by Raven Snow
That was a fair question. Rowen looked back at the picture. All at once, she recognized Mrs. Lords. She looked the same as she had in Rory’s baby picture. Maybe they had lived in Lainswich at one point in time. “So, why do you think this had something to do with a cult?” asked Rowen. She knew why she now had her suspicions, but she wasn’t sure what connection Tina and Peony could have drawn from such scant information.
“Well, I mean, Edward had a membership at the country club, right?” asked Peony. “We looked for some old articles about the club and saw the thing about the Stonewalls. We got to talking about it and, well, Tina said she’s been there before.”
“I have,” Tina confirmed, preening.
“And she said she saw some weird symbols.”
“I did.”
“What kind of symbols?” asked Rowen.
Tina shrugged. “Weird ones. I dunno. There’s this one super VIP part of the club only certain members can get into. Some of the people I saw go through the VIP door had identical rings on. They were all these bulky, ugly gold things with, like, a big circular symbol on it. I dunno. I figure they’re either a cult or a bunch of folks meeting to play poker or have a rich person’s swingers party or something.”
“Wanna know the super weird thing?” asked Peony. Without waiting for an answer from Rowen, she pointed to another person in the photo. This time she managed to slap Tina’s hand away first and refrain from touching the screen herself. The person she was pointing to was someone standing a little ways off from the others. She wasn’t quite in the foreground of the photo. It looked like she might have been trying to get away from the cameraman entirely but hadn’t managed to do so in time.
There was something about the woman’s plain clothes and the hair carelessly piled into a bun. She knew this woman. Obviously, she hadn’t known her as she was in this photo, but she had known her at some point.
“That’s Grammy,” said Peony when Rowen didn’t so much as guess.
“What?” Rowen leaned even closer. She saw it. Now that Peony had said who it was, it was obvious. That was definitely Grammy. She looked just as she had in some of the older pictures of her currently on display at Odds & Ends. “Why is she there?”
Peony shrugged. “Search me. I don’t have a clue.”
“Wait.” Something struck Rowen. “Go back to that last thing you showed me. The court thing.”
Tina sighed at being ordered around, but she did as she was asked. She switched out the microfiche again. “What are you looking for?”
Rowen scanned the page. Maybe she had just imagined the connection her mind had made, but she had to check. She scanned the cramped text again. It took a couple of minutes but, finally, she spotted it. “There!” This time she was the one who got her hand slapped away by Tina. “The judge presiding over Anna Greensmith’s case was someone named, Benjamin Lords.”
“So?” asked Tina.
“So, the Lords family is part of the cult!” Somewhere in the library someone shushed Rowen. She immediately lowered her voice. “I even saw one of them in the picture.”
Peony and Tina exchanged looks. They were both trying not to smile. This was exciting for them. They’d been instrumental in solving this thing. Clearly, they hadn’t actually thought their searching had amounted to anything. They had, in all likelihood, spent most of their time here at the library slacking off and hanging out. “So, what do we do now?” asked Tina.
“We don’t do anything.” Rowen didn’t want to drag Peony further into this, much less Tina. These cultists, or bored rich people or whatever you wanted to call them, were murderers first and foremost. The Stonewalls being there didn’t surprise Rowen. What did trouble her was Grammy’s presence. She knew Grammy was capable of murder if it was for the good of the family. She had committed it before and been sent to jail because of it. Rowen couldn’t imagine what she would be doing among the Lainswich elite. The town had always disliked Greensmiths, but that had especially been true back then.
“Can I have a copy of that photo?” asked Rowen.
Tina frowned at Rowen but provided her with a printout anyway. It looked like a picture of a picture. “Already had it printed out. It’s not great, but it’s the best I could manage.”
“It’ll do. Thanks.” She folded the picture up and stuck it in her purse. “I really appreciate the help.”
“Where are you going?” Peony called after Rowen as she turned to leave.
“I’m not entirely sure yet,” Rowen admitted. She’d figure that out once she was back on the road. At this point, she was really just playing things by ear.
