by Nova Nelson
I guess in this line of work, you had to get your kicks where you could.
Chapter Four
I needed to speak with Deputy Manchester, and lucky for me, I didn’t have to go out of my way to do it.
All I had to do was show up for my shift and wait for him to come in for coffee and pie.
It sounds so simple, but walking into Medium Rare the next morning had me on high alert, knowing I would see Tanner after our all-too-close call the night before. Despite the mental clutter associated with Heather’s appearance, I still couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d looked at me on that swing, the feel of his arm around me, his firm hand gripping my shoulder.
But that version of Tanner was nowhere to be found when I arrived at Medium Rare, bright and early. Frazzled Tanner was back, and as soon as I entered the kitchen, it was clear that any and all tension from the night before was gone.
I found him between long metal shelves in the back, checking off inventory on a clipboard, his eyebrows pinched as he went over the numbers. “You’re late,” he said as I walked in.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah,” he insisted, strolling over to the wall where the schedule was posted. “You were supposed to be here almost an hour ago.” He pointed to my five a.m. shift time.
“Tanner. It’s only four forty-five. I’m early.”
He paused, staring at me, slight confusion stirring behind his hazel eyes. “Oh. Okay. Then, uh, good job. Will you check on Xavier Valencia at table nine? He looked like he was about to fall asleep at the booth again.”
“Already did.” I tied on my apron and scooted out of the kitchen as quickly as I could.
Poor Tanner. He couldn’t tell a goblin from a leprechaun in the state he was in.
I remembered my first months of managing a restaurant and later owning one. It took a full year with someone to guide me and train me to get the hang of it. Tanner was totally afloat. I knew I could help, but did I want to walk down the same stressful path in Eastwind as I had in Austin? Had it been anyone other than Tanner who was struggling like this, my answer would’ve been a big fat no.
But because it was Tanner, I considered it. I could at least give him tips.
Except, that might raise questions about my life before Eastwind, and I still didn’t want to go there. I wanted to leave all of that behind.
The deputy arrived for his coffee and pie just as the breakfast rush was picking up around eight a.m. I had to get three tables settled in before I could approach him with what I’d found about his so-called suicide. I reached for the empty coffee pot to begin brewing more, so that I could refill Stu’s coffee as a segue for conversation, and spotted Grim loping in as Ted held the door for him.
“Hey, Nora!” Ted shouted above the din of customers.
I waved.
“You two hanging out now?” I asked Grim as he padded behind the counter toward his designated nap spot. When my shifts started this early, he never got up with me, opting instead to wake up in time to eat a few pieces of bacon with Ruby before strolling across Eastwind to the Outskirts and Medium Rare … where he got plenty more bacon from regulars who, I supposed, assumed I never fed him? Honestly, I probably didn’t need to feed him with all the scraps he ate throughout his day. He’d grown softer since he emerged from the Deadwoods four months before, but far be it from me to body shame him.
“Not a chance,” Grim said. “That guy is way too needy. He thinks we’re old buds just because I’ve died once.”
I thought of my own awkward encounters with Ted. “At least he doesn’t have a crush on you.”
“You sure about that? He told me I had a ‘gorgeous coat’ the other day.”
“Well, you do. Must be all the baths. You’re welcome.”
“Here you go, Deputy,” I said, pouring fresh coffee for Stu.
He hardly looked up from the Eastwind Watch, the daily newspaper that tended to be more concerned with conspiracies than fact.
“Anything good in there, today?” I asked.
He harrumphed. “Hardly.”
I hadn’t expected so. “I have good news for you.”
That got his attention, and he lowered the paper, but didn’t fold it up just yet. “I’m all ears, Ms. Ashcroft. Sometimes it feels like this town is trying to burn itself to the ground, and I’m the only one actively trying to prevent that. Well, me and Sheriff Bloom if she can free herself from that mountain of paperwork she calls an office.”
“You know that suicide up in Hightower Gardens you mentioned yesterday?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Seems like a lifetime ago, but yes.”
