by C Farren
Oh well. It was worth a try. Things are never that easy, are they?
“Do you want to share a cab back home?” Wren asked.
Maureen grinned. “I’d love to.”
On the way back to Snowflake Bay the two of them caught up. Some people just assumed Maureen was rude, but she was on the spectrum, so she told the truth as bluntly as possible. Wren found her a breath of fresh air. Guilt tugged at her a little. She hadn’t really noticed Maureen had been missing from the employment office for the past month. Some detective I am! Wren was glad she didn’t have to go back there anymore. The place was about as depressing as a long weekend in Alcatraz.
The cab stopped outside Maureen’s house. It was a three-story apartment building, constructed within the last thirty years. The architect had tried to imitate late Victorian style like most of the rest of the town but it just looked ugly.
“Can I come around for dinner some time?” Maureen asked. “I miss our talks.”
Wren smiled. “Sure.”
She helped Maureen out of the cab, while the driver managed to get her into her wheelchair. It was night now, and one of her neighbors was shoveling the snow off the path up to the apartment building. They waved pleasantly to Maureen.
“How are my babies doing?” Maureen called.
The neighbor smiled. “They’re all perfect!”
“You have children?” Wren exclaimed as the cab drove away.
“I have thirteen cats,” said Maureen. “They’re my children.”
The neighbor helped Maureen inside, leaving Wren outside in the cold. She’d been abandoned again.
Fiona flitted in beside her. “You’re on your own at last.”
“It’s been a long day,” said Wren. “I just want to go home.”
“I’ll walk with you. We can see the sights. I just love Christmas lights, don’t you? Snowflake Bay at Christmas is just so festive. No wonder you never wanted to leave.”
Wren didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. A little part of her knew she should be, but she ignored it. The two of them linked arms and spent the next half an hour walking lazily home, taking in the lights, marveling at the Christmas tree. There were other people about, doing the same as them. There was even a small cart set up in the town square selling warm chestnuts.
They spotted Wanda sitting on a bench and joined her. The matriarch seemed in a contemplative mood tonight. She was probably thinking about all the chaos her extended family had been through lately.
“I heard about the rats,” said Wanda, gratefully taking a handful of warm chestnuts. “It seems a bit odd for this time of the year.”
“That’s why I think someone put them there deliberately,” said Wren.
Wanda seemed appalled. “Who would do such a wicked thing?”
“And someone hacked my phone and sent horrible messages to Benedict too.”
“You should ask Kerry about that. She’s good with all that technical stuff. When Nigerian scammers hacked my computer, she sorted it all out. Such a clever girl.”
Wren nodded as they sat and watched the lights, eating warm chestnuts, cozy. It was wonderful, and for a full half an hour the murders never once entered Wren’s mind.
Chapter 27
A ringing phone woke Wren in the middle of the night. Her cell was in her bed with her, nestled next to a sleeping Graces, perilously close to her front paws. When Wren tried to take it, the little cat hissed.
“You can have it back,” Wren promised her, taking the cellphone. “Do you call people in the night or something? Do you text the father of your children dirty things? I bet you do.”
Gracie gave her a look as if to say the woman was completely insane.
Wren giggled and answered her phone. It was her mother.
“What’s wrong?” Wren cried. “Is it Dad? Are you having a heart attack?”
“Nothing like that,” said Dot. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Then why are you calling at this ungodly hour? My cats and I don’t like having our sleep disturbed.”
“Anthony called me. I asked him to keep me up to date with news on Everett. Anyway, he regained consciousness, and he asked to see Sheriff Fisher straight away. He said he knows who killed his mother.” There was some shuffling in the background. “I have Anthony on the landline right now. Sheriff Fisher is at the hospital about to talk to Everett, and Anthony is listening in. I thought you’d want to know, just in case you were right about who you thought killed Delia.”
“I thought Everett killed her.”
Wren put her phone on speaker so the sound was clearer. She wanted to hear every little thing that was said. Was Everett going to put the blame on someone else, or was he really not the killer? She was so sure he was the killer, or at least almost sure. The clues all added up.
“Are you feeling up to talking?” Sheriff Fisher asked. His voice was low and tinny but she could hear what he said clearly enough.
“I have to tell you,” said Everett. He sounded scared, desperate even. “I can’t let this go on any longer.”
“You said you knew who killed your mother.”
“It was me. I killed my mother.”
Her mother stifled a gasp. Wren wasn’t sure whether to believe the confession or not. It sounded as though Everett was only saying what they wanted to here. It may be the truth, but Wren doubted it, not now. Was someone pressuring him into saying this?
“Why did you kill her?” the sheriff asked.
“I’d had enough,” said Everett. His throat sounded raw, probably from all the sea water that he’d coughed up. “What she did to Veronica was the last straw, but even before that I thought about killing her.” He coughed a few times. “I never said anything when she made offhanded racist comments to my wife. I never said anything about anything. If I could kill my mother again I would. I enjoyed it.” He coughed again, a little louder this time. He sounded really sick. “But that isn’t the whole story. You see...”
Everett started to make choking sounds. Machines started to beep loudly. Anthony shut down his mobile phone, cutting them off from the action.
“Did you hear that?” said Dot. “He admitted to killing Delia, his own mother!”
“But what else did he have to say?” said Wren. “He was going to say something else.”
“Just wait until Anthony calls back. He’ll have all the details.”
They waited for Anthony to call back. During that time Fiona joined her in her bedroom, bringing two cups of hot cocoa to keep them warm. Dot meanwhile regaled them with stories of Anthony’s trips to Africa with Doctors Without Borders and the time he went to live in Australia. She sounded like the man’s advertising board.
