by Madelyn Alt
“So, Miss Maggie, did you hear the one about the woman who took her daughter to the doctor because she was having strange symptoms? Doc examines the girl and says, ‘Madam, I believe your daughter is pregnant.’ A claim the daughter instantly denies, on the basis that she’s never even kissed a man. Well, the good doctor processes this information, then walks over to the window and stares out at the sky. The mother asks him what he’s doing. ‘Well, madam, I’ll tell you. The last time this happened, a strange star appeared in the East. I was just waiting to see if another would show up.’ ” Dr. Phillips chuckled heartily to himself.
“All done. You can sit up now.” He stripped off the gloves that made his hands look like a clown’s and stuffed them into the trash marked BIOHAZARD. “Things look pretty good, young miss. Of course, the results from the tests will be mailed to you as soon as they come back from the lab. Any complaints you haven’t told me about?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I’ve been a little tired lately, but mostly thanks to a few sleepless nights.”
He chuckled. “Too many late-night escapades, I hope?”
“Worrying, mostly. With Amanda Roberson being found dead, and with what happened in town a few months back, things just feel a little unsettled to me.”
Dr. Phillips frowned as he scribbled on my chart. “Well, that sounds normal to me. A girl should feel unsettled, threatened, with everything that’s been going on. I shouldn’t expect it’s anything to worry about unless it continues.” He flipped the chart closed and put it in the clear receptacle on the wall for the nurse to file. “Terrible thing to happen to that girl. Terrible, terrible. Don’t know what the world is coming to these days.”
Neither did I. Neither did anyone, it seemed. And wasn’t that part of the problem?
I spent much of Tuesday mulling over that very notion in between manning the cash register and running the tea and coffee bar. Tuesdays are typically a slow day for us, and this one was no different. It gave me plenty of time to think about everything that had happened, all that I’d learned.
Which wasn’t much.
I kept the radio on low, tuned in to WOWO. Much of the time the airspace was filled with the old Christmas classics, familiar voices from my childhood that for the most part had been replaced on other stations by modern-day divas fond of the kind of vocal acrobatics that drove me crazy. Give me a Burl Ives or a Nat King Cole over the self-styled phenoms any day.
When at last they did play a news update, I upped the volume as much as I dared, depending on the number of customers filing through the aisles. But it wasn’t until two-thirty that there was actually any new news in the Roberson girl’s disappearance.
“According to a statement read by the County Coroner’s office, the death of Stony Mill High School student Amanda Lynn Roberson has been upgraded from Death by Unknown Causes to Homicide this afternoon. Roberson had gone missing sometime during the afternoon to evening hours of Saturday, December fourteenth. Search efforts encompassed much of the next two days before her body was found Monday afternoon by two hunters in the shallows of the Wabash River. Stony Mill Chief of Police, Manny Burns, stated this afternoon that the investigation into the circumstances surrounding Roberson’s death continue. Any person or persons with knowledge to impart, no matter how insignificant, is encouraged to cooperate with the authorities as soon as possible.”
With the news broadcast at an end, I took a deep, steadying breath and turned down the volume as the Christmas carols resumed.
Homicide.
Again?
What was going on in Stony Mill?
I was still worrying over that as I wrapped yet another package for yet another regular when Tom Fielding marched back into my life.
Or should I say Deputy Tom Fielding. I supposed that would be more appropriate, dressed as he was in his regulation dark blues, a black leather jacket added to guard against the returned winter temperatures.
I stood up straighter and sent the customer on the way with a brilliant smile before I turned to greet Tom with a casualness that I could not feel. “Deputy Fielding. Long time no see. What brings you here on this fine December day?”
He had assumed the Good-Cop-Bad-Girl role he seemed so fond of while in uniform. “Maggie. I’m here on official business.”
“So I see. What can I do for you?”
