Triple Toil and Trouble

by Constance Barker

  Triple Toil and Trouble

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2019 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Thanks for Reading

  Catalog of Books

  Chapter 1

  "HEATHER TREMAIN, THE school resource officer, is regularly checking the usual hangouts. No reports on our favorite at-risks,” Danielle Park, Children’s Services director, snagged a glazed donut from the box. “But kids, as dumb as they are, aren’t dumb. If they want to get into trouble, they’ll find it.”

  “I’ve got eyes on the PDF,” Quinn said. The Pennsylvania Dairy Farmers’ Co-Op ran an ice cream stand across from her Grams’ business, and about a hundred yards from her house. It was a popular hangout for teens, being remote and, well, ice cream.

  Rae Devon, her immediate supervisor and good friend, chuckled. “I’ll take the Dairy Queen.”

  “It would be good to keep the mall, Washington Park, and the Tops parking lot under light surveillance.”

  Quinn shook her head. “The kids don’t hang out there anymore, not since that awful shootout.” Even if she hadn’t been in town when it happened, the scar tissue of the event remained.

  During summer vacation, priorities shifted for Quinn’s branch of Social Services. Instead of school-based issues, they needed to keep tabs on the at-risk clients. It was a tough job. Most of the parents of these kids let them run wild. But of course, bad parenting was the root of the problem.

  “She’s right. But I see a lot of beat-up trucks parked in the lot behind Family Video,” Rae said.

  Dr. Park squinted at her. “People still rent videos?”

  Quinn smiled. “I was away for a while. Hadn’t rented a video in years. But somehow, it’s kind of pleasant, renting movies. A little nostalgic, maybe, getting to read the back of the DVD box.”

  “Not a lot of access to fast food like the Tops parking lot, but there’s a Country Fair about two blocks away. Prime teen hangout zone,” Rae said. “I’ve got my contacts at the Y and the municipal pool. You still talk to that campground host at Chapman Dam?”

  Quinn nodded. “The lake is closed during the drawdown and dam repair, but she’s got her eyes open for unattended juvenile campers.”

  “Okay, then. We’ve got our hangouts covered, let’s be proactive with the families, and we should have a boring summer.” Danielle stood, ending the meeting. “Right?”

  “Sure,” Rae dragged out.

  They filed back to their offices. Rae juggled her briefcase, coffee and donut. “Hey, you free for lunch, Quinn?”

  “I have a bunch of home visits I need to schedule. Can I let you know later?” The door to her office stood shut. Quinn usually left it open.

  “Don’t take too long. I’m thinking Draft House.”

  “Oo.” Quinn smiled over her shoulder and pushed open her door. “That sounds—”

  Her foot squished and crunched on soft ground, making her whirl around. A dense but chill breeze struck her face as she found herself in a primeval forest. She moved to retreat. Behind her, the doorway hung in midair. The office flashed and pulsed with neon lightning strikes, shadows darting back and forth.

  “That’s it, keep one foot in your reality, the other lets you speak with me.”

  Her Uncle Nick stepped from the dense foliage, tipping his woven straw Gucci hat at her. He wore a pastel yellow linen suit with shoulder pads over a pink pastel button-down and loafers without socks. He gave her a hug made awkward by the fact that she straddled two realities. Like her mother, Uncle Nick lived in the Twih, another dimension, a separate reality, a different world.

  “If you took but one more step out on the forest loam, I’d have to summon a guardian to return you back home.”

  People in the Twih spoke in rhyme. It was often hard to follow. But Quinn understood the guardian to be Leshy, a half-man, half-goat creature with the expected disposition. The smelly monster had been hitting on Quinn since their first meeting, before she discovered she was a witch. She had no urge to see him again. But if Uncle Nick was visiting her at work...

  “Mom’s okay? Does she need our help?”

  “Trinity is recovering from her... accidental stay. When she’ll fully recover, I really can’t say. However, you and I need to have a serious talk, and, in order to do that—” Nick dug something out of his jacket pocket and handed over a heavy purple rectangle. “—I gift you this Walkman.”

  It was not a Sony Walkman, but a cheaper knock-off in mauve plastic. Balancing to keep one foot in her reality, she bent down and set her coffee cup on the forest floor. Clipping the device to her belt, she slipped the headphones over her ears.

  “Push the play button and the translator will cut in.”

  She pressed play, heard a hiss. Quinn gave Nick an expectant look.

  “I want partial custody of my daughter.”

  Quinn reeled, partly because Nick didn’t rhyme, but mostly because he was asking the impossible. “But... you’re an other-dimensional witch, Nick. Can you even exist in Zuri’s world long enough to take care of her?”

  “Living in your dimension is my concern. The fact is, in thirteen months, Cora will give birth to twins. The three sisters will be like you and your sisters, identical, though in Zuri’s case, two of her triplet sisters will be born eleven years after her. I must be at hand to teach them the ways of the Twih. Your mother was too weak to do it for you, Harvest and Echo. It has nearly led to disaster.”

