by Terri Thayer
Paula giggled, missing Yost’s displeasure. “No, silly. She found us. She’s got a problem with . . .”
Paula’s expression turned inquisitive as she realized April hadn’t said what her addiction was. She waited for her to fill in the blank.
Yost got there first. “I know what her problem is. I don’t think there’s a twelve-step program for interfering with police investigations.”
A couple in matching ski jackets, complete with dangling old lift tickets, approached Yost, interrupting his attack on April. Something about a broken vow. He held April’s eyes for several long seconds before he turned away. She was on notice.
“I’ve got a police matter to discuss.”
“Well, since the council frowns upon overtime, you’re going to have to wait. I’m not on duty for another”—he consulted his watch, pulling the pocket piece out slowly—“ninety-five minutes.”
April frowned at him. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She talked fast before he could stop her. “I was out at the meth house site, and the neighbor told me she sees people going in and out of there, making meth.”
To her dismay, Yost laughed. “Let me guess. In a shiny trailer, right?”
April nodded.
Yost leaned back against the wall. He was in civilian clothes today, a neat sweater over a pair of blue jeans. Looked almost human.
He raised his voice, playing to his crowd. “And did she tell you about the other shiny things she sees? That float down from the sky? And shoot flaming arrows at her place?”
April shrank back. Crap. She’d found the neighborhood nut job.
Yost wasn’t finished humiliating her yet. “That’s our Jeanie. She loves a new audience. She must have seen you coming a mile away.”
“All right, I get it. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No problem, Miss Buchert! Why not stay for the lecture? Today’s topic is about moderation.” His tone was smarmy, as if he had much to teach her and she had much to learn.
Then Yost leaned in and spoke quietly. He didn’t want to be overheard this time. “Have you been talking to Dr. Wysocki? I saw you go in his place the other day. That man is obsessed. He thinks just because his daughter got hooked on meth, it’s everywhere.”
“Listen,” April said, her patience gone. “Why don’t you just go do your job?”
His face hardened and his voice turned menacing. “I do my job, day after day, year after year. What do I get? Some city council member who thinks he knows more than me about how to keep this town safe, telling me I need to work fewer hours or be replaced by the cops next door. No one knows this town like I do. It’s been my life for thirty years. I know where all the bodies are buried.”
He turned on his heel and approached the podium set up in the middle of the room. April let herself out.
CHAPTER 14
April sat in her car with the motor running. Yost had embarrassed her in front of everyone. She felt awful.
So Jeanie was a bust. The neighbors had told her exactly nothing. She knew no more about J.B. than she had before she went out there.
Yost’s group had her thinking about twelve-step programs. J.B. had been in AA, according to Kit. People going through them had tasks to do. April couldn’t recite every one of the steps, but she was familiar with at least one.
Amends. Her college roommate had looked her up several years after graduation out of the blue, apologizing for the number of men she’d entertained in their room when they were freshmen. She was going through Alcoholics Anonymous and had to make amends.
Is that what J.B. had been doing? Trying to make up to his sister and his niece? Someone else? Conway’s family? Maybe someone hadn’t liked his apology.
April reached for the gearshift to put the car in drive. Her hand brushed against her coat pocket, and she felt the small plastic cassette tape. She’d nearly forgotten about what she’d found last night in the shed. Now all she needed was a player.
Her phone chirped. It was Tina. April looked at the phone in disbelief. Talk about timing.
“Just the woman I wanted to talk to,” April said. “Do you have a microcassette player?”
“Umm . . .” Tina was clearly caught off guard. “J.B. had one, I think.”
“Good, I’m coming up to get it.”
“Okay, I need to see you too. I’m at home.”
Tina gave her directions to her condo. She lived in a converted garden apartment. April was able to park out in front and quickly walked to the second floor unit. A wreath of glittery snowflakes greeted her. Next to it was a tin banner of a Dickensian choral group. They held a sign that read, “Welcome. Home Is Where the Heart Is.”
April wondered if Tina would feel the same about her house now without J.B.
Tina answered the door. April rubbed her feet on the snowman doormat, but after spying Tina’s off-white carpets, she took off her boots.
“Oh, April,” Tina said, gathering her in for an awkward hug. “I’m glad to see you. Do you have any word?”
“Word?” April straightened. Tina’s eyes were bright with hope.
“On the funeral. I thought you came to tell me about the arrangements.”
“What? No, Tina, it all just happened the day before yesterday.” She softened her tone when she realized how fragile Tina seemed. “I mean, the family’s still dealing. I was hoping that you had that recorder.”
Tina didn’t answer, didn’t offer to take April’s coat or invite her in. She wandered back into her living room and sat down. She’d obviously been sleeping on her couch. The back cushions were on the floor, and a fleece blanket had been tossed over the arm. She straightened the remaining cushions and settled against them. April sat on a rocking chair opposite and looked around.
The house definitely had a woman’s touch. The furniture was dainty. Queen Anne-style with turned legs and faded velvet upholstery. The décor relied heavily on flowery prints and an overuse of pink. She had a breakfront full of Disney characters and another with a collection of bird figurines. The white brick fireplace was filled with candles in their original plastic wrapping.
