by Meg Macy
“I was thinking.” I crumpled my popcorn bag, unaware of when I’d finished the snack, and stretched my back and shoulders. “It’s too late to call Mom and Dad, I bet.”
“Oh, leave it alone. Don’t let Will Taylor get to you.”
“I wish I could.”
“I’ll drive, or we’ll end up going the wrong way.” Maddie snatched the keys from my hand. “You’re not usually a worrier, Sash. We’ll survive. Dad was probably humoring Will. You know how he gets all diplomatic.”
“No, I don’t.”
“He hates conflict. Maybe Dad pacified Will for the time being, and that’s why the jerk came back acting like he’d been given the go-ahead.”
I shrugged. “I hope so. But I’d still like to hear Dad’s version of the story. In a conversation, not by text message.”
“Hey, Wendy,” Maddie said to the petite woman on our way out of the theater. “Didn’t you come here with Vivian Grant?”
“Oh, she got a text from her son and had to leave. Good thing we both drove. I’m opening the bakery tomorrow at five, so I’d better go. Great movie, though.”
Wendy walked off with a brief wave. Maddie and I hit the restroom first and then headed home. I was glad my sister chose to drive; I yawned so wide and often, my jaw popped. Silver Hollow’s brick rows of buildings were darkened, the only light from the ironwork street lamps puddling along Main Street to guide us. Cars crammed the lot beside Quinn’s Pub. Lively music rose when two couples emerged, and then faded when the door slammed shut behind them. We turned left onto Kermit and passed Church Street, opposite the imposing First Presbyterian edifice with its towering steeple. We stopped at the light.
“We should have caught a movie tomorrow night instead.”
“Like that matters. I’m planning to sleep in until noon on Saturday,” Maddie said, “so you can cover the shop. When I’m ready, I’ll do the afternoon shift.”
“When it slows down, right.” I didn’t mind, though. I’d rather be busy. “Did you make reservations for our annual trip up north? I love seeing the fall colors.”
“You bet. Sisters weekend, Mackinac Island!” Maddie turned onto Theodore Lane, dark as usual with so many trees. We both saw a car in our lot beside the house, the parking lights aglow. “Wonder whose car that is?”
I saw two cars, actually. Will’s Camry sat beneath the light at the factory’s door. The other car’s headlamps flashed bright, right into our eyes. I squinted, holding a hand up, and heard tires squeal past us toward the street. Followed by a crash—I blinked fast, my eyes adjusting slowly. Maddie yelled in my ear.
“Hey, they hit our mailbox!”
We both jumped out of the car and ran to assess the damage. The banged-up mailbox remained attached to the broken wooden post, lying on the blacktop. For the second time this year, we’d have to replace the whole thing.
“Teens and their stupid pranks,” I grumbled aloud. “I told you we should have let Uncle Ross build a brick post around the whole mailbox.”
“Okay, you were right.” Maddie pointed toward the other car. “So who’s still here? And why? What were they doing this late?”
“That’s Will Taylor’s car, and I have no idea.”
I yawned again, couldn’t help it. Slowly the usual night sounds returned: the chirp of crickets, a dog’s loud barking in the distance, a train’s warning whistle that faded. I marched over to the Camry while I groped in my purse. Definitely his car, since my narrow penlight confirmed the vanity license plate. Too bad I didn’t have any mud right now. Oh well. I didn’t like the idea of him having a key and snooping around this late at almost midnight. What could he be doing? And why. That was more important.
Maddie followed me to the door. When I turned the handle, she grabbed my arm. “Wait. Maybe we should call the cops.”
“He’s gotta be inside.” I listened for a minute. Nothing. No voices inside or footsteps. That was odd. “Hey, Will! Are you in there?”
“I’m calling 9-1-1, Sasha.” Maddie punched the numbers into her cell. “We don’t know who was driving that other car, and they sure left in a hurry.... Yes, we’d like a patrol car. We think there may have been a robbery.”
A robbery? I wasn’t sure about that. Curious, I opened the door wider. Creak. Uncle Ross hadn’t oiled that hinge yet. No shadows danced beyond the light I switched on. I tiptoed farther inside. When Maddie touched my shoulder, I jumped.
