Paws and Effect

by Scarlett English

  “Garrett, could you stay here and call Eric downstairs to close up? He’s a bit hard of hearing, and sleeps upstairs at the back. I’m afraid he may have slept through this. Please explain what’s happened. Maisie will need him to come to the hospital, I think. And get someone to take you and the others back to Lily’s. Promise me, Garrett. Please don’t try to drive.”

  “I promise I won’t,” he said, squeezing my hand. His eyes were steady as they gazed down at me. “But are you sure you’re all right to drive? Not too upset?”

  “No, I’m fine. I’ll call when I know something.”

  “Good,” he said, stepping back from the car. I began driving toward the hospital, some twenty-five miles away. I glanced over once at Maisie’s pale face and then concentrated on the driving. I had a hundred or more questions I wanted to ask her, but now wasn’t the time. She was far too upset. I glanced at the dashboard clock and saw that it was just after twelve, or the witching hour, as the old people called the hour after midnight. The name came from the belief that witches are most active then, and that it’s the time when magic takes place. I hoped that was true. We might need a bit of magic before this night was over.

  Chapter Two

  Garrett

  It had been ten years to the day—the morning after my twenty-first birthday—that I had last woken up with the headache from hell. That one had been the fault of my buddies and probably the half bottle of whisky I had drunk. This one was because I had been so worried about Ella I hadn’t slept.

  I didn’t like leaving her to deal with Maisie on her own after Roger Battersley’s accident, but I needed to help manage the accident scene until reinforcements arrived. I reached out for the glass of water at the side of the bed that someone had very helpfully provided and squinted at my phone. I’d already answered the text from Ella saying she was on her way home. That one came in around three in the morning. Then two more texts from Roberta saying Battersley was in surgery, and she would keep me informed. It was just past eight in the morning on Sunday, though, and Roberta was on duty officially, as I had taken off the whole weekend to celebrate my birthday. My birthday, which was actually today, even though we’d had my surprise party last night.

  With a pang I remembered last year. It had been the first birthday for me without mom or dad, and while we didn’t always see one another on the day, between my work and their travelling, I had missed them so much when I had woken to an empty apartment.

  Anna had been out celebrating getting some sort of award for her last performance and had texted me, saying she was spending the night with friends.

  It had said something about the relationship with my ex-girlfriend in Atlanta that not only had she completely forgotten my birthday, but that I didn’t much care that she had. Breakfast had been the worst though, funnily enough. It had always been a “thing” growing up. A birthday breakfast. Mom would cook all my favorites, and I would race downstairs to find a pile of gifts wrapped up next to my plate at the table.

  I swallowed down my suddenly tight throat and wondered if I’d had even more wine that I remembered? Maybe I was getting sick? I threw back the comforter with determination and glanced at the Atlanta PD T-shirt I was wearing. Tom had tried to convince me he needed it, but it was my last one, so I hadn’t been persuaded.

  I didn’t rush to get ready. I knew after being up all night Ella would be still asleep, and I wasn’t sure how hungry I was. It would have been nice to share breakfast and hear about what had gone down at the hospital in Newbury, but the best thing I could do was take both dogs out for her so she could get some sleep. I went downstairs hearing the radio on. Nan loved her “wireless” as she called it. I opened the door and stopped in shock. Watson immediately jumped up and came for his morning hello, but it was the table that caught me in stunned surprise. It was set for three. All Nan’s “best china” as she called it was set out, and the pile of cards and presents on the table rendered me speechless.

  Nan appeared in front of me and gave me a bear hug. She had a surprisingly strong grip for an eighty plus year old. “Happy Birthday, Garrett. I was just going to send Watson up for you. I’ve got everything warming, but I don’t want it to dry out. Tom’s wife picked him up an hour ago, and he said he’d see you later. He was trying to bribe me into accidentally losing this shirt the next time I did the laundry.” She smiled, patting it with her hand. “I told him bribery was illegal, and I knew a nice policeman that would arrest him if he wasn’t careful.

