Murders and Metaphors

by Amanda Flower

  I stepped out of my bedroom and saw my grandmother sleeping peacefully on the couch in my tiny living room. There was a smile on her face. If I knew Grandma Daisy at all, she was reliving her heroic rescue of me over and over in her dreams. She deserved to. Rainwater was right; she had saved my life.

  I tiptoed out of my apartment, into the children’s loft, and down the spiral stairs, wondering if I had imagined the night before: the trip to the hospital with Redding, being pushed into the river, Grandma Daisy jumping in to save me, and Rainwater being there when we came out of the water. But as I walked down the steps and saw the outline of the police chief lying on one of the large sofas by the crackling fireplace, I knew that it had to all be true, every last bit of it. Faulkner fluffed his feathers when I passed the sleeping bird on his favorite branch. I knew that the crow must be awake but was determined to pretend that he was still asleep. I wondered if there was a more obstinate bird on the planet. It was hard to imagine such a creature.

  Emerson softly padded down the steps in front of me, looking back every few steps to make sure I was coming. The little tuxedo cat moved noiselessly, but the old staircase groaned under my weight.

  Rainwater stirred and opened his eyes. He smiled when he saw me standing just a few feet away from him.

  I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around my waist. I was wearing my polar bear pajamas that my grandmother had given me for Christmas, and my hair was a tangled mess sprouting out of my head. I wished that I had taken the time to dress or at least brush my hair before I came downstairs. “You stayed the whole night,” I said.

  Rainwater pushed his blanket to the other side of the couch and sat up. He’d slept in his jeans and plain white T-shirt. Both were impossibly wrinkled. A very faint five o’clock shadow darkened the skin around his mouth, and his amber eyes were alert. He could not have looked more handsome if he’d tried. “I told your grandmother I would. Why do you think I would leave?”

  “I didn’t think you would leave by your own choice,” I said hesitantly. “But you’re the chief of police in this little village, and if something happens, you have to go.” Tentatively, I sat beside him on the couch. I left six inches of space between us.

  He took my hand in his and held it on the sofa cushion between us. “That may be true but unless there’s a break in the homicide case or another murder, I told my officers that I was leaving all late-night calls to them. Clipton, Wheaton, and my other officers can handle the traffic stops and minor infractions that happen in the village overnight.” He sighed. “When I took this job, I didn’t think murder investigation would be a main portion of my duties.” He shook his head. “How’s Daisy?”

  “Sleeping like a log.” I smiled. “I’m glad she wasn’t hurt. It was so foolhardy of her to jump into the water after me. How did she get to me so fast?”

  “She invited me to dinner with you and the Duponts and met me in front of the café. She just took off running across the street. She saw someone push you into the water.”

  “Did she see who did it? Did you?”

  He shook his head. “Neither of us did. We were both so focused on saving you.”

  “Grandma Daisy could had drowned.” I shivered.

  “Violet, she saved your life.”

  “But she risked her own,” I protested.

  He squeezed my hand. “That’s what people do when they love someone. It’s what they should do. I just wish that I had been there to pull you out of the water.”

  “You were there,” I protested.

  He frowned. “After Daisy had already pulled you out of the water. I knew that you were becoming too involved in the investigation. I didn’t protect you like I should have.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over this. No one could have known this was going to happen, and we don’t have proof that it was Belinda’s killer who pushed me into the river. All we can do is speculate.”

  He stared down at our entwined hands.

  I studied him, but he didn’t look up and meet my gaze. “The truth has always been abundantly clear to me. You’re a man worthy of trusting. I just don’t know if I can. I can try if you will be patient with me.”

  He opened his mouth again as if to speak, but I shook my head and continued. I had to get this out before I lost my courage. “My hesitancy doesn’t come from Nathan or wanting to be with Nathan, if that’s what you think. It comes from what he represents, my life before my mother and Colleen died. He knew them. He was with me when they died. You’ll never know them, and that’s a hard truth.” I took a shaky breath. “You would’ve thought after all these years I would be over losing them, but the truth is, when someone you love that much dies, you don’t ever really get over it. I’ve learned I have to give myself permission to live happily ever after without them, and not feel guilty because I’m here. Neither my mom or Colleen would want me to suffer and be alone if I have an opportunity to be happy with you. They would want me to take the risk. They would scream at me to take it.”

  Tears were rolling down my cheeks now, but I made no move to wipe them away. I was showing Rainwater who I really was: a polar-bear pajama–wearing, tangled-haired, blubbering mess. “I choose you. I was always going to choose you; I just had to give myself permission to do it. That’s my decision to live in the moment.” I took another breath. “What do you have to say about that?”

  He didn’t say a thing. Instead, he leaned forward and gave me a good-morning kiss.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Two hours later, I was showered and dressed. Rainwater had left not long after our talk. I felt so much lighter having told him how I felt. I hadn’t known how much holding my feelings back from him had been weighing on me. I glanced at the tree. When it came to Rainwater, there was still the issue of being the shop’s Caretaker to deal with. I didn’t know how I could keep that secret from Rainwater without sabotaging whatever we might have in the future. For the moment, I pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated on the present, and part of the present was finding out who had pushed me into the river.