“It wasn’t a suicide. She was murdered.”
His face pinched together, causing his mustache to bristle outward. “You think telling me we have a murder on our hands instead of a suicide is good news?”
“Oh. Um. Yeah, I guess not.”
“Precisely, Ms. Ashcroft. It’s not. Because were that the case, which it’s not, I would now have a killer on the loose that I have to track down.”
“Deputy, I know it’s true. Heather Lovelace came to see me last night.”
For a moment, it appeared that my evidence might just change his mind, or at least open it to a new possibility. I could almost spot the exact second when he shook the thought from his head, though. “Unicorn swirls. She killed herself.”
“No,” I said. “She didn’t. She told me she didn’t.”
“And you believed her?” he said, starting to slide the Eastwind Watch back between us.
I gently lowered it so he would look at me. “Yes, Stu. I believed her.”
He nodded sympathetically. “Okay, I get it. You’re still new to this. But let me tell you, Denial isn’t just a river in Avalon.”
The familiar reference threw me. “Avalon has a Nile River?”
“Huh? No. Denial River. Beautiful place. Top vacation spot, apparently. Never been there myself, but I’ve seen paintings of it. Plan to visit it once I retire. Anyway, what I’m saying is that I can’t tell you how many people I’ve arrested who were under the influence of such strong denial that they thought they were the victims. Genuinely. I could tell. Why would denial suddenly vanish just because someone’s a ghost?”
“I don’t think she was in denial, Stu.”
“Then you’re in denial, Ms. Ashcroft.” He shrugged. “I apologize for being blunt, but I call it like I see it.” He lifted up the newspaper and shook it straight.
I pushed it down again. “And I’m calling it like I see it. It was a murder, not a suicide.”
“That’s great,” he said. “But I see it better than you see it.”
When he raised the paper again, I smacked it harder, creating a small rip down the middle crease. His eyes jumped to my face, and I could tell I had his full attention.
Only, I didn’t have anything else to say, so I simply stared daggers at him.
He groaned, rolled his eyes, and folded up the paper, setting it on the empty stool beside him. “If you’re determined to dabble in law enforcement, Ms. Ashcroft, there’s something you’d best learn.”
“And that is?”
“You ever heard of a hidebehind?”
“No.”
“They’re creatures that live out in the Deadwoods, more demon than animal. They avoid ever being seen by hiding behind things, but sometimes it’s said you can hear them crunching leaves or you might catch a glimpse of their shadow. Every now and then a bold werebear will claim he saw one, stared it right in the eyes. And whenever someone goes missing in the woods, guess what gets blamed?”
“Hidebehinds,” I said, forming a vague impression of where he was going with this.
“Exactly. Everyone wants it to be a hidebehind. For some strange reason, the thought of a creature who no one can spot jumping out from behind a tree and dragging someone off to be devoured is more alluring than the notion that the person fell in a hole, broke their ankle, and starved to death. Or maybe a tree fell on them. Or maybe”—he
shoveled a piece of pie into his mouth—“the fool wandered off into the woods specifically to die. Maybe he did it to himself.”
“Your point?” I asked, feeling deflated but also agitated.
“My point is that hidebehinds are a steaming pile of unicorn swirls. But they sure are fun to think about. If you want to start solving crimes around here, you gotta stop thinking every shadow is a hidebehind. That’s law enforcement 101. Otherwise, you’ll spend your whole life searching for something that doesn’t exist and miss all the obvious answers. And let me tell you, having seen the Lovelace crime scene for myself, it looked like every other silver suicide I’ve seen. For me to conclude it was anything else would be giving into the allure of the hidebehind. I’m not gonna go there, and I suggest you don’t either.” He paused to stir cream and sugar into his coffee. “If this ghost won’t leave you alone, best course of action is looking into some banishment spells. Or maybe talk her through it. Get her to admit that she was yet another lonely, miserable rich woman who lost all desire to get out of bed each morning. Maybe that’ll help move her along.” He leaned forward, tentatively testing a sip of his hot coffee. “Heck, I don’t know how all that ghost stuff works, but I bet Ms. True can help you figure something out.”
