Pushing Up Rhubarb (A Millsferry Mystery Book 1)

by Diana Saco

  I didn’t answer immediately. I wondered if it was the rhetorical start of a classic Mrs. Weasley howler—except he didn’t emphasize the were. When he didn’t continue, I realized he expected an answer. Immediately worried that I hadn’t replied, I started stumbling my way quickly through some kind of response without actually formulating one first.

  “Wasn’t thinking—was sure they did it—needed evidence—house was empty—right behind Chloe’s—didn’t really plan it—sorta planned it—lied to Chloe—just needed answers—”

  Al put his hand up, making me stop abruptly. I wasn’t sure what I had said. I was vaguely aware only of having sounded like a sequence of text messages.

  “That’s the problem. You don’t think. You don’t consider the fallout there. Just like with Mr. Beacon and the weather maman.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked defensively. “He was sweet on Agnes but too shy to say anything. I just broke the ice between them.”

  “You stuck your nose in his business is what you did, yabetcha. Matchmakin’ isn’t our business.”

  “But it worked out!” I protested.

  “It could’ve gone bad, Nina. Like this went bad. Because you didn’t care about the consequences.”

  I hung my head.

  “And you wanna know the worst part? For me?”

  I looked at him expectantly, even though I was sure I didn’t want to hear the rest.

  “The worst part was knowin’ that you were willin’ to plunge ahead anyway, without any worry for me or our firm. You decided to risk everything. Includin’ my livelihood. The livelihood my family depends on.”

  He took a deep breath, obviously trying to control himself. I’d never seen him this angry. Not even when he found out about New England hurricanes. This was not going to blow over any time soon.

  “I can’t even look at you,” he said at last. And then he left. Just like that.

  I sat there wallowing as the silence stretched out around me. Eventually, I couldn’t even hear the clatter of keyboards from the office outside. I never felt more alone.

  Just as the void became almost unbearable, two things happened at once. Harry Cutter came in to take me to booking. At exactly the same moment, the lower part of my body erupted in a loud blast that was followed by the olfactory evidence of its source.

  Now, as a writer—and a friend of Farm Armsby, the eternal tween—I’ve had occasion over the years to research the many ways of saying what those in polite society refer to as “flatulence.” One of the best resources I found was the Urban Dictionary website. There, I discovered no less than 261 ways to describe a “fart” (number 84 on the list). Some of the phrases were suggestive, like “colonic calliope” and “kill the canary.” (The latter gave rise to a running joke between Farm and me about writing a parody of Harper Lee’s famous work, calling it To Kill a Canary, with Farticus Stench, Sprout Stench, and Poo Madley.) I had been quite sure until that instant that I couldn’t remember any of the other synonyms on that list. And yet, when Harry walked in and I “parped” (number 169) a “moon gas” (number 158) and made my “trousers cough” (number 247), my brain blazed through all 261 ways of describing what I had just done. Right there. In that quiet room. With no one else to blame. As I watched Harry’s eyes go wide with surprise and felt the blood rush to my face, I wondered how much more humiliating this day could become. In the back of mind, I imagined Farm rolling around on the floor laughing his ass off.

  *****

  Poor Harry processed me quickly. Before taking me to my cell, he bucked up the courage to ask me if I needed to use the facilities. I was not feeling as courageous, so I said “yes” just to delay having to confront Chloe. I stalled as long as I could in the stall—wondering if killing time in a bathroom is where the notion of “stalling” came from—until Harry knocked on the restroom door and asked if I was okay. I lied again and said “yes,” washed my hands, and finally stepped out. We walked to the cells in silence. The first person I saw was Maxi. She was sitting on a bunk and looked up at me when I entered the hallway outside her cell. I went rigid with worry that we’d have to share the confined space. And then I sighed with relief as Harry spoke up.

  “Next one, Nina.”

