by Jamie Blair
"Why didn't the deputy call us?"
"I asked him not to unless I was in trouble. He said he'd have to tell you guys, but he'd take me home and do it here."
"Come in the kitchen. I'll make you a taco salad."
She sat at the kitchen table while I made her dinner. "Can you help me understand why you did that?"
"Steph and I met a couple other girls from school at the movie. They were giving me crap about being a cop's daughter."
"So you did it to prove that your dad doesn't keep you from breaking the law?"
"I know it was dumb, and I know I don't need to prove anything to anyone, especially people who think I'm boring if I don't break the law."
"Then why did you do it if you know you don't have anything to prove?"
"I don't know. I guess I didn't want to be the boring one. The predictable one. The one they don't invite to parties or ask to hang out."
"I thought you were popular at school?"
"Not really. I have my friends, but I'm not popular."
"Well, I have news for you. Those friends you have are worth ten times what those other kids are, and they won't ask you to be someone you're not. Don't minimize what you have, and stop trying to impress people who don't call themselves friends."
"I know. You're right." She sighed and laid her head on her hands.
"Listen," I said, taking her salad around the kitchen island to the table. "You're a teenager. If you're ever going to push the boundaries and find out who you are and who you aren't, this is the time. But don't compromise your standards and beliefs for any reason. True friends won't ask you to, okay?"
She nodded and sniffled. I pulled a tissue from the box on the counter by the phone and handed it to her. "Now, as part of your punishment, you're going to help the Action Agency do some research. Boring research. Historical research. It will be tedious and awful."
I loved reading about the past, but I knew it would be torture for Mia.
"My dad's going to ground me forever," she said.
"I don't know about forever, but at least until you're twenty. Now eat your salad and get to bed. Our day starts early tomorrow in Brenda's stacks of books about this town."
"I'm already falling asleep just thinking about it," she said, and wiped her eyes.
"Johnna came my way doing mandatory volunteer hours for stealing yarn. I know you don't want to end up like her, so let this be a lesson learned."
"I will not end up like Johnna. I don't even know how to knit."
I gave myself a mental head slap. Getting through to a teenager was like walking through a brick wall.
7
Mia and I were on Brenda's steps of Read and Re-Read when she opened the door on Sunday morning.
"Surprise!" I said, handing her a Blueberry Hill coffee from Soapy's. "We're here to do some research."
"I'm betting this is about the bones," she said, letting us inside.
The book store was filled to the brim with gently used books of all genres. It smelled of paperbacks and ink. Brenda lived above the store in the old building painted white with a large picture window in the front for her displays. Until I'd met Pamela, I'd thought Brenda had the best job there ever could be.
"It's about the bones," Mia confirmed.
"We need to find out if there was a caucasian man around thirty-years-old killed with a tire iron or something similar about a hundred years ago," I told her. "Oh, and he had a limp."
"That's oddly specific," she said. "How did you find out all of that?"
I told her about Pamela.
"She could get all of that information from old bones?" She asked. "That's amazing."
"I know! If I had it all to do over, I'd get my degree in forensic anthropology."
We both looked at Mia. "What? She said. "I'm going to school for fashion, not to dig up dead people."
"Maybe you should talk to her," I said. "Ask her about what she does. There's no harm in that and you might find it interesting."
"I don't find it interesting," she said. "I already know that."
"Fine." There was no getting through to hard-headed, know-it-all teens.
"Come on back to the research table," Brenda said. "I'll pull some books from the shelves for you to get started with, and I'll see if I can find anything on the internet."
We got started, and I read until my eyes crossed. I opened my handbag and combed through the contents for my reading glasses. I pulled out a pocket sized bible, a trial packet of cocoa, and the remote to our Amazon Fire Stick. "That's where it went!" I said, holding it up. "We've been missing this for weeks," I told Brenda.
"I'll take that," Mia said, plucking the remote out of my hand. "We don't want it to get lost again in the other dimension that exists inside your purse." She tucked it in her jacket pocket.
