Coup de Glace

by P. D. Workman

  Mr. Ware barely glanced at Erin, looking instead at Bella for clarification. “Is that the new-fangled place?” he asked. “I hear they have all kinds of inedible, weird stuff there.”

  Bella’s face was flushing red. “Mr. Ware! I’ve told you about the bakery before. Erin bakes great bread, and all kinds of treats too!”

  There was a twinkle in Mr. Ware’s eye that gave him away. Erin shook her head. “You’re a tease, Mr. Ware. Don’t think I don’t see you for what you are.”

  Just a hint of a smile peeked through Mr. Ware’s craggy face. “Who, me?”

  Bella gave him a playful punch in the arm, just skimming his sleeve. “You’re so bad! I never know when you’re being serious.”

  “I’ve dealt with people like this before,” Erin said gravely. “There’s a trick to it.”

  Both Bella and Mr. Ware looked at her expectantly. Erin could hear Vic somewhere close behind her as well. She leaned toward Bella slightly, and said in a low voice. “You don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”

  Bella laughed, and Mr. Ware chuckled appreciatively. He put a hand over his heart.

  “You’ve wounded me, young lady! Wounded me deeply.”

  Erin cocked her head, looking at him. “How long have you lived here?” she asked. “I assume this is your family farm?”

  Mr. Ware made a little wave to the land behind him. “This has been Ware land for a long time,” he agreed. “I was born here, lived here my whole lifetime.”

  “Then you must have known Ezekiel and Martha.”

  He stilled. The twinkle had disappeared from his eye. Together, the three of them looked down at Ezekiel’s marker.

  “Yes, I knew Ezekiel and Martha,” he admitted. “Tragic how we lost them both. But you live out here long enough, and you learn that sooner or later, everyone departs this earth at some point. Some earlier, some later, but eventually, everyone.”

  “That’s true,” Erin agreed. “My mom and dad were both gone years ago. But what do you mean about the way we lost Ezekiel and Martha? I thought nobody knew what happened to Martha, and didn’t Ezekiel just die of natural causes?”

  Mr. Ware scratched his chin, considering his answer. “Everyone in these parts figured that Ezekiel knew what happened to Martha, even though he would never say. A woman just doesn’t up and leave after thirty years of marriage without any warning. She didn’t drive. No one picked her up. So where did she go? No, I’m afeared that something happened between her and Ezekiel.” Mr. Ware stared down at the headstone. “I’m not saying what. The only one who knows for sure is Ezekiel and the good Lord, and Ezekiel’s been gone these sixteen, seventeen years. He took that secret with him. We won’t know until the hereafter.”

  “But you think Ezekiel had something to do with it? He had a fight with her…?”

  “Everybody knew the two of them had their problems. But somehow, she disappeared. A lady who doesn’t drive just doesn’t up and disappear without someone helping her along.”

  “No,” Erin agreed. She hoped to hear something more concrete from Mr. Ware, one of the only remaining witnesses as to what might have happened. But it sounded like it was just the same rumors as she’d heard elsewhere. “Martha never said anything to you? That she was planning on leaving her husband? That he had hurt or threatened her? That things weren’t good between them?”

  “I wouldn’t want to speak ill of the dead. I can’t say she ever said anything like that to me. But he wasn’t an easy man to get along with.”

  Erin was going to repeat what Cindy had said about Ezekiel being abusive, but Bella might not want this repeated to someone else. She glanced over at Bella and decided against it.

  “But you don’t know. What happened to Martha, I mean.”

  Mr. Ware shook his head slowly. “I can’t be certain he did something to her. But I don’t see what other explanation there is.”

  “She might have died naturally, or accidentally, and he just… didn’t report it.”

  “But why wouldn’t he? Only if he had something to do with it and didn’t want anyone else to know.”

  Erin sighed. “Maybe.”

  He stared at her closely for a moment, then looked over at Bella. “Why are you asking these questions? You’re not part of this family. You’re not even from these parts. Why do you care?”

