by Maia Chance
“Anything is possible at this point.”
We got out of the car and circled around the back. No flowers. No, nothing except Miracle-Gro-doused turf.
We returned to the Caddy and drove off. Just as we were turning onto the road leading to Jodi and Jentry’s farm, my phone buzzed. I read the new text message. “Aunt Effie,” I said, “remember we called Roland Pascal’s references, and I left a message with a lady named Valerie Rose in Vermont? Well, she just texted me and said to call her back and that it’s important.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Effie said.
A siren screamed behind us. Effie started, veered, and straightened out. I swiveled in my seat. “They’re right behind us,” I said. “Pull over! Please pull over. I can’t deal with a car chase with the cops.”
That was it, then. It was all over. So frustrating!
Effie pulled over next to a field and switched off the engine. The police car parked behind us, and two chubby cops emerged. They were the same two we’d seen in front of Dorrie and Gracelyn’s earlier. Effie buzzed her window down.
“Euphemia Winters?” one of the officers said, stooping to look in Effie’s window. He definitely needed to go up a size or two in his uniform. Not that I should talk.
“Yes?” Effie said.
“Would you get out of the vehicle, ma’am?”
Effie unbuckled and got out. The cop pulled handcuffs from his back pocket.
“Boys,” Effie said, taking a step back, “what ever happened to foreplay?”
“Hardy-har-har,” the other cop said. “Mrs. Winters, you’re under arrest for auto theft, grand larceny in the fourth degree.” He recited the Miranda warning, which was surreal since I’d only ever heard it at the movies and on TV.
Effie obediently stuck out her bony wrists, and the cop slapped the cuffs on.
“Take care of the car,” Effie said to me.
“Oh, no,” Moustache Cop said. “Car’s getting towed to the station. Stolen property.” He bent to look at me. “You’re gonna have to get out, ma’am.” He plucked the keys from the ignition.
I grabbed my backpack, got out, and watched as the cops led Effie to the squad car. She looked like a toothpick propped up by a couple of russet potatoes.
“Aunt Effie, I’m going to call Dad,” I yelled. “You’re not going to spend a single day in jail.” My voice died away. Because I had no clue what Effie had actually done down in Florida. Had she murdered that guy Paul? Did she smuggle knockoff handbags? Had she embezzled millions of dollars from a retirement community? Anything seemed possible.
“Thank you, darling,” she called. The cops helped her into the back of the squad car, and they rolled away.
I stood there for a minute with my mind wiped blank like a dry-erase board. Then I remembered the almond croissant in my backpack. I stood there eating it while cars and trucks whizzed by on the road. I didn’t know what to do. Going to Jodi and Jentry’s farm to look for monkshood was the obvious next step, although that was sounding like a too-stupid-to-live move at this point. But wait—I did have one other lead, one last fragile thread . . .
Valerie Rose in Caraway, Vermont. I’d totally forgotten that she’d texted.
I took out my phone and redialed the number from the text.
“Hello?” a woman said.
“Is this Valerie Rose?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Agnes Blythe—the investigative reporter working on the piece about the Kathleen Todd murder?”
“Oh, yes. I was hoping you’d call.” Valerie’s voice grew urgent and husky. “Listen to me, I’m truly afraid that Roland Pascal had something to do with that murder.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because he’s a criminal.”
The five-dots prison tattoo. I knew it. “Did you, um, want to speak to the police about this?”
“No. I can’t—if my husband found out—well, the thing is, Roland and I had a bit of a fling—you won’t publicize that, will you?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. I’m worried, but I can’t go to the police, or my husband will learn about my little . . . lapse. Roland did some work in my house, you see—my husband and I own a gorgeous old 1860s second empire that was sorely in need of some restoration on the interior moldings. They were already in bad shape, but just before I finally decided to hire Roland, they suffered some terrible water damage.”
“Water damage?” My belly trout-flopped.
“Yes. From rainwater coming in around the chimney. Well, it turned out that Roland had ripped the flashing off while performing a so-called inspection on my roof.”
