“I understand how you feel. My grandparents’ house was vandalized.”
“I heard. I’m so sorry.” Morgan placed both hands over her heart, rings clicking together.
“I have no idea if anything was taken, mostly it was just destruction. The thief took beans from you? Is that what I heard?”
“Castor beans.”
“As in castor oil?” I asked, amused by a memory. “Gran used to give us that as a laxative when we ate too much of her good cooking.”
“Oh, yes. Castor oil has many medicinal benefits. I sell bottles that have been charged by the light of the full moon in my shop. I use the beans in spell bags and witch bottles.” She frowned. “There weren’t many, a handful. I’ll need to come up with an alternative for bags and bottles this season.”
“I should get going.” She lost me with talk of witchy gardening techniques. “The insurance people will be to the house soon to check out the damage. Sorry to hear about your troubles.”
“And I yours,” Morgan echoed and then blessed me again.
Stolen beans? Was this what I’d signed on for with this job? A summer of investigating crimes that were the equivalent of ‘he stole my ball’ on a schoolyard?
No, I couldn’t think that way. Morgan was right, a break-in was a break-in.
And in a village where relatively little crime happened, maybe there was more to this. Her break-in, my vandalism, and Yasmine’s death so close together? I didn’t believe in coincidences. Somehow, this was all related.
Chapter 13
The insurance adjuster, an elderly gentleman with snow-white hair named Mr. Proctor, let me enter the house with him, but I stood in the doorway of each room while he noted the damages. As he moved through the rooms efficiently, I imagined what the vandal had been thinking each step of the way.
I yank on the cabinet door until the top hinge pulls free. I leave it hanging and move on to the next cabinet. Here, the entire door comes off. I reach in and pull one armful after another of dishes out and let them smash to the floor.
“At least a good amount in here can be salvaged,” Mr. Proctor said.
I frowned at a piece of a coffee mug I recognized. It read “World’s Best Gran—” The piece that completed the word ‘Grandpa’ buried somewhere in the rubble. I picked up the shard of the gift Rosalyn and I had given him for Christmas years ago, careful not to cut my hand on it. We moved to the great room.
I take a butcher knife from the kitchen drawer, stab it into one of the three leather couches and slice it open, and move on to a second . . . I hoist a table lamp above my head and hurl it across the room.
“The lamp is a loss,” Mr. Proctor notes, “but the couch cushions can be recovered.”
In Gramps’ normally cozy den:
I toss papers from the desk like confetti. I pull books from the built-in shelves, tear the covers off some.
Envisioning how a scene ended up in the condition it did rarely gave me trouble. Determining motive, however, was trickier. I couldn’t even begin to understand the motivation behind this. Maybe because this incident was personal. At least, it sure felt that way.
“They did quite a job on the place,” Mr. Proctor said, frowning. “Luckily, your grandparents kept meticulous records.”
Pictures of the contents of each room filled a four-inch thick three-ring binder labeled “Insurance” we’d found in Gramps’ den. There was even a spreadsheet with the estimated value of each item.
I chuckled. “That’s my Gramps. Meticulous to the point of anal. If you’re going to do something, he used to say, do it to the very best of your ability. Otherwise, why bother?”
The best of his ability just saved me a huge headache. It would have taken forever to come up with values for everything in this huge house. Still, the original one week that had turned into one month was quickly becoming one full summer.
Fortunately, the upper floor hadn’t gotten quite the same treatment. The vandals must’ve run out of steam. There, clothing had been tossed around the rooms, dresser drawers as well. The mattresses were flipped off the beds. Just cleanup really, very little actual damage.
“Your grandparents were good, longstanding clients of ours,” Mr. Proctor said. “I’ll make this claim my top priority and put a rush on getting a settlement check out to you.”
“I appreciate that.” I saw him to the front door. “Is it all right for me to get started on things now?”
“Absolutely. Sorry so much of it will end up in the trash.”
After he walked away, I absently reached to my back pocket for my phone to call Mom with an update, forgetting I didn’t have connection. In Madison, I would have gone insane without a cell phone for three hours let alone three days. Here, it almost felt out of place. I carried it with me anyway, out of habit mostly, but maybe I’d want to take a picture of something. Like the graffiti all over the walls. I’d get shots of all the tags later, for now I needed to talk to my mother.
Meeka was not at all interested in going back to the village. So, after settling her into the boathouse, I went to Ye Olde Bean Grinder to see if Violet would let me use the phone there.
“Course you can.” Violet handed me the handset and then placed a mocha with double vanilla and extra whipped cream in front of me before I could even ask. Day three and not only was I a regular, the barista knew my beverage of choice. That was unexpectedly comforting.
I chose a corner stool and dialed Mom’s number.
“Every room?” she asked when I was done explaining the damage.
“There wasn’t damage to every room,” I corrected. “Every room does need cleaning and updating. Unfortunately, they didn’t touch the lovely peachy-gold tiles in the master bathroom or the salmon-pink ones in the others.”
“Maybe we could hire someone to break in and take care of those, too,” she joked.
