“Except when I went away to college and met Mr. Baumgarten.”
I grabbed a random exam, shuffled to a blank page, and drew a map of Lake Bess. It’s a simple map. Our lake is shaped like an upside-down Mickey Mouse head, with the Fox Cove and Mallard Cove as Mickey’s ears down at the south end. “Fanny,” I said slowly. “You grew up next door to a bordello.”
She sighed. “Yes, I suppose I did. Although the Fox Cove and Mallard Cove are somewhat secluded from each other, dear. Especially in spring and summer when the foliage is on the maple trees.”
I asked if she had understood what went on at the Fox Cove when she was a child. “Not to sound holier-than-thou,” I said. “But I’d be concerned if Truman were exposed to something so—”
“Tawdry?” she suggested. “I know it’s hard to imagine in this day and age, but my parents sheltered me. I dare say, every family hereabouts tried to shelter their young ones.”
“But how?” I asked. “Didn’t many of those families have some connection to the Fox Cove? Some skeleton in the closet?”
Fanny sighed again. “Yes, I suppose so. But please don’t believe all the legends and lore surrounding that place, Cassie.”
I promised I didn’t, but also told her I wanted to understand the facts. “Who knows what details or stories might lead me to Mr. X’s loved ones.”
Fanny agreed the “rather complicated” Fox Cove history might have a bearing, and I mentioned I’d like to speak to Cornelius Souter.
“Cornelius!” she exclaimed. “What a clever idea. If anyone knows the facts about the Fox Cove, it’s Cornelius. Land’s sakes, he was on the Hilleville police force his entire career.”
“And you’re good friends?”
“We are. Cornelius and I have known each other for eighty-some-odd years. We’re both ancient!” Fanny laughed at herself and her equally ancient friend and told me they still see each other every week at the Hilleville Senior Center social. “There’s a dance this Friday for Christmas Eve,” she told me and laughed again. “My poor feet are already aching. Dear Cornelius always did have two left feet.”
But not Fanny. I knew for a fact that, blind or not, she still dances.
“Would you call him and put in a good word for me?” I asked.
“I will. And Cornelius loves to be helpful, Cassie. That’s why he was such a good policeman.” She gave me his address on Park Street, and I told her I would stop in on her lifelong friend sometime soon.
“I’ll try to visit you this week also.” I frowned at that incessant stack of final exams. “Although I’m not sure exactly when.”
Chapter 12
My father, Truman, and Joe were already seated for dinner when I arrived home. “What trouble have you been up to?” Dad asked, and for once, I didn’t have to lie. I told everyone I had been grading final exams.
“I’ll be finished on Wednesday if it kills me,” I said, and Truman clapped.
“The last day of school!” he shouted.
“For both of us!” I said and stepped to the kitchen sink to wash my hands. “Where’s the wine?” I asked, and Joe got up to pour. I gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and did the same with Truman. “What’s new?” I asked him as I took my seat.
“Paige!” the little guy told me. “Paige is coming home for Christmas. I get to meet Uncle Joe’s daughter.”
I turned to Joe. “I thought she wasn’t coming home for the holidays,” I said as nonchalantly as humanly possible. “I thought she was at some sort of impasse in her dissertation.”
“Dissert?” Truman asked.
My father explained the idea of a dissertation, and I defined impasse, and Joe informed us Paige had made it past the impasse.
I forced a smile and tried concentrating on my chicken and rice.
“Momma Cass?”
I looked up. “Yes, Sweetie?”
“Don’t you like Paige?”
“Of course I like Paige,” I answered a little too loudly. “But let’s talk about your day. How did the cookies turn out?”
The kid blinked. “Cookies?”
“You and Grandpa Bobby made cookies for our tree-decorating party tonight?”
He blinked again, and my father spoke up. “Of course we did!” Dad said a little too loudly. “They came out perfectly, didn’t they, Joe?”
“Perfect!” Joe answered a little too loudly.
“And people call me Looney Tunes,” I mumbled to Charlie, who had taken a seat at my feet.
