by Raven Snow
“What’s wrong?” asked Rose.
“I don’t know,” said Rowen. She couldn’t explain it. Instead, she followed it. “I feel something,” she said.
Mrs. Williamson rolled her eyes. “Of course you do,” she grumbled. “Let me guess. It’s a ghost.”
“No,” said Rowen. “It’s definitely not a ghost.” This was more like residual emotion. She sensed a lot of that in this house. Most of it was in the dining room. The energy in there was a whole lot of fear and sadness. This felt like something else entirely and stood apart from the other energy. Rowen followed it with Rose and Mrs. Williamson trailing close behind.
The energy Rowen was following appeared to be coming from the bathroom. That was an odd place for it. She wished she had known that before she said anything. She would have excused herself and gone to check it out privately. As it stood, she didn’t have much choice but to try and sort out what it was she was sensing while everyone watched her.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Williamson demanded as she ducked down and opened up the cabinets under the sink.
“Sorry,” said Rowen. “I just…I’ve got to figure out what this is. It feels so strong.” She pointed to the medicine cabinet. “Do you mind?” she asked.
“Of course I do!” said Mrs. Williamson, sounding scandalized.
Rowen opened it anyway. “Sorry.” If she could just figure out what it was she was sensing, she felt like Mrs. Williamson would thank her for it. It might even hold some answers for them all. There was nothing in there, unfortunately. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she felt certain that she would know what it was when she saw it. Ignoring Mrs. Williamson’s complaining, she closed the medicine cabinet and tried to focus.
Rowen went to the toilet. Was it coming from here? It felt like it. She lifted the lid to the tank, muttering half-hearted apologies the whole while. It was in there that she saw it. Rowen reached in and pulled out a small bag.
“What is that?” Mrs. Williamson demanded, making a grab for it.
Rowen dodged the grab and turned the baggie in her hand, trying to determine what was inside of it. It looked like there was a little bottle inside, and inside that bottle appeared to be white little berries with black spots. Baneberry.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Rose, reaching for the bag.
Mrs. Williamson beat her to it. She reached past Rose and snatched the bag right out of Rowen’s hand. “What is this?” she demanded. She got a good look at what was in the bag and immediately paled.
Rowen wasn’t sure what to do. The room had lapsed into stunned silence. Finally, common sense returned to her. “We need to call the police,” she said.
That seemed to rouse Mrs. Williamson. “You put this here,” she said, suddenly. “You planted this here.”
Rowen stared. “I haven’t been to the bathroom once since I got here, and you saw me fish the bag out. I didn’t have time to—”
“Get out!” shouted Mrs. Williamson. “Both of you, get out!”
“But we need to call the police,” said Rose. “That’s…that’s basically the murder weapon right there.”
“Get out!” Mrs. Williamson ordered a second time, the baggie clenched tightly in her hand.
Rose looked at Rowen. She was obviously looking for some kind of advice here. What should they do? Mrs. Williamson was probably about to destroy evidence. Did they need to wrestle it away from her? Should one of them restrain the woman while the other called the police?
“Let’s go,” said Rowen.
Rose stared at her. “What?” she asked incredulously.
Rowen took her by the arm. “Let’s go,” she repeated, steering her toward the door. Maybe it was the wrong call, but she was choosing to put some distance between herself and Mrs. Williamson rather than escalate. Hurriedly, she got her things. They rushed out onto the lawn, the door slamming behind them.
“Should we call the police?” asked Rose, staring back at the house from the path.
“Let’s get about a block away first,” said Rowen, going to the car. She didn’t trust Mrs. Williamson not to accost them from the driveway.
It took less than a minute to park in a cul-de-sac a block away. As soon as she had, she pulled her phone out. “Wait,” said Rose, grabbing Rowen by the wrist before she could dial. “Call Ben first. We should call Ben first, shouldn’t we?”
Rowen wasn’t sure about that. “The police need to know about this.”
Rose nodded. “And they will. Ben will do the right thing. He’s a good guy. I just think we should tell him first. It’s what you would want if something was up with one of us.”
She had her there. Rowen still had her doubts, but she dialed Ben. The phone only rang a couple of times before he answered. He was probably waiting to hear back from her after the interview. “Hey,” he said. “How did it go?”
“Hard to say,” said Rowen. “Um, so, there’s a new development. We found the plant that was used to poison your uncle in the house.”
“What?” Ben asked.
“We found it in the bathroom,” Rowen continued. “Your mother took it from us and kicked us out.”
“What!” In the background of the phone call, Rowen could hear Ben scrambling into action. “Did you call the police?”
“You’re the first one we called,” said Rowen, still praying that was the right move.
“Good. I’ll be down there in a few minutes.” With that, Ben hung up.
“Well?” prompted Rose. “What now?”