“Why?”
“To cause the water damage! Because he was so determined to work on my house. Obsessed. It sounds odd, but he sort of fell in love with my house.”
“Did you report this to the police?”
“Well, no, because Roland . . . Roland had—has, actually—a bit of leverage. You see, I didn’t realize he had ripped off the flashing until I called in an exterminator about some squirrels in the attic, and by then, well . . . I’ve been working from home, and my husband was working in Asia, and Roland is so charming and talented. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we were . . .”
“Got it.”
“Don’t tell a soul!”
“I won’t. Promise.”
“There’s something else. Roland loves wine, and so sometimes, if his work was done for the day, he’d start drinking—and once he’d had too much, and he hinted that he’d served prison time in France.”
“Did he say what for?”
“No, and when I tried to search for some kind of evidence on the Internet, I turned up nothing. Not, of course, that that means a damn thing. He could’ve changed his name. I terminated our fling right after he’d mentioned prison, of course. I can’t have a drunken ex-convict in my bed—it cost a fortune, and two antiques dealers had to search for it for thirteen months.”
“Thanks so much, Ms. Rose. I really appreciate the tip, and I’ll be tight-lipped about your, um—”
“Lapse,” Valerie said firmly.
“Your lapse.” I hung up.
Hot pot of coffee. This was major. I was going to need help.
I thumbed to my old text messages.
Otis: OK, well let me know if you need anything. Promise?
Me: Promise.
I took a deep breath and tapped out a message to Otis:
I need help.
I pushed send. Thirty seconds later, my phone rang.
“Agnes?” Otis said. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine. Aunt Effie was just arrested, though.”
“What happened?”
I told Otis how Aunt Effie’s Cadillac was hot, and how I worried there were other things—criminal things—that she hadn’t mentioned to me, and how Effie and I had both been fingerprinted last night so it was only a matter of time before I was arrested too. “But that’s not what I need help with,” I said.
“I’m listening.”
“You know the carpenter, Roland Pascal?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, it turns out he’s probably an ex-con, he’s a confirmed scam artist, and”—I swallowed hard—“and I want to confront him.”
“Agnes—”
“Just listen, okay?” I hurriedly explained how Valerie Rose had gotten back to me and tipped me off about Roland’s water damage racket. And you know, even though Roland was a scam artist and possibly a murderer, that somehow got back-burnered to my total and absolute fury that he had sneaked into the Stagecoach Inn and ripped off the flashing. It was violating. It was like he’d sneaked up behind me and given me an atomic wedgie.
“Water damage?” Otis said.
“Yeah. Water damage like the Stagecoach Inn suffered two nights ago. I’ve been thinking it was Jentry who broke into the inn and all those other houses—including my dad’s house. But now I’m thinking it was Roland.”
&nbs
p; “Why?”
“To try to force Aunt Effie into hiring him to fix it. I don’t know if this means he’s a murderer, but he isn’t looking like Mr. Law-Abiding at this point.”
“Was there water damage at your dad’s?”
“Not that I know of.” On the other hand, I was thinking as straight as a plate of cooked spaghetti.
An engine’s rumbling made me turn. A police tow truck pulled up in front of Effie’s Cadillac and started doing that annoying backup beeping.
“What’s that?” Otis asked.
“Tow truck.”
“Wait—are you just standing on the side of the road? I’ll come and get you. And you need to take what you’ve learned about Roland to the police. Confronting him would be, well, sort of impulsive.”
“I am going to do it.” Wow. I sounded just like Aunt Effie when I said that. “I need your help, Otis. I need a witness. And then I’ll go to the police. Are you in, or are you out?”
“Tell me where you are. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Chapter 25
Fifteen minutes later, I was zipping along the highway on the back of Otis’s motorcycle, clinging to him for dear life. He’d brought an extra helmet for me, and through the visor, I saw Naneda in a Claude Monet blur. We rumbled to a stop across the street from the McGrundell Mansion. I dismounted.
