by Ink, India
We gathered our purses as Bran stuck his head in the door. “You can come back now, ladies,” he said, giving Barbara a little wave.
“Okay then,” she said, her hands full of empty trays that were on their way to the dishwasher.
Even from the outside, Venus Envy looked better—there was a welcoming feel to the door and the moment I entered the shop I could feel the difference. The energy had shifted. The shop’s aura sparkled as brightly as the counters. I caught a whiff of burning sage, a comforting scent that soothed my frazzled nerves. I’d gotten in the habit of burning it regularly back in Seattle and now realized just how much I missed the woodsy aroma. As I glanced around the shop I realized that whatever energy had been knocked out of kilter by Lydia’s murder was back in alignment. The air felt clean again, the gloom swept away by some cosmic broom leaving light and clarity in its wake. If Lydia’s spirit had lingered after her death, there was no sign of her now.
Aunt Florence took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This is so much better. Thank you, Bran.”
He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Not to worry, Miss Florence. You shouldn’t have any problems now.” He paused, looking a little uncomfortable.
“What is it?” Auntie asked.
“There is one more thing . . . I didn’t know whether to bring it up or not.”
“Go on,” I said, curious.
He slid his hands in his pockets. “All right, then. While I was smudging the shop with the sage I had a sense . . . I suppose you’d call it a flash. I think there’s a man who holds the key to a lot of Lydia’s secrets, but he’s hidden from my view.”
“You don’t know who it is?” I asked, curious. Intuition was something I understood.
“No, I don’t. And I don’t have the faintest idea where you can find him. I wasn’t going to mention it because the information seems so nebulous, but then thought maybe I should.” He stopped, looking slightly embarrassed.
Auntie and I glanced at each other. Well, we had called him in for his expertise, and he was offering what he could.
I squinted, trying to think. A hidden man who holds many secrets . . . That could be just about anybody. That was one reason I tended to steer clear of dabbling in spiritual matters; things were seldom cut and dry and—as one friend had told me long ago—spirits could lie just as much as people. Now plants, plants were honest. Their essences contained specific energies, attributes, and qualities, and I got along just fine with them. People—they were another matter. But Bran wasn’t pushing himself into the spotlight and he seemed to understand how vague he was being.
“Hmm. You can’t pick up anything else?” Auntie said.
Bran shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do.” He paused, closed his eyes, then after a moment shook his head. “Nothing. Well, that sucks. I wish I could help more, but at least your shop’s clear.”
He was right on track there. He’d done a wonderful job of cleansing the shop, and was trying to help in his own way.
Aunt Florence patted his arm. “My dear, your advice is appreciated. At some point, we’ll know what you’re talking about. How much do I owe you?” She opened her purse but he waved her off.
“Forget it. You always know you can call me if you need me. Just steer a few people my way during the summer. Besides, I like doing this. It makes me feel like I’ve given back to the universe a little for what I’ve received, you know?” He slipped into his duster, plopped his hat on his head, and gathered his things. On his way to the door, he turned around and said, “Persia, are you doing anything this coming weekend?”
I caught my breath. Granted, I wasn’t in the market for a relationship, but that didn’t mean I planned on staying celibate. Bran was gorgeous and seemed a likable fellow. In fact, I got the feeling he ran deep behind that fancy-free façade. I tossed him a slow smile. “What did you have in mind?”
He returned my smile and upped the ante a wink. “I thought we might check out Gardner’s Gym. They have a rock climbing wall, and I heard that you wanted to give it a try. If I’m not mistaken, you’re keen on hiking and mountain climbing, right?”
I glanced over at my aunt, who was trying to hide her amusement. Only two people knew how interested I was in trying out that wall—Barbara and Aunt Florence. Auntie must be the leak. I rolled my eyes at the smile lilting over her lips and turned back to Bran. “I’d love to go. Sunday good for you? Maybe sometime in the afternoon?”
He tipped his hat. “I’ll pick you up at your place around three,” he said, then slipped out the door into the deepening dusk.
“Auntie!” I whirled around but Aunt Florence grabbed her purse and pointedly ignored me as she jingled her keys and headed for the door.
“Let’s go. The Menagerie will be starved and we’ll catch it for sure when we get home.”
I stood my ground, hands on my hips. “You told Bran about me, didn’t you?” Somehow, she must have picked up the fact that I thought he was cute.
She gave me a gentle smile and slipped her arm through my elbow. “Persia, you probably don’t realize this, but you have the same eyes that your mother did—dark and soulful, so deep that a person could fall into them and never come out. I miss Virginia, but you carry her genes, and her passion, and her strength of will. Good God, you remind me so much of her.”
I’d seen pictures of my mother. We could have been twins.
“I miss her, I think. I don’t remember much about her, you know, except for her perfume. She wore Shalimar.” I closed my eyes, conjuring up the all-too few images that remained from my tender years. “When she used to get ready to go out at night, she’d sit at her dressing table and put on her makeup, and I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.” A vague memory of my father shouting at her filtered through the image, but I blocked it away. I had so little left of her, I didn’t want it tainted with his anger.
