Weald Fae 01 - The Steward

by Christopher Shields

  I knew it was a lot, but I wasn’t prepared for that number. I felt a little dizzy as my mind tried to comprehend how much money that was.

  Cook changed his tone with Dad—he wasn’t as aggressive. While I tried to figure out what the detective thought, I sensed something else in the room change—we weren’t alone. Through my head and chest, I felt the distinct presence of a Fae. I hoped it was Sara, but I didn’t know because I still couldn’t identify one from another. The presence changed subtly—I guessed it was in some physical form in order to eavesdrop. Whoever it was, he or she made me nervous and left me feeling exposed. Though I refused to look, I knew it was above us in the vaulted ceiling, completely still. It was hard not to stare, and I found it equally difficult to keep from picturing the ceiling in my mind—I had to force myself not to look up at all.

  The tone of Cook’s voice was much softer as he questioned Dad about the day Aunt May died. He told them he’d taken the family to a Razorback Baseball game in Fayetteville and they stayed to have bar-b-que that evening. He eventually told them that I didn’t go along.

  “Would you mind if we talk to your daughter?”

  “Yes, I would!” Dad said. His green eyes flashed and a vein bulged in his neck.

  “Dad,” I interrupted.

  He stared at me, relaxing a little, and left the room with Mr. Fontaine for a moment before coming back in. He sat back down at the desk and nodded to Cook.

  “Maggie, do you remember what you were doing on April 30th?”

  I thought back to that day. My memories were foggy because they were dominated by one thing—hearing the devastating news about Aunt May when I came home and found an ambulance in the driveway. I told him that I spent another hour with Aunt May after Mom and Dad left with Mitch for the game—Aunt May and I had tea—it was the last time I saw her. She made Earl Grey.

  “She was tired and went back to bed, so sometime around noon, I think, I took the boat to meet Doug at his house.”

  “Doug?” he interrupted.

  “Doug Monroe. He and I spent the day at his house with his dad, Professor Monroe. I left there at four o’clock and came home to get ready for swim practice.”

  The Lieutenant asked me whether I’d seen anything suspicious when I returned to the cottage.

  “I only came in long enough to grab my keys and purse—I didn’t notice anything, and I didn’t see Aunt May, either. I assumed she was asleep—I didn’t want to bother her, so I left as quickly and quietly as I could.”

  “So you never saw your aunt?” he asked, looking up at me.

  “No sir, I didn’t.”

  “Any strange cars in the driveway, up by the road? Any open doors, anything out of the ordinary?”

  I thought about it, running that afternoon back through my mind from the moment I docked the boat until I jumped in my car to leave.

  “No, nothing. Justice, our dog, was curled up by her bedroom door and he refused to leave, but there was nothing else.”

  Cook scribbled something on a pad of paper. “About what time did you get back here from the Monroe’s, and when did you leave?”

  “I remember looking at my watch when I docked the boat, it was twenty minutes after four o’clock and I think it was about fifteen ‘til five when I left.”

  He scribbled again, and then asked, “What time did your practice start?”

  “Well, it started at six o’clock, but I didn’t end up going to swim practice. I went to the hospital to see Candace, Candace Fontaine. I called Coach Rollin’s and ditched.”

  “Do you ditch practice much?”

  “No, only twice since the state championships. Coach Rollin’s hates it when I miss.”

  He asked me several questions concerning why I missed practice on that day. I told him I wanted to visit Candace, but he was unmoved. Then he wanted a list of people who could have seen me in Candace’s room. Unfortunately, there was only one. Chloe was there when I arrived, but she left shortly afterwards and didn’t return until that evening.

  Emotion stirred in my chest and I felt my throat tighten. My eyes burned as tears threatened to well up in them. I refused to lose it in front of these men, though, so I quickly did my calming technique. It worked. With a deep breath, I imagined myself in the garden the morning of my birthday, with Candace sitting next to me serenely happy. The entire time Cook stared at me—I think he was trying to determine what I was doing.