It was hard to imagine a guy as tall as J.B. getting comfortable and watching the tiny TV tucked into the corner of the room.
Tina moaned. “I’m sorry. I know I’m being a pain.”
“It’s been a terrible week.” April saw Tina’s dark circles. The woman was clearly on the verge of a breakdown. “Are you getting any sleep?”
“Not much.”
“How about the microcassette?” April asked. “Do you have J.B.’s tape player?” She felt sorry for her but the tape might hold the key to J.B.’s murder and that would help everyone.
Tina’s head lolled against the back of the couch. She waved away April’s question. “I just wanted to see him one last time.”
April looked away. Tina’s grief was palpable.
“I tried calling the hospital, the morgue, the state police. No one will tell me where he is.”
April could understand the need for closure. “I’m not your best ambassador right now,” April said. “Mary Lou is practically blaming me for his death. It’s going to break her heart when she learns he was living here with you for the last year.”
Tina’s brow furrowed. She sat up straighter. “She told him to never come back. It’s her own fault.”
April didn’t want to argue with her. She wanted the tape player and to get out of here. She looked around to see if Tina had found it and set it down somewhere. The coffee table was covered with baby books. No sign of what she’d come for.
She stood to get a better look into the kitchen. It was yellow with a daisy theme. She could see a sink full of dishes and a crumb-laden Formica counter. Tina was having a hard time dealing.
“Mind if I look for the recorder?” April said, inching toward a hallway. She could see three doors. Two bedrooms and a bath perhaps. Maybe one was an office.
Tina shrugged and grabbed a pillow and hugged it. She wante
d to say more about Mary Lou, it was obvious, but April had heard it before.
The hall was lined with school photos. April realized as the child in the pictures got older that it was Tina herself. She glanced back to see her lying prone on the couch. There had been no pictures of J.B. anywhere.
She peeked into the master bedroom. There was no sign that a man had been living here. No clunky watch on the nightstand, no Popular Mechanics. She thought about the way Mitch had spread himself all over his house. His presence was everywhere.
J.B. had lived a very small life, even after he found sanctuary.
The small second bedroom was set up as an office, with the kind of white gilded furniture that April had lusted after when she was a young girl. A computer was set up and the doors had been removed from the closet, which housed filing cabinets and shelves with technical magazines and college texts.
April opened drawers, rifling through the contents. She pushed aside current bills, staples, rubber bands, feeling for the sharp edge of a recorder. Her fingers felt something about the right size that turned out to be a box of checks.
She fingered the tiny tape in her pocket. She should tell Tina about it. Maybe she knew more about what J.B. did. She looked around the room one more time. Nothing.
So far all she’d found that belonged to J.B. was a guitar pick. No guitar, just the old pick. The recorder was probably in his pocket when he went off the road and died. He seemed like a guy who’d gotten used to taking up very little space in the world.
Tina’d said they’d been happy, but really who knew? He’d gotten sober. His infatuation with Tina might have been over. She’d rescued him and he felt grateful. April had only her word that it had blossomed into something more.
April thought back to the night he’d come to Kit’s. He’d been nervous, jittery. Was he worried about being picked up by the police? Or was he a man about to leave his girlfriend?
Maybe his trip back to Aldenville had been an attempt to reconcile with his family and move back.
CHAPTER 15
The phone rang, startling April. It was on the desk in the office. Tina didn’t answer and the answering machine kicked in.
“Tina? Are you there? There’s someone here trying to buy cold meds. I got a quick glimpse of the license. It had an Aldenville address.”
Gloria, Tina’s coworker at the drug store. She hung up when Tina didn’t pick up.
Jeanie Justice was right after all. Someone was making meth, or at least trying to, in Aldenville.
April went back out to the living room. Tina was snoring gently. She let herself out and raced to the pharmacy. This could be lead her to people who knew about J.B.
Gloria was working the counter. There were no customers in the store. April walked right up.
“I was just at Tina’s,” she said. “I heard your message. Is the person still here?”
Gloria shook her head. “She took off as soon as I tried to take her license and scan it.”
“Darn it,” April said. “What did she look like?”
“Kind of ordinary. Medium height, brownish hair. She said her kids were real sick and she needed several packs. I believed her until she got so skittish about her ID.”
“You didn’t see her name?”
“No, just caught the Aldenville on the address.”
April banged her hands on the counter. “Too bad.”
“You just came from Tina’s?” Gloria asked. “How is she today?”
“Not great. Sleeping on the couch.”
Gloria nodded. “I’ve been over there every day but she barely knows I’m there.”
“Did you ever meet J.B.?” April asked.
“Never. She never even mentioned him until her pregnancy got too noticeable. She hasn’t had many boyfriends, so she knew she had to explain that.”
That made sense as J.B. was trying to keep his identity a secret. April wondered what J.B. had thought about going public once his girlfriend was pregnant. Was he happy or scared?
April thanked Gloria and went back home. She had more questions than answers now.
