Owl or Nothing

by Willow Mason

  Caleb finished the rest of the pint and straightened his spine. “It’s because there’s more to life than coincidence. It’s easy to brush things aside as innocent when you can’t be bothered to put in the work to prove otherwise.”

  “There are a lot of folk around here who’ve done more work than you and proved the opposite.” Although I kept my voice quiet, inside my heart was hammering with adrenaline. “Until you can provide scientific studies to back up your outrageous claims—”

  He cut me off with a snort. “Scientific. Some guy bribes his friends into publishing a paper and suddenly it’s peer-reviewed literature? Yeah, right.”

  Silvana leaned forward, putting a hand on the back of his seat. “If it’s that easy, why haven’t you done it?”

  “I believe in letting the results speak for themselves. Just because I’m not part of the old boy’s network—”

  “And you’re not a scientist,” I reminded him. “You’re not even a proper journalist, are you? Just a freelancer, hoping to place enough articles to keep food on the table.”

  “That’s the purest type of journalist there is,” Caleb snarled, suddenly sharing more in common with Silvana than he might think. “I’m not swayed by a paycheque or beholden to the whims of a bunch of rich shareholders.”

  “No. You’re unemployed.”

  Caleb’s cheeks burned with such heat I could’ve stood back and warmed my hands.

  “Speaking of unemployed,” I said, shooting a glance at Silvana. “I thought you wanted a job?”

  “When it’s busy.” She rolled her eyes. “And this is a job. I’m entertaining the clientele and encouraging them to drink more. Every bar should have a hostess.”

  Dee fell on her side, laughing. “Is that what they’re calling you these days?”

  “Don’t be rude, little one. You don’t want your friends to become enemies.”

  Perhaps the mouse had been into the sherry as well as the beernuts because she ignored the warning, continuing to laugh at her own joke until she clutched her sides.

  Caleb took another pint but nursed this one at a corner table, avoiding eye-contact with everyone in the room. I would have felt sorry for him, except if I gave him the opportunity, he’d just work on digging another grave.

  “Long time, no see, ladies,” Keith Trogart announced, clambering with difficulty onto the barstool Caleb had vacated. “I’ll have a shot of your finest scotch, thanks.”

  “Good to see you,” I said, reaching to fetch the bottle as I spoke so he couldn’t read my expression. “Have you performed any interesting autopsies lately?”

  By the time I turned, shot in hand, Keith’s right eyebrow was twitching, and his fingers drummed a solo on the edge of the counter. “Nothing I can speak about.”

  “You looked after our Gabby, didn’t you?” Silvana asked. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

  Keith blinked twice, hard, then drained the glass in one gulp. “No worries,” he whispered, shoving the empty towards me. “I’ll have another.”

  I was annoyed with myself for sniping at Caleb. If he’d been sitting nearby, he might have found a way to question the report we both had access to. My tongue was tied, especially when Keith seemed occupied with his own thoughts. Leaving Silvana to her ‘hostessing,’ I moved down the bar and topped up all the waiting patrons, with chit-chat as much as beer.

  When I moved back twenty minutes later, a solitary tear rolled down Keith’s cheek. “Could I have another one?” he whispered. “I need something to take my mind off things today.”

  I poured the shot, giving his wrist a comforting squeeze as I passed it across. When he tried to pay me, I shook my head. “This one’s on the house.”

  At the words, another tear slipped out, tracing a silvery trail down Keith’s wrinkled skin. “I don’t deserve kindness today.” He swallowed the drink, wincing against the burn. “I did a really bad thing.”

  Chapter Eight

  I woke early the next day and squinted in the morning light. The curtain wasn’t quite pulled together, and the one ray that snuck in struck me clean in the face.

  Between the effort of thinking about shutting the drapes properly and squeezing my eyelids together so I didn’t have to, my body decided to get up and at ‘em. Meanwhile, my tired brain demanded coffee.

