A Charmed Place

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  And she did. Despite the unnerving news about Quinn's return, despite the surge of seventeen-year-old melancholy at thoughts of her murdered cousin, despite her dread that her family was about to be put through the wringer all over again—despite all those things, Olivia found herself responding to the exquisite beauty before her. It appealed to the artistic side of her in a way that gross receipts and profit margins never could.

  Once upon a time, she had hoped to design her own fabrics. But somehow the business side of her had taken precedence, and this was where she ended up: buying and selling textiles designed by people other than her. Ah, well. Miracourt was a financial success, and so was the mill-end outlet she'd opened six months ago to handle remnants and misprints she was able to buy dirt-cheap from her father's textile mill. For now, a life in commerce would have to do.

  She sighed again, not so cheerful as she had been before, and then she closed up the shop, dreading the slippery drive to her townhouse perched on a steep hill outside of town. She'd been too busy to go car-shopping for that four-wheel drive—or even to have the snow tires put on her minivan—and now she was kicking herself.

  I'm either at Miracourt or at Run of the Mill seven days a week. I don't have time to buy a TV dinner, much less an automobile. Rand is right. I'm out of control.

  But then, wasn't that what lazy Rand would think?

  She sprinted across the snowy street rutted with tire tracks, just two steps ahead of the sluk-sluk-sluk of a Jeep Cherokee bearing down on her. After a last look at the softly lit window in all of its holiday charm, she flipped up the hood of her coat and hurried through falling snow to her van.

  Buy Keepsake or turn the page for Chapter 3.

  Keepsake Sample Chapter 3

  "Glad you could squeeze me in, Tony."

  "Ah, don't worry about it," said the barber, shaking out the folds of a white linen smock with a snap, then circling it around Quinn's neck and jamming it inside his collar. "To tell the truth, business ain't been so brisk. I'm losing customers to that ... that franchise down the street. Aagh! Don't get me started. So. How you want it? Short?" he asked hopefully.

  "Maybe take an inch off the bottom."

  Tony gave Quinn a dry look in the mirror they faced. "And the other twelve?"

  "I'll keep a rubber band around it for now."

  The gray-haired barber sighed and, with a look of exquisite distaste, rolled down the band from Quinn's ponytail.

  "Why you want to look like this?" he couldn't help saying as he took up a comb and a small pair of shears. "You're a good-looking guy. Still in good shape. Why you wanna go around like some hippie?"

  "You think this is bad, you should've seen me with the full beard," Quinn said with a smile.

  "Aagh."

  Quinn didn't bother to explain that the beard and long hair were part of an effort to disguise himself during those first years in hiding. Eventually he had felt secure enough to lose the beard, but the ponytail stayed. He still liked to believe that with his hazel eyes, hawk nose, and ever-present tan, he could dye his sunstreaked hair black and pass for a Native American if he had to.

  In the thoughtful pause that hangs between threads of conversation, the barber ran a comb to the bottom of Quinn's hair and began, under Quinn's watchful eye, to cut it back the inch.

  "I hear you had a little trouble last night."

  Ah. Same old Keepsake. Thank God he hadn't mentioned the bloodied carnations to Vickers.

  "Yeah, some jerk bashed in the windshield," he said. "Do you get a lot of that nowadays?"

  "Never. Mailboxes, yes. Not windshields. Windshields are in the city."

  Quinn grunted, the way men do in barbershops, and then he took a flyer and said, "This guy was driving a pickup."

  There was an infinitesimal break in the rhythm between snips. "That so? What color?"

  "Couldn't say. I'm figuring a truck by the look of the wide tire tracks."

  A much more pronounced gap between snips now. Thinking ... what?

  "Aw, you can't go by tire tracks. That could be anything. SUV, souped-up Camaro, an old clunker Caddy, even. What, uh, did Vickers have to say?"

  So he knew that, too. "He didn't offer an opinion," Quinn said. "Just took down the details and warned me to keep my insurance up to date."

  "Always good advice."