  I moved slowly down the steps, still sore from my tumble into the river. I had half a dozen bruises peppered across my body, but thankfully it was the middle of winter, and by the time it was warm enough to wear T-shirts and no coats again, the bruises would be healed.

  Moving slowly, I reached the bottom of the staircase as Grandma Daisy was opening the shop for the day. I was more than grateful that I had classes at the college only every other day, so I wouldn’t have to teach that morning.

  When I reached the main floor, Emerson turned his back on me and walked away. I knew that was part of his payback for tricking him into stay in the shop last night. He had slept on my bed the night before, but I thought that was probably just to make sure I was all right. Now that I was confirmed okay, he could commence reminding me of what a mean cat owner I was.

  “Be careful, dear. Are you all right?” Grandma Daisy was at the front of the shop, putting corn kernels into Faulkner’s food dish near his perch. Corn was his favorite breakfast.

  He swooped down from the tree and began to peck at the corn. He bobbed his head. “Thank you,” the crow said.

  I frowned. I really was beginning to think that the shop crow knew exactly what was going on. Emerson paced under the large bird, waiting for any piece of corn that Faulkner might drop. He wouldn’t eat it but batted it all over the floor. I had found kernels of corn in the oddest places in the shop. I had once even found a kernel in my bed.

  “I’m fine. Just moving slow. You went into the river too, and you look right as rain.”

  My grandmother smiled. “I feel invigorated. Saving you reminded me that my time isn’t up just yet.”

  I blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Well, my dear, you may have noticed that I have dusted this shop from top to bottom every other day. I’m bored! Ever since you have taken over being the Caretaker, I don’t know what to do with mysel
f. I had that role for so long, I’m at loose ends.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling awful. “I had no idea. I’m sorry that I took it from you. I didn’t want it in the first place.”

  “I know that, Violet. That is why I haven’t mentioned my lack of direction to you until now. I knew that you would feel bad about taking the Caretaker duties. However, when the essence wants to pass on the duties to a new Caretaker, there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

  “I wish I could give them back,” I said, thinking of Rainwater. “I really do.”

  “I know, dear, but there are other things I can do; saving you last night made me realize that. I just have to find my new niche.”

  “I hope your new niche doesn’t include jumping into the Niagara River on a regular basis.”

  She held her arms aloft. “Who knows! The sky’s the limit.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  There was a loud thud on the sales desk. Grandma Daisy and I both jumped as we turned to face the desk.

  A copy of Little Women sat on the sales counter.

  I glanced at Emerson. He was sitting by the front door, clearly planning his escape. Faulkner was at the top of the tree preening his feathers. Neither of them had dropped the book out of the sky.

  The shop’s essence had put it there. I went to pick up the book, and it fell open to the chapter detailing the adventures of Amy, the youngest of the March girls, in Europe. I looked up from the book. Amy. If I equated her with the Perkins sisters, she would be Adele, the young artist who had wished her sister dead when Belinda refused to pay her studio rent any longer as well as the young sister I’d thought I’d seen walking along the river last night just moments before I was pushed in.

  I looked up from my book. “I think I know where the book wants me to go this time.”

  “Go, then. I think we will all feel better when this mess with Belinda’s murder is settled,” Grandma Daisy said. “Just stay away from the river’s edge.”

  I promised I would.

  Grandma Daisy held on to a hissing Emerson as I left the shop. The cat was going to be so mad at me for leaving again when I got home later that day. I decided to walk to Adele’s studio rather than drive. I thought that walking would work out some of the aches and pains in my body left over from my dip in the river. I was halfway to the bird neighborhood when I realized that walking was a mistake. I was still impossibly sore. It was a great relief when Adele’s Cape Cod studio came into view on Sparrow Street.

  I climbed the two steps to the studio’s front door. I knocked on the door, but just like the first time I had visited Adele, there was no answer. I pushed open the door and peeked inside. “Adele?” I called.

  There were no bangs and yells coming from behind the Chinese screen like there had been last time. Instead, I found Adele sitting on the middle of the studio floor cradling Emerson in her arms. I blinked. “How on earth did he get here?”

  She looked up and didn’t appear the least bit surprised that I was standing in the doorway. “Do you know him?”

  “He’s my cat.”

  “Why did he come here?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  She scratched Emerson under his white chin, and he began to purr. “He’s a nice cat. I was just sitting on the floor, and he walked through the front door just like you did and sat on my lap.”

  I sat across from her cross-legged on the floor. “And why are you sitting on the floor?”

  “Thinking,” she said vaguely. “I need to do a lot thinking to know what I will do next now that I don’t have Belinda’s financial support.”

  “I saw you down by the river last night. Why were you there?”

