by Anne Bishop
Swinn had been pushing for it, hoping Julian would react. I silently thanked Osgood for the diversion. Then I looked out the bookstore’s big front window and realized it wasn’t a diversion. A mob of people crowded the sidewalk in front of the bank and no one was getting inside.
Of course. The Sanguinati had closed the bank after the end of business on Firesday. It looked like it was still closed, which was not a good way to start the workweek. I wondered if anyone had thought to put a sign on the door to let people know the bank would reopen.
“Looks like the bank is closed today.” Julian took a step back from the counter as he regained control of himself. “You might want to go over and assist with crowd control.”
“Not my job,” Swinn said.
“Neither is following up on a ludicrous complaint, but you’re here.”
Marmaduke Swinn locked eyes with Julian Farrow.
“The bank’s president sold out to save himself,” Julian said quietly. “He and the bank manager are off the game board. So is Franklin Cartwright. So are Chesnik, Baker, and Calhoun. Are you and Reynolds also pawns in someone’s scheme? What is the price of loyalty?”
The hatred that filled Swinn’s eyes was totally out of proportion to Julian’s words—unless Swinn really was a pawn in someone’s scheme.
“Someone should have put a bullet in your brain years ago,” Swinn snarled.
I froze, shocked. Osgood looked equally shocked. Maybe more so because Swinn had been his commanding officer a few days ago.
“Better men than you have tried, and I’m still here,” Julian replied.
“Your luck won’t hold forever.”
“Maybe not. But I have allies too, and I’ll let them know that if something happens to me, you should be the first person they check out.”
“That’s enough,” Grimshaw said.
I don’t know how long he’d been standing just inside the door. I didn’t see him come in, didn’t know how much he’d heard.
“Officer Osgood, go over to the bank and start dispersing the crowd. I’ve been informed that the bank will reopen tomorrow under new management. People should bring in proof of their checking and savings accounts. Every account with confirmed paperwork will be honored. Pass the message.”
“Yes, sir.” Osgood fled.
“Detective Swinn,” Grimshaw continued. “This isn’t your territory. You came in to investigate a man’s death. It has been determined that no human agent was involved in his death, so the case is closed.”
“Just because a human didn’t kill him doesn’t mean a human wasn’t involved.” Swinn looked at me when he said it.
“The investigation is done.”
“It’s done when I say it’s done.”
Grimshaw took a step toward Swinn. “It’s done when your captain says it’s done. He called you this morning, telling you to return to Putney. You and Reynolds. I know because your captain called mine to request that any follow-up be handled through the Bristol station.”
Swinn’s face turned an unhealthy shade of red. “This isn’t over.” He laced the words with venom.
“Unfortunately, you’re right about that.” Grimshaw stepped aside, giving Swinn a clear path to the door. He watched Swinn until the other man pushed through the crowd still milling around the bank and got into the unmarked car. Then he looked at Julian. “We need to talk.”
Julian hesitated. “You know where I live.”
Now Grimshaw focused on me. “Do you feel all right?”
“My face is sore. Otherwise, I think I look worse than I feel.”
“That’s good.”
I guess that was his way of telling me I really didn’t want to visit any more stores until the bruises faded.
“Call Pops with an order and ask him to drop it off at the boardinghouse,” Julian said.
“Why there?” I asked. Although getting a snack at the boardinghouse had a lot of appeal. And I could give Ineke the gossip firsthand. Between the showdown at the bookstore and the run on the bank there was a lot to talk about. “Scratch that question. Dropping off an order at Ineke’s would save Pops some time and gasoline.”
Julian’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Exactly.”
Grimshaw walked me to my car. “They shouldn’t bother you, but if Swinn or Reynolds shows up at The Jumble—or anywhere else—I want to know about it. Understood?”
“Did Swinn mean what he said about Julian?”
Grimshaw opened my car door and didn’t reply.
CHAPTER 32
Grimshaw
Moonsday, Juin 19
Grimshaw found the Mill Creek Cabins easily enough. They were larger than he’d expected, with either a loft or an attic space above the ground floor. A covered porch ran across the front of each cabin, and low stone walls enclosed front yards that weren’t any wider than their respective cabins.
Julian lived in the last of the six cabins, the one farthest away from the main road. Grimshaw parked next to his friend’s car, picked up the insulated box, and came around to the wooden gate in the wall, studying the raised gardens that hugged the stone walls on three sides.
“You raising flowers and vegetables now?” Grimshaw asked.
“Thought I would give it a try.” Julian held up a bottle of beer. “There are more cold ones in the fridge, unless you’re out of uniform but still on duty.”
Grimshaw wasn’t sure he was ever off duty anymore, but he had changed to summer-weight trousers and a pullover shirt as a way to indicate this wasn’t an official call. But he didn’t think the conversation was going to be easy either. He held up the insulated box. “Dinner, compliments of Ineke.”
“That’s a fair trade.”