  “Erin is helping me,” Bella said. “I always wanted to know the real story, and she’s helping me out. And she is from here. Clementine Price was her aunt. She lived here.”

  Erin was going to correct her, as they hadn’t actually lived in Bald Eagle Falls, but had only stayed there temporarily. But Bella wasn’t intentionally misleading him, and it was probably better if he thought she was a native.

  “You shouldn’t go digging up the past,” Mr. Ware said. “Just let things be.”

  “We just want to know the truth,” Erin said. She didn’t tell him that Bella wanted to know so that Martha would stop haunting the barn. That might be a bit too much honesty.

  “You should just leave it alone,” Mr. Ware repeated. “What’s going to change even if you did find out what really happened? It isn’t going to make any difference to anyone, it will just smear Ezekiel’s good name.”

  “Since everybody thinks Ezekiel killed her, I’m not exactly smearing anyone’s name. Maybe we could even clear him. Maybe he had nothing to do with her disappearance.”

  Erin wasn’t sure how she could prove this. So far, she wasn’t having much luck with finding anything out.

  Erin had spent the evening in the bakery kitchen with Vic, blending up a number of sweet concoctions and pouring them into molds. Thursday morning, she would have the cold case at the bakery filled with frozen treats. She was excited to see how the kids—and the adults—enjoyed eating dairy-free ice creams and gourmet popsicles to beat the heat. The days were getting warmer and warmer, and during the days while she had sweated by the sweltering ovens, she had dreamed up the most delicious frozen concoctions she could think of to cool off with in the coming months. Not just frozen lemonade and watermelon, but dairy-free chocolate caramel ice cream sandwiched between two gluten-free vanilla cookies, sunflower butter pies in chocolate shells, popsicles with colorful layers of blended berries and fruits, and traditional dipped banana pops.

  It was extra work to be preparing frozen treats on top of the usual baking, but she figured that once they took off, she could cut down on some of the hot baking in the morning as people chose frozen treats in place of their usual cookies and cakes.

  “You know, I think the orange creamsicles are going to be my favorite,” Vic offered, as she took another batch of molds to the freezer. “I know they’re not anything fancy or new, but sometimes the traditional foods have stayed around for a reason.”

  “I’m not going to diss the orange creamsicles,” Erin agreed. “They’re lovely.”

  “You really know your stuff, Erin. These things are going to sell like hotcakes—or coldcakes!”

  “I hope so.”

  There was a knock at the back door, and after a moment the door opened, and Erin turned to see Terry looking in.

  “Let yourself in,” she called. “We just have our hands full right now.”

  He entered with K9 and shut the door behind him. In the kitchen, he looked around at the counters full of fruits and various concoctions.

  “Working on your cold case, I see.”

  Erin looked sideways at him. “Yup.”

  “And how is the other cold case going?”

  “Not really going much of anywhere, as far as I can tell. Everywhere I go, they pretty much just confirm what I heard in the beginning. Grandma Prost disappeared, everybody assumed Grandpa killed her or found her dead and took care of the body, but no one could find anything out for sure. I think interest died out when Cindy got home and didn’t have news about finding her mother’s decomposing body in the bed.”

  “Your partner in crime seems to think there’s been progress in the case.”


  Erin looked over at Vic, puzzled.

  “Not Vic, your sister.”

  “Oh.” Erin’s stomach turned queasily. “Reg.”

  “She’s spreading talk around town about the ghost of Grandma Prost demanding justice, wanting to know why her killer was never pursued and prosecuted.”

  Although Reg was still staying with Erin, things had been quiet the last couple of days and she had hoped that Reg was losing interest in Bald Eagle Falls and Bella’s grandma.

  “I didn’t know that. She hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

  “That’s a little difficult to believe.”

  Vic looked at Terry. “Erin hasn’t been encouraging Reg. Right from the start, she’s been trying to get Reg to just move on.”