“Now we’re involved.” Rowen put the car in drive and began to head back to Mrs. Williamson’s house. They’d really gotten mixed up in this thing now. Oh well. It had only been a matter of time.
Chapter Nine
Rowen only stopped circling the block when she saw Ben pull into his mother’s driveway and pulled in behind him. He paused while he was getting out of his car, looking back at them—or behind them, rather. Rowen turned to see a third car pulling in.
“Caitlin,” Rose told Rowen.
Rowen had forgotten all about her. Of course, she was getting here now. What perfect timing. “Did you call her, too?” asked Ben, looking puzzled.
Rowen shook her head. “Why would we?”
“She was coming here anyway,” said Rose, going to Ben and putting an arm around him for moral support. “She and your mother are having dinner…Were having dinner, maybe. Plans might have changed given recent developments.”
“Great.” Ben went to intercept his sister. She was already climbing from the cab of her pickup, looking confused. “Look, sis, something came up. Think you can wait out here for just a second?”
“What happened?” asked Caitlin, worry written on her face. “Is something wrong? Is Mom all right?”
“She’s fine,” Ben said, quickly. “But she might have her hands on some evidence, and I need to get in there and make sure she hasn’t done anything stupid. Now, please wait here.” He headed inside.
Caitlin followed close behind him. Rowen wondered if he had actually expected asking her to wait outside to work. Did that ever work on anyone?
Ben might have had a key, but he didn’t use it. He knocked first. Surprisingly, Mrs. Williamson answered the door in moments. “Ben! What a nice surprise.” Her eyes moved past him and found Rowen and Rose. She scowled. “Those two aren’t welcome back into my house.”
Ben stayed on the doorstep for now. “They say they found something in the bathroom,” he said. “Evidence?”
“They planted that,” said Mrs. Williamson. “They came in here for an interview. I suppose it wasn’t exciting enough for them. They had to manufacture a story.”
“Can I see what they said they found?” asked Ben.
Mrs. Williamson stood up a little straighter, like she was prepared to defend herself. “I got rid of it,” she said.
“Mom,” Ben groaned. He didn’t look surprised, just incredibly disappointed. “Why would you get rid of it?”
“
They were trying to frame me!” shouted Mrs. Williamson, pointing an accusing finger at Rowen and her cousin. “I won’t have them drag me through the dirt like that! I won’t have it!”
Caitlin came forward. “Why don’t we go inside?” she asked. That seemed like a good idea. They were standing out in the open. It was just a matter of time before a neighbor overheard what they were talking about, assuming someone hadn’t already.
“They’re not coming in!” Mrs. Williamson said, pointing again to Rowen and Rose.
“Fine,” said Ben. He took a step toward them. “You two wait in your car,” he said, giving Rose’s arm a squeeze before he pulled away and headed inside.
Rose gave a low whistle once they were alone outside, and they both headed back to the car. “Well, that escalated quickly,” said Rowen, once they were both seated and the AC was blasting.
“This is a nightmare,” said Rose with a groan. “I knew this was a mistake. We should have never agreed to this.”
Rowen offered her cousin a halfhearted smile. “First of all, this whole thing was my idea. Second of all, it’s better that it was found.”
“She already got rid of the evidence,” said Rose. “What do we have to prove?”
“It’s not about proving anything yet,” said Rowen. She had been giving this quite a bit of thought ever since they found the bag in the toilet tank. “We’re still not sure who put that baggie there.”
“Ben’s mom,” Rose said, immediately. “She’s the murderer.”
“You think that?” Rowen knew that Mrs. Williamson thought that’s what they suspected, but she was surprised to hear Rose actually believed it. More likely, she just wanted it to be true. “I know you hate that woman, but you have to admit it seems unlikely she stashed that there herself.”
“Why?” asked Rose. “Maybe she put it there after she used it and just forgot about it. She’s old.”
Rowen rolled her eyes. “It’s way more likely that whoever poisoned him put it there. They stashed it there after the fact and couldn’t get back to it once the place was crawling with police.”
Rose sighed. She looked out the window with a frown. “I guess,” she relented. “Why didn’t whoever put it there just flush it though?”
That hadn’t occurred to Rowen yet. She considered the question. “Maybe they were hoping it would be found. Maybe they wanted it found that night. They were hoping to frame someone.”
“Who?” asked Rose. “There were a lot of people there that night, me included.”
Rowen didn’t have an answer for her. She was going to have to think about this one for a bit. They sat together and tried to puzzle it out in silence for a while. It was Ben leaving the house about half an hour later that ended that.
Ben motioned for them not to leave the car. Instead, he went around and climbed into the back seat. “So, that was fun,” he said, closing the door behind himself.
“What’s up?” asked Rowen. “Does she still think we planted it?”