  I sloped into the kitchen, trying to scratch all my morning itches at once. Someday, I’d need to shake out my mattress from all the crumbs that gathered from eating in bed, but today wouldn’t be that day. As I flicked the kettle on, a bead of condensation ran down its side and I thought of Keith Trogart. The man wouldn’t be drawn on what exactly he’d ‘done wrong’ except for a few more silent tears.

  With a copy of a report I shouldn’t have on my phone, I thought I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  As I waited for the rest of the house to wake up, I sat with my coffee and a book. There was something about being up and about before anyone else that felt special. Like the house had a secret and only I knew about it.

  Dee arrived in the kitchen first, perky as usual. She wasn’t a mouse to let bad news get her down and turned on the radio without asking, blasting out top twenty hits from a decade ago.

  When it was getting close to bar opening time, I walked along the corridor and knocked on Silvana’s door. Although she’d come home with me the night before, it appeared she’d changed her mind during the night. The room was empty.

  Probably a good idea. Given more time in each other’s company, we’d just snipe at one another.

  The bar was cleaner than I remembered, leaving me without a lot to do between my arrival and throwing open the doors for the first customers of the day. On a whim, I called PC Bryant to check-in on Barry. No change. Also, no update on the case, apart from a few rounds of ‘classified information’ poker.

  “Don’t you remember speaking with Wilma?” I asked in frustration. “She saw Gabby the morning after Tab said Barry killed her.”

  The click of a disconnected call was the only answer.

  “Hey, Leighton,” I greeted our first customer of the day. “How’s life treating you?”

  “Well,” the man replied with a cheeky smile. “Very well indeed. I intend to get incredibly drunk in the next few hours, then stagger home for a sleep.”

  I hitched an eyebrow up at the statement, but he flashed some cash, so I commenced pouring. “Did you luck into a new job?”

  “Something like that.” Leighton took his drink and retreated to the usual corner. It was odd to have him coming back every half hour for a top-up when I’d been used to seeing him nurse just one or two all day.

  “Wow,” Silvana said when she arrived an hour later. “This place is jumping.”

  Besides Leighton, there were two other regulars, all sitting alone as though the purpose of pub life had been completely forgotten.

  “Maybe we should turn on some music? Get the party started.”

  “Nothing wrong with quiet reflection,” I said. “And good luck finding a radio. Barry purposely didn’t connect any sound system when he fitted out the place. It’s to encourage conversation, he said.”

  We exchanged a glance, then peered around the room as the isolated islands of our clientele. If anything, they’d arrived early to be more antisocial.

  “Uh-oh. Look who’s coming.” Silvana pointed at the corner window.

  Harold Mulligan paused with one hand on the door, staring across the road. Apart from a tube man dancing, nothing over there held any more attraction. His shoulders slumped as he pushed the door open and walked inside.

  “Sorry for your loss,” I muttered as he approached, trying not to stare at the black eye colouring half his face. “Gabby will be missed around here.”

  Between his rumpled suit, bruised face, and days of stubble, Harold resembled a homeless guy more than the richest man in Beechdale. I thought of the entries in the ledger—paying someone to employ his wayward daughter—and felt my throat tighten.

  “Wha
t d’you want to drink? It’s on the house.”

  Where I would have loved to disappear into a corner and not deal with the man’s grief up close, Silvana slid over and perched her elbows on the bar, insinuating herself into the awkward situation. “Gabby had a few things in her locker, if you want them. Nothing of value, just sentimental stuff.”

  I elbowed my friend and shot her a warning glance for good measure. The only thing in Gabby’s locker was a timetable, showing the hours of work she missed daily, and a scuffed pair of shoes from when she’d walked to work a few months back and never done it again.

  “Where’s Barry?” Harold ran a hand over his face, releasing a cascade of dry skin that drifted slowly down to settle on the bar. “I need to talk to him.”

  I bit my cheek, letting an awkward silence grow. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I shrugged. “The police are holding him.”

  “For what?”

