“Even better. I’m going to be in that area later. The Professor wants me to canvas the Railroad District. We need a break in this case, and maybe it will come from one of the new business owners.”
“That’s why I called.” I explained how I had found Sky sleeping behind the coffee counter and that he’d told me about someone trying to kill him.
Thomas’ tone shifted as he listened. “Thanks for letting me know, Jules. The minute we hang up I’m going to send a squad car to find him. You think he was headed north along the tracks?”
“That’s the direction he went. I couldn’t see him after he went behind the Grange.”
“Okay. I’ll stop by as soon as I can.”
We hung up. What did Thomas want to talk to me about? Could it be connected to the case? I wondered about the wrench Lance and I had found last night. Had they been able to confirm that the substance on the wrench was blood? There was another possibility. One that I didn’t want to think about—that Thomas wanted to read me the riot act for meddling in the case.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it because Sterling, Andy, and Steph arrived. “The gang’s all here, boss,” Andy announced, clicking the latch on the gate.
Steph had a satchel of chalkboard pens and stencils tucked over her arm. Andy carried a box of supplies and Sterling brought up the rear with a cooler.
“Any excitement, boss?” Andy opened the front gate.
“Thankfully, none.” I decide not to tell them about Sky. Andy and Sterling had been through enough yesterday. I didn’t want to worry them more. “I see you all came ready to work.”
Steph tugged on the strings of her black jacket. Black and purple were her signature colors. “I’m going to sketch out the menu now because I have a three o’clock class.”
I moved out of her way. “The chalkboard is yours.”
Andy unpacked cleaning supplies. “I thought we should probably give this place a complete wipe-down before we start putting stuff away and organizing. I found a nasty industrial cleaner that is supposed to take off anything it touches. Even your skin.” He held up a pair of thick plastic gloves. “I’m going to try and get the graffiti off the fridge.”
“Good plan, but be careful,” I warned.
“No worries, boss. Safety is my middle name.” Andy shot me a thumbs-up.
“How was the lunch rush?” I asked Sterling.
“Easy.” He brought the cooler to the back area. “Everything was running smoothly when we left. Marty has it under control.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
Andy tossed Sterling a pair of gloves. “Let’s scrub this baby down before we load her up with anything.” He patted the stainless steel fridge and freezer.
Sterling opened the fridge. “That’s weird. There’s a bunch of milk and cream in here. Did Dean come by?”
“Really?” I went to look for myself. At least a dozen bottles of milk were lined in the fridge. “I bumped into him and he mentioned that he could swing by, but I told him not to bother since we’re in the middle of getting the space ready to open.”
I thought of Sky. When had Dean delivered the milk? If he had stopped by this morning, he would have seen Sky sleeping. An open-concept garden space like Scoops might not work in many places other than Ashland. I’d never been worried about theft. Technically speaking we could lock the front gate at night, but it wouldn’t take much effort for a would-be criminal to hop over a three-foot fence. The Professor had suggested getting locks for the fridge and cupboards to protect our inventory, which at the time had seemed like overkill, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“Weird. I told him to deliver everything to Torte so we can make the concretes there and start handing out samples here. Maybe he got confused. I’ll text him.” Sterling reached into the back pocket of his skinny jeans for his phone.
I noticed that the line in front of Laney Lee’s food truck had dispersed. Since Thomas was coming by later, I decided there was no time like the present to see if I could learn anything from my friend.
“What concretes did you bring?” I opened the cooler.
Andy had already started scrubbing the fridge. “The cinnamon oatmeal cookie is my favorite. Sterling also made a buttered popcorn that sounds gross, but it’s amazing.”
I searched through the labeled containers until I found both. “I’ll give our new neighbors a taste of each. I know they’ll help spread the word.”
“Good thinking, boss. That’s why you get the big bucks.” Andy winked.
Whether or not he believed that was my only intention was up for debate. I scooped little tastes of the concretes into small cups and placed them on a tray. “Back in a few.”
I went to Laney’s first. “Hello,” I called at the ordering window. “Ice cream delivery.”
“Coming!” Laney replied. A few seconds later she appeared at the window, wiping her hands on a floral dish towel. “Did I hear you say ‘ice cream delivery’?”
I handed her a cup of the oatmeal cookie and popcorn custards. “It’s one of the perks of being our new neighbor. You’re going to have to be a taste-tester.”
“Never have I been happier to have forced the neighborhood on you.” She set the custards on the aluminum ledge. “Let me turn off the stove and I’ll come outside to eat these. I could use a break from this glorified tin can.”
“Do you have time to walk down to the park?” I suggested.
“I’ll make time.” Laney smiled as she closed the roll-down window. A few seconds later she appeared at the narrow doorway. She shut the door behind her without locking it.
We walked along the path. It was like a different place in the light of day. The blackberry vines that Lance had pushed me into stretched along the chain-link fence as far as I could see. The sound of children’s laughter filled the air. Bikers, joggers, and walkers shared the popular pathway.
Laney tasted the buttered popcorn custard as we strolled together. “This is like nothing I’ve tasted.”
“Is that good or bad?” I matched her stride.
