Owl or Nothing

by Willow Mason

  He frowned, and I remembered he’d left the office by that stage.

  “She pulled it out of Caleb’s jeans pocket.”

  Bryant continued to stare at me with a puzzled expression.

  “It’s Gabby’s locket.”

  A man farther back in the station laughed, and I glanced over. It was Mayor Tomkins, apparently finding the story Detective Mallard told him hilarious as he broke into another guffaw. I tried to hide my disdain but with each overdone sound and gesture, my mask slipped.

  “The computer records mention nothing about missing jewellery,” PC Bryant said. “How do you know it belongs to her?”

  “Because I spent half a morning searching for the thing a month back.” I leant forward, placing my palms flat on his desk. “It belonged to her mother, and she was torn up over misplacing it. There’s no way she would’ve given it away to someone.”

  Bryant leaned back in his chair, rocking it up and down. “Okay,” he said after a minute’s silence. “Let’s give her dad a call.”

  My hands twisted together hard enough for the knuckles to ache as he placed the call. Even from my distance, I could hear the catch in Mr Mulligan’s voice as he confirmed that yes, his daughter had a locket passed down from her mother.

  “I should run this by Mallard. Wait here.”

  Before PC Bryant got three steps away, Detective Mallard crossed the room to meet him, the mayor trailing behind. “Who gave this to you?”

  I examined the detective’s face, wincing as he gave one of his exaggerated blinks. “Minette from the laundrette found it in Caleb Williams’ pocket. She handed it to me this morning.”

  “And it’s been in the bag this whole time.”

  I winced as I shook my head.

  “Minette called me into the shop to discuss a pair of bloodstained jeans,” PC Bryant said when his superior officer’s face turned stony. “It’ll only take a minute to confirm if it’s the truth.”

  “Oh,” the mayor said in a placating voice. “Is it the locket you’re worried about? I forgot to remind Caleb to bring it into you.”

  “What?” I relaxed as the beam of Detective Mallard’s gaze was directed elsewhere. “Where did you find it?”

  “He found it when I took him up to where Gabby’s body was found.” The mayor raised his eyebrows at the detective and held his hand out. The baggie was passed across and Tomkins raised it up to examine it against the light. “Yes, that’s the one. I’m surprised he didn’t just tell you when you confronted him.”

  I squirmed on my seat. “Actually, I—”

  “Liv brought the item straight to us, just as we’d ask any member of the public to do,” Bryant said, leaping to my defence. “It’s our job to tackle suspects about where they found suspicious items, not hers.”

  “Quite.” Mayor Tomkins handed the baggie back to the PC. “But you needn’t trouble him about it. I’ll give you a statement right now saying where and how we found it.”

  “Shouldn’t we ask Caleb Williams—?”

  Detective Mallard held up a hand. “That’ll be adequate for our purposes. You say you were up where her body was found.”

  I stared down at my hands, frowning at the memory. It fit. Of course, it did. I’d seen them at the site myself, only a few minutes after I’d helped myself to a close examination.

  “Whereabouts was it found, exactly?” I asked, interrupting Mallard as he tried to lead the mayor away.

  “Not really your concern, is it dear?” He tipped me a wink and bile rushed up the back of my throat. “But it was right where that poor angel had been lying, on top of some rocks.”

  No, it wasn’t. My eyesight during the day wasn’t as keen as at night, but I’d checked that entire area just minutes before the mayor and Caleb turned up.

  “This young lady can go on home now, can’t she?” The mayor turned a querying eye on PC Bryant, who nodded.

  I walked out of the station, my head bent out of shape. I didn’t believe the mayor’s answer, which left me with the choice of living with a murderer or chucking him of my flat. Nice.

  Mayor Tomkins’ smile slid its way into my head, then left a grease stain sliding back out of it. Was he in league with Caleb? Had they murdered Gabby together, then forged a terrible plot to blame shifters for the crime?