  “Yeah, thanks. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, Nick, but Cora kinda hates your guts. She’s not too keen on Harvest, Echo and me, either. Why do you think the two of you are going to have two more children?”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “You and your linear temporal thinking! C’mon, Quinn, you have two identical siblings, born five and ten years after you. This is already a thing, has always been a thing. It’s so hard to speak about the time flow in your mundane world.”

  “Well, there are a lot of issues to address first. You need an identity, a reportable income, an address. And that’s just for starters.”

  “Not insurmountable. How do I obtain custody? Will I be denied because of my necessary absence?”

  Quinn shrugged. “You’re the father. It might take a DNA test to prove it. But you’ve got rights.”

  “Just what I wanted to hear. Take care of this for me, dear niece.” He smiled and donned the designer hat.

  “There are other issues, ten years of child support payments for starters, and making up some kind of history for yourself...” Quinn found herself back in her office, talking to no one. Madonna’s �
��Lucky Star” played on the knock-off Walkman. Could she help Uncle Nick get custody of her cousin, Zuri? Should she?

  “YOU’VE GOT EXCELLENT references, Harvest.” Warren County District Attorney Alfred Mudge sat at his desk across from her, paging through her resume. “Lots of law enforcement training. But I need a seasoned investigator for this job.”

  The election for State Constable loomed on the horizon. Harvest had won the last one, but only because she ran unopposed. The lower court judge Lori Bower appointed her to the position after the former constable died of a heart attack. The constable was Frank Bettencourt, father of her friend Heather. He’d deputized her and Heather to help run the polls for the day. At the time, it was an easy way to make a few bucks while she was in college. Five years later, she was still constable of Elk Township, PA. In essence, constable was kind of like a free lance position, making it a lot of work. She had to pay for her uniforms, vehicle, twenty hours of training a year. Harvest thought it was time for a change.

  “I see from the state police investigations commander that you have brought forth a number of leads that were instrumental in solving several cases. That’s all well and good, but this office takes cases to trial. I need more than leads.” Mudge did a lot of arm-folding and chin-jutting. He needed to posture in order to make up for his youth, Harvest intuited. He was the youngest DA ever elected in the county.

  Holding her down with a hazel-eyed glance, he brought his fingertips together. Harvest thought he was going to dismiss her. This sucked. Harvest thought she’d be a great investigator for the DA’s office. What sucked even more was that the “number of leads that were instrumental in solving several cases” were actually her solving the cases in question. But given that the crimes were committed by magical beings, it wasn’t something you boasted about. Not unless you were looking to be committed to the state hospital.

  “Here’s what I propose: a cold case.”

  Harvest sat a little straighter. “Sir?”

  He tapped his fingers together as if in decision; then pushed a file toward her. “I guess you could call it my pet case. It remains on the books as a missing person case, although it may be an undiscovered homicide. It’s from 1965.”

  She sagged back into her seat. If fifty-some years of investigations hadn’t found anything, would she fare any better? “A long time ago.”

  “Mm. The man in question had a wife and child. He was a neuropsychologist working at the state hospital. Then one day he lost his position, perhaps his whole career, and soon after, he vanished without a trace.”

  Harvest considered his words. “Perhaps he wanted to start a new life. If he disappeared on purpose, we may never know what happened to him.”

  “Well that would be unfortunate for you. The proposition is simple. Find me some new angle on this case and you’re hired. Fail to do so, well—” He tapped the edges of her resume together and sat them atop a tall stack. Apparently, DA investigator was a more coveted job than she imagined.

  Harvest opened the folder and nearly cried out. The name of the missing person was “Alan McGooby?”

  Mudge smiled grimly. “My grandfather. He either left my grandmother and mother high and dry to seek out a new life somewhere, or something bad happened to him. Either way, I want to know what happened.”

  Alan McGooby was the human name of a half-goat, half-man monster Harvest and her sisters called Leshy. He was the guardian of the portal between this world, and the unfathomable world known as the Twih. Harvest already had the answer. McGooby hadn’t left his family for greener pastures, nor had he been murdered. Instead, he had been cursed to roam the border of the Twih as a woolly, large-horned monster.

  Somehow, she didn’t think the DA would buy it.

  “Let me dig into this.”

  “The local cops have the files. They’ll be happy to hand them over. I hound the department a few times a month about this case.” Mudge smiled, suddenly appearing his age, and held out his hand. “Good luck to you, Harvest Hutchinson.”

  Chapter 2

  “YOO-HOO, ECHO, HELLO?”

  Echo stood in the shop holding an empty pot over a filtered bucket. She blinked and faced Gramma Em.

  “You okay?” Gramma had a second batch of wax boiled and ready for filtering.

  In the corner, Aunt Mary chuckled. “She’s sick.”

  “You’re not feeling good, Squirt?”

  Echo’s brow wrinkled. “I’m fine.”

  “Love sick,” Mary smiled.

  Gramma frowned an “Indeed?” at her. “Who’s the lucky fella?”