Auntie seemed to sense what I was thinking. “Your father was a cold man. I’m sure he never meant for her to follow him across the world, and I’m sure he didn’t want to hurt her. But he was a player, and your mother was blind when it came to love. One of her faults.”
“I wish I’d had longer to know her,” I said as Auntie locked the door.
“And I wish I could have given you more of her. I’m afraid that I wasn’t able to teach you some of the lessons she would have. Virginia was a loving woman, open and vulnerable, yet strong and set in her ways. One gift she would have given you, one you’re going to need, is how to open up, to let someone through that gate you bar so tightly.”
As we headed toward the car, I tried to shrug off her comment. I didn’t want to open up my gates and let the world in. “What do you mean? I lived with Elliot for six years.”
She stopped under the streetlight, pulling her voluminous jacket tighter. The light shrouded her like a warm halo in the deepening evening. “Persia, tell me this. Did you really ever love him? Truly? You never talked about him like you did. No,” she said as I began to protest. “Don’t think I’m criticizing you or that I think you should have stayed with him, because he turned out to be pond scum. But in your heart, didn’t you know it would be over if he ever got to the point where he asked you to say ‘I do’?”
I frowned, scuffing the ground. Maybe Auntie was right. Had I chosen Elliot because I thought he was safe, because I couldn’t envision him as husband-material? I’d never once complained about the lack of proposals, never once felt jilted or slighted when he cancelled plans to work late, though now I questioned just what that “work” had consisted of.
Not sure what to say, I sidestepped the question. “So, tell me about Bran. Does he help his sister run her bookstore?” I asked, climbing into the passenger seat and making sure my seatbelt was tightly fastened. Auntie had a way of making me hang onto that belt for dear life.
She gunned the engine and laughed. “Oh no, my dear. During the summer he runs a tourist boat and teaches scuba diving and swimming. During winter, he teaches classes on wood
land survival skills and rock climbing at the community college’s adult education center. He’s a real outdoor nut.”
My heart began to race faster. My aunt had me pegged, collared, and stuck in a box. “Scuba diving? Survival skills? Maybe I’ll have to sign up for one of his classes,” I said and grinned. Hey, so what if I already knew my way around a snorkel and I could build a fire without a match? Refresher courses never hurt anybody.
Auntie made popcorn so we could have something to munch on while we watched the New Detectives. I checked for phone messages, wondering if we’d have a repeat at home of the message we’d received at the shop, but the only person who had called while we were out was Jared.
I glanced at the clock. Too late to call him back tonight, so I jotted a note in my Day-Timer to get in touch with him tomorrow. Just as I finished the phone rang and, startled, I dropped my pen.
Kyle’s voice rang out from the other end. “Persia, that you?”
“Yep, it’s me all right. What’s up?” My gaze wandered over to the television as Auntie flipped it on and settled in her rocking chair.
“I just thought I’d let you know what we’ve found out about that message.”
My attention instantly turned tail. “You found out something? What?” My heart leapt. Was Trevor about to receive a stroke of good luck? But the news wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped.
Kyle cleared his throat. “Hold your horses, it’s not that helpful. We checked your caller ID and found out that the call was made from the pay phones in the aquarium at the Delacorte Plaza. Oddly enough, it’s the same bank of pay phones where the call to Trevor originated from, the one that was supposed to be from Lydia. We’re asking around, trying to find out if the attendants might have noticed anybody making a call around that time, but chances are pretty slim.”
I sighed. “Well, finding out where it came from is a start, I guess.”
He must have heard the disappointment in my voice because he said, “Hey, your friend has a good lawyer, thanks to your aunt. He’ll get a fair trial. We’ll keep looking. I know you and Miss Florence set great store by this kid, so I’m willing to take a look at anything you might have, as long as we have some substance to go on and not just wild shots in the dark.”
“Say, Jared called tonight. Do you happen to know what he wanted?”
Kyle’s voice instantly chilled. “You know better than to ask me. We don’t run in the same circles.”
Since I’d moved back to Gull Harbor, Jared and I’d picked up where we left off—only as friends. He’d come out of the closet and I realized that he only dated me to cover up his interest in boys, but our friendship had stood the test of time. Kyle and his cousin were still on the outs, but I kept hoping they’d make up. Apparently, I’d been hoping in vain.
“Yeah, right. Stupid of me to ask.”
He cleared his throat. “Persia—about Jared,” he said, slowly as if he was debating on whether to go on.
“Yes?”
A pause. “Nothing, never mind. I haven’t heard from him in awhile.”
I hung up slowly. Well, at least this time we’d managed to remain civil. Maybe there was hope yet. I told my aunt what they’d found out. She looked as crestfallen as I felt.