***
Rowen ended up at the Greensmith house. It was where instinct had told her to go. She wanted to show the picture to someone, and someone was always at the Greensmith house. She just hoped Rory wasn’t there. He was a big guy. This probably wasn’t the best time for a confrontation with a guy like that. Rowen parked out front. Rory’s car wasn’t there, so that was good. It looked like Lydia’s old low-riding junker was there. A nice car was parked out front, too. Jasper’s car. It had to be. Rowen recognized it from this morning. She got out and headed in through the front.
“I’m just disgusted. I’m really just disgusted.” It sounded like Aunt Lydia still wasn’t done lecturing.
Rowen followed her aunt’s voice to the dining room. Margo and Jasper were seated at the bar separating the dining room from the kitchen. Aunt Lydia was pacing about from one task to another. It looked like she was making coffee on one side of the kitchen and tea on the other. From the smell of it, she was also baking a pie. It had been a long time since Rowen had seen Lydia this stressed out.
“Hey,” Rowen said, making her presence known.
Margo and Jasper looked back, miserable expressions on both their faces. Dark circles were beneath their eyes, like they had gotten very little sleep, if any. Rowen wondered if she looked similar. She hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep herself as of late. “Ah, Rowen. Nice to see you, Sweetheart.” Lydia put on a smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes like smiles usually did. It was like she was trying to go through the motions of being excited to see Rowen, but the excitement just wasn’t there.
“Baking a pie?” asked Rowen, trying to break the ice a little before she put any more stress on her aunt’s shoulders with the photo in her purse.
“Yes, but no one can have any.” As if only now remembering she had a pie in the oven, she hurried to check on it. “It’s an offering.”
“To the spirits?” Rowen asked, glancing at Margo. “I’m not sure the nature spirits around here can help with matters of law.”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “It’s for her lawyer, for Flint,” she said. “Jasper called his brother. He’s coming down here to see what he can do.”
“Ah, well, that’s nice of him.” Rowen went to stand at the corner of the bar. “So, Margo’s not in any immediate danger here, right?”
Lydia turned to face her niece, her eyes narrowed. “Probably not,” she said in a way that seemed to intrinsically imply she was willing to be the immediate danger in Margo’s life. “Goodness knows that father of hers isn’t going to scold her like he should.”
“I’m an adult,” muttered Margo.
Lydia turned on Margo, her eyes wild. “Then I wish you’d start acting like one.”
Margo folded her hands on the table and looked down at them. She didn’t make a retort. Deep down, she had to know Lydia wasn’t mad at her. Recent events already had her high strung. She was worried was all.
“What do you need, Dear?” asked Lydia, turning to look at Rowen.
“I wanted to ask you about this picture.” Rowen removed the folded paper from her purse and held it out to Lydia.
“What is this? The quality is terrible.” Lydia took the picture and squinted at it. “Oh!” she exclaimed before Rowen could tell her what it was. “That’s…”
“Grammy,” Rowen finished for her.
Margo perked up. “What? Can I see?
” She slid from her stool and moved around behind Lydia to get a look as well.
“That’s her.” A faint smile tugged at Lydia’s mouth. “This is just how she looked when Nadine and I were just girls. Isn’t she pretty?”
“Yeah,” said Rowen, even though she wasn’t sure “pretty” was the best descriptor for Grammy. She’d always looked to Rowen like a great, battle axe of a woman—which was fine, honestly; Rowen wouldn’t mind being a battle axe someday. “Do you know why she would be at the opening of the Lainswich country club?”
“Hmm. There’s two Stonewalls.” Lydia turned the picture so that Jasper could get a glimpse as well. “I forget which two those are, but you can always spot a Stonewall. They all have that same look around the eyes, I think.”
“But back to my question.” Rowen prompted.
“Mother really hated cameras, said she wasn’t photogenic. Shame. I wish I had more pictures of her these days.” Lydia sighed then seemed to remember Rowen had said something. “What was your question again?”
“Grammy. Country club. Why?”
