Teeny crossed her arms. “I doubt anything is easy for the Pine Grove Police Department. You guys haven’t solved a single crime in the past year.”
“I’m solving one right now, Teeny,” said Wayne. “You three are coming down to the station. I’m booking you for the night for breaking and entering.”
Jonathan turned to Wayne. “You are?”
Wayne nodded. “That’s right.”
Jonathan nodded, satisfied. “Good.”
Teeny’s eyes widened. “Hold on. I’m sorry. I take it back. Wayne. Detective Hudson. Please. Don’t make me spend the night in jail. Me and May are too old. We’ll freeze to death. We’re ancient. I’m a hundred and she’s a hundred and nine. You can’t send the elderly to jail like that. It’s unconscionable.”
“Why do I have to be hundred and nine?” Miss May asked.
“You’re older than me.”
“No I’m not, Teeny,” said Miss May.
“Listen, girls. I understand what you’re saying,” Wayne said. “Even though, Teeny, you’ve told me a number of times that you’re thirty-five and not to call you old.” Teeny harrumphed. Wayne ignored her and continued, “You know I like you both. But I need to book someone for this for the night.”
All eyes turned to me. I groaned. “Why does my youth make me a better candidate for jail? If anything, age and wisdom should make a person better suited for that kind of hardship.”
“So you want your aunt or Teeny to go in your place?” Wayne said, with what I swear was a hint of a smirk.
I sighed and held out my hands for Wayne to cuff me. Although I’d broken many laws and snooped around many crime scenes, that night was my very first time being arrested. Thankfully, Wayne spared me the cuffs.
“I’m not going to shackle you, Chelsea. Unless you resist.”
I looked up at Wayne, and that was a mistake. His blue-green, green-blue, whatever-color-combo eyes seemed to sparkle mischievously. Was Wayne…flirt-arresting me?
“Chelsea?” Wayne said, clearing his throat.
I snapped back to reality. “I’m not going to resist.”
Wayne turned to Jonathan. “Does this arrangement work for you, sir? Little unorthodox but we’re a small-town department. Frankly, we barely have enough jail cells to accommodate Chelsea. And I can guarantee you, these two older women meant no harm. Chelsea didn’t either, but I understand, they did commit a crime. That’s why I’m going to book the young one for a night. You’re going through a lot right now so you can decide over the next few days if you’d like to press charges.”
“You better believe I’m pressing charges,” said Jonathan. “Against all three of you. I don’t care who spends the night in jail.”
“OK,” said Wayne. “You just let me know.”
Wayne spent a few minutes writing up a report then we left. Miss May and Teeny in the convertible and me in the back of Wayne’s unmarked car.
Chief Sunshine Flanagan, my de facto archenemy on the force, set bail for $5000. That was high, in my opinion. And it wasn’t something Miss May or Teeny could afford, at least not on short notice. So I spent my first ever night in jail.
And it was far more eventful than I could have ever expected.
24
I Know Why the Jailbird Sings
Jail cells are not cozy. There’s no other way to say it.
The walls were bare and concrete. Metal bars never warmed anyone’s heart. And even in a small town like Pine Grove, the jail cell in the back of the police department smelled a little moldy and unattended.
Still, I wasn’t too freaked out as Hercules closed the door and locked me in. Despite the odor, and the cold, barren surroundings, I felt calm and almost at home. Weird, I know. But throughout the course of our investigations, a few of my loved ones, including KP and my Aunt DeeDee, had been locked up in that cell. And somehow, thinking of them in this same cell put me at ease. I even smiled as I thought about KP’s purported love of jail food — “all potatoes, all the time!” I was sort of looking forward to having a jail meal…regardless of how the potatoes were prepared.
You really can’t go wrong with a potato.
OK, so the decor wasn’t cozy. The temperature was frigid. The vibe was sterile. But, I was hopeful that I wouldn’t be in jail for long. My friends and family hadn’t been held for too long. I called out to the skinny young Deputy Hercules as he padded back toward the main area of the police department. “Hercules!”