“You okay, Agnes?” Otis asked. “Dizzy?”
“A little.” I passed him my helmet and hitched up my backpack. “Look. Roland’s Airstream is . . . bouncing.”
Otis removed his own helmet and looked. “Wow. Well, I’m pretty sure a bouncing trailer can only mean one thing. Maybe we should come back later.”
“No. I don’t have much time.” I crossed the street and marched up to the Airstream’s long rear window. I figured I’d peek inside and make sure Roland wasn’t, say, dismembering a corpse with a power saw before I knocked on his door.
Otis joined me. Slowly, we lifted our eyes to the bottom edge of the window.
The ratty curtains were drawn, but a two-inch crack offered an ample view.
“Uuuuuh,” Otis whispered, crouching. “I am not old enough to see that, and I never will be.”
“Is that Roland’s back that looks like a giant toupee?”
“Aw shucks, Agnes, you aren’t into furry backs?”
I gave Otis a light kick.
“I couldn’t see who the lady was,” he whispered.
I peered through the window. “It’s Gracelyn Roy . . . isn’t it?” I couldn’t tell, actually. Someone with a bra that looked like it had been designed by the Army Corps of Engineers. I didn’t want to look any closer than that. I crouched down beside Otis. “Whoever Roland is with, this is a great opportunity. He’s vulnerable, so I’m just going to knock on the door and point-blank demand some answers about the connection between his water damage scam, his prison time, and the murders.”
“Agnes, I’m new to this detective stuff, but I’m pretty sure it’s always a bad idea to confront murderers.”
I scrambled to my feet. “I don’t care.” I circled around to the trailer door. A vehicle was cruising to a sloppy park a little way up the street, but I ignored it.
I pounded on the trailer door. The rustling noises inside intensified and then stopped. A pause. Stomping footsteps. The door cracked open. Unfortunately, I wasn’t standing on a step stool, so I was eye-level with Roland’s bushy belly. Luckily, he’d pulled on some boxer shorts.
All the same, blech.
“Hi,” I said. “I’ve come to ask you about a couple things.”
“Oh, yes? I have things to ask you as well, fair Agnes.”
“You do?”
“For what were you snooping earlier today in the mansion’s rear garden?”
“Oh. Um, monkshood.”
“What is monkshood?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
“But I do not.”
“It’s the poisonous flower that was used to murder Bud Budzinski and Megan Lawrence.”
“They were poisoned?”
Roland truly seemed surprised. Never mind; I still had beef with him. “Listen, I know it was you who broke into the Stagecoach Inn and ripped off the flashing around the chimney, and let me tell you, I am royally ticked off about it! Did you know—” I didn’t finish because Roland’s eyes widened, looking at something behind me.
He muttered, “Mon Dieu.”
I turned.
Gracelyn Roy stood a few yards behind me, Annie the shotgun leveled at Roland.
Who the heck was the lady in the trailer, then?
“Agnes,” Otis said slowly. “She’s got a gun.”
“Duh.”
“Move it,” Gracelyn barked at me. “You’re gonna mess up my aim.”
Roland slammed the trailer door.
“Come out, you lying, cheating bastard!” Gracelyn screamed.
I couldn’t move. I wanted to, and my pulse whirred like an egg beater. But I couldn’t.
“Git on!” Gracelyn roared at me, making shooing motions with her shotgun. “I’m going to blast straight through that door.”
“Git on?” I said. “Come on, Grace, we all know the hick routine is fake.”
Her eyes slitted. “What did you say, missy?”
“You heard me. I know you grew up rich in Buffalo.”
“Oh, who gives a damn?” Gracelyn said, ditching the hick accent. “I’m here to shoot Roland, so move out of my way.”
“Can’t,” I said. “Frozen.”
“All dressed up like a PE teacher and you can’t move your butt an inch?” Gracelyn said. “Typical of this town.”
Since I couldn’t move, I decided to ask a few questions. “Why on earth did you move to Naneda, Gracelyn? The town where your own cousin lived—someone who could expose your secret?”
