by Raven Snow
“Well, isn’t this a coincidence? At least I’m not the only one who didn’t quite get here on time.” Rowen offered her cousin a smile that wasn’t returned. “Is everything alright?”
“Huh? Yeah. I’m just in a hurry.”
“Me too. Come on.” Rowen headed toward the gallery as fast as she could without outright running. Peony kept stride with her. “What’s that?” Rowen pointed to the rectangular thing. She couldn’t tell what it was seeing as Peony had wrapped it in a towel.
“Huh?” Peony looked at Rowen then followed her gaze down to what she was holding, like she had forgotten it was even there. “Oh… It’s, uh, a piece of art.”
“Really? So, they’re not taking your art out of the show?” That was a relief to hear. Rowen hadn’t been looking forward to the fuss Aunt Lydia would have made. Nadine might have even gotten in on it. It was her daughter’s work, after all.
“No. They are moving things around a little. It’s going to the back, but that’s better than it being taken down altogether.”
“I guess.” Rowen could still picture Aunt Lydia making a scene if that was the case. Oh, well. Like Peony said, it was better than having everything taken down.
***
They worked their way through the crowd, apologizing left and right until they made it around the building. Rowen knocked on the staff entrance and was greeted by Rose a few seconds later. “Good.” She noticed Peony. “Are you here to help Willow with the pictures? She’s out in the front of the gallery right now.”
“Huh?” Peony looked at her cousin with a puzzled expression. “Oh. Right. Okay. I’ll help out with that.”
“What is that girl’s problem lately?” Rowen asked as soon as Peony was out of earshot.
Rose frowned after her, chewing her bottom lip in concern. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I thought she would get past all the mopey-ness, but she just seems to be getting worse.”
“We should probably sit down and have a real talk with her, see what’s up.”
Rose nodded in agreement. “Definitely, but let’s deal with this first.” She led the way toward what might have once been a small break room for the video store.
Karen was already sitting at the table. She was wearing a sleeveless red dress that didn’t really suit her bulky frame. It looked like it had been designed for a smaller, more demure woman. Karen was neither of those things. Her hair, at least, looked very nice. Rowen had never been very good at updos herself.
The rest of the Hucklebee family was also present. At least, that’s who Rowen assumed they were. There were three men, and there was a definite family resemblance between all of them. They all had the same chestnut brown hair and similar facial structures. They all looked up when the Greensmiths came into the room.
“I was wondering if you were going to show up.” Karen was fidgeting in her chair. “I was about to give up on the interview. I mean, it’s important that I mingle with potential buyers.”
“Have you had any bids yet?” asked Rowen, pulling out a chair to sit across from them.
Karen frowned. She looked from Rowen to Rose then back again. “Not yet,” she said, darkly. “But the gallery wasn’t even open for a full night. These things take time.”
“They most certainly do,” Rose agreed with a smile. She gave Rowen a little warning kick under the table. It was clear that she didn’t want her cousin antagonizing the Hucklebees. At least, she didn’t want her doing that before they had finished conducting their interview.
“So, this is your family?” Rowen asked, changing the subject while Rose set up the tape recorder and a pen and pad for her own personal notes.
Karen nodded, though her eyes kept straying to Rose and her tape recorder. “I’m sorry, but are you recording this?”
Rose looked up from what she was doing. “Yes… If that’s all right. We aren’t going to use it for anything but to get accurate quotes for the article. The recording itself won’t be posted on our blog or anything.”
“I see. I guess that’s fine then.” Karen took a sidelong look at her family. “These are my brothers, Chet and Tod. This is my father, Marcus.”
All three men smiled in greeting. “Good to meet you,” said Marcus. The half smirk he wore when he said that made Rowen suspect that Karen had told her family a great many things about the Greensmiths. It wouldn’t surprise her if they had heard dozens of embellished stories about all those times they had come barging into the police station for this or that.
“You must all be very proud,” Rose reasoned. “This whole thing is pretty prestigious.”