“Gaah!” I clutched my chest, heart hammering beneath my fingers, my ears filled with a rat-a-tat pounding. “You scared me to death.”
“The dispatcher said to wait in the parking lot.”
“Looks like no one’s here. Maybe Will couldn’t start his car and left it here.”
“Sasha, don’t go looking around,” Maddie hissed, but I ignored her.
Creeping past the first few stations, the sewing machines, and the supply shelves, we both tiptoed toward the looming hulk of the cutting press. A dim light streamed from the high window above, not enough to clearly see. Maddie found the switch on the wall.
“Hello? Will, are you in here? Will Taylor?”
Long shadows stretched to the corners beyond. My foot kicked a soft object. I groped around until I found a teddy bear—with a seam ripped open. That was odd. None of our workers had ever mentioned losing track of an unfinished toy.
The fiber machine tube had bits of fluff clinging to it. “Hey. Doesn’t Uncle Ross clean this up before he leaves?”
Maddie nodded. “Look at all the fluff on the floor.”
I’d missed noticing the drifts of white. We both knew the floor was always swept clean at the end of the day. A faint whine of sirens grew louder. Maddie grabbed my arm and pointed behind the stuffing machine. I rushed around it and knelt beside Will Taylor, stretched full length on his back. He didn’t move. My stomach knotted at the sight of his staring eyes. His skin looked gray in the factory’s dim light.
Worse, his cheeks and throat bulged with white fiber.
Chapter 6
My eyes ached from the constant flash of blue and red lights. Three police cars blocked the parking lot, and a Dexter County Sheriff’s Department SUV sat on Theodore Lane in front of our shop. I blinked, still numb, unable to process what we’d found. I pinched myself. Hard. Ouch! So this wasn’t a nightmare after all. I wanted to burrow under the covers in bed and hide from reality. Finding Will Taylor dead—it just didn’t seem possible.
I’d never seen a dead body like this before. His face looked gray, his skin waxy. All the other people I’d seen after death looked sort of a pale version of themselves, lying in a plush and polished wood coffin. Grandpa T. R. seemed at peace after such a hard life. Aunt Marie, the life of every family party, had looked nothing like herself in thick makeup and with every hair in place, wearing a silk dress and pearls. She would have laughed that boisterous laugh, tickled pink, and then closed the casket with a wink. I smiled, remembering her casual velour jogging suits and scuffed tennis shoes.
But what about poor Carolyn? I didn’t want to think how she’d take the news of her murdered husband.
Shivering in the chill air that rustled the leaves overhead, I wished I’d worn a jacket or hoodie. Maddie paced unevenly in the shadows under the covered walkway, snuggled in her warm sweatshirt, cell phone in her shaking hand. My frozen brain remained numb. My sister reacted to stress with frantic energy. She’d been calling our parents in Florida nonstop, refusing to leave a message. Mads clicked her phone off again in frustration.
“It’s gone straight to voice mail every time! Why aren’t they answering? The least they could do is text me.”
“It’s late. Maybe they’re sleeping.”
“You’d think they would wake up. Should we be worried?”
“I don’t know.”
She punched numbers again. “Hey, Mom, please call us,” Maddie pleaded into the phone. “It’s an emergency. Really, really, important. Call us.” She turned to me again. “Aren’t you wondering what’s going on
?”
Stung by her words, I exploded. “Of course I am! I’m trying to process what happened, for heaven’s sake. Cut me some slack, okay?”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”
“Will Taylor obviously didn’t kill himself. So guess what that means.”
She looked stunned for a few seconds, then drew in a shaky breath. “Yeah. I get it. It’s all so unreal, though! Like on a TV show, or in a mystery novel.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “Murder. There, I said it.”
“It’s horrible.” Maddie shivered. “So what do we do?”
“Ms. Silverman?”
Hearing the husky masculine voice behind us, we both turned around. Maddie’s eyes widened. I could tell she hadn’t recognized the man either. “Yes?”
“Detective Mason, Homicide.”
