by Raven Snow
“I hope so.” Aunt Nadine hung her head against her hands. “I just keep thinking about that poor girl. If I hadn’t sold it to her, she would still be alive.”
Chapter Three
The next morning, Rowen made a point to rise earlier than everyone else. It wasn’t an easy feat. She had to be out the door by five in the morning to beat Grammy.
If they’d seen her, they would have insisted she wait until they’d had breakfast to head out. Having breakfast with the family meant waiting for breakfast to be cooked and for the rest of the family to get up. Rowen didn’t want to wait that long or socialize that much.
Aunt Lydia had said she could borrow the Buick for work. She took her up on that now and grabbed the keys on her way out the door. Pulling out her phone, Rowen called up the address of Rebecca, the girl who had died. Poor thing. What had she gotten herself into and how had that led to her death? That’s what Rowen was here to figure out.
#
The small, secluded house was still roped off with yellow police tape. A police cruiser sat outside, and someone was inside the car, sipping coffee.
That seemed as good a place to start as any. Rowen parked across the street. She used the camera on her phone to take a few pictures of the house and checked her hair and makeup in the mirror. She hadn’t had much time to primp this morning. Fortunately, she was above average in the looks department. Rowen didn’t trifle with false modesty. She had the slight frame and cherubic face of a flapper. Men liked her. It was a fact and a useful tool. Now she just hoped that the policeman was into women.
She hurried across the street and to the driver’s side of the cruiser. “Hi!” she called, lifting her press badge sheepishly. “Hate to bother you, but if you have a minute…”
The policeman looked up from the tablet he was typing away on. He lowered his glasses to the bridge of his nose and looked Rowen over. Immediately, he opened his car door. “Rowen Greensmith,” he said, wearing a grin. “I didn’t know you were back in town. Look at you! You look good.”
Oh, no. Rowen hadn’t stopped to consider that in such a small town the policeman would very likely know both her and her family. She forced a smile as she looked him over, trying to recall where she knew him from.
The cop was good looking. He had an athletic build and sandy hair that fell just past his ears. His jaw was wide and strong and His smile charmingly crooked. “You look different,” she ventured, because she would have remembered a man that looked like this.
“Yeah, well, it’s been a long time since high school,” he chuckled.
High school! Of course. Ben Williamson. They’d dated for a few months in their senior year. It had ended poorly. “I didn’t hear you became a cop.”
Ben shrugged. “It’s a pretty recent development. Happened after you moved off, I’d say. Speaking of which, I didn’t know you became a reporter!”
“Oh, not a reporter,” Rowen assured him, fiddling awkwardly with her press badge. “I’m not the reporter type. I do research. I like it.”
“You’re something of a detective then, huh?” It was difficult to tell whether Ben was being pleasant or patronizing. “Well, this is quite the bizarre case we have here.” He indicated the house just behind them.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Guess this one’s kind of personal, huh?” Ben asked, referring, no doubt, to Aunt Nadine.
“Unfortunately,” said Rowen, trying her best to look very depressed about the whole thing. “How close have press been allowed to get?”
“Aside from the local news, you’re the first to actually show up here.” Ben shrugged. “You know how it is. News in this place just sort of flies under the radar. Even the bizarre stuff like this.” He considered her original question. “They’re done documenting the scene. I suppose I could take you inside as long as you stay close and keep your hands to yourself.”
The offer to actually go inside the house came as a shock. Was he even allowed to do that? Rowen wasn’t going to argue with him. “That would be great.”
Ben headed toward the house. He held up the police tape for her to pass under. “There was no indication of a break in,” he explained. “Weird things happen in the town from time to time, but this is probably the weirdest I’ve seen.” He opened the door.
Rowen stepped inside and immediately gave a shiver. Something was odd about this place.
Inside, things were roped off again. There was tape on the beige carpet. It was in the outline of a person, undoubtedly Rebecca. There was a second taped-off section, this one rectangular in shape. Rowen supposed it was where the box had been. “Is it all right if I take pictures?”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” said Ben, arms crossed over his chest as he took in the scene for himself. “They’ve searched this place from top to bottom for evidence. We’re interviewing her family, but they live a state away. It’s the damndest thing. Like magic.”
Something about the way Ben had said that made Rowen bristle. She tried a frown in his direction, trying to communicate that she got the joke and it was unfunny.
“What? You don’t think so?” Ben raised his eyebrows. “Seems to me you feel something in here.”
Rowen couldn’t deny that. As much as she tried to pretend magic was nonsense, something about the energy in the house made her uneasy. “It wasn’t Aunt Nadine,” she said, assuming a very serious tone. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly. You know that.”
“I know you wouldn’t have had anything to do with it,” Ben assured her. “You’ve been out of town for so long. I imagine you haven’t seen your family in a while.”
Rowen was beginning to suspect that there was a second motive for him letting her in here. Was he just trying to butter her up? “What are you getting at?” she asked.
Ben took a card from his pocket. “My number’s on this,” he told her. “If you find out absolutely anything—”
“You can’t be serious.” Rowen turned on her heel and went right out the front door.