Rowen wasn’t sure about that. It was only Lainswich. You had to figure that the pickings were pretty slim. It was obvious that Rose was just trying to throw as many compliments out there as possible. Karen was definitely susceptible to them. Her family might be as well.
Chet laughed. “I keep asking her what kinda strings she had to pull to get in here.”
Karen elbowed her brother and shot him a warning sort of look. “We’re all proud of her,” Tod said, his words carrying emphasis like he was demanding Chet share the same sentiment.
“She’s been quite the little artist all her life,” Marcus agreed. “Her mother, God rest her soul, loved to paint in her free time. I like to think she passed that fire and talent for art down to our little girl.”
Karen was hardly little anymore, and this innate talent of hers was also questionable. Still, she smiled at the praise.
“Is that where you draw your inspiration from?” asked Rowen. “Your mother?”
“I draw my inspiration from a lot of different places.”
“What inspired the piece on display right now?” asked Rose, her pen scratching across the pad in front of her.
“Oh, you know.” Karen paused like she hoped they intrinsically ‘knew’ and she wouldn’t have to explain further. “I always really loved the mountains, so…”
Chet laughed again and received another elbow in his side for the trouble. It really didn’t seem like he liked his sister a whole lot. Knowing the woman, Rowen really couldn’t blame him. She was a woman who could be downright rude when she wanted to be. Rowen still hadn’t forgiven her for the rather cruel things Karen had said to her. Being annoyed with Rowen for barging into her work place over and over again was one thing; being mean to her and her family for no discernible reason whatsoever was another.
“Did you know Dayveed at all?” asked Rowen, getting to the heart of the matter. She didn’t at all care about this puff piece they were pretending to be working on. Granted, someone was going to have to write it so that they didn’t look like they had had ulterior motives. Rowen could only hope that she didn’t get stuck with the short straw there.
“I knew him.” Karen looked down at the table. “Though, I guess it’s more like I knew of him. I didn’t really talk to him much… I was very impressed by his work, though! The two of us talked art some. He said he admired my work, and I told him how impressed I was by his. We talked about the craft and exchanged some trade secrets. We didn’t discuss anything personal. We just talked to each other how you’d expect, as contemporaries.”
Rowen found that hard to believe. It seemed like Chet did as well. “We must have met different people then,” he said, looking to his sister and raising an eyebrow. “The Dayveed I met was an all-around jerk.” Surprisingly, no one elbowed him this time.
“He struck me as a bit of a diva,” said Marcus. “Of course, I can’t say I really knew the guy.”
Karen frowned at her father like he really shouldn’t have said what he did. “Artists are always temperamental. It’s in their nature.”
“That doesn’t excuse someone for being a jerk,” Chet insisted.
“Hush,” warned Karen, lowering her voice. “It’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, especially not to the news.”
“We won’t put that in,” Rose assured her. “Whatever dark side there might have been to his demeanor isn’t really relevant, and we wa
nt to be sensitive to any family members that might be reading our publication.”
“I’d like to think we got along fine,” Karen insisted, sticking to what she had said earlier. “He was a temperamental man, but there really was a lot of talent there. I’m flattered to have received praise from him while he was alive.”
Rowen still wasn’t sure she quite believed that part. She looked at Tod. Karen’s other brother hadn’t really said much yet. His gaze was fixed on the table like he wasn’t up for talking. “How did you feel about Dayveed? Did you meet him?”
“No,” said Tod. “Not really.”
“You told me you hated the guy,” Chet reminded him, having no qualms about outing his entire family’s opinion of the deceased.
Tod took a deep breath and shot his brother another unkind look. “I didn’t hate him. Hate is a strong word. I barely even knew him. I thought… I thought he was rude like everyone else did.”
“Why did you tell your brother you hated him?” asked Rowen. She believed Chet. Tod had the look of a man who held an opinion he felt would be inappropriate to share. “Just between us. I mean, personally speaking, I can’t say I was too fond of the guy either. He was rude to my cousin, Peony, poked fun at her art. I didn’t want him dead because of that, but it’s hard to like someone who puts down your family, you know?”
