Birds of a Feather

by Harper Crowley

I cock my head to the side. “Found anything?” I force a chuckle. “This isn’t some deserted island pirates used to visit. It’s a bookstore. It’s not like I’m going to open a file cabinet and find a chest full of gold.” That’d be nice, though. Almost every single one of my problems could be solved that way.

  “Never mind,” Daryl says. “Forget I asked.” He fumbles in his pocket for his wallet then pulls out a business card. “If you, you know, need help cleaning up or getting rid of all of the garbage, let me know, okay? I, uh, have a couple nephews who could use the work.”

  Yeah, I’ll believe that right after I believe Nick is really an accountant. There are some strange things going on in Tranquility Falls, and some even stranger people. “Sure. Thanks. I’ll do that.” I pocket the card even though I have no intention of ever calling him. I’ll haul everything out by hand if I have to.

  “I, uh... I better go.” Daryl stands, weaving slightly on his feet. “Bye.”

  Nick and I echo Daryl’s last statement before the man wanders off into the crowd.

  “That was weird,” I say after I’ve lost sight of Daryl.

  Nick’s gaze is curious and interested. “Yeah. I’ve never seen him like that.”

  “Well, thanks for your help. I mean, I know I can take care of myself, but I appreciate it.”

  Nick lifts one shoulder then drops it. “Don’t worry about it. Daryl’s usually harmless, but he can be an ass when he drinks too much.”

  Aren’t most people? I swirl the beer around in the glass, but I’ve lost my desire to drink it. Sure, bars are probably the most likely place to get hit on, but I didn’t come looking for companionship. I came to the bar to escape, and that’s mostly what I did. But in the end, I escaped the bookstore to end up in a different type of crazy environment, one I don’t really want to be in. I file the interaction with Daryl away to think about later.

  “I think I’m going to head back to the bookstore.” I stand and blame the stool for wobbling a bit. I’m not a drinker, but I’m not usually this much of a lightweight, either. Must be all the stress I’m under.

  Nick reaches out to steady me—on instinct, I bet—but I shy away from his touch.

  “Sorry,” I say before he asks me more about it.

  “You don’t have to apologize.” The way he says it actually sounds sympathetic, and I almost forget about the vision where he’s holding a gun and shooting at someone. I almost forget the gun he carries, the one he pulled on me when I burst into his office. Almost.

  “I just... I have a thing about touching people. It’s not you personally. It’s me.” And now I’m babbling, and I sound like an idiot. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognize this, but I can’t seem to stop myself.

  “Just forget about it,” he says, following me to the door after paying our tabs.

  Stupid, Willa. Maybe I’m more drunk than I realized. I totally forgot about paying.

  “Why don’t I walk you back?” he asks, but it’s not really a question. He scans the crowd, and I wonder if he’s looking for Daryl.

  I clamp down the objection perched at the tip of my tongue. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to have him escort me to the bookstore, even if it’s only across the street. “Sure.” I let him hold the door open for me and clutch my wallet to my chest as the cool summer air caresses my skin, taking some of the humidity and the acrid odor of the bar with it.

  At the road, we wait for a car to pass, a red sports car of some sort, and it slows down enough to honk at us. Nick lifts a hand and waves half-heartedly. I raise my eyebrows. I shouldn’t be curious, but I am. Nick must notice, because he answers my unasked question, “Just a guy from where I used to work.”

  “Have you always been an accountant?” I ask as we wait for another car to pass.

  Nick shakes his head. “No, but it works. I’ve always been pretty analytical, so working with numbers seems to fit.” He says the words like the explanation is new to him too. Interesting.

  Seriously, Willa? You have enough mysteries to solve. You don’t need to add another one to the batch.

  I wait for a few seconds to see if he’ll fill in the blanks about where he used to work, but he doesn’t. That same muscle from before, the one that twitched when Daryl was making his move, ticks again. Message received: the man doesn’t want to talk about his past. I can respect that.

