Panic Button

by Kylie Logan

  This time, I didn’t even try to control my smile.

  See, that was the moment I knew for sure. Perfect? Oh yeah, it would be.

  CHARM STRINGS

  I find the whole notion of charm strings (also called friendship strings or memory strings) terribly romantic. Imagine all those girls way back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, trading and saving buttons, giving and getting them as gifts, then stringing them in the hopes that once button number one thousand arrived, so would Prince Charming.

  In fact, there were a number of superstitions associated with charm strings, and a number of them were variations on the Prince Charming story. One said that the prince was the one who had to string that one thousandth button. Another turned the romantic notion on its head and said that if a girl got button number 1000, she would die an old maid.

  Whatever the legend, old charm strings are extremely rare these days. That doesn’t mean the hobby couldn’t be renewed. Save up old buttons, and string them with the princes and princesses in your life! Who knows, someday, those charm strings, too, might be precious, old and valuable.

  For more information about vintage and antique buttons and button collecting, go to: www.nationalbuttonsociety.org.

  Turn the page for a preview of Kylie Logan’s new League of Literary Ladies Mysteries…

  Mayhem at

  the Orient Express

  Coming soon from Berkley Prime Crime!

  IF IT WASN’T FOR JERRY GARCIA PEEING ON MY PANSIES, I never would have joined the League of Literary Ladies.

  No, not that Jerry Garcia! Jerry Garcia, Chandra Morrisey’s cat. In fact, it was that peeing incident, and the one before it, and the one before that…

  Well, suffice it to say that if it wasn’t for Jerry’s less-than-stellar bathroom habits, there never would have been a League at all.

  Jerry, see, was the reason I was in mayor’s court that Thursday morning.

  Again.

  “That damned cat…” I bit my lower lip to hold in my temper and the long list of Jerry’s sins I was tempted to recite. After all, Alvin Littlejohn, the court magistrate, had heard it all before.

  Then again, so had Chandra Morrisey, and her cat was still peeing on my pansies.

  Chandra was standing to my right, and I swung her way. “He needs to be kept in the house. That’s all I’m asking.”

  It was all I’d asked the week previously, too, and just like that time (and the time before and the time before that), Chandra rolled her eyes, which were the color of the gray clouds that blanketed the sky outside the town hall building. “Cats are free spirits,” she said, her voice as soft as the rolls of flesh that rippled beneath a tie-dyed T-shirt that fit her like a second, Easter-egg-swirl-of-color skin. “They are the embodiment of nature spirits. If we don’t allow them to roam free, we impede their mission in this world. They can commune with the Other Side, you know.” Like it would help the information sink into this nonbeliever’s skull, Chandra looked at me hard.

  If I was still back in New York City, I would have given her a one-finger salute and been done with it. But we were, in fact, on an island twelve miles from the southern shore of Lake Erie, and as I’d come to learn in the six weeks I’d lived on South Bass, residents here were a different breed. They moved slower than folks back in the Big Apple. They were friendlier. Considerate. More civilized.

  Well, except for Jerry.

  And, obviously, his owner.

  “This is ridiculous!” I threw my hands in the air. Not as dramatic a gesture as I would have liked, but hey, like I said, people here were considerate, and my goal in coming to the island in the first place was to blend in. “You’re wasting my time, Chandra. And the court’s time, too. All you need to do is—”

  “All Chandra needs to do?”

  Honestly, I was so fixated on Jerry’s loony owner, I’d forgotten Kate Wilder was even in the room. She stood on my left, tapping one sensible pump against the black-and-white linoleum. “It’s not like I have time for this, Alvin, and you know it,” she grumbled, her arms crossed over the jacket of a neat navy suit that looked particularly puritanical against flaming orange hair that was as long as my coal black tresses, but not nearly as curly. “We could settle this whole thing quickly, if you’d tell her…” Kate was a petite, pretty woman who looked to be about thirty-five, the same age as me. Her emerald green eyes snapped to mine. “Tell Ms. Cartwright here to cut down on the traffic at that B and B of hers and there won’t be anything left for us to discuss.”