  “By inviting her to stay here and taking her to the Prost farm.”

  “I didn’t invite her here,” Erin protested. “She invited herself. I couldn’t leave her out on the street with nowhere to live. She’s supposed to be finding a place of her own to rent. And I didn’t take her to Bella’s. She could have gone in her own car; Bella invited her over. I went to keep an eye on things and make sure it didn’t go too far.”

  “It’s gone too far.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk to her. Or at least, I’ll try to talk to her. I don’t know how much good it will do.”

  “Is she here?”

  Erin shook her head. “No. I think she’s gone into the city, but she didn’t tell me where she was going or what her plans were. She doesn’t keep a baker’s schedule, so our paths don’t cross much, unless she has something she wants to talk to me about.”

  Terry considered for a moment, then nodded and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. Erin recognized this as a signal that he was done interrogating her and was ready to step out of his law enforcement role and relax.

  “It’s hard to believe that the two of you came from the same family. Reg is so different from you.”

  “I hope so. And we’re not from the same family. We both came from other families, and then had several foster families. Just because we shared one foster home, that doesn’t mean we were raised together. We only lived together for a few months. Not even a year.”

  “She calls herself your sister.”

  “Reg says a lot of things. You need to take anything that comes out of her mouth with a grain of salt.”

  “She’s quite the con artist, isn’t she?”

  Erin nodded slowly. “Yes… if you want to call it that.”

  “What would you call it?”

  Erin considered. “She’s… creative. She always has a new scheme for making some money. Not necessarily anything illegal, but sometimes it crosses the line.”

  Terry raised one eyebrow. “And how often were you involved in these… schemes?”

  “She was older than I was. She would involve me with things… use me as a scapegoat if we got caught. She figured I wouldn’t get in as much trouble as she would.”

  “Sounds like a sibling.”

  Erin took a deep breath, determined to make a clean breast of it. “When we had both aged out, she kept in touch, and she pulled me into a few other schemes, before I thought better of it and told her I wouldn’t do anything else with her.”

  “When you were old enough to know better.”

  “Does an eighteen-year-old have that much more sense than a fifteen-year-old? I don’t know. Figuring everything out at that age is hard. I had to support myself and Reg had ideas of how to do that. I wanted it to be easy.”

  “But making a living isn’t easy. There are no easy answers.”

  “That’s what I eventually figured out. I’m not sure if Reg ever will.”

  “What is her background? Why hasn’t she learned that?”

  Erin grimaced, trying to figure out what to tell Terry. “Her history is her own business. We learned in foster care that people’s pasts and families are their own. Reg has a right to her privacy.”

  “The citizens of Bald Eagle Falls have their rights too. Don’t you think they have the right to know her history?”

  “Not really,” Erin said honestly. “They should be able to see what she is and judge for themselves. You could see what she was up to.”

  “And I have access to databases where I can see what kind of record she has. Regular citizens don’t have that.”

  Erin scraped out the contents of one of the blenders, and half-filled a cup, which she set in front of Terry.

  “If people are looking for a medium, they want to be deceived. If they want to pay to be deceived, then they get what they pay for.”

  “I can see how you would adopt that position, because you’re an atheist and you don’t believe in spirits and mediums. But people around here do. So that’s what they are paying for. They think they really are getting someone who can talk to spirits.”

  “Like I say, they want to be deceived.”

  Terry scowled, looking for a way to better express his position.

  “I don’t think you’re going to talk Erin out of it,” Vic said. “You have to believe in spirits to think that people are paying for something other than a show.”

  “I suppose,” Terry grumbled. He took a sip of the smoothie Erin had given him. “Mm. This is good. What is it?”

  “Watermelon raspberry.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Thanks. And I am sorry about Reg. I didn’t ask her here or plan on her following me here. It’s one of the hazards of using my real name.”

  Terry looked as if this aspect had never occurred to him before. “Is that why you assumed other names?”

