After a moment’s hesitation, Robbi picked it up. It was lying in plain view, so surely the deputies had finished with it. And if they hadn’t, the time-date stamp would tell them which calls she had made.
She found a search engine icon and looked up Sheriff Hammond’s number. When his voicemail picked up on the third ring, she left a message. “I know Mal told you about the mess. I wanted to send you pictures before I clean it up.”
She snapped a string of photos of the ransacked cottage and shot them off to Hammond, then rummaged through the cabinets for a bowl and some rice to dry her own cell phone in. She looked at the clock. Barely five o’clock, and already she was exhausted.
Stress, probably. Nothing drained you like anxiety and grief. But it was too early for bed, and beneath the exhaustion she knew she was too wired to sleep. In a way, she was grateful the cottage had been ransacked. It gave her something to do to keep from thinking about her friend’s death.
She cleaned up the worst of the mess in the kitchen, then went out to the mews and weighed and fed Falcor, put the rest of his meat in the fridge, and looked at Trouble.
“How about some supper before we get started on the rest of this mess?” she asked the black cat. At his enthusiastic purr, she turned to rummage through the pantry. It was a modern kitchen, with plenty of counter space and an island in the middle. Robbi recognized a mixer, a blender, and a food processor that looked like something out of a Star Trek episode.
Oddly, there was no cat food anywhere, but in the back of a cabinet she found a few cans of tuna fish. They would do until she could get into town and buy some proper cat food. “Sorry, big guy. You can have this tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll get you something better.”
With an indignant meow, Trouble pawed at the refrigerator, then looked up at her, a knowing intensity in his green-gold eyes. Weird.
But it might be interesting to see what would happen if she went along.
She opened the refrigerator door, and he reached up high to bat at the meat drawer. Smart little guy. “Is this what you want?”
She opened the drawer, watching with amusement as he tapped a package of trout with a paw. It occurred to her that this might seem a kind of madness, taking culinary instructions from a cat. Was Trouble’s behavior like the thousand monkeys tapping out the opuses of William Shakespeare? Or maybe she was just distraught and making things up.
Still, what harm could it do to humor him?
Following the cat’s lead, she took out two pieces of fish and the butter, then set a cast-iron pan on the stove. She took two bottles from the spice rack and held them up in front of him. Wiggling the bottles, she said, “Well, big guy, which will it be?”
He batted at the hand holding the basil, which she sprinkled lightly on the fish. “Good choice,” she said, and placed the turmeric back on the rack. Using the same process, she added a few more spices. A little rosemary, a little lemon pepper.
She set him on the counter while she cooked. When she’d finished, the trout was nicely browned on the outside and flaky on the inside. She looked at the fish, then back at Trouble’s expectant face. “Well, I’ll be gobsmacked if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. I guess this is your way of saying no to ordinary cat food?”
Another meow. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she saw a slight bob of his head.
It seemed surreal, this impossible conversation, but only slightly more unreal than Laura’s death. She felt like Alice’s White Queen, who believed any number of impossible things before breakfast. But she knew what she’d seen, and as her sifu would say, things were what they were. Saying they were something else didn’t change anything at all.
She set the piece of trout on Trouble’s plate, then ate her own standing in front of the stove. She’d washed the dishes and was putting them away when a loud knock made her jump.
She looked at Trouble. “What was that?”
Another series of knocks, louder than before. Then Joanne’s voice came from beyond the front door. “Hey, open up! I come in peace.”
Robbi hesitated. The big woman had seemed calm enough since her dunking, but clearly she was volatile. Still, Robbi had handled her easily enough on the bridge. Joanne was strong but slow, a combination that made it easier to use her strength against her.
The voice, sounding slightly slurred, called out again. “Oh, come on. I’m tryin’ to apologize.”
Robbi dried her hands on her pants and went to open the door. Joanne stood on the stoop, her eyes red-rimmed, a wine bottle under one arm and another in her hand. “It’s mead. I make it myself. Thought maybe we could—” She stopped, staring at the disaster in the living room. “What in the name of Sam Hill happened here?”
