by Rae Davies
Not a whole lot on the news front there, at least to me. And there wasn’t a whole lot in the rest of the article either. It was a “safe” piece, where the paper lists the “known” information or the “known” information that the police are willing to release, which this early in an investigation usually wasn’t much.
Thankfully, though, neither Ben nor I were mentioned, aside from a general acknowledgment that a “local woman” had found the body and that the body had been discovered in the parking lot across from the chef’s new restaurant.
There were no guesses at cause of death or even if the police found the death suspicious.
As I was mulling this over, the front bell rang and in walked Detective Stone.
“Ms. Mathews.”
My hand tightened on the paper. I hid it behind my back, like a guilty toddler with a broken vase.
“Been reading?”
Self-conscious, I dropped the paper back on the counter. “It looks like you are making progress.” All good.
“You were at the restaurant two nights ago, weren’t you, Ms. Mathews?”
His question caught me off guard. I glanced at Betty. She raised her brow and tilted her head in a “beats me” motion.
“While you were there, did you order the pâté?”
It was a simple question. One I could have easily answered, but Stone had a less-than-positive effect on my personality.
“Did you talk to Peter?” I knew he would have. So why come ask me what he already knew?
“Did you eat any of the pâté?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but I didn’t like it, not one little bit.
“I’m not a fan of goose liver.”
“But you ordered it.”
That was a little difficult to explain. I looked at Betty, but she just sat on her stool and twirled her beads.
I lowered my eyes and mumbled, “I didn’t really realize what it was.”
“Or did someone tell you not to eat it?”
“No, Tiffany brought it out to us, told us what it was, and then things got... difficult.”
He smiled. “You mean your brother intervened.”
“No.” I shook my head hard. “He didn’t even know I was there.”
“The picture in the paper yesterday says otherwise.”
“He knew I was there later, but not when...” I waved my hands in what in my mind was a clear explanation of the activities that had interrupted my dinner with Peter.
“Peter was there. He’ll tell you.”
“Yes, I’m sure he will, but right now, I’m asking you.”
I breathed out through my nose, a long calming breath that kept me from muttering something that the detective would hear and surely hold against me.
“The picture was taken later. The...” I paused. The protest interrupted our dinner, but the protest was Ben.
“Yes?” Stone prompted.
I took another breath. “Ben didn’t know I was going to be there, and he didn’t tell me not to eat the pâté. He didn’t even know I ordered the pâté. I threw it away when I saw he was part of the protest.” And why exactly do you care? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. I did, however, file the question away to ponder later.
“Interesting.” Stone’s gaze wandered around the shop as if he’d barely been listening to my response. So maybe the pâté wasn’t important. Maybe it was just a ploy to knock me off my guard. You could never tell with Stone. Sure enough, when he looked back at me, his questioning took a completely different track.
“Is your brother active online?”
“Online?” The change in conversation was so quick that for a moment I couldn’t even process what the word meant.
“On social media, sites like FriendTime?”
“I...” Ben wasn’t my friend there, but I hadn’t checked to see if he had a profile either. “I have no idea.” Then, remembering Ben’s anti-cell phone stance, I added, “I doubt it. He isn’t all that big on technology.”
“Interesting.”
I was beginning to hate that word.
After that pronouncement, Stone seemed satisfied. At least satisfied enough to leave. But I had a feeling that I would be seeing him again.
As the door swung closed behind him, Betty asked, “What was that about?”
“I don’t know.” But I did know that if Stone had interest in Ben’s activity at FriendTime, I needed to find out more about it myself.
I took over the computer and left Betty to wander about the shop, mumbling periodically about some object or another that she suspected had come to live here at Phyllis’ hand.
FriendTime was the granddaddy of social media sites. Everyone from the age of 10 to 100 had a page there. Even my mother had a page there. I had been guilted/forced into friending her. Unknown to her however, I’d put her on the “limited access” list, which allowed her to see one in twenty things that I posted.
First, I searched for Ben by name, then I checked my mother’s page to see if Ben was listed as a “friend.” The first thing I noticed was a picture of me when I was at my chunkiest, eating a tube of cookie dough. Cursing myself for not checking my notifications more often, I un-tagged myself and reported the picture as spam.
Most likely FriendTime would ignore the latter, but it still made me feel better.
With that rumbling around in my psyche, I continued with my task. My mother had 2,300 friends. I had seventy-five. This did not make me feel inadequate. Not at all.
More rumblings to tamp down. Then I continued.
Of the 2,300 friends listed, I knew thirty. None of which were my brother. My first boyfriend from the 9th grade, however, seemed to have joined FriendTime and was, of course, listed.
This time my rumbling was vocal.
“What?” Betty asked from behind a feather duster.
Even when Betty cleaned, she preferred to go old school.
There was no way I was admitting out loud that my mother was more popular than I was. “Nothing.”