He pulled a notebook out of his inner breast pocket and flipped it open with a flick of his wrist. “I need to ask you a few questions about what you told me last night. You stated that Amanda Roberson visited Enchantments on the morning of Saturday, December fourteenth. The day that she disappeared. Is that correct?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Official police business could be so dramatic. “Kee-rrect.”
“What can you tell me about the purpose of that visit?”
I could be as aloof as he could, if that was the way he wanted to play it. “On the morning of Saturday, December fourteenth, at approximately ten-thirty A.M., Amanda Roberson entered the store in the company of two of her friends. One blonde, one brunette. All three appeared to be of approximately the same age. Amanda Roberson purchased one very expensive antique mantel clock, ostensibly as a gift for her mother, who had admired the clock on an earlier visit to the store. Paid cash. Left with friends after verbally accosting another of my customers, one Tara Murphy, another high school student. There didn’t appear to have been any love lost between them. Typical jockeying for power, if you ask me.”
He scratched down a few more words before continuing. “What time did she leave the establishment?”
“Shortly after arriving. By eleven o’clock, certainly. They looked at things for a little while before deciding on the clock for Amanda’s mother. She mentioned the gift was going to get her out of the doghouse, so I took that to mean she had had some kind of disagreement with her mother. Nothing unusual there.”
“Was there anything unusual about the event that you can recall?”
I shrugged. “Just that for a high school senior she carried an awful lot of cash in her purse. The clock wasn’t exactly cheap, but buying it didn’t even come close to cleaning her out.”
“You don’t know the names of the two girls she was with?”
“One was Candace Knightley. The other—I’m not sure, but it might have been Lily. No last name, sorry. But I’m sure if you ask around, you’ll find out easily enough.”
A few more scribbles on the pad. “What about this other girl, this Tara Murphy. What can you tell me about her?”
“Not much. It was her first time here.”
Tom looked at me more closely. “Are you sure about that?”
“I’m sure.”
I hesitated over telling him the reason for Tara’s visit to the store. He was so uptight about the witch stuff already, and besides, it was totally unrelated to the investigation of the case. Then, too, what about the telephone conversation I’d overheard at the Little Nipper? Or what about what Evie had told me, about the fight at school between Amanda and Tara a few days before Amanda’s disappearance? Was it my place to tell him something that I hadn’t witnessed firsthand? Usually we call that kind of thing gossip, and I’d been the victim of it too many times to count growing up to want to participate in it much myself. Besides, it was something he could find out from any number of Amanda’s cohorts in crime. I decided to hold off. For now.
“What about the disagreement you mentioned?”
I busied myself straightening the items taking up a goodly portion of the counter. “Like I said, typical teenager stuff. Tara is a little bit . . . different. Amanda didn’t appear to be the tolerant type. After a few insults were hurled, Tara left, much to the amusement of Amanda and her friends. See what I mean? Typical.”
“What do you mean, different?”
“Well . . .” I squirmed a little, trying to think how best to explain things in a way he would understand. “I don’t know. An outsider, I guess. And she likes to dress the part. It’s something a l
ot of kids go through when they fall through the cracks of the usual pecking order. They grow out of it eventually, once they realize that high school popularity contests mean nothing once you leave school.”
“Ah.” He nodded to himself. “Square pegs.”
“Exactly!” I confirmed, pleased that I’d managed to say something right.
“The school officials will know more,” he continued, closing his notebook and sliding it into his jacket pocket again. “I’ll be heading over there next.”
Which meant he was done here. Now that he was here, I was loath to let him go, despite his high-handed manner. “Tom . . . you will find who did this, won’t you?”
His gray-green eyes met mine, hard with determination. “Count on it.”
“Do you have any leads?”
“Some.” Then, “Well, not many, but it’s still early. There’s a protocol to investigation, Maggie. Methodical. Logical,” he explained. “The first step is to build a timeline of the victim’s final days. Who they spoke with. Where they went, and when. Somewhere in the minutia will be the truth, and if it’s there, I’ll find it.”
