by Ada Bell
My first inclination had been right, after all. Whatever happened with the ring was a fluke, or a joke, or a heat-induced hallucination. Time to put this statue down and go watch Neil deGrasse Tyson on YouTube. Science was real, superpowers were not. I should have listened to my gut in the first place, walked out of here, and never come back.
Except, that wasn’t what my gut said. That’s what my head told me. And science didn’t have explanations for absolutely everything.
“I should go,” I said.
“I know you’re disappointed, dear, but this is all very new. It takes time.”
“How much time? Where’s the instruction manual?”
Olive shook her head. “I don’t think the gift works like that.”
“So how does it work?” The obvious answer, of course, was that it didn’t. I was just a normal girl who did normal things like getting a job and helping my brother. Touching this statue wouldn’t tell me any more than licking a lamppost.
“I don’t know.” Olive put her hands on her hips, tilting her head at me. “Maybe you need to believe in your gift for it to work.”
“I didn’t believe in it yesterday, and I’ve had two visions since I met you.”
“Fair enough, but those came to you. You didn’t call them up.”
Great. Okay. I could do this. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to believe that this tiny pewter goddess was about to tell me something.
Behind my closed eyes, I saw an image of my biology degree, still in the envelope it had been mailed in. Unframed, in a box somewhere in Kevin’s attic. Sometimes my subconscious mind was such a jerk. I wondered if Olive was recording this, catching my expressions. My nose itched. The patchouli and rose scents hung heavily in the air today.
A man is dead, a voice said inside my head. Try harder.
I wanted answers, really, but I had no idea what to do. I scrunched my nose a few times. I forced myself to picture Earl the last time I saw him, tearing off in his shiny red sports car. But I didn’t get any feelings at all from the statue. Zip. Zilch. Maybe the tiniest sheen of frustration, but that could be coming from me as much as Earl’s spirit or the figurine or whatever.
Somewhere in the store, an antique clock ticked off the seconds, growing louder and louder until it reverberated through my entire body. Tick tock. I couldn’t hear anything else. Tick tock. I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. Tick Tock. This wasn’t helping. If I stayed like this, I would lose my mind.
With a frustrated sigh, I opened my eyes. Instantly, the ticking clock receded as Olive’s face came into focus. “I’m sorry, I just don’t see anything.”
She sighed and took the statuette back. “It’s okay. You only discovered this gift yesterday. It can take time to figure out how everything works. Maybe your power isn’t what we think, or maybe it’ll grow stronger the more you use it. You should gain control at some point, learn how to turn it on and off. The only thing that’s certain is that it’s not working now. We can try again another time.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Now?” She gestured around the room. “I’m going in the back to take a break, make some tea. I’ll be back in half an hour or so. Call if you need anything.”
As soon as Olive returned, I told her that I’d be taking my break and I would see her in twenty minutes or so. Then I left Missing Pieces and turned right, toward the hottest spot in town for hearing gossip and getting information.
It made sense to start my fact-finding mission at On What Grounds? because, well, coffee. No one could be expected to solve a murder without a good dose of caffeine. Usually the shop was a bustling hive of activity, and today was no different. Julie managed the line with ease, laughing and chatting to each customer without making those who waited impatient. She was a pretty, blue-eyed blonde who probably fell somewhere between my age and Kevin’s. She couldn’t have been a lawyer long before moving here. Not that it was any of my business. I hadn’t even finished college yet.
To Julie’s left, Rusty manned the espresso machine as usual. Red rimmed his eyes, an old baseball cap covered his hair, and a couple of times, he swayed when moving cups to the pick-up counter. The guy looked on the verge of collapse.
