The Minstrel & The Campaign

by Lila K Bell

  “That’s all well and good, Mr. Kingslake, but I made a promise, and I mean to keep it. If you don’t want to give me any hints, I’m going to have to do this the hard way.”

  He raised his shoulder in a resigned shrug. “You do what you have to do.”

  6

  I left the police station without any sense of where I should head next.

  The last two times I’d done this, I’d had a sense of what my first steps should be, and both those times I hadn’t had anyone related to the case to talk to.

  This time, the very person who might have the answer at his fingertips — whether he knew it or not — wasn’t saying boo.

  The desire to turn around, march back into the jail and give John Kingslake a good shake was tempting, but even if I rattled his grey matter, I doubted he’d change his answer.

  He didn’t want to get anyone into trouble.

  What a Boy Scout.

  I wondered if he’d made a good mayor with all that deeply ingrained integrity.

  No matter his stance, however, I wasn’t going to let his stubbornness and faith in the justice system prevent me from keeping my promise. If he didn’t want to help me out and give me a lead, I would have to figure things out on my own.

  “If I were a clue from twenty-five years ago, where would I be?” I asked aloud as I headed back to Mercy.

  Twenty-five years might not be a large gap of time as far as big events go, but I had trouble remembering details from five years ago, let alone two and a half decades.

  Supposing I’d been alive then, which would have been a close shave.

  Gramps would have told me all he remembered, so it would be pointless to talk to him again yet. So what other resources did I have?

  I settled into Mercy’s front seat and tapped my fingers against the steering wheel.

  The library? They would have articles and what not from the time, which could be helpful, but it was also possible information from that long ago would have been archived by now, and I wasn’t sure where those documents would be kept.

  “Oh!”

  I slammed my palm on the dashboard and drummed out a contented beat.

  Who better to ask than the woman who’d spearheaded the Brookside Historical Conservation Assembly? The woman who’d wrapped her arms so tightly around the presidency of the Brookside Historical Society that my mother would probably never stand a chance of getting it?

  Humming a cheerful tune, I slid the car into drive and headed to the history museum where Susan Featherby, manager of the information centre, held court.

  It was early enough in the day that the museum was close to empty. Not that it was ever overly crowded. A lot of school trips and seniors looking to take a walk and wax nostalgic over their youth, with the occasional tourist sauntering in to get an idea of the area. But the dioramas were something to behold and often brought young children in on a rainy afternoon looking to peer into the houses and imagine the stories sauntering through the tiny streets. I, myself, was known to spend quite a few hours appreciating all the details that had been included in Brookside’s evolution through the decades.

  Susan sat behind the information desk. There were no pamphlets for me to offer to arrange for her today, but unlike the last time I’d wheedled information out of her, I didn’t feel I needed a pretense. I was here for my grandfather, a perfectly serviceable excuse.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Featherby,” I said, coming up to the desk with a smile.

  The smile was more for her sake than mine. She was one of those people who refused to deal with anyone who didn’t at least feign the appropriate public civilities expected toward someone of her status in town.

  One day I would speak to her the way I wanted to. The shock on her face would be worth the consequences.

  “Fiona, good morning. How are you today?” Her voice was light and lilting, a sharp contrast to her short, stocky frame. Her blonde hair, heavily streaked with silver, was pulled back into a tucked French braid. Her glasses hung on a chain of bright purple beads, which complimented her light pink cardigan and white blouse.

  The only evidence that she wasn’t her usual bubbly self was the slight redness around her eyes that she’d mostly covered with a stylish cat-eye of eyeliner.

  “I’m doing well, thank you,” I said. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Are you here to sign up for a place in the Historical Society? A few weeks ago you mentioned you were interested and I never heard back.”

  Oh. Right. I might have mentioned something along those lines as a way to get information out of her, but the five hundred-dollar price tag and twice-a-week commitment had been enough to put me off any serious consideration.

  “Unfortunately the meeting dates clash with my pilates class,” I said, voice full of regret.

  “Surely you could move your classes? It’s not like you have a job keeping you busy during the day. Unless you have more funerals to crash?”

  Ouch.

  My smile threatened to slip, but I held it firmly in place.

  Why was it the people who demanded respect were never the ones to offer it themselves?

  Instead of responding to the insinuation of my laziness, I said, “Actually, I’m here to speak with you about the disappearance of Amelia Wright. I thought you might remember a few things or know where I could find more information about what happened back then.”

  Now, normally when a person asks Susan Featherby for information, she jumps up and rushes off a millions words a minute to fill you in on everything she knows. It’s the benefit of having a know-it-all working at a local history museum. Not to mention, she rivals my mother for Town’s Biggest Gossip.

  The challenge is often to get her to stay on topic and, of course, stop talking.

  Today, however, she shut down. Her feigned smile disappeared, her cheeks went slack, and her lower lip wobbled.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  It took me a moment to catch my balance.

