Murders and Metaphors

by Amanda Flower

  Emerson chose that moment to pop his head out of Nathan’s coat, and Mrs. Morton screamed. Her right hand covered her chest.

  “Is that a cat?” Mr. Morton asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “He wasn’t supposed to be here. I’ll take him home just as soon as we can go.”

  “You need to get that animal out of here right now. I don’t allow animals in the winery.”

  “I understand that,” I said. “I’ll keep him with me until I leave.”

  Mrs. Morton grabbed my arm. “I won’t let you bring more disgrace on my family or on Nathan. Do you understand me?”

  I yanked my arm away from her. “I have nothing to do with what happened here today. I didn’t even know Belinda.”

  “Belinda?” Mr. Morton asked. “What does this have to do with Belinda?”

  I stared at them. They didn’t know. “Didn’t Nathan tell you?”

  “He said that someone fell in the vineyard, you found the person first, and you called for help. He’s taking care of it. Of course, we worry about a lawsuit, but surely whatever happened isn’t our fault, and that’s why we ask guests to sign a waiver before they can help with harvesting. If one of them is hurt, it is at their own risk.”

  I blinked. Nathan had told his parents the same story he had told Lacey and Adrien. Why hadn’t he at least told his parents the truth? Maybe I could understand why he wouldn’t tell the Duponts, but I didn’t know why he’d told Grant and not his parents.

  “Do you really think that the police would be here if someone simply fell?”

  “The police are here?” Mrs. Morton asked. “I thought the sirens were an ambulance.”

  Mr. Morton grabbed the sleeve of Nathan’s coat again. I slipped out of it and away from him. “You can give that back to your son.” I moved Emerson on my shoulder. “And you might want to talk to Nathan again. Chief Rainwater will want to speak with you soon.”

  “Why is Rainwater here?” Mr. Morton asked.

  “Is this another scheme of yours, Violet?” Mrs. Morton narrowed her eyes. “I have heard rumors about you and the police chief.”

  I stared at the Mortons. Even with everything I knew about them, I couldn’t believe how horrible they were being. I might have forgiven them for what had happened twelve years ago, but they most certainly had not forgiven me.

  “Camille and Ron?” Rainwater’s deep voice asked behind me. “Can I have a moment?”

  I turned and was so relieved to see him. I would have taken any excuse in that moment to get away from Nathan’s awful parents. Behind the police chief, Adrien shepherded Lacey out the servants’ entrance. Lacey was bent at the waist, the hood of her coat covering her face, but even from a distance I heard her heartbreaking sobs.

  Chapter Nine

  I broke free from Rainwater and the Mortons. I had no interest in being there when the police chief told the couple that a woman had been killed on their property.

  In the tasting room, I found my grandmother near the signing table.

  “We are packed and ready to go.” She glanced behind me. “I see the police chief is caught up with the Mortons. I wonder how long that will take. I certainly would like to get home soon. It’s past my bedtime.”

  “Mine too,” I agreed. “Maybe he can get our statements tomorrow.”

  As I said this, Officer Wheaton walked toward us. His back was straight and his gait was purposeful. Like he had received orders and was bound to carry them out. The stocky officer was a few years younger than I was and wore a buzz-cut military hairstyle. No one had ever said so, but I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if he had been in the service before becoming a cop. Even in the middle of January, he wore a short-sleeved uniform. I assumed that he wore a coat when he went outside, but you never knew with Wheaton. “Since the chief is occupied, I’ll be taking your statements,” Officer Wheaton said.

  Of all the members of the department who could have interviewed us, Wheaton would have been me last choice. The young officer and I hadn’t gotten off on the right foot when I moved back to the village, mostly because he had thought my grandmother and I were murderesses, which was a tough way to begin any relationship. I knew the officer waited for the day he caught me breaking the law so he could finally arrest me. He would take much pleasure in that, even if the only infraction was jaywalking.

