October Twilight (A Year in Paradise Book 10)

by Hildred Billings

  “Thoughts and prayers,” someone muttered behind Sally. “That’s all this is.”

  Halfway through the meeting, Sally realized that a certain pair of parents were missing. The Musgraves. They had never been too involved, but sometimes Sally saw Mrs. Musgrave in the back of the room. Not since her son had been apprehended, however. Last Sally heard from her wife, Dillon Musgrave was under house arrest with a tracking bracelet on his ankle and all electronics ripped from his grasp. She hadn’t heard anything about his cousin.

  The chief implored people to take some informational flyers about what to do and who to call should they come across pertinent tidbits regarding the investigation. Sally politely declined, since she already knew every number by heart and, well, had direct access to the deputy.

  Everyone else knew it too.

  “There’s Sally Greenhill,” she heard somebody say. “That’s the deputy’s wife. Wonder why she’s here? Doesn’t she know everything already?”

  “I don’t know how she can know anything with so many kids. Did you hear what they did at the library last weekend? Totally trashed the place.”

  “Ha! I saw her at the Crafts & Things the other day, giving Joan Sheffield child rearing advice. Honestly, the last person anyone should take advice from is Sally Greenhill. Do we need more kids like hers running around?”

  “I’m telling you, that eldest boy is touched in the head. I see him talking to himself.”

  “We’re going to the twins’ birthday party this weekend. Still need to get them a present.”

  “Get them shock collars.”

  Sally didn’t have the energy to be offended. She heard crap like this and more wherever she went. Touched in the head? The boy is playing! It’s called having an imagination! Tucker loved to run out into the backyard, drag a stick through the grass, and pretend to go on all sorts of adventures. What was so wrong with that? Sally used to do the same thing when she was his age!

  “Hey, Sally.”

  Chief Johnson stopped her on her way out the door. She returned his cordial greeting. Chief Johnson did not offer her a flyer.

  “How’s Candace doing? She at home with the kids?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Sally sighed. “Don’t know why I came here tonight. I don’t got no answers, and if I did, I’d tell Candy before anyone else.”

  “She’s good people. Has been a huge help in the fire marshal’s investigation, I hear.”

  “Obviously, she doesn’t tell me more than she’s allowed.”

  “Of course not. But, ah, make sure you keep an ear out for what the kids are talking about. Even if they’re not involved, they might let slip something they’ve overheard.”

  She didn’t know why he was telling her this, but Sally thanked him for his concern and rushed out to her car. She wanted to start the engine before anyone had the chance to talk to her.

  Chapter 6

  CANDACE

  “I ain’t going back out there,” Krys Madison hissed in the backroom of the high school gym, where weights and exercise equipment lay dormant during the autumn months. “Not after that little shit tried to kiss me!”

  “It ain’t kissing if it’s mouth-to-mouth, you know that!” Her partner, a man with the name Quimby stitched into his shirt, jammed his finger into Krys’s chest.

  “So you go out there and have some pimply sophomore with mega-halitosis lay a big one on you, huh?”

  Candace finished going through her handwritten notecards before turning to the firefighters standing behind her. Currently, the high school assembly was dominated by the principal, a guy Candace once knew as the history teacher, Mr. Campbell. Back then, he was lucky if he wasn’t sending half his students to the principal’s office. When the former lunch lady heard that Campbell had gone back to school to get a degree to become the next principal of Clark High School, she had fallen into a fit of laughter. It was either that or cry. Campbell was about as productive as a goose holding up traffic on the highway. Don’t ask me how many times I’ve responded to those kinds of calls…

  “You two trying to tell me you’re afraid of some troublemaking teens?” Candace asked Krys and Quimby. Like I can’t imagine you as a troublemaking teen, Madison. Krys hadn’t moved to Paradise Valley from Portland until well into her twenties, but Candace had a pretty good nose for sniffing out trouble. How many times had she almost caught the firefighter driving home with a little too much beer in her system? Candace hadn’t arrested her yet, but Krys knew she skated that fine edge when she had a few drinks. All sense and reason goes flying out the window with people like her. Honest answer was to maybe stop drinking after the first two or three or, heaven forbid, walk to the bar instead of driving!