  “Oh, we’ll still have plenty to talk about,” I shot back. “Especially if your constant nagging about traffic means my renovations don’t get done by the time I’m scheduled to open. Come on, it’s not like it’s any big deal. It’s just a few trucks coming down the street now and then.”

  “A few?” Kate ticked the list off on her fingers (which is actually a pretty pithy way of putting it since while she was at it, she was ticking me off, too). “There was the truck that brought the new windows, and one that took care of the heating and air conditioning, and one from the painters and one from—”

  “I thought you said you were busy and had better things to do?” Ah yes, me at my sarcastic best! Not one to be intimidated (see the above comment about New York), I, too, crossed my arms over my black turtleneck and adjusted the dark-rimmed glasses on the bridge of my nose, the better to give Kate the kind of glare anybody with that much time on her hands—not to mention nerve—deserved. “Apparently, you don’t have anything better to do than spend your time looking across the street at my place. Once the renovations are complete—”

  “At least those trucks won’t be spewing fossil-fuel exhaust fumes near my herb garden.” Chandra tugged at her left earlobe and the three golden hoops in it. “Once she gets rid of those—”

  “And she cuts down on the traffic jams—”

  “And she takes care of that damned cat—”

  “All right! That’s it. Quiet down!” In the weeks I’d been appearing before Alvin in the basement courtroom, I had never seen him so red in the face. He fished a white cotton handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. “This has gotten…” There was a plastic bottle of water on his desk and he opened it and took a gulp. “This situation has gotten out of control. You’re out of control.”

  I would have been willing to second this last comment if he’d kept his gaze on Chandra. When it moved to Kate…well, that was understandable, too. But when it slid my way and stayed there, I couldn’t help myself. My chin came up and my shoulders went back.

  Alvin scraped a hand through what was left of his mousy-colored hair and pointed a finger at Kate. “You’re mad at…” He arced his finger in my direction. “Her because of the traffic. And you’re…” His slightly trembling finger remained aimed at me. “Mad at her…” The accusatory gesture moved to Chandra. “Because her cat—”

  “Pees on my flowers. All the time. What’s going to happen in the summer when I have guests and they want to sit out on the front porch and—”

  “I get the picture.” A muscle jumped at the base of Alvin’s jaw, but he kept his gaze on Chandra. “And you, Chandra, you’re mad at Kate. Do I have that right? Because…” He flipped open a manila file on his desk and consulted the topmost piece of paper in it. “Because Kate plays opera too loud on Sunday mornings.”

  Chandra nodded, and her bleached blond, blunt-cut hair bobbed to the beat. “I do my meditating in the morning.” She said this in a way that made it sound like public knowledge. For all I knew, it was. From what I’d heard, Chandra Morrisey had lived in Put-in-Bay (the little town that was the center of life on South Bass) nearly all of her nearly fifty years. “She’s messing with the vibrations in the neighborhood and that affects my aura.”

  “Oh, for pity sake!” Kate’s screech fell flat against the pocked tiles of the drop ceiling. “She hates opera? Well, I hate that creepy sitar music that’s always coming from her place. And I don’t have time for this
. Any of it. I need to get to the winery.”

  “Oh, the Wilder Winery!” If we hadn’t been enmeshed in our own little version of a smackdown, I might have laughed at Chandra’s attempt at a la-di-da accent. “Play your screechy opera at the winery, then, why don’t you,” she suggested to Kate. “And leave the rest of us in peace.”

  “Which actually might be possible,” Kate snapped back, “if it wasn’t for you, Chandra, and those stupid full moon bonfires you’re always building.” She fanned her face with one perfectly manicured hand. “The smoke alone is bound to kill somebody one of these days. Add your singing to it—”

  “It isn’t singing.” Chandra was so sure of this, she stomped one Ugg-shod foot. “It’s chanting.”

  “It’s annoying,” Kate countered.

  “And it’s getting us nowhere.” Me, the voice of reason. “It all comes down to the stupid cat. If you’d just make Jerry Garcia—”

  “In the animal kingdom, cats are among the highest beings, intelligence-wise.” Need I say that this was Chandra talking? The heat kicked on and blew my way and it was the first I realized she was wearing perfume that smelled like the herbal tea they sold in the head shops around Washington Square Park back in New York.