  “But I’m sure someone saw my car at the hospital,” I thought that was probably a good clue for them because the Thunderbird was so recognizable.

  “Tell me about that car?”

  “It’s a pink ‘57 T-bird with a white soft-top and white seats.”

  “That’s a very nice car, isn’t it, especially for a sixteen-year-old?”

  “Yeah, Aunt May gave it to me for my Birthday. It was her first car and she wanted it to be mine.”

  “According to what I’ve been told, it’s a rare one, even among ‘57 T-birds. I have here…” he said looking at the notebook in his lap, “…that it’s a rare supercharged model, and one of only four ever made in that color.”

  Even Mitch didn’t know that. I had to admit that Cook was good, but I was beginning to despise him at that point.

  “An expert I spoke with says it might fetch a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or more, at auction.”

  “I’ll never sell it, so it doesn’t matter how much it’s worth,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

  “What are you getting at, Lieutenant Cook?” Dad sat forward in his chair.

  Cook smiled and nodded slowly. “It’s all so confusing. I’m just trying to figure out how a sixteen-year-old girl inherits seventy-five, eighty million dollars, but her parents, two lovely people, and her little brother get a fraction of that. It doesn’t make any sense to me, and it makes me wonder what went on between you and your aunt, Mr. O’Shea.”

  Mr. Fontaine slapped both hands down on the desktop in front of him. “The questions have just ended—don’t answer anything else, David…” he turned to the officers, “…I’m sure you’ve got enough to follow up on. Now, you need to leave this family alone.”

  The officers left and I could feel the tension dissipating. The Fae waiting in the rafters followed them to their car and disappeared with them up the drive. Dad thanked Mr. Fontaine for dropping everything to help us, but Mr. Fontaine wasn’t through dispensing advice.

  He advised Mom and Dad to hire a lawyer on my behalf and recommended one from Fayetteville named Danny Johns. When Dad pressed him on why, Mr. Fontaine said that there was probably nothing to worry about, but it was best to have a lawyer on retainer just in case.

  “I cannot represent both of you at the same time—it’s a conflict of interest—and while I’d love to represent Maggie, this guy, Danny Johns, is one of the best around. I’d hire him to represent me. He’s a young, tenacious, brilliant guy. Call him, today!”

  “Do you really think that will be necessary?” Mom asked.

  “Yes, sadly, we’ll have to clear all of this up before you can probate the will.”

  “Why?” Dad asked.

  “If there is an active homicide investigation involving someone who is set to inherit a decedent’s estate, the probate judge is not going to move forward.”

  EIGHTEEN

  ACCUSATIONS

  After Mr. Fontaine left, I talked to Mom and Dad for a few minutes before I went into Aunt May’s room, closed the door, and sat on her bed. I’d avoided being in the room after she died, and right now it seemed as sad as I thought it would be. I took a deep breath—it didn’t help.

  I ran my hand through the dip in her mattress where she used to sleep, and curled up next to it. Regardless of who the detectives believed was responsible, they were right about one thing—I knew in my gut that Aunt May was murdered, and I also knew that I was the last person to see her alive—except for her killer. I felt scared and angry.

  Beyond those basic emotions, I had nothing else. Noth
ing made sense and my mind refused to work. It went blank and I couldn’t force myself to think about anything, except maybe to let the tears go. Ready to let myself have a good cry, I was about to open the floodgates when I felt a Fae enter the room. I wasn’t sure if it was the same one that had been in the library with us, but I guessed it was.

  Suddenly, I found that I couldn’t cry. I wanted to. I wanted nothing more than to let go and have one of Grandma Sophie’s soul cleansers, but the presence of the Fae, just on the other side of the bed, mere feet from me, kept me from releasing my emotions. Fear and anger turned to terror, constricting my chest, triggering my flight instinct.

  Sara took shape in front of me, and I exhaled with a start. “Oh my god, you scared me. Was that you, please tell me it was, in the library?”

  “Yes, it was. I’m sorry I scared you, Maggie, but I needed to hear what was going on in the room.”

