by B. T. Alive
“Of course,” she said. “All of them.”
“All of them?”
“Well, all his old flames. Frannie and Ambrose had plans with his grandchildren while they’re in town, of course.” She was talking like she lived here.
“But the others? You were all here?” I said. This was crazy… if she’d gathered all the suspects…
“Fiona too?” Tina said, with painful intensity.
“Fiona! Yes! I love her!” Noreen cried. “What a firecracker!”
“And Adora?” I said. “The gorgeous one… well, the other gorgeous one, with the black hair—”
“I know Adora,” Noreen said. “We were here all night, sweetheart! We talked for hours!”
“Her husband too?” I said, in disbelief.
“No, of course not. This was ladies only. Everyone who’d been given the runaround by that fiend. Even poor Glynis.”
“You all sat around drinking with Glynis?”
“That woman was a victim, same as you,” Noreen said, sternly. “And when they’d heard her story, the others all agreed. Didn’t they, Arthur?”
From the bar, the apparition proffered a deep nod.
“That poor Glynis had been pining after that turd for years. Years. And he pretended to be oblivious, calling her every week as ‘friends’ to vent and get free therapy, borrowing thousands he never paid back, not to mention having her plan his wedding for free. Then, when his wedding was ruined and his bride had finally dumped him, he calls up Glynis that very afternoon and tells her he’s glad. Because he’s finally realized she’s the one. What was she supposed to do? She might talk like a duchess, but she’s only human.”
I frowned. “She also used her funeral home to help him con everyone who cared about him into thinking he was dead. Including his ex-fiance,” I said. “Just saying.”
“But she didn’t think he’d be listening in,” Noreen said, with an impatient wave.
I tried to follow her moral logic here, but the attempt literally gave me a headache. Or maybe I was getting a headache from the faint, seeped-in smoke of centuries of pipes and cigars. That would be terrible; I had to come back here with Cade some time after Dante stopped getting murdered, and it would just be the worst if the smell always made me sick.
Then I remembered that if I didn’t figure out how to control my Touch here soon, I might not be taking Cade anywhere, ever.
Relax, Summer. One crisis at a time.
“That man had it all planned out,” Noreen was saying. “He had Glynis meet him out there at his bridge with a little motorboat. She even tossed up a life jacket! All he had to do was get Lee worked up enough that she wouldn’t follow him out right away, then storm out, strap on the jacket, and ‘fall’ through the old railing. Glynis said that even with the jacket, he was so terrified she could barely drag him in.”
“And then what?” I said. “She was just going to keep him in her closet while she went off to work every day?”
“Glynis has always hated the funeral home business,” Noreen said firmly, still manifesting this remarkable delusion that she’d lived in Wonder Springs for the last twenty years. “She was ready to run off with him to the Bahamas.”
“What about Rhonda?” said Tina, suddenly. “You haven’t said anything about Rhonda.”
“Rhonda?” Noreen scrunched up her brow. “Oh, was that the woman who fainted? I forgot about her. No, by the time Frannie got her revived, the rest of us had been chatting and gotten all chummy, and we invited Rhonda too, but she was very stand-offish.” Noreen frowned. “Although, once I explained who I was and why I was there, she did ask if she could have a lock of my hair. Very odd.”
“So, only Rhonda didn’t come with you?” I said. “You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Noreen snapped.
“This is fantastic!” I said. “You have an alibi for every single suspect except Rhonda! This is freaking solved.”
Tina frowned.
Noreen looked bewildered. She had frozen, a forkful of bacon poised mid-flight. “Suspect?” she said.
“Oh. Um. Yes,” I said. “Dante Radcliff was murdered again. I mean, for real this time.”
“Oh my Lord!” Noreen cried. The fork clattered to her plate. “How?”
“Grapes,” I said.
“Grapes?”
“A lot of grapes—” I began.
“Can we not go there right now?” Tina said, wincing and catching her breath. I wondered what pain she was feeling; did Tina hurt just at the idea of someone else’s pain? Could she not remember the image of Dante’s body without imagining and feeling getting smothered?