While I stood in line, snippets of conversation buzzed around me. Not surprisingly, everyone was talking about Earl. In the middle of the room, Thelma sobbed into a giant handkerchief. She was widely known as the town gossip, which meant that someone as uninteresting as me rarely came into her orbit. We’d met once or twice. She wore such heavy makeup I couldn’t even be sure of her skin tone, but her face didn’t move when she sobbed. She had sharp hazel eyes and gorgeous auburn hair. She was younger than I would have thought. From what everyone said, she’d been living in this town for so long, I figured she’d be closer to my great-grandma’s age. But now that I really looked, she appeared to be in her late 50s or early 60s. Around the same age as Earl.
Was she the one he intended to use the statuette on? Maybe she’d rebuffed his advances, one thing led to another, and she’d hit him to get away. They would’ve been in the kitchen, surrounded by pots and pans…No, wait. Kevin said they were “practically engaged.” Did Thelma know he’d bought a love goddess?
“Hey,” Julie said when I got to the front of the line. “How you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Why?”
“It’s just that the town is pretty shaken up since, well…” She nodded to where Thelma loudly blew her nose. The handkerchief fluttered from the force. I made a note not to sit beside her. “…you know.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine. I only met Earl once.” It seemed prudent not to detail the circumstances of that meeting if she didn’t already know. Although I suspected everyone in Shady Grove was aware that Earl had visited Missing Pieces shortly before his death, she may or may not realize I’d also been there.
“Oh, I thought he and your brother were friends?” Julie asked.
I blinked repeatedly, wondering how she knew that. “I’d say ‘friends’ is a stretch. They were in the same bowling league. As far as I know, they didn’t see each other outside of that. Kevin doesn’t get out much.”
“Yeah, raising a kid alone must be tough.” She flushed. “I mean, obviously, you’re helping. I just meant, he must be lonely. Having your sister around isn’t the same as a spouse.”
“We take care of each other,” I said evenly, wondering at her interest. Kevin had never mentioned Julie, but he must know her. Not only did he know everyone, but the man loved his midday cappuccinos. “Listen, did you see anything yesterday? I know he didn’t eat here, but Earl was around Main Street for a couple of hours after lunch.”
She shook her head as she swiped my credit card. “No, nothing. Rusty and I were here all day. Yesterday afternoon was pretty quiet.”
I sighed. I hadn’t expected her to know anything, but other than talking to Thelma, I didn’t have any leads. Investigating a murder was way more difficult than it looked on TV. “Thanks. Let me know if you hear anything.”
“Sure thing.” Julie nodded toward the center table before lowering her voice. “That’s the person you want to talk to. She’s been after Earl to marry her for years. Maybe she finally got tired of chasing, if you know what I mean.”
I leaned forward. The idea of Thelma chasing Earl was news to me. The newspaper made it seem like they were just neighbors, but Kevin had said they were dating seriously. “What do you mean? Weren’t they a couple?”
“Depends on what you mean. They’ve been sleeping together for ages, but Earl didn’t want to commit. She’s telling everyone how serious they were, but most of us know she was the only serious one.”
Hmmm. If Earl didn’t want to commit to Thelma, why the love statue? Was he interested in someone else? If so, maybe Thelma found out about it, and she’s the one who attacked him in a fit of jealous rage.
All of a sudden, I felt less sure about going to question her. But at the same time, we w
ere in a public place. She wasn’t going to give a dramatic confession and then lunge at me like we were on her old show.
Partially to delay the inevitable and partially because he looked terrible, I paused to ask Rusty if everything was okay.
He sniffled. “Didn’t you hear?”
“Yeah. I guess I didn’t—”
“Earl was my favorite uncle.”
“Oh, Rusty. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
He wiped the back of one hand across his eyes and tried to cover it with a shrug. “I’m fine.”
“Right. But if you ever need a friend, I’m just on the other side of that alley.”
Poor guy. Now I wanted to know who killed Earl even more. Sure, I didn’t know Rusty well, but he was a sweet guy. Plus, he’d given me the tip about Olive’s job opening. If finding the answers could bring him some peace, I wanted to help.