"That's probably a good idea."
I found my glasses and scoured through a few more books. "I'm not finding anything," I said.
"Me neither," Mia said. "The only interesting thing I found was about the Whitewater Valley train being robbed, and even that wasn't very interesting."
"I read about that in Steve Longo's carnival," Brenda said. " Joseph Longo posted bail for the train robber and to pay him back, the man worked for him at his circus."
"Why would he post the train robber's bail?" I wondered.
"He must have been desperate for workers," Brenda said.
"Unless the guy was a freak he could show off for money," Mia said.
"That's sad, but true," Brenda said. "It's terrible how he took advantage of people who had things wrong with them."
Mia and I agreed.
"Having animals trained to perform and dragging them around in cages on a train and in trucks is just as bad," Mia said. "They don't even have a voice, or the option to quit and walk away like people do. It's enslavement."
It was times like these when I knew Mia had a good head on her shoulders and would turn out just fine no matter where she ended up. Unless it was following circuses around and breaking out all the animals and ending up in jail.
After finding nothing in Brenda's books that led us to the mystery man, I decided to send Mia home and call a meeting of the Action Agency in the Soapy Savant. The next mission had to be kept from Mia. I didn't want to compromise her standing with the Daughters of Metamora.
I sent a text in the group message to Logan and Anna and called Johnna and Roy. Within fifteen minutes we were sitting around a table with Soapy's gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, which he put on the menu only twice a year.
"Spill the dirt, Cameron Cripps Hayman," Roy said. "It's Sunday, I have places to be."
"On a barstool," Johnna said, working on another dog sweater.
"For your information, I'm assisting Steve with his group coming in on the train today." Roy sat up a little straighter in his chair.
"Is he paying you in booze?" Johnna asked.
"None of your bee's cheese." Roy ripped the corner off of his sandwich with his teeth, scowling at her.
"Anyway," Anna said, ignoring them. "What did you find out?"
I filled them in on everything Pamela had figured out, then proceeded to my hunch, leaning in to whisper. The walls had ears in this town. "Did you guys know that Fiona and Jim were putting in an in-ground pool?"
"I thought everyone knew that," Johnna said. "Fiona doesn't keep quiet about things she can brag about."
Logan's fingers went flying across his keyboard. He was already on the same page as me.
"What if the bones were dug up when they were digging the pool?" I asked. "We all know how proud the Daughters are of their heritage. This could tie into Fiona's family's history somehow."
"Are you suggestin' she ditched the bones in that trash can so that her ancestors who used to own that house don't get in trouble for murder?"
"They're obviously not getting in trouble for murder," Anna said. "They've been dead for nearly a century. This is about honor and legacy."
"There's no rec
ord of that property being located on an old cemetery," Logan said. "So if that's where the bones came from, it's not because they belonged there."
"Always twenty-two steps ahead, aren't ya?" Roy asked, shaking his head. "We don't even know they were found there, now do we? Didn't you say the bones hadn't been outdoors or buried?"
"They might've been buried in a bag or something," I said.
"No signs of being wet, and bugs can chew through bags," he said.
"I think it's worth looking into," Anna said. "The bones could've been inside a lead-lined box for all we know. It is quite a coincidence that they're digging up their backyard and unidentified bones turn up."
"Exactly," I said.
"I can ask her," Johnna said.
"No. I don't want her--or anyone not sitting here at this table right now-- to know we're looking into this. I don't want to risk the wrath of the Daughters for this to come to nothing."
"Okay, then," Johnna said, "how do you propose we find out if the bones came from her and Jim's backyard?"
"First, I think we need to find out if anyone in her family was ever convicted of a crime. B) We need to see if we can tie anyone in her past to someone who went missing. Lastly, we need to discreetly question the men doing the work. If anyone saw something it would be them."
Logan's fingers tapped on his laptop again. "I don't think we're going to find the kind of information we want online."