Tina stood, and she patted Noreen’s shoulder. “Thank you, though. You’ve been super helpful.”
“You’ve been phenomenal,” I said. “Dante was killed around 11:30 last night, but you kept every suspect but Rhonda right here, continuously, until more than an hour past the time of death. Really, thank you, it’s exceptional.”
“You’re… welcome,” Noreen said, looking dazed.
But Arthur the barkeep cleared his throat.
There was a sudden silence. Noreen twisted back to give him a questioning gaze.
Arthur raised his thick eyebrows, with a significant air.
“Oh!” said Noreen. “Oh, that’s right.”
“What?” I said, but I was already prickling with premonition.
“I forgot,” she said. “There was one in the party who left early, before it even got dark. I’m always one to speak my mind, and I’m afraid she got a bit huffy. We tried to assuage her—”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Fiona.”
“Why… yes.”
Tina’s face fell.
Now the silence turned gloomy. And a new, low, throbbing voice spoke, so thick with an English accent I could barely parse the words.
“That woman who left, she were looking something fierce,” he intoned. “I wouldn’t fancy being the first to cross her path, nor the last one neither. She had a blood wrath in her eyes, miss. A blood wrath, and no mistake.”
Chapter 26
There was no help for it. We had to talk to Fiona.
Hardly speaking a word, Tina and I walked across town to Cade’s orchard. I didn’t really expect her to be working in the barn again, but when we walked in through the open sliding door, there she was, in her flannel and overalls, shoveling away at the mulch as if nothing had happened.
She didn’t look up as we approached, didn’t openly react. But her movements somehow became extravagantly casual.
“I didn’t do it,” she said, with a little smile, as she sank the blade into the mound. “In case you’re wondering.”
“No one said you did,” Tina said. She sounded defensive, placating, like she’d never quite forgotten what it was like to be in junior high while this woman was old enough for college. Great.
“Care to share how you spent the evening?” I said. “We heard you got… upset.”
“Damn, I hate answering questions,” Fiona said, still casual, but gouging out a truly enormous chunk from the mound. “When your dad’s in law enforcement, you get so many freaking questions.”
“At least your dad cared,” I muttered.
At that, Fiona finally sliced me a look, and her antagonism was so visceral that it didn’t matter how much I thought I’d been expecting it. I flinched, and I hated myself for it.
“I’m only going to say this once,” she said. “Because I hate wasting time even more than I hate questions. I was upset. It happens, to real people.”
I resisted the urge to cut in.
“I was feeling wild. All those weak idiots, moaning in their beer. I left, so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I spent the night in the woods. When I got the text from Cade, I figured I might as well come in and give him a hand for the day. His paid help wasn’t going to be around.”
That one stung, but I let it go. “So you were all alone? You never went back to your dad’s place?”
“That�
�s right.” She grinned, but her eyes were gleaming and strained. “No alibi. Not a shred. Unless you can talk to trees.”
I glanced at Tina. She looked… ill. Like she was swamped by some devastating passion, and she was fighting it hard.
Fiona laughed, harsh and loud. “Oh, she’s not going to help you on this one, Summer. You’ll just have to trust me.”
In a strangled voice, Tina spoke. “I do trust you,” she rasped. “But you’re so…”
“Angry?” Fiona said, still grinning. She paced, thoughtful, detached as a lecturing professor. “Vengeful? Or maybe… gratified?” She crossed her arms, faced us, and said, with slow, cold, precision, “I didn’t do it. But I could have.”
“No you couldn’t!” Tina gasped out. “You wouldn’t!” She was panting for breath, and beads of sweat glistened on her face. “I know what this is! This is just what happened to me—you’re getting pushed, this isn’t you—”
“This is me!” Fiona shrieked, and her facade had pulverized and her face was flushed and twisted with her naked fury. “No one is pushing me, and all telempaths should die!”
“Fiona!” Tina gasped. “You don’t mean that! Uncle Barnaby—”
“My feelings are me,” Fiona yelled. “Dante stole that, he scooped out my self with his fumbling hairy fingers. He took everything.”