  A dozen snips later, Tony was done. He took a soft bristled brush to the back of Quinn's neck, removed the smock, and after Quinn got out of the chair, spun a push-broom flattened with wear in a quick circuit around the chair's pedestal.

  Quinn fished out a ten and a five, then waved away the attempt to make change.

  "You're doing all right with that landscaping business, then," Tony said, pocketing the cash.

  Quinn had the presence of mind not to show surprise that the barber knew he had a business. Instead he merely said, "Actually, my father worked the landscaping side of it; I work mostly with stone. You'd be surprised what Californians will pay for an old-looking New England wall."

  "I heard millions for the fancier ones," said Tony, fishing for confirmation.

  Quinn merely smiled and said, "I'll be selling off the landscaping part."

  "Oh?"

  "I'm tired of California." Quinn wanted that word out. This was the perfect place to launch the rumor.

  "Never been there myself. Took the wife to Vegas once, though."

  "How'd you do?"

  "Aagh."

  Quinn laughed and said, "I've lost my shirt there once or twice myself."

  They had something in common, it seemed. The barber warmed to Quinn a little. He cocked his head over his sloping shoulder and said, "So you're thinking of pulling up stakes. Any idea where you'll put 'em back down?"

  "I imagine somewhere around here," Quinn said equably. "Know any houses for sale?"

  "You're looking for—what? New construction? Because there's a new subdivision going in at the west end that might suit."

  Quinn seesawed the palm of his hand in the air. "Something with more character, I think."

  Rubbing his cheek thoughtfully with the tips of his fingers, Tony said, "You know what I'd do? I'd go on the Candlelight Tour of upper Main. The houses are open tonight through Tuesday. Check out Hastings House; it's been on the market for a while. The place is maybe older than you're looking for, but it's a local landmark—well, I don't need to tell you that—and it could go cheap. It needs some structural work. Big bucks."

  "Thanks for the tip," Quinn said as he shrugged into his jacket and plucked a brand new ski cap from one of the pockets. "Maybe I'll check it out."

  He hiked his knapsack over his shoulder and let himself out of the tiny two-chair shop, stopping to admire the ancient barber pole out front. It was so much a part of the establishment that he'd hardly noticed it on his way inside. The red-and-white-striped icon looked exactly the same as seventeen years earlier, spinning slowly in its glass housing, its motor still whirring along. A barber pole in working order was a rarity; it was probably worth more than the business itself.

  Quinn felt yet another twinge of regret. Tony Assorio, no-nonsense barber ... the shoemaker languishing around the corner... the watch repairman, struggling in the shop next to him—all of the shopkeepers were old and gray and all of them were doomed to become mere memories, like the soda fountain that once had served cherry cokes, and the elegant Art Deco theater that someone had hacked into a four-screen multiplex. Throwaway goods and volume discounts, that was the name of the game nowadays. How could the little guy hope to compete?

  Maybe Keepsake would be able to hold on to its unique, small-town feel—hadn't Mrs. Dewsbury boasted that they'd recently beat back a Wal-Mart?—but probably it wouldn't. Christ, someone was cramming a subdivision into the west end. Quinn never thought he'd see the day. What next? A theme park?

  "Oh, no," said Mrs. Dewsbury later when he mused aloud to her. "We won't get a theme park here. Someone's already beat us to the punch on that one—thank goodness. Can you imagine th
e traffic?"

  Quinn reached down to the top of the ladder for the wire crimper, but, like a surgical nurse in mittens, Mrs. Dewsbury insisted on handing it to him.

  "Are you really planning to come back here for good?" she asked as she watched him crimp two wires together in a plastic sleeve.

  It was awkward, working with short wires in the small hole cut into the porch ceiling. And it was finger-freezing cold; he'd hardly had time to adjust to New England's weather. But Quinn's first order of business, cold or no cold, was to get light on the porch. If someone was going to come after him, he was going to have to do it someplace other than at Mrs. Dewsbury's house.