With a fortifying sip of latte, I approached Thelma slowly, as if she were a wild bear. Except I would never approach a wild bear, because that’s a terrible idea. Beside her sat a man I’d never seen before. Lean, with a sinewy kind of build, one gold earring, and gorgeous blue eyes. It was hard to tell because he was sitting, but the guy didn’t appear to be much taller than Thelma. At least not taller than her hair. Unlike his companion, this man seemed to be fine with the aging process—he had gray hair, salt and pepper in his bushy eyebrows, and the lines in his face created a roadmap of the decades. I suspected he had lived a fascinating life.
“Hi, Thelma. You don’t know me, but I wanted to see how you’re doing after what happened yesterday. It must have been really traumatic—”
“You! Oh yes, I know who you are.” Despite the righteous indignation in her voice, not a single muscle in her face moved when she spoke. Creepy.
“It’s Aly, actually. Aly Reynolds. My brother Kevin does estate planning and taxes and stuff.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I know everyone in this town. I saw you at Missing Pieces this morning. And as you know, that boss of yours killed my Earl!”
“Now, Thelma, hush. You can’t go around accusing people.” Her companion put one hand on her arm to calm her before turning to me. From the look in his eyes and my earlier conversation with Olive, I had a sneaking suspicion I knew who he was before he spoke. “I’m Benji Turner.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“You, too. What do you need?”
Thelma kicked Benji under the table. She must have thought it was subtle, but the sound of her heel bouncing off the metal table legs along with his yelp of surprise left little to the imagination. Benji shut up, fast.
Thelma spoke through gritted teeth. “We have nothing to say to you.”
Me? What did I do? But before we got to that, I wanted to clarify this woman’s relationship with Earl. “I’m sorry for your loss. Were the two of you close?”
“Close? We’d been courting for a couple of years now. I fully expected him to pop the question at any moment.”
From the way she spoke, I suspected the rumors of her acting in over a hundred love scenes weren’t exaggerated. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Thelma. I didn’t know.”
“How could you? We like to keep things private in my generation, not like you young people posting everything on FaceGram or InstaBird.”
I hid a snort of laughter behind my cup. That was rich, coming from the town gossip. But she was grieving, so I decided to cut her some slack. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“You? Ha! You want to know what happened, go ask Olive! She’s the one who had it out for my darling man.” She paused.
This conversation wasn’t going anywhere. Thelma was far more interested in keeping everyone’s eyes on her than in having a real conversation.
“Again, I’m sorry for your loss. But Olive didn’t kill Earl.” I started to tell her that I intended to find the real killer, but then I realized that, if Thelma was the real killer, I didn’t want her to know I’d be investigating. “The police will figure it out.”
“I am quite confident that they will. Mark my words, your boss is the guilty party.” She sniffled and held the back of her hand to her forehead. “That is all I have to say today. Please go.”
To punctuate her sentence, Thelma let out another theatrical wail and buried her face once more in the giant handkerchief. I didn’t even know they came that big. It was practically a bedsheet.
Benji leaned forward, touched my arm. His hands felt like ice compared to the warmth of the shop. “The lady has asked you to go.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Everyone in the coffee shop was looking at us. When my eyes met Julie’s, she tilted her head ever so slightly toward the exit. Obviously, I wasn’t going to get anything useful out of Thelma, so I might as well leave before Benji escorted me out the door.
It was clear to see who ran Shady Grove. No one else would talk to me with Thelma glaring at me like that. I couldn’t afford to antagonize the woman who not only was closest to the victim, but found his body. Especially when, at the moment, she was my number one suspect.
She had opportunity, being Earl’s next door neighbor and his possibly-serious-possibly-casual girlfriend. Either way, no one would find it odd to see her entering or leaving his house. If what Julie said was true, the fact that Thelma was more serious about the relationship than Earl could give her motive—especially if she found out that he was interested in someone else.
She looked like she was in decent shape. With the right weapon, she definitely had the strength to break someone’s skull. I could do some tests to find out the amount of force required to apply that amount of pressure to the human head. That type of experimenting would keep Kyle entertained for hours. But if would help if I had any idea what the murder weapon was before I wasted an afternoon smashing fruit with random objects.