“Good. Surprising, but good.”
We made it to Railroad Park, where a group of preschoolers ran through the grass chasing bubbles. At the far end of the park a Tai Chi class moved with flow, their arms opening to the sky. We found an empty bench near the gazebo and sat down. “I wanted to check in and see how you were doing after yesterday,” I said, putting my hand on her knee.
Tears welled in her eyes. She kept them focused on a golden retriever fetching a tennis ball. “Honestly, I’m not doing well. I appreciate you asking. It’s been rough.”
“If there’s anything you need to get off your chest, or if you just need a listening ear, I’m here.”
Laney’s face blanched. “Oh my God, is it obvious? It must be. I knew this was going to come out sooner or later.” She wrung her hands as tears spilled from her eyes. “I don’t know what to say. You’re totally going to think differently of me now. Everyone is.”
My heart rate sped up. What was Laney talking about? She couldn’t possibly mean that she killed the Wizard, could she? There was no way.
I was distracted for a moment as Lars, Hunter’s son, and his crew of skater friends zoomed along the crowded path on longboards, darting around a mom pushing a baby jogger and a retired couple holding hands. That kid was never in school. I wondered if Hunter homeschooled him or if Lars was perpetually truant.
“Please promise me you won’t say anything about this to anyone else yet, Jules,” Laney pleaded. “I know it’s going to come out and I know it will be around town soon, but I just need a little more time, okay?”
“Laney, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She brushed tears from her face. “Jules, you’re too nice. You don’t have to say that. Look, I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position. I know I have to tell the police. Thomas is coming by this afternoon to talk to me. I should have been honest and confessed yesterday but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.�
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Again I wondered whether Laney was admitting that she had killed the Wizard. She was the last person I could possibly imagine resorting to violence. She was also the only one of our new Railroad District business owners who had shown any true remorse about his death.
“Laney, I don’t understand. I’m not being nice. I actually have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I held my breath, waiting for her response.
Had I completely misread my friend?
She let out a low whimper. “I can’t believe this is coming out. I’ve tried so hard to keep it together. To keep it a secret.”
“Laney, wait. What are you saying? You’re not saying that you killed the Wizard, are you?”
She tried to compose herself, but could barely speak between sobs. “God, no, no. I never would have hurt him. The Wizard was my father.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Your father?” I asked, biting the side of my cheek to try to mask my shock. “Oh no, Laney, I’m so sorry.”
Laney swallowed back tears. “I didn’t want anyone to know. I loved him, don’t get me wrong, but it was easier to let people think he was a homeless man I looked out for. Not my father. It’s embarrassing.”
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. People loved your father. The entire community is grieving right now.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You have a normal mother. My dad’s been sick for years. Mom said they never should have had me. She knew when they got married that he had struggled with mental illness. He was on his meds back then. He had pretty normal days. I mean he was always quirky—different. I knew it when I was a kid. He wasn’t like the other dads, but I didn’t care. That’s what made him special. He would make up elaborate games and have tea parties with me. He was more like a friend.”
“What happened? How did he end up on the streets?”
She used the napkin I had wrapped around the tasting cup to dry her eyes. “We lived in Hawaii when I was young. My parents met in college. He studied engineering and landed a good job that took them to Hawaii. He was working on the military base and started getting paranoid. He was sure that people were following him—watching us. He went downhill from there.” She hugged her knees.
I waited for her to continue. At the far end of the park a guy wearing spandex that showcased his chiseled muscles barked out commands to his boot-camp participants. In formation the group dropped to the grass and began doing push-ups. Railroad Park offered an authentic snapshot of Ashland’s eclectic community. Iridescent bubbles bobbed above the swing set where kids shrieked with laughter. The sound mingled with the harmonic flow of the slow, intentional moments of the Tai Chi class. Moms sipped coffee and gossiped while the boot camp grunted and sweated.
Laney fiddled with the watermelon-colored flower tie in her braid before continuing. “Dad got fired because the paranoia got so bad. After that he had a bunch of odd jobs. He worked in the sugar-cane fields, a surf shop, a bento restaurant. Mom was the primary source of our income. She was a school nurse. I think it’s one of the reasons she was attracted to him initially—she had a thing for lost souls.” Laney paused and fought back another round of tears. “We had some good years together. It might not have been a typical childhood, but I have plenty of happy memories. Then when I was in fifth or sixth grade they started fighting. Mom was fed up with Dad’s mood swings. He’d check out for days at a time and lock himself in their room, and then he’d reappear and be fine. I realize now it was typical manic-depressive behavior. He couldn’t keep a job. He went off his medication. Mom had enough. She gave him an ultimatum. Go to therapy and get back on his medication or she was done. He tried, but he couldn’t do it. She divorced him. That sent him into a tailspin. He never recovered. He slipped deeper into his own imaginary world. When I moved to Ashland I brought him with me in hopes that maybe a change of scenery would help. It didn’t. He’s been on the streets ever since.”
“Laney, thank you for trusting me with this.” I tilted my head from the sun to meet her eyes. “It must have been so hard to take care of your dad like that.”