I hoped so. One murder was enough to rattle the shelter Stony Mill had erected around itself to keep the world at bay. The residents of Stony Mill were no saintlier than the residents of a big urban center with big urban crimes. People are people no matter where you live. Human prejudices, human fears, human failings.
People didn’t change.
“You’ll . . .” My voice failed me when his eyes shot to mine. I tried again. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? I mean,” I amended in an attempt to make the question sound somehow less earnest, “you will take all the necessary precautions, right? All of you in the police department. Two murders in Stony Mill in two and a half months . . . that’s got to be some kind of record, doesn’t it?”
And not the kind of record you wanted to go around breaking.
He slipped on a pair of sunglasses. No cutie-geek glasses in sight. Today it was all he-man mirrored aviators. “See you later, Maggie.” He made a motion to leave, then paused and slanted a grin over his shoulder. “By the way, nice hat. Brings out the green in your eyes.”
I brought my hand up, only to encounter the fuzzy brim and dangling poof ball of the Santa’s Helper cap I’d forgotten.
Maybe I should lose the hat.
I refused to allow myself to mourn the loss of someone who wasn’t interested in me. This was the Twenty-First Century, after all. A time of enlightenment. I am Woman, hear me flush all evidence of a broken love affair. Feh. I had more important things to devote my time and energy to. My job. My friends. My family.
Everything else at this point was gravy.
I knew all of that. My head was giving me the thumbs-up. My heart was dragging its feet, but I figured it would come around soon enough with the right kind of distraction.
Speaking of distractions . . .
The bell jingled. I didn’t look up right away. Most of our customers would follow a pattern that began with pausing just inside the door then wending their way between and around the aisles and stacks. And today I was happy to allow them to do just that.
“Hey, Maggie.”
I looked up to find Marcus making his way toward the counter, as tall, dark, and lanky as always. “Hey, Marcus.”
“I brought someone in to see you.”
From behind him peeked a dark, shaggy head, then a slender, spritelike shadow disengaged herself from his lean figure. She stood quietly beside him, meeker than I would ever have expected.
“Hello, Tara,” I said to put her at ease. “School out already?”
Her kohl-rimmed gaze lifted, the merest flicker. “Marcus picked me up at the door.”
“Expected?”
“Nope.” She let her backpack slide down her arm, the strap falling neatly into her hand, and caught her lower lip between her teeth as she began to dig in the bag’s hidden depths. “I, uh, brought money. For the books. I did want to buy them, but I guess I lost my head on Saturday.”
“That’s okay.”
Marcus nudged her softly. Tara jumped. “I, um, I’m really sorry. I meant to come in yesterday. The day was a real bitch. Queen-sized.”
She slid a twenty across the counter to me with the books.
I rang them up and handed her back the change. “The important thing is that you did come in, Tara.”
“I really did mean to. I hope you believe me.”
Weird thing was, I did believe her. Maybe she’d gotten sidetracked by Amanda’s death the way the rest of us did. To her credit, she did look contrite. A tad slow on the uptake where apologies were concerned, but she had come through. There was hope for humanity yet. “I’m sure you did.”
“I mean, we didn’t have any homework or anything because of what happened, which was kewl, but great Goddess, all anyone wanted to do was talk about freaking perfect Amanda and how they’re so freaking sorry she’s gone. And not a single one of ’em had a freaking clue what she was really like, and that’s what’s so freaking pathetic about this whole freaking town if you ask me.”
Marcus sighed. “What my cousin the Minimalist is trying to say is that the day threw her for a loop and all thoughts of responsibilities flew out of her spiky little head. Right, String Bean?”