He looked like any pedestrian on the street of a Midwest town. I had to admit the man resembled our Teddy Roosevelt bear with his wavy short brown hair, rosy plump cheeks in a round face, and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a dark blue shirt with a sheriff’s badge on the front and a light jacket over it, sort of a uniform except for the jeans and scuffed loafers. Juggling a Moleskine notebook and pen in one hand, he fished out a small leather wallet, flashing it open for a moment before stashing it under his coat again. I caught a glimpse of a holstered gun, too.
“Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Let me see your badge again. Please.” As if the shirt didn’t convince me, but I had to be sure. “Silver Hollow doesn’t have a homicide detective, as far as we know.”
Mason looked amused, retrieved his credentials again, and handed the wallet over for me to examine. “I’m from the Dexter County Detective Bureau, working under Sheriff Vander-beek. You’ve heard of him, right?”
“Sort of,” Maddie said. “I read about him in the Ann Arbor News. He’s cracking down to arrest online predators of children.”
“Yes, it’s a big problem everywhere.”
“Our village newspaper doesn’t have much beyond ads for the shops and some school news. Although once the editor gets wind of this . . .” My voice trailed off and my hands still shook. I dreaded the idea of our toy factory being front and center in the gossip mill, the local newspapers, or around the county. I’d squinted long enough at Detective Mason’s badge, so I handed the leather folder back. “Thanks. What do you need from us?”
“First, I’d like to review Officer Sykes’s notes—something wrong?”
He turned to Maddie, who’d doubled over and snorted with laughter. She looked guilty at Mason’s odd look. I suspected she was overcompensating from the shock of finding Will dead.
“Um. Officer Sykes—we call him Digger Sykes. Doug is a friend,” my sister said, and gulped hard. “I went to high school with him.”
“Digger, huh.” Mason had raised an eyebrow and then opened his notebook. “Sounds like a good story. He identified the victim as William Taylor, who resides here in the village and works as a sales representative for the Silver Bear Shop and Factory.”
“That’s true.”
“What else can you tell me about Mr. Taylor?”
Maddie and I exchanged glances. “He recently attended a trade show,” I said, “in New Jersey. He met with vendors and suppliers. We didn’t expect him back this week at all. Suddenly he showed up this morning. Er, yesterday morning.”
“I see. And you both found the deceased inside the factory building at eleven fifty-five p.m.? Or is that the time the call was registered?”
“We called right after midnight,” Maddie said. “I checked my watch before we went inside. We usually don’t leave a light on at the factory door. And Will never comes to work late at night, so we wanted to know what he was doing inside.”
“Were the lights on inside?”
“No, we had to switch them on.”
“Right after we found . . . Will. Stuffed,” I added. “That was quite a shock. Is that how he died? From all the fiber?”
“The medical examiner will determine that.”
Maddie shuddered. “There wasn’t any other way? Like being hit on the head?”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell—”
“He must have been,” I said, and hugged my sister. She squeezed me back. “I can’t see Will letting someone do that to him otherwise.”
Mason didn’t seem aware of our fragile emotions. “Did you touch anything besides the light switches and the door handles?”
“No. Well, I don’t think so.”
“Meaning you may have.” He frowned. “All right, the crime scene is secure, but the evidence techs won’t be able to arrive until morning. They’re busy somewhere else right now. I’ll return tomorrow at nine and make sure they get your prints and eliminate them from any others they find at the factory. Most fingerprints are too smudged to be of any use, though.”
“Not like NCIS on television, I take it.”
“Afraid not. You found the deceased lying on his back?”
I had to think about it, my head was so fuzzy. “I’m not sure—”
Maddie cut me off. “Yes. And we found a toy teddy bear. Ripped open.”
“Well, the back seam was open,” I added. “Very strange, because any unfinished bears are kept in the sewing machine area.”
He looked skeptical. “So you think someone moved it? Deliberately.”
“No idea. Some of the stuffing had been taken out. I can show you—”
“Officer Sykes already bagged and tagged the item as evidence.” Mason looked up from his notebook straight at me. “How about we go inside and talk? You look cold.”
“Sure, thanks.”
