A Game of Cones

by Abby Collette

As for us having a personal life, that was only in the hopes and dreams of my mother and Maisie. O was handsome, I couldn’t deny that, and if I opened my mind (and heart) to him, I was sure feelings for him would spread like wildfire. He was so agreeable and helpful. Always seemed to show up just at the right time. But, right now, I wasn’t open to that. Didn’t know if I’d ever be. I hadn’t had a boyfriend since high school, and there was way too much on my plate right now—building a business, readying a food truck and dealing with the murders that kept popping up in Chagrin Falls—to deal with matters of the heart.

  “I’m putting you on speaker,” I said to O after I called him back. First, though, I had to explain to Rory what we were doing. Rory and I stood facing each other and I held the phone between us.

  “I’m still going to talk to the lawyer your father is getting for me?” she asked.

  “Yes, but O will help you understand.”

  She nodded to let me know she was okay with that.

  “Hi, Rory,” he said. “Sorry you have to go through all of this.”

  “Thanks,” she said. I saw a weak smile cross her lips.

  “So, O, Detective Beverly said that she could go to jail for not reporting the crime. Can she?”

  “No,” he said. He didn’t even think about the answer. “Not for not reporting.”

  “Why did they say that?”

  “It was a scare tactic,” he said. “Not many things he could have charged her with. Maybe obstruction of justice. Evidence tampering. Abuse of corpse.”

  “What are those things?” Rory asked. Her eyes filled with confusion and panic.

  “I don’t think they are anything you have to worry about. But let me ask you a couple of questions,” he said. “Is that alright?”

  “Yes,” Rory said. “That’s fine.”

  “What do you know about the actual murder?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Did you see the murder happen?”

  “No.”

  “Think about what you saw that night,” he said, and he paused in speaking as if he was giving her time to do that. “Do you think you saw the person who did it?”

  “No, I definitely did not,” she said. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  I was concerned with that answer because I knew she’d seen Ari and Myles Mason, but I didn’t say anything. I’d talk to her about it later and if necessary talk to O about it, too. I didn’t think either one of them had been the killer, but it might just be important.

  “Did you want to or try to hide something or someone from the police so they wouldn’t find out about the murder?”

  “No,” she said. “I would never do that.”

  “Why did you throw your shoes away?” he asked.

  “Because they had blood on them.”

  “O,” I said and leaned into the phone. “This isn’t the first time she’s found a dead body.”

  “No?” he said. That seemed to catch his interest. “Were you charged with anything that time?”

  “No,” she said adamantly.

  “Did you touch Zeke when you saw him?”

  “Oh my goodness no,” she said. “I got close because it was dark and I wanted to be sure I was seeing what I thought. That’s how I got the blood on my shoes. It was all over the ground.”

  “Well, to me, it doesn’t sound like you did anything illegal,” he said.

  “You know that from those few questions?” I asked. “Because she was back there talking to Detective Beverly for an hour or more.”

  “He asked way more questions,” Rory agreed, nodding her head.

  “Every crime has elements—components—more than one—and for the crime to be able to be proven, every single one of the components has to be completed. You understand?” he asked.

  “Yes,” we both said.

  “I just asked you a couple questions. Each of them was one element of things I thought Detective Beverly might have been talking about when he said he could arrest you.”

  “And she didn’t do any of those things,” I said.

  “Right,” he said.

  “And if I didn’t do any part—any one of the elements—of whatever he was saying he could charge me with, then I couldn’t have done the crime?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Liam kept you so long and asked so many questions because he has to be thorough. He needs any and all information he can get to solve the murder. But he can’t charge you with anything, Rory.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said.

  “Yeah. You’ll be fine. If all the things you told me are true, you did nothing wrong.”

  She blew out a breath. “It’s all true.” She sniffed back tears. I rubbed her shoulder. I didn’t want her to do any more crying.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Can he really stop me from leaving town?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Not unless he was going to charge you with something and he’s not. But you should stick around. You need to get yourself untangled from this whole affair. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “And don’t be afraid of my friend Liam, he is just trying to do his job.”

  “I wouldn’t want his job,” Rory said, “if I had to scare people to get it done.”

  “There are plenty of days he doesn’t want his job either,” O said. “Especially after all these murders started happening in his usually crime-free city.

  “But,” he continued, “with you having blood on your shoes and the police finding them, people, including the killer, are going to know you’d been around where the murder took place and they won’t know what you saw. Or rather didn’t see.”

  “Small town, Rory. Gossip fuels enough flames to keep fires burning all winter long.”

  “I told you,” Rory said, “I don’t know anything. I didn’t see anything—other than the body.”

  “No one will know that for sure, and the killer might not want to take any chances.”

  “What are you saying?” Rory asked.

  “I’m saying that you have to be careful,” he said. “And to you, Win . . .”

  “Yes?” I said, surprised that it sounded like he had a warning for me.

  “I was kidding this morning when I asked about you and Maisie looking into it.”

  “I didn’t say anything like that this morning.”