  Krys huffed when the deputy called her out. “Did you see that little scamp? He tried to lay a wet one on me during the demonstration!”

  Yeah, Candace had seen. Had a real good, laugh, too. What did Krys think she got when a sixteen-year-old pock-marked kid with hair shaggier than a dog’s waved his hand in the air after a hot woman asked for mouth-to-mouth volunteers? Sure, everyone knew there would be no actual lip-to-lip contact, but Krys couldn’t be so professional that she overrode a teen boy’s inclination to play a prank.

  And say he got to kiss a big ol’ womanizing butch like Krys, but that’s what life in this town is like. Candace had seen it all as a lunch lady, yeah? She knew what some of these boys, especially those from “traditional” families, said. “You get three points anytime a girl kisses you. Five points if she’s a woman, bro. Ten points if she’s gay, and one-hundred points if she’s butch! Winner at the end of the year gets to drive the prom limo!”

  The number of boys who had tried kissing her in the cafeteria…

  “You know what?” Krys patted Quimby’s shoulder. “You go out there and do the next demonstration. I’ll hang out here with the deputy and watch the show from the safety of this corner. Next boy will probably try to flash me…”

  “Can’t do,” Candace said. “I mean, I gotta go out there in a bit, as soon as the principal calls me up.”

  Krys shook her head. “Riiiight. Whatever. I’ve got texts to return and a mouth to wash out with some soap.”

  “You want me to scare that boy for you, Madison?”

  Krys was already grinning on her way to the bathroom. “I mean, if you’re offering.”

  “…Let’s give a special warm welcome to Paradise Valley’s very own protector, Deputy Candace Greenhill.” Campbell turned around from his podium and began the applause meant to welcome Candace to the basketball court recently waxed in preparation for the upcoming home game. She took special care to not biff it on her way to the principal. Unlike Quimby, who had slid halfway across the court, much to the great amusement of one hundred teenagers. “Fun fact,” Campbell continued. “Deputy Greenhill used to be the lunch lady here when I was the history teacher. We go back, huh?”

  Like back then, Candace now towered over Campbell, who cleared his throat and hustled away from the podium as soon as he realized she didn’t find him very funny. Thanks for trying to undermine my authority before I start talking, Aaron. Oh, yeah, she knew his first name, too. She could really get under his skin if he insisted on giving her some crap.

  Nobody clapped as enthusiastically as he did. Probably because this assembly was right before lunch, and the students were antsy enough to slide down the bleachers and crawl out the doors. At least I’m not on the other side of the crawling, anymore. The first kid to make it into the cafeteria often heralded an onslaught of famished zombies ready for their lunch of braaaaiiinnnss.

  “Thanks, Aaron.” Before Campbell had the chance to say anything, Candace wrapped her arm around him and offered a light, friendly noogie. That got the audience laughing. Everyone loves it when you rib on their teacher. Candace released the principal and took his place at the podium. She tried not to think about how many eyes were on her taser, since she was required to leave her gun behind at the station. Unless, you know, I’m responding to a c
all here. Hooray. That had only happened once. Five years ago, when some clown thought it cute to threaten another student with his hunting rifle he was dumb enough to leave in his truck. “Thanks for having me. Now, I know I’m not everyone’s favorite person around town,” she quickly found Aiden Kitzberg, the boy whose party she had to bust the month before, “but I’d like you to know that I don’t hold it against any of you.”

  A few chuckles rumbled through the gym. The teachers lining the wall shifted between their feet. Oh, Candace recognized them, too. Odds were she’d be saying hello to one quite soon.

  “Now, I’m here to talk about something that’s gonna make you all roll your eyes, but I’m talking about it because maybe, for once, it will sink in and someone will actually listen to me. Then again, my own kids don’t listen to me, so what do I expect?”