I was simultaneously pleased and flabbergasted to hear that she had a sense of humor about this. But, “Careful. I am an officer of the law, you know.”
I debated not even telling her about the deputy position. It was only temporary, after all, and I might change my mind about it completely in a day or two. The backlash would be worse if she found out from someone other than me, though.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’re all alone up there. What if you have problems?”
Her tone was not that of a concerned mother. It was that of a mother who didn’t want to deal with a setback.
“I told the sheriff about the shooting. He says I can step down at any time if it turns out to be the wrong choice. And I’ve made a few friends up here already, so I’m not completely alone.”
“Three-day friends aren’t the same as family,” Mom said.
And family who harassed me about every choice I made wasn’t the same as friends who supported my decisions.
“I’m not sure it’s right, but that’s your decision,” Mom said. “I’ll wire funds into your bank account today and you can get started on the house. We need to get this done quickly so we can wash our hands of Whispering Pines.”
Except, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do that. Other than the misfit aspect, which was starting to grow on me, I liked it here. Of course, Gran and Gramps had left everything to Dad, nothing here was mine. I was simply the worker bee, making everything pretty again for a new family. My stomach turned every time I thought of someone else living in my grandparents’ house.
“I’ll have phone and internet in two days, give or take,” I said.
“Good. Remember that the salon is busy now. Lots of summer dye jobs and lighter haircuts.” She sighed. “And dozens and dozens of wedding parties.”
She had little patience for diva brides.
“I’ll only call if something important comes up,” I said.
“That's not what I meant. You can call any time. Or email is good, too. Be careful up there, Jayne.”
I placed the phone back in its cradle on the wall and thanked Violet for the loan. While I’d b
een talking with my mother, the coffee shop filled up. With an eclectic group of patrons that could only be found in Whispering Pines. One older gentleman was dressed as though he was about to have high tea with the Queen in a black tux with tails, black top hat, and walking cane. A couple of tables away from him, a woman sat sipping her beverage and reading a paperback novel with a tinfoil hat on her head. At the table next to her, a man pushed his chair back, stood to leave, and managed to get one of his feet tangled up with a leg of his chair. As if expecting it, the tinfoil lady put out an arm to catch him just as he started to pitch forward.
“He does that every time,” Violet said with a fond grin.
“He trips?” I asked.
“Yep. That’s Mr. Powell. You name it, he’ll get stuck in it, trip over it, or fall into it. Happens every day. Every single day. We all know to look out for him.”
I eyed the tinfoil lady and top hat man. “Anything unusual going on in here that you see.”
Violet looked up from filling the coffee bean container and glanced around at the tables and stools at the counter. “Unusual? No. Why?”
“No reason.” Apparently, tuxedos and tinfoil hats were acceptable attire. “I need to order a Dumpster. Any idea who I should call?”
“Ask Mr. Powell. He runs a landscaping company. He also takes care of plowing the roads around here in the winter.”
“Seriously? A man that accident prone works with heavy machinery?”
“He doesn’t operate the machinery anymore. We made him stop after the backhoe incident.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”
“There’s a section of the creek just east of the village limits that tends to flood the road in the spring,” Violet explained. “He was trying to widen the ditch and managed to flip the backhoe. Not an easy feat. He wasn’t in any danger, but the seatbelt buckle jammed so he hung there for almost an hour before his guys came to cut him free.”
“Good decision to keep him away from the equipment.” I waved goodbye to Violet and caught up with Mr. Powell outside.
“Not a problem.” He gave me a salute, poking himself in the eye with his thumb in the process. “I’ll have an extra-large receptacle there by morning.”
Now that I’d seen the state of the whole house and had a bin on the way, my next task was to make sure Tripp still wanted to help me.
Chapter 14
“This is going to be a massive project,” I explained to Tripp when he joined me at the picnic table outside his popup. “Along with tossing a ton of stuff, there’s also going to be a lot of renovating involved. The bathrooms look like they were last updated in the eighties and all the carpeting upstairs needs to get ripped out. Anyway, it would take me more than a week just to do the cleanup by myself. Are you still interested in helping?”
“I can start right now, if you want,” he said, relief and excitement clear on his face. “Why don’t we go over and come up with a plan?”
My attention had shifted from him to the people in the tents across the campground. Ten of them, all late-teens or early-twenties.
“Is that the group Yasmine Long hung out with?”
Tripp nodded and pointed. “See that tent set way back in the woods?”
A good twenty-five yards beyond the cluster of tents of varying sizes and colors—two orange, one army-green, and one blue—was a small tan A-frame all by itself.
“Yasmine’s?” I guessed and Tripp nodded. “We’ll go check out the house in a minute. I’ve got a few questions for the group.”
“I thought you were on village patrol,” Tripp teased. “Can’t stop yourself from investigating?”
“It’s my nature.” My ‘nosey’ nature as Rosalyn used to say. ‘Inquisitive,’ Dad always corrected. “If there are questions that need to be asked, I ask them. Drove my teachers and coworkers crazy.”
As I got close to the tents, the group members waved or called out greetings.
“How ya’ doing?”
“New to the camp?”
“Welcome.”
