by Raven Snow
“Does Channel 2 know where they are?” Rowen wondered if Julia Martinez was only just now getting to Erica. They would have a hard time getting around that brother of hers.
“Not unless another source has tipped them off,” Ben assured her. “It’s a mother and son. Helen and Dennis. They were open with us when we talked to them. I have no reason to believe that they’ll give you much trouble.”
“All right. I’ll let you know what we find out.” Rowen hung up and turned to her husband.
“Do we have another objective already?” he asked.
“Yep.” Rowen nodded. “Isn’t this nice? We’re working on a case together.”
“You do remember that someone got murdered, don’t you, Sweetheart?”
“Well, yeah… It’s still nice, though.”
Chapter Nine
The drive to Tarricville was a long one. Ben sent them the address and room number, and Rowen plugged that into her phone’s GPS. It cited the drive would take over an hour. They grabbed some gas station taquitos to eat on the way since neither of them had had lunch yet.
“Do you have a problem with the Powers brothers?” Eric asked after they had run out of mundane things to talk about and lapsed into silence.
“Peter and Reginald? I hardly know them. Why?”
“I dunno. I just didn’t think you would be this upset about your aunts getting married.”
“I just think it’s fast. And it is!” Rowen sighed and leaned back in the passenger seat. “You haven’t been a Greensmith as long as I have. You haven’t seen the men come and go. The fallout is always rough. They get attached to a man, see him for a year or two at most, and then, bam! Something terrible happens. Either he leaves or cheats or gets killed.”
“You know you’ve told me this several times and I always take comfort from the knowledge that you married me despite believing men who enter into the family get killed in freak accidents.”
“We can divorce before it’s too late.”
“Not a chance. And, hey, maybe that’s something your aunts are taking into consideration. Maybe they want to marry really quick and get as much enjoyment as possible out of those men before the inevitable happens.”
“That seems awfully selfish of them,” Rowen muttered.
“No more than you were selfish for marrying me. Besides, I’m sure those Powers fellows have been warned already. They clearly want to marry your aunts anyway. Just let them all have some fun.”
Eric was making a lot of sense and Rowen didn’t like that. “Why are you sticking up for them so much, huh?”
Eric shrugged. “What can I say? As a guy who married into the family despite the warnings, I like to support my brothers in arms.”
Rowen rolled her eyes. “Fair enough. I’ll try to keep an open mind,” she promised.
***
The motel the Lucas family was staying at was a pretty trashy one. The room they were in was on the second floor. Rowen and her husband climbed the rickety stairs up to the second floor. “Am I going to be your intern again?” Eric asked.
Rowen glanced back at him. “It worked pretty well last time, didn’t it?”
“Fine,” Eric relented. “But only because I’m not sure I could pass for anything else. I don’t know the first thing about being a reporter.”
Rowen knocked on the door. She stood there and waited. She could hear some movement inside or she would have knocked again. Someone was approaching the door, and Rowen heard when they stopped. She could feel someone looking at her then. They were peering through the peephole, no doubt. “Who is it?” demanded a man’s voice.
“I’m Rowen,” said Rowen, leaving out her last name on purpose again just in case. “I work with the Lainswich Inquirer. I hate to bother you like this, but I was just wondering if you would be willing to answer a few questions for our publication if you’re feeling up for it.”
Inside there was a bit of whispering. Rowen didn’t have to strain to try and make out what they were saying for long. The door opened. A thin, black haired man with a patchy mustache looked back at her. “You’re from the local paper?”
Rowen nodded then immediately backpedaled a bit. “Well, Lainswich’s paper. Not Tarricville. Though, we also have a website that’s worldwide.”
“I’m assuming this is about my brother, huh?” asked the man who had to be Dennis.
“That’s right. We heard you were in town and thought we should get your side of things. That is, if you’re willing, of course.”
“Let them in,” said the voice of a woman who had to be Helen. Rowen could see a plump little old lady sitting at a small table with a fast food bag on it.
“We didn’t interrupt you in the middle of lunch, did we?” asked Rowen.
Dennis shook his head. “We just finished.” He stepped to one side as per his mother’s instructions. “Come on in.”
The motel room was a stuffy one with two beds. There was only the one room and a bathroom. A couple of suitcases were on the floor, and the beds were unmade. The whole place was lit only by lamps, making it dim and depressing— especially with the blinds closed like they were. Rowen had never been a big fan of motel rooms. Then again, who was?
“I never heard of the Lainswich Inquirer,” said Helen, squinting at Rowen and Eric like she couldn’t see them all that well from across the room.
“Have you ever lived in Lainswich?” asked Rowen, standing rather awkwardly in the center of the room.
Helen nodded. “Most of my life.”
“I take it you moved away at some point, right? The Lainswich Inquirer is still a fairly young publication. We’re doing well for ourselves so far, though!”
Helen’s lips formed a thin line. “Mmm,” she hummed in acknowledgment. It was difficult to tell exactly what she thought of Rowen and Eric. Even the energy she was putting off was sending mixed messages. She looked toward her son.
He shrugged. “Do what you want, Ma.”