  I grinned and straightened up just as Ella appeared in the doorway, along with her Old English sheepdog, Sherlock. She stepped over in front of me and gently kissed my cheek, as Sherlock greeted both me and my black Lab, Watson.

  And after the late night I knew Ella had, it was very impressive—and meant a lot to me—that she was there this early in the morning. I didn’t know what to say, or how to respond, but she forestalled it by pressing a very large cup of coffee in my hand, which I knew she would have made in her coffee maker and brought over. Somehow in the nearly eight months I’d been in England, I’d never gotten around to buying my own. I wasn’t going to admit that it may have had something to do with enjoying Ella’s visits every morning.

  “Happy birthday, Garrett. I was going to wrap the mug, but I thought you’d prefer it filled.”

  I glanced down at the mug and saw the picture of a pair of handcuffs and the words “Stupid people keep me employed.”

  I chuckled, feeling my headache disappearing.

  “It was a set of two. The other one says ‘I’m the crazy cop everyone warned you about.’”

  “These are great.” I looked up. “Especially if you keep them filled with your coffee.”

  Ella blushed very prettily after getting my meaning, and Nan waved me to sit down.

  “Has anyone heard how Roger is?”

  “I spoke to Maisie about twenty minutes ago,” Ella said, her face falling at once. Her pretty eyes were dark with shadows that hinted at a lack of sleep. She looked worried and distracted.

  “I offered to come back and sit with her, but Roger’s brother and stepmother came in not long after we arrived, so she said no. Her father had already called and told us he was on his way. It’s why I left in the first place—the waiting room for emergency surgery is terribly small, and there just wasn’t much room. She told me she’d call me with any news, but I still hated to leave her.”

  “The full works, Garrett,” Nan interrupted by putting a huge plate down. “Bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, and German toast.”

  I had to blink my way back from Ella’s smile. “German toast?” I sat down, suddenly feeling ravenous and I rubbed my hands together.

  “Lily?” Ella turned her attention to her. “Why do you call it ‘German’ toast? It was always French toast when I was growing up.”

  “Well,” Nan said after putting down the largest breakfast I had ever seen in my life before me, “There are lots of names for it. My mum always called it German toast, though it was actually invented by the Romans, or so Dr. Rowland’s receptionist Monica told me.”

  “Eggy bread too,” I added after swallowing a mouthful of coffee. “I remembered Nan calling it German toast, but my mom calling it ‘eggy bread.’” I dragged my attention from the breakfast plate that would have fed half my precinct and looked up at her. “So it isn’t French?”

  “Pain Perdu is.” Nan sat down warming to her subject. “It means ‘lost bread,’ as they soaked stale bread in milk and often egg before frying it, but Monica told me that ‘Pain Dulcis’ is mentioned as early as the fifth century AD. It was made in much the same way, dipping bread in egg and milk mixture and then fried, but not necessarily covering it in sugar and cinnamon like in America. Some ate it more as salty side dish to the meats.”

  I picked up my fork. “Much as I’m enjoying this little side trip through culinary history, let’s get back to Dr. Rowland’s nurse. How did something like that possibly come up in conversation in a doctor’s offic
e?”

  “Because Marjorie Dunready’s Jasmine swallowed a conker.”

  I sighed. I should really be used to this by now.

  “Oh no,” Ella exclaimed. “They’re really poisonous.”

  “Deers eat them,” Nan pointed out.

  “But not little dears,” Ella parried.

  I held up my hand to stop it. “Okay, so what has Jasmine swallowing a conker—whatever the heck they are anyway—got to do with French toast or whatever it’s called?”

  Nan tutted. “You know what conkers are, Garrett. You played conkers. I remember you having battles with Grandad.”

  I frowned. “I used to play all sorts of things with Grandad.” Except he’d died when I was still in elementary school, so I didn’t remember him as well as I would have liked.

  “Conkers are the seeds from Horse Chestnut trees,” Ella supplied.

  “The little hard balls?” Nan added.