He turned back. “What’s up, Chelsea? Are you OK? Do you need something? Again… Really sorry about this.”
Hercules had been apologizing profusely ever since I had arrived at the station a few hours earlier. His behavior was a stark contrast to Chief Flanagan’s — she had treated me like she’d witnessed me setting Town Hall on fire or stealing canes from the elderly.
“You’re fine, Hercules. No need to apologize. I’m sure I’ll get out of here soon. I was just wondering… This place is a bit bleak. Do you have a blanket or something? I’d love to spruce it up.”
Hercules smiled. “I always forget you used to be a famous interior designer in New York City.”
I shook my head. “Not famous.”
“I’ll see what I can…” Hercules stopped speaking in the middle of his sentence and widened his eyes. “Chief. Hi. What’s going on?”
Chief Flanagan stormed down the hall toward my cell. Flanagan was undeniably glamorous. Her current riled state only added to her movie star quality. Her long red hair swished like a cape in time with her strides. Her bright eyes were sharp and focused.
A wild-eyed woman, hands cuffed behind her, walked a few steps in front of Flanagan.
“We got a second intake, Hercules. She’s spending the night. Maybe more.”
The woman cackled and licked her lips. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “Spending the night. I love spending the night in jail. We love it so much. Me and her and she and me. We won’t hurt anyone. We’ll try not to. You never know what might happen in the night.” The woman laughed.
I gulped. This was going to be my cellmate?
“You want to put her in this cell?” Hercules asked. “With Chelsea?”
“Not ideal,” said Flanagan. “But we’re using the second cell for overflow storage, remember? There’s no room so we don’t have a choice.”
I put my hands on the bars. “You could let me out. Overcrowding in jails is a problem. I’d be happy to solve it.”
Flanagan glared at me. “Not an option.”
Flanagan opened the door to my cell and shoved the manic woman inside. Then Flanagan made a sharp turn toward Hercules. “Deputy. Back to your desk. Follow me.”
Flanagan charged away and Hercules followed on her heels like a little dog. My heart plummeted as I watched them go. I muttered something about my blanket but Hercules didn’t hear me.
“You’re my cellmate. Checkmate. Do you play chess? I love all sorts of games. So does she.”
I turned to my new cellmate and tried to give her the benefit of the doubt in spite of her dramatic entrance. Maybe we could get along. Maybe we could even bond over our shared jail experience.
I scanned the woman from head to toe. She was wearing an extreme oversized dress. Her hair was greasy and matted. She had a hospital band on her wrist. It had five little tiny pine trees on it, which made me assume that this woman had been in Five Pines recently. From the way the woman seem to be talking to herself, I assumed she might suffer from schizophrenia. I felt bad for her. Mental health problems were no joke. Even if she heard voices or felt dissociated from reality, she was still a human being, struggling through something unimaginably hard. Everyone carried around her own handful of demons, but this woman seemed to have a whole satchel of demons. I could empathize with her.
But I also felt scared of her. What had this woman done to end up in jail? And would she be a danger to me?
“Hi. How are you? I mean, you’re in jail, so probably not great, right? I would offer you a pie to help eas
e the transition but the cops confiscated all my baked goods.” I chuckled awkwardly. The woman just stared at me, then turned her back and sat on the stiff bench-bed across the cell from me.
So much for bonding…
We stayed like that, sitting in silence for a long time. Probably a couple of hours, well past midnight. Neither of us seemed inclined to sleep or speak. Then, out of the blue, the woman started talking again — continuing the conversation from earlier as if no time had passed.
“I said I love playing games. We both do. And so does she.” The woman cocked her head and gave me a plastic smile.
I almost jumped out of my skin when the woman spoke. “Games are fun, yeah. Uh, I’m Chelsea, by the way. What’s your name?”
“Call me Jasmine. Everyone calls me Jasmine, even though it’s not my name.” Jasmine twirled and sang a little song. She stopped in the middle of the song and looked back at me. “Such a pleasure to meet you. The pleasure is all ours. I love living in big white houses. I spend way too long in the big brick scary building. This is nice compared to where I was.”