  Nick waits beside me as I unlock the front door to the bookstore. The lock sticks again, but I get it on the third try. Marge squawks. I must have woken her up with the noise I was making.

  “Well, if there was someone inside, they’re long gone now,” he says wryly.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” I say. “I was kind of hoping to forget about all that.”

  “Yeah, well, if it’s any consolation, most burglars actively avoid houses that are occupied. Too bad you don’t have a dog. A big one with a mean bark helps too.”

  “How about an angry cockatoo?” I ask.

  He chuckles. “That doesn’t hurt.” He holds up a hand to stop me from entering. “Wait here. I’ll take a look around first.”

  “What about Marge? She’ll eat you.”

  His lips twitch. “I’ll take my chances. I’ve handled worse.” He strides past me, his footsteps measured and silent. Accountant, my ass.

  An owl hoots from a nearby tree, and I hug my arms around my waist. I’m not cold, but it seems like an omen of bad things to come. If life has taught me anything, it’s to listen to such omens. When even Mother Nature is warning me about bad things, I’m in trouble.

  Nick appears out of the darkened store. “All clear,” he says, giving me a nod. “I like your blockade by the back door.”

  I duck my head, only slightly embarrassed. “Hey, I worked with what I have.”

  He pauses as if debating whether or not he should say something. “Yeah, well, take care.”

  Huh. He must have changed his mind. That’s probably a good thing. I’m about due to say something stupid again and put my foot in my mouth even more than I already have.

  “You too. And thanks again,” I say. Good job. That’s safe enough.

  “No problem.” He saunters back across the street toward the bar. What a strange man.

  Chapter 5

  I toss and turn throughout the night. Every time I close my eyes, I see either the still body we found behind the bookstore, lying in a pool of blood, or Nick pointing a gun at me. Neither is a very pleasant image. I finally pass out around four a.m., but barely two hours later, a god-awful, earsplitting screech jolts me awake.

  I jump out of bed and grab the closest thing I can find, a dusty old brass lamp, sans lampshade, and fly through the apartment toward the front of the store. Something’s wrong. Something’s very, very wrong. I’ve never heard anything like that sound before. It’s got to be Marge. I’d have figured it out if my aunt had installed some sort of alarm system. If someone has broken in and is hurting Marge, I’ll... I don’t know what I’ll do. But if I stop to think about it, the burglar should be afraid of tangling with the cockatoo.

  Heart racing, I wrench the adjoining door open and skid to a stop. Light streams through the front windows, shining on tables stacked high with books and boxes, just like they were yesterday. The shelves are just as cluttered, the paths just as winding. Nothing appears amiss, although I haven’t spent that much time up in this half of the store, so I might not notice.

  Marge paces the front counter, her yellow crest half-raised. Back and forth. Back and forth. She marches from the ancient cash register to a stack of paper bags. Every time she gets to the far end, she lets out another indignant squawk. As soon as she spies me, her crest goes up higher, and she marches over to the stack of bags. With one black, beady eye on me the entire time, she reaches out with one foot and rests it on the bags.

  “Don’t do it,” I say.

  Marge gives me one last offended squawk before pushing the entire stack of paper bags off of the counter and onto the floor. I dive for them, but it’s too late.
They fan out on the floor like a dropped deck of playing cards. She did that on purpose.

  “Thanks,” I mutter. My evil eye doesn’t seem to bother her, though, because she resumes her pacing. After I pick up the bags, I give her fresh food and water, which gets little more than a glare from her.

  “Dude. You’re going to have to deal with it,” I say. “I’m not spending what little money I have buying you muffins every day.”

  She climbs to the top branch of her tree and fluffs up her feathers before picking through the food in her bowl. She might not like it, but I doubt she’s going to starve herself.

  With Marge taken care of, I straighten a few stacks of books then decide to open the store. If by some miracle someone does stumble upon the store and wants to buy something, then it’s less for me to pack and sell later. Yeah, as if that’ll happen.

  I start going through more papers in my aunt’s office, but I can’t focus. Everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours eats at me, and I need to get it off of my chest. I debate calling my sister, but it’s three hours earlier where she is, and I’m sure she’s still asleep. Okay, what would Sara do?