  More laughter, this time a little louder. Some of these kids were the older siblings of Tucker’s buddies and knew him quite well. Namely, they knew what a bossy little bundle of “Did he really say that?” he often was.

  “I know that people like me and your teachers are always going on about safety and all that.” Candace grabbed hold of the mic and walked with it around the podium. Her other hand shot into her pocket. The jingle of her keys – to the cruiser, to her own car, to her house, to the station, to the jail cell – was as familiar as the looks of reverent fear on some of these faces. Do I like the fact most of these kids fear me in some capacity? Hello, no. Sheriff Peterson said that a healthy dose of fear was important, especially around authority, but Candace preferred it if the citizens of Paradise Valley saw her as someone trustworthy and reliable, not scary. Hell, she’d rather be seen as a bumbling idiot, which was surely what a few thought. “But that’s because it’s the most important thing we take into consideration when we wake up in the morning and go to work. I guarantee that your teachers are thinking of your safety and your future before they think about grading papers or sending you to detention. You may not believe it, but trust me. I used to have a front-row seat to what teachers in this school thought. Heck, some of them are still here!”

  She shot a finger to Mr. Trumball, the PE teacher and JV basketball coach. He shot a finger right back at her.

  “Likewise, the first thing I think of when I get up in the morning is how I can help protect this town. It ain’t about my family… oh, sorry.” She directed that apology to Ms. Anita Tichenor, who stood against the wall with her arms crossed. “I’m being a bad influence on your English students.”

  The laughter got to the point the principal had to ask for students to focus. Candace took that as her cue to concentrate on her message, not on being the approachable, affable deputy any of these kids could come to with their concerns.

  “I know it’s hard to understand when your priorities are going to school, doing your homework and chores, thinking about college, and whether that pretty girl likes you or not,” Candace continued, “but all around you are people who tirelessly think about how to protect you. Because all those things I mentioned? That’s your job. You’re supposed to be self-absorbed and gazing into your own navels. You’re kids! But sometimes, we need your help.”

  She paused for effect. A few kids yawned. Others cocked their heads. The mayor’s daughter kept her eyes pointed to the ground. Poor Christina was still embarrassed about what happened a couple of weeks ago, apparently. She’ll be mortified until the next dumb thing to come her way. Honestly, making out with Dillon Musgrave had to be pretty dumb, in Candace’s humble middle-aged-woman point of view.

  “As surely all of you know, a student was recently apprehended as a suspect in an ongoing investigation…”

  “Woo, yeah, Dill!” shouted a boy from the top row.

  “Cody!” Principal Campbell shouted back.

  Candace continued as if nothing happened. “We have reason to believe that he was not acting alone.” She did her best to avoid Christina’s humiliated gaze. “We know you kids don’t actually like telling and snitching on each other, but I want to make something very, very clear. If you know anything… if you see anything… please do not hesitate to come to me, your teachers, your parents, anyone you trust who can set things in motion. It’s not just about arson, either. It’s about threats you read on Facebook. Inappropriate messages you get on your phone. If your boyfriend or girlfriend lays the wrong kind of hand on you, someone needs to know. I may be one woman with a badge in this town, but I don’t work alone. I simply have some of the best resources to help your hometown.”

  The mood had changed. Whispers flitted between students. Teachers gazed at one another, as if they didn’t know which student to trust. The principal rubbed his palms together, a nervous tic from Candace’s lunch lady days. Behind her, the firefighters prepared for the self-defense demonstration that was meant to lighten the mood before lunch. Except Candace knew what had happened.

  You don’t ask small town kids to turn on one another.

  “All right, so who wants to see one of your teachers get put in handcuffs?”

  Candace pulled out her handcuffs. The kids hooted and hollered, and the teachers turned away before they were called to the front of the class to be made a mockery of before the students. Candace knew who to call on before she snuck out of the gym.