  I wrinkled my nose.

  And ruffled Chandra’s feathers.

  Her eyes narrowed and her voice hardened. “In fact,” she said, “the ancient Egyptians—”

  “Are dead, mummified, and poohed to dust. Every single one of them,” I reminded her and added, just for the sake of a little drama, “they died from the germs because they let their cats pee anywhere they wanted. Like on their neighbor’s flowers.”

  “Oh, yeah?” It was the ultimate in bad comebacks, and yes, I knew better. I swear, I did. I just couldn’t help myself. I answered Chandra with a “yeah,” of my own.

  It should be noted that at this point, Alvin dropped his head on his desk.

  I’m convinced he would have kept it right there in the hopes that when he finally looked up, we’d all be gone, but at that moment, the door to the courtroom opened.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were busy.” The woman who poked her head in, then stepped back, looked familiar. Short. Round. Dark hair dusted with silver. I’d been introduced to Marianne Littlejohn, the town librarian and Alvin’s better half, at a recent potluck.

  Only the evening of the gathering, her eyes weren’t puffy and her nose wasn’t red. Not like they were now.

  “Marianne! What’s wrong?” Yes, this would have been a perfect thing for Alvin to say, but it wasn’t the magistrate who raced to the door and grabbed Marianne’s hands. It was Chandra. She drew Marianne into the room. “Your aura is all messed up.”

  “It’s…it’s…” Now that it was time to explain, Marianne hiccuped over the words. “I’ve had such terrible news.”

  Kate checked the time on her phone. “And that’s a shame, really, but we need to finish up here. I’ve got to get over to the winery—”

  “And I’ve got someone coming to repair the stained glass window in my front stairway,” I piped in, refusing to be outdone by Miss I’m-So-Important. “So if I could just pay a fine or something, I’ll be heading home. And by the way…” I hoped Kate could see the wide-eyed, innocent look I shot her from behind my glasses. “I hear the stained glass artist is going to be driving a really big truck.”

  A head toss from Kate.

  A click of the tongue from Chandra.

  A whimper from Marianne.

  And Alvin was on his feet.

  His teeth clenched and his palms flat against his desk, he turned to his wife. “Marianne, honestly, this isn’t a good time. We’re kind of in the middle of something and—”

  “I know. I said I was sorry.” She sniffled. “It’s just—”

  “That we need to finish up,” Kate said.

  “And get out of here and back to the B and B,” I put in.

  “Nobody’s going anywhere. Not until you women learn to get along!”

  In all the weeks I’d been appearing in court thanks to my neighbors’ not-so-neighborly complaints, I’d never heard Alvin raise his voice. Now, it ricocheted against the walls like buckshot on a barn door.

  We pulled in a collective gasp and as one, took a step back and away from his desk.

  Alvin, apparently, was as surprised by his outburst as the rest of us.

  “Look what you’ve reduced me to!” he said, suddenly ashen and shaking like a hoochie-coochie dancer. “I’ve been doing this job for nearly thirty years and in thirty years of weekend drunks and fighting fishermen and vandals tearing up the mini-golf course…in thirty years I’ve never lost my temper. Now you three…”

  Since Marianne was standing next to me and sobbing, I can’t say for certain, but I think Alvin growled to emphasize his point.

  That was right before he pulled in a long breath and let it out slowly. “Maybe what we all need,” he said, “is a time-out.”

  “Great.” Kate reached for her Coach bag and slung it over one slim shoulder. “I’m out of here.”

  “No. That’s not what I meant. You’re not going anywhere, Kate. Not yet. None of you are.” Alvin sat back down and folded his trembling hands together on the desk in front of him, his suddenly flint-hard gaze hopping over each of us before it came to rest on his wife. “You have the floor, honey. Tell us what’s going on. That will give us all a chance to take a few deep breaths and get our collective heads back where they belong before we figure out what we’re going to do about the problems in Ms. Cartwright, Ms. Wilder, and Ms. Morrisey’s neighborhood.”

