Body at the Crossroads

by Cate Martin

  "No worries," I said, opening the front door and leading the way out onto the front porch. "We can ask around until we find it."

  "Ask who?" Brianna said.

  "Ask what?" someone else said excitedly. I looked around until my gaze fell on a girl of about twelve sitting at the base of the much smaller oak tree in the front yard. She was wearing what was likely her Sunday best but sitting in dark earth that looked like someone had been planting bulbs in it perhaps the day before. Her black hair was cut in a bob, but the bangs were too long and kept falling into her eyes and yet not long enough to stay tucked behind her ear, although her fingers kept trying to make that happen.

  "Hello, little girl," I said. "What's your name?"

  "Clotilde McTavet," she said, getting to her feet and holding out her hand to shake. "But you can call me Coco."

  "Hello, Coco," I said.

  "You're new students?" she surmised. "I've not seen you around before."

  "Yes, we are," I agreed. Not even a lie. "I'm Amanda, and this is Brianna and Sophie. We're looking for Cynthia Thomas."

  "She's usually around," Coco said, looking past my shoulder as if expecting to see her lurking on the porch or peeking out of one of the windows. So her death wasn't yet common knowledge here. I wasn't sure what that meant.

  "Do you happen to know where she lives?" I asked.

  "How do you not know where she lives if you're students here?" she asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

  "We're new," I reminded her.

  "Still," she said. "Maybe you should just wait for her to come back."

  Sophie gave an exasperated sigh which I ignored. "Coco, I'm sorry, but Mrs. Thomas has died," I said.

  "Died?" Coco repeated. "How?"

  "Murder, I'm afraid," I said. "We really need to talk to her husband-"

  "Murder!" Coco said with perhaps too much glee. "Do you know who did it?"

  "No," I admitted.

  "But you have a list of suspects?"

  "No," I said.

  "We're new," Sophie said. "We don't know anyone."

  "Well, I know everyone," Coco said. "I could help you."

  "Directions would be nice," Sophie said, but Coco continued on as if she hadn't heard.

  "Do you know who I'd start with? Old Mr. Brown," she said in a conspiratorial whisper. "He hates everyone, of course, but he particularly hates Miss Zenobia and the students of her school."

  Brianna whipped out her little book and wrote that name down.

  "He's just over there," Coco said, eying Brianna's scribbling pencil as she pointed past us to Mrs. Olson's house. Apparently Mr. Brown's in 1927.

  "Thanks for that tip," I said. "But Mr. Thomas-"

  "Or!" Coco said, throwing up her hands in something too much like jazz hands for the matter at hand. "Just a block that way is the hotel where F. Scott Fitzgerald used to live before he hightailed off to New York and Paris. And do you know who stays there now? Tons and tons of bootleggers. Gangsters!"

  "Why would gangsters kill Cynthia?" Brianna asked, her pencil poised over the page of her book.

  "They kill all sorts," Coco said in a worldly voice. "It's worth looking into."

  "It might be," Brianna said and made a note.

  "Ooh, another thing?" Coco said, waving us to bend our heads closer to hers. "There are pirates that hide in the caves down by the river."

  "That sounds like Tom Sawyer," I said, then tried to remember when that book had come out.

  "But these are real, not just a story," Coco insisted. "I've been wanting to explore the caves forever, but my mother says I can't go. I guess sometimes kids get lost and die down there, grownups too, but I'm smarter than most people so I think I'd be just fine."

  "I think you should listen to your mother," Sophie said, and Coco scowled at her before turning her attention back to me.

  "If you go, take me with you? I could be your guide!"

  "How can you be our guide if you've never been down there before?" Sophie asked.

  "I know stuff," Coco said sullenly. "I've listened to all the stories, and I've gotten my hands on all sorts of maps. I know more about it than anybody."

  "A-ha," Sophie said skeptically. Coco looked like she was going to snap back when the sudden calling of her name made her whole body stiffen.

  "Clotilde McTavet, I hope you're not bothering those nice ladies," a young man said as he came down the steps of the house next door.

