Muffin But Trouble

by Victoria Hamilton

  “They were driving along the highway when they saw what they thought was an injured or dead animal along the side of the road. It was already getting dark, but they stopped to help. It was a body or . . . a girl who would soon be a body.”

  “Oh, no . . . she was alive when they found her?”

  He nodded.

  “But she’s dead now? That’s . . . awful.” My mind was racing. A teenage girl? Thank goodness I knew where Lizzie was or I’d be worried, though Virgil would have told me immediately if it was someone I knew. But wait . . . “This teenage girl had long brown hair? And a long dress?” I was thinking of Peaches, hoping it wasn’t her.

  “Yeah, why? Do you recognize the description?”

  I told him about my visit to the compound, and meeting Peaches, Gordy’s girlfriend. I told him everything, including finding Cecily Smith there, and that she was there voluntarily—they could take her off the missing list—and my fear of who Peaches might be. He ruminated on what I told him, gulping down his sandwich in wolfish bites. I refilled his coffee and buttered one of the mandarin orange cranberry chocolate chip muffins I had experimented with that morning. He ate it, nodding enthusiastically. I don’t think I had ever tried a muffin recipe on him that he didn’t like.

  “Okay. I gotta go,” he said, wiping his mouth and dusting crumbs from his hands.

  I bolted up from my stool. “Wait, aren’t you going to tell me more?”

  “When I know more, I’ll tell you what I can. But right now Baxter is up to his eyebrows, and it’s not going well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took me in his arms and gazed into my eyes, swiping strands of hair off my forehead. “Look, the reason I wanted to talk to you is, Baxter has made a few missteps and things with the New York folk aren’t going well.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s stepped in it good, it sounds like. Offended them with . . . implications.”

  “Implications? Like . . . they’re involved somehow?”

  He nodded. “Baxter swears he said no such thing. But now there are lawyers involved, and the composer woman is talking about how she’s going to tell everyone back in the city how she was treated.”

  “Oh, crap.” I put my forehead to his chest, then looked back up at him. “This is awful!”

  “Baxter swears he didn’t say anything of the kind, and it actually sounds like the composer and her daughter were cool at first, understanding that as the ones who found the body, they needed to stay and give statements. They’ve missed their flight, of course, but it doesn’t sound like they made a fuss over that, at least at first. It’s the son-in-law, Grant Marbaugh, who is making trouble. He’s the one who called a lawyer, who is now on his way to Ridley Ridge airport by private plane.”

  The full implications began to sink in. Self-interest will assert itself. If this became a big stink, it could easily damage our fledgling performing arts center’s reputation before it even held its opening. Anokhi Auretius was a big deal in the arts community; if she loudly complained of her treatment by the Ridley Ridge police, it would be hard to counteract.

  But there was a dead teenage girl. There were parents somewhere who would learn of her death and be devastated. There were friends and family members who would never be the same. What if it was Peaches, the sweet girl I had seen hours before?

  “Can I help in any way? Should Pish and I come and talk to Anokhi?”

  “I may be able to smooth things over. That’s why Baxter has called me in.” He kissed me thoroughly. “I wanted to give you the heads-up because I may need you or Pish. I’ll call you later.”

  I called Pish and had a long discussion about what I had learned. We mulled it over, dissected it, told each other our worries, then at long last signed off. I went to bed alone except for Becket, who took the opportunity of Virgil being absent to snuggle. I buried my face in his fur and worried myself to sleep.

  • • •

  All hell broke loose the next morning. As Virgil (who had come home in the middle of the night) showered, his phone blew up with texts, voice messages and social media alerts. I sat on the closed toilet and read them to him, raising my voice over the splash of the multiple showerheads he had insisted on, as I had on the jetted tub.

  The lawyer Marbaugh had summoned was a well-known New York City attorney who specialized in cases of racial discrimination and religious bias. He had a reputation for doggedly pursuing police forces, especially in cases of racism and racial profiling. I didn’t know what to think; as much as I was not fond of Sheriff Baxter, I had never thought he might be a bigot. I hoped any problems or misunderstandings could be straightened out without a high-profile lawsuit against Sheriff Baxter and his sheriff’s department.