Grimshaw went inside. An open floor plan for the most part. Pocket doors to provide privacy for the bedroom and bathroom. Stairs on one side of the main room, going up to the loft area that might be considered a guest room or home office. A fan on the ceiling. He wondered if the fireplace provided the sole source of heat. That would explain the open floor plan.
He put the food in the fridge, took out a beer. The bottle opener was on the counter, so there was no reason to look through drawers. Going back out, he settled in the other chair on the porch and decided to circle around what they needed to discuss.
“Did you know Ineke has tattoos?” he asked.
The beer bottle hovered near Julian’s lips before he lowered his hand. “Ineke? Where?”
“Her thighs. She was wearing a bathing suit. The tats were hard to miss.” He described the tattoos.
“Gods,” Julian said. “I used to rent a room from her.”
“I am renting a room from her.” He studied Julian. “What?”
“It’s nothing.”
“With you it’s never nothing. Spit it out.”
“Just . . . the Xaviers are a bit possessive about their compost bins. Have you noticed that?”
“Can’t say I have. Why did you?”
“I offered to turn over the compost while I was there and was politely told to keep my hands off.”
“Maybe they have a system.” Or a convenient place to dispose of inconvenient bodies?
Nah.
Then again, a lot of people disappeared during the troubles last year. One more might be noticed but the disappearance wouldn’t draw a lot of attention.
Grimshaw stared at Julian, who looked way too innocent, and realized he’d been played. “Bastard.”
“You started it. I never saw those tattoos.”
They sat quietly, enjoying shade and a cold beer on a hot summer evening.
“I heard what Swinn said to you,” Grimshaw said quietly.
“By tomorrow morning all of Sproing will have heard some version of it,” Julian replied. “The community doesn’t need a newspaper. If you want the latest news, go to th
e diner. Helen can tell you everything from how the Sproing bowling team did in the Bristol bowling tournament to who slept on the couch after an argument—and what the argument was about.”
“Good to know, but I seem to have my own gossip magnet—at least until Osgood is reassigned.”
“You heard what Swinn said to me,” Julian said. “And I heard what you said to him. He’s really off the case?”
Grimshaw nodded. “Investigation is done. One of the Others killed Franklin Cartwright. There’s no question about that.”
“But Swinn still has Vicki DeVine in the crosshairs.”
“Yeah. And that only makes sense if someone besides his boss is encouraging him to pursue this and find some way to push her out of The Jumble.”
“There’s one surefire permanent way to do that.”
Grimshaw stared at the flowers in the raised beds. “You’re talking about a cop. You’re talking about premeditated murder.”
“Was Swinn promised enough of a payoff from this scheme to make that worth a serious thought?” Julian countered. “Not likely. He’s part of the muscle, not the money.”
“But he would get something from the deal. They would all get something.” Grimshaw waited a beat. “Where have you been since that night in the alley?”
“I haven’t been a spy for the police force or the government if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I didn’t have the impression the allies you mentioned belonged to either group.”
Julian huffed out a breath. “I wasn’t doing anything illegal or immoral. That’s all you need to know.”
No, that wasn’t all. “Why are you here? Why Sproing? Why a bookstore?”
Julian shot out of the chair and went inside. He returned a minute later with two more bottles of beer. One he set beside Grimshaw’s chair. The other he kept, drinking deep as he leaned against one of the porch’s supports.
“I don’t know why one of the terra indigene followed me that night or why it killed the men who wanted to hurt me—or let’s be honest, kill me. But I’ve stayed away from human-controlled towns since I received that settlement and left the force. I’ve moved around. A lot. A place would feel all right when I first arrived and found work and a place to live. But something would sour in a few months, sometimes even in a few weeks. I didn’t fit in, not long-term, not even in Intuit villages. I put my hand to a lot of work during those years; even taught at a terra indigene school for a while. Because of that, I would get a call every so often to help with a problem. Investigate something or someone. Check out a place and report what I sensed.”
“What happened?” Grimshaw asked when Julian stopped talking.
“I got tired of wandering. I wanted to put down roots. I was on my way to Ravendell on Senneca Lake. I have family there. Sproing was supposed to be a stopover, but I saw the For Sale sign in the bookstore window, and it felt right. Like everywhere else, the community was experiencing an upheaval, with people leaving one way or another. And new people were coming in—Simple Life folk and Intuits. A fresh start. A little pocket of ordinary within the wild country.”
“Not so ordinary since the place contains hoppy things that hit up store owners for carrots,” Grimshaw said.
“I didn’t know about the Sproingers until after I bought the store.” Julian resumed his seat. “In a way, the bookstore is a kind of payoff for services rendered.”
“How so?”
“The store changed hands during the time I was inquiring about its availability. The owner’s heirs received their full asking price, and the deal went through fast, even for a cash transaction. I know that because I checked. But the business was still for sale, and I paid about a third of what it’s worth when you take the building and the stock into account.”
“Silence Lodge?”
Julian nodded. “Someone gave the orders to set the price within a range I could afford. Just like my rent for this cabin is almost too reasonable.”
“The Sanguinati—or some kind of terra indigene—want you here. Any idea why?”