Then, realizing Betty was probably more popular than I was too, and definitely more experienced with the maze that was the Internet, I said, “I was looking to see if Ben has a profile at FriendTime. I don’t see one under his name. Is there any other way to search?”
“You could run your email contacts through it, but that would mean sending invitations to everyone in your address book.”
The boyfriend from 9th grade wasn’t in my email contacts, but there were probably other ex-men, bosses, and co-workers that I’d rather not bring back into my life.
I wrinkled my nose.
“How about HA!? Do they have a page? If so, you can see who has liked it.”
Betty was a genius. I typed in HA! A page came up immediately. And there, front and center, commenting on the top post on the page, was Pauline. Pauline’s picture at least; the name under the image was “Pauline Mathews.”
I clicked through to see the profile. More pictures of Pauline, all from what appeared to be various HA! events.
So my brother didn’t have a profile at FriendTime, but Pauline did.
No, my family wasn’t crazy. Not at all.
This answered Stone’s question though. Obviously, Pauline wasn’t posting on FriendTime herself. Which meant someone else... my brother... was.
What it didn’t answer was why Stone cared. I scoured HA!’s page and Pauline’s profile for some clue, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary – well, past a goose having a page to start with.
“Are you going to friend her?” Betty had crept up behind me while I trolled.
“Pauline?” I didn’t care for the goose that much in real life. Why would I want to be her friend in a digital one?
Then I again, I did only have seventy-five friends.
I tilted my head side to side and then clicked Add Friend.
“I hope she doesn’t turn you down,” Betty droned. With a laugh, she twirled h
er beads.
Yeah, well, if she did, I’d be talking to baby brother about that.
“While you’re there, check our page. I added a new banner last week.”
Betty was in charge of Dusty Deals’ online presence, including our website and sites like FriendTime.
I typed in Dusty Deals. A brand new spiffy page came up with a brand new header featuring an all old West display of saddles, branding irons, and spittoons. I glanced over my shoulder at the furniture Phyllis had brought in over the last month. The tone of the shop really had changed.
“Uh, do you think it reflects–”
Betty shot me a sharp look. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s wonderful.” I swiveled back around and waited to feel the press of beads against my throat, choking out my traitorous breath. “I wonder who else has a page,” I babbled, covering my slip in sanity.
I typed in a few business names, making disparaging comments about how each needed a better, more professional header – more along the lines of what Betty had designed for me—as the pages loaded.
A customer entered the store and, back in a better mood, Betty sauntered over to help him. I turned to the computer and entered one last name. Tiffany’s.
A page popped up. I realized immediately that I wasn’t the only business owner who could do a better job monitoring her online presence.
The page was plastered with pictures of geese. Well, a goose anyway. Pauline, it appeared, was quite the online cover girl.
I scrolled down, checking out images of Pauline holding a sign that said “I am more than my liver,” dressed as a baby saying “Have you seen my mother?” and wearing a HA! T-shirt with the caption, “Do more than sit and gander. Join the protest against pâté.”
There were more, all posted by the goose herself, but I’d seen enough.
I flipped off the computer and lowered my head to the counter.
How in the hell was Ben going to explain this?
Chapter 7
Half an hour later, I was still mulling over what to do about Ben and ringing up a sale when the phone rang. Betty answered and then held the receiver out to me. Caught up in my worries, I didn’t think to be suspicious.
“Where is your brother? Is he with you?”
My mother had caught me.
“Did you know his van got towed?”
I didn’t, but it made sense. Even laid-back Helena eventually had incapacitated vehicles removed at some point.
“By the police!”
Well, that was who normally had cars towed.
“They’re checking it for evidence. They think your brother killed that chef!”
Okay, this, if it was true, put things in a different light, but my mother couldn’t know why the Lemon was towed, not sitting in southern Missouri. Then again, she shouldn’t have known that the Lemon was towed, period. Deserted vehicle collection was not something that made the Daily News website, not even on the slowest of news days.
And even if Stone had called her, he wouldn’t have told her that, would he have?
“Why do you think the Lemon was towed?”
“I told you, because the police think Ben killed that chef!”
I took a breath. “No, I mean, how do you know it was towed at all.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I know people.”
“You do?” The idea that my mother had connections in Helena that I didn’t know about was more than a little disturbing.
“I have friends. They keep me informed, more informed than you do.”
Ah, the judgment. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that, not right now.
“Friends? What friends? Here? In Helena?”
“Helena, Bozeman, Bangladesh. I have friends all over.”
There was no missing the note of pride in the last statement.
Then it occurred to me. “FriendTime.” My mother had been building a network of spies through the Internet. Who knew how long she had been watching me? What all she knew?
Frozen by the possibilities, I stuttered a bit.
“I didn’t say that,” she replied, playing it coy and doing her best to elevate my paranoia to the highest level possible.
After a moment of silence – stunned on my part, gloating on hers – she continued, “So, do you know where your brother is?”