“Um, Agnes?” Otis said. “This probably isn’t the best—”
“How do you know Kathleen was my cousin?” Gracelyn said. Now the shotgun was leveled at me.
“Just answer the question.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Otis take out his phone. He’d be dialing 9-1-1.
“You want to know why I came to Naneda?” Gracelyn said. “I’ll tell you why. To force Kathleen into paying for her mom’s goddam medical expenses! Earlene didn’t have any health insurance when she got emphysema, and she guilted me into paying the bills. What was I going to say? ‘No, go ahead and die?’ I’ve been paying for everything—treatments, home visits—I even paid off that depressing trailer she lives in because she somehow managed to take out a second mortgage on it.”
Otis was speaking softly into his phone, but Gracelyn didn’t notice. She was too wrapped up in her rant.
“Earlene’s sucking me dry with no end in sight,” she said. “So when I bumped into Megan at a charity event in Buffalo and realized she was Kathleen’s daughter, I had a great idea. I’d move here, settle right in, and get Kathleen to take financial responsibility for Earlene.”
“Did you threaten to blow up her Brooks Brothers image if she refused?” I said.
“Yep.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“That’s life. Now move it.” Gracelyn yanked me aside by my backpack loop and flung open the trailer door.
Dorrie Tucker burst out, wide-eyed and clutching clothes to her chest.
Dorrie and Roland? Just . . . wow.
Dorrie squeezed past Gracelyn and me, whispering as she went, “I heard what you’re looking for, and Jodi Todd grows monkshood at her farm.” Then she ran off down the street. Her bottom bounced in high-waist granny undies.
Jodi was growing monkshood. Can you say booyah?
“Go on and run!” Gracelyn shouted after Dorrie. “I’m not going to shoot you! You’re just another victim of his lies!”
“Agnes, come on.” Otis took my hand and pulled me away from the trailer.
Roland burst from the trailer with keys in hand and jogged to the front of the pickup to which his trailer was hitche
d. He looked like an ape running across hot coals.
Gracelyn swung around and fired the shotgun.
Otis half carried, half dragged me through the trailer door. He landed heavily on top of me, just inside.
Another gunshot. The roar of the pickup’s engine. We were moving.
“Get back here, you cheating dog!” Gracelyn screamed. Bullets clanged.
The trailer swayed like a whale’s tail. Otis thumped off of me, and I rolled around on the filthy orange-and-dirt carpet until I got wedged under a built-in table. Dishes and books and all of Roland’s assorted junk went flying everywhere. It was a junk blizzard.
Sirens whooped close by. Roland gassed the pickup.
Otis pulled himself up to see out the rear window. “The police aren’t far behind,” he said. “It looks like three squad cars. Oh, crud, it’s going to be a chase.”
“Maybe we should try to jump out,” I said, still clinging to the table legs. “Who knows where Roland is going. He could go for miles!”
“Not if the cops have anything to say about it.”
The trailer made a sweeping arc as we turned a corner. Otis went splatting on the floor.
Then we were gaining elevation, Roland devouring the dips and turns of the road like a NASCAR driver. On and on we went. Sirens wailed. I’d just decided that we were on the road that led out to Naneda Lake State Park when we did a sickening, wide swing. The trailer lifted onto two wheels, there was molar-shattering impact and screeching metal, and then . . . we stopped.
For a couple seconds, I couldn’t move. My lungs made a sound like air leaking out of a tire.
Otis got up and staggered over to the trailer door. Outside, megaphones and sirens squawked. I struggled to my feet too and peered out the curtains. Cop cars were wedged all over the road. Was this the end?
Otis reached for the door handle.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Because . . .” I darted over to the windows on the other side of the trailer and looked out. The forest was right there, sloping up, and—I peered left and right—we were on the road leading to Naneda Lake State Park. We were no more than three miles from Jodi and Jentry’s farm. I turned to Otis. “The police don’t know we’re in here, right? So why don’t we just . . . sneak out the window? It looks like it’ll crank wide open.”