  “And you used to drill a hole and hang the ball from a piece of string—”

  “And you would battle someone else’s and try and smash it,” I interrupted Ella. I remembered collecting them.

  “And they’re good for spiders, too,” Nan pronounced sagely.

  I grinned. “So are rolled up newspapers. I would have thought it might take a certain amount of skill to hit a spider with a conker fastened to a piece of string. Sounds kinda fun, though.”

  She eyed me with her patient, “You know nothing because you are American” look. “I mean that they’re a deterrent to spiders. I remember my mother always having a conker in every corner of the house.”

  I took a bite of sausage and tried valiantly to come up with an answer to that comment. I chewed for a moment and then shook my head. “Nope. I got nothing.”

  “Ooh,” Ella said excitedly. “My Aunty Vi used to do that too. They’re supposed to give off a smell that spiders hate.”

  I swallowed and knowing I was probably going to regret it, asked the question anyway. “And what have conkers got to do with French toast?”

  Nan looked at me like I was crazy, but then her face cleared. “Oh! Yes, well, I was in with Dr. Rowland’s nurse, Monica, getting my flu shot, and she told me Dr. Rowland had hurried out in a panic, because they thought Jasmine had eaten a conker, and they’re poisonous.”

  “Except to deers,” I clarified keeping my face straight, “but not necessarily to spiders.”

  Nan eyeballed me. “But she hadn’t. She only told her brother she had, because she wanted his toast.”

  I pondered that for a second. “Nope, you lost me again.”

  “He’s the reigning conker champion at school. She told him she’d eaten his conker. He raced upstairs screaming for his mother, and she stole his breakfast of French toast while he was gone. By the time Jasmine admitted to hiding the conker under her bed, Dr. Rowland was already on his way.”

  Of course he was. I gave up on the breakfast two-thirds of the way through, much to Watson and Sherlock’s delight. Now I had to figure a way to slip my leftovers to them without Ella noticing. She thought I shouldn’t feed them “people food.” I turned my attention back to what I remembered of last night. “Did Maisie say anything more about what happened?”

  “She didn’t know much more. He was in Maisie’s car when she and Lily came out, so she drove his car to take Lily home.”

  “That’s right,” Nan corroborated. “He was asleep in the front seat. Maisie took his keys when she saw how drunk he was getting, so she drove me home in his. He was so drunk, he never even stirred when we called to him.” She shook her head. “I think he must have woken up, found his car gone and decided in his drunken state that he’d drive Maisie’s car home. Then he ran the car into that ditch because he was still drunk. He must have decided to get out and passed out. Or he fell and knocked himself out—either case is likely as drunk as he was, and then poor Maisie came along and ran over him.” She shook her head.

  “It’s a bad business,” she decreed and sipped her tea. “Of course, he is a reporter,” she continued in a disparaging non-sequitur.

  I glanced at her from where I had just slipped Watson the last sausage. I was proud of myself for not even blinking at that last remark. “Local reporter?” I wasn’t involved in the case, but I was curious. Whoever took it on would be interviewing everyone.

  “He works for the Newbury Weekly news.” Ella wrinkled her nose, and I assumed she didn’t think much of the paper or maybe reporters in general—or maybe just Roger Battersley. She confirmed that in her next statement, pursing her lips. “I love Maisie to death, but she’s far too good for Roger.”

  “Councilman Miller,” Nan continued pointedly, nodding her head.

  “Who?” I asked ready to trot happily down another of Ella and Nan’s rabbit holes if it got me any info. Since Maisie was a personal friend, I’d be relegated to the sidelines on this investigation, but I couldn’t help wondering exactly what had caused the accident. I seemed to remember Maisie saying last night that she hadn’t even known Roger was in the road until she felt the bump, blinded as she was by the bright headlights shining into her face as she rounded the curve. Why had Roger been in the road when he’d been ironically struck down by his own car, driven by Maisie? Nan’s baseless theories pointed to that conclusion, as she was not hampered as the police were by such minor considerations like actual evidence.