  He held a small notebook in his hand and a pencil in the air, as if he was standing at attention to hear what we had to say. As much as I wanted to wait for Rainwater and give the chief my statement directly, I could see Grandma Daisy was exhausted. If Wheaton misrepresented what I said to Rainwater, I could clear it up with the chief later.

  Wheaton looked up from his notes. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen this evening before the incident?”

  The image of the copy of Little Women sitting at the bottom of my bag came to mind. Rarely did the books put themselves in my way in the shop unless there was some sort of problem to solve.

  “I would say this entire evening was out of the ordinary,” Grandma Daisy said. “It’s not often that we have a book signing at a winery, and certainly not so late at night.” Grandma Daisy went on to describe the evening up until she’d found me with Nathan and Belinda’s body. I was only half listening. All I could think about was the novel lying at the bottom of my bag.

  “Violet?” Grandma Daisy asked in a way that told me it wasn’t the first time she’d said my name to try to get my attention.

  I gave my head a little shake.

  “Where did you go just now, dear?” my grandmother asked.

  “I’m sorry.” I forced a laugh. “It has been a long night.”

  Wheaton appraised me. He wasn’t buying it. He turned back to my grandmother. “You didn’t mention the argument between Lacey Dupont and the deceased just an hour before Belinda was killed. I find that interesting.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked. “I don’t think it was that important. Siblings fight.”

  “It’s important and you know it,” he countered. “This murder was a lifetime in the making, and your friend is smack dab in the middle of it all. What do you know about the argument?”

  I glanced at Grandma Daisy, and by her expression, I could tell that we agreed on how to handle Wheaton. “We can’t add anything to what you already must know.”

  He scowled. “I would like to hear your accounts without being altered by what others have said.”

  “Lacey didn’t do this.” Grandma Daisy glared at him over her cat-eye glasses. “And we aren’t going to say anything that makes it look like she did.”

  Wheaton gave the smallest smile. “I don’t remember saying that Lacey Dupont was a suspect.”

  “Don’t play games, Officer Wheaton.” My grandmother shook her finger at him. “Your questions are certainly implying it. If David wants to talk to us about this, he can come see us at Charming Books. It’s been a long night, and I, for one, am tired, cold, and ready for home.” She marched over to the table and picked up her bag. “Violet, are you coming?”

  I glanced from Wheaton to my grandmother and back again. “Yes.” I hurried over to her.

  “Then give me that cat, and you get the dolly, dear.”

  “I still need to find my coat.”

  “Here it is,” Nathan said, seemingly popping out of thin air. “I was just bringing it to you.”

  I thanked him but couldn’t help but wonder how much of our conversation with Officer Wheaton he had overhead.

  Nathan opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something more, but I turned away from him to hand off Emerson to my grandmother. When I turned back again, he was gone.

  I shivered from the chill I had caught outside. I couldn’t wait to return to my little apartment over Charming Books and burrow under my bed covers and sleep, but I knew that was a long way off. I had to find out why the shop’s essence had been pushing me in the direction of Little Women. I knew it must be related to Belinda’s murder. I just didn’t know how. Reading was the o
nly way to know.

  Grandma Daisy, Emerson, and I left the winery through the back door. Out in the vineyards, large spotlights had been positioned around the area where I’d found Belinda’s body. Again, the image of the knife came to me. It seemed to be such a cruel weapon. Certainly a convenient one with the grape cutting that night, but not an easy weapon to stab a person in the back with. Grape-cutting knives had a curved blade for cutting the grapes vines more easily. It would have required a great deal of force and anger, rage even. Who could have hated Belinda Perkins that much? The man from Bone and Hearth Vineyards? Had anyone told Rainwater about him? Grandma Daisy and I hadn’t thought to mention him during our statements. I made a mental note to tell him about it at first opportunity.

  Officers and crime scene techs moved back and forth from the scene. Chief Rainwater was somewhere in there among them. I wanted desperately to know what he had said to Lacey and Adrien in the kitchen.