  “What about old newspapers from the time? Or anyone who might have been close enough to the situation to remember?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, dropping her gaze to the paperwork on the desk. “I don’t even want to think about it.” Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away before they could fall. “Amelia was a very good friend of mine, and I’ve spent the last twenty-five years wondering what happened to her. To find out that she — that someone —”

  She shook her head and shuffled her papers, then set them on the corner of her desk, then moved them to the middle, then finally tucked them in a drawer and set to work organizing her pens.

  A genuine emotional reaction had been at the bottom of my expectations, but watching Susan Featherby fight her grief was a wake-up call. For me, the case was distant. I didn’t know Amelia, didn’t know her family, and had no idea any of this had happened. For the people around at the time, however, this news would no doubt stir up all kinds of memories.

  It wasn’t a historical murder we were dealing with here.

  Yes, Amelia had been unearthed, but she wasn’t a skeleton at a dig site with millenia to wash her secrets away. This was a woman whose friends and family could still be alive, having suffered for years not knowing where she’d gone.

  This had occurred to me while speaking with John, but he’d been arrested for her murder.

  To see the reaction from Susan was a real eye-opener, and I made a note to tread more cautiously in the future. I didn’t want to traumatize anyone while searching for the truth.

  If anything, I wanted to help them find closure.

  With some real answers.

  “My sympathies,” I said, and plucked a tissue out of the box to hand it to her.

  She accepted it and dabbed at her eyes, careful not to smear her makeup.

  “I’ve heard John Kingslake has been arrested,” I said, and stepped backward at the vehemence with which Susan
slapped her hands down on her desk.

  “No,” she said. “It’s absolute rubbish. I don’t know what Angela Curtis is thinking, keeping that man behind bars, but he could not have done anything to hurt Amelia. He adored her, and she loved him. They were happy together. Anyone who knew their relationship knew that. To even think that he would do something — no, I won’t believe it. I’m tempted to have a word with Angela’s mother. Maybe Isobel can talk some sense into her.”

  From everything I’d heard of Isobel Grant, if Susan did manage to convince her that Angela had made a mistake, she wouldn’t rest until she’d changed her daughter’s mind and that of anyone else who believed otherwise. She was a stubborn woman with a spine of steel.

  She was also Gramps’s high school sweetheart.

  “John isn’t saying anything in his defense,” I said. “Other than denying that he killed her, he’s not giving the police any leads. I don’t suppose you…”

  Susan huffed. “Oh, if the police are looking for someone to point the finger at, they should start with Veronica Moore, the little hussy. She was John’s general secretary, the woman responsible for answering campaign questions, office management, that sort of thing. Amelia was his personal secretary, you see, and a league above Veronica.” She leaned forward across the desk, her tissue clasped in her hand. “The conniving witch had a thing for John, and she didn’t like leaving them alone. You can bet on it — if John and Amelia were at City Hall that night, Veronica was there too, and I wouldn’t put it past her to have gotten Amelia out of the way.”

  7

  Getting Susan angry about Veronica Moore turned out to be exactly the medicine she needed. As soon as her accusation was out in the air, she rose from her desk and bustled about the information centre, organizing everything she’d probably organized a hundred times already this week.

  I took her distraction as my cue to leave and walked out with some extra kick in my step. Finally, I had a name and a possible other suspect.

  Did the police know about Veronica’s motive? It wasn’t a great one and there was no proof, but it was something. And wasn’t that all they needed to at least take a look in another direction?

  I debated bringing the tidbit to Sam, but opted against it. At this point it was nothing more than the ravings of a heartbroken woman who was still angry on her friend’s behalf twenty-five years later. The most I’d get was a pat on the head for being so naive and a lecture on why I should walk away and leave this alone.

  First I would speak with Veronica and see what kind of a vibe I picked up from her. Then I would talk to Sam.

  Maybe.

  Maybe I would send him an anonymous note. Something he couldn’t trace back to me. It would be better for everyone involved.

  But if I wanted to speak with Veronica, first I had to find her. I kicked myself for not asking Susan where this conniving witch worked now than John was no longer mayor, but I didn’t think going back in and asking would be the way to go.

  Thankfully the internet was at my fingertips to provide all the information I needed.

  A quick search for Veronica Moore, Brookside, Ontario informed me that she ran an after-hours nail and makeup salon out of her home, but that during the day she was the owner of Beauty Tips, a salon that focused on makeovers, “a necessary touch to make your wedding perfect, your photo shoots shine, and your everyday look put your rival in the shade.”

  Lovely sentiment.

  Hopefully Veronica wasn’t using her own experience as a launching point. If Susan was right about her interest in John, then it wasn’t a great endorsement that she’d never succeeded in outshining her rival.

  Unless her strategy involved burying Amelia under the City Hall courtyard.

  I locked the car and stepped into the salon.

  In all my years, I’d never been here. Despite its high customer rating, it was still only the second-best salon in town. Antonio’s remained at the top, so that was where my mother insisted we go for touch-ups or special occasions.