“I guess this is fine.” Helen’s energy became a little softer. There was an eagerness behind it, like she was excited by the prospect of being in the headlines. Rowen supposed a little bit of that was natural coming from anyone.
“Do you mind if we record this?” Rowen asked, removing her recorder from her purse.
“I don’t guess so,” said Helen with a shrug. “Sit down, though. The two of you are making me anxious standing there like that.”
“Of course.” Rowen looked around for another set of chairs, but there didn’t seem to be any. Instead, she and Eric sat awkwardly on the end of one of the beds. Rowen cleared her throat and pressed record. “So, I have here with me Helen and Dennis Lucas,” she said, addressing the recorder. “They are the mother and brother of Timothy Lucas, respectively. When did the two of you arrive into town?”
“Yesterday,” said Helen. “It was an awfully long drive, but I couldn’t not be here.” She shook her head. “I’ve lost two sons before him. It sure does hurt to lose another.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” Rowen meant that too. This poor woman had lost three children? She couldn’t imagine how difficult that must be.
Helen sighed at the memory. “I lost one to the pipe and another to the bottle.” She shook her head, sadly. “Now I’ve lost another, and they can’t even tell me what happened to him. It never gets any easier.”
“You’ve still got me, Ma,” David said, reaching out and giving his mother’s shoulder a squeeze. “I ain’t going anywhere.”
“You’d better not.” Helen patted her son’s hand.
“So, you came as soon as you heard,” repeated Rowen, steering things back on topic. “Did you tell your daughter-in-law, Edith, that you were coming down? She didn’t seem to think you were here yet when I spoke to her.”
Helen made a face like she had tasted something sour. “We don’t say much to that woman. She knows as much as she should. I imagine we’ll see her at the funeral, but that will be it. I’d sooner we didn’t even have to interact
that much.”
Rowen glanced at her husband who had raised his eyebrows. She was a bit surprised to hear this herself. “You don’t like your son’s wife?”
“My son’s widow, you mean.” Helen shook her head. “No,” she said, plainly. “I don’t. I don’t like her one bit.”
Well, she certainly hadn’t minced words about that! Rowen wasn’t sure why that caught her by surprise. It really shouldn’t have. Edith clearly hadn’t known that her in-laws were in town. If they were at all on good terms, Helen would have made sure to give her a call when she got in. “Is there a particular reason why you don’t get along well?” she asked. She couldn’t help it. She was curious.
“I told my son from the beginning that she wasn’t very good wife material.” Helen shook her head again like this all weighed very heavily on her. “There’s a certain way a wife should treat her husband, you know? Edith had a combative streak in her. She was always so opinionated about everything. It got to the point where I couldn’t even sit down to dinner with them. That girl would go on about this and that. Call me old fashioned, but the husband is the head of the household. It’s not a wife’s place to challenge her husband’s opinions over the dinner table.”
“I see.” Rowen looked down at the pen and paper she was holding and made a point to jot that down. She hoped her distaste for everything Helen had just said didn’t show on her face. “Edith didn’t really seem to me like the combative type.” If anything, the woman had seemed unusually meek to her.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Helen. “The last I talked to my boy, he was telling me what a trouble maker she was.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
Helen’s gaze went a bit distant as she considered that question. She glanced at her son as if he might know, but he only shrugged. “I suppose it was a few months ago. He didn’t see me a whole lot after he married. Like I was getting at before, that wife of his just wasn’t good marriage material.”
“Do you think she might have had anything to do with his death?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Helen said immediately.
“I would,” said Dennis. “Timothy was a big guy. He could take care of himself. There’s no way Edith could have gotten the drop on him. Besides, she wasn’t all that bold. I know Ma says she didn’t respect my brother, but she really didn’t strike me as the murderin’ type.”
Rowen didn’t mention that Orville Powers was a large guy. He might have been able to “get the drop” on Timothy if Edith talked him into it. “Do you have any other ideas as to who might have murdered your son?”
Helen glanced at Dennis, deferring to him. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’d be tough. Like I said, he was a capable guy. Whoever murdered him would have to be a big, impressive dude.”
“Where did you live when you lived here in Lainswich?”
“About where Timothy does… did,” said Dennis. “We had a little split-level house in Lichen Hallow.”
Rowen felt a small swell of anxiety. She had been right to leave out her last name when introductions had been made. These didn’t strike her as the type people who would take kindly to a witch. “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you move away?”
“Well, my husband passed away and I had never much liked the area,” said Helen. “It wasn’t like it used to be. I was only staying for the sake of my husband. When he was gone, I moved out to the coast. It’s nice there. I don’t regret it. Dennis here came with me. He never did marry.”
“When would I have the time?” Dennis asked quickly, like he was afraid that Rowen and Eric were already drawing their own conclusions about him. “Someone has to take care of you, right?”
“He does look after his dear, old mother,” Helen conceded. “I’m not sure what I would do without him.”
“The coast sounds nice,” said Rowen, forcing a small smile onto her face. “Did Timothy and his wife ever visit you there?”
“No,” said Helen. “That son of mine was always busy with something or another.”