***
Maxine admired the platter of cookies my father had set on the kitchen counter. “Those look perfect!”
“Take two,” I suggested. “Take your time,” I added in a whisper and turned us both away from the activity in the living room. Joe was preoccupied stringing lights on the tree, and my father, Truman, and the pets were busy opening each box of ornaments to see what we had to work with. “I have a question for you,” I whispered to Maxine. “Who has that mailbox to the North Pole?”
My neighbor scowled.
“The Winter Carnival.” I tilted my head backwards toward you know who. “I need one of those letters, Maxine.”
“Oh!” she said, but then remembered to whisper. “I don’t know.”
I slumped. “I thought for sure you’d know.”
She patted my arm. “I shall find out.” She nodded stoutly. “Leave it to me.”
“Leave what?” Dad called over. “What are you two conspiring about?”
“Mr. X,” I said loud and clear, and Maxine jumped.
She saw the look on my face. “Oh!” she said. “That’s right! Mr. X.”
“Mr. X?” Truman ran over and helped me carry the tray of cookies to the living room.
Meanwhile, my father was giving me one of his I am your father looks. “What are you up to, girl?”
“Lake Bess Lore, of course.” I set the cookies on the coffee table. “I was just asking Maxine to please spread the news about the skull in her column this week.”
Maxine looked up from choosing her first ornament. “Really?”
“My skull isn’t a secret anymore?” Truman asked.
“Not anymore,” I told him.
Joe stepped away from the last strand of lights to frown in my direction. “Sterling gave his permission for this? You talked to him today?”
I shrugged and tried waving Truman toward the ornaments, but at the moment the kid had a cookie in each hand. And my father? Lucky me, Bobby wasn’t distracted by the cookies, or the tree. He stood still, holding a large blue and gold bulb aloft. “What are you up to, girl?”
I jiggled the silver ornament I was holding and informed the old man I was decorating our Christmas tree, but good old Maxine wasn’t satisfied with that response.
She jiggled a glittery snowflake ornament. “Silly Bobby,” she said. “Your daughter is sleuthing, of course.” Maxine didn’t notice the look on silly Bobby’s face but instead kept smiling at me. “I’m honored you and Captain Sterling think Lake Bess Lore might help.”
“Cassie!” Dad scolded. “You are not to go looking for a murderer. You always get in trouble—”
“But, Grandpa Bobby.” Truman waved a cookie at him. “We’re not doing that. Momma Cass and me are gonna find Mr. X’s loved ones.”
“Momma Cass and I,” I corrected. “Going to,” I added as Dad continued with the I am your father looks.
“Loved ones?” he asked.
“Gives her an excuse to see Sterling,” Joe muttered. And yes, he too was still frowning at me. “Last night you claimed your paths wouldn’t cross.”
Well. Yeah.
“Loved ones?” Dad repeated.
“Whatcha learn about Mr. X’s loved ones today?” Truman asked me, and I smiled down at the sweet child.
“You know what?” I said. “I did learn something interesting. Not about Mr. X, but about our house. Old Mr. Tumbleton, the man who built our house, also built the Fox Cove Inn.”
“Ms. Pearson’s big house?”
“It is,” Maxine said. “I certainly didn’t know that.”
“But you’re a native Elizabethan,” I said. “I thought for sure you’d know that.” I turned to Joe. “Did you know that?”
He shook his head and got busy with a strand of tinsel.
Meanwhile, Maxine gave the idea further consideration. “It does make sense.” She jiggled a red and silver bulb toward our lopsided fireplace. “That looks so similar to the one at the Fox Cove. What do you think, Joe?”
“I think I don’t want to talk about the Fox Cove,” he mumbled and continued concentrating on tinsel.
***
Truman, by the way, had some trouble concentrating. But at least he had a rhythm going—eat cookie, chose ornament, show Charlie and Notz, hang ornament, repeat.
“No more cookies,” I told him, better late than never. And better late than never, I changed the subject and asked my father what was up with Chance Dooley.
Dad sighed. “Where to begin?”