  I remembered Caleb’s grazed knuckles in the bar on the first night I saw him. Had he sustained those injuries fighting Gabby? She’d been shorter than me and stick-figure thin. It wouldn’t have taken much to overpower her.

  With a shudder, I clutched my arms across my midriff and walked faster, heading nowhere. Had Caleb used his wide smile and twinkling blue eyes to convince Keith Trogart to produce a false report?

  Only one way to test out that theory.

  I stopped short, wanting to smack myself upside the head. Keith would have the answer. He was the one who’d been moping in the bar, practically begging someone to pry the truth out of him.

  With a destination in mind, it didn’t take long to end up at his medical suite. Although he worked as the forensic pathologist, in a town as small as Beechdale, that was hardly a full-time job.

  More of his time was spent working with tissue cultures and samples, running tests for all manner of nasties that might infect the living population.

  A sign at the door warned to buzz through before the lock could be opened. I was pleased to see Keith’s addiction to nicotine was still stronger than his sense of wellbeing. A wooden wedge kept the door propped open, and I followed the clouds of smoke around the side of the building to find him leaning up against a tree.

  “Morning.”

  He jumped, jerking his head back so violently it struck against the trunk behind him. While he rubbed the back of his skull, Keith narrowed his eyes at me—or against the smoke. “What’d you want around here?”

  “I want a confession.” With my phone out, I scrolled through to the report and held it out for him to see. “Who got you to draw up this load of nonsense?”

  “You shouldn’t have that.” Keith didn’t even bother to look at the device, instead taking another long drag. “And the government pays me for my services, thanks very much.”

  “The government or the mayor?”

  He finished his ciggie and threw it on the ground, stamping it out with the toe of his boot. “Why’re you asking?”

  For the first time in days, I thought of Gabby. Annoying and scatter-brained. Lazy as sin. It was a jolt to realise I’d missed her company in the bar a lot more than I’d miss my job there. After six months of working side-by-side, it turned out I cared for her less like a colleague and more like a friend.

  “Gabby didn’t deserve what happened to her,” I said in a low voice. “And she doesn’t deserve to have her death twisted into something for political gain.”

  “And what did happen to her?”

  I took a stab at the only thing her ghost had conveyed to Dee. “She was poisoned. If not with an actual poison, with something she was allergic to.” I waved the phone around, although the screen had long since gone blank. “She sure as heck didn’t die in the woods and it had nothing to do with any animal attack.”

  “If you’d seen her body, you wouldn’t be so sure.”

  I tipped my head back, squinting through the swaying branches of the trees at the flickering sunlight. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Go home, Liv. This is nothing to do with you.”

  “I’ll be home and tucked up safely indoors before eight o’clock, if that’s what’s worrying you. Heaven forbid I be allowed to wander the streets at night, willy-nilly.”

  “That’ll blow over soon.”

  “Will it?” I ran a hand through my hair, pulling it roughly behind my ears. “Seems like someone’s gone to too much trouble to just let it all drift away.”

  Keith stared at me, then tugged his pack of cigarettes out of his inside pocket and put a fresh one in his mouth. He flicked his lighter, once, twice, three times. Even with his hands cupped a
round the end, the wind caught and snuffed out the flame.

  “Stupid things,” he said, finally getting it lit and taking a long drag. He coughed out the smoke, tendrils curling out of his nostrils.

  I inhaled a small breath and nostalgia flooded me, the craving for a drag so strong my lungs heaved. “Am I right?”

  He shook his head. “Even if I knew what you were talking about, I couldn’t answer. Shifters aren’t the only people with things to lose in Beechdale, you know.”

  Keith turned and walked away, heading for the back of the building. I could follow him, harangue him, threaten to take away all that he loved and held dear in the pursuit of a truthful answer, but it wouldn’t get me anywhere.

  I sighed, stepping back out onto the street and looking up and down the road for a sign of which way to go. Surely there should be something else I could do. Someone I could go to in order to learn the truth and set Gabby’s spirit to rest.

  But if there was, it eluded me.