“Ah.” Lydia looked back to the picture. “That’s a good question. I remember her going some when I was a girl. It wasn’t very often that she went, mind you. It only happened, maybe, once or twice a year. I remember asking if I could go, but she always refused. It was for adults, she said. Of course, when I finally was an adult, she still told me I couldn’t go. I’d received an invitation in the mail, you see. She wasn’t going herself anymore and told me I wasn’t allowed to go. Never did figure out why. I wonder if everyone else in the family got invitations when they were old enough. If they did, I never heard about it. Wouldn’t put it past Mother to tear them up. You know how she could be. She didn’t forbid us from much, but when she did…” Lydia trailed off and gave a low whistle.
“Why would she forbid you from the country club?” asked Margo, likely thinking of her own time there and how much she wanted to go back with Lucy Odele.
Lydia shrugged. “Oh, who knows. They probably turned cruel on her. Lainswich has a way of doing that. Maybe they only invited us as a joke.”
Rowen bit her bottom lip. She ran over several different possibilities of what to say next. None of them sounded quite right. ‘Do you think Grammy was in a cult?’ sounded like a very silly question now that she was about to ask it. Unable to come up with a variation of the question that didn’t sound cringe-worthy, she turned to Margo. “Do you remember the gist of the sigil from the crime scene? The one Lucas drew?”
Lydia’s expression darkened again, like she had just remembered she was supposed to still be angry with Margo. She laid the picture on the bar and turned to go pour herself some coffee. “Does anyone else want a cup?”
“I think we could all use a cup,” said Rowen, though she really wasn’t sure Lydia needed caffeine as much as she did a nap. “So do you remember it?” she asked Margo.
Margo shrugged. “I think so. More or less.”
“Good.” Rowen fished a pen from her purse and handed it to Margo. She flipped the picture over so that it showed a blank page of printing paper. “Can you draw it for me?”
“You know I’m not very good at drawing this stuff out.” Margo made an effort anyway.
Rowen opened her phone in the meantime, pulling up the photos she had taken in the basement of the Lords household. The picture Margo was finishing up looked more like the photo by the moment. “Here,” said Rowen, holding her phone down beside the drawing when Lydia approached with everyone’s coffee. “Did you ever see this symbol?”
“Hmm.” Lydia frowned down at both pictures. “You know… I think… I think I have. There’s this ring in Grammy’s old jewelry box. I believe it has that symbol on it. Do you want me to go get it?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow it.” That wasn’t the only thing she needed. “Jasper, can I borrow you for the evening?”
“Huh?” Jasper looked up, like he had zoned out of the conversation until hearing his own name spoken.
“I need to borrow you,” Rowen said again. “It’ll only take a few hours… Maybe.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I guess I can--”
“Great.” Rowen interrupted Jasper before he had a chance to change his mind. “Come on. We need to hurry. I don’t know what time we need to get where we’re going, but I know I have to put on a change of clothes first.”
Chapter Twelve
Rowen hoped she didn’t have to run anywhere any time soon. The heels she wore didn’t seem like appropriate attire for solving a crime. Unfortunately, they had been the only pair of footwear that went with the dress she was wearing. It was her default little black dress, the dress she wore when she had something fancy to attend. That meant it didn’t see much use, which was fine by Rowen. She had never been big on dresses. As petite and curvy as she was, it was difficult to find off the rack dresses that fit her curves just right.
“You look… pretty,” Jasper had told her when she came downstairs all dressed up. He had hesitated when saying it, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to compliment her when he was supposed to be dating her cousin.
Rowen smiled and thanked him. He was a good guy, for a Stonewall. She hoped Margo never broke his heart.
***
It was easier to get into the country club when dressed the part. The fact that Jasper’s car was a lot nicer than her own probably helped too. They parked without alerting anyone and made their way inside the club proper without being approached by flustered management or security in golf carts. Like a gentleman, Jasper had offered Rowen his arm.
