by Raven Snow
Getting closer to work did inspire some conversation, though. There were people parked on the side of the road and a news van out front. There wasn’t much to the local news here in Lainswich, but it still attracted a bit of a crowd.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Margo.
Rose squinted. “Is that Julia Martinez?”
It was. Julia Martinez was standing at the front door of their office, a microphone in hand. A cameraman was on standby right next to her. She really was fast when it came to reporting.
“What should we do?” asked Peony.
“We’re going to work like we always do,” Rowen said, already looking for a parking space. She wasn’t going to let the town run them off. This was their town and their livelihood. “Just don’t answer any questions. Unlock the front door and head inside.”
The questions started as soon as they were out of the car. “Miss Greensmith,” Julia called, presumably looking for a response from any of them. “Do you have any comment on the arrest of David Richardson?”
Rowen wanted to point out that, as far as she was aware, he was only taken in for questioning. She didn’t say that, though. She just reached in her pocket and took out the key.
“The Richardsons are staying with you right now, correct?” Julia continued, shoving the microphone out and into their faces. This felt awfully confrontational for local news.
“Watch out,” warned one of the gathered bystanders. “Don’t make them mad. They’ll put a hex on you.”
People in the crowd laughed. Rowen pushed the door open and motioned her cousins inside. She locked the door behind them all. “Get in my office,” she said.
The front of their building was glass, but Rowan’s office only had one window. She made sure to shut the blinds just in case. This was worse than she could have anticipated.
“What now?” asked Peony, sounding like she was on the verge of tears. This had just given the town a new reason to distrust them.
“We try to figure this thing out,” said Rowen. Now, more than ever, that was crucial. It had gotten personal. First, it hit Eric, and now, it was hurting her family. Rowen couldn’t have that.
“I really do think the Ouija board is a waste of time,” said Rose.
Rowen nodded. “You’re probably right.”
“Okay, but what do we do?” Margo sounded angry. She had never been very good with stress.
“There are always more people we can talk to,” said Rowen. She hated to suggest that. She tried to avoid interviews with people on unhappy subjects like this. Inviting them to the office or calling ahead was one thing. Going to the home of someone impacted by a tragedy was another. It seemed like Julia Martinez standing outside your door, waiting with a microphone to shove in your face.
“Who?” asked Rose.
“We never interviewed Lindsay’s husband.” Rowen hated to even suggest it. “I’m betting he’ll have a piece of this puzzle.”
Her cousins all exchanged uncertain looks. Rowen didn’t blame them. Her idea was a pretty bold one. “Are you sure we should?” asked Rose. “The poor guy just buried his wife today. I don’t think he’s going to appreciate all of us just showing up on his doorstep.”
“It won’t be all of us,” said Rowen. “It can’t be. If we’re going to go, one or two of us needs to sneak out. Even if the news leaves, I have a feeling people are going to be hanging around outside for a while. The last thing we want is a crowd following us to the widower’s house. That would look insensitive.”
“It is insensitive,” said Rose.
“It can’t be helped.” Rowen wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but it was her only idea. Otherwise, she was just going to be sitting around and waiting for this problem to sort itself out. She certainly couldn’t do that.
“We have to do something,” said Margo. She had never been much good about waiting around, either.
“Who’s going with you?” asked Rose.
Apparently it was a given that Rowen was already going. That was good. She considered the question. Rose needed to be here. If anything work-related happened, she would be able to handle it. Margo was definitely out. She wasn’t much of a people person when it came to being delicate. “Willow and Peony,” Rowen said, at last.
Willow and Peony looked at one another then back to Rowen. They nodded. “How are we going to get there, though?” asked Willow.
“They’ll see us if we try to make it to our car, won’t they?” asked Peony.
That was a good point. If they wanted to attract as little attention as possible, they couldn’t go back out the front. Someone would need to take the back way in and meet them just outside the office window. “We’ll have to get a ride,” said Rowen.
“From who?” asked Willow.
Chapter Twelve
“This is a horrible idea,” said Willow, looking out the office window at her Aunt Lydia’s old Buick.
“She was the only person I could think of to call,” Rowen said in her own defense, easing the window open. “If you have any other ideas, by all means, someone speak up.”
“Be careful,” warned Rose. “I don’t care how badly you want answers. If he asks you to leave, you need to leave.”
“You guys be careful, too,” Rowen warned. She hadn’t looked out at the front of the building in a while, but she could hear the people out there. It seemed like they had been looking for an excuse to go after the Greensmith girls for a while. “Don’t be afraid to call the police if you need to.” She would have called them already herself, but it felt like that would just exacerbate things.
“Call us when you’re done,” said Margo. “I don’t want to spend all night here.”
