Canal Days Calamity

by Jamie M. Blair

  I opened my mouth and nothing came out, so I coughed.

  Mom reached over behind Irene and nudged my hip. I could take a hint—or the meaning of a nudge. “Thank you,” I managed to say through my shock.

  Irene turned her gaze on Ben but continued to speak to me. “I’ve been hesitant to say anything due to the situation between the two of you. I was waiting to see how things shook out. Well, that and the matter of your fine. But, now that that’s been settled, I think it’s time.” Now she turned back to me, and I was met with an expression of a queen about to bestow a great honor on a peasant. “Cameron, as a Hayman, you are entitled to take your place as a Daughter of Historical Metamora. Consider this a formal invitation of membership.”

  She beamed, pleased with the honor she dropped on my lap.

  My heart stopped, sputtered back to life, then thudded hard in my chest. This couldn’t be happening. It was my worst nightmare come true.

  Ben sat slack-jawed and horror stricken, unable to even blink. He never thought he’d see the day his wife and mother became sister Daughters.

  My mom rushed over to me and encircled me in an embrace, gushing. “How wonderful! What a privilege to be part of such a prestigious group of women in the community.”

  “Our meetings are on Sunday afternoons,” Irene said, then added, “as you may recall.”

  Yes, I did recall my one invitation to a Sunday-afternoon Daughters meeting, when they decided to fine me for painting my house.

  Mom sat back down and the three of them stared at me, expectantly. It dawned on me that I hadn’t said a word—hadn’t accepted, hadn’t declined. Had barely breathed.

  “I … uh … wow.”

  The patio door sprung open and Mia bounded back inside. “We’re getting pizza and chips. Did you know ‘chips’ are fries in Ireland? How crazy is that? Fries are ‘chips’ and chips are ‘crisps.’”

  “Diggity Cripps,” I mused, “like British chips.”

  “What?” Ben said.

  They were all staring at me.

  “The other day, Monica, Mrs. Nelson, and I were coming up with nicknames … oh, never mind.”

  But it was curious how we’d just had that conversation and it was coming up again. Sometimes the strangest ideas had common ties. Like when I was reading a mystery novel about a castle with a priceless artifact and it was like a lightbulb going off in my head, leading me to uncover Jenn Berg’s murderer. Truth could be prodded out into the open by the most benign things, and being a Daughter might be one of them. This could be my link to discovering who killed Butch Landow and getting Andy out of jail.

  “Irene, I’d love to join the Daughters of Metamora. Thank you for the invitation.”

  Even though I didn’t look his direction, I heard the sigh—the famous Ben sigh of reproach. He knew as well as I did that this would open new doors for us. Or possibly Pandora’s box.

  ∞

  Tuesday morning dawned with a hellacious racket outside my bedroom window and the dogs barking to beat the band. I clambered out of bed and fought my way past Gus and the twins to peer outside. Down below, Old Dan was hunched over a sawhorse with hammer and nails going to town. A glance at the clock showed it was 7:06 a.m. My neighbors would riot. First howling dogs and now this.

  At least I had the Daughters on my side now.

  Monica stumbled in. “What’s going on out there?”

  “Old Dan’s making a bee box so they’ll build a hive somewhere other than our porch columns.”

  “Does he have to do it the second the sun comes up?” She yawned hugely. Quinn stayed until fairly late, the two of them chattering away on the patio in the moonlight. Ben and Irene had gone home, and Mom and I had made our way up to bed before he left.

  Mia stuck her head inside the bedroom door. She was dressed and ready to go to school. “Why is that old man banging around in the yard this early?”

  “He’s fixing the bee problem,” Monica said between yawns.

  Mia rolled her eyes and stalked away.

  I sniffed, catching a familiar scent. “Is Mom up? I smell coffee.”

  “And bacon,” Monica said.

  We followed the lure of breakfast downstairs, where Mom stood in the kitchen cooking eggs and bacon in her bathrobe. Isobel groused and growled beside the fridge, nipping at my toes when I got too close.