I swallowed. “Oh? Where were you before this?” Pretty sure I knew the answer, but I had to ask.
Jasmine held up her wrist. “Five Pines. Not Four Pines. Not Three Pines. Five Pines is the number of pines they use to indicate a mental institution. I don’t know why it’s Five Pines. There are hardly any trees. At least no trees that I could see from my tiny window.”
I knew that Beth had spent time at Five Pines, and I wondered if Jasmine might have information about Beth that could help us solve the case. I don’t want to say that ending up in jail with Jasmine struck me as a lucky break. But I was curious and hopeful.
Could Jasmine lead us to the killer?
If I was going to find anything out, I knew I would have to tread lightly so I chose my next words with careful precision. “I’ve heard about Five Pines. I’m glad you like it here better.”
“So much better. One million times better.” Jasmine stared off into space as she spoke.
“I had a friend who was there. And the staff wouldn’t even let me visit her. Maybe you knew her… Beth?”
Jasmine’s eyes widened and she stumbled back a few steps. “You knew Beth? Yes, I knew Beth. We all knew each other. Beth’s the reason I’m here. That red-haired lady, the angry one? The one that I heard someone call Sunshine? Sunshine thinks I killed Beth. I didn’t kill Beth. I was discharged the day Beth died but that doesn’t make me guilty. Discharge does not make you guilty. It makes you free. It makes you free unless people think it makes you guilty. And then you end up in jail. And then maybe you end up back in Five Pines. I don’t want to go back there. I didn’t kill Beth, her crazy roommate did. At least that’s what I think. Roommates often kill each other. I won’t kill you, even though you’re my roommate. Not unless you make me very, very angry.”
My fingertips and scalp started to tingle as soon as Jasmine casually mentioned the possibility of murdering me. I tried to ignore the pins and needles in my extremities and focus on the case. “I’m sorry. Did you say Beth was killed by her roommate at Five Pines?”
“That’s my theory. That’s my working theory. And I love to work. People think that I’ve never liked to work but I had a lemonade stand when I was ten and it went so well I bought myself extra lemons for the next day. When life gives you lemons, buy extra lemons with the lemon money you make from the lemonade stand.”
“Do you know the name of Beth’s roommate?”
“Of course. I was the mayor of that place. I was very careful with my political moves. That’s how I got to be the mayor.”
“Thomas.” I turned. There stood Chief Flanagan, outside the bars of the cell, arms crossed. “Stop hassling your cellmate.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re going home.” Flanagan opened the cell door and pulled me out by my wrist. I stammered. “I don’t understand. Why am I getting out?”
“You made bail.”
“Five thousand dollars? How?”
Flanagan shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”
I followed Flanagan down the hall, toward the main area of the police station. My mind flooded with questions.
Who had paid my bill? Why had they done it? And could Jasmine have been right about the killer?
As I walked out of the cell, I glanced back. I was happy to be going home, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might have been seconds away from learning the name of a murderer…
25
Freebird
I exited the police department into the darkness of the wee morning hours to find Miss May and Teeny standing in the parking lot, leaning against the VW bus.
I laughed as waves of relief and disbelief washed over me. “You two are unbelievable. You paid five grand to get me out of jail?”
“It wasn’t all us,” said Miss May. “We had a little help.” Miss May walked around the side of the VW bus and gestured toward the road where at that precise moment, a parade of cars slowly rolled by the police department. Each car flashed its light and honked its horn. I recognized a lot of familiar faces from Pine Grove. All these people, driving by in the middle of the night, just to support me…
I wiped my eyes with my shirt sleeves. Yeah, yeah, I immediately started to cry. “Everyone in town…” I said, trying not to devolve into full-on ugly sobs.
Teeny patted me on the shoulder. “They heard about the crazy bail and they chipped in. Five dollars here, a hundred there… We hit five thousand and we barely had to try.” I spotted KP driving by in his pickup truck. He stuck his head out the window with a smile. “How’d you like my cell, girly? Hope you got some potatoes while you were in there.”