  As I walked past, I noticed that Marvin was in the same cell as Maxi, sitting on the bunk at the opposite wall. He spared a look at me. It was not a nice one. Aunt Dottie was standing outside the next cell, and I saw that she was talking to Chloe, who was on the other side and holding hands with Dottie through the bars. They both stopped talking and looked at me when I came in. Aunt Dottie smiled. I was so grateful for that smile that I lunged for it, wrapping Aunt Dottie in a big hug, which she returned awkwardly. We weren’t actually on regular hugging terms yet, but a drowning person will clutch at any floating object. So what if, in the sea of trouble I was in, Aunt Dottie was barely more than a rubber ducky? At that moment, she was my lifesaver.

  Harry unlocked the cell door and ushered me in.

  “Come on, Aunt Dottie,” he said. “I have to take you home now.”

  “Go on, I’ll be okay in here,” Chloe told her with a reassuring smile. “Besides, Nina and I have a lot to discuss.”

  I gulped, not reassured.

  Then Aunt Dottie looked at me without a smile. “Forgot. You did this. Shame,” she added.

  And just like that, I lost my rubber ducky.

  I watched her and Harry go with an odd little sense of longing. I even pressed my face against the bars to watch them go, not caring about the many grubby hands that had left their dirt and epithelia there—until I actually considered how many grubby hands had left their dirt and epithelia there. I wiped my cheeks against my sleeves hoping to decontaminate them as I surveyed my hovel for the night. I was still avoiding Chloe.

  The Millsferry jailhouse was well-appointed as far as jails go. The cells were separated from each other by a chest-high cement wall. But it was all bars above that, which meant that I could hear the next-door neighbors and also see them if we were all standing up. Each cell had a privacy divider—also chest-high—that ran from the back wall up to within a meter of the bars along the front. The halves mirrored each other. A stainless steel toilet for each occupant was installed sideways at each corner with a half-height tile wall for additional privacy. Someone could sit there doing her business and be seen only from the shoulders up. A small sink, also stainless steel, hung from the back wall next to the center privacy partition. The bunk ran along the side wall, one end abutting the divider that separated the bathroom area from the sleeping area.

  The central privacy partition was the most unique and high-tech feature in the cell. It had a built-in display monitor on each side facing the bunks, with a pulldown keyboard and touchpad. This provided the occupants with limited Internet access, including streaming video for entertainment. A pair of headsets in plastic wrap hung next to the monitors. It wasn’t meant to be Club Med. The amenities were provided not for the occupants’ comfort but for their distraction. It kept them busy so they wouldn’t cause trouble for each other or for the officers. I had endured far worse accommodations on vacations to exotic places. In short, I knew I could handle an overnight stay in Millsferry’s version of a hoosegow. I just wasn’t sure about being in such close quarters with these other guests—Maxi and Marvin only one cell over and Chloe in essentially the same cage.

  I considered putting on the headsets and playing a movie, but that would be rude. I knew Chloe wanted to talk. Even if all she wanted to do was yell at me, I didn’t feel I had the right to deny her that opportunity. Besides, she had been watching me the entire time over the partition, patiently waiting for me to finish exploring and start conversing. I lifted my eyes and looked at her at last.

  “Your place or mine?” I asked.

  “Mine,” she said abruptly, and then turned and disappeared.

  I got off my bunk and walked around the corner of the partition. Chloe was seated at the far end of her bunk with her arms folded across her
chest and her back against the lavatory wall. She nodded at the other end of her bed, which I took as a command to sit, so I did. She looked at me a long while and then finally spoke.

  “What were you thinking?”

  Except for the lack of an accent, it could have been Al talking. Having learned my lesson from my last encounter with an angry friend, I didn’t wait to find out if the question was rhetorical.

  “Well,” I began.

  “Don’t speak!” she commanded with a raised hand.

  I pressed my lips together. Evidently, this time the question was rhetorical.

  “You violated the terms of my bail and got me stuck in this hell hole.”

  I glanced at Chloe’s display where an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess was running. For a moment, I considered challenging her statement about this being a hell hole, but I wisely decided not to comment.

  “You put your firm at risk, to your detriment and Al’s, too, Nina, without any consideration for him and his family. You put the case at risk, making Mason’s work that much harder. I don’t even know if he can still get me acquitted thanks to your antics. Worst of all, you put Aunt Dottie at risk by backing us all into a corner and making the poor dear think that she could take the fall for me.”