  Knowing I would end up there eventually, I headed home. A confrontation with Caleb might be in the offing but so was the comfort from my best friends.

  At the door, Dee greeted me with excited jumps, and I picked her up to stroke her until she calmed. Even then, her breathing stayed rapid. “The police came back here,” she said in between pants. “They spoke with Caleb for aaaaaaaages.”

  Really? I squinted down at her and Dee looked affronted. The police hadn’t seemed about to pound down the doors when I’d left them an hour before. “Did they arrest him?”

  “No. He’s in my room, sulking. When Silvana tried to find out what was going on, he wouldn’t answer at all.”

  I knocked on his door, fed up with the day and everybody in it. “Caleb, open the door,” I ordered. After a minute of nothing, I tried to push it open, but he’d propped something heavy against the other side.

  “Open the door or I’ll break the windows and come in through them instead.”

  After a moment, an object scraped across the carpet and Caleb opened the door a crack, enough to glare through. “If you don’t mind, I’m hiding out from the police.”

  I thought Dee’s assessment that he was sulking was more accurate and shoved the door open fully, forcing him to step back. My eyes strayed the length of his body, trying to suss him out. Was he a killer?

  “You can’t stay here if you’re bringing trouble,” I said flatly. “What did the police want?”

  “Just some made-up nonsense.” Caleb shook his head and muttered, “I’m beginning to believe it’s par for the course in this town.”

  “What. Did. They. Want?”

  “I dropped my ma’s locket somewhere, and they accused me of stealing it from the dead girl’s body, that’s what.”

  “A locket?” I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Where is it?”

  “This one.” He pulled it out of his pocket and thrust it at me. I had to take the necklace, or it would have dropped to the floor. “Open it up, you’ll see it’s my mother.”

  “Your mother gave you a necklace?” Dee asked, giving a hoot of amusement so she sounded more like an owl than me.

  “She’s dead. It’s the only thing I have to remember her by.”

  I fumbled with the latch, my hands shaking with guilt. Why hadn’t I thought to check the inside?

  Because Gabby’s didn’t open, and you thought it was hers.

  True enough. The catch on the side of hers was broken and someone had tried to repair it with a bit of solder. Instead, they’d welded it shut.

  I didn’t know the woman, but it was obviously Caleb’s mother that stared back at me from twinkling blue eyes when I opened the catch. It wasn’t a photograph inside the tiny frame but a painted image. He hadn’t mocked it up on the sly to cover himself. This portrait had been designed especially for the tiny space.

  “How sweet,” Dee cooed. “I can see where you got your good looks.”

  Caleb blushed faintly as he pulled the locket out of my hands. He glanced at it, snapping the catch shut before putting it into his back pocket. “I don’t know what the police were on about, but it’s got nothing to do with Gabby’s death.”

  “Okay.” I turned to go, then a figure stomping across the front lawn caught by eye. “Great. More company.”

  Caleb swivelled around, then gave a gasp and drew backwards. “It’s him!”

  “Him, who?” I lifted the net curtain aside just as the man walked out of sight. “It’s Leighton Palmer. No one to worry about.”

  “For you, maybe.” Caleb’s face was pale. “But he’s the shifter who attacked me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “The mayor paid me out so much money, I didn’t want to query his intentions too much.” Leighton stared out the window at the deepening colours of the late afternoon sky. His clothes were rumpled, and his oozing wound smelled like rotting flesh.

  He’d always been poor, but the man had still taken pride in himself. Overnight, that had gone.

  “Did you attack Heather, as well?” Dee asked, running onto the back of Leighton’s hand when he continued to stare into space.

  “No! Just Caleb.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know who the mayor got to attack her, but I draw the line at little girls.”

  “Nice to know you draw a line somewhere,” Caleb drawled. He didn’t look very impressed with Leighton’s moral stance. “How much did the mayor pay?”

  “A few weeks’ wages,” Leighton said in a small voice, then reached into his pocket, pulling out some crushed bills and a small mountain of change. “This is what’s left.”