I didn’t, and after much effort, I managed to get off the phone without admitting to my complete failure as an older sister. I’d danced around the question, telling her I had spoken to him – I didn’t say it had been yesterday – that he was fine, and that I’d have him call her as soon as he could.
“He’s busy you know, working.”
“Working.” She made a sputtering sound. “Working at making trouble. You tell him-–”
I held the phone out and made noises as if a customer had just asked me a question, then said into the phone, “I’m sorry, I have a customer, but I’ll have Ben call. I promise.”
I hung up the phone and handed it to Betty. “Call someone, anyone. Just keep the line busy for the next half an hour.” It might cost me sales, but getting away from my mother was worth it.
Then I grabbed Kiska and scurried out the back door.
I found Ben where I’d last seen him, sitting at a table in the organic grocery store, drinking coffee and chatting with his fellow rebels. This time, though, they were manned with laptops.
I bit down on my tongue to keep from blurting out some judgment, at least until I had him away from his allies.
“They towed the Lemon. Did you know that?”
He nodded and went back to the computer.
“Did you talk to Stone?”
“Not today.”
Damn his Zen soul, he seemed frustratingly unconcerned about everything.
My jaw tightened and my personality slipped. I went into mother mode. “Get your stuff. We’re leaving.”
He blinked at me, stunned, I’m sure, at my sudden interest in familial closeness. Honestly, I was a little stunned too.
“Mom called me,” I gritted out. “Did you know she has people watching me?”
He blinked again. “You mean you hadn’t guessed that before?”
It was my turn to blink. He was right, of course. It had been stupid of me to think I was here 2,000 miles away from home freely making my own choices and living my own life.
“Do you want to get your car or not?” I asked, covering my annoyance with more annoyance.
“They won’t give it to me. Not yet.”
I frowned. If he hadn’t had the Lemon last night, how had he gotten to the Egg? I asked as much.
“I didn’t. Eric loaned me a sleeping bag, and Pauline and I stayed here.” He gestured to his right. I took a step that direction. Pauline stared at me from atop a nest of black sleeping bag.
She was wearing tie dye today. It brought out the amber in her eyes.
“Is she supposed to be in here?” I asked.
Ben glanced at the other HA!ers. “Not really.”
Something akin to concern wrapped around my heart.
Damn.
“Have you showered?”
“No.”
Double damn.
“But you’ve eaten,” I said with false perkiness.
“Sure.”
I relaxed. I wasn’t that bad of a big sister. Still, there was the sleeping on the floor thing, the shower thing, and the possibility that his goose could get kicked out onto the street at any moment.
Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I pushed the lid of his laptop shut and jangled my keys. “Let’s go.”
After that, Ben didn’t argue. Maybe he was finally seeing the light of listening to his older, wiser sister, or maybe he just wanted a shower, but whatever the case, he picked up Pauline and followed me out to my rig.
Where Kiska was waiting.
This was going to take some negotiating.
I looked at Ben and gestured toward Pauline. “I don’t suppose you have a crate or som
ething for her.”
The look I got put me in my animal-restraining place.
I’d left the window cracked so Kiska could get a breeze. He pressed his nose up against the opening and inhaled loudly. He scratched at the door, and he talked. He did everything his little furry brain could come up with to encourage me to open the door and bring on the goose.
Except, of course, sitting nicely and calmly and pretending she didn’t exist.
Pauline, for her part, remained calm, aloof even. As I paced around my rig, looking for inspiration, she turned her head away and stared at Mount Helena.
Then I did the unthinkable. I waved my brother into a hiding spot behind a delivery truck. With him and his goose hidden, I put Kiska on his leash and walked him around to the back.
“You are sitting back here today,” I announced with what I hoped was confidence. Leaving him leashed, I wrestled him into the back, a space normally reserved for groceries and auction finds, and slammed the hatch shut.
Then I called to Ben, and, with my brother sitting in the back seat holding onto Kiska’s leash and Pauline riding shotgun next to me, we pulled out of the parking lot.
It wasn’t horrid. Pauline seemed to approve of her spot, preening and moving in circles before settling down to take in the sights. Kiska... Well, Ben did a good job holding him in place, leaving my malamute with no option aside from vocalness. Which he practiced frequently and at high volume, alternating demands, complaints, and pleas on a nice regular schedule.
“So, no Lemon?” I asked Ben while Kiska was taking a break from yelling at us to inhale almost as loudly.
“Nope.”
“I’ll take you to the Egg.” I wasn’t thrilled with being put back into the same position I’d been when I was 16 and Ben was 13, and I’d had to tote him around to every flag football game and tween party in a three-county area.
But picking him up at the campground each morning and dropping him back off at night would be manageable. And, most importantly, it would get our mother off my back.
Feeling responsible and in control, I pressed the accelerator down and picked up speed. The faster I dropped off Ben and his goose, the faster I could get back to my own life such as it was.
It wasn’t until we were at the turn for the campground that my lovely in-control feeling disappeared.