  But what had Roger been doing driving Maisie’s car instead of waiting for her to return? Or had he even been driving? Had someone else been in the car with him? If so, who? No one else had been around, but he must have known Maisie would come back with his car eventually—or had he been too drunk to know what he was doing?

  There seemed to be more questions than answers.

  I realized belatedly that Nan was trying to answer my question about the Councilman and strive to pay closer attention. “Councilman Pete Miller,” she said, “was running for mayor about three or four years ago. Roger did this exposé saying Pete’s grandfather was really a man named Herman Müller—not Miller—and he’d been a guard in one of the Nazi concentration camps in the Second World War. And the worse thing was Pete’s fiancée Gemma is Jewish, and teaches at the primary school that Princess Alice sends her children to. You know, Princess Alice, the niece of that foreign royal couple?”

  I shrugged. I honestly had no idea and didn’t keep up with royalty anyway—I could barely keep up with this conversation—but I knew Nan did.

  “Well,” she continued, “because of the royal connection, the story was sold to one of those awful tabloids and both families were hounded by the press. Anyway, Gemma and Pete split up, and Pete resigned and moved to London.”

  “That’s awful.” Both the horrific genocide and the fact that subsequent generations were being blamed.

  “It was utterly awful,” Ella agreed. “But it came out that Pete’s grandfather had come from Germany, but he’d left before the war there had even started. Roger had basically made the whole thing up. Müller is a common surname in Germany, you see, but Roger said it was in the public interest. He was really hoping to get a new job and didn’t care who he destroyed getting there.”

  “In your opinion.”

  Nan blinked at me. “What’s that, dear?”

  “You said he didn’t care who he destroyed, but that’s just your opinion, really.”

  “Why yes, dear. That’s why I was the one who said it.”

  I rolled my eyes—after she turned away—and made a noncommital noise in my throat. “I’m surprised Maisie is with him then.” She seemed to have a lot of common sense.

  “He insisted his ‘source’ got the details wrong, and to be honest most of it happened while she was in London herself. She only came back to Adlebury last year to help her dad after her mum died.” Nan clucked her sympathy. “And from what I know of Roger, he can be a charmer when he wants to be.”

  “Maisie told me he was going through a terrible time with his brother,” Ella added.

  “Why is t
hat?” I patted my full stomach, yawned and contemplated going back to bed.

  “Because his dad died some months ago. Roger looked after him for years after he had a stroke. His older brother had left home years ago and moved to Australia. Anyway, an inheritance has been left to both of them equally. Roger says its unfair, because Nigel left—though he’s back in England now—and they’re fighting it out in court.”

  I scrubbed my face. Why on earth I’d thought village life was going to be so easy, I had no idea.

  Ella placed the pile of cards in front of me and took my plate. “You haven’t opened them.”

  I smiled and marveled at how many there were. There was even one from Henry and Katie who worked in the veterinary practice with Ella. I found two tickets to a London show tucked inside Nan’s envelope. “Thank you,” I said, smiling at her and feeling really touched.

  Nan stood up. “Why don’t you two take the dogs out while I load the fancy dishwasher Garrett got me?” I shook my head in exasperation. Nan had only used it once, and I knew full well that as soon as we had gone she would wash the dishes all by hand.

  “I’ll do it,” I offered. “You cooked.”

  “And it’s your birthday,” she scolded. “Go on with you, so I can finish my tea in peace.”

  I didn’t need my jacket, but I grabbed a pair of sunglasses as the August weather had been pretty good so far. We fastened the leashes on Watson and Sherlock and headed out, just as my phone started ringing. I fished it out of my pocket and stopped, seeing it was Roberta’s number. “Hello?”

  “Sgt. O’Leary,” Roberta sounded rattled. For starters I’d asked her to call me Garrett a hundred times, but she always insisted on it being Sergeant O’Leary.

  I stopped walking. “Is everything okay?”

  She sighed. “Roger Battersley had a massive heart attack during surgery and they couldn’t revive him.”