“Yeah.” Tod nodded in agreement. “I can’t say that I was crazy about the way he talked to my sister.”
“Tod,” Karen snapped. “That doesn’t matter. It’s behind us.”
Rowen wasn’t satisfied leaving it there. She wanted more details. “What did he say to your sister?”
“He never said anything to my face.” Karen answered for her brother. “That’s really all you need to know. I feel like that’s all anyone needs to know. Let’s just drop this, okay?”
“Fair enough.” Rose changed the subject to something more innocuous. Rowen would have kept pushing, but her cousin wasn’t going to push their luck. That was probably for the best. Any more of that line of questioning and things might have really gotten awkward. As it stood, there was at least some new information for Rowen to consider. Karen and Dayveed had had a run-in or two. Despite Karen swearing otherwise, it didn’t sound like the two had really gotten along. More than that, Karen’s family had met Dayveed as well and none of them seemed particularly fond of the guy. She had a lot of men in her life and, in Rowen’s experience, that could mean that they were overprotective of her. She hadn’t forgotten what Dayveed had told her during that night she had broken in. The person who had killed him had been male and was not an artist. Karen’s family fit with both.
“What are you thinking?” Rose asked once they were back out in the main gallery. The doors had just opened up, and the floor was quickly flooding with people. Already, you could hear people praising Dayveed’s work and lamenting how such talent was lost so soon.
“I’m wondering if one of the men in Karen’s life might have been responsible.” Rowen turned her gaze to the photo portrait of Dayveed now hanging in the place where the statue his body was found had once stood. It seemed they had decided leaving that statue there would have been in poor taste. Probably a good decision on their part.
“The same thing occurred to me,” Rose admitted. “Though I’m not sure how we can investigate that, much less prove it.”
“I guess you can just mention it to that boyfriend of yours.”
“Ben really doesn’t like it when I come to him with our theories.”
Rowen rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. After all the cases we’ve solved, you’d think he’d have a little more faith. Just tell him.”
“Fine.” Rose took a look around the room, searching until her eyes landed on what she was looking for. “Looks like Peony’s art is still up. That’s good.”
Rowen nodded. “I think she was actually bringing in another piece earlier… Not that she seemed all that thrilled about it.”
“She’s been acting odd lately.” Rose bit her bottom lip like it bothered her. “We should keep an eye on her.” She began to search the room again. “Do you see her?”
Rowen did a scan of the room. She saw some people she recognized like Hawthorne and Nathaniel and Julia Martinez with a camera crew. There was no sign of Peony. She shook her head. “I don’t. I don’t see Willow either.”
Rose made a face. “Well, that’s not ideal.”
As if on cue, shouting came from the bathroom. A hush fell over the gallery’s crowd. “How dare you?” came a woman’s voice. Rowen didn’t recognize it, but the moral outrage was unmistakable. God, she hoped that her family wasn’t involved. She didn’t feel great about her odds in that. When someone was angry in her vicinity it usually had something or another to do with herself or her family. Rowen hurried to the bathroom with Rose on her heels. She didn’t miss the Channel 2 crew navigating their way through the crowd as well. Rowen picked up the pace, determined to get there first.
The bathroom was down a hallway in the back of the gallery. The place having once been a video store, the restrooms themselves were small. It didn’t take long for Rowen to spot two of her cousins as she rounded the corner into it. Peony was on her hands and knees, throwing the towel she had been carrying earlier over something on the floor. There was a semi-circle of three women around her, looking down with expressions of pure disgust.
“Just so you know, that’s really tacky,” said one of the women, talking down to Peony in every sense of the word.
“Hey,” Willow warned, trying her best to put herself between her sister and the women. “Back off.”
“Why don’t you?” asked a different woman. “Why not just go home? This isn’t okay.”