  I hear her voice ringing out in my head. Call the police. Let them do their jobs, you idiot.

  Yeah, that’s exactly what she’d say. With a sigh, I pull out the business card one of the cops gave me yesterday morning. I’d been in such a fog that I forgot the guy’s name. Pay attention, Willa. You’re going to get yourself killed.

  I call the nonemergency number, and the dispatcher picks up on the first ring.

  “Hi, my name is Willa Thompson. I, uh, I was at the bookstore when...” I don’t want to say found the body, but I’m sure she can fill in the blanks. “Can I speak to Detective... Landry?” I ask.

  “May I ask why you’re calling?” she asks. There’s a raspy, smoky quality to her voice that reminds me of the nicotine-yellow wallpaper in my mom’s old apartment, the corners peeling at the edges.

  “Um, he asked me to call him if I found anything.” I walk into the office and stare at the door to the secret passageway, partially hidden by stacks of boxes. “And I’m pretty sure I found something that he might be interested in.”

  “What?” the dispatcher squawks. “Just hold on.”

  Crappy hold music comes on the line for about ten seconds until the detective answers in a deep baritone. “Miss Thompson?” Detective Landry asks. “How can I help you?”

  I tell him about the secret passageway and ending up in Nick’s office. He’s silent throughout, and after I’ve finished, the silence grows between us.

  “So,” I say. Usually, I’m okay with silence, but right now, I feel like I have to fill it. Pacing in my aunt’s office, I pause to glare at the offending opening, still blocked by heavy boxes. “Do you think it might be the reason the woman might have been trying to break in?” I can’t bring myself to use her name, or she becomes real again, and I see her lying behind the dumpster, surrounded by a pool of blood.

  “I don’t know,” Detective Landry says, his voice hesitant. “But it is strange. I can send someone down to check it out later. I can’t guarantee when someone’ll get there, but they will take a look at that tunnel for you.”

  It feels like he’s just humoring me. I sigh with a great breath that feels like it’s deflating me. “I guess it doesn’t matter if you don’t think it’s important.”

  “You said it went through to next door, right? To Mr. Turner’s office.”

  I kick one of the boxes as if it’s the root of all of my problems. “Yeah, he didn’t know it was there.”

  “Huh. Did he check it out?”

  “Yeah, but he’s not a cop. He’s an accountant,” I say.

  “Right, of course.” He pauses. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll have an officer come check it out as soon as someone’s available, all right?”

  “Yeah, sure. Thanks.” I hang up the phone after saying goodbye. I don’t know what I expected, but it was certainly a little more urgency than that.

  About an hour later, the little bell above the front door jingles, followed by Marge’s screech. It’s not as urgent a call as the one that jolted me awake this morning, so I take my time stepping over all of the extra little piles I created in my aunt’s office. They made perfect sense when I created them, but I have a feeling they’ll be a complete mystery when I go back and try to make sense of them later.

  A portly man, probably in his mid-fifties, with silver hair sprouting from his head at odd angles and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, hurries toward me from the front door. He gives Marge a wide berth, which leads me to believe that he’s been here before. Smart man.

  He scurries up to the front counter, a thin, black briefcase clutched to his chest. “Are you Willa?”

  I know that voice. Something about the whiny quality in those three words reminds me of someone. “Are you the lawyer?” I ask. He’s got to be. No one else I know has that same tone in his voice.

  The man puffs his chest, looking like Marge when she’s particularly proud of herself. “Why, yes. I’m Stan Erickson.” He gives me a quick bow, made all the more ridiculous by the briefcase he’s still holding tightly to his chest.

  Ah, so this is him, the lawyer for my aunt’s estate, who has been communicating with my sister and me since my aunt’s passing.

  “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Miss Williams.”

  I cringe. “It’s Thompson. Willa Thompson.” No one else in this town knows who I am, but Sara and I haven’t been able to find a way around that to deal with my aunt’s estate. Hopefully, the lawyer will be able to keep his mouth shut long enough for me to close all this out and get out of here.