It was obvious that we were at the end of the conversation; my bet was that he would’ve ignored me if I kept talking, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I grabbed the coffee pot off the counter and set it back on the warming plate.
If Deputy Manchester had delivered his spiel to someone else and I was just a casual observer, I probably would’ve nodded along with him. In a lot of ways, he was talking sense.
Except I wasn’t the casual observer. I was the one who’d spent the previous evening speaking directly to the victim, and while Heather did strike me as someone who might’ve lived her whole life knee-deep in denial, my intuition was telling me that this was not a suicide, and that was something I wasn’t willing to ignore.
* * *
The long June afternoons were good for getting things done after my shift before the sun went down, but holy smokes were they hot. Almost Texas-summers hot. The cobblestone streets of downtown Eastwind didn’t radiate as much heat as the asphalt of downtown Austin, but it was close. I spent the first month of life in Eastwind wondering why, with all the magic available, there hadn’t been a public transportation system established. But as my mind settled to the comfortable pace of life here, I began to understand.
Walking was its own sort of magic. It wasn’t a large town area-wise, either. I could make it from one side to the other in under twenty minutes. I’d always been thin, but I’d never felt so healthy. Occasionally I’d watch a witch zoom by on a broom or an elderly person soar past on a magic carpet, but my desire for speed, the impulse to hurry, hurry, hurry wasn’t there like it had been for most my life.
That being said, an air-conditioned bus would have been a welcome surprise in the sweltering summer sun.
Progress was slow going from work over to Whirligig’s Garden Center. Grim had wanted to stay behind in the magically cooled air of Medium Rare rather than come along, and I only convinced him otherwise by bribing him with a slab of raw meat from the butcher on our way back through the Eastwind Emporium.
I didn’t specify which cut of meat, though, but I can tell you I wasn’t going broke just so Grim could continue to eat better than I did most days.
His tongue lolled from the side of his open mouth, his head hanging low as we approached the ivy-covered stone wall of the garden center. Grim looked like he was melting, and I would’ve laughed, but I felt a little like I was melting too, and my ability to sweat probably made me look like it more so than Grim did.
“Just going to … rest here for … a bit …” he said, trotting over to a shady spot underneath a short tree with long branches and thick foliage.
“Come on, Grim. I need you with me when I interview Lucent. Even Heather admitted he had a bit of a temper on him.”
“You think I could defend you in this heat if I wanted to? No way. I never should’ve left the Deadwoods.”
“A little late for that, don’t you think?”
“Not at all. I could walk back there anytime I wanted.”
“You keep saying that, and yet, here you are.”
“Nora,” said a deep voice from ways off down the overgrown path.
Ansel Fontaine strolled over, carrying a pallet of succulents in his thick arms. I would have said I recognized a few of the plants from back home, except the ones in Texas didn’t writhe like these did.
Ansel’s dark skin was covered in sweat, easily visible due to the fact that he had his shirt off. If Jane Saxon wasn’t taking full advantage of every inch of her fiancé’s physique, she and I were gonna have to have a little chat.
“Hey, Ansel.”
“What’s up, Grim?” He grinned mockingly. He still hadn’t gotten over Grim’s domestication since the two of them used to run in the Deadwoods together. “What brings the two of you here?” he asked. “Am I suspected of another murder?” He cocked his head to the side. “Because I can tell you right now, Jane and I were occupied all last night. And then a few times this morning. She can vouch for me.”
I held up a hand. “Okay, easy there. No, you’re not suspected of a murder.” I paused, not wanting to finish because I knew Ansel would figure out my real reason right away, as soon as I asked my next question. “But any chance Lucent Lovelace is in today?”
“Ah.” He pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in air. “So, I wasn’t far off.”
I shook my head and cringe apologetically.