  “Good morning girls,” Mom said. “Just like old times, huh?”

  I couldn’t remember waking up to Mom cooking breakfast, especially on a day when all three of us, plus Dad, would be rushing around getting ready for school and work. Mornings were chaotic, a mass of rushed plans of who was picking up who from which practice or club meeting, who forgot their gym uniform and who didn’t have lunch money. Breakfast was a few gulps of milk and a granola bar if there was time.

  “This is nice, Mom,” Monica said, pouring a mug of coffee and handing it to me.

  “Really nice,” I echoed, letting the dogs out. “Mia!” I called. “Come eat before you have to leave!”

  A minute later she bounded down the stairs, texting on her phone with Liam scampering after her. “I have cheer practice after school, and then we can go dress shopping. Can Steph come with us?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s three days until the start of Canal Days. We’ll go, just not today.” The last thing I had time for this week was dress shopping.

  “I was talking to Grandma Angela,” Mia said.

  Mom handed her a plate of food. “Irene and I are taking her. We know you’re in the middle of the busiest week of your year. We’ll handle the dress and shoes and hair appointment and everything Mia needs.” She brushed a stray hair behind Mia’s ear. “Such a lovely girl. There’s no way you won’t win.”

  “I need stronger coffee for this,” Monica mumbled, biting into a piece of toast.

  Mom was going a bit overboard with this pageant thing and sucking up to Irene, but I didn’t doubt she was sincere when it came to Mia. Maybe she was just too busy with work when Monica and I were in high school, but she was turning out to be a fantastic grandma.

  Irene’s words came back to me from the evening before. She thought I was a good stepmom. I couldn’t bake or sew. I wasn’t organized. I didn’t know the other moms. But somehow I was doing a good job. It was a miracle.

  Watching Mia pick at her eggs with her fork and text at the same time, a surge of pride welled inside me. She might be spoiled and have an attitude, but she was also loyal and loving, smart and athletic, and like her Grandma Angela had said, she was lovely.

  The phone rang. “Who’s calling this early?” Monica grumbled, trying to get Isobel to budge from her spot and go outside.

  Sometimes I thought my sister, like her dog, was a geriatric beast trapped inside the body of a thirty-something woman. It was no wonder she and Isobel were soul mates.

  Irene’s name popped up on the caller ID. Most likely, she was calling for Mia or my mom. “Good morning, Irene,” I said, answering.

  “Good morning, pledge,” she said, her voice bubbly.

  “Pledge? Am I going to have to be initiated? Are you going to haze me?”

  “Initiation, yes. Hazing, not unless you deserve it!” Irene twittered like a large bird, feigning laughter.

  “Are you calling for Mia? I hear there’s a shopping trip this afternoon.”

  “Yes, we’ve been texting all morning about it. But I called for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, three o’clock, Daughters meeting at my house.”

  “This message will self-destruct—”

  “What are you talking about, Cameron?”

  “Nothing. Secret club meeting. Just joking around.”

  “We’re not a secret club.”

  “I know. Sorry. It’s early, and I haven’t had any coffee yet.”

 
“Go have your coffee, and stop being silly.”

  We hung up, and I realized it was the first time I’d talked to her without her telling me she was sending someone over to swipe something from my house under the pretense of every floorboard and doorknob being a precious ancestral relic.

  That was progress.

  Monica went outside to drink her coffee while Isobel puttered around the yard. Sue Nelson pulled into the driveway and Steph ran up to the door to fetch Mia, then they rushed off to school. Mom disappeared upstairs to take a shower, and finally, I had some peace.

  Well, as much peace as a person can have at a minor construction site.

  I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee and a plate of eggs and bacon. Why didn’t I make breakfast every morning? I’d have to start. Maybe Monica and I could take turns.

  I scooped a forkful of scrambled eggs in my mouth and the doorbell rang. My house was like Grand Central Station this morning.

  Halfway down the hall, I tripped over something that hissed and clawed my leg. “Spook, where did you come from?” The mysteriously appearing cat who took up part-time residence in my house glared up at me and hissed again. I’d make it up to him later.