“An overzealous search by the constabulary,” Robbi said. “But come on in.”
Joanne tromped in past her and flopped down on the couch, seemingly oblivious to the stuffing poking out of a slit in the cushion. “Smells good in here. What’s that? Fish?”
“Trout. Trouble and I cooked dinner.”
“You and Trouble, huh? Something funny about that cat.” She held up the bottle in her hand. “Got a couple of flagons?”
“I saw some mugs in the cabinet.”
“Mugs will do.”
“And yes, he’s really smart. Like, crazy smart.”
Robbi fetched two mugs and settled onto the opposite end of the sofa. Trouble sniffed at Joanne’s shoes, then retrieved a catnip mouse from beneath the couch and settled onto the loveseat across from them. He held it between his paws, not playing with it, just seeming to savor the aroma while he listened to the conversation.
Joanne filled her mug to the brim, then passed the bottle to Robbi, who poured half a mug for herself. She took a sip, savoring the sweetness of the fermented honey. And something else too, something citrus, and some kind of spice. So much better than beer.
“This is delicious. I tried making a batch like this once,” Robbi said. “It wasn’t very good.”
Joanne chuckled. “The secret’s in the aging. This one’s infused with orange and cinnamon, so it ages differently. Then there’s the yeast. And the way you vent the gases.” She stopped, ducking her head as if to make herself smaller. “Sorry. I’m getting carried away. I’m not very good at social talk.”
“Social talk is whatever people talk about,” Robbi said. “Mead-making counts.”
Joanne shot Robbi a grateful smile. “Laura said you were kind.”
“I try to be.” Robbi tipped her mug, watching the amber liquid gleam in the light. “But then, she was easy to be kind to. Were you two close?”
Joanne took a long pull from her cup. “Not like you two. I liked her. Mostly. I guess she liked me well enough, too. There were times we got on like gangbusters, sharing confidences and such. But she was…you know…a pretty girl. A girly girl. We didn’t have much in common.”
She drained the mug and poured again.
Robbi took another sip. Now that she knew about them, she could taste the hints of cinnamon and orange. “You must have shared some interests, just being here. The Ren Faire scene is pretty specialized.”
“I guess. You’ve worked faires before?”
“Summers. Nothing like this.”
Joanne made an expansive gesture. “This is something special. Guy’s little utopia. A group of us stay year-round, keep the place up during the off-season. Then the Seasonals come in, work April through September.” She squinted at Robbi and took another draught. “You’re early.”
“I lost my father. Broke up with my fiancé. I was kind of a mess. So my advisor arranged for me to take some time off from my dissertation, get my head on straight.” It sounded so mundane. Such empty words for the complicated mix of adoration, disappointment, and contempt she’d felt for her father, the guilt and grief she’d felt at his loss, or for the disaster that had been her relationship with Jax.
“I was an attorney,” Joanne said. She swirled the mead in her cup and took another
gulp. “Great in the library, a complete noodge in the courtroom. I knew the other lawyers thought I was a freak, and I’d go into court and fall apart. One day I just walked out. Loaded up my car and drove away. I didn’t even know where I was headed, I just drove. Saw a sign for a Ren Faire and thought I’d check it out, and ended up spending most of the day talking to the blacksmith. And that was it. Hooked. I signed on with him that day and spent the next three years on the circuit making swords and shoeing horses. I make a pretty mean suit of chain mail, too.”
Robbi tried to imagine Joanne staring down a jury in a power suit and heels. She couldn’t fathom it. Not without a wolf pelt around her shoulders and a battle axe in one hand. “How’d you meet Guy?”
“Heard about this place on the circuit and signed on as a Seasonal. He liked my work and invited me to stay.” She held the bottle toward the light, watched the liquid slosh around inside. “Great guy, Guy. Gave us all shares in the place and a cut of the gate. Us Rennies, I mean. Bit of a ladies’ man, but it’s not like he’s leading anybody on. Any woman gets involved with him knows what she’s getting into. Either that, or she’s not paying attention.”
“Guy’s not your type?”