  Which was a shame, really, because I appreciated the understated elegance of Beauty Tips. The windows were large and let in the softness of the north-facing light. Plants huddled on every surface and in every corner. Instead of the fountain in the middle of Antonio’s, there was a latte machine; instead of the black leather sofas, there were deep armchairs with footrests, letting freshly painted toes air without worrying about someone decking them with purses or shoes.

  Motivational slogans were stamped across the walls in fun script, tea candles burned in little frame-created nooks, and all the chairs faced into the room so clients could chat amongst themselves while getting the star treatment.

  It was comfortable, cozy, and I almost found myself hoping Veronica wasn’t the murderer, because it would be a shame to see this place close.

  “Excuse me,” I said, approaching the counter. “Is Veronica in today?”

  I had no planned story to use as an excuse to see her, but past experience had taught me I was pretty good at winging it.

  When it didn’t get me into trouble.

  The girl behind the desk looked up at me with a bright smile. Her eyeshadow, though a bit overdone, was a beautiful cascade of blues. I envied her patience and dedication in making herself up like that every day. Me, I considered myself dressy if I put on eyeliner. Give me mascara and a gloss and I was usually happy.

  “Are you here to get your makeup done?” she asked.

  “If she has an appointment available,” I said, matching her cheerful tone. “I have a last-minute event this evening, and I’d love to walk in looking my best.”

  “Of course,” she said, and looked down at her book. “She’s free in ten minutes, if you want to wait.”

  I booked myself in and got comfy in one of the armchairs. Though the latte machine tempted me, I ignored its call. The last thing I needed was a rush of caffeine when I had to keep my thoughts together.

  I browsed through a magazine while I waited, and before the full ten minutes had passed, I was called by a woman whose makeup was right out of a fifties magazine.

  On most people it might have come off as a bit much, but on Veronica Moore it was perfect. Her hair was cut into a chin-length bob, the layers thick and full, white at the roots, turning to grey, and ending black at the tips in a stunning monochrome ombre.

  Think Bette Davis meets Vivien Leigh. That kind of class and glamour. The shape and turn to the eye and mouth that gave you all the advance warning that if you said or did something stupid, you would get the full wrath of the temper behind the beauty.

  I tried to picture her twenty-five years ago and could easily believe Amelia had had some competition for John’s affections.

  “Hi, I’m Veronica,” she said, extending her exquisitely manicured hand. “Is this your first time here?”

  “It is,” I said, “but I’ve heard so many good things about you that I’ve wanted to come in for ages. I’m glad I finally have the opportunity.”

  “Come this way and we’ll get you set up. Tiffany mentioned it was for an event?”

  I glanced at the woman behind the desk, who flashed me one of her bright smiles.

  Yep, the customer service here was on point.

  I settled in a chair and Veronica wheeled another one over to me. In her hand was a book of colour palettes, which she proceeded to hold up next to my face, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  This was a woman who knew her business and took it seriously. I just had to hope she was as serious about her gossip.

  “These jewel tones you’re wearing don’t do anything for you. With your colouring, pastels would really bring out the shade of blue in your eyes and the highlights in your hair. Natural?”

  “Yep,” I said, awkwardly shifting in my chair. I hated makeovers. I wear what I like to wear and paying someone to pass judgement on me was never something I enjoyed. I got enough of that for free from my mother.

  Think of John, I said to myself.

  The pai
n now would be worth getting him out of jail.

  Think of how much he’ll owe you.

  “Did you want to choose your colours for today, or do you trust me to choose for you?”

  My heart stopped, thinking of how badly that could go. But I was here to earn her goodwill and showing her some faith would hopefully give me a good start.

  “I’m in your hands,” I said.

  She grinned and left for a moment to get everything she needed. While she was gone, I ran through my list of questions, ordering them in what I hoped could be introduced into a smooth, natural conversation, and by the time she returned I hoped her answers would be worth whatever she did to my face.

  “Is it always this busy?” I asked.

  “Usually,” she said, “but we have an occasion tomorrow that’s bringing in a lot of last-minute clients. And we’re fully booked tomorrow.”

  Taking a leap, I said, “The funeral’s a sad business, isn’t it.”

  Veronica raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Did you know Amelia?”

  “No,” I said. “But she was a friend of my grandfather’s, and he’s devastated by the news. The talk is all over town.”

  “Close your eyes, please.”

  A brush passed over my face, tracing my hairline and ducking down along the bridge of my nose.

  “Yes,” she said after a moment had passed. “It is sad. I honestly didn’t think we’d ever hear what happened to poor Amelia.”

  I sent out a thank you to the universe. If she’d changed the subject, I wasn’t sure how I would have brought it back around again without attracting notice.

  “I guess that was a big story at the time, her going missing.”

  “It was,” Veronica said, and she took hold of my chin to tilt my face into the light. “We worked together at City Hall. We were working together when she disappeared, in fact.”

  “Oh wow. I can’t imagine how scary that must have been. And you never had any idea where she’d gone?”