  “They didn’t believe her,” I said.

  “Don’t interrupt me. I’m not finished. I know they didn’t believe her, and that’s not the point. The point is that you took risks with people and livelihoods and lives—risks that weren’t yours to take and that no one asked you to take. What possessed you, Nina? Were you playing out a plot where you get to be the hero? How the hell did you get into that house anyway?”

  “I, uh, I climbed a tree and got in through a second-story window.”

  “Sounds very Die-Hard,” she observed sternly.

  “It was more Denise-the-Menace,” I offered.

  “I’m sure it was. Either way, you could have broken your neck, right?”

  I nodded mutely.

  “That would have made a very pretty picture for me. Going outside the next morning to look for you and finding you lying on the ground, bloody and broken. I’ll draw it for you sometime. Maybe seeing what could have happened will help you realize how utterly stupid that was.”

  Being called stupid got my hackles up, but I had no defense for what I did. Still, I think Chloe sensed that she might have crossed a line. She didn’t apologize, but she did stop berating me.

  “Go away, Nina,” she said at last, sounding defeated. “I can’t look at you anymore.”

  Shunned again. I felt my bottom lip start to quiver but held back my tears. I got up and rounded the partition. The minute I entered my side of the cell, I looked up and saw Maxi and Marvin standing at the adjoining wall between our cells, staring at me through the bars. They made no move to hide the fact that they had been eavesdropping as Chloe scolded me. Instead, Maxi looked at me and tsked.

  “Poor dear,” she said insincerely. “You’re having such a bad day.”

  I was so tired of being beaten down that I said something truly awful to her.

  “Oh, why don’t you eat rhubarb!” I exclaimed, saying it like a curse.

  Surprise and then grief played across her features for an instant. Then she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and walked away. Marvin just shook his head at me and followed her. I didn’t think I could feel worse, but that did it. A new low—taunting a victim’s family with the instrument of her death.

  I flopped onto my bunk and pulled the pillow over my face wanting to disappear. That made my brain flash to science fiction fantasies about matter transporters. I saw an image of myself zapped to a deserted island. But that didn’t feel isolated enough, so I imagined myself floating in space. Outer space made me think of the universe. The next thing I knew, I was mulling over quantum theories about multiple universes and imagining infinite Ninas facing similar choices. The idea of multiple selves always weirded me out a little, but it also intrigued me. It was an ego thing. I rather fancied the thought of me, me, me and me.

  I got the same thrill from Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures. Hirschfeld was known for working his daughter’s name—also a “Nina”—into some part of his drawings, usually in strands of hair or the weave of a fabric. He would then indicate how many “Ninas” appeared in the artwork by adding a number next to his signature. I used to love following the lines until I found all the instances of what was my name, too, in those famous drawings. Remembering Hirschfeld’s ink drawings reminded me of the illustrations I’d seen in Chloe’s kitchen, which made me think of Chloe. And with that, my wandering mind was back where it started. In the slammer.

  Could there be a different Nina somewhere who had decided not to break into the Munch house that fateful night? Today, that notion depressed me. I couldn’t envision a single alternate reality where I hadn’t universally screwed things up. I was certain at that moment that everywhere I existed, people were mad at me.

  10. My Friend's Enemy's Sister is My What?

  Sometime during the night, the strangest thing happened. I was running in a field of runes. In the distance, I could see a stone tablet. It had a jagged red border with a fringe of black vines along the top and a bird’s beak coming out of the center. As I made my way toward it, I saw Farm waving me on with enthusiasm.

  “You can do it!” he yelled.

  He was dressed in a pair of turquoise tights. I remembered thinking that was odd because I’d only ever seen him wearing forest green tights before.

  “It’s a riddle,” he said. “Just say the magic phrase.”

  “What is the magic phrase?” I asked him.

  “You know,” he said.

  I skidded to a stop in front of the tablet and blurted the only phrase I could think of. “Rhubarb! Rhubarb!”