  She looked down at Emerson, and I thought that she wasn’t going to answer. Finally, she said, “I was trying to work up the courage to go and talk to Lacey. I wasn’t going to ask her for money,” she added quickly. “But after you came by the other day, I realized that she and Michelle are the only family I have in the world now. I should try to make up with them. It’s what our mother would have wanted. She would never want us to be so divided like we are. It would break her heart.”

  “Have you spoken to Lacey or Michelle?”

  “No. Last night was going to be my first time, but I chickened out.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Did you notice anything unusual while you were by the Riverwalk?” I asked.

  “Other than you standing there in the cold?” she asked. “No.”

  “Did you see anyone else there?”

  She shook her head. “Only you.”

  “Did you see me fall in the river?”

  She looked up from the cat on her lap. “You fell into the river? How?” She appeared so genuinely shocked by my statement, I knew that she couldn’t be lying.

  “Someone pushed me,” I said.

  “Why would—”

  The front door of the studio burst open.

  Adele jumped to her feet holding Emerson to her chest. I jumped up too but moved much slower.

  Chief David Rainwater and Officer Wheaton stood in the middle of the room. Wheaton had handcuffs in his hands at the ready.

  “Adele Perkins, we would like you to come with us to the police station,” Rainwater said.

  Adele shook her head. “No way.”

  “If you don’t come, you will be arrested.” Rainwater’s amber eyes were narrowed.

  She handed Emerson to me and then held out her wrists. “I’d like to see you try.”

  Rainwater nodded at his officer. Wheaton didn’t hesitate and jumped at the chance to throw handcuffs on someone. He walked over to Adele and slapped cuffs on her wrist. He read her her rights. “You are under arrest for the murder of Belinda Perkins.”

  Adele pulled her wrists away, but Wheaton was stronger than her and held them fast. “I didn’t kill anyone! Violet, tell them I didn’t kill anyone!”

  I stepped forward. “David—”

  Rainwater held up his hand. “Wheaton, take Miss Perkins to the station. I will be following shortly.”

  Wheaton glared at me before he led Adele out of her studio.

  I threw up my hands. “What is going on? Why are you arresting Adele?” Everything had happened so fast that my head was spinning.

  “What are you doing here?” Rainwater asked.

  “The boo—” I stopped myself because I had almost said that the books had told me to visit Adele that morning. “What are you doing here? How can you arrest Adele for Belinda’s murder?”

  “We have strong reasons to believe that she is guilty.” He pressed his lips into a thin line.

  “What are those reasons?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “But she said that she left the book signing before Belinda died. She couldn’t have done it then, and you see how small she is. How could she stab Belinda in the back like that? It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  Rainwater looked down at me. “She lied, Violet. More people do that than you know.”

  “But …”

  “I have a witness,” Rainwater cut me off.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The mayor.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I walked home from Adele’s studio in a daze with Emerson in my arms. Could Adele really have been the killer? I didn’t know why it upset me so much. A little part of me wondered if it was because I wasn’t the one who had figured it out. Maybe I had lost my knack for interpreting the shop’s essence’s clues? That was a scary thought, and it could be dangerous too. If I interpreted what the essence told me incorrectly, I shouldn’t be trying to understand it all.

  Then again, the essence had told me to go to Adele’s studio, and then she had been arrested. Was it telling me that she was the killer too? I thought of all the clues from Little Women that the shop had given me. There was the passage about wanting to do something splendid before “I go to my castle in the sky.” Jo March had said that she wanted
to accomplish something great before she died. I had thought that was about Belinda because of her drive and ambition. It could be, but it could be about the killer too. Perhaps Belinda was keeping someone from reaching their castle. This made me think of Adele. She felt like Belinda had held her back by withholding money from her.

  There was the passage about the “many Beths” who suffered in silence. I still believed that was the shop telling me to help Lacey. There was the passage about the white-hot anger in some people that was difficult to quench. I chewed on that one for a moment. Could it be that whoever had killed Belinda had been holding a grudge against her for a long time? I took a breath. Okay, two of the book riddles were solved, or as solved as I could foresee them being.

  Regarding the final passage, I had no idea what the shop’s essence was telling me. I recited it aloud as I walked, thinking that hearing it would somehow make it clearer. “Unfortunately, we don’t have windows in our breasts, and cannot see what goes on in the minds of our friends; better for us that we cannot as a general thing, but now and then it would be such a comfort, such a saving of time and temper.”

  I walked by the houses in the bird neighborhood that were all fringed with snow and ice. With the exception of a few Cape Cods like Adele’s studio, most of the homes in the neighborhood were French inspired, with wrought-iron gates and small balconies that overlooked the street.

  My cell phone rang, and I removed it from my coat pocket. Lacey’s name was on my screen.

  “Violet, I have to go to the police station right now,” Lacey said in a panicked voice in my ear.

  “You’ve heard about Adele’s arrest?”

  “How did you know about it?” she asked.