"This kind of information is usually found in old diaries, isn't it?" Anna said. "Long after people have died and their belongings are in thrift stores, or antique shops."
"Mia and I have already been through everything in Brenda's shop," I said. "I didn't tell Mia about this, and I don't want her knowing."
"I'll take a look at Will's Schoolhouse Antiques," Johnna said.
"I'll be at Steve's working," Roy said. "Maybe I'll have time tomorrow, unless he has another group he needs help with."
"Where can we find old diaries?" Anna asked. "The library, maybe?"
"Maybe," I said.
"If you want diaries from Fiona's ancestors," Johnna said, "they're in the back of the train depot where she has the documents on the history of the town's founding."
"Do you think she'll let me borrow them?" I asked.
"You can't even touch them without those white gloves on that people wear when they handle old papers," Johnna said. "They're fragile."
"How do we get them, then?"
"I think that's one of them rhetorical questions," Roy said. When I shot him a confused look and shrugged my shoulders, he let out a sigh of exasperation, looked around, and leaned in close. "You break in," he whispered.
Break in? Hadn't I just told Mia never to compromise her standards and beliefs? Of course, I did believe in finding out if Fiona was behind those bones. That didn't need compromising, it was just the breaking in part that I needed to wrap my head around.
"He's right," Johnna said. "There's no other way to get your hands on them."
Anna and Logan avoided eye contact. "You two don't disagree?" I asked.
"The probability of reading those diaries without deceptive measures is too low to calculate," Logan said.
"What he said," Anna agreed.
Good gravy, was I going to break into the train depot to steal old diaries?
8
Irene and Stewart were sitting in the family room with Ben and Mia when I got home. Ellsworth, the cat, snooped around the coffee table, sniffing. Liam sat on Mia's lap, her hands wrapped around his middle so he didn't pounce on the cat. The low rumble of displeasure I'd heard him express toward the raccoons was aimed at the cat.
"They'll get used to each other," Mia said.
Dropping my handbag on the table, I greeted Irene and Stewart, then asked, "I thought you were leaving next week?"
"Yesterday, I said next week," Irene said. "Yesterday was Saturday, and Sunday is the start of a new week, so the next week."
"Oh," I said. "That explains it."
Ellsworth pranced over to me and arched his back, winding his tail around my ankle.
"Hi, little buddy," I said, reaching down to scratch his head.
"Did you know this town is overrun by raccoons?" Irene asked.
"It's a darn shame," Stewart said, shaking his head. "Used to be so nice when we lived here."
"That wasn't very long ago," I said, and they lived one town over, barely ten minutes down the road. I doubted our raccoon trouble started because they weren't there to keep them away.
"I'm going to have a chat with Soapy," Irene said raising one penciled eyebrow and looking for all the world like a Disney villain. "If he wants to remain mayor of this town, he'll do something to get rid of those pests."
Ah, yes, Irene, the consigliere of the Daughters. "Or he'll sleep with the fishes and Metamora Mike in the canal," I said.
"What?" Irene cocked her head to the side, confused.
I waved a hand. "Fuggedaboutit."
Ben chuckled.
"It's a Godfather reference," Stewart told her, grinning. "You ladies do take your club seriously."
"It's not a club," she shot back at him. "It's a historical society, and if not for us this town would've crumbled a long time ago."
An idea struck me. Maybe I wouldn't have to break into the train depot after all. "Who founded the Daughters, anyway? I'd like to read about it if the history is written down somewhere, like in an old diary or something."
"Why on earth would you be interested in that?" Irene asked. "You turned down my invitation to join, now all the sudden you're curious about our humble beginnings?"
"I should probably know since Mia's a Daughter," I said. "Just because I didn't join you doesn't mean I'm not interested."
Ben's forehead creased, and he gave me a questioning look. I averted my eyes. It was hard living with a cop who knew me so well. I couldn't get anything by him.