  I secured the belt around my robe and opened the door. A man in a suit stood on my porch smiling like he was in a dental commercial. “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “Good morning. Are you Mrs. Hayman?”

  “Cripps-Hayman,” I said. Mrs. Hayman would always be Irene to me.

  “Mrs. Cripps-Hayman, I’m Arnie Rutherford. One of my clients is interested in your property. Have you ever considered selling?”

  Oh good gravy. This man’s name was one of the last things out of Butch Landow’s mouth and here he was standing on my porch.

  If ever there was a time for my bees to swarm!

  • Eight •

  Jim Stein was working the ticket counter in the train depot when I arrived for my clarinet lesson. Steve Longo and Jefferson Briggs stood across from him, all three drinking coffee from the Soapy Savant and chatting up neighbors who walked by the open depot door. Jim was a boisterous, overweight man with ruddy complexion who let his wife run the show. Jefferson was an older gentleman who lived in Brookville and drove a big white Cadillac to and from his antique shop each day. Steve, the owner of Odd and Strange Metamora, was exactly the opposite of his shop—nothing odd or strange about him. Average height, average build, average looks for a man in his fifties.

  “Fiona will be right with you, honey,” Jim said, “go ahead back and get set up.”

  Since the back of the station was a whole six steps across the creaky wooden floor from the front, it didn’t take long to set up my hard metal folding chair and put my clarinet together. I put the reed in my mouth to soften it and pretended not to listen to the men talk.

  “Got to find somewhere else to go now,” Jim was saying while scratching his stubbly chin.

  “I don’t want to drive an hour, though,” Jefferson said. “Stew won’t go that far either.”

  “What’s going to happen to the old place, anyway? Anyone hear?” Steve asked.

  “You came back,” Fiona said to me, breezing out of a side door that led to who knows where.

  I almost choked on my reed. “I did,” I said, between coughs.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her gaze landed on the men up front. “Don’t mind them. If they don’t like our noise, they can leave.”

  “Make all the noise you want,” Jim called back to us.

  “Let’s hear it,” Fiona said. “Blow and give me some sound. No squeaks.”

  Admittedly, I hadn’t practiced since yesterday morning. It had been a busy twenty-four hours. But I put the clarinet in my mouth and let out a steady, strong breath of air.

  Miracle of all miracles! “I did it!” I said, lifting my clarinet in victory.

  “Yes. Do it again.”

  I licked my lips and blew into the horn again. It honked like a goose. Fiona rolled her finger in a circle, gesturing for me to keep going. I emptied my lungs, feeling the reed vibrate against my bottom lip.

  To my horror, an answering honk resounded from the front of the depot. A look around Fiona showed me my partner in this duet: Metamora Mike, the resident duck who was the unofficial town mascot, and most likely born around the same time as Old Dan and Elaina Nelson.

  Mike honked again, waddling farther inside, encouraged by the laughter of the coffee-swilling men at the counter.

  “Well?” Fiona said. “You have a fan. Keep playing.”

  And so I spent the half hour blowing into my horn with Mike waddling around my chair, every now and then giving the bell of my clarinet an affectionate peck.

  “I believe you’ve got it. Good job,” Fiona said at the end of our time. “I understand I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  She meant the Daughters meeting. “Yes. I’ll be there.”

  “Yes, you will,” she said, making it obvious she was less than on board with the idea.

  If all of the Daughters didn’t agree with making me a member, then why did Irene extend the invitation?

  Between my brief visit from Arnie earlier and trying to decipher what Jim, Steve, and Jefferson were talking about, I didn’t have room in my brain to worry about Fiona. That would have to wait for the meeting later. Right now I had to hustle over to the church and tell my seniors about my visit from real estate attorney Arnie Rutherford. Oh, and how we were going ahead with the pageant.

  “Don’t forget to shoo your partner out the door with you,” Fiona said, eyeing Mike.