  A house standing on the lot that was condos in 2017. I wondered what had happened to it. It was massive, twice the size of Miss Zenobia's Charm School, although not in a Queen Anne style. It had more of the solid, straight line look of something Greco-Roman.

  Yeah, I don't know much about architecture.

  Coco turned to face the young man, trying to wipe the dark earth from the back of her skirt surreptitiously.

  "I wasn't bothering," Coco said.

  "She wasn't," I said.

  "Well, you weren't tending to the errand your mother gave you either, were you?" he asked. The words might be chiding, but the twinkle in his dark brown eyes and the way he leaned a shoulder against the tree rather than lording it over Coco took a lot of the edge off.

  "I'll get to it," Coco said.

  "You should get to it now, or you'll be in trouble again," he said. "Go on. I've already covered for you once when your mother asked if I could still see you in the yard."

  "I wasn't in our yard," Coco pointed out.

  "So you and I know I wasn't lying, but we also both know your mother isn't going to see it that way," he said. "Get along now."

  Coco scowled, but she patted her pocket as if to confirm it still contained something then started down the sidewalk at a brisk trot.

  I was a bit sorry to see her go. She wasn't the most cooperative of informants, but she was a far sight better than nothing, which was what we had now.

  Chapter 16

  Brianna was looking over her notes, tapping next to each item with the tip of her pencil and frowning. Sophie was watching Coco disappear down the sidewalk. Then she turned to say something to me, and we both noticed the young man was still there, leaning against the oak tree.

  "Can I help you?" I asked.

  "I was wondering if I could help you," he said. "The name's Edward Scott."

  "Amanda Clarke," I said. "This is Brianna Collins and Sophie DuBois."

  He touched the brim of his hat at each of us. "Given where we're standing, I'm guessing you're new students at Miss Zenobia's school?"

  "We are," I said. "Everyone seems to assume that about us. I would have thought most of her students were local."

  "Most are," he said. "You're definitely not. All three of you have a bit of a glow like you're from somewhere absolutely fabulous." He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

  "New Orleans," Sophie said, extending her hand to him. Just two words, but I could hear how she kicked her accent up to maximum power. And from the way he kissed her hand and murmured he was charmed to meet her, I could see it had had its effect.

  "We're looking for someone," I said. "I don't suppose you could tell us the way to the house of Mrs. Cynthia Thomas? I'm afraid we don't know her husband's first name."

  "I can do you one better," he said with the barest hint of a wink. "I can show you. It's not far."

  He held out his arm to me, and I took it. With Sophie still holding his other arm we started down the wide sidewalk, Brianna with her nose deep in the pages of her book trailing along behind.

  "Scott, not McTavet?" I said to him as we walked. "So you're not Coco's brother."

  "No, I was there to call on her older sister Ivy, but she isn't entertaining visitors yet," he said.

  "It is awfully early," I said.

  "I suppose," he said wistfully. "But when we met at the Hills' do last night, I thought we'd really made an impression on each other. I woke up at dawn itching to see her again."

  "Maybe she just doesn't want to seem too eager," I said. Edward certainly wasn't having that p
roblem.

  "I reckon you're right," he said with that little flutter of his eye that was almost but not quite a wink.

  We took a turn off of Summit Avenue, heading north away from the ridge and the river. The houses here were a bit smaller, a bit less swank, but still far beyond anything I'd ever seen back home.

  "Here we are," Edward said, drawing to a halt where the front walk of a Tudor-style house met the sidewalk. "Mr. Frank Thomas, husband of Cynthia Thomas. I believe her maiden sister Helen lives with them as well."

  "Thank you so much," I said. "This has been very helpful."

  "Think nothing of it," he said with another touch of his hat.

  We climbed the steps of the front porch, Brianna finally extricating herself from her book and putting it away in her pocket. Sophie rang the bell in that firm way she had, and we waited.

  A few minutes later Sophie rang again.

  Sophie was just looking to Brianna and me in silent inquiry of whether a third ringing would be of any use when the door finally swung open.

  I could see Cynthia in the woman that stood looking dully out at us, but it was a worn, badly used version of Cynthia. Her hair was long and in disarray, slipping out of its updo everywhere. The dress looked like good quality, but it was negligently worn, sitting askew on her shoulders and badly wrinkled.