  “I know,” he said, “but you can’t go around trying to solve this crime. Rory might not be safe after word gets around that she was there that night.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Win, you hear me?” he said. “You guys should leave this one alone.”

  * * *

  “YOU KNOW WHAT we have to do.” Maisie assaulted me as we walked through the door. She came around the counter to the door in a frenzied rush, grabbing my arms and dragging me into the back. I was sure my mother had told her everything that had happened. Rory followed behind us.

  “Investigate,” I said. “We have to find out who did this.”

  “Wait. Really?” she said, seemingly deflated that I had agreed so easily. “I thought I was going to have to talk you into it.”

  “No, we have to help Rory, I see that now. And I don’t know anybody better to help me to help her than you.”

  A smile beamed across Maisie’s face.

  “Didn’t your friend just tell you not to investigate?” Rory said.

  “What friend?” Maisie asked.

  “O,” I said. “We just talked to him so he could help explain what kind of trouble Rory could be in with the police for throwing away those shoes and not reporting seeing the body.”

  “Can she get in trouble?” Maisie asked.

  “O says no,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean that Liam Beverly won’t give Rory grief as he follows his clues.”

>   “So what was O saying about not investigating?” Maisie asked.

  “He thinks that it may be dangerous for Rory if we did. But I’m thinking the dangerous part is already out.”

  “What do you mean?” Rory asked.

  “People will find out that you were the owner of those shoes whether we investigate or not,” I said.

  “People like the killer,” Rory said pointedly.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Don’t you think that the police can solve this without our help?” Rory asked.

  All I could think about while I was pacing the floor waiting for Rory to finish talking to Detective Beverly and while we were on the phone with O was that I wanted to find out who really killed Zeke Reynolds. I wanted my friend, who had come to Chagrin Falls because someone sent her to talk to me, to be able to go back home and paint or draw or whatever it was that she wanted to do that would make her happy. And I prayed that never again in her life would she find another dead body. I was sorry that she saw one because of me, and it seemed to me that it was my responsibility to see to it that she got back to New York safe and happy.

  Yeah, yeah, that meant trying to solve another murder. I didn’t like the thought of it, or what had happened the last time I did it. I pushed out a breath. I was going to have to shove my brush with death to the nether reaches of my mind.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I know that he can solve it,” I said to Rory. “But sometimes it takes a long time to solve a crime—a murder.” I looked at Maisie for confirmation. She knew more about this stuff than I did. She nodded. “You want to wait around for that?”

  Rory looked like she wanted to say something, but instead a sorrowful look filled her eyes. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips and shook her head.

  “We were at that meeting when everyone got mad at Zeke Reynolds,” I said. “And while Detective Beverly didn’t ask us to solve the murder when he stopped by the morning after”—I looked at Maisie—“he did make a good point. We might have been there with the murderer that night. I think that’s where we should start.”

  “I don’t think the murderer was at the meeting.” Maisie raised her eyebrows. “But if you’re willing to do this, I’ll go along with your theory. One way or another we’ll figure this out,” Maisie said.

  “You think you can?” Rory asked.

  “I hope we can,” I said. “I think it had to be someone here in Chagrin Falls. It was just like the last murder. The person was from out of town and came here and was murdered. We didn’t have a roomful of potential suspects that time and we solved it.”

  “Yeah, we did!” Maisie said, dipping her shoulders and rocking them back and forth like she was some gangland East Coast rapper.

  “I think we can do it this time. But we need to stay under the radar. Not get in the way of the real investigation. But if we do find out anything, we can take that information to Detective Beverly.”

  Maisie beamed with happiness and satisfaction. I thought she might explode.

  “And I know just where we should get started,” I said.

  “Where?” Rory and Maisie said in unison.

  “The Village Dragon Chinese Restaurant.”

  “What is that?” Rory asked.

  “Maisie’s grandmother’s restaurant,” my mother said. I was surprised to see her—she must have popped in the back while we had our heads together on what to do.

  “I don’t know why you think you should go there, Win,” my mother said.

  It was understandable she felt like that. She’d been quite distraught about me being caught up with a knife-wielding murderer in a stairwell. Talk about my family being overprotective. For months after that, I thought my parents were going to make me move back into my childhood home.

  “You know the people that were there at that meeting. Most of them,” she said. “Known them all your life. And the ones you don’t know are neighbors. I feel safe with you talking to them.”

  “Unless the person they’re trying to get information from is the killer,” Rory said. “Then Bronwyn wouldn’t be safe.”

  “Oh my,” my mother said. She placed a hand on her cheek and looked at me like something bad had already happened.

  “Hey, can I get some help out here!”

  It was Aunt Jack.

  I looked at my mother and I could see her trying not to laugh. “I don’t think she’s used to having this many people in here,” she said. “Bet it surprises her that people will buy ice cream.”

  I walked out front and Aunt Jack was running around like a jackrabbit. She had sweat running down her face and beading over her top lip. Her lipstick was smeared and her wig was lopsided.