  I checked local news sites to see what reporters may have sniffed out. “Oh, no, Virgil!” I cried. “We discussed Baxter trying to involve the ATF in the problems they were having with the Light and the Way Ministry folks, right? Well, it looks like he couldn’t get them, so he raided the compound himself, overnight!”

  Virgil, water streaming down his face and over his chest, ducked out from behind the glass enclosure. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “I’m not!” I said, holding up his man-size phone. Virgil does not like teeny devices, so his phone is almost tablet size. “It’s on the Ridley Ridge Record site! He took someone—more than one person, it sounds like—into custody, but they don’t say who he nabbed.”

  “Shit!” he yelled, hammering on the tile. “I told him to stay cool, to not go in guns blazing. He was talking crazy, like he was going to go in even if he couldn’t get a warrant. Damn it!”

  “Why would he do that? Is there a definite connection between the dead girl and the compound?”

  Virgil wiped water and soap out of his eyes. “Nothing firm. When I left him at about one in the morning I thought I had him calmed down. He’s just . . . he’s getting . . . damn!” He slapped the tile wall again, splattering soapy water. That was a troublesome sign, since he generally doesn’t go for displays of emotion. “I wish he listened to me!”

  “When has Ben Baxter ever listened to you?” I said lightly, though my chest tightened with worry. If Virgil thought it was bad, it was bad. I worried that Gordy was among those detained. I worried that Peaches was the girl found dead. There was no confirmation of the dead girl’s identity so far.

  I texted Pish quickly, and he replied almost instantly. He had been in contact with the composer. Fortunately, Anokhi Auretius and her family had left Ridley Ridge and were already on a flight to New York City, not because of her son-in-law’s lawyer, but just because there was no reason for them to be there once they had given their statements, as Baxter had said all along. The son-in-law had overreacted but Anokhi and her daughter had prevailed, she told Pish, and all had been smoothed out. If necessary, she was willing to make a public statement to that effect.

  Virgil finished up his shower and I made him breakfast as he paced on the back patio, alternately screaming into his phone and listening intently, then scrolling through messages.

  “Virgil, breakfast!” I yelled out the back door.

  He came in and sat down to eggs, bacon, hash browns and pancakes. I knew him well enough to know he would be gone until evening, and when would he get a chance to eat decent food again? It would probably be awful sheriff’s department coffee for the rest of the day.

  I drank my coffee and waited, then as he slowed, I asked him, “Why the heck did Baxter raid the compound? What was he hoping to find? And what did he find that resulted in anyone being taken into custody?”

  He mopped up egg yolk with toast and sighed, shaking his head. “I knew what he wanted to do; he was waiting for a warrant. With this murder investigation I advised him to put it on ice until we knew more. If we could prove that the victim was from the compound, we’d have more ammo going in and could broaden our search. As it was, he didn’t have much, rumors and innuendo from some shaky sources.” He chewe
d, swallowed, and slurped some coffee. “Historically, raids of so-called religious compounds haven’t gone well.”

  I nodded. Every American knows about Ruby Ridge, and Branch Davidian, among others less famous. My husband had been reading up on it lately, worried about Ben’s new fixation on the Light and the Way Ministry compound (after ignoring it for years) and fears that there was another Waco in the offing. From what we had discussed, I understood the concern; what all of those raids had in common was that the religious philosophy at the center of it had an end-of-times flavor. Virgil was right, though, in my opinion, in his advice to proceed with caution. “So . . . what did you find out about last night’s raid?”

  “Well, you already know that Baxter claimed to have information—and he won’t tell me where he got it—that the so-called prophet had a cache of weapons.”

  “That’s why he was trying to get the ATF involved.”

  “Day before yesterday they backed off, though, refused him assistance. I can only guess they didn’t consider his info strong enough.” He sighed heavily and rubbed the back of his neck, a sign he was deeply perturbed. “Ben’s never been a Rambo whack job. He must have some reason for doing what he did, but I’m damned if I can figure it out. He truly was worried about letting it get too far until the place became a fortified compound.”