“Fiona, listen,” Tina said. “I understand—”
“I don’t,” I said. “It’s just a stupid psychic power. You grew up with this crud. Why does it have to be such an existential crisis? Why are you so obsessed with every last feeling?”
“Why are you so terrified to be alive?” Fiona shot back.
“Whatever,” I said. “All I can say is, I’m glad you’re not my crappy big sister. Do you care at all about anyone besides yourself? I mean, look at her!” I waved at Tina. “That girl’s adored you since she’s five, and you haven’t even noticed that your little tantrum is making her melt.”
Fiona scowled. A more generous Summer would hint that she flicked Tina a tiny look of remorse, but honestly… I only remember the scowl.
“Whoa, wait!” I said, turning to Tina. “I figured it out! When you were all raging out in the jail, that wasn’t some mysterious telempath. That was just Fiona. You’re so freaking sensitive and all emotionally entwined, I bet you were feeling her. From a distance. Like your mom does.”
Tina frowned. She was still panting and fighting Fiona’s anger, but this new suspicion clearly gave her fresh sorrow.
“Oh man,” I said. “And we totally forgot to bring Mr. Charm. You’re going to have to carry that cat for the rest of your life.” I turned to Fiona. “Unless you ever plan on growing up?”
In retrospect, I think that choice of words may have been unwise. This next tip might seem obvious, but it’s one I had to learn the hard way: it is rarely advisable to taunt a shifter.
The first noise I heard was bones cracking.
Or maybe not exactly cracking… more like the pop of a shoulder yanking free.
Whatever it was, I froze and stared, instantly in panic. What little power of rational thought I retained was entirely allocated to not peeing my pants.
Because Fiona was raging.
Yes, I’d seen her dad shift. And Cade had had his freakout moment of sudden fur. But they’d both been resisting, fighting to keep from being swallowed by shift.
Fiona was all in.
Her face was… deforming… her nose and chin sloping outward, smooth and hard and pointed…
She screeched. The guttural cry was animal, but still tortured words.
“Grow up?” she keened. “I’ll show you UP…”
And she whipped away from us and darted for the door, her gait both lighting-quick and yet hobbling and wrong, and her hands were scrabbling for the clasps of her overalls as she ran, and then the straps flipped off her shoulders, which were already bulging under her flannel, her whole back spreading and daring you to imagine the horror under that shirt…
And then she was out the back and gone.
Tina and I stood, stupefied.
I recovered first, and I ran out the back with Tina stumbling behind. Outside, I saw nothing but the familiar rows of trees.
Fiona had vanished.
No, wait—lying on a muddy path were her clothes, in a discarded heap.
“Look!” Tina gasped. She was pointing at the sky.
I looked, but caught only the flit of a shadow in the gray dead bank of infinite clouds. I stared, waiting, straining to see, but nothing else moved, only the clouds and their slow, unending creep.
But when I finally lowered my eyes, I noticed something new had fallen by the clothes.
A long, black feather… glossy and sharp and edged with red.
Chapter 27
In one sense, Tina recovered quickly. Fiona was… gone… and the distance seemed to help Tina regain her own emotional equilibrium.
But she was silent, and thoughtful, and grim.
Personally, I was 99% sure that we had our killer. Unfortunately, she was also a very clear, um, flight risk.
(Sorry.)
(But really, how many chances will I ever get for that one?)
A bigger problem was that we still didn’t have proof. Fiona might not have an alibi, but that didn’t mean we had evidence. I kind of hated how easily I had flipped from trying to defend her over to trying to pin a gruesome murder on a woman who, after all, was Cade’s sister… but on the other hand, did I really want a future where she was buying Christmas gifts for my kids? Yes, that might sound premature, but… okay, it was premature. The point was, I could reasonably slot her as Prime Suspect Number One, but I needed more.
“Hey,” I said gently, giving Tina a nudge as she stood in the back barnyard, still staring at the sky. “Let’s talk to Frannie.”
Tina blinked, and it seemed to be a struggle to emerge from her own thoughts and focus on my face. “Why?” she said, dully. “You’re already sure Fiona did it.”
