Shelley Freydont - Celebration Bay 03 - Independence Slay

by Shelley Freydont

  “Leo?”

  He jumped and cowered back. And that’s when she saw the dark bruise around his eye.

  “Oh, Leo.”

  “Got in a fight,” he mumbled.

  “I can see you did. What happened?”

  “I didn’t start it. Boy said I killed Mr. Gallantine. I didn’t kill nobody. Killing is a sin.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Liv sat down beside him. “When did this happen?”

  “After school, when I was going to the bus. Missed the bus. Had to walk back here.”

  “What are you doing sitting here? Did Pastor Schorr put something on that bruise?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  Leo shook his head.

  “You don’t have a key?”

  He shook his head.

  “Maybe he’s over at the community center.”

  He shrugged.

  “Want me to walk you over and see?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t go if you fight. Pastor don’t want fighters.”

  “Well, it wasn’t your fault, was it?”

  “Don’t matter. Supposed to turn the other cheek. I hit him back.”

  And good for you, thought Liv. But she said, “Why don’t I call over there and tell him you’re home.”

  “Don’t have a telephone.”

  “I think I have his cell phone number.” Liv scrolled through her contact list until she came to Schorr’s entry and the several numbers she had for him. One of the convenient things about technology. Hundreds of numbers at her fingertips.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Phillip Schorr.”

  “Hi Phillip, it’s Liv.”

  “Have you seen Leo? He didn’t show up at the community center, and the kids that go to summer school say he wasn’t on the bus. I’ve called his house—”

  “He’s at the rectory.” Liv stood and walked away from Leo. “It seems he was in a fight at school.”

  “I was afraid that might happen. Is he okay?”

  “He’s got a shiner, but other than that he seems all right.”

  “Tell him to come on over to the center; I can’t leave for another hour at least.”

  “Well, he seems to think you don’t want him at the center… because of the fight.”

  “Oh Lord. You never know if you’re getting the right message across to the kids or not. Can I talk to him?”

  “Of course.” She handed the phone to Leo.

  He listened for a minute and handed it back. “He says I can come to the center.”

  “Can you—?” It was nearly six, only two hours until her meeting. No time for her to take Whiskey home. If she walked Leo over, Sharise would be closed by the time she got back, and Whiskey would have to have dinner compliments of the Quickie Mart. On the other hand, she didn’t want to risk any more trouble for Leo tonight.

  “Why don’t I walk you over.”

  He nodded.

  While they walked the two blocks to the community center, Liv called Ted. “I’m running late.”

  “I’ll say. Not to worry. Whiskey and I have taken our pre- and postprandial exercise—twice. We’ve both eaten dinner and we even left you some.”

  “You are the best assistant ever. I owe you big-time.” She hung up.

  Leo shuffled quietly beside her, his head bowed, his hands in his pockets. He seemed totally defeated. It must be challenge enough for him just getting through each day, and then to have something like this happen. It just wasn’t fair.

  “I was over at Mr. Gallantine’s house today.”

  He glanced over. “Did he come back yet?”

  “Not yet, but I saw Hildy.”

  “She don’t like me.”

  “Well, I think she just doesn’t like anybody.”

  “That’s what Mr. Henry says.” He pushed shaggy hair out of his eyes with both hands.

  “You and Mr. Henry are good friends, though.”

  “Yes ma’am. We play games and watch the movies. He used to be a movie star.” He broke into a smile. “He looked funny.”

  “You must miss him.”

  Leo nodded. “I wish he’d get back and tell them about the ghost. Nobody believes me. They think I don’t think right. But I do. Kinda.”

  “Of course you do. Have you seen the ghost… other than the other night up on the roof?”

  “No. Not up close.”

  Liv’s attention pricked up. “But you’ve seen him at a distance.”

  “Every year when he signals with the lantern.”

  Liv repressed a sigh of disappointment. “Mr. Henry told you the ghost knew where the treasure was?”

  “He didn’t have to. The ghost knows where the treasure is because the ghost is Old Mr. Henry, who got the treasure.”

  “Ah. But Mr. Henry, the new Mr. Henry, likes to talk about the treasure?”

  “Oh, sure.” Leo frowned, bit his lip. “He used to talk about it lots. We’d looked for it, just like pirates. All over the house. Sometimes we even dug in the yard.”

  And what did that mean? That Gallantine really believed there was a treasure, or that he’d entered his own second childhood?

  “We found lots of stuff, but we never found the real treasure. Then he stopped wanting to play. Said it was a stupid game and not to think about it anymore. Then he taught me how to play checkers instead.” He stopped on the sidewalk. “Checkers is okay, but not as much fun as looking for treasure.”

  “No. I can see where it might not be, but I don’t think Mr. Henry would want you looking for the treasure without him.”

  “No. He said not to look anymore. He sounded kinda mad. That it was like some lady’s box. I forget her name, but she’s like the radio. But bad things happened when she found it.”

  A lady like the radio? It took Liv a minute or two to figure out what he was talking about. “Pandora?”

  “Yeah, her.”

  “Why do you think he said that?”