“No. Except . . . Gershwin Jones is another Intuit who settled here within the past few months. Grace Notes should have closed within a month of opening. A music store in a place this small? But the building, which includes the apartment above the store, was offered at a rent that he wouldn’t have found anywhere else in the Northeast.” Julian sipped his beer for a minute. “The Dane family wasn’t liked around here. The families who live on High Street aren’t much liked either.”
“I drove around to get acquainted with the streets and noticed half the houses on that street are empty, and not all the unoccupied ones have For Sale signs on the lawn.”
“According to the gossip at the diner, some families fled but are intending to return. Other homeowners died last summer when the terra indigene tore through human places.”
Grimshaw nodded. “So those who are left are still trying to reestablish their superiority and are discovering they don’t have enough social weight to carry it off.” He waited a beat. “Do you think the Sanguinati are seeding the community to create a new dynamic?”
“They’re the form of terra indigene that often acts as the front man for more . . . disturbing . . . forms, so my sense is that restoring The Jumble to its original purpose has been something they’ve wanted but didn’t quite know how to manage because they didn’t want the Dane family to come back to Sproing. Then Vicki DeVine showed up with the deed and a need to make a go of the place. Right person, right time.”
“Openly running the bank is also a declaration: work with us or leave.”
Julian pushed out of the chair. “Let’s get something to eat.”
Grimshaw stood and stretched, his eyes scanning the land around the cabin.
“After what Swinn said about a bullet in the brain, are you looking for a shooter’s sweet spot?” Julian asked.
“Yeah. I am.” Grimshaw looked at his friend. “But you’ve already thought of that.”
“I have. I’ve also thought about why Swinn hates me when we’ve never met. I’ve wondered what he had hoped to gain by trying to bring me in for questioning over accusations made by women who had caused the trouble in the first place—especially when he didn’t have any authority to bring me in for questioning since Sproing has an official, if temporary, police force.”
“And I’m wondering about that night in the alley and what kind of tie clip the men who went after you wore.”
CHAPTER 33
Vicki
Sunsday, Juin 20
My hair was long, golden brown, and straight except for a slight curl at the ends. That should have been my first clue. The filmy nightgown that was slipping off my nicely defined shoulders and pushed up to my slender thighs should have been the second. But the man held my attention, making my heart pound as he approached the bed. He wore skintight black pants and an open-to-the-waist white shirt with big sleeves. His smile was assured, almost smug.
“There’s nowhere to run, so you’re going to do as you’re told,” he said. He sounded like Yorick—had Yorick’s voice, anyway, although Yorick never sounded that sexy except when he was having an affair and wanted me to know what he could be like with someone else.
Oh yeah? I thought, feeling defiant and scared. I got away before and I can do it again.
“First lesson.” He held up gold nipple clamps connected by a chain, but the clamps were the size of the thingies mechanics connected to batteries to jump-start cars.
His face morphed into someone who looked like Grimshaw’s nastier brother. That only lasted for a moment. As he leaned over me, smiling because I couldn’t seem to move enough to get out of reach, his hair darkened, and the face, now lean and sculpted, had a thin scar beneath the left cheekbone. Then the gray eyes changed to melted-chocolate brown as he settled the clamps over my big toes and said . . .
“C
aw?”
I snapped awake. My left arm had gotten tangled in the top sheet, securing me to the bed, creating the sensation of not being able to move.
Jingle, jingle.
I lifted my head off the pillow and looked at the Crow perched on my big toes. The charm bracelet around its neck jingled as it wibble-wobbled on my toes, its nails digging in as it tried to maintain its balance.
“Aggie?”
“Caw.”
Freeing myself from the sheet, I rubbed my hands over my face— and then whimpered because the area around my left eye was still living in the Land of Ow.
“Could you get off my toes? I need to use the bathroom.”
Aggie hopped to the mattress. A jingle Crow is not a stealthy Crow. Then again, since she had access to purchased food and whatever was growing wild in the kitchen gardens that I hadn’t had a chance to restore, maybe her meals didn’t require any more stealth than mine did.
I wobbled my way to the bathroom. I had a low-grade headache and my stomach felt a little swoopy. Those might be symptoms of setting off the ow around my eye, but it was also my body’s typical response when the weather turned so humid it felt like I was breathing water.
That thought froze my brain for a moment. I turned on the bathroom lights and studied my neck carefully to make sure I hadn’t acquired gills overnight. Of course, I hadn’t eaten the strange food that was the only sustenance given to the plucky woman who had been abducted by the mysterious pirate who was taking her to his secret island.
I carefully splashed cold water on my face and checked my neck again. Still gill-free. I made a note to myself that, for the next few days anyway, I should read a milder form of romance before bedtime.
I returned to my bedroom to find Aggie exploring my jewelry box. I didn’t have much that wasn’t costume jewelry, and even the nicer pendants hadn’t been worn in a while because the chains had knotted sometime during my move to an apartment in Hubbney when Yorick and I first separated and then to The Jumble, and I couldn’t seem to untangle them.