Rowen climbed out the window. Willow and Peony followed her lead. Taking them along seemed like the right choice. They were the most social of her cousins. They were both sweet and friendly. People tended to like them, even if they distrusted the rest of their relatives.
Aunt Lydia, on the other hand, would have to wait in the car when they got to the Martel household. “It’s a regular circus out there,” said Lydia, when Rowen opened the door. “You would think people would have something better to do in this day and age.”
“You’d think,” Rowen agreed, sitting down in the front seat. Willow and Peony piled into the back. “All right. We need to do this quick. Here, let me pull up directions on my GPS.”
Aunt Lydia waved a hand, dismissing both Rowen and her phone. “Don’t bother. I know every inch of this town.” She took off, knocking over one of the trash cans out back with the bumper of her car. Maybe this had been a bad idea.
Somehow, they made it onto the road without alerting anyone. It really was a circus out front. The media was gone, but a dozen or more people were still loitering around outside, laughing and talking and taking pictures with their phones. Rowen tried not to let it get to her. “How are the Richardsons?” Rowen asked.
“Well, that Julia woman tried to come to our house and ask questions,” said Lydia. “We shooed her off, though. That’s private property. The Richardsons got their lawyer on the phone. He’s heading down, but it will take him some time, I gather. He’s a good one though, I think. Those people certainly have the money for quality, don’t they?” She took a turn onto a road that didn’t seem like the right way to go at all. “Eric is fine. He’s upset, but that’s normal. He’ll come around, love. Don’t you worry.”
Rowen wasn’t so sure she believed that. She wasn’t sure Aunt Lydia did, either.
Somehow, Aunt Lydia got them where they were going. Rowen wasn’t sure how she had managed it without directions, but she didn’t question it. They had made it there quickly and in one piece.
Ryan Martel lived in a two-story house in one of the town’s nice subdivisions. His car was in the driveway. No one else looked to be there, which was good. It would be much too awkward to visit with questions if he had other mourning relatives over. Already, Rowen was very worried that this was going to come off as te
rribly rude. She got out of the car and motioned for Willow and Peony to do the same, though. They might as well get this over with.
It looked like Lindsay had lived a nice life from the outside. The home was basically the American dream. There was even a white picket fence. Rowen stopped on the welcome mat and knocked.
No one answered at first. Rowen was debating on how long she should wait for when footsteps came from inside. “Just a minute!” called a man’s voice.
Ryan Martel opened the door. He was a heavyset man with thinning blond hair. He was dressed in a button down shirt and black slacks. Either he was going somewhere, or had just come from there. “Yes?” he said.
“Hi,” Rowen extended her hand, “I’m Rowen Greensmith. These are my cousins, Willow and Peony.”
Ryan’s blank expression turned to a frown. “I don’t want to talk to any more reporters.” He took a step back, like he was ready to close the door.
“We’re sorry to disturb you at a time like this,” said Peony, offering him a smile. “We don’t do breaking news or anything. Julia Martinez has us beat on that. We just wanted to do a piece because, well…”
“We went to school with Lindsay,” said Willow, jumping in. “We knew her all through grade school. It’s so weird that…” She looked down as if experiencing a stab of grief.
Peony continued for her. “It just seems so strange that she’s not here anymore, you know? We thought the least we could do is run a piece on her life.”
“If now is a bad time, we can totally come back later,” Willow added.
“No,” Ryan said, his expression softening. He stepped back again, this time to one side so that they could come in. “I just got back from the funeral. I’m here for the rest of the night.”
“Thank you,” said Peony, giving him another smile as they all headed inside.
Rowen had to think back to remember Willow and Peony’s relationship with Lindsay. Had the three of them been friends? No. She distinctly remembered Lindsay spreading a rumor that Willow and Peony had cursed the football team to never win because they were too ugly to make the cheerleading squad. Apparently, those girls were a lot more devious than Rowen had given them credit for. She was impressed and a little frightened.
Ryan had a nice home. Everything was very clean and white. He led them to a nicely furnished living room. They sat on the sofa, and Ryan sat across from them.
“We’re so sorry for your loss,” said Rowen. It seemed like the only appropriate thing to say.
Ryan nodded. “She was quite a woman.”
“She was great,” said Willow, pulling out a pen and notebook like she was going to take notes in it. She might as well. They were absolutely going to have to write a flattering piece on Lindsay now.
“I moved back to Lainswich less than a year ago, so I hadn’t seen her in a while,” said Rowen. “I hear she was working as a gym teacher?”
Ryan nodded again. “The kids were really torn up about it. A lot of them came to the funeral.”