“You realize his wife just killed herself, right?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
He leaned back, looking me up and down. “Here’s some unwanted advice: keep your distance from him, okay? He’s all kinds of torn up about it. He ain’t right in the head today.”
“And yet, he came to work.” Tandy had shown up at Echo’s Salon, her place of work, the day after her lover was killed, and she turned out to be the one who’d done it.
Ansel leaned forward, whispering urgently. “Where else is he supposed to go? Their bed is practically still warm from her body. It’s the house her family’s wealth built, and now it’s all he has left of her, a reminder of how that wealth drove her to such unhappiness.”
“I guess,” I said, unconvinced.
“I don’t get why you need to talk to him.”
I leaned forward, too, but not before looking around to make sure we wouldn’t be overheard. It bothered me that Ansel thought I was here just to antagonize a man the day after his wife was found dead, so I decided to set the record straight. “It wasn’t a suicide,” I said.
“You sure about that, Nora? I mean, are you absolutely sure? Because I suggest you be before you start down this path.”
“The two of you are friends, I take it?”
“Hardly. The man’s a quarrelsome jerk. He brings trouble with him everywhere he goes, like he’s a magnet for it. I steer clear of him as much as I can.”
The fact that Ansel, a muscular Adonis, kept his distance from Lucent didn’t exactly help my nerves. I’d have to tread lightly. If things went south, Grim at his most brutish might not be able to save my hide.
“I’ll tread lightly and carry a big stick,” I said, before remembering that Ansel likely hadn’t heard that quote before.
“You’re gonna need a whole lot more than a big stick.”
“Right. I know. It’s just … never mind.”
“I can tell I’m not going to dissuade you. Fine. But if Jane asks how you ended up being thrashed by Lucent, my name better not be brought into it.” He pressed his lips together, tensely as two of the succulents appeared to start fighting each other on the pallet. “He’s over by the store, just a little ways down that path. Take a left at the fork. Last I saw him, he was shoveling rocks that didn’t need to be shoveled, and Thaddeus wasn’t keen on redir
ecting him.”
“Thaddeus?”
“Thaddeus Whirligig. The druid that runs this place. Nice guy. Could use a backbone sometimes. He cut Lucent down to part-time a while back because he was too afraid to fire him outright. Thought it’d give the guy a hint that it was time to find other work. But today, he just bumped Lucent back up to full-time. Out of pity, I’m sure, but still. The werewolf is more trouble than he’s worth.” He shook his head. “I’d better get these little guys potted before they start to spit sap.”
“Ew. Yes. Go do that. I’ll just be …” I pointed the direction he’d indicated we go.
Grim took up the rear and it wasn’t long before I could follow the sounds of grunting and shouting rather than Ansel’s directions. I had a feeling I already knew who was causing all the commotion.
A man built like a short stack of bricks lifted a shovel up into the air over his head and brought it down on a pile of gravel, yelling, “Hy-ahh!” He did it a few more times, making even weirder noises as he went on. It was unclear whether he was having a mental breakdown or trying to fight some invisible foe. I supposed the two weren’t completely incompatible scenarios. Could’ve been both.
“Lucent?” I asked cautiously, keeping my distance and staying near the corner of the garden center building, just in case I needed to duck out of the way of that shovel or those rocks.
But hearing his name caused him to pause mid gravel attack, and the handle of the shovel slipped from his grip as he turned slowly to face me. “Huh?”
Despite his thick body, his face was gaunt with trench-like dimples down his cheeks. His face might’ve been clean shaven two days before, but blond stubble now shaded his jaw. His sandy hair was short on the sides, longer down the middle and was sweat-slicked away from his overly tanned face. “Who’re you?” he asked, staring at me blankly. He looked like a man who’d just woken up from an accidental nap.
“Nora,” I said. “Nora Ashcroft.”
“Never heard o’ you.”
“I’m new to town.”
He crunched down the small hill, and I was relieved that he didn’t take his shovel with him. “You from Avalon?” He looked me up and down. “Nah, folks from Avalon would eat their own feet before dressing like you.”