“Rowen!” he called after her.
“If you want to question me, question me. Don’t try to manipulate me.” It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. Grammy was right. The police were just doing their job. Still, the idea that they really did suspect her family was nauseating. What was worse was that as she left the house, she had the unmistakable feeling that something other than Ben was following her.
Even Rowen had to admit that this all looked pretty suspicious. There was something supernatural going on here, and when the supernatural reared its head, it normally had something to do with the Greensmith family.
Chapter Four
Rowen drove home, the radio turned obnoxiously high. The percussive base of the local rock station drowned out the nagging thoughts of someone or something being in the car with her. Of course, it also earned her some odd looks by pedestrians on the sidewalks and likely did her family’s reputation no favors. Oh well. Apparently the town already thought the worst of them.
She was headed back home. It felt like a good idea to sit down with the family and explain to them the gravity of the situation. She had already known that Nadine was being questioned. The whole family knew that. Aunt Lydia had probably expressed concern nonstop over the fact. Even so, she felt like she needed to say something.
There was a Mercedes in the driveway when Rowen pulled up the gravel drive to the house. Did anyone in her family own a Mercedes? She didn’t think so. Rowen parked and hurried inside, afraid of finding a couple of detectives sitting down, drilling Grammy with questions over tea.
“I’m home!” she announced loudly, scanning for their guest.
“In here, dear!” called Aunt Lydia from the kitchen.
Rowen headed straight for the kitchen. There she found Aunt Lydia sitting next to a man at the bar. They were both drinking lemonade, not tea. Close enough. Rowen looked the man up and down.
Immediately, she distrusted him. His dark hair was too immaculately slicked back. His suit was
too nice. His shoes were too shiny. Even his eyes were too blue. He smiled when he saw her, and his teeth were too white. “Who are you?” she demanded.
The man’s smile turned to a bemused one. “Eric Richardson,” he said, standing in a show of manners. “I’m—”
“He’s here about the murder,” interrupted Aunt Lydia.
That was all Rowen needed to hear. “Then he can come back with a warrant.” She gave Eric a pointed look and motioned to the door.
“What?” Eric looked genuinely confused for a moment. “I’m not with the police.”
“The man in the trunk was his family,” Aunt Lydia said, her tone growing somber.
That took Rowen rather by surprise. “Oh! Um…I’m sorry for your loss.” It didn’t mean he should be here. She still didn’t trust him, but now she felt awkward about it.
Eric shook his head. “It’s fine. Well, obviously, it’s not fine. He was my great grandfather. I never met the man. Mostly, I’m here out of curiosity.”
“He called a little while ago with some questions,” Aunt Lydia explained. “He said he was already in the area, so I invited him over for brunch.”
“You all have a lovely home here,” Eric told Rowen.
“It’s not my home,” Rowen said quickly, earning herself a glare from Aunt Lydia. “I mean…thank you.”
Aunt Lydia cleared her throat, interjecting. “So!” she exclaimed. “I was thinking. Why don’t you take Mr. Richardson—”
“Call me Eric, please.”
“Eric here down to the museum.” Aunt Lydia took a sip of her tea, as if this were all a casual suggestion and not part of an elaborate plan. Rowen wasn’t sure what she was planning, but it couldn’t be anything good. “Maybe he’ll find something about his great grandfather there.”
“I’m busy,” Rowen said immediately. “I have work.” She needed to have a serious talk with the family about inviting people like Eric—people involved in murder cases—over for brunch. She couldn’t mention it given the present company, but she hoped her glare communicated it.
Aunt Lydia waved a hand, dismissing her excuses. “This can be work, can’t it? You can do some of your little detective work at the museum.”
“Oh!” Eric looked impressed. “You’re a detective?”
Rowen felt her face grow a little hot. “Not really, no.” She took a deep breath. “All right, but we’ll need to go now. I’ve got a pretty tight schedule today.” At least it would get him out of the house.
Aunt Lydia looked overjoyed. She collected Eric’s cup and accompanied them to the door. “Drive safe,” she called as they walked to the Buick. She was the last person who should be giving driving advice.
“We can take my car, if you want,” offered Eric.
“I’m driving,” said Rowen, leaving no room for debate.
Eric didn’t argue. He got in on the passenger’s side. “I appreciate this,” he told her, sounding like he meant it.
Rowen pulled back down to the drive and onto the road. “It’s not really a museum,” she explained with a sigh. “It’s more like a little house with a bunch of antiques.”
“Oh,” said Eric, with all the polite interest of someone who didn’t know how to act around openly hostile company.
He hadn’t done anything wrong that she knew of, Rowen reminded herself. She was sort of being a jerk to him right now. “There’s a lot of town history in there, though,” she assured him, trying to make her tone a touch more friendly. Being unnecessarily rude to this man wasn’t going to earn her or her family any favors.
Eric nodded, his posture relaxing a bit. “This town has a pretty colorful history, I gather.”
Rowen shrugged, trying to downplay Lainswich’s inherent oddness. “Every town does, I think.”