“Oh, no,” said Ben. “Now she’s really playing dumb. It’s hard to get much of anything out of her. According to her, whatever it was you were trying to stash in her house got misplaced.”
“She grabbed it from Rowen,” said Rose, sounding downright offended.
“I believe you,” said Ben. “That sounds like something she might do if she felt like she was being blamed for something. I love her, but she never could take blame well.”
“You’re calling the police, right?” Rowen trusted Ben to do the right thing, but she just had to make sure.
“Of course,” said Ben. “I just have to figure out what to tell them.”
“The truth,” said Rose, as if that should be obvious.
Ben frowned at her. “Of course, I’m telling them the truth. I just need to figure out how to phrase it.”
“It shouldn’t matter how you phrase it.” It didn’t seem like Rose was going to allow any leeway on this matter. She had strong opinions on how things should proceed, and she wasn’t going to let them go unsaid. “Tell them everything that just happened. We’ll wait here. They’ll want to interview us, too. We can tell them what happened on our end.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” said Ben.
“Not really,” said Rose. “Your uncle was murdered, and your mother probably just flushed the murder weapon.”
“And I’m going to tell them everything. I just have to think for a second here.” Ben sounded a bit on edge. He had reason to be, of course, but Rose clearly didn’t have much patience for it.
“Everyone chill out for a second,” Rowen said. “This is a bad situation all around. If this was someone in our family, Rose, you know you’d be trying to get a handle on the situation before you called in the cops.”
“Yeah,” said Rose. “But I’m not the chief of police.”
Ben sighed. He looked down at the hands he had folded in his lap. Rowen couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. “For what it’s worth, neither of us think she did anything wrong…aside from getting rid of evidence, obviously.”
Ben nodded. “Of course she’s innocent,” he said. “She just doesn’t think. This is going to look horrible. This is the exact opposite of what I wanted out of today.” He heaved another sigh. “All right, I’m calling the police. I’m going to see if I can’t get this kept on the down low though.” He gave Rowen a very serious look. “That means I would really appreciate it if this stayed out of the papers for now. Do you think you can do that for me?”
“So now you’re interfering with the freedom of the press,” Rose grumbled. “Great.”
Rowen gave her cousin a shove. “You’re a good friend, Ben. If you want us to keep this under wraps for a while, we will.”
Rose looked at Rowen and seemed to deflate a bit, her anger fading. “Of course we will,” she said, looking back to Ben. “I’m sorry, it’s just…It’s been a long day.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Ben muttered. He didn’t look at Rose as he said that. It was doubtful he had totally forgiven her for that outburst just now. It was just as well. Rowen doubted Rose had totally forgiven Ben. “All right, I’m calling the police. Sit tight for a while, if you don’t mind.”
A couple of police carpooled over in a plain compact car that wouldn’t attract any attention. One of the men stayed outside with Rowen and Rose while the other one headed inside to assess the situation from there.
Rowen and Rose told the officer everything they had seen and done. He took note of it but didn’t have that many probing questions to ask. This did feel an awful lot like preferential treatment. No one was leading Mrs. Williamson out to a patrol car. They were just taking note of the situation and moving on.
An article on this would be groundbreaking. Instead, they couldn’t even publish that. This whole thing was leaving a sour taste in Rowen’s mouth. Granted, Rose seemed far more annoyed.
“At least we don’t have to write that article on Ben’s mom now,” said Rose as they drove away. The officers hadn’t kept them that long. Unfortunately, Ben hadn’t come out to see them off either. Either he was busy or avoiding them for now. They weren’t allowed back into the house to figure out the truth of the matter.
“Oh, no,” said Rowen. “We’re still writing that article.”
“You’re kidding,” said Rose.
Rowen wasn’t kidding. She had a gut feeling on this one. That article was more important now than ever.
Chapter Ten
The article on Mrs. Williamson was big. It was bigger even than the one they had published on Willard, unfortunately. People didn’t really know who Willard Lydell was. Everyone knew who Mrs. Williamson was. Lainswich was a pretty small place, and she was the talk of the town right now.
Public opinion was swayed some. The article had been well-written and compelling. It painted Mrs. Williamson in a sympathetic light, referring back sparingly to her childhood. Hers was a sort of cautionary tale about the importance of family and forgiveness. Mo
st people could relate to that sort of thing.
As picky as Mrs. Williamson was, Rowen doubted she thought very highly of the piece. It hadn’t portrayed her as a saint or anything. Not that she had called to say either way. She hadn’t spoken to any of the Greensmiths since the incident at her house. Ben called, though. He said his thanks and thanked them again for not running anything on what had happened with the missing evidence. The way he thanked them was quick and curt, like he didn’t want to stay on the phone too long.