I’d been shivering the whole time he questioned us. Maddie sprinted ahead to the back door and unlocked it. Rosie bounded out; I caught her mid-woof. I hadn’t even thought about her waiting to go out, poor thing. Fighting to get free of my tight hug, she kept barking her fool head off at Detective Mason. He backed away. I’d never have expected him to be fearful of a small dog, although he looked more surprised than afraid. Maddie attached Rosie’s harness and leash and then dragged her past us.
“Hush, you silly girl,” Maddie said, and headed to the lawn’s far side.
Inside, I perched on a tall stool at the island’s counter and slid Maddie’s cell phone back and forth across the wood. My nose tingled. The scent of stale popcorn wafting from my sweater mingled with the detective’s musky aftershave. Should I ask him to sit? I’d never spoken with a homicide detective before. Mom would be offering him coffee or scrambled eggs and toast, insisting on something, ever the good hostess.
Good thing Mom wasn’t here.
Detective Mason remained standing, oblivious to my discomfort, scribbling on a fresh page in the folder. He finally resumed without waiting for Maddie’s return.
“So you’re sisters, from what Officer Sykes reports. Alexandra and Madeline Silverman, and your parents own this business. Have you contacted them yet?”
“We’ve tried.” The fact that my parents hadn’t yet returned our frantic calls bothered me more than I cared to admit. I changed the subject and explained our stop at Ham Heaven and the movie afterward, then our return home. “We both thought it odd to see two cars in the lot. We recognized Will’s Camry.”
“So he doesn’t usually come in after hours.”
Unnerved by Mason’s apparent indifference, the way he focused on writing notes instead of meeting my eyes, I stammered a little. “N-not that I’ve ever known. I go to bed pretty early, but Maddie might have noticed if he ever came after hours. She stays up later. Sometimes after midnight. Comes and goes more often, too, with her friends.”
“But Mr. Taylor does have a key to the factory.”
“I’m not sure. Uncle Ross would know, since he keeps track of keys.”
Mason had raised an eyebrow at my hesitation and then jotted that answer down. “So you saw another car?”
“Yes, but the driver sped off in a hurry. There’s two ways to get in a
nd out of the lot, and he took the one closest to the house. Clipped the mailbox post and broke it off halfway from the ground. Bent the metal box all up, too.”
Maddie barged through the door, lugging the thirty-pound Rosie past the detective. Despite her growling, my sister shoved the dog into her wire crate and latched the door. Rosie whined. “It’s okay, baby. Be good for a little while and then it’ll be time for breakfast. Uh, sorry it took so long—”
“I won’t keep either of you much longer,” Mason cut in. He flipped to a new page in his book. “Your sister said you might have noticed cars or visitors in the parking lot at various times. Before tonight, that is. Did you ever see Mr. Taylor or anyone else enter the factory after hours?”
Maddie didn’t hesitate. “Not that I remember. Although one time, I did see a car in the lot near the trees out back. Uncle Ross said the next morning he found cigarette butts on the ground, and a . . . Other stuff. But you’d have to ask him.” Her cheeks flushed deep pink.
“I will. Can you describe the car you saw tonight?”
I answered first. “A dark car, sort of sporty—”
“Like those old Gran Torino muscle cars, only smaller,” Maddie said. “But I think it was bright red. Definitely red.”
“Brown. Or maybe maroon,” I mused aloud. “It’s gotta have some big dent to the grille and front bumper, if it has one.”
“Did either of you recognize the driver?”
My sister and I blinked at each other. “No,” I said. “It was dark.”
“It happened so fast,” Maddie said. “All I remember is hearing the tires squeal, and like wham! It hit the mailbox, turned into the street, and took off.”
“Man or woman?”
“Pretty sure it was a guy. In a hat?”
“Young,” my sister said firmly. “No hat.”
“He did too wear a hat,” I said.
Mason frowned. “Okay, thanks. If you remember anything else, here’s my contact info.” He dug out a worn business card and handed it over. “Better get some rest.”
“We have to get up early and open the shop—”
“You’ll be closed over the weekend.” His voice sounded flat. “Shop and factory. Like I said before, the forensic techs will be here as soon as possible. The coroner’s on vacation, so the techs will transport the body to the county morgue later this morning. It will take time to process the scene. But first, I’ll need to interview the staff.”