  The woman just looked out at us without saying a word until Sophie couldn't take it anymore.

  "We're from Miss Zenobia's school," she said. "Is Mr. Frank Thomas in?"

  "Miss Zenobia," the woman said with distaste but stepped aside to allow us to pass into the foyer.

  "You've gotten the news?" I asked anxiously.

  "Yes, we've gotten the news," she said. "Such a way to get news, I really don't know."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so instead, I said, "you're Cynthia's sister?"

  "I was," she said. “I’m Helen."

  "We're so sorry for your loss," I said, but she didn't respond. I guessed she was the type who would go numb first. She certainly looked as if she was not eating or sleeping properly. Was there no other member of the family to help out in their time of grief?

  We stopped outside a darkened parlor. I bet the place was cheery in normal circumstances, but on this morning someone had pulled closed the heavy curtains, blocking out every bit of the unseasonably warm September sunshine. It took a moment for my eyes to make out a human-shaped form in one of the chairs, all but lost under the folds of a gray wool lap blanket.

  "Frank," Helen said, and her voice had a softness it had been lacking before. "You have visitors if you're up to it."

  Frank stirred, head raising from a hand that had been pressed to his forehead. He braced to rise up out of the chair, but I hastened forward.

  "Please, there is no need for formality," I said. "We're students from the school."

  Frank sank gratefully back into his chair then looked at each of us in turn with watery eyes. "Of course you are. Thank you for coming. I thought, perhaps given the circumstances, no one would be able to."

  I exchanged a look with Sophie and Brianna. Did he know of the existence and subsequent theft of the magic amulet?

  "You knew my Cynthia?" he asked, squeezing my hand.

  "All too briefly," I said. "My name is Amanda Clarke, and this is Sophie DuBois and Brianna Collins."

  "Pleased to meet you all," he said. "Helen, could I trouble you with making a spot of tea?"

  "I've already put a kettle on," Helen told him from the doorway.

  "She was a most extraordinary woman," Frank said. "She lived a most extraordinary life. How could it all end this way?" He pressed a trembling hand to a forehead that was already red from too much pressing, but even that gesture didn't seem to be enough. I stepped back as she rose up out of the chair again. "Excuse me. I must tend to a… Please, excuse me."

  He retreated to a door on the far side of the parlor and closed it behind him.

  "Poor dear," I said.

  "He seems awfully cool with Cynthia's… lifestyle," Sophie said. "Do you think he even knew she traveled through time every day when she went to work or did he just think she was there in the house working for Miss Zenobia?"

  "He knew," Brianna said, picking up a scrap of paper from the table next to Frank's chair. It was a telegram from a woman named Tabitha Smythe in London. JOHN TREVOR REGRETS TO INFORM YOU OF CYNTHIA'S DEMISE. DETAILS TO FOLLOW.

  "How horrible," I said, looking up at the other two. "Such a cold way to get such news. No wonder Helen was so upset about it."

  "Who's Tabitha?" Sophie asked.

  Brianna shrugged. "We can ask Mr. Trevor when we get back. My bet is that she's a witch in our time who has access to a portal of her own and went back in time to send this telegram. Without the amulet, Mr. Trevor couldn't send word himself."

  "I guess not," I said.

  "What do we do now?" Sophie asked.

  "I don't think he did it," I said. "He seems genuinely grief-stricken."

  "He could be and still be the murderer," Sophie said. "Maybe it was some kind of accident."

  "That ended with him stealing her amulet and moving her body? I don't think so," I said.

  "We can ask him questions," Sophie said.

  "We're not interrogating a grief-stricken old man," I said. Something in the way he had grasped my hand spoke of pain, not the pain of loss but a deeper, chronic pain long lived with. Maybe a form of arthritis, like Mrs. Olson.

  "We don't have to," Brianna said. "I can do a spell."

  "A guilty or innocent spell?" Sophie asked.

  "Not exactly. I know a way to see if oaths have been broken," Brianna said. "I just need his wedding band for a moment."

  "That's kind of a big ask," I said.