  “Don’t know.”

  They’d come to a block of old houses and businesses, several of which were unoccupied. The community center was set back from the street down a wide drive. It was a one-story wooden building with few windows but a wide cargo door. Liv could just see the words Auto Supply beneath the new coat of white paint.

  She followed Leo to a pedestrian entrance, where he held the door for her and she walked inside.

  Pastor Schorr, wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt, was waiting for them at the door.

  Leo hung his head. “I’m sorry, Pastor.”

  Schorr clapped him on the back, then pulled him into one of those buddy hugs men do, rough and fast. But it seemed to make Leo feel better.

  “Thanks for bringing him over.”

  Several of the youths crowded around Leo. One of them was Roseanne Waterbury. She patted Leo on the shoulder and came over to Liv and the pastor, looking angry.

  “It isn’t fair,” she told them.

  “No,” Pastor Schorr agreed.

  “It was bad enough before, but now with Mr. Rundle being killed, it’s worse.” Her expression changed from anger to expectation when she turned to Liv.

  Liv anticipated her question, but couldn’t stop it.

  “Can’t you do something?”

  Pastor Schorr looked surprised.

  “You know the sheriff is working very hard to get to the bottom of this,” Liv said.

  “But you’re helping him, aren’t you?”

  “Rosie…”

  “Don’t say you can’t do anything, because I know you can.”

  “Roseanne,” Schorr interjected. “I don’t think you should put Ms. Montgomery on the spot like that. Everyone is sympathetic to Leo’s situation, but it’s a police
matter.”

  “Sorry,” Roseanne said, and walked away.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Rosie is a good and caring young lady. She’s always been active in the church group and lately has become more involved with the center. She’s been a good friend to Leo.”

  Liv watched Roseanne return to the group of teenagers clustered around Leo, so she didn’t miss the look of appeal Rosie shot her before turning away.

  “As you can see, this situation has impacted all of us. Especially the young people.” Schorr sighed as he looked over the group. “Maybe he wouldn’t have been up on that roof if he hadn’t overheard that we might be losing the center.” He visibly shook himself. “Not that I think he had anything to do with Jacob Rundle’s death.”

  “Of course not.”

  Liv looked past him into the center. It was one large room with old couches, chairs, and tables clumped in groups around even older carpets, shags in orange and dirty gold. There was a Ping-Pong table and an old television, a microwave and an ancient refrigerator.

  “Not much,” Schorr said. “But it’s an important place.”

  “I can see that,” Liv agreed. There were over a dozen teenagers involved in various activities.

  “And we have an adult program three mornings a week.”

  “And you oversee it all?”

  “More or less.” The pastor shrugged, smiled as he looked over the group. “They’re my sheep.”

  By the time Liv left the center, it was well past six and she’d determined to help Phillip Schorr find a new, adequate, and affordable space. Just as soon as they wrapped up the Fourth of July events, she’d approach the board of trustees for their input.

  Not that she was so altruistic—or nosy, as some would say. She did care about having a place for young and old to come for help and entertainment, but she was also selfish enough to not want crowds of teenagers hanging out in the park with nothing to do and ripe for mischief.

  They had plenty of those even with the community center open six days a week.

  She speed-walked her way back to Town Hall. She was hot and her slacks and shirt were feeling limp and rumpled. Well, it couldn’t be helped. There was no time to get home, cleaned up, and back unless she planned to go into the meeting only half prepared.

  Unpreparedness was not an option.

  • • •

  Ted was waiting for Liv in his office with a sandwich and a can of seltzer. “Figured you didn’t need any caffeine for the meeting tonight.” He followed her into her office and put the food on her desk.

  “You’re probably right.” Though one of BeBe’s lattes was sounding really good about now.

  “Anything to report?”

  “Bunches, but I didn’t have time to double-check the agenda.”

  “Not to worry. When you weren’t back by five, I did it for you.”

  “You should ask the trustees for a raise.”

  Ted snorted and handed her a page off the top of a stack of papers. “The agenda. Good enough?”

  “Absolutely. I thought Bill would be here.”

  “Bill?” Ted asked innocently.

  Liv wasn’t fooled. When you spent as much time together as she and Ted did, you learned to recognize suppressed amusement. “I guess he called?”

  “Yep. In trouble, are we?”

  “Is that the royal ‘we’? Because I’m thinking I’d appreciate the company.”

  “Uh-oh, what did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  He got up and shut the door to her office. “Well, whatever nothing was, Bill called and said he was out following your tip, but he wants to talk to you after the meeting tonight.”

  “Gulp.”

  “Actually what he said was, ‘Tell Liv not to even think about trying to sneak out without fessing up.’”

  “Double gulp.” Liv sank into her desk chair.

  “Lord, girl. What did you do?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ted sat down across from her. “So spill.”

  She told him about the filching nephew, the less-than-forthright curator, their meeting in the woods, and the suitcase. “And Leo has a black eye. And Roseanne is mad at me because she thinks I won’t help him.”

  Ted smiled. “A crusading spirit, our Rosie. Takes after her mother. And her father. But you can’t blame her.”