  “Right.” How did one wrangle a duck?

  I began walking, hoping he’d follow, but his beady little eyes were shifting left and right like a criminal looking for an escape. He darted toward the back of the room, flapping his wings, and hopped up onto the table where a little train set was displayed.

  “That’s an antique!” Fiona screeched. “Get off! Get off!” She waved her hands, lunging at Mike. He craned his neck back and gave her a warning honk.

  Oh good gravy. There had to be a way to lure him out the door. I whipped the zipper open on my handbag and dug around inside. I always had a snack inside. Goldfish crackers, cookies, something.

  I pulled out a plastic pack of hand wipes, tossed them aside and dove my hand back inside. My fingers wrapped around a crinkly foil wrapper. Candy bar! Wait. Could ducks eat chocolate? I couldn’t risk it. The last thing I needed was to be labeled Metamora Mike’s Murderess. Shifting my wallet aside, my fingers finally landed on a sandwich bag. Dog treats. Ducks could eat crumbled dog biscuit, couldn’t they?

  I broke a tiny piece off and held my hand out to the flustered duck still standing on the miniature antique town.

  “Don’t get crumbs all over my display!” Fiona shouted.

  “It’s crumbs or feathers … or worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “Let’s just say you don’t want your little town to look like it’s suffered a mudslide.”

  “Oh. Oh! Get him off! Get him off!” She waved her hands around again, trying to shoo him down off the table, but he only waddled to the other end.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, offering up the piece of biscuit. “Give this a try. I think you’ll like it.”

  Keeping his sharp gaze on Fiona, his beak darted into my hand and he grabbed the treat. Then he hustled toward me and honked for another.

  “He likes it,” Fiona said. “Keep going. Get him out of here.”

  I held out another piece a little lower than the table. He hopped off, craned his neck and swiped it from my outstretched hand. I back up a little bit and dropped a piece on the floor, then another a little farther away, like a trail of breadcrumbs.

  He didn’t take them. He just stood there looking at me.

  “Try picking it up,” Fiona said. “I think he wants you to g
ive it to him in your hand.”

  “What?” What kind of picky duck was this? I took the closest piece and held it out. Sure enough, he waddled over and scooped it up in his beak. “So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” I sighed, all crouched over. My bad knee was protesting. But I had to get Mike out of here.

  We were quite the sight, me duck walking backward toward the door while offering up bribery biscuits to the town legend, the spoiled canal duck who ruled the Metamora roost.

  Jim, Jefferson, and Steve snickered, and I caught Jim taking a picture on his phone. “Hey!” I said. “Delete that!”

  “Oh, come on now. Stewart will think this is hysterical.”

  “My father-in-law thinks everything I do is hysterical, this just tops the cake.”

  Outside, the sky was still overcast and thunder rumbled every now and again. No wonder my knee was acting up. It was like the clouds were brewing, gathering in strength and number before dumping rain on us. Every now and then the sun would fight its way through and shine a blinding ray off the canal water.

  I gave Mike the last piece of dog biscuit and stretched. “Nice making music with you,” I told him, and headed off across the bridge.

  Ben and Quinn were back in the town green with Brutus and Conan. With no time to stop and chat, I waved on my way by and shouted hello.

  Sophia House, the florist next door to the church, had pumpkins stacked on ladders, piled on hay bales, and set side-by-side inside a short, decorative white picket fence. Potted mums in white, orange, yellow, and maroon lined the sidewalk. Fall wreaths encircled each window and the door, their glossy ribbons blowing in the gentle breeze, and dried corn stalks flanked each side of the entranceway. It was gorgeous. It was fall. It was Canal Days.

  My stomach clenched with anxiety. There was still so much to do.

  I hurried to the church door, and jumped about ten feet in the air when Mike gave a loud honk behind me. I hadn’t realized he’d followed me.

  “I’m out of treats,” I told him. “Go find one of your feathery ladies to hang out with. I have work to do.” I left him preening his wings, rushed inside the church, and raced down the stairs into my basement office.