  Erin hesitated. “Well, it’s one of them,” she admitted.

  Terry studied her as he had another sip of his watermelon raspberry smoothie.

  When Erin got home from the bakery, Reg was just getting home as well. Her cheeks were pink and her dark eyes sparkling, signs that she was pleased with herself. When she saw Erin, she lowered her eyes, trying to suppress her mood.

  “Oh, hey, Erin. How was your day?”

  Erin nodded. “Okay. Busy, as usual. You’re looking happy. You find an apartment?”

  That threw cold water over Reg’s mood. She attempted to school her expression, but couldn’t keep her smile from faltering.

  “Uh, no. Still looking.”

  “So what’s up?” Erin let herself into the house and Reg followed.

  “Just making contacts… networking…” Reg said vaguely.

  “Officer Piper was around today. He said you’re causing problems.”

  “Problems?” Reg raised her brows, affecting an innocent expression. “I don’t know what he could mean.”

  “He said you’re spreading rumors around and stirring things up.”

  “Do you expect me to not talk about my business? I made contact with Martha Prost; that’s news. That’s something that people want to hear about. Maybe they have relatives they want to get in touch with.”

  “You shouldn’t be capitalizing on someone else’s loss.” Erin lowered her voice to a confidential tone, even though there was no one there to overhear them. “You really upset Bella, you know. You were supposed to be reassuring her, not getting her more upset. She’s been quite troubled about the idea of her grandma being cold somewhere and not being laid to rest with her husband.”

  Reg shrugged. She slipped off a heavy shoulder bag and sat it on one of the kitchen chairs. “It isn’t my fault that her grandma isn’t buried there. I can’t help it if she finds that upsetting.”

  “You’re the one who suggested it was a problem.”

  “She wanted to know why her grandma’s spirit wasn’t at rest.” Reg lifted her hands, palms up in offering. “Well, there you are. The reason she isn’t able to rest.”

  “But it isn’t something that Bella or Cindy can do anything about.”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  Erin blew out her breath in frustration. “You were just trying to leave things open so that she’d ask you
back again.”

  Reg put a hand dramatically over her heart as if wounded. “Erin! You think I’m trying to take advantage of your friend?”

  “Yes! Exactly!”

  Reg laughed and had the grace not to deny it.

  “I don’t think you realize how what you’re doing can affect people’s lives,” Erin said. “You have the opportunity to make people feel better, but instead, you’re making them worse. You don’t know if someone might be really depressed. You might be pushing someone over the edge.”

  “You sound like your friend Adele.” Reg rolled her eyes dramatically. “‘You don’t know the powers you’re dealing with.’ Please. I don’t have any special power or influence. People are going to believe what they want to believe. Bella wants to believe her grandma’s spirit is restless, because she feels disconnected. She wants to pretend to be doing something.” Reg gave a shrug. “I’m just a mirror, reflecting back what she wants to see.”

  “If you keep spreading around town what happened at the farm the other day, it’s going to get back to Cindy. You’ll get Bella in trouble with her.”

  “It was Bella’s choice to invite us and Bella’s choice to do it behind her mother’s back. She’s the one who set it up that way, not me.”

  “You need to stop talking about it.”

  “I didn’t sign a nondisclosure agreement. This is my business. Word of mouth is the best advertising.”

  Erin shook her head, clenching her teeth together to keep herself from saying anything that might cross the line. She wasn’t responsible for Reg Rawlins. She couldn’t control what Reg did. If people judged her as being part of what Reg was doing, that was their problem. They should know Erin better.

  “Did you ever apologize to Adele?”

  “Apologize for what?”

  “You said you would apologize for being rude to her.”

  Reg waved the issue away. She probably didn’t even remember what she had promised. She wasn’t one to get all in a knot over keeping promises or what someone else thought was right. She never intended to do what she had said, she had just wanted Erin off her back. “I haven’t seen her around. She must not spend very much time in town. I’ll tell her next time I see her.”