She rolled her eyes, looking every inch the typical teen. Well, a typical teen who had dumped a jar of ink over her hair and who had learned her language from the disreputable river rats that had once dominated the old warehouses along River Street before the town set its sights on the title “Antique Capital of the Midwest.” Tara was nothing if not colorful. I supposed we should all feel glad she had edited herself for content, minimizing her use of the F-bomb in favor of pretenders to the throne. Not that I don’t use it myself when the situation calls for it, but I do try to practice some measure of self-control.
Tara drifted over to a display of Herbal Treasures lotions and soaps. Marcus leaned back against the antique counter as he watched his younger cousin. I leaned back and watched him. My gaze slid easily over his leather biker jacket and dark jeans. His hair was pulled back with a leather thong at the nape of his neck again, a look that lent an air of centuries-old romance to his dark and dangerous edge. If I blurred my focus, I could just see him, a romance novel hero in dark breeches and a flowing white poet’s shirt, open at the neck, a rapier held loosely at his side as he watched his defeated opponent flee in shame. Dark and light, hard and soft, enigmatic and yet approachable. Felicity was a lucky, lucky woman.
Too much distraction for this small-town girl to handle. I cleared my throat. “Did I mention that the police came by today to ask about Amanda Roberson’s visit to the store last Saturday?”
His only movement was a teensy lift of his brow. “The illustrious Deputy Fielding?”
“How did you guess?”
“I saw his car and figured he must be combing the area for clues. Besides, everyone knows the chief doesn’t get his hands dirty. Unless it’s for a good cause. Like a good glazed doughnut.”
I laughed in spite of myself. Chief of Police Burns was a fixture in Stony Mill. A big, rawboned man with hands that could just as easily palm a basketball as cradle a gun, he had a history that went all the way back to the state basketball championship of 1969. It goes without saying that that one streak of good luck had ensured his status in Stony Mill for time immemorial—we took our basketball very seriously. In short, he was a god among men, and he enjoyed the fruits of his position as often as possible. In the course of any day, he could be seen making the rounds of the town’s various eating establishments. His rumored favorite? Annie-Thing Good’s plate-sized cherry fritters.
“That was just plain mean, Marcus,” I told him.
“Remind me to bring along one of Annie’s famous fritters to the investigation tonight, just in case he decides to put in an appearance and we need a little something to grease the wheel.”
“Mar-cus!”
“There’s an invest
igation tonight?” Tara interjected from afar, nose deep in a strawberry-kiwi concoction that was one of my favorites.
Marcus balanced back on his elbows. “Think we ought to get her hearing checked?”
“I’ve heard fruit bats have some of the best ears on the planet. Any chance she has one of those in her ancestry?” I deadpanned right back.
“Hey! I heard that!” She put her hands on her leather miniskirted hips.
“It’s a distinct possibility,” Marcus confirmed with a wicked grin.
Tara stalked in our direction. “Very funny. I hope you know, I’m coming with you tonight. Where’s the meet-’n’-greet?”
“You’re not going.”
She stared at Marcus as if he’d lost his marbles. “Yeeeeah. Come on. Where’s it really?”
“I’m serious. You’re not going.”
When she set her jaw and jutted out her chin, she looked just like her cousin. “Why not?”
To Marcus’s credit, he didn’t react to her righteous fury. “Because you weren’t invited.”
She compressed her lips together. “That’s not fair, Marcus. You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my dad.”
“No. That’s true enough. But from what I’ve been told, you’re not listening much to your dad, either.”
She pushed her lips into a pout and said nothing.
“Besides, what I am is family, and I look out for you, don’t I? Come on, Tara. You have no real experience with this at all, you have far too much curiosity for your own good, and you’ve been generating a fair amount of energy. Don’t deny it, I can feel the traces of it. The three things together . . .” He shook his head decisively. “Too dangerous. You’d be at risk for any darker spirit energy we might come across.”
He chucked her under the chin, but she would have none of it. She jerked away with a toss of her head. “I don’t need you. I could conjure it myself if I wanted to, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m not allergic to dark energy, like some people.” That must have been meant for me, given the sneer she flicked my way.