The sun was going down. The lights on the fairway were on, lighting up the green. Most of the club’s activity seemed to be inside, however. It looked like a lot of people had gathered there for the eve of the tricentennial. People were eating dinner and chatting among themselves as a large projection played on a far wall, cycling through old photo after old photo.
A hostess approached Jasper and Rowen wearing a big forced smile. “Hi there. Is it just the two of you?”
“Yes, but we aren’t actually here for dinner,” said Rowen.
“Oh. If you’re here to play golf, you don’t have to come through here. You can--”
“I was wondering if, maybe, Walt or Blake were working tonight?”
The hostess raised her eyebrows. “Um… I can go check.” She glanced around for a moment before wandering off.
“I still think we should ask my parents about this stuff first,” said Jasper while they waited.
Rowen shook her head. “No, I want to go right to the source if I can.” She didn’t totally trust the Stonewalls either, though she didn’t want to tell Jasper that. She trusted him well enough.
It was Blake who returned with the hostess. He was wearing a white button up shirt, like they had him as a bus boy or waiter instead of a caddy tonight. He frowned when he recognized Rowen. “Um, hello again. Did you need me for something?”
The hostess had retreated back to the little podium she stood behind. She likely couldn’t hear them from over there, but Rowen lowered her voice anyway. “Do you know this symbol?” Rowen asked, lifting her hand so that he could see the bulky gold ring from Grammy’s jewelry box. It was a little big on her finger. She had to be careful not to let it fall off when she moved.
Blake’s frown deepened as he looked at the ring. “Are you part of that elephant club thing?”
“Elephant club?” repeated Rowen.
Blake nodded. “Something like that. People who have that ring meet up in a back room sometimes to, like, smoke cigars and talk about being rich or something. I don’t know.” He was probably being casual with Rowen because of the conditions under which they’d last met. He seemed to remember himself suddenly when he looked to Jasper. His eyes darted back to Rowen, taking in her black dress and the ring on her finger. “I mean, I have no idea what they do. I’m just… I’m sorry. That was rude.”
“You’re fine,” Rowen assured him. “Can you t
ell me where they meet?”
“Um, sure.” Blake turned and pointed down the hall he’d come from. “You go past the kitchen and past a lot of the staff area. It’s the last room on the left, though I don’t think anyone is in it right now.”
“Thanks.” Rowen pressed a twenty into his hand as she passed by, making her way toward the room that hosted this “elephant club.”
It was impossible to avoid a few odd glances from staff as they went. One person stopped them, but only briefly. One flash of the ring on Rowen’s hand was enough to make them step out of the way.
The last door on the left was locked, of course. Rowen had fully expected it to be. She reached in her handbag and began to fish out a credit card to jimmy the thing open. “Let me,” Jasper said before she could remove her wallet. He placed his fingers near the door and then, ever so slowly, motioned to the right. With his other hand, he turned the knob. The door opened.
“Impressive,” Rowen said, meaning it.
Jasper rocked back on his heels, his mouth going through several different shapes like he was fighting a smile. “I’ve been learning a lot from my parents lately.”
“I can see that.” Rowen pushed the door open and stepped inside. It was too dark to see at first. Unlike the Lords’ basement, however, the light switch worked when Rowen hit it. The room lit up. It was larger than Rowen had expected the room to be. It had once been a ballroom, perhaps. The floor was all glossy marble save for a rug before an altar and a giant symbol carved into the floor. The same symbol hung from tapestries on each wall.
“The heck is this?” asked Jasper.
“Cult headquarters I’d say.” Rowen went to the altar. Aside from the usual ritual tools—candles, a dagger, and the like—there was a large book. It was old and incredibly thick. Rowen flipped it open.
“What does it say?” asked Jasper.
“Three-hundred years ago tomorrow this town was founded by… Huh. A bunch of different people.” Rowen recognized some of the names. “Waite, McMillan, Beech, Lords, Stonewall… Greensmith?” Was that right? She read more, flipping several pages at a time to try and learn more as quickly as possible. “The Golden Elephants. That’s what they call themselves.” Their purpose was a little more difficult to ascertain. Rowen kept flipping through the pages.