“We have to keep our hopes up,” she said. “I simply refuse to let them railroad Trevor. Kyle thinks he’s being open-minded, but the truth is, he going to rush this through. I know it—I just know it. I talked to Wanda Jansworth today—she’s Winthrop’s receptionist. She told me that the Wangs are already putting pressure on Kyle. They have a lot of clout in this town, and Kyle is in an elected position. We can’t give up because I don’t for a minute believe that the law’s on Trevor’s side.”
Unfortunately, I had a sinking feeling she was spot on. Kyle was being as nice as he could, but I knew he thought Trevor was guilty, and I had no doubt that he’d push for a trial as soon as possible. Winthrop could probably get an extension, but it was impossible to avoid the fact that Trevor was in a lot of trouble, without much hope in sight.
Chapter Nine
In the morning before we left for the shop, I put in a call to Jared. His first class was at seven AM so I figured he’d be back in his office by the time I phoned, and I was right.
“What’s up?” I asked when he answered the phone.
In the intervening years before I moved back to Gull Harbor, Jared got a degree in computer science, went to work for Microsoft for a few years, then quit to move back to Gull Harbor and teach computer science in the community college. He did some consulting on the side and made a tidy income. He’d offered to help us buy a new computer system for the shop, but Auntie was stalling. It meant just that much more work learning how to use it.
“Kyle called me last night, told me all about Lydia, and asked me to keep an eye on you.”
That surprised me. Kyle’s distaste for his cousin was obvious. Jared had confided in me that they were still on the outs. “What? But you two never talk.”
Jared cleared his throat. “Well, darling, he’s worried about you and your aunt and he knows you’ll listen to me where you might not listen to him. He asked me to tell him if you said anything strange or odd about the case.”
Hmm. Sounded like Kyle was fishing for information that he might suspect Auntie and I were hiding. Maybe, but then again, maybe not. His concern for our safety seemed genuine. I sighed and ignored the thought that he was using Jared to get info out of me. No use in stirring the pot, and I might be wrong. What puzzled me was his trust in Jared’s confidence. “What makes him think that you’d tell him anything I confided to you?”
“I asked him that,” Jared said. “He said that he knew I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, so I’d better let him know what was going on.”
Well, that answered that. Kyle was worried about us, but why? He already had Trevor in custody. Maybe he knew something that we didn’t. If so, I knew we’d never pry it out of him. We weren’t exactly friends, and even Auntie wouldn’t be able to squeeze him on official business. I changed the subject, launching into a discussion about my upcoming self-defense class. Jared had volunteered to play the part of the attacker; he wore padding to give my students someone to practice on. A good sport about it, he was as thrilled as I was when one of the timid students opened up and really let fly.
After breakfast, Auntie and I took off for the shop. The weather hadn’t made up its mind yet about what it wanted to do. Patches of sky were peeking between clouds that threatened to make good on their promise of more rain, but it looked like the sun would have a brief foray before they took over. I inhaled deeply. The scent of water permeated the air; we’d be drenched before night. Spring in western Washington—water, water, and more water.
Tawny was waiting next to the bakery. Good to her word, she had refused to open up alone. I unlocked the door and propped it open to clear out the last lingering hints of burnt sage, while my aunt disappeared into the office. Tawny looked around, a nervous glint in her eye.
“So, like, you cleaned up the blood and everything?” Her eyes were fixated on the carpet where Lydia’s body had sprawled.
“Yes, Tawny. Don’t worry. The carpet and all the shelves have been cleaned, and Aunt Florence asked Bran Stanton come in and perform a purification ritual. Everything’s all right.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. Everything was far from all right. Lydia had been murdered in our shop and, as nasty as she was, she didn’t deserve that. When Tawny still didn’t budge, I asked, “Were you friends with her?”
She gave me a startled look. “Friends? As if. I knew her in school and all, but we didn’t run with the same crowd. By junior high, half the class hated her and she got worse as the years went on. I mean, it’s awful that somebody killed her, but if you want to know the truth, a lot of people had reason to. She was downright vicious to anybody who wasn’t part of her own little clique.”
Hmmm . . . it seemed as if bitches were born, not made. “Anybody in particular that she
tormented?”
Tawny popped her gum and laughed. “Yeah . . . let’s see . . . Corky—he was president of the chess club back then, and Lydia talked two of her jock friends into pantsing him in front of the whole school. Nobody knew he was a cross-dresser until then. And Shawna. Lydia stole her boyfriend the day before the prom just because Shawna bought the dress Lydia wanted. Who else? Edgar—Lydia used to cheat off his homework.”
I could tell that Tawny was starting to get warmed up and settled myself down to listen.
“Don’t forget Brandy. Lydia turned her in for possession of pot and got her suspended and thrown in juvie for a few days, which put an end to the chance she had for a Vandyke Scholarship that would have paid her tuition for four years of college. The scholarship went to one of Lydia’s friends instead. Funny thing is, Brandy never smoked pot so how the stuff got in her purse is a mystery.”