“I’m actually staying in the house down the road.” I pointed in the general direction of the house, watching their reactions. Were any of them the vandals? None of them reacted so probably not. “I also work for the sheriff here in Whispering Pines. I’ve got a couple of questions about the young woman who died a few days ago.” I nodded at the lone tent. “I understand she stayed here? Did any of you know her?”
The group members exchanged looks with each other as mournful comments of “Yasmine” and “nice girl” and “didn’t know her that well” rang out. One girl—five-three, black hair woven into approximately fifty small braids that hung to her waist, pale beige skin, dramatic makeup—turned her back to me and the group. She busied herself with her backpack while tossing nervous glances over her shoulder.
If this was a dangerous neighborhood, I’d be prepared for a gun to come out of that backpack. Out of habit, I put my hand to the spot on my right hip where my 9mm normally hung. An unwelcome flash of one of the many, many times Jonah begged me to quit popped into my mind.
“Don’t you get it?” he would plead. “How do you think it makes me feel, knowing that the woman I love is out on the streets, going into dangerous situations without backup?”
He wasn’t any happier when I became a detective and had a partner with me at all times. He simply wanted me to quit, but I was never sure if that was for my safety or his political aspirations. He said I should get a safe office job somewhere. I deciphered that as, “Get ready to be a politician’s wife,” since he was steadily climbing the ranks in local government. My jokes about it being to his benefit to have someone on the inside at the MPD never sat well with him.
I blinked and tensed even more as the girl with the braids turned partway toward me. She had a rolled-up fleece blanket in her hands and until she had it fully unrolled, my hand stayed uselessly at my hip. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders like a shawl and clutched it with one hand while freeing her braids from beneath it with the other.
“I knew Yasmine,” the girl said. “A little.”
I stepped closer and could smell the weed on her from five feet away. “What’s your name?”
“Keko Shen.”
I nodded in the direction of Yasmine’s tent. “Would you step over there with me and tell me what you know?”
“You got a badge?”
“Not yet. I just started with them this morning.” I smiled and shrugged. “Small town. Limited inventory.”
Keko’s eyes narrowed and she tugged the blanket tighter around her.
“You’re not in any trouble,” I assured. “I just have a few questions.”
“You sure sound like a cop.” Keko looked at the group and shrugged a shoulder.
We followed the compacted-dirt pathway the twenty-five yards through the bushes to the little tan tent.
“How well did you know Yasmine?”
“Not that well,” Keko said. “I met her the first day I got here.”
“When was that?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Why are you here? Vacation? On your way to somewhere else?”
Keko shook her head and her face brightened with a smile. “I came to learn about herbs and plants and stuff. There’s this woman here, Morgan Barlow. Word is, she’s the most skilled green witch in Wisconsin. Maybe the whole Midwest.”
“Green witch?”
“Yeah. You know, healer stuff. Morgan knows how to mix herbs and roots and flowers and stuff. She can fix just about anything with the right blend. She’s real powerful.” Keko’s smile turned a little wicked. “She knows how to unfix things too, if you know what I mean.”
I got another whiff of weed and was about to dismiss this part nature girl, part goth girl as a stoner girl, but my instincts tingled, telling me to pay attention. “Unfix?”
“You know.” Keko looked around conspiratorially and whispered, “Black magic.”
Black magic? Oh,
geez.
“Okay,” I said, trying to keep a straight face, “so you arrive in Whispering Pines and meet Yasmine right away?”
“Pretty much.” Keko stared over my shoulder into the woods as she talked. “She was already living here at the campground.”
“What do you mean ‘already’ living here?” Paranoia got the better of me. I spun quick to verify there wasn’t anything behind me. Nothing but trees.
“She came to visit her aunt,” Keko said, “but that didn’t go so well. Yasmine ended up living in the campground after like a day.”
Yasmine’s aunt? The angry woman from the sheriff’s station. “Do you know what happened?”
“They had a fight.” She dismissed this, like fights bad enough to get you kicked out of your home was a common occurrence for her.
This was the same thing Tripp had told me, that Yasmine had a fight with her aunt. That’s good. I liked it when stories jived. I reached for the notepad I carried in the pocket of the jacket I always wore while on duty, remembering a second later that I wasn’t wearing a jacket, nor was I on duty. I did have my phone, though. I pulled it out and opened a voice recorder app.
“Are you okay with me recording this? It’s not like a formal statement or anything. It’s just for me, so I remember what you said.”
“Yeah, that’s cool.”
“Do you know her aunt’s name?”
“Something weird.” Keko kicked the toe of her black combat-style boot repeatedly into the ground as she tried to remember. “Flavia! That’s it. Ain’t that weird?”
“It is unusual.” I liked unusual names. Made tracking the person down much easier. “Did you ever see the aunt? Can you describe her?”
Keko shook her head. “Never saw her, but Yasmine used to pick on her a lot.” Keko gestured around her head like she was pulling her hair back. “Guess she wears her hair in a bun so tight her eyes get squinty. Yasmine used to hold her hair back then purse her lips and look down her nose and pretend to be her.”
Family Secrets: A Whispering Pines Mystery Page 9