Saturday when we were there?"

"Oh. Yeah," I said, relaxing a little. "No, he wasn't murdered. He just died of natural causes."

"Oh," Ariel's face fell like she was disappointed about that. "But he was so young."

"Yeah, I know," I said.

I was confused. The other day Ariel thought I was nuts for investigating another murder. What had happened between then and now? And had Troy neglected to tell her that we were now focusing on his friend Nico's death instead? Why? I know I had freaked about Ariel knowing what I was up to at first, but shouldn't Troy have told her about Nico and our investigation with him? Or was this some kind of a setup on Ariel's part to get some sort of information out of me? What was I supposed to do in this situation? It was Ariel we were talking about and she, all alone, was super complicated.

I was still watching Ariel, curiously, when an arm wrapped itself around my waist. I looked over to find Ethan. He kissed me on the lips and I quickly forgot about everything else. For about thirty seconds I was in pure heaven. Sigh.

Ethan broke away from the kiss and turned to Ariel, reminding me of where I was, "Oh, hey Ariel."

Ariel was watching us, surprised. I so wanted to know what she was thinking.

"Hey, Ethan," Ariel said.

It would have been a totally normal hey, except that Ariel was watching me as she said it. Seriously, what was she thinking? I really wanted to know.

"So, any news on the whole Nico thing?" Ethan asked me.

"Nico? Who's Nico?" Ariel asked.

"Uh..." I started, wondering where to begin.

Ariel frowned and cut me off before I could say anything, "Wait. Troy knew a Nico that just died. That Nico? Did you crash his funeral too? Did Troy ask you to? He didn't tell me that..."

"No, no, no," I said, not wanting the wrath of a jealous Ariel, especially since there was nothing going on between Troy and I. I mean, I could hear the question in her tone. Ariel was not one for hiding things when she felt threatened.

Still, I agreed with her. Why hadn't Troy told her? Had it been simply too late to call after we left the restaurant or was there more to it? What was going on?

"So, who's Nico then?" Ariel asked, one hand on her hip. She was waiting impatiently. I could tell that if I didn't say something quick, she'd blow. Mad Ariel was not nice Ariel.

"Okay," I took a breath and just jumped in, "We accidentally wandered into this guy Nico's funeral and it is the same funeral, but we had no idea Troy knew him until we ran into him. It's a long story, but yeah, we think Nico might have been murdered, so we're investigating it."

"Okay, so Troy didn't ask you to look into it?" Ariel asked, her eyes boring into me like she was waiting to see if I was going to lie.

"No, he definitely didn't," I said. At least this was more like the normal Ariel. Still, I needed some help so that normal Ariel didn't attack me, thinking I was trying to steal her boyfriend, even though I already had an amazing one, "Right Ethan?"

"No, he didn't," Ethan smiled. "Kait volunteered after hearing what happened. You know how she is."

I hit Ethan playfully on the arm and gave him a look.

"What?" Ethan looked down at me. "It's true."

I shrugged. "Yeah, but..."

I remembered that Ariel was there watching us and I stopped talking. I couldn't really tell Ethan that I didn't want to look too eager about investigating Troy's friend's murder because Ariel seemed like she might be getting a little jealous about me and Troy, even if there was no me and Troy.

I turned to Ariel, "I just figured that since it sounds like something weird happened to Nico, someone should look into it and I mean, since Gabe wasn't murdered and I wasn't doing anything, why not? You know?"

"Okaaaay," Ariel said, still watching me suspiciously.

"Seriously, I wanted to look into it," I said. Ariel still looked weary. I felt my own frustration boil over, "Look, call me a murder chaser or whatever you want. I don't care. I want to find out what happened to Nico. He might have been murdered. His family should know. Hate me, don't hate me, I don't care."