“Silly Bobby,” Maxine said. “Begin with Yayla.”
“It’s Fayla,” I corrected her, but then she corrected me.
“The planet is Fayla, Cassie honey, but the holiday celebration is called Yayla.”
“Yayla, Yayla, Yayla!” Truman hollered as he and the dog and cat ran around and around the coffee table. Umm, have I mentioned the excessive cookie consumption?
“So the people of Fayla celebrate Yayla?” Joe asked. I’m pretty sure he meant the question for my father, but since Bobby was busy saving the plate of cookies from landing on the floor, Maxine answered. She informed us that everyone in the entire Hollow Galaxy celebrates Yayla.
“How do you know all this?” I asked. “Since when do you keep up with Chance Dooley?”
“Since Bobby asked me.” She smiled fondly at the guy in question. “I’m usually not much of a science fiction fan, but I do enjoy Bobby’s stories.”
I stared at the old man. “You tell Maxine your stories?”
“I don’t tell her, girl. She reads them.”
“Every noon like clockwork,” Maxine added. “Bobby sends me his latest work in an e-mail, and I read during my lunch break at the library.”
Say what?
I continued staring at my father while Maxine chattered on and on about his “ever so clever” plots. “Such an imagination!” she said. “That’s what’s needed when writing fiction.” She shrugged. “So I suppose I’ll just have to stick with non-fiction.”
Maxine Tibbitts writes non-fiction? Lake Bess Lore is non-fiction? I glanced at Joe at that thoroughly ludicrous claim, and he shrugged.
“Momma Cass.” Truman tugged on my sweater. “You’re not listening.”
“What? Who?”
“Grandpa Bobby’s telling you about Yayla.”
“Is it like Christmas?” I asked.
The crew cut shook back and forth. “There’s no toys and no Santa Claus.”
“That doesn’t sound like much fun.”
My father told me to keep an open mind. “Everyone in the Hollow Galaxy enjoys Yayla,” he said. “But the place to be is Fayla, what with all the parties, and dances, and such.”
“Sooo,” I said as I started to catch on. “Chance Dooley and Evadeen Deyo are celebrating Yayla on Fayla. Sounds like an excellent plan.”
Dad sighed. “If only it were that easy.”
“Easy!” Truman shouted, and everyone watched as Joe lifted him up, and he crowned our tree with a star.
Chapter 13
Getting Truman upstairs and into bed after all those cookies? Not so easy. But with the help of the pets and his toy cow, I eventually got him bathed and tucked in.
I gave him a kiss and reached for the light switch.
“Did he put him back together again?”
I leaned back. “What?”
“Not what. Who,” he said impatiently. “Did Captain Jason and his policemen put Mx. X back together again?”
“Oh. Yes, I guess so.”
“Can I see him? I promise I’ll be careful.”
I tried not to frown. “You want to see the whole skeleton?”
“That’s right.”
I tried one of my I am you mother looks. “We’ve already talked about respecting the dead, Truman.”
“I know, but—”
“But it’s time to sleep.” I reached for the light, and that time Cosmic Cow jumped forward and pushed my hand back.
“Moo!” She jiggled. “Are you gonna talk to Captain Jason tomorrow?”
I frowned at the cow. “Going to. And it depends.”
“Moo! Depends on what?”
I lowered the cow onto the kid’s chest. “It’s time to sleep.”
“Uncle Joe doesn’t like it when you talk to Captain Jason.”
No kidding. I told the child not to worry about it and suggested we change the subject.
“Uncle Joe has an idea for show and tell.”
“Really? What?” I scowled. “And when was this discussed? We didn’t talk about show and tell while he was here this evening.”
“Nope. Him and me talked about it this afternoon.”
“You were with Joe this afternoon?” I scowled some more. “I thought you were baking cookies with Grandpa Bobby.”
The big blues eyes got ever bigger. “Umm. Afterwards! After making cookies.”
Ooo-kay. I shook my head and asked about the plan for show and tell, and Cosmic Cow did a little jig on Truman’s chest.