  My bottom lip quivered, and I fought to control it—emotions returning with a vengeance. “What happened to Aunt May? Someone really murdered her?”

  Her eyes dimmer than usual, Sara spoke with a very sad look on her face. “I read the images that flashed in Mr. Cook’s mind, and it does appear that way. He’s convinced she was murdered, and much worse, he is very suspicious of you and your father. You didn’t show much emotion in the room, and he keyed in on that—he said so to the other men in the car. Of course, I felt your emotion and knew you hid it like you always do, but he only saw you staring stone-faced back at him. In the car, before they left, he told the other officers to keep an eye on you at all times.

  “There’s something else, too. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking about at the time, but his respiration increased and his heartbeat quickened when you told him about the tea you had with May. He changed for some reason and I will find out why, I promise.”

  “Why is this happening—Rhonda, Candace and now Aunt May?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There has to be a Fae behind the attacks, and I’m betting it was a Fae who murdered Aunt May.”

  “I’ve considered that, Maggie, and I don’t believe it’s possible. The Unseelie are not permitted inside the garden wall—ever,” she said.

  “Then a human?”

  “It could have been, yes, but let’s not speculate right now. I am going to pay the lieutenant a visit tonight and have a look in the files. Don’t you worry.”

  She walked over to the music box and opened it. She stared at it for a moment, closing her eyes as the somber tune played.

  “Did you see her that night—Lola’s ballet?”

  She turned back to me, and nodded slowly with a tender smile. “Yes, I watched from the garden the night she showed you and I’ve seen her perform it before. I also saw Lola perform it when May was a little girl—Exquisite.”

  “I keep trying to learn…”

  “It took them years to learn, Maggie. So if you keep practicing, you should be able to do it in a month,” she joked, trying to cheer me up.

  I managed to laugh, and it never felt better because I was struggling at the moment. I felt like I was at an emotional breaking point. It was as though I stood at a precipice, off-balance, trying not to fall into an abyss. But no matter how hard I fought to get better footing, I couldn’t seem to back away from the edge. I struggled with Aunt May’s death, and that was based on the belief that her time had simply come—that she’d gone to sleep and didn’t wake up.

  All the songs and poems were correct—losing her left me feeling hollow. It was so much worse now, because not only did I miss her, I was worried that she had suffered. I lost my battle with the tears and let them roll down my face.

  I wasn’t here when it happened, but I could have been. I knew I could have protected her from a human. What if the murderer was in the cottage when I came home? Just opening the door might have saved her—I would have blown him through the wall.

  “Maggie, I see what you’re thinking and I sense the guilt you’re feeling. You know better than that,” Sara said in a soft voice.

  “I can’t help it.”

  “I understand. I feel the same way, even worse, perhaps. I was on the other side of the cove when it happened. I would have been here in an instant if I’d only known. There were Fae, undoubtedly several of them, who were even closer. But that is beside the point—it does no good to subject oneself to this kind of torment over something that has already occurred. There’s no changing it, and you know that.”

  “I know you’re right…” I muttered, not ready to let myself off the hook.

  “We will discover what happened, Maggie. As May’s Treoraí, I promise you that.”

  As I began to relax I noticed something in the room change. I felt a sense of calm—it was everywhere. At first, I thought Sara was doing it, but she said she wasn’t. The more I concentrated, the more I believed there was something in the room with us—a presence. It wasn’t Fae. I could tell that much. Sara didn’t notice a change and suggested that it was probably my mind playing tricks on me during a difficult situation.

  * * *

  The Monday following the police visit was awful. Things at school had gone from uncomfortable, when Candace got hurt, to nearly unbearable. The stares and whispers that didn’t come after Rhonda’s accident were everywhere I turned now. Ronnie told me that Lieutenant Cook questioned dozens of kids from school to find out if any of them saw my car at the hospital on the day of Aunt May’s death. He offered to say he’d seen it, but I wouldn’t let him lie. I loved him even more, though, for offering.