  “Keep it.” Caleb held his hand up when the shifter tried to hand it to him. “It’s bad enough that you accepted the mayor’s blood money. Don’t expect me to do the same.”

  “For your expenses.” Leighton’s face fell, and I reached out to close his hand around the money.

  “That’s all taken care of,” I told him. “You don’t need to worry.”

  “Did you have anything to do with Gabby?” Dee asked and I guessed from her distracted expression, the barmaid’s ghost was once again whispering in her ear.

  “No. I told you. Nothing to do with any girls.”

  “Women,” I corrected him. “And why should we believe you?”

  “Why would I come here to admit such a dreadful thing and still lie?”

  I could guess reasons such as guilt and shame, but I had my own measure of those to deal with. Caleb might have put away his mother’s locket, but the image of the engraved silver still weighed heavily on my mind.

  “Why are you telling us now?” Caleb leaned forward, staring into Leighton’s rheumy eyes.

  “The mayor’s trying to blame shifters for everything bad that ever happened in Beechdale,” Leighton said. He leaned forward, spittle flying as his speech grew more urgent. “And it ain’t nothing to do with us, is it? If he’s the one paying for stuff to be done, the guilt lies with him.”

  “It lies with someone who lets themselves be bought off, too.” Dee stared at Leighton with a stern gaze, doling out her judgement.

  He couldn’t hold his head up.

  “Never mind that now,” I said. “It shows the mayor is in on this. Does Gabby know any reason he’d have to target her?”

  Dee smirked. “Not unless he was trying to free up her boyfriend.”

  “I forgot Marshall went out with Zelda before he hooked up with Gabby.” I bit my lip and picked at the edge of the table. The thin plywood sheeting had come away from the pulp base. “But would he really want a son-in-law who’s a gold digger?”

  “Maybe his daughter is another Veruca Salt, and he doesn’t care.”

  “Seems more like Gabby was that.” A piece of thin veneer broke off and stabbed me in the meat of my nail bed. Silvana sniffed with interest, then poked out her tongue when she saw it was just me injuring myself again.

  “Well, I vote that Liv talks to the big cheese.” Dee smiled sweetly up at me. “I’d volunteer but I doubt I’d be allowed
through the door.”

  Caleb used the sofa arm to lever himself into a standing position. “I’ll go. Mayor Tomkins is the one who leaked Keith Trogart’s report to me.”

  Silvana gave a short shake of her head. “If you’ve accepted money or information from him, you’re complicit. I hate to suggest it, but don’t you all think we should go to the police?”

  Not wanting to admit it, I drew in a deep breath and felt around for scraps of my courage. “I’ve been to the police already today. About the locket.”

  The skin of my cheek smouldered as Caleb stared at me in confusion.

  “Of course, I was wrong, but I thought it was the one Gabby used to wear in the bar. When Minette handed it to me from your laundry, I thought you must’ve killed her.”

  “I don’t even eat meat, but you thought I could murder a young woman?”

  “Hey,” Dee protested, sitting back on her haunches. “Vegans can be killers too.”

  “Why’re you defending them, rat-girl?” Silvana stared at her with one eyebrow raised. “You’re the most carnivorous rodent I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.”

  “I’m a mouse.” Dee sniffed and turned her face away in a huff. “And I was just saying.”

  “Thanks.” Caleb sat down again, much to the sofa springs’ dismay. “But perhaps don’t defend me, in future.”

  “The point is”—I rapped my knuckles on the table, drawing everyone’s attention—“that as soon as I handed over the locket, the mayor said you’d discovered it where Gabby’s body was found.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “No, you didn’t. But the mayor offered that alibi without thinking twice about it. Unless you’re his secret son, he’s setting you in the middle of all this.”

  Caleb buried his face in his hands and groaned. “I don’t get it. Why would he get me out of trouble only to pay someone to beat me senseless?”

  “Hey, I didn’t—”

  “Don’t worry, Leighton. We know you only gave him a once-over lightly.”