  He apologizes with a self-conscious chuckle. “Forgive me. It’s hard to remember these things at my age.”

  I almost say something about whether or not he should be a lawyer if he can’t remember his client’s name, but I know better. I still need him, for now, and alienating him won’t do any of us any good. “Yeah, well, can you at least try to remember? I don’t really want word getting out about who I really am.” It doesn’t hurt to remind him, I guess, that discretion is of the utmost importance.

  He tilts his head to the side as if looking at me for the first time. “I think the secrecy is unnecessary,” he says. “Most of the town liked your aunt. Some of them might have even loved her, but everybody respected her. I don’t think you have anything to be afraid of.”

  Is there something I don’t know about my aunt? Granted, I hadn’t talked to her since I was a kid, but she never struck me as someone respectable. Eccentric, yes, but not someone people looked up to. I hadn’t told the lawyer the real reason I changed my name, just that I had. If he wants to believe that it’s because I’m embarrassed or ashamed about what happened with my aunt, then so be it. I’ll let it work in my favor. The less we go into my past, the better.

  “I’m sure you’re right, Mr. Erickson, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I’d rather be known as a friend of the sisters, at least for now.”

  He bobs his head up and down. “Of course.” He caresses the supple leather surface of his briefcase before clicking the locks and opening it. A manila folder with my aunt’s name scrawled on the little tab rests on top.

  From her tree stand, Marge watches our exchange, her beady black eyes trained on the lawyer. When he sets his briefcase down on the desk and opens it, she ruffles her feathers. She’s not happy about something. I’ll have to watch and see if it’s just her natural reaction to customers, which could explain why the bookstore doesn’t look like anyone’s shopped here in several years, or if there’s something about Mr. Erickson that bothers her.

  Maybe Marge can sense he’s a lawyer, and like most of the rest of the world, she feels an innate distrust and wariness toward the guy. I wouldn’t blame her for that. I haven’t had a lot of interactions with lawyers in my life, but just from our phone calls, he seems very interested in money and making sure he gets paid. I
can’t say that I blame him, either. He’s got to make a living somehow.

  “I brought that paperwork we talked about,” he says, pulling out the manila envelope. He takes out a stapled stack of papers and slides them across the front desk.

  I rack my brain, trying to figure out what exactly he’d said he was going to drop off, but everything has been such a blur in the last few weeks that I don’t remember much. “Sorry, could you refresh my memory?” I flick through the papers, but my attention span is more on the dead body and the tunnel than on whatever legal mumbo jumbo he’s handed me.

  A flicker of irritation crosses his gaze, but as quickly as I notice it, it’s gone. “The will. I know you saw a copy of it, but I wasn’t sure you were bringing that with you. I also brought some paperwork as to the disposal of some of your aunt’s other assets. Bank accounts, storage units, and the like.” He waves his hand in a dismissive way, as if nothing I’ll find is of much importance. If it’s anything like what I’ve seen so far, it won’t be. My aunt was, as he said, eccentric, but I doubt there’s much I have to worry about.

  “I didn’t know about any of that,” I say, seeing my time here growing longer. Um, it’s not like you could leave anyway, since you can’t list the bookstore until the police investigation has been concluded. The stack of papers in my hand seems to grow heavier.

  The lawyer shrugs. “It’s all entirely normal. I’ve outlined everything of interest on the top page. My office is also prepared to help you dispense with the estate, since you’re not local and won’t be able to stay very long.”

  That would have been nice to know before I drove halfway across the country, only to get accosted by an irate cockatoo and find a dead body outside the back door. It definitely would have saved me a bunch of trouble.

  “Thanks,” I say. My lips twitch in a relieved smile. “I’ve never done anything like this before, and I would really appreciate any and all help you can give me.” For a price, I know, but right now, it’ll be worth it. From what Sara said, we’ll get a meager inheritance, but it would be worth spending a bit more just to have help navigating everything.