“Edith said that he retired pretty young though.” Rowen hated to point that out, but she wanted to get to the bottom of how close Timothy had been with his family. It didn’t sound like they had seen much of each other at all in who knew how long. “He must have had time to come and see you.”
“What are you getting at?” asked Dennis. He scowled at Rowen. The question had hit a nerve with him. He might have said more had his mother not held up a hand to silence him.
“He was always busy with something or another. My son was very active in the community. Then there was that wife of his. She never did like me. Always complained about him going anywhere or doing anything from the sound of it. He’d go out hunting or fishing a lot just to get away from her. Sometimes a fella just has to do that in this modern world of ours. It’s like you’re expected to always be connected with a phone these days. Who can stand it?”
Rowen found modern conveniences useful, but there was no point in her saying that. “I imagine the police told you that Timothy was found out at the lake here.”
Helen nodded and took a deep breath. “He loved that lake. The boys used to go out on it with their father. I hope he was at least doing something he loved right before he was murdered.”
It was here that Rowen felt something odd. She couldn’t help but look at Dennis. His gaze was fixed on the wall behind Rowen. His energy was erratic and dangerous. “Did you go on fishing trips with your dad, too?” Rowen asked him, getting the sense that it was the memory of these trips making him anxious.
“Hmm?” Dennis looked up. “Yeah,” he said, keeping his response curt. The anxiety faded.
“Is there anything else you would like to be said about your son in the paper?” Rowen asked, shifting her attention back to Helen for the time being.
***
Helen certainly had plenty to say. She went on and on. Most of it wasn’t even about her son. The woman could go off on tangents that would have exhausted even the opportunistic Julia Martinez. This woman wasn’t afraid to talk to the media. If anything, Rowen got the sense that she was enjoying this newfound attention. This was the sort of woman who was definitely going to show up in an interview on Channel 2 more than once in the coming days.
There wasn’t anything wrong with that, not technically. There was no wrong way to grieve for the loss of a person you loved as far as Rowen was concerned. Still, there was something she didn’t like about that woman. Well, to be a bit more fair, there were definitely several things she didn’t like about the woman. “I don’t like Helen,” Rowen said bluntly once they were both back in the car.
“I got that impression,” said Eric, fishing a cold taquito out of the cardboard box wedged in the cup holder. “What’s to like, though? She seems like she came from a pretty backwards time and place. She probably expected me to do most of the talking. If she’d known we were husband and wife and you weren’t deferring to me to ask all the questions? Man, she would have flipped her lid.”
Rowen knew that Eric was kidding, but that didn’t sound very far off from the truth. “She might have.” Rowen looked up at the motel room they had just left. “What kind of impression did you get?”
“The same one you did, I think.” Eric shrugged. “I don’t think she’s heard from her son in a long time. She says it’s been a couple of months, but I’m not sure she isn’t lying even about that. Even if you aren’t all that close to your family, you can generally remember the last time you talked to them. It felt to me like she was just making up a number.”
“I agree,” said Rowen. Even she could remember the last time Tiffany had thought to give her a call. She and her mother had their own strange relationship. Tiffany never stayed in one place for long. She was always running off to some commune or with some guy. The last time Tiffany had called her it had been to let her know she was, apparently, a groupie now. She was following around some folk band with a new boyfriend. Rowen had made a poin
t to remind her that two of her last few boyfriends had been murderers. God, she wished her mother carried a cell phone. “So, what now?”
“Now, we let Ben know what we found out,” said Eric, like that much should be obvious. “Then, we wait.”
Rowen wasn’t too keen on that last part. She had a niggling feeling that she was on the right track to solving this one. She just needed a few more pieces before she could start putting this particular puzzle together.
Chapter Ten
“How much longer do you think it’ll be though?” Rowen asked, not for the first time. It felt an awful lot like these exterminator people were giving her the run around. “You must have, like, an estimate or something. Are we talking one day? Two days?”
“It could take that long,” said a meek voice on the other end. “We’ve had houses that can take as long as two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Rowen repeated, floored. “Are you telling me it’s going to take another two weeks?”
“I’m not saying that it will! Just that it could,” said the man on the other end. “We’re real busy right now. We’ll get to it as fast as we can.”
“Which isn’t very fast, apparently.” Rowen took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Just keep me updated.”
“Will do,” said the voice, promptly hanging up.
Rowen didn’t like any of this, but what could she do? There was only one exterminator in town. “I hope you’re comfortable living with my aunts,” she said, glancing to her husband as he drove.
“Not really,” said Eric. “But it is what it is, isn’t it? I’m sure we’ll manage.”
“I’m not.” Rowen wanted to go back home as soon as humanly possible. As far as she was concerned, she had lived at the Greensmith house long enough. It was a fine place to stay for a little while, but it definitely wasn’t viable long term. It was especially awkward to stay there now that her aunts were engaged. Engaged. The word still sounded wrong no matter how she approached it. She was still turning that thought over and over in her mind when her phone rang. She hoped it was the exterminators calling to tell her they would have their house done in a day or two after all. Instead, it turned out to be Rose that was calling.