  “I can’t do this all by myself,” she huffed when she saw the four of us.

  “Thank goodness she was around to help even though I knew you wouldn’t be so happy with her being here.” My mother leaned into me and lowered her voice. “PopPop suggested we call her in to help Maisie when we came up to the police station.”

  “I was happy you guys could get to the police station,” I said.

  But watching Aunt Jack trying to dip up ice cream out of the display case and make milkshakes with the machine, I had to chuckle. I guess I should be grateful she had been available. But I was definitely going to talk to my grandfather about her. I needed to find out what she was up to.

  “We need to go,” Maisie said, coming up behind me. “We have to get this investigation rolling.”

  “I can’t leave,” I said.

  “Your mom’s back,” Maisie said.

  “My mother has Zumba or yoga or something,” I said. I knew she could only take so much drama, even though she seemed to seek it out, before she had a meltdown.

  “It was my jitterbug class but don’t worry about it,” my mother said. “I’m going to stay here, even with your aunt Jack underfoot. And PopPop is here.”

  “Okay, good,” Maisie said, “because we need to strategize and to do that we need food.”

  “Is that why we’re going over to her grandmother’s restaurant? To eat because I couldn’t—”

  Maisie looked over at Rory. “You have to eat.” She looked at me. “She needs food so that she’ll feel better.”

  Maisie was so much like her grandmother, she thought food would help solve everything. I’ve never known her to sit shiva or go to synagogue, but there was a little old Jewish woman nestled somewhere deep inside of her trying to wiggle her way out.

  chapter

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Village Dragon Chinese Restaurant was on the opposite leg of the town triangle from the area where Zeke Reynolds’s company wanted to build a mall.

  A paifang graced the front entrance, and inside the entryway was a beige carpet with cherry blossoms that butted against wood floors in the dining area. There were golden dragons everywhere and mural landscapes on the walls and red lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

  Everything was Chinese including the cook, everything except for the owner.

  “What’s the plan?” Rory said.

  “First thing is that we eat,” Maisie said. “Can’t think on an empty stomach.”

  We were sitting in our favorite seats. The ones that Maisie, Riya and I occupied whenever we came to the restaurant since we’d been in the second grade. I slid in on one side, Rory sat beside me and Maisie took her place across from us.

  Rory held up her hands like she was defeated. I assumed she was thinking we were her only hope, so she figured she would have to go along with our cockamamie plan, though her eyes told a different story. I understood how she felt. She wanted to hurry and get out of this whole mess. But what she didn’t understand was that there was no getting around eating, not when it came to Maisie or her grandmother.

  “Fine,” Rory said. “I need a menu.”

  “No,” I said. “No menus. When
Savta sees us she’ll just get us food.” I shrugged. “She seems to think she knows what we want better than we do.”

  “Bronwyn,” Rory said, leaning over to me and lowering her voice. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  I rubbed her arm and nodded and tried to sound reassuring. “It’ll be okay,” I said. “We’ll eat and figure this all out.”

  I couldn’t believe I was saying “eat” and everything was going to be okay. I was turning into Rivkah and Maisie.

  Rory blew out a breath and sat back up. “Okay,” she said. “I’m not sure how much I can eat, and I don’t like a lot of things.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “She’ll bring us enough food that you’ll find something that you like.”

  “I brought you coffee,” Savta said. She came over to our table after we got settled in with a bowl of boiled eggs and a pot of the dark, steamy hot drink. “I heard you can’t live without it.”

  Rory looked at me.

  “Information travels fast around here,” I said, and figured I may as well make Rory’s introduction to Savta formal. “Rory, this is Maisie’s grandmother, Rivkah Solomon. Savta, this is my friend from New York, Rory Hunter.”

  “I know who she is,” Rivkah said as she poured the coffee in Rory’s cup. “It’s good to meet you. You are in good company.” Rivkah nodded. “And I’m Win’s grandmother, too.”

  “Yes, she is,” I said and smiled.

  “But not that Riya’s,” Rivkah said. “She’s a bad egg.” Then she pointed to the bowl she’d set on the table. “Eat,” she ordered. “I’ll be back with more food.”

  “Do you have Szechuan chicken?” Rory asked, catching her before she left the table.

  “I know just what you need,” Rivkah said. “Lin, my cook, is the best cook anywhere around. You’ll be okay, once you eat.” She patted Rory on the arm and leaned down toward her. “My granddaughters will make this all okay for you. You’ll see.” She smiled at Rory.

  I gave Maisie the eye. I didn’t want it being spread around what we were doing. That we were going to investigate the murder.

  Savta, like my mother, was big on gossip. I suspected it had probably been my grandfather who had informed Rivkah what we were up to. First giving O my phone number, now telling Rivkah what we were doing. I’m sure PopPop was trying to make up about the Wilhelmina thing, not that I was sure that he and Rivkah had a thing. Now our operation would be all over town. Me and Maisie trying to be Sherlock Holmes and Watson. I’d rather people we questioned funneled us information instead of us giving it to them.