Chap­ter 10 of We Solve Mur­ders brings us into the warm yet live­ly ambiance of The Brass Mon­key, a cozy neigh­bor­hood pub where reg­u­lars gath­er dai­ly for food, drinks, and dis­cus­sion. Among the usu­al patrons is Steve, a wid­ow­er who enjoys the com­fort of his rou­tine and the com­pa­ny of his long­time acquain­tances. Sit­ting with him are John, a for­mer show­biz per­son­al­i­ty with a pen­chant for alco­hol; Tony, a divorced mechan­ic with strong opin­ions on near­ly every­thing; and Dr. Jyoti Das, an aca­d­e­m­ic spe­cial­iz­ing in medieval his­to­ry who some­how always ends up giv­ing out med­ical advice. Their con­ver­sa­tions jump between light­heart­ed ban­ter and seri­ous top­ics, includ­ing a recent, sus­pi­cious mur­der involv­ing Andrew Fair­banks, an influ­encer with a grow­ing social media pres­ence who was found dead under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances.

As Steve lis­tens to the news cov­er­age on Fair­banks’ death, Rosie jok­ing­ly sug­gests that he was “eat­en by a shark,” though Amy, who has been keep­ing track of such cas­es, imme­di­ate­ly finds the sit­u­a­tion more trou­bling. She dis­creet­ly pulls up an arti­cle detail­ing Fair­banks’ final moments, which only deep­ens her sus­pi­cions. The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his mur­der feel eeri­ly famil­iar, trig­ger­ing mem­o­ries of her past clients at Max­i­mum Impact Solu­tions. Amy recalls the grim fate of anoth­er influ­encer, Bel­la Sanchez, whose death bore strik­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties to Fair­banks’. Bel­la, a for­mer real­i­ty TV star, was dis­cov­ered hang­ing upside down from a bal­cony in St. Lucia, shot in what appeared to be a the­atri­cal exe­cu­tion. This eerie pat­tern leads Amy to believe that some­one is delib­er­ate­ly tar­get­ing high-pro­file social media fig­ures.

As the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gress­es, Amy intro­duces anoth­er chill­ing case—Mark Gooch, a finan­cial influ­encer, who was also a for­mer client of Max­i­mum Impact Solu­tions and was found mur­dered in Ire­land. Like Bel­la and Fair­banks, his death seemed staged, as though the killer want­ed to send a mes­sage. Rosie, ever the skep­tic, starts piec­ing the infor­ma­tion togeth­er, real­iz­ing that these cas­es are not mere­ly coin­ci­den­tal. Her jour­nal­ist instincts kick in as she ques­tions Amy’s prox­im­i­ty to each of these deaths, imply­ing that Amy might be more involved than she lets on. Amy, how­ev­er, firm­ly denies any con­nec­tion beyond her pro­fes­sion­al work, though the mount­ing coin­ci­dences unset­tle her.

While the mur­der dis­cus­sion dom­i­nates their lunch, Tony sud­den­ly shifts the con­ver­sa­tion, men­tion­ing a sus­pi­cious blue car he spot­ted parked out­side the pub. The vehi­cle had been idling for an unusu­al amount of time, draw­ing Tony’s atten­tion. Steve takes note of this detail, con­sid­er­ing it might be relat­ed to Fair­banks’ case or a com­plete­ly sep­a­rate inci­dent worth inves­ti­gat­ing. At the same time, Tony also com­plains about some­one repeat­ed­ly using his recy­cling bins with­out per­mis­sion, prompt­ing Steve to offer to stop by Tony’s house lat­er to check it out. This leads to a humor­ous exchange about mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­veil­lance door­bells, which Tony dis­miss­es as unnec­es­sary while Steve argues they could actu­al­ly help iden­ti­fy unwant­ed vis­i­tors.

Despite the easy­go­ing atmos­phere, Steve’s mind remains pre­oc­cu­pied with Fair­banks’ mur­der and its poten­tial con­nec­tion to the Krush­er Ener­gy Drink com­pa­ny, which had a finan­cial rela­tion­ship with the influ­encer. While Steve has offi­cial­ly retired from solv­ing mur­ders, he finds him­self increas­ing­ly drawn to the incon­sis­ten­cies in the case. His instincts tell him that the sit­u­a­tion is far more com­plex than it appears, and although he tries to resist get­ting involved, the details gnaw at him. The mys­tery sur­round­ing Fair­banks’ death, along with the sim­i­lar fates of Bel­la and Mark, sug­gests a pat­tern that some­one needs to untan­gle before more bod­ies sur­face.

As lunch at The Brass Mon­key comes to an end, the group set­tles into a com­fort­able lull, their plates near­ly emp­ty and drinks steadi­ly drained. John reflects on his days con­duct­ing celebri­ty inter­views, lament­ing that he nev­er had the chance to meet Rosie D’Antonio, who he con­sid­ers one of the more inter­est­ing fig­ures in the media world. Jyoti, ever the inquis­i­tive aca­d­e­m­ic, press­es Steve fur­ther on what he knows about Fair­banks’ con­nec­tions, prompt­ing Steve to admit that while he doesn’t have all the answers yet, some­thing about the case doesn’t sit right. The thought lingers in his mind even as he out­ward­ly insists that he has no inten­tion of div­ing back into detec­tive work. Yet, as he watch­es the blue car still sit­ting out­side the pub, unmoved, he knows deep down that he won’t be able to walk away from this mys­tery for long.

Although Steve enjoys the famil­iar­i­ty of his sim­ple life and the cama­raderie of his pub friends, there is an unde­ni­able pull toward the cas­es he tries to ignore. He wants to believe he has left his inves­tiga­tive days behind, but the unre­solved ques­tions sur­round­ing Fair­banks, Bel­la, and Mark con­tin­ue to fol­low him. Whether he likes it or not, he finds him­self at the cen­ter of yet anoth­er puz­zle, one that may put him back in the line of dan­ger. As he steps out of The Brass Mon­key, the weight of the unfold­ing mys­tery press­es down on him, sig­nal­ing that his days of solv­ing mur­ders may not be over just yet.