  I waited, breathless and expectant, but nothing happened. I heard the clank of metal in the distance and knew I was almost out of time. Frustrated, I tried the magic phrase again, but still nothing happened. I reached for the tablet and grazed it with my fingertips as something snatched me away from it. The next thing I knew, I was lying in my jailhouse bunk, feeling annoyed at having been so close to solving the puzzle only to get interrupted. It took me a moment more to realize it had all been a dream.

  A noise had awoken me. Hearing voices and keys, I wondered who could be visiting us during the predawn hours. I had found a sleep mask—also plastic-wrapped—under my pillow. When I pulled it off, I saw Bruno opening the cell I shared with Chloe. Mason was with him.

  “Don’t you guys ever sleep?” I asked, still annoyed at having my riddle-solving dream interrupted.

  “Rarely at dinnertime,” Mason replied.

  I checked my watch and saw 7:15 p.m. on the display. Sure enough, it was still the worst day of my life.

  My stomach growled when I smelled food. Thankfully, it had also settled down after the day’s aches, cramps, and ailments, leaving it empty and surprisingly ready for action. I felt my luck was about to turn. It was then I noticed Harry with a take-out bag from Steamy’s. He had apparently handed a couple of bags to the inmates in the adjoining cell because I could hear Marvin asking him if he had any salt.

  “There are salt and pepper packs inside the baggie with your fork and knife, Mr. Munch,” he said.

  I didn’t even wait for Harry to hand me my bag. I reached for it through the bars, which I think startled him.

  “Hey!” he said.

  “Hey, what? It’s got my name on it,” I said, spotting Farm’s handwriting alongside a drawing of a person clad in classic striped prison garb, small cap and all. Actually, it looked like a female version of the figure on the Monopoly “Get out of jail, free” card. I chuckled. Looking closer, I noticed he’d drawn my name into the hair, just like in a Hirschfeld sketch. How cosmically Kismety is that? The bacon-cheeseburger, curly fries, and chocolate malt in the bag made me fall in love with Farm all over again. Comfort food. As I poked the straw into my shake, I noticed Harry didn’t have any m
ore bags.

  “What about Chloe?” I asked, nervous that I would have to share.

  “She doesn’t need take-out. She’s going home,” Mason answered. Then he turned to Chloe and explained. “I talked to Judge Ota and Loyal Bingham after court to convince the judge that you had nothing to do with the break-in. I also told him that you didn’t skip town when you had the chance and that there was no reason to expect that you would. Loyal didn’t object to changing the terms of your bail. Ultimately, Judge Ota agreed that you shouldn’t be punished for someone else’s bad behavior.” Mason gave me a pointed look as he emphasized that last part.

  I tried to look contrite, but I had just taken a bite of my burger. It was doughy from the toasted bun, juicy from the medium rare beef, gooey from the cheddar cheese, smoky from the bacon, crispy from the pickle and lettuce, and tangy from the sliced tomato and stoneground mustard. That perfect combination of doughy-juicy-gooey-smoky-crispy-tangy deliciousness was the sensual epitome of culinary hedonism. I—a mere mortal—was defenseless before its power to corrupt. I was its slave. Consequently, I couldn’t muster the sense of guilt the occasion called for. I couldn’t even fake a halfway believable frown. In fact, I think I may have swooned.

  Mason rolled his eyes at me before continuing. “Anyway, Ota released you and also lifted the condition on your bail.”

  “Thank goodness,” Chloe said. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed the company I’ve been keeping,” she added looking at me.

  I suddenly remembered her visit to my house several weeks before when she tried giving me writing advice. She was right about what she had said back then—double negatives are confusing.

  I swallowed and then said, “I suppose this means I’m fired.”

  “Nope,” she and Mason said simultaneously.

  “You’re not getting off that easy,” she said.

  “Right,” Mason agreed. “You made this mess, and you’re going to have to clean it up. You’re being released tomorrow at noon. I imagine you’ll want to go home for a change of clothes. I’ll expect you at my office after that. No later than two. ”