“What’s going on?” Rowen asked before she could think any better of it. It probably would have been wiser to just try and get her family out of there. She needed to defuse the situation, not get people to recount it for her so that Julia Martinez could get here and make a story out of it.
One of the women pointed at Willow and Peony. “These two were in a stall together with a Ouija board.”
Peony stood, hugging the towel and the board inside of it to her chest. “I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful,” she said in her own defense.
“Well, you failed at that,” said another woman. “This is super disrespectful.”
“I was trying to help,” Peony insisted.
“Seriously. Can you guys just back off?” Willow asked, speaking louder and more firmly this time. She gave two of the women a light shove backwards which really didn’t do anyone any favors. If anything, it just made everyone close in more around Peony, raising their voices further. This was escalating and fast.
“Come on.” Rowen moved forward with purpose. She forced her way to Peony and offered a hand to help her up. She didn’t let go of her hand once she was on her feet. Instead, Rowen started pulling her toward the door.
“It sounded like there was a lot of commotion going on in there.” Julia Martinez shoved a microphone in Rowen’s face as soon as she was out the door. “Do you care to comment?”
“No, I really, really don’t.” Rowen cut through the old storage room in back, heading for the exit there instead of walking across the crowded floor of the gallery. “What were you thinking?” she demanded once they were outside.
“I…” Peony began but trailed off. “It doesn’t matter what I was thinking. It didn’t work.”
“What were you trying to do? Contact Dayveed? What else were you trying to find out?”
“It really doesn’t matter,” Peony insisted.
“You know there are easier ways to go about this sort of thing.”
Behind them, Willow snorted. “That’s kind of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”
Rowen had to give it to her there. She had kind of started this whole using a Ouija board to communicate with Dayveed thing. That still didn’t answer any of her questions. Not that this was a great place to be asking them anyway. “Come on. Le
t’s get somewhere we can talk in private.” Rowen led the way down the sidewalk to her car. She had been forced to park so far away from the gallery itself that she doubted anyone was going to spot them. In the event that they did, they could always drive away.
Rowen got into the driver’s seat. Peony got in on the passenger side while Willow and Rose piled into the back. “Alright,” said Rowen, taking a deep breath and fixing Peony with a look she hoped was one of understanding. “Tell me everything.”
Peony didn’t say anything at first. She looked down at the Ouija board resting on her knees. She laid her hands on it and, gradually, began to cry. There was a tightness in Rowen’s chest that gripped a little harder when she did that.
“C’mon, Peony.” Rowen reached out and gave her cousin’s shoulder a squeeze. “Just tell us. I promise we aren’t going to get mad at you. God knows we’ve all made our fair share of mistakes lately.”
“Speak for yourself,” Willow muttered.
“Well, I’ve made mistakes lately, at least,” said Rowen. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
Peony finally looked up. She didn’t meet Rowen’s gaze, though. She looked out the window instead, focusing on the gallery in the distance. “I think it’s my fault that Dayveed is dead.”
“What?” Rowen raised her voice. She couldn’t help it. That had caught her off guard.
Apparently, it had gotten the attention of Rose as well. She leaned forward in between the seats. “What?” she asked like she hadn’t heard correctly.
Peony rubbed the heel of her hand against her eyes. “It was right after the night we first met him, when he made fun of my art.”
“I remember,” said Rowen. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear where this was going, but it wasn’t like she could pretend to be ignorant now. “How is this your fault?” she pressed when Peony didn’t return to the subject at hand.
“I hexed him,” Peony blurted. She buried her face in her hands. “Him and Karen. I was mad at them both, so I hexed them.”
Rowen stared. Hexes weren’t something any Greensmith had learned from their parents. Hexes were just sort of something you discovered on your own out of spite. Rowen imagined everyone in the family had learned one or two over the years. She hadn’t really expected to catch Peony using one. Peony always seemed so sweet. It was consistently a surprise when she did something vindictive. Really, Rowen should have remembered that she was capable of this sort of stuff.