"I'm not sure about diaries, but my mother did leave some notebooks. Of course, any information is proprietary to the Daughters so I'll have to go through them first, but you're welcome to read any of them after I make sure they're cleared for outsider eyes."
"Okay, thank you," I said, deflating on the inside. It could take her months to go through those notebooks, if she even remembered after her vacation. By that time, who knew where we'd be with this investigation. Those bones weren't telling their own tale, so I guessed that meant I was still on the hook for the breaking and entering.
I twisted back and forth, stretching my back, and went to the cupboard beside the sink where I kept the Tylenol. "Ben, did you offer your parents anything to drink? Coffee, tea? A glass of wine, Irene?"
"We're fine," she said. "We only stopped to drop off our best boy," she said, wiggling her fingers at Ellsworth. "Our best fur-boy, that is." She blew a kiss at Ben. "I set up his box on the landing to the basement, so make sure the door stays cracked. His food and water bowls are on the dining room table so the dog doesn't get to them. I put his wet and dry food in your pantry, and a jug of distilled water in the refrigerator. His bed is in the living room on the couch. I hope the dog isn't allowed up there to harass him. Mia says Liam sleeps with her, so maybe Ellsworth can sleep in your room with his brother."
"Brother?" Ben said.
"Of course. You're his human brother."
"Got it," I said. "We'll be just fine with Ellsworth. I'm sure he and Liam will be best friends in no time. Liam's not used to having someone his size around. It'll be a nice change for him."
I downed a couple Tylenol and put a pot of coffee on. All I really wanted was a heating pad, my couch, and peace and quiet to think of what to do next. A nap wouldn't be out of the question, especially if I'd be up in the middle of the night breaking the law.
A text message dinging on my cell phone woke me. The sun was setting, and the sky outside was pink and orange, and Ellsworth was cuddled up in a ball in the crook of my arm. Irene and Stewart would be on their way to the airport.
I eased up to a sitting
position. The kitty hopped down to the floor and stretched, arching his back and yawning. I grabbed my phone off of the coffee table and looked at the notification.
"No way," I muttered, seeing the text was from Johnna. But as fast as I thought she'd figured out how to text, I opened the message to a jumble of letters and couldn't make out one word. "Good gravy."
I realized I'd missed a call from Anna, but she left a voicemail.
"Cameron," she said, "we've been at the library all day searching the newspaper archives. We got through the Brookville American, the Brookville Enquirer, The Franklin Democrat, The Franklin Repository, and we were working through The Franklin Republican when Johnna showed up and got us kicked out. She's banned for life. Logan and I are allowed back, so she's lucky. I'd hate to have to disown a member of our team, but I have a senior paper to finish and this library is a major part of that. I'm not going in public with her anymore until I graduate. I can't risk it."
I couldn't blame her. Johnna was a handful. I could only imagine she was given the boot for trying to steal something. She was probably trying to tell me what happened in her cryptogram of a text message.
"You're awake," Ben said, padding into the room in socked feet. "And you released Johnna on the town to create havoc."
"I heard about the library," I said. "Did they call the police?"
"No, but Will Adkins did."
Will owned Schoolhouse Antiques, which was right next door. "He called the cops on her? For what? Stealing?"
"He just called me to see if I'd come over and escort her out of his shop. She was pulling some slight-of-hand with a pair of antique earrings when I got over there."
Ben picked up Ellsworth and held him against his chest. "Listen to him purr." He stroked his fur-bro's head. "It's kind of nice having a calm animal around for once."
"Wait until our pack gets back from Quinn's. You won't recognize them."
"He's a trainer, Cam, not a miracle worker. They'll know how to sit, shake, maybe lay down, roll over and walk on a leash. They'll still be wild and nuts."
"Hey, he worked miracles with Brutus." Brutus was Ben's K9 partner that I originally rescued with our other dogs. He was the worst of the bunch. I couldn't go near him for fear of having a limb bit off. Once Quinn got ahold of him, he was a brand new dog.