“And I’m not his.” She poured herself another drink, then held the bottle out to Robbi, who tipped her mug to show it was still a quarter full. “Top you off?”
“I’d better not. So, who is your type?”
“Ha.” Joanne grinned at Robbi, glassy-eyed. Poured the rest of the mead into her cup. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Well, I—”
Joanne drained the last of the mead and opened the second bottle. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not his type either. Not anybody’s, I guess. Think I haven’t heard it all—Anvil Amazon. Iron Amazon. Jolly Green Giantess. Guys like him don’t go for girls like me. Guys like him don’t know girls like me are girls.”
Robbi shifted in her seat and tried to look sympathetic. It wasn’t hard. As children, she and Laura had both heard their share of nicknames. Half-pint and Mini-me for Robbi, and for Laura, Carrot Top and Pippi Longstocking.
Good times.
Joanne lifted the bottle. “More?”
Robbi held out her cup, and Joanne filled it with an unsteady hand.
“Damn him anyway,” Joanne said, eyes brimming. “Him with his dimples and his blue eyes and his sexy little kilt. Him with his conniving little pig.”
“Mal,” Robbi breathed. “But he and Laura—”
“That’s right, he and Laura.” Joanne’s mouth twisted with grief. “And don’t you know my heart broke a little every day to see them laughing and teasing each other? Him fixing her roof and carrying her things like she was made out of porcelain? And do you think she appreciated it one bit? No, she dumped him for Dale and even reneged on the shares she promised she’d sell Mal.”
Taken aback by Joanne’s obvious resentment, it took Robbi a moment to register what she’d just said. “Wait, wait. What shares? Shares in the faire?”
Joanne had mentioned shares earlier, but Robbi hadn’t thought of it as something Laura would have been a part of. But, of course, why wouldn’t it be?
The big woman bobbed her head and took another drink. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but whether they were tears of rage or sorrow, Robbi couldn’t tell. “That’s right. She bought Miller’s shares when his mum was in the nursing home and he needed money for her care, and Cara’s when her beau-du-jour ran up her credit cards and lost all her savings in a Ponzi scheme, and Dale’s—well, just because she asked for them I guess. The deal was, they could stay as long as the faire existed, but if Guy ever sold it, she’d get their share of the profits.”
“I don’t understand. If you all owned shares, how could Guy sell it without all of you on board?”
“Terms of the contract.” Joanne chugged her drink and poured another. “Whoever has the most shares decides if and when to sell, and you’d better believe Guy made sure he had the most. It’s legal. I studied the agreement.”
“Did you resent that?”
“Why would I resent it? He bought this place. He built it. He keeps things running and pays for the upkeep and the marketing. Outside of our paychecks, he didn’t have to give us anything at all. All I’m saying is, Laura was buying up shares willy nilly, and she promised to sell Mal half of what she had.”
Robbi frowned. That didn’t sound like Laura. Maybe the breakup had been bitter enough to make her go back on her word, but Mal didn’t act like a man who’d just been through a bitter breakup. “I don’t understand. Why would she back out?”
Joanne hunched a shoulder. “No idea. Something must’ve happened. Big fight, maybe. Something. Or she died before she got around to it.”
Robbi gave Joanne a sharp look. “You seem to know a lot about Laura’s business.”
“Like I said, we were friends.” Joanne’s voice broke. “Not best friends, but still…we talked, we sometimes shared our plans. And in a way I loved her, I did. It was just, it was hard to watch how she took him for granted. She didn’t treat him like, you know…like a lover. More like a handyman she thought a lot of.”
Robbi stared into her cup. Had she almost finished it already? She wanted to defend her friend, but Joanne’s words had the ring of truth. Maybe, though, the taking-for-granted had gone both ways. She looked up at Joanne and said, “Why do you think she wanted those shares?”
Joanne blinked. “I don’t know. Insurance, I guess.”
Insurance. Robbi rolled the word around in her mind. Insurance against what?
The blacksmith leaves, weaving on her feet, a little after midnight. Robbi yawns and says, “Well, Trouble, let’s get this place straightened up.”