“Not true,” I said. “It could still be Rhonda.”
Tina snorted. “Rhonda.”
“I wouldn’t be so snorty,” I said. “If you’re going to hero worship the bird lady, I’d treat Rhonda with a little more Suspect Respect.”
“Rhonda’s a sweetheart,” Tina said. “And the killer needs to be a telempath, remember? Rhonda doesn’t have a psychic bone in her body. Trust me.”
“I still say your rageouts were from Fiona.”
“Well, I don’t, and I should know,” Tina said. “We were just with Fiona, and that felt different.”
“Maybe she felt different,” I said. “Maybe now she’s more… gratified.”
Tina frowned.
“Her word, not mine,” I said quickly. “I’m just saying, if it’s not Fiona and it’s not Rhonda, then who? Everyone else has an alibi.”
Tina sighed. “Frannie sounds good.”
As I mentioned awhile back, Frannie Endicott ran a boutique purse store on Main Street. As I walked in, instantly triggered by the familiar scent of over-processed leather and stale recycled air (Frannie insisted on maxing out her air filters), it occurred to me that, for Frannie, this was the morning after she’d discovered a corpse. Even Frannie, work addict and frugalista, might break down and get someone else to watch the shop.
Nope. There she was, behind the glass display counter, steaming the stamp off some reply envelope from a non-profit. Good old Frannie.
Beside her, leaning conversationally onto the counter from the front, was Elaine.
“I can’t believe you’re functional,” Elaine exclaimed, with a glimmer of life in her flat voice and even a toss of her coarse, long gray hair. “I’m just so worked up about it all, I’ll probably close my store for a week.”
“Life goes on,” Frannie said, with quiet force. She squinted at her work and set her lips. I noticed she’d missed her lipstick, at least; really, her whole face was sans makeup and looking washed-out. Maybe she’d had more trouble getting out the door
this morning than she let on.
But if I’d hoped for some hint of softness, I lost that fantasy fast. Looking up, she snapped me a gaze of irritation, and vented an open sigh.
“Good morning, Summer. Tina,” she said. “That was fast.”
“How are you?” Tina asked.
“She’s a trooper,” Elaine gushed. “Look at her! I’d be curled up in the fetal position!”
“I didn’t actually unearth him,” Frannie snapped.
Elaine gave a (possibly delectable) shudder.
Frannie eyed me. “I expect you’ll want to know what did happen,” she griped. “Every last detail. As if I hadn’t already gone over it all three times with actual law enforcement.”
“You know how Sheriff Jake is,” I said, sweetly. “The sooner he gets the… assistance he needs, the sooner he can stop harassing your poor cousin.”
She croaked out a laugh, a short bitter bark. “Nice try, sales girl,” she muttered. “I think I’ve run more than enough interference for my dear, sweet cousin.”
This startled me, considering how protective she’d seemed about Lee back at Natisha’s. But I only said, mildly, “How so?”
“Good grief. I always forget how relentless you are.” She rubbed her forehead, as if I were literally giving her a headache.
I waited. She was right. And if she held out now, I could always come back with our mind-reading parrot.
Actually, no… the telepathic parrot was almost always a terrible idea. But only almost.
“Fine,” Frannie snapped. She crouched closer to her work, now gently peeling her precious stamp, as if yielding would be more palatable if she didn’t have to look at us. “You’re right; I’ll do anything to settle all this as soon as humanly possible.”
Elaine gleamed. I could have sworn her large ears actually tilted forward toward Frannie; at the very least, she definitely licked her lips.
“I’ve tried very hard to be supportive of my cousin,” Frannie began. “I didn’t know Dante personally when he lived here, but of course I heard about everything…” She gave Tina a brusque nod. “I wanted to believe her that the man had changed, and the honest truth is that as soon as she talked about moving here to Wonder Springs, I realized how much I’d appreciate having family here. It’s been many years since we drifted apart, but family is family—and she first started talking about all this months ago, long before… Ambrose.” A slight flush tinged her pale cheek. “What I’m trying to say is, I love my cousin, and I wanted her to be happy.”