  He had to think about how candid he could afford to be with the elderly widow. She was shrewd and she was fearless, but could she hold her tongue?

  He decided she could.

  "You want the God's honest truth?" he said, gently easing the wires back into the hole ahead of the light fixture. He glanced down at her. She was supporting the back of her neck with gray-mittened hands while she watched him work. Her face had the charming pinkness to it that fair- skinned Yankees, young and old, got when they stood too long on their porches in fifteen-degree temperatures. She looked pleased and satisfied and curious and, yes, she clearly wanted the God's honest truth.

  Quinn flattened the collar of the light fixture against the sky-blue tongue-and-groove planks of the porch ceiling. He jammed a fastener into the wood to make it stay, then began screwing it tight. "I have no intention of moving back east," he said simply. "I'm just putting out rumors. I want to see if I can stir things up a little, make people a little nervous."

  "Oh. Well ... pooh, that's disappointing," he heard her say.

  "If my father didn't murder Alison," he continued, "then someone else did. I doubt that it was a vagrant. It's too coincidental that some homeless character would have stolen the rope from the potting shed, conveniently implicating a man who happened not to have an alibi for the time of the murder."

  He took another screw from his pocket and repeated the routine. "No, I see a deliberate frame-up here. I see someone who knew that my dad always spent Saturday night alone, reading. Someone who knew what he did for a living, and where his tools were stored. Someone local."

  He looked down again. Mrs. Dewsbury was still watching him, still holding the back of her neck with her mittened hands, but her eyes had narrowed in an appraising squint.

  "So you think this was all planned beforehand?"

  "That's one possibility," he said. "Another is that it was a crime of passion and the murderer was a damned good improviser."

  "It's true, you know. Some people are very good under stress," she said in droll agreement.

  After a pause, she said, "Tell me. Don't you think Chief Vickers knows more than he was letting on?"

  "About ...?"

  "The windshield, of course. I've been thinking about it, and you're right. He can't be happy that you're back. It always rankled that your father slipped through his fingers; he told me so himself once. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the chief had someone smash in your windshield."

  Quinn was thinking more of the bloodied flowers. "I dunno."

  "You need to watch out for him."

  Quinn smiled grimly and said, "Okay, I'll bump Vickers up a few slots on the list of Those Who Wish to See Me Dead. How's that?"

  "It's not funny."

  "No, ma'am."

  The last screw slipped through Quinn's numb fingers. He began to climb down the stepladder to retrieve it, but Mrs. Dewsbury insisted on getting it herself. Quinn made himself wait patiently on a rung while she moved the walker to the side, removed a mitten, very slowly got down into a crouch, picked up the screw with an arthritic hand, pulled the walker back to her, and then stood up again.

  "Here you are, dear."

  He finished the job and they went inside. One chore down, thirty-seven to go, according to the list that Quinn had put together so far. He had no doubt that the list would get longer before it got shorter. The house was falling apart in a thousand little ways, some of which could lead to disaster. An electrical short and a subsequent fire, a pitch-dark porch and a nimble arsonist. The combinations were endless.

  ****

  Olivia Bennett had small, slender feet—she was pretty proud of them—but this was ridiculous. There wasn't a foot on the planet that could comfortably fit into the Victorian French-heeled shoe she was trying to wear. The handmade shoe was just one of a vast array of historically accurate reproductions that made up the evening ensemble she had committed to wear in her stint as guide on the Candlelight Tour.

  "I feel like Cinderella's evil stepsister," she growled, jamming her foot into the narrow shoe. Which wasn't a shoe anyway—it was an instrument of torture, tight and stiff and with an outrageous tip that surged a good three inches past her big toe.

  She threw up her hands in frustration and collapsed back on her white slipcovered tub chair. "I can't do this."

  Eileen was standing over her like a maid-in-waiting who wasn't quite sure of her job description. "Maybe you'll get used to them. Try standing up."

  "It's this stupid corset!" Olivia said suddenly, grabbing at the stiff, steel-boned vise that was responsible for her current Barbie-doll look. "What was I thinking?"