  “Violet, dear, let’s hurry. It’s too cold to drag our feet,” Grandma Daisy said.

  I followed her to the parking lot, and the drive back to the village was short. Grandma Daisy was uncharacteristically quiet, which I took to mean that she was extremely tired. It was after two in the morning at that point, and I was exhausted too.

  I dropped my grandmother off at her house a couple of streets over from Charming Books. As soon as Emerson and I walked through the front door of the bookshop, Faulkner cawed and puffed his wings. He perched on his favorite spot, the second branch from the top of the birch tree, and wasn’t happy we’d woken him up.

  “We shouldn’t disturb his beauty rest,” I whispered to Emerson before letting the cat jump out of my arms.

  The crow cawed again, so I knew he had heard me. Emerson ran over to the foot of the tree and stared up at the large black bird. I could almost read his thought. “Someday, I’ll catch you. Someday.”

  Personally, I hoped that that someday never came. I was fond of Faulkner even if he was a little bossy.

  I removed my coat and hung it on the coat tree at the front of the shop. I didn’t put the shop lights on to guide my way. There was enough ambient light coming in from the skylight above the tree and from the gas lampposts on the street glowing through the front window.

  I slipped out of my snow boots and wished for summer. It was such a production to come and go in the winter. There was so much to put on and off every time you stepped through a door. I would much rather have just curled up in a cozy spot in the shop all winter with a book. That was the only reasonable way to survive the cold, dark months.

  Emerson seemed to have forgotten his goal to reach the crow, because he patiently waited for me at the foot of the spiral staircase like he always did when it was time to go to bed.

  Slowly, I followed the stairs around the tree trunk. Emerson galloped up ahead of me, looking back every few leaps to make sure I was still there. Finally, I reached the children’s loft and shuffled to my apartment door. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so tired.

  I opened the apartment door, and Emerson slid around my ankles and made a beeline for the bedroom. He really must be tired, I thought. Usually the mischievous cat wasn’t so enthused about bedtime, but it was late. I needed to grab a few hours’ sleep before it was time to get up and open the shop for another day of business. Thankfully, I taught only twice a week at the community college where I was an adjunct English professor, and tomorrow was an off day for me.

  I flicked on the light in the bedroom and found Emerson sitting in the middle of my bed. His yellow eyes sparkled with mischief. There was a good chance he was going to keep me up half the night by walking on my head and making a general nuisance of himself.

  It wasn’t until I sat down next to him on the plush comforter that I realized why he wore such a smug expression. He’d led me to something, a book, Little Women to be precise. The novel sat in the middle of my bed as if I had been reading it and left it there that very morning.

  But that’s not what happened. I hadn’t been reading the book, and I hadn’t put it there. It wasn’t the same edition that was on the bottom of my tote, which was most assuredly covered with cat fur after Emerson’s trip around the winery in the same tote bag.

  When I saw the copy of the book, it left no doubt in my mind that the shop’s essence somehow, some way, had known that Belinda was going to be killed that night. The shop had warned me the best it could by giving me a book. Only I didn’t understand the signs and didn’t even know how I could have understood them.

  Even though it was a novel I had read before, I had to read it again, of course. That’s what the shop wanted me to do. I lay back on my bed and opened to the first page. “ ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.’ ” The March girls were in their little home preparing for Christmas with very little money. Their mother worked all day to support them. The two eldest girls, Meg and Jo, worked too. Their father was away as a chaplain for the Union Army in the Civil War. Despite all that, they were simple, normal girls complaining about a Christmas with no gifts like any child would. That had been Louisa May Alcott’s gift to children’s literature: relatability to real children and real people. It’s why she stood the test of time.

  But as my tired eyes read, the back of my mind was thinking of another set of sisters. Lacey had had three sisters. Belinda was the oldest, then Lacey, and then the two younger girls. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

  Four March girls. Four Perkins girls. One March girl dead. One Perkins girl dead. The shop’s essence was being a little more direct than usual.