The morning of the Ice Festival, the sun was making a weak appearance. The rays were threaded through gauzy clouds that covered the sky like a layer of tulle. But the forecast was for sun that afternoon. No precipitation on the radar. And that meant the Campbells would be gone for the weekend. April jumped out of bed, wanting to wish them farewell. She didn’t want to sleep through any part of having the barn to herself.
Grizz was already outside, warming up the car for their trip to Scranton. Charlotte had laid out ham sandwiches, homemade cookies, dried apples and bananas. A thermos of coffee was topped off with half-and-half. There was enough food to feed a family of six traveling by horse and buggy rather than two people driving an hour and a half. Even if Grizz never topped thirty miles an hour the entire trip, they’d be there before lunch. If they got caught in a blizzard, they’d be able to survive for a week.
She gave Charlotte a hug. “Have a nice time,” she said.
“We will,” Charlotte said. “It’s been too long since we’ve seen Maisie and Don. I’m sorry we won’t get to see you win the Ice Festival trophy, though.” Charlotte packed their sandwiches into an old-fashioned plaid cooler.
April laughed. “You’ve got such high expectations. I’ll be glad just to get through the day.”
Charlotte grabbed her face. “You’re going to do just fine. I saved you a sandwich,” she said, closing the lid, eyes sliding to the refrigerator. April wriggled free, grabbed the handle and walked Charlotte out to the driveway. Grizz was tapping the wheel impatiently.
April waved to them out until they were out of sight and skipped back into the house. She had sheets to wash and piles of newspapers to recycle. She thought for a moment about leaving the barn doors open, to give the place a good airing. Having three people in this space in the dead of winter was good for no one. She shivered and decided against it.
April had worked at Mirabella all day yesterday. She was ready for some fun.
She was waiting outside when Mitch came to pick her up around noon. The sun was out fully now, and the steady drip of melting snow cheered her.
“Ready, Freddy?” she asked, getting into his Jeep almost before he came to a complete stop.
“You’re in a good mood,” he said, leaning over for a kiss. “I like it.”
“This is going to be fun,” she said. “I can feel it.”
Aldenville was a small town made up of a small commercial area and miles of surrounding land. Main Street was a two-mile stretch bookmarked by six churches and the VFW hall. Several small businesses, a tea shop, the bank and the Brass Buckle Inn still dotted the street, but many had moved out to the busy highway that ran mostly parallel. Main Street had been left to return to its roots of sleepy small-town thoroughfare, with one traffic light to break up the drive.
The Whispering Willows Park was in the middle of town. It had a community pool with a locker room, one park for little kids and another for bigger ones. A Little League and Babe Ruth field took up the rest of the acreage.
Today, it had been transformed. Gaily roofed booths had been set up along what were usually the first- and third-base lines of the Little League field. That was a testament to how frozen solid the ground was. The baseball league was particular about their field and usually allowed no one on it during the off-season.
Fake snowflakes, as big around as a tire, hung everywhere. Kids dueled with plastic icicles while their parents sipped from cups shaped like glaciers. A snow machine made redundantly abundant snow, better for the snow-person-making contest. April laughed when she saw the gender-neutral title.
The festival had already begun. At the far end of the park, an ice rink was crowded with skaters. Mitch and April jumped out of the way of an overzealous roller making his snow-person’s head. He had a Dowling Nursery hat on. Suzi waved a carrot as she urged him on. Mitch scooped up loose snow and tossed a snowball her way. She easily ducked
it.
Tantalizing smells were emanating from a food tent. Next to it, a twenty-one-and-over beer garden was drawing a crowd already. In the tents, large heaters were working hard to provide some level of comfort to the outdoor revelers.
In the middle of the park were blocks of ice, as tall as April, waiting to be carved. Mitch took his huge duffel of tools over to their station. The contest didn’t begin for an hour or so, but he would set up. April had one stop to make first.
She carried her portfolio over to Rocky’s Stamping Sisters booth. She had finished one more collage late last night. She was happy with the icy scene and wanted to make sure Rocky gave it a prominent place.
Rocky’s little booth was warm. She had a propane heater on full blast. April reached down and felt the rays toast her fingers.
“Is that thing safe?” April asked.
“Sure it is. Just be careful and don’t knock it over.”
April edged into the booth, avoiding the little heater.
Rocky tossed her hair back and examined April’s creation. “Oh, this is good.” Rocky said, “How do you like this idea? Guinness Book of World Records. We’re going to make the largest card ever.”
Now April understood the enormous roll of craft paper that covered the front counter and trailed down, ending in a plastic storage box. Rocky had laid out stamps and inks and made up a sign that read, “Be a part of history. Put your mark on the world’s largest greeting card.”
April smiled. Rocky had a flair for the dramatic, but drama alone didn’t amount to sales. “You’re going for a record?”
“Guinness Book, here we come. Why not? I’m going to put Stamping Sisters on the map—one way or the other.”
“Good luck,” April said. She backpedaled before Rocky could involve her. The success of Stamping Sisters was important to her, too, but she wanted to focus on Mitch’s project today. The ice-sculpting contest was due to begin at one. The artists had three hours to complete their piece before the judging.
Mitch walked by, pulling a wheeled cart with their tools behind him. “Let’s go, Buchert. Time to make the donuts,” he called.