  "What did you expect? It's French."

  "Well, screw the French! I'm not wearing it!" She began tearing at the half-dozen front hooks with a viciousness that she normally reserved for pickle jars.

  "Hold it right there, mademoiselle. You're the one who talked all the guides into wearing period getups."

  Olivia sighed and tucked one of the wandering bust enhancers back into place. Her wool drawers itched. Her chemise was too tight. The petticoats were heavy. But Eileen was right—dressing for the period had been her idea.

  "Bustle, please," she said grimly.

  Eileen let out a little sigh of sympathy.

  After some fumbling, they belted the elaborate wire framework onto Olivia's behind. Feeling like a bronco saddled for the first time, she resisted the urge to try to kick the thing off and said through gritted teeth, "Okay—the gown."

  Eileen's response was a radiant smile. "This will make it all worthwhile." She fished the padded hanger out of the taffeta gown and slipped the dress over Olivia's upraised arms. Olivia disappeared in a swishy cloud of scarlet iridescence, then emerged from a low-cut bodice that was unquestionably more European than American.

  The color scheme was as bold as the plunge of the neckline: a swath of bright scarlet draped up toward the outlandish bustle to reveal a purple skirt beneath, with silver-gray passementerie looped around the cuffs, the bodice, and the hem. The heavily beaded braid caught and refracted the light from the recessed spotlight above, rimming Olivia in glittering highlights.

  Eileen stepped back with a startled look. "My goodness, that's daring."

  "Oh, I don't know. The only thing daring about this outfit is the crotchless drawers," Olivia said, squirming in annoyance. "It's December, for pity's sake. These damn things give a whole new meaning to the expression 'freezing your buns off.' "

  Laughing, Eileen said, "Well, think about it. How on earth would anyone go potty, once she was rigged in that getup?"

  "Trust me, I don't intend to find out. Start buttoning; I've got to be there in half an hour. Thank God women from that era didn't go in for makeup. I'd be pummeling herbal extracts into a pot of rouge about now."

  "All right, here we go. Suck it in, Miss Bennett."

  Several painful moments later, Olivia was tightly skinned in scarlet. She had achieved the desired hourglass shape at last. The curves she exhibited, though not her own, were definitely spectacular.

  She said in a breathless gasp, "I think I'm going to pass out."

  "The things we do for !ove," Eileen said, amused. "Honestly, I wish we'd featured you like that on the flyers we posted around town. The Keepsake Preservation Society would be rolling in dough after this fund-raiser."

&nbs
p; "Shoes! What do I do about shoes? Even assuming I could take more pain, I'd fall and break my neck if I went wearing these in the snow." Olivia kicked them off, furious for ever agreeing to be part of the Candlelight Tour. It would have been better to write out a check. She had inventory to stock, she had orders to place—what was she doing pointing out crown moldings and fruitwood etageres to the hoi polloi?

  Volunteering seemed like such a better idea at the time.

  Swishing over to her closet, she yanked open a white louvred door and pointed to the shoerack on the floor. "Take out the black Reeboks for me, would you?"

  Eileen was scandalized, but she did as she was commanded, even tying the laces for her immobilized sister-in- law.

  "All right, let's see what it all looks like," said Olivia, striding over to the full-length mirror.

  "Smaller steps! Smaller steps! Your sneakers show."

  They stood together in front of the mirror, these two best friends turned relatives: Eileen, tall and thin and blond and oh-so-Connecticut; and Olivia, shorter, darker, and somehow, despite the elegance of her wardrobe, just a little bit gypsy. Olivia was very conscious of the contrast. She wasn't especially bothered by it—she looked vaguely like her mother, whom she had always considered truly beautiful—but she was definitely aware that she did not have "the look."

  She shrugged and said, "I guess I'll do."

  "Do? You look fabulous," Eileen insisted. "That creamy skin, those natural curls, those bedroom eyes—what man could resist you?"

  "Apparently they make the effort," Olivia said dryly.