  “How many times has your English teacher said you ain’t got no good grammar?”

  Convincing Anita to come to the front of the assembly and put on a pair of handcuffs was good, distracting fun, but Candace had bought into her own speech about safety and protocol. How could she convey how important it was for someone to come forward, if they had information? How could she ensure that things in town kept trucking along, before they had the chance to completely fall apart before her?

  How could she protect her family? How could she keep her kids from growing up in a world where they feared for their lives?

  How could she ease at least one burden on her wife’s shoulders? Sally already worked her ass off taking care of the house and kids. Every night Candace came home to her wife on the verge of passing out or tearing out her hair. Right now, they had three rowdy kids with a baby about to officially become a toddler. Candace wished they could afford a nanny, even a part-time one. She wished they could afford the only daycare center in town. The only certified one, anyway. She tried not to think about some of the other “babysitting services” there were really under the table daycares.

  If Candace could at least keep her wife from fearing for their children’s lives when they went out and about, that would be worth it, right?

  Unfortunately, cuffing and stuffing the English teacher for the amusement of the school wouldn’t guarantee that. Maybe one kid would see it and think, “Maybe it’s okay to talk to the deputy, after all.”

  She often wondered if her own kids needed that pep talk.

  Chapter 7

  SALLY

  Birthday parties were something Sally loved… in the abstract. The planning, the making, and the buying for the party was busy enough, but gave her a dopamine hit that told her she was the best mom in the world. Seriously, how could any other mother compare when she not only bought the right kind of Star Wars decorations, but correctly remembered which was R2D2 and who was C3PO?

  Yet on the actual day? At the actual birthday party? She’d rather die, thanks.

  The squealing and screaming of sixteen kindergarteners and some of their other peers tore up the backyard in plastic party hats that soon littered the grass. Sally had thought ahead to cover her dormant flowers and vegetables with protective shells, but the kids quickly tore them out of the ground and flung sharp, pointy ends of wiring and plastic across the yard. The tarp covering the bushes was soon appropriated into a tent for the kids to duck beneath and scream as loudly as they could. The Kool-Aid bowl was overturned as soon as Paige decided it was time for “a little more fun” at the party. The Darth Vader cut-out was made headless by one older boy who shouted, “Who’s your daddy now, Vader?” The craft table was a big hi
t, at least, since Sally had set up a place for the kids to make their own paper and cardboard light sabers. Well, it was a hit until they ran out of red coloring, which was apparently the only color the kids wanted.

  After that, it was time to scream. Again.

  Sally envied the other parents who hung behind, taking advantage of the spacious living room and the college football game on TV. The room was evenly split between Ducks and Beavers fans, both of whom argued with Candace over who had the best quarterback that season. Sally still barely knew the difference between OSU and UofO. Whenever her wife gave her grief, she always said she’d worry about it when Tucker was old enough to think about college.

  The parents didn’t have to mind their children as long as they were in the living room, drinking lite beer and laughing at the sportscasters getting the state’s name so incorrect that all one could do was laugh. It helped that people always wanted to be on the deputy’s good side. Candace may not have the time to hang out with her old friends on the weekends, but as soon as enough adults were in the house, everyone was her best friend.

  Meanwhile, Sally rounded up over a dozen children to finish eating their pizzas and get ready for the birthday cake. Her plan was to get the kids to wash up in a basin in the corner of the yard and take a swing at the BB8 pinata hanging from a tree. Well, she would have, except Candace hadn’t hung up the pinata yet. Oh, and the bat was still in the garage, alongside the other sports stuff that she had put away… in August. Two months after Sally had asked her to clean a few things up from the yard.

  “Mom!” Paige cried, hands gripping Sally’s pants as they wandered through a sea of screaming children. “Can we open our presents now!”

  “No.” Sally shook her daughter off her leg and slid open the back door. “Cake first. You know the drill.”

  “You let Tucker open his presents early at his birthday party!”