Her lips trembled, threatening more tears. “It was hard. It’s been a routine for so long now that I kind of forget he was never normal—whatever normal is. I kept an eye out for him. I fed him every day. Things are tight at Nana’s. You don’t open a food truck to make millions, but winter sales were slow. Painfully slow. I wasn’t sure I was going to survive. I didn’t have much to give him in terms of money, but at least I could feed him. We maintained a relationship of sorts. It was a role reversal. I felt like I was the parent. I was worried about him, but Ashland is so safe, and like you said, the community really loved him.” She broke down.
I let her cry, holding the space for her.
Her eyes were puffy and swollen. She massaged her temples. “I can’t believe he’s dead. It feels so surreal. Who would have killed him, Jules? He was sick. He wasn’t a criminal.”
“I know.” Laney’s revelation made me even more resolved to bring the Wizard’s killer to justice. “What was his real name? The police need to know so they can pull records. Maybe someone he interacted with in the street community was dangerous?”
“That could be.” She smoothed her apron with her hands. “His name was Jim. Jim Lee.”
I made a mental note, although I was sure that Laney would share this information with Thomas. “There’s another possibility,” I said, thinking about my interaction with Sky. “Do you think he could have witnessed a crime that put him in danger? Maybe he saw something on the tracks.”
“Who knows? Half of what my dad said didn’t make sense. The last few years he’s slipped deeper into his own universe, but it’s definitely a possibility. He was often mumbling about ‘trouble’ on the tracks, but I blew it off. I thought it was him getting looped into one of his manic fantasies. Most of the time I was never sure if he was in this world or off in some other universe in his mind. What if I was wrong? I should have paid more attention to him. If I had, maybe he would still be alive.”
“Laney, you can’t blame yourself. This is not your fault. Whoever killed your father is responsible—not you.”
“Maybe. It was so hard to believe what was real and what wasn’t. I think I’m going to second-guess myself forever now.” She blinked back tears again. “Sky tried to warn me. He stopped by the food truck and told me that he was worried about Dad.”
“Did he know that the Wizard was your father?”
“Yeah. Sky was his only friend. I should have listened to him. He told me that Dad was really worked up. I blew him off. I told him that it was part of Dad’s pattern. He would do that. He would go through stretches where he basically was a different person and then he’d come back to earth for a while. I’d lived with it my entire life and just assumed that Sky wasn’t used to Dad’s swings.”
Hopefully, Thomas had found Sky. I kicked myself for not following after him. He might be the one person who knew who had killed the Wizard—Jim.
I shifted the conversation. “Laney, one of my staff overheard you say something to your dad about turning him in. Do you know, was he involved in dealing?”
“Drugs?” She recoiled at the suggestion. “No. Never. Not Dad. He wouldn’t have been involved in drug dealing. That was taken out of context. I told him I was going to turn him in for a wellness check. I wanted him to get help. I was worried that things were escalating with him and some of the other business owners in the Railroad District.”
Laney’s concrete samples had melted in the cups. She stood and tossed them in a nearby garbage can. “I should check on the food truck.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
We returned on the bike path. A couple of travelers (as Ashland’s roving hippie population was known) strummed guitars at the entrance to the park. Their unkempt hair, stringy beards, and cardboard sign that said TRADED EVERYTHING FOR LOVE was a dead giveaway that they were part of the migratory youthful tribe that tended to travel up
and down the West Coast in converted school buses. Unlike the Wizard or Sky, travelers were homeless by choice. Many of them spent the spring and summer months in Ashland, busking on the plaza and camping in the parks. They could work, but opted for an alternative lifestyle instead.
There had been many discussions at city council meetings about how to deal with the booming population of trust-fund hippies in the summer. I had learned to ignore their pleas for cash or leftovers, but many tourists were put off by their constant begging and the scent of pot that tended to envelop them.
“Woah,” Laney exhaled and waved her hands across her face. “They’ve been partaking.”
“Yeah.” We picked up our pace to get past the overwhelming smell. I thought about what Andy had said about seeing what looked like a drug deal go down between Dean and Addie. “Do you know anything about drug dealing in this area?”
Laney gave me a strange look. “Why? Are you interested?”
“No. That’s not my scene. I had heard a rumor about dealing on the tracks.”
“Could be.” Laney considered it for a moment. “It’s legal in Oregon now, so it’s hard to know for sure who’s smoking legally. I mean, as I’m sure you know, pot can only be sold by a state licensed dispensary and smoked in private residences. You wouldn’t know that around this area most days. It often lingers in the air, especially from the travelers, but I wouldn’t put it past Lars and his skater friends. They’re never up to any good.”
As we walked toward Namaste I drank in the pastoral views of town. Houses were tucked into the forested hillsides that nestled in the plaza. The Siskiyou Mountains branched out as far as the eye could see.
Laney stopped mid-stride, gasped, and threw her hand over her mouth.
“What?”
She pointed to the end of the alleyway where someone in a long, dark cape that resembled the Wizard’s made a sharp turn on their bike and sped away.
“Did you see that?” Laney clutched my arm.
“Yeah.” I blinked twice as if my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Chilled to the Cone Page 13