  Bees soared through the air of the Chandlery’s workshop, hovering around Mary’s work. Gramma and Aunt Mary, collectively known as the Grams, were processing wax from the south field hives. Mary banged a yellow cake from another bucket, examining the brown gunk at the bottom. “You’re after the slumgum, aren’t you girls?” She asked the bees.

  “There isn’t one,” Echo said.

  The Grams shrugged at each other. “Lucky girl?”

  Echo felt her face aflame even in the hot workshop. “It’s just this guy in my scuba class. He works part time in the dive shop uptown.”

  “Do tell,” Gramma said.

  “Go on,” Mary said at the same time.

  She set the pot on a rack and took the one from Gramma Em. “Well, he’s training to be a paramedic.”

  “Oo. That’s hot,” Mary said.

  “Then he’s going to apply to the fire department.”

  “That’s white hot,” Gramma said. “A scuba diving paramedic fireman. What’s his name?”

  “Ryker Novak.”

  “Smokin’!” Mary fanned herself.

  “Well, don’t get too worked up. He’s not my boyfriend or anything. But he’s really nice to me, and he’s so, so...”

  “Awesome possum?” Gramma asked.

  Mary stuck out her lower lip. “All that and a bag of Takis Fuego?”

  Echo couldn’t hold their eyes. “Well, the fuego part.” She suppressed a giggle.

  The Grams didn’t.

  “Well, you know what this means. We’ll have to hit the Bon-Ton and get you a sexy bikini,” Mary said.

  “A one-piece would be just fine,” Gramma groused. “Echo’s got a nice shape. Showing extra skin would just be trashy.”

  “I say bring on the trash,” Mary crowed, “and let’s land this hunka-hunka burning fireman.”

  Echo snorted. “Cut it out, guys. The first free dive is going to be on the reservoir. We’ll probably be wearing winter clothes and dry suits. The water’s still freezing.”

  “Well you’re not going to catch a man wearing your old Warren Dragons Swim Team bathing suit,” Mary said. “Let’s get this wax filtered and hit the mall.”

  “TOO BAD YOU MISSED lunch. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Quinn spun to see Rae with her jacket on, briefcase in hand. A few moments in the Twih, and her whole day was shot. “Sorry, I got a little wrapped up.”

  “No biggie. Have a good night, Quinn.”

  Damn. She checked the clock on her computer. There was just enough time to sneak in a call to the attorney who most frequently worked with Human Services. Deana Smelty was in her office.

  “I got a dead-beat dad who wants partial custody. He’s been absent from the family’s life but now he’s had a change of heart. Can anything prevent him from getting custody?”

  “Well, if the mother doesn’t want the father in her child’s life, she might be able to prove willful abandonment. That’s a tough road, though,” Deana said. “Fathers, even a-hole, dead-beat dads, have rights. As you know, we do what’s right for the child. Even if there are serious issues, he would still be allowed monitored visitation. From there the case would move forward. There isn’t much you can do to stop the process.”

  Which is what Quinn figured. “Conversely, is there any way the father might ingratiate himself to the court? What if he paid his overdue child support, for instance.”

  “That’s a se
parate matter. It might impress upon the court that the father is serious, but in the end, it would have no bearing. He can’t just buy his kid after so long,” Deana said. “What the court would like to see is a relationship between father and child. Is he involved in the schooling, in the extracurricular, does he have a nice place for the child when in his custody, and most importantly, is there reciprocation in the relationship, is there a plan going forward.”

  Going forward did not seem to be a phrase in Uncle Nick’s lexicon. You and your linear temporal thinking! “Thanks, Deana, this has been really helpful.”

  “If the man needs a good lawyer, send him my way. As long as it isn’t a conflict of interest.”

  “Will do.” Quinn disconnected with a sigh. Is that what Nick needed? A lawyer? There were a lot of things he needed before that. Quinn had no idea where to start.

  “HAPPY TO HAND ’EM OVER.” Chief Slawinski smirked and rolled a dolly out of the property room. Harvest frowned as she saw three dusty file boxes, a couple looking ready to burst.

  “That much evidence, and you never found the guy?”

  “You ask me, the guy didn’t wanna be found,” Slawinski said. “That, plus the guy was probably crazy.”

  They walked side-by-side back toward the front doors. “You’ve read them?”

  “Of course. When I first made detective, then years later when I was appointed chief. Is Mudge accusing the Warren PD of being slackers?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  Out in the sun, the chief stopped, crossing his arms on top of the dolly. “I won’t prejudice your reading of the files. I’ve reached my conclusion. This department has reached its conclusion. But without any hard evidence, this is still an open case. It’s an irregularity to hand the files over to you, but frankly, I’m sick of Mudge’s calls. I am curious about why he’d ask a constable of all people to look into it.”

  “I’m not sure if I should say.”

  “It’s that investigator’s job, right? He must hold you in pretty high regard. We didn’t get a call about giving the files to anyone else.” Slawinski’s eyes narrowed, taking her measure. “The staties like you, Sgt. Oberon at the local barracks and Shafer, up in Erie.”