  I got up and poured myself another coffee as Becket wound around my legs. I opened another can of food for him—he had had first breakfast and would bug me until he had second breakfast, like some Middle-earth feline Hobbit—and then topped my coffee with milk. I sat down and gazed at Virgil. “But I was out there; I didn’t see any hint of weapons. I could have told Ben that.”

  “You weren’t inside any of the buildings though, right?”

  I nodded. “I get it. But this is a muddle, husband. Are you going to get involved?” It could be messy.

  “I am,” he said, standing and stretching.

  “Do you know, though . . . did they arrest anyone? Did they find anything?”

  “As far as I know he detained a couple of the men, but he won’t be able to hold them for long. I’ll know more later, hon. I gotta go. Do you want help with the dishes?”

  “That’s what machines are for.” I circled the breakfast bar and put my arms around him. “You do what you need to do. I’ll be delivering muffins today. But Virgil . . .” I pushed my fingers through his thick dark hair and scratched his beard scruff along his jaw. “If you find out who that poor girl is, can you text me?” I was haunted with worry, and anxious that I had somehow missed some vital clue at the encampment. Could I have stopped what happened? I took a deep breath. We hadn’t even established that the poor girl was from the Light and the Way compound. “And if Gordy was snapped up in the raid, can you let me know that, too? I’m worried about him.”

  “You know I’ll do my best to help him if he’s in trouble. But I don’t think this raid netted Ben anything. I’ll know more soon.”

  We kissed, a lovely, long lingering smooch that left me tingling, and he departed. I got dressed appropriately, in nice slacks and a belted cardigan over a tunic—the day was dramatically colder than the day before, and the gleaming sunlight had a chilly crystalline quality—then loaded muffin tubs in the car as Becket departed, no doubt heading to the woods for some huntin’. “Don’t bring me any mice!” I called out. His tail flipped a jaunty wave and he disappeared around the corner of the house.

  I drove past the castle. Pish had a videoconference that would take him most of the morning, which I knew from our dozen or so texts already that morning. The Anokhi situation was, indeed, calm; she had landed in New York, none the worse for wear. Anokhi told Pish that a very handsome fellow had arrived at the police station and sorted things out with the sheriff, after which they were free to go, and they had departed, making their way to Buffalo in plenty of time to catch the earliest flight to the city.

  That very handsome fellow, for the uninformed, would have been my husband. It was after Virgil had done all of that work smoothing things over and finally left to return home that Sheriff Baxter had gone off his rocker and conducted a middle-of-the-night raid on the Light and the Way encampment.

  I would catch up with Pish when I returned after lunch, which is when I decided I’d finish the rest of the muffins. I drove down the long curved lane and through the new stone pillars and to the highway, and thence to Autumn Vale. The town was buzzing with the news of the murder and the subsequent raid on the religious compound. I carried muffins into the coffee shop, which is reached by first walking through the variety store then up three steps to the coffee shop section, which appeared to be right out of an old movie, with original vinyl-covered chairs and scarred arborite tables. I plopped my tubs of muffins on the coffee counter and turned to view the diners, most of whom I knew by sight.

  There was a town council meeting being held at one of the tables. My mother-in-law, Gogi, a newly elected member, was there, and while I lifted my hand in greeting and she waved back, she returned to her intense conversation with the other members. They had maps laid out, and seemed to be discussing the roads in and out of town. There were many local issues dividing the council, and that included arguments with township officials, who were dealing with increased truck traffic they blamed on Autumn Vale, though the town council disagreed vehemently, saying it had nothing to do with the town. They were attempting to prove it, and that was probably what they were discussing in the coffee shop. Maybe they should have been doing their business behind closed doors, but in Autumn Vale the coffee shop was as close to a public forum as you can get.

  Such are the thorny local issues—roads and utilities and social services—that become major dramas.