  Chapter Ten

  I read for another hour, but it got to the point that the words on the page blurred and I knew that I had to sleep. I wouldn’t be able to make head or tails of what the shop was trying to tell me if I was too tired to think.

  Even as desperate as I was for sleep, it eluded me at every turn. My thoughts were jumbled with Belinda, Lacey, Little Women, and the murder. Families were complicated and mine was no exception, even though as far as anyone else knew, my family consisted of my grandmother and me; that was it. I was the only who knew that wasn’t true. There was another potential member of my family. I just didn’t know if I would accept him as such.

  Just three months ago, Fenimore James, a traveling troubadour, had stopped me outside my shop, claiming to be my father. I would have dismissed his claim if he hadn’t had a letter written in my mother’s hand addressed to him. He gave me the letter as his proof. I read it only once, but that was enough. It was sitting at the bottom of my sock drawer, and that’s where it was going to stay until I could afford the energy to deal with him.

  Until three months ago, I had never had a father. My mother had never revealed who he was, and my grandmother didn’t know. My mother had been very private about her romance with Fenimore because she knew she would one day be the Caretaker of Charming Books and the tree, and she knew that she would one day be alone. That was the fate of all the Waverly women who cared for the tree. At least that had been the pattern. I didn’t let my mind dwell too long on the fact that it would most likely be my fate as well.

  I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next morning, I woke up to my cell phone ringing. I groaned. It was still dark outside, so I knew it wasn’t my grandmother calling me to open the shop. I almost ignored the call, and then everything that had happened the night before came back at me at a rush. I rolled over and snatched the phone from my nightstand, expecting it to be Lacey or perhaps Chief Rainwater. It was neither. It was Sadie. As much as I loved my friend, I almost didn’t answer it. I knew that she must have been calling in hopes of getting a report as to everything that had happened at the book signing last night. I was still processing what happened. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  However, just before the call clicked over to voicemail, I answered. “’Lo.”

  “Violet, what took you so long to answer? You honestly had me worried that something might have happened to you. I was a
bout to call David and tell him to break into Charming Books to see if you had been kidnapped or something.”

  I grimaced at how Chief Rainwater would react if he was called to my shop on a false alarm. Not good.

  “Good morning, Sadie,” I croaked. My throat was dry from the bookshop’s old furnace running all night.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “You sound funny.”

  I grabbed my bottle of water off the nightstand and took a swig. “I’m fine. Why are you calling so early?”

  “Why do you think?” she demanded. “I heard about what happened at the book signing last night. I stopped by Le Crepe Jolie this morning, and everyone was buzzing about it. Danielle said it was all anyone could talk about, and because Belinda was Lacey’s sister, she had been deflecting questions about Lacey all morning.”

  Danielle worked as a waitress for the café. She also happened to be Chief Rainwater’s younger sister. She and her adorable five-year-old daughter Aster had moved in with the police chief after she went through a very contentious divorce. I knew Rainwater would allow her to live there as long as it took her to get back on her feet. He also adored his niece, and I knew he liked having her around.

  I set the water bottle back on the nightstand. There was a slight thud on the end of the bed near my feet. I peered in that direction and saw that Emerson had decided to join me. He walked up the length of my body and lay on my chest. I raised my eyebrows at the little tuxie. This wasn’t typical Emerson behavior. He was a sweet and loving cat, but he most certainly wasn’t a lap cat. He had a need to roam. “What about Lacey? What was Lacey saying?”

  “I don’t even know if she was there. I didn’t see her, and Danielle was playing interference so much, I doubt she would tell me.” There was a pause. “But of course, she wouldn’t be there; it was her sister that died. Who could go to work after something like that?”

  “Did you see Adrien?” I rubbed my eyes with my free hand. My eyes felt grainy and tired. Coffee was the only way I would have any chance of survival that morning.