  "I can get it," Sophie said. "And I can keep him occupied while you do your spell, provided you can do it here."

  "I can," Brianna said.

  "I'll stick with Helen," I said. "Give me a sign when you're done."

  The door at the far side of the parlor creaked open, and Brianna gave me a swift nod then she and Sophie turned their attention to the returning Frank.

  I slipped out into the hallway and listened for a moment. I could hear the soft sounds of cups and saucers being laid out on a tray and followed it to find Helen alone in a massive kitchen.

  "Hello," I said. "Do you need any help?"

  "I'm fine on my own," she said, adding a small pitcher of milk to the tea tray.

  "I would have expected that a house this size would have a large staff to help run it," I said.

  "It's Sunday," Helen said as if that explained it. I suppose it did.

  "Still, you look very at home in the kitchen."

  "I'm not the lady of the house," Helen said.

  "No, I guess that was Cynthia," I said. "I only knew her a short time, but she didn't strike me as a kitchen sort of person."

  "No, she certainly was not," Helen said.

  "Being a lawyer is a time-consuming profession," I said. "I'm sure she was grateful you were here to help with the tasks she couldn't attend to personally."

  "Tasks she considered beneath her," Helen said with a sniff. The kettle on the stove began to whistle, and she used the end of her apron as a potholder to lift it and pour the water into the waiting teapot.

  "I'm not sure she felt that way," I said, and Helen scowled and turned away from me to put the kettle back. "I never understood people who did, though. Home means warmth and comfort, good food and clean clothes and soft beds. None of that comes without work, but what work could be more meaningful than making a home?"

  "Cynthia never saw it that way," Helen said. "Always had something more important to be doing. I blame that Miss Zenobia, putting ideas in her head."

  "I don't know that Miss Zenobia was wrong," I said. "Cynthia was a very good lawyer."

  "Maybe," Helen allowed. “But she should have set it aside when she married. And now she’s corrupting our maid, Molly, filling her head with ideas above her station.
She barely gets her work done, spends all of her time with her nose buried in my sister’s books. She’s never even met Miss Zenobia, but still that woman’s influence is going to ruin her life. She’s never going to have what she wants. Poor girl,” she added in a kinder voice.

  She felt sincere to me. She genuinely believed that a maid wanting to be more than a maid was cursing herself to a lifetime of unhappiness. I kind of wanted to argue that point, but that wasn’t why I was here.

  "Were you a student of Miss Zenobia’s as well?" I asked instead.

  Helen looked like she didn't want to answer at first. Then she sighed and nodded. "Not one of the exceptional ones. Not in her eyes. I was never good with being charming, that's the truth. I don't flatter, I speak my mind, and I've never been much of a looker."

  "Everyone has a talent," I said. Helen shrugged then turned to open the heavy door of the icebox. She reached for a container of clotted cream, but something on the bottom shelf caught my eye.

  "What a lovely marble rolling pin," I said. "I've never used one myself, but I've heard they're marvelous for rolling out thin dough."

  "It's handy," Helen said grudgingly. Then, as if the words were being dragged out of her, she added, "it was a gift from my sister."

  "Those are from France, right?" I asked.

  "I guess, but she got it from that other place she goes," Helen said. "You know."

  "I think I do," I said evasively.

  "You know, because you're from there too," Helen said with a sniff and put the cream back in the icebox. "The future."

  "I would've thought a gift from the future would be against the rules," I said.

  Helen scoffed. "Well, she did tell me to keep it secret. That, and the other things she brings me. Cookbooks I have to commit to memory so she can take them back. Ingredients I can't get here."

  "That was good of her," I said.

  "The baking was all mine," Helen said fiercely. "I didn't need all that to make the best food for miles around. She doesn't get credit for that."

  "No," I agreed, but she plowed on as if she didn't hear me.

  "She always wanted all the credit for everything, making me keep secrets for her. I never married because how could I? So many secrets I would have to keep for her sake, how could I marry with so much dishonesty before I even took my vows? I couldn't. I didn't. But between you and me, without her, I would have married well. I might not be pretty or charming, but I could run a household ten times this size, and it'd run like clockwork. Many men value such things."