“Fair enough.” Eric looked out the window. “It’s nice here, though. I like it. Everyone’s so friendly.”
Rowen bit her tongue rather than argue with him. Everyone knew each other. That didn’t exactly equate to friendly. If anything, Rowen’s own personal experience had shown the townspeople here to be more than a little judgmental. “Where are you from?” she asked instead.
“All over,” Eric said, supplying her with an oddly vague answer. “I have a few apartments here and there, in various cities. I travel a lot for work.”
Rowen glanced over at the passenger seat again. She gave Eric a quick look up and down. He looked to be about her age. There was little worse than meeting someone your age who is also incredibly successful. “What do you do for a living?”
“Business,” he said, which seemed unnecessarily vague. “This and that. What do you do?”
“I work in the news,” she said, trying to be equally vague.
“You do their research then,” Eric concluded, making the vagaries useless. “This must be one heck of a project for you. I imagine it hits pretty close to home.”
“It’s a little frustrating,” Rowen admitted. ‘Frustrating’ was proving to be an understatement. “I can’t imagine people think my family would have anything to do with the death of that woman.”
“Oh, I doubt they had anything to do with the woman,” Eric added, quickly. He was trying to be helpful, but the way he specified ‘the woman’ still left one corpse her family wasn’t excused for.
“My family is weird, but they’re not murderers,” Rowen assured him.
“Of course not.” Eric’s voice held the sort of false honesty someone in business typically had.
He was just trying to keep her happy. It made Rowen’s skin crawl. “We’re here,” she said, parking parallel on the street.
“That was fast.”
“Small town.”
She hadn’t been lying when she said the museum was just a house. It was a little two story number downtown Lainswich had grown up around. The elderly couple that lived there left the door unlocked and a jar just inside. It was two dollars to look around. Rowen took out her wallet and put a five in for both of them, ignoring Eric’s protests.
“Is anyone here?” Eric asked, whispering to Rowen in the silence of the house.
“They might not be. They’re very trusting. You’d pretty much have to be a complete monster to steal from them.” Rowen wished the rest of the town was that trusting, but what could you do?
There were some new exhibits since the last time Rowen had been there. When she was a kid, it had been a place to duck into during a hot Summer day. Being kids, they never paid the two dollars. It had felt like a small thrill back then. In truth, the fee at the door wasn’t even enforced.
Eric walked off on his own. His hands were clasped behind his back as he observed old black and white pictures on the wall, framed documents, and the like. Rowen came up behind him. "What are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Eric admitted. “This just seemed like a good place to start.” He moved into the next room.
Rowen followed Eric, mildly annoyed by his answer. He didn’t even know what he was looking for? Had she brought him here just for his amusement? “Wouldn’t it be easier to have the police check their records?”she asked.
“I did.” Eric opened a photo album laid out on an end table. “There’s records that say my great grandfather spent some time here. There’s also records that he went missing. He was staying in a local hotel and just vanished one day. What there isn’t evidence of is a thorough investigation.”
“That’s weird,” Rowen admitted. “I’m not sure you’re going to find anything all that helpful here, though.”
Eric shrugged. “Maybe not. It was just a feeling I had.”
Rowen couldn’t exactly fault him for feelings. She still had that odd nagging feeling of her own—the feeling that something was following her and had been since she was at the murder scene. She searched for the presence now and found it, still there. Reluctantly, she closed her eyes and tried opening herself up to it. That’s what Grammy had taught her to do. “Just listen,” she’d told her. “Listening is important.�
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Rowen tried to slow her mind. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. On the edge of her thoughts, she began to hear something. A voice? What was it saying? She took another deep breath and listened closer.
“I found something!” Eric exclaimed.
Rowen jumped, her eyes snapping open.
“Sorry,” said Eric, glancing back at her sheepishly. “I thought you’d wandered off. I didn’t know you were still right behind me.” He stepped to one side, pointing to the photo album to indicate a picture there. “I found my great grandfather in here.”
Rowen wasn’t sure how helpful a single picture could possibly be, but she went to take a look anyway. The picture was a large photo taken at a fair. There were a couple of people front and center. The man looked handsome, but indistinct. “Are you sure that’s him?” Rowen asked.
Eric was already taking a picture from his own wallet. It was black and white photo, a little ripped around the edges. “I got this from my family before I headed out here. This was him. This was Lionel Richardson.”
Side by side, it was difficult to deny. This certainly looked like the same man. Rowen’s eyes strayed to the woman he was with. She was a pretty woman with a knowing sort of smile and mischievous eyes. There was something about her that Rowen liked—and recognized—immediately. She leaned in closer, really studying the woman. “Oh!” Rowen took a step back. The realization was like a physical shock.
“What?” Eric moved in to look at the picture again. He scanned it, looking for what she had been so surprised by and finding nothing. “What?” he asked again, looking back at Rowen.
“That’s, um…” Rowen trailed off. She wasn’t sure she should say anything. Of course, if she lied, it was only going to make her family look worse. She took a deep breath and told him the truth. “The woman in the picture is my grandmother.”