  “I can’t do anything to help Leo. Bill will have to find a way to protect him until he catches the killer.” Liv sighed. “But Rosie didn’t want to listen to reason.”

  “Because she looks up to you.”

  “Oh, great. That makes me feel worse.”

  “She’ll get over it. I put Fred’s traffic report and A.K.’s security report at the end of the meeting, along with Bill, who said he would like to say a few words. That way, if we keep moving things along at the beginning, we might make it through before the free-for-all over Jacob Rundle’s demise.”

  Most of these wrap-up meetings were dull and boring but necessary. Liv was hoping for dull and boring tonight, though she wasn’t optimistic. Nothing stayed dull and boring in Celebration Bay for long. A blessing and a curse. “I guess there’s no way to avoid it.”

  “In Celebration Bay? I bet attendance tonight will be the biggest yet. No one will be phoning in their committee reports when there’s murder to gossip about.”

  Liv groaned and hid her face behind her hands.

  “You’re tired. Eat your sandwich, and let’s get ready to rock and roll.”

  Liv looked out at him between her fingers. “I think you enjoy all the hoopla.”

  Ted shrugged.

  Liv waited for what he might say next. Something about how he enjoyed excitement because of… what? Something in his past, some kind of wish fulfillment? Her man of mystery was just getting more mysterious, and the less he said about himself, the wilder her surmises about his past became. Itinerant storyteller? CIA operative? Nuclear scientist? Armchair detective? Nothing would surprise her.

  “Well?” she coaxed.

  “Eat your sandwich,” he said.

  She ate her sandwich.

  A few minutes before the meeting, Liv slid her laptop into her computer bag, gathered up her report folders, and pushed back from her desk. Whiskey, who had been snoring away ever since her return, opened his eyes, stretched, and got up.

  “Sorry, big guy,” Liv said. “We’re not done yet. Go back to your nap.”

  “Arf.” He padded over to her, and she leaned down to give him some attention. Something he was getting plenty of from everyone but her, it seemed. But starting next weekend…

  “I’ll try not to be too long. Stay.”

  Whiskey yawned and followed her to the door.

  Ted was waiting for her by the door.

  “Stay,” she repeated, and went into the hall.

  “Poor dawg,” Ted said, and closed the door on Whiskey’s pitiful yip.

  “Give me a break. He’s probably already back on his bed in doggie dreamland.”

  “We did have a rather energetic day today.”

  “Please tell me it didn’t involve holes dug in someone’s garden, chased cats, or stolen food.”

  “No, just all-around guy fun.”

  “I won’t ask.”

  As it turned out, she didn’t have time to.

  The front door opened, and Fred and Dolly Hunnicutt came in. Fred and Dolly were a matching pair, both stocky and pleasingly padded, good-natured, helpful, and open-minded.

  Dolly had come straight from work, her blue gingham dress relieved of its apron, and her honey-colored hair pulled loose from a granny bun. Fred, who managed the books for the bakery and served as the head of the town’s Traffic Committee, was dressed in slacks and a striped short-sleeve dress shirt and tie and was carrying an accordion folder that probably held his traf
fic reports.

  Fred waved and smiled at Liv, his nearly bald head catching the glint of the overhead lights.

  They were accompanied by another man, who looked vaguely familiar. He was in his fifties, tall and lean with longish dark hair graying at the temples and a tapered beard streaked with white. And he was limping slightly.

  Of course. Daniel Haynes, the descendent of General Haynes, leader of the patriot army, who played his ancestor in the reenactment, and one of the casualties of the evening. The general who’d sprained his ankle trying to get off his horse.

  “Another successful weekend,” Fred said as Liv and Ted waited for them.

  “For the most part,” she agreed.

  “Liv, you know Daniel Haynes,” Ted said, addressing the other man. “He plays his very illustrious ancestor every year.”

  “Yes, of course. Nice to see you. Your portrayal of General Haynes was very moving.” She decided not to mention the mishap with the horse.

  They shook hands. Daniel Haynes had a firm grasp and a sparkle in his eye at her compliment. “I’ve done a lot of research into the role and what really happened that day.”

  She smiled. Daniel Haynes evidently believed his own mythology. No one rushed to remind him that the Battle of the Bay was pure fiction.

  “Uh, not the battle itself.” Haynes chuckled. “We all know the battle we present is a stretch of what really happened. But I have researched the period and the people involved, and the manner in which the battle would have been fought is quite historically correct.”

  “Well, it certainly is impressive,” Liv said. “The planning and coordination it must take. How does everyone know when to start?”

  Ted frowned at her. It was a stupid question coming from an event planner, but maybe Haynes didn’t know that.

  “We rehearse two nights a week all of June. Every piece must fit together seamlessly. Once Henry gives the signal, Rufus texts it to Roscoe and myself. I still don’t know how Jacob Rundle ended up in Henry’s place. Sad business. It just doesn’t make sense.

  “Is the mayor here tonight? I was hoping to catch him on another matter before we went inside, but I haven’t seen him.”