I like this girl. She cooked our trout to perfection—under my expert tutelage, of course—and was quick to recognize my superior intellect. I know it was an experiment at first, that she simply wanted to see what I would do, but that was remarkably open-minded for a biped. Too many humans would have shooed me away from the fridge and dumped a few spoonfuls of canned tuna on a plate for me. Barbarians.
I’ve nothing against canned tuna. But given a choice, I do prefer a more sophisticated dish.
Robbi finishes up in the kitchen, pitching shards of broken crockery into the dustbin and tucking utensils and intact dishware into the cabinets and drawers. I help by showing her where things go. She straightens the living room, turning the cushions over so the slashes don’t show, then moves to Laura’s bedroom.
I stay nearby, sniffing for clues. It’s a common misconception that dogs reign supreme in the olfactory arena, but with more than 200 million scent receptors, cats can actually detect and discriminate between a wider variety of aromas. Only the true scent hounds have a more powerful sense of smell, but if you factor in the fact that bloodhounds and their ilk are clumsy, drooling, dunderheads, clearly cats are the true victors.
I smell Sheriff Hammond and several strangers—probably the sheriff’s crew; Dale and Mal, both regular visitors; Joanne, also a frequent guest; Cara, whom I’d seen leaving in high dudgeon the night before when I returned from a prowl; and Guy, who as landlord might be expected to pop in on occasion. But there is one scent I can find no explanation for. It’s an unhealthy blend of flour, sweat, and fear. Yes, the cottage reeks of Miller. It makes me wonder if the scents of flour and vanilla on Laura’s body were from something other than the morning’s shortbread.
I’m trying to imagine some valid reason for Miller’s presence here when Robbi says, “I’ve found her recipe notebook, but it looks like some pages have been torn out.” She holds it up for me to see, then adds, “Keep your eyes open for Laura’s diary. She always kept one, and I can’t find it anywhere.”
Now that she mentions it, I do recall Laura writing in a journal. It was leather, with a flaming phoenix embossed on the front.
There is no sign of it now, but I have an idea where it might be. A few nights ago, she placed some papers in a secret hiding place. Perhaps she
put her journal there while I was out. Again, I feel a pang. I should have been there for her.
Robbi sits on the floor and begins to sort through the scattered papers. I meow for her to follow me into the living room, and when she finally does, I scratch at a corner of the Persian rug until I manage to fold it back to reveal the hardwood underneath. The outline of the hidden compartment is subtle, but I can see its shape in a slight gap between the boards. With extended claws, I try without success to lift it. Drat my lack of opposable thumbs!
“What is it?” Robbi asks. “Trouble, stop!”
Then she sees it, the faint square shape concealed by the wood grain. Kneeling beside me, she presses on one corner. Nothing happens, but I think she has the right idea. When she tries a second corner, the opposite one rises. I flip it open with a paw.
“Oh, you clever boy.”
Inside is a compartment, a little deeper than a shoebox and wide enough in both directions to conceal a large three-ring binder or a sheaf of papers. But there is no binder. There is no journal either, but there are two pocket folders, one green, one blue. Robbi pulls them out, green on top, and runs a finger across the label. “Sherwood Renaissance Faire Business,” it says.
The blue one has a label too. It says, “Last Will and Testament.”
Robbi runs her palm across the blue cover. My typically astute powers of perception must be dulled by the day’s excitement, because I can’t tell if she’s overcome by some poignant memory or if she’s wondering, as I am, why a twenty-six-year-old single woman in perfect health had thought to make a will. In my experience, humans will do almost anything to avoid confronting their mortality. It usually takes parenthood or a brush with the Grim Reaper to prompt them to set their affairs in order.
Robbi starts to open the folder, then sets it aside with a little hitching breath and picks up the green one. I nudge my way under her elbow so I can read what it says.
Inside are the contracts for Laura’s shares in the Ren Faire and property, along with confirmation of the transfers from Miller, Cara, and Dale. Clearly, however, Joanne is only partially in the know, because there is paperwork for the transfer of two more shares. The original owner is listed as Guy Cavanaugh.
Trouble Most Faire Page 5