  I stared at Harold with wide eyes, my fingers tightening their grip on the counter. “For…”

  “They think he killed Gabby,” Silvana announced cheerfully, picking up a handful of nuts and throwing them into her mouth. By the time she’d chewed and swallowed, no one had added to the conversation, so she continued, “They arrested him on the first night. He’s the suspect they keep crowing about to the press.”

  Harold pressed his palms flat on the counter, swaying back and forth. “That’s rubbish. Barry would never do anything like that.”

  He got no argument from me.

  “Why didn’t the police tell me?”

  Like either of us would know. “Sorry, Mr Mulligan,” I said, wincing as my voice came out like a school-age child. “Harold. We’re not sure why they’ve kept him.”

  “Well, you’ll have to do then. You worked with my daughter?” His voice and gaze sharpened, suddenly catapulting him from the streets back into an authority figure.

  “I did.”

  “I need you to invite anyone who was close to her to the funeral. We’re holding it tomorrow out at Lake Lawn Cemetery. She never talked about her work colleagues or…” He trailed off, body slumping back into disarray.

  “We can take care of that for you, Harold. I’ll let all her friends know.”

  He nodded, drifting toward the exit. “I’ll have a word with the cops about your boss,” he called back over his shoulder. “Whatever they think they know, they’re wrong.”

  “Will Marshall be at the funeral?” Silvana called out. “Only, we heard you thought he might be responsible for… You know.”

  This time, I elbowed her hard enough she bent double.

  “Of course, Marshall will be there.” Harold stood with his hand wrapped so tightly around the brass door handle, his knuckles bulged, the skin white. “He was my daughter’s beloved fiancé.”

  Leighton giggled, shuffling up to the bar for another refill. The alcohol must have gone straight to his head, considering his flushed cheeks and wild eyes. “From what I heard, Gabby was hoping to save up enough money to get free of this town, once and for all. She didn’t want a fiancé—she wanted a diamond ring to pawn.”

  I thought Harold would explode or crumple with this new information. Instead, his face brightened, and he found the energy to leave the bar.

  “Is that true?” I passed the question across to Leighton with his top-up. “She never told me anything like that.”

  “Are you surprised?”

  He shuffled back to his corner table, leaving me wondering if he meant surprised Gabby wanted to get out of dodge or that she hadn’t told me.

  “Who’re you going to pass that invite along to?” Silvana said, giving her ribs an exaggerated rub. “Who on earth was Gabby friends with?”

  The question set off a spring of sadness and I turned to the bar, scrubbing it down with furious actions. “I’ll put a note on the whiteboard,” I said. “Then anyone who reads it, can attend.”

  “You’re going?”

  “Of course, I’m going.” I threw the dirty towel into the hamper and picked another one, trying to buff decades-old scratches into a shine. “We worked together.”

  I didn’t see Silvana’s reaction, but Dee pulled a face. “It’s lucky her ghost’s taken off again. If she had to see this…?” She rolled her eyes and pretended to faint.

  “Maybe she knew someone wanted to kill her.”

  “There were a dozen people in town hated her guts,” Dee said, sitting back and crossing her paws over a belly still distended from breakfast. If that girl ever got herself shifted back to human, she’d be facing five years of diet woes.

  “Hating someone isn’t the same as murdering them,” I muttered, sounding like I’d studied the difference at length.

  “You’d have to be quite energised to lure her into the woods and go to the trouble of faking an animal attack.” Silvana stared at her nails, letting them switch to sharp claws and back. It was a great party trick; one I could do with my feet. By the time I wrangled my footwear off, though, it wasn’t nearly so impressive.

  “Or someone killed her on the spur of the moment, dragged her into the woods, and let the full moon work its magic.”

  Silvana drew her lips down in disgust. “Only fresh meat, thanks.”

  “There are a lot of vermin shifters around here, too,” I reminded her. “They’d be more than happy to chow down on a corpse that somebody else took the trouble to kill.”

  “Stop it!”

  I looked over to Dee in surprise, finding her with tiny paws shoved over her ears. “I didn’t mean you!”