Things to worry about later. For now, it was time to go. If Thelma refused to talk to me, I’d have to find out how Earl died from someone else.
Unfortunately, I had no idea who.
Chapter 9
The next morning, I headed for town immediately after dropping Kyle at preschool. It was a twenty-minute walk, and I didn’t have to be at Missing Pieces until ten, but I hoped to talk to some other shop owners along Main Street. With most people working or at school, Main Street shouldn’t be busy yet.
It wasn’t a big street. Other than Missing Pieces and Patti’s Diner, we had a magic shop that never seemed to be open, a liquor store, clothing stores that catered to pregnant woman and little kids, and the local bakery, plus a few other assorted businesses.
My feet came to a halt in front of a place I’d passed many times but never paid attention to. I Will Survive was a local self-defense studio, owned and operated by Olive’s wife Maria. I hadn’t met her yet, but we had a mutual interest in keeping my boss out of jail. This could be a good time to drop in and chat. She might have something useful to tell me. Like, did Olive happen to have blood all over her hands when she got home that night?
No. That was ridiculous. I refused to believe she might have been involved. She was at Missing Pieces when I left, and there was no reason to think she would have followed Earl home and murdered him. If she’d been angry enough to kill him after their argument, she would have done it right there in the shop.
From the sidewalk, the front of I Will Survive didn’t look all that different from anyplace else on Main Street. Green wooden shutters placed over the windows were probably intended to provide privacy, but they matched the pleaded wooden doors in a way that gave the place a saloon vibe. Local regulations required name approval by the town council, which is why everyone had those cutesy names that made me roll my eyes, but I secretly loved. The town’s personality might be my favorite thing about Shady Grove.
After a moment’s consideration, I pushed the front door open and entered. The receptionist’s area sat empty, but the door to the studio stood ajar. Since I didn’t see anyon
e around, I moved closer. Two voices carried to my ear through the opening. Maria must be in the middle of a lesson. Since I couldn’t imagine any good reason for interrupting, I used my phone to snap a picture of the contact info posted on the front desk. I’d text her or come back later.
Then I heard something that made me inch closer. A female voice said, “So you’re saying you’re not afraid anymore?”
Having never met Maria, I had no way of knowing if she was the person speaking. Was someone in trouble? Who were they afraid of? Was it Earl? Or maybe the person who killed him?
The responding voice trembled. “No. Everything is fine now.”
“You understand why I’m unconvinced.”
“I do. But it’s over now. I overreacted.” This time, the woman sounded more sure in her response. She seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her.
The woman who I was now pretty sure had to be Maria spoke again. “Okay. Well, I can’t force you to keep taking lessons you don’t want. Call me if you need anything. For now, I’ll cancel your remaining sessions and give you a refund.”
Footsteps echoed across the gym floor, coming nearer my location. I stepped away from the doorway, barely in time to avoid getting run into by Julie from On What Grounds?. With her red-rimmed eyes and puffy nose, she certainly didn’t look fine. In fact, Julie might be the poster girl for “Not Fine.”
Before I could ask what was wrong, she was gone, practically leaving skid marks on the carpet. I watched her go, replaying the conversation I’d overheard in my head.
So Julie was afraid of someone. Afraid enough that she felt the need to take secret, private self-defense lessons. But she didn’t need to worry anymore? Maybe the danger had passed because the person threatening her was dead. Earl certainly had a temper. I could understand being afraid of him. That didn’t make sense, though. If Julie killed him in self-defense, he wouldn’t have a wound on the back of his head. And she’d said she was at work all day. Easy enough to verify.
No time to think about things any further, because another woman appeared in the doorway. She was medium height, probably a couple of years younger than Olive, with long wavy black hair, medium-brown skin, and huge brown eyes. Judging from the image on the poster hanging across from the front door, I deduced that this must be Maria.