  “Okay. Sure.” In a perfect mirror image of her husband, Marianne clutched her hands together at her waist. “It’s the library. Our funding. We’re…” A single tear slipped down her cheek. “Oh, Alvin. What are we going to do? We’re going to lose Lucy Atwater’s grant!”

  It goes without saying that this meant something (and apparently something important, from the looks on the faces around me) to everyone but me. Newcomer, remember, and I leaned forward, to remind Marianne that I was there. And I was lost.

  “Lucy Atwater,” she said, her voice clogged with tears. “She died…oh, it must be twenty years ago now. Don’t you think, Chandra? Wasn’t it the winter Bill Smith over at the hatchery fell into the fish tank and drowned? It must have been right after that, because I remember Lucy telling me how much she missed Bill. They used to date, you know. Well, I’m not exactly sure it could be called dating. But they’d step out together and—”

  Alvin cleared his throat.

  Marianne gulped and collected herself and the quickly untangling ends of her story. “When Lucy died, she left the library a chunk of money. It funds most of our programs, but there’s a catch. We can only get our yearly payment if we have an ongoing book discussion group. And…” Marianne’s shoulders rose and fell in a slow-motion shrug. “These days no one’s signing up.”

  “People are too busy,” Kate said.

  “Yes, of course, that’s part of the problem.” Marianne dug a tissue out of her purse and touched it to her nose. “There are so many other distractions these days, books aren’t high on enough people’s lists. The other part of our problem is that there are so many summer visitors here to the island. They don’t sign up for programs because they know they’re not going to be around long enough to participate more than once or twice. I don’t know what to do. I’d hate for kids to come to the island in the summer and stop at the library and…” A fresh cascade of tears started and Alvin handed Marianne his handkerchief. She blew her nose. “Wouldn’t it just be awful for some poor, sweet child to show up at the library and find it closed?” she wailed.

  “It’s really too bad,” Kate agreed. “Now can we leave?”

  In the hope that she was actually right about something, I grabbed my purse.

  Chandra didn’t move a muscle. That is, until she slipped an arm around Marianne’s shoulders. “Of course you’re upset. Who wouldn’t be!” With her
other hand, she grabbed for the denim hobo bag she’d plunked on a nearby chair when she entered the courtroom. She opened it, dug around inside, and came up holding a small glass bottle.

  “It’s neroli oil,” Chandra said, pressing the bottle into Marianne’s hand. “Rub it on your solar plexus. You know, right here.” She pressed a hand to a spot just under her own stomach. “That’s your Manipuri chakra, and remember what we talked about when you came for your last crystal healing, that’s the chakra that corresponds to feelings of fear and anxiety, and that’s what we need to contend with first before we look for an answer to your problem. No worries,” she added, when Marianne gave the bottle a questioning look. “Neroli smells really nice, zesty and spicy with a little flowery note. Go on, Marianne, just pull up your sweater and—”

  “Not in my courtroom!” Alvin was on his feet again and one look from him and Marianne blanched and handed the bottle back to Chandra.

  With a sigh of epic proportions, Kate dropped into the nearest chair and checked her text messages. “This is a perfect example of everything I’ve been telling you, Alvin,” she said, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “I told you, the woman plays sitar music. Loud. Day in and day out. Chandra’s nuts. Do you get what I’m talking about now that you see her in action? Someone needs to do something about the music and the bonfires and the chanting.”

  “Actually…” I stepped back, my weight against one foot, lest Alvin get lost in the moment and forget the real reason we were there. “What someone needs to do something about is Jerry Garcia. That stupid cat—”

  “Is nicer than a lot of people I know,” Chandra grumbled.

  Since she really didn’t know me, I didn’t take this personally.

  Kate dropped her phone back in her purse. “Can we leave now? It’s obvious nothing’s going to get done. And I don’t have time for this nonsense. Just tell Bea here…” she cast an icy green glance in my direction, “to cool it with Grand Central Station, and the Good Witch of the North over there…” She looked toward Chandra. “To put a sock in it, and—”