  But the more recent traumas occupied most of the villagers at the other tables, and the hum of conversation rose and fell, with the occasional Autumn Valeite becoming passionate enough to hammer on a table. Anyone who assumes they know what a person will think has never been in the middle of a small-town coffee shop argument. Both the murder and the raid by Sheriff Baxter were hot topics. Of course there was no argument about the murder, just drawn faces, worry over who was responsible, and pity for the girl’s parents. But while there was consensus over the notion that those who lived at the Light and the Way Ministry compound were “a bunch of fruitcakes,” there was argument over whether that made them dangerous nuts or not. There was equal representation on both sides.

  I greeted Simon Grover, the now-retired husband of my opera-loving friend Janice Grover. He lifted one hand in a wave, then returned to his conversation with his tablemates. He loudly said that those Light and the Way people should have been run out of the area before having a chance to establish themselves. One of his Brotherhood of the Falcon buddies—that’s one of those fraternal organizations endemic in small towns—insisted that America was a free country, not a commie land yet, thank God, and those religious nuts had every right to settle wherever they goldarned well pleased, as long as they followed the rules.

  Isadore, silently, gloomily, clearing tables with a bus tray under one arm, caught my eye and motioned with her head. She needed to talk to me about something. I nodded and held up two fingers for two minutes. Mabel Thorpe, the manager of the coffee shop, was counting muffins—heaven forbid I should short them a banana nut muffin—and preparing a receipt for the money she was getting out of the till. She had dyed her short hair a new color . . . chartreuse, with stiff waves rippling back from her forehead.

  I tuned back in to the conversations as Mabel recounted the money, which she would do twice more before counting it into my palm.

  The prevailing opinion among most in the coffee shop was that Sheriff Baxter had mucked up the raid. A couple of people had been hurt—or claimed to be hurt, a nurse from the Ridley Ridge hospital said, a cynical edge to her tone, more stubbed toes than bleeding out—and no actual weapons had been found. A few men had been detained, but most had now been released without charges. It was vastly overblown. There were als
o some raised eyebrows over Sheriff Baxter’s behavior of late, with hints of a mutiny among his deputies tossed into the mix.

  I wondered what an equal conversation at the Ridley Ridge coffee shop would sound like.

  As for the murder, no one yet had identified the dead girl, but there were plenty of raised brows and squinted eyes over her death. Maybe she was a hitchhiker. Maybe she was from some other part of the country, or state, or . . . from somewhere else. Unfortunately, there were also whispers that “outsiders” had found her. With those whispers came a whiff of blame, a hint of anger, and gazes slewed at me. I shifted uneasily; there had been a few murders in the three years or so I had been in Autumn Vale, but it wasn’t like I had initiated the problem. In fact, I was responsible for solving several of them. I straightened, holding my head high, and met my friends and neighbors in the eye.

  But bravado failed me and I slumped down on a stool, impatient for Mabel to be done so I could get out of there. I tapped my fingernails on the counter as I pondered Urquhart’s list of missing young women; was the dead girl one of them? Virgil had, the minute I told him, shared the info with Dewayne that I had seen Cecily and that she was at the compound of her own free will, as far as I could tell. She had been kicked out of the house by her father, and had settled with the Light and the Way Ministry people in the wake of that familial disagreement. She was eighteen; no one could touch her.

  I had also told him about Peaches, and about the photo I had seen of Madison Pinker, one of the missing girls. Peaches resembled her, I said, but I could not be sure. I was still sick with worry that she was the dead girl found along the highway. Virgil and Dewayne would follow up on it at some point with Urquhart and Baxter, but right now the murder and the raid would take precedence.

  I nodded and smiled as a young woman I knew, the local lawyer’s secretary, came in to buy take-out coffee. We chatted for a moment; their coffeemaker was on the fritz, which was the only reason she was buying takeout. She was an old friend of Hannah, and told me she was hoping Zeke was going to pop the question soon, so she could help plan a wedding. I took in a deep breath as she happily chattered, and glanced around the coffee shop. These people had become my friends and neighbors, and I was intimately involved in so many of the local goings-on. I had made friends. I had champions.