Rowen wondered if they were really sad, or if they just gone because it fell in the middle of a school day. “It’s great that she touched so many lives.”
“Well…” Ryan looked a little torn about that. “I mean, she wasn’t exactly a saint. But who is, right?”
“Right.” Rowen had a feeling things were about to get a bit awkward. “I’m sorry you had to, you know, find her like you did.”
Ryan’s gaze grew distant, like that had reminded him of something he was trying very hard to forget. “It’s hard not to blame myself for being away, you know?”
“You were working,” Peony offered. “None of this is your fault. You didn’t have much of a choice.”
Ryan inclined his head, making a sound like he was uncertain about that. “I was gone more often than I should have been,” he admitted. “We didn’t have the best relationship toward the end.” Ryan pushed one of his sleeves down over his hand and dabbed at his eyes with it. “Sorry, I’m oversharing.”
“You’re fine,” Rowen assured him. This was the sort of thing she wanted to hear. Besides, it seemed like he needed to get it off his chest. The poor man had probably been holding onto these feelings all day. “We’re not going to put anything you don’t want in the article. You have my word on that. We’ll even have you read it first, if you like.”
That didn’t seem to play much into what Ryan told them next. He had the look of a man who just needed a stranger to unload on. “I was gone a lot. I loved her, but… we had grown apart. I should have tried to work through our issues. I should have been here more instead of taking assignments that took me away from home… Now, I’ll never have a chance to fix my mistakes.”
Rowen watched him try very hard not to cry. She considered what he was saying and what it implied. “You don’t think she was having an affair, do you?”
Willow and Peony both looked at Rowen, startled she would say such a thing. She probably could have worded that a lot better.
“I only ask because of the nature in which she was killed,” Rowen added, quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to−That was a horrible thing to suggest. I’m sorry.”
Ryan shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s all right. That was actually one of my first thoughts as well. I mentioned it to the police. I hear they arrested some fellow from out of town today, but−” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. This is going to take me a while to process.”
Rowen gave the poor man a break after that. She launched into more pleasant questions. They talked about Lindsay’s hobbies and her favorite books. They talked about how much she had loved her job. The conversation seemed to cheer Ryan up quite a bit. Rowen imagined it was nice to just sit and reminisce rather than worry about whether or not you seemed sufficiently sad in front of relatives.
When they finished, Ryan took them all to the upstairs bedroom. “I can’t go in,” he said. “Too many memories in there right now. If you see any pictures you’d like to run in the paper, though, feel free to borrow them.”
The master bedroom seemed to be Lindsay’s alone. If Rowen had to guess, she would say Ryan had moved out and into a guest bedroom a while ago. The closets were full of her clothes. The dressers were covered with pictures and feminine knick-knacks and makeup. Even though none of them had particularly liked Lindsay, it was sort of depressing being in there. She’d lived in this room, and now she would never come back.
“Poor guy,” said Peony, with a sigh, looking around at the framed pictures on some shelves in the corner.
“If I die before you guys, never let anyone into my room, please.” Willow was already poking through some things she probably shouldn’t have been poking through.
“Deal.” Rowen made quick work of looking under the bed. Lindsay’s room was very tidy. There wasn’t much that seemed out of place. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. The idea that Lindsay had been having an affair didn’t seem like much to go on. They would need something that told them where to go from here.
“Got something,” said Willow, pulling a small, leather-bound book from the nightstand drawer.
Rowen squinted her eyes at what she was holding. “Is that what I think it is?”
Willow opened the book up and flipped through it. “Yep. It’s a journal. The last entry is dated for a few nights ago.” Willow took a moment to skim it. “Going to a party with J,” she read. “Who’s J?”
“Give that here.” Rowen took the journal and flipped through it herself. There was quite a lot in there— too much to read without seeming suspicious. She opened her purse and tucked it inside.
“Rowen!” Peony hissed.
Rowen didn’t take it back out. “There could be some kind of clue in here.”
“Shouldn’t we give it to the police, then?” asked Peony. “We could tell Ryan we found it. We could tell him it might be evidence, and that he should give it to the police.”
Rowen had considered that. She didn’t trust the police righ
t now, though. “If there’s anything valuable in it, we’ll bring it back,” she promised. “We’ll make another excuse to come visit and replace it then.”
Peony still looked uncertain, but there was no arguing with Rowen at that point. They gathered the pictures they wanted to run and went back downstairs. They said their goodbyes to Ryan and headed back out to where Aunt Lydia was waiting.
“Find any clues?” Aunt Lydia asked, a little too loudly and in the tone of someone greeting their children coming back from an Easter egg hunt.
“Yes, Aunt Lydia,” said Willow and Peony, getting back into the car.