“I didn’t,” I called back.
“Why?”
I laughed. “Got in too late, got out too early.”
“Ah, too bad,” KP grumbled, and drove away.
The stream of slow moving cars lasted for about five minutes. Brian from the Brown Cow drove by with his husband, Mr. Brian, in a cute little sedan. Liz, the editor of the Gazette, rode by on her bicycle, dinging the bell. Tom Gigley cruised by in his antique Mercedes, blasting one of his own songs from the stereo. Tears casually rolled down my cheeks for the whole procession. Then, the cars were gone almost as fast as they had arrived. I wrapped Miss May and Teeny up in a big hug. “I’m so glad I moved home. It’s worth going to jail just to see how kind people can be.”
“Silver lining.” Miss May dabbed at her own eyes. My aunt wasn’t a big crier, but even she was susceptible to the poignancy of extreme kindness.
“Why are we crying?” asked Teeny, who was also crying.
“Because this was a beautiful gesture,” I said. “And that makes me cry.”
I stepped out of the hug and wiped my eyes again. Crying time, over. We needed to get down to business. “Pine Grove is such a wonderful community. That’s why we need to find the killer. I’m sick of people treating the citizens of Pine Grove like they’re dispensable. No one can murder our friends and neighbors and get away with it.”
“Yeah. Even if the people who die are awful it’s not right,” Teeny said.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
A gruff man cleared his throat from a few feet behind us. We turned. Wayne stood at the entry to the police department with an impatient look on his face. “I suggest you girls hit the road. Flanagan is on a rampage. You didn’t hear it from me.” Wayne disappeared back into the police department. He took big, long strides. The longest strides I had ever seen anyone take. Like he had Gumby legs. He was tall, that was probably why.
“Nice caboose on that kid,” said Teeny.
Miss May laughed. “Get in the car, ladies. We should get out of here.” On the ride back over to Teeny’s house, I told Miss May and Teeny all about what had happened in jail.
Neither of them had ever heard of Jasmine before but they were both stunned by what Jasmine h
ad told me. And they were irate at Chief Flanagan for treating me in such a harsh manner. I tried to say that I’d felt pretty comfortable in jail, considering it was jail, but Teeny and Miss May were still all fluffed up about Flanagan’s attitude.
Half an hour later, the three of us were getting ready for bed in Teeny’s pastel pink bathroom, and we were still talking about the case. “Wayne seemed serious back at the station,” I said. “I mean, he always seems kind of serious. But I think this time, Flanagan isn’t messing around. She’s determined to stop us and it seems to me like that’s more important to her than solving the case. I mean, she already arrested someone. And I really don’t think Jasmine is guilty. I don’t know what comes next.”
Teeny spoke as she brushed her teeth. White foam bubbled from her mouth. “Well we’re not going to stop pursuing the case. But we need to stay out of her way while we investigate.”
Miss May brushed back her hair. “So we’ll keep investigating but we won’t break any more laws.”
Teeny and I both turned to face Miss May. “I’m serious,” said Miss May. “We can solve a murder without breaking laws. We should always strive to abide by the law while we investigate, anyway. This will be a fun challenge.”
Teeny shook her head. “That is absurd, May. Sometimes you need to break the law to set things right. Even Mr. Flowers breaks laws and he has three degrees from Oxford in horticulture and he drinks tea with his pinky up. Jenna doesn’t drink tea with her pinky up because she’s low-born. She thinks it’s silly how Mr. Flowers drinks tea. But she does not think it’s silly that he sometimes breaks laws to solve murder mysteries. That’s par for the course.”
Miss May turned up her palm. “I don’t think we have much of a choice. My little Chelsea is not going to spend one more night in jail. I don’t care how good the potatoes are.”
“I heard they’re delicious,” said Teeny. “One time I called the cook over there to try and get the recipe. She knew it was my voice and she wouldn’t tell me anything. So frustrating to have such an adorable and recognizable voice in this town.”
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