  Worse yet, someone leaked that I was inheriting the estate, Aunt May had been drowned, and the police treated her death as a homicide. By the time the story got around the rumor mill, it was perverted beyond recognition. Someone heard that I was arrested on Saturday and was out on bail. According to the rumor, I drowned Aunt May in the bathtub after forging a Will that gave me everything.

  It was crazy how so many people seemed to believe the worst about me, and it wasn’t just Rhonda, though she basked in it. Some of my classmates even gave me new nicknames: Murdering Maggie, Brown Widow Spider, and worst of all, the Bathtub Butcher—yes, some people blamed me for Candace, too.

  * * *

  A week later, Sara came to my room. She had read the police reports and the autopsy, listened in on the officers’ conversations, and understood where the investigation was headed. Tests found the drug Flunitrazepam in Aunt May’s bloodstream along with trace amounts in her stomach. The only other thing in her stomach was tea. The police called Flunitrazepam a date rape drug and said that it was frequently used as a powerful sedative.

  “What does this mean?”

  “Right now the police are trying to find out how you managed to purchase the drug. They are convinced you slipped it into May’s tea hoping you’d given her enough to be fatal. They believe you waited until four o’clock to come home, but found her alive and panicked when you thought she might wake up. They’re speculating that you decided to drown her in her bed, using a bowl or something, and that she was so drugged she was unable to put up any resistance.”

  The accusations chilled me to the core. I felt helpless, cornered. Lurching to the window, I flung it open and pulled several deep breaths into my lungs. “But I was at the hospital!”

  “Chloe Fontaine didn’t know what time you showed up that day, and worse yet, Rhonda Adair told them she was with Candace then until six o’clock—alone—giving you plenty of time.”

  Before I could scream, or drive to Rhonda’s house and re-break her jaw, Sara told me she had a plan that would clear me and everyone in my family.

  “I know you’re going to hate this, but it’s the only way.”

  “What is?” I asked, instantly alarmed.

  “I’m going to confess, Maggie.”

  “No!” I screamed as her words knocked the air out of me.

  “Maggie, listen…”

  I wouldn’t let her continue. “No! I won’t let you.”

 
She glared at me and I could see anger in her face. I’d never seen her angry before and it caught me off guard.

  “Maggie! You have no choice! This is not a debate—you will do EXACTLY as I say,” she said fuming.

  With my attention, and my silence, she continued in a softer voice, “I know what drug was used and the dosage—when the police search my cottage, they’ll find it. I know when they estimated her time of death—they’ve not released any of that information to the public. I’ve seen the photos and read the images in their minds, so I can describe every detail as if I were there. They will believe me and they will leave you alone.”

  “But why you?” My voice squeaked, weak and pathetic.

  “There is no one else, that’s why. We cannot afford for you to get caught up in this, and Maggie, don’t you worry about me.” She smiled. “I can leave that jail anytime I want, and I will visit you. Now, and this is important, I’m only telling you because I need you to know that it’s all a ruse, but please, everyone else, your mom and dad, they all have to believe I did it. They are going to be furious with me and they will feel horribly betrayed. You have to let them.”

  The sensation of being alone gripped my chest. I stumbled back to my bed and sat down slowly. “I can’t lose you too. It’s not worth it.”

  “You won’t lose me, and this is worth it. It is too important that you be cleared of wrongdoing—it’s the only way you can inherit the Weald and you must inherit the Weald. I have to play this part until the investigation concludes.”

  “What do you plan to do? Go to prison?”

  She smiled. “No, I won’t do that, remember I’m Fae. When the authorities are convinced that I am responsible for May’s death, when they finally leave you and your family alone, and only then, this Sara will make an amazing jail break. This Sara will disappear, but only after I have conveniently shown up on a few surveillance cameras in New York or Chicago—before I appear, mysteriously and conspicuously, in Paris or Milan where my trail will go cold. I will be back, Maggie. I will not leave you, but I’m afraid this Sara must disappear—it’s about time for me to be young again.”