“Moo! The FN451z.”
For the record, the FN451z is indeed portable, and even has its own carrying case. But still.
“Uncle Joe says he’ll help me,” Truman was saying. “He’s coming to school on Wednesday.” The kid pointed to his window, and we listened to the FN beep, burp, and chirp. “Listen, Momma Cass, She’s talking to us. She’s excited about show and tell.”
“She?” I asked. “Mr. Mad Scientist has you calling the FN a she?”
“Well, she’s not a he,” the kid told me.
***
I reached the first floor landing, and my father stood up from stacking the empty ornament boxes. “Loved ones?” he asked.
“Truman and I are doing a good deed,” I said firmly. “’Tis the season.”
“It’s Truman that I’m thinking of.” Dad pointed to the ceiling. “That child cannot lose another mother, Cassie.”
“Da-aad. I’m not going to die.”
He kept pointing. “And I’m sure that’s exactly what the child’s first mother said before she—” He stopped and sighed. “Chasing after a murderer is far too dangerous.”
For the record, and in case you haven’t quite caught on, I had heard the old man’s this is far too dangerous routine about a million times before. Fa la la la la—getting into trouble, chasing after murderers—
“Loved ones,” I interrupted. “I’m not chasing after a murderer this time.”
Dad let out another melodramatic sigh.
“And besides,” I continued. “Oliver made a good point this morning.”
“You’ve spoken to Oliver?”
“And Jason, and both of them made the same point.”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “I can’t wait to hear.”
“That Mr. X died decades ago.” I nodded. “Which mean all his loved ones are also dead and gone. So you can rest easy. No worries.”
“Yes, worries,” he argued. “Joe doesn’t approve either.”
“Say what?” I shook my head. “First of all, I don’t need Joe Wylie’s permission to do anything, old man. And second of all, it’s none of your business.”
“And third of all?”
“And third of all, Joe’s fine with my sleuthing. He likes my sleuthing.”
Dad raised an eyebrow. “He likes you being so involved with Captain Sterling?”
I blinked. And then I headed for the door.
***
“You-hoo, anyone home?” I let myself in and hea
ded for the stairs, but Joe appeared at the landing and started down.
I pointed upward. “Don’t you need to put the FN to bed?”
“She can wait,” he said as he reached the landing.
“You realize you have Truman calling her a ‘she’ also.”
“Well, she’s not a he.” Mr. Mad Scientist gave me a kiss and waved me to the couch while he went in search of wine.
Eventually we were tapping glasses, and I was thanking him for coming up with a plan for show and tell. “It’s a good idea, Joe.”
He shrugged and promised that he and the FN would be at the Lake School at eleven o’clock sharp on Wednesday. He tapped my glass again. “But now let’s talk about my child.”
I cringed.
“You’re not happy about Paige coming home,” he said. “I thought you liked Paige.”
“I do like Paige, but—”
“But what?”
I took a deep breath. “But the last time she was here, you and I weren’t—you know.”
“Involved?” he asked. “Is that the word you can’t seem to spit out?”
“Paige might not like it that.”
“Why not?”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Was the man really that dense? I reminded him we are next door neighbors.
“So?”
“Sooo.” I shook my head. “So it makes things—you know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Joe. It makes things too in-your-face. If Paige isn’t happy about us, there’s no way she can avoid me.” I waved a hand toward the closest window. “I’m right there. It complicates things.”
“I’ll tell you what complicates things—”
“Space,” I said firmly. “I need spac—”
“—Jason Sterling.”
I sat back and spoke to the fireplace. “Here. We go. Again.”
“Yep, here we do go again. What’s going on between you two?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought we had an agreement, Cassie.”
Fa la la la la. I told the man, for the umpteenth time, that nothing was ‘going on’ between Jason and me.
“But you have lunch together on a regular basis.”
I jumped about ten feet. “How do you know that?”
“Deductive reasoning. You both work in Montpelier, and you both like that fancy French restaurant.” He raised an eyebrow. “Am I right?”
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