  “I don’t care who you meant. This entire topic of conversation is awful. How can you stand to discuss so calmly how a fellow barmaid met her fate?”

  “Mousy has a weak stomach.” Silvana stared down at Dee, then shrugged. “But this conjecture won’t go anywhere. We need the police to get their behinds into gear.”

  Amen.

  I pulled out my phone to check if PC Bryant had left any word, but there were no messages. Aside from the uninformative phone call this morning, he hadn’t bothered to reply to my all-caps text.

  The afternoon sank into evening like an alcoholic deepening into despair. New customers joined the ranks of the regulars, but nobody was in the mood for chit-chat.

  I cut off Leighton after a dozen pints and watched him fondly as he staggered out into the night. He was drunk enough to have St Christopher peeking over his shoulder but not so bad he’d threaten our licence.

  “You should take the sign down,” Silvana complained after arriving back from a break. “Reminding everyone Gabby’s dead when they glance at the specials board is doing nothing for the mood in here.”

  “I promised Harold I’d spread the word,” I countered. “And unless you think me striking up a conversation about Gabby’s funeral every time someone orders a drink is better, then leave it alone.”

  Time stretched out, the clock begrudging every tick. On seven occasions, I nipped out into the back garden, just to relieve the monotony.

  Close on midnight, the door banged open, and a girl staggered inside. Teenager, it looked like, though it was hard to tell between the blood and wide-eyed terror.

  “There’s something out there,” she cried, collapsing onto the floor.

  I ran to her side, barking an order at Silvana to call an ambulance and the police. “Can you hear me?” I asked, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  This close, I saw the long tears in her clothing, wrenches from a sharp claw. She bled from a dozen places. Her hair was tangled.

  “Who did this to you?”

  The girl’s eyes flicked around the circle of customers—mostly men—and she rolled into a tight ball.

  “Get back,” I yelled at everyone. “Give her space.”

  “It w-was a sh-shifter,” she stuttered. “Th-they attacked me in M-Malpool Alley.”

  Silvana knelt by my side, holding out a glass of water. “Drink this. It’ll help with the shock. Help is on its way.”

  “What kind
of shifter?” I glanced at her injuries. “Bear? Fox? Tiger?”

  The girl’s eyes drifted away, unfocused. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to look. They can’t have got far.”

  Silvana turned to me, mouth dropping open in shock. “You can’t leave.”

  “If we wait for the police, they’ll get away.”

  I didn’t hang around for a response, since I wouldn’t listen, anyway. Instead, I tugged the door open, changing before I’d even made it outside, and launched into the air.

  High enough, Beechdale spread out like a topical map beneath me. I traced the lines of its streets, pinpointing Malpool Alley and flapping above it, circling my head to stare at the surrounding streets.

  No one moved. No one ran. No animal or human was in sight.

  A cry caught my attention. Near the forest edge. I headed there, the wind whistling past my ears. Another shout echoed.

  Caleb huddled in the back corner of the hardware store carpark. I circled once, not seeing another soul, then landed on the other side of the store.

  He gave another cry, and as I turned the corner of the building, I saw him attempting to move, and failing.

  “Wait there,” I called out, running full tilt to his side.

  I forgot his bumbling stupidity. His false assumptions. His crazy assertions about what was happening in our town.

  I knelt beside his beaten body and cradled him to my chest, anger surging. “Who did this to you?”

  Chapter Nine

  “This will sting,” I warned, pressing a cloth dampened with warm water and antiseptic to the worst of Caleb’s wounds. He let out a hiss but didn’t move to stop me. When I shoved the flannel into the basin to rinse it out, the water turned milky red.

  “You’d better get your boots off,” Dee commented, leaping forward to assist with the laces. As she tugged and pulled the knots apart, I could see Caleb flinch. To his credit, he didn’t say a word in protest.

  Once he’d pushed the shoes off, I saw what had worried her. One ankle had swollen enough the leather of his boot left a deep mark. A faint purplish tinge to the skin would soon blossom into vibrant bruising.