She’s not over Anthony, is she?
Wren ignored those nagging doubts about her mother and just listened. It seemed to make her mom happy to talk about Anthony.
An hour later Anthony called back.
“Everett is dead,” he announced.
Dot gasped. Anthony started reassuring her with kind, sweet words, while Wren’s brain started to work in overdrive.
Did being starved of oxygen kill him, or something else?
“What killed him?” Wren asked. “Sorry if you can’t tell me, but I thought I’d ask.”
“I could smell almonds on his breath.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m pretty sure someone poisoned him with arsenic.”
Chapter 28
The Snowflake Bay Herald reported Everett’s murder by cyanide the next day. There wasn’t much detail in the story other than a few words from Anthony and a nurse. It didn’t even mention that he confessed to killing his mother. The story was short and to the point and it was about as informative as a Craigslist ad.
“They’re probably holding that fact back until they can corroborate it,” said Fiona at the breakfast table. “I’m not sure how they can do that now Everett is dead though. Sheriff Fisher will probably just announce Delia’s murder as solved and leave it at that.
”
The angel had made bacon and eggs that morning. Wren was wolfing them down, unnaturally hungry. Investigating murders always made her ravenous for some reason.
“What do you think he meant when he said that it wasn’t the whole story?” Fiona asked. “Do you think that he had an accomplice?”
Wren stared down at her thick bacon. Fiona had picked up a lot of bad habits when she’d been stationed in London during the second world war, including frying bacon that was extra thick and not that crispy. Wren didn’t like it.
“I’m thinking somebody saw him do it and was covering for him,” said Wren.
“Why do you think that?” Fiona asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just a hunch; plus, it’s the most obvious thing. The store isn’t that big. It’s reasonable to assume somebody saw him do it.” She took a bite of the thick bacon and her eyes widened in pure pleasure. It was a little crispy, a little juicy, and full of wonderful bacony goodness. “He was always with his wife, so I’m assuming it was her.”
“That doesn’t feel right.”
Who was in the store at the time of, or before, the crash? She’d already been through this list before, but now it took on a whole new meaning. Which one of them had possibly witnessed the murder?
“Benedict. Paula. Chelsea. Camden. Lenny. Any one of them could have seen Everett murder Delia. But why didn’t they come forward? What stopped them?” A puzzle piece locked into place. She should have realized it sooner. “Benedict said Paula had been upset since the crash. He thought it might be because of the trauma of the incident, but what if it’s more than that? What if she saw Delia being murdered?”
That poor girl.
“I better talk to Benedict,” said Wren. Then she remembered the vile text that someone had hacked her phone to send and sighed. “Damn. He isn’t speaking to me.” She looked at Fiona. “We need to talk to Keegan. I need him to talk to Paula.”
“I could talk to her,” Fiona suggested. “Children generally respond well to angels.”
“Why would that be?”
“Juniper says it’s something to do with their innocence and belief in fairy tales. It didn’t make much sense to me. What do you think?”
Wren agreed, thinking it was a good idea. She still needed to inform Keegan. It was only polite to keep him updated on everything she’d found out.
KEEGAN KNOCKED ON THE door. Fiona’s nerves ate her up. She didn’t really know how to talk to children or how to react to them. She’d been denied raising her own child when she’d been killed by a German bomb.
I know I would’ve been a good Mom.
She’d had Harold for almost ten months before she was sent to England. In that time all she did was feed him and change his diapers. She’d been too exhausted to appreciate what being a mother truly meant. She never saw him take his first steps, say his first word. She didn’t see anything. How she wished she could turn back time, but she wasn’t sure she’d change a thing. What would happen to all the lives she saved in London?
“Why are you shaking?” Wren asked her.
“Just thinking,” said Fiona.
Keegan said, “Try to stay calm. I know you have a degree in child psychology but she’ll be able to sense your fear.”
Wren had told Keegan that Fiona had a degree in child psychology. It was the excuse they needed to make him see the angel was needed. He accepted the lie quite easily. After a few minutes he even mentioned something about Fiona talking about going to college to study it when they were younger. That never happened of course. Keegan’s mind was filling in the blanks yet again.
After what seemed like forever, Benedict answered the door. He didn’t appear to be his usual effervescent self. Whoever had hacked Wren’s phone and sent him that vile text had really done a number on him. He must have felt so betrayed.
“Can I help you?” Benedict asked. He refused to even look at Wren.
“I’ll get right to it,” said Keegan. “We believe your daughter saw Everett kill his mother.”
A realization came over Benedict’s face. He nodded and said, “That explains some things. Come on in.”
Paula was sitting in the living room playing with an Action Man toy. She was dressing him in female clothes. He looked spectacular.
“Action Man is looking pretty good,” said Fiona, smiling. She was still a little nervous, but she shoved it aside. She could do this. “He could win Drag Race.”
“I just wish he had longer hair,” Paula admitted sadly.
Wren had ordered Paula a gender-neutral doll for Christmas. It had taken her a good ten minutes to explain to Fiona what that was.
I still don’t get it.
Fiona nodded to Benedict, who was looking at her strangely, almost as if he knew something about her she didn’t. Keegan asked him to go into the kitchen with him to give them some space.
“It must have been terrible at the toy store the other day,” said Fiona, sitting down next to Paula. The girl still hadn’t looked up from her doll. “But I bet you were brave for your daddy, weren’t you?”
Paula shrugged and said, “It was scary I guess.”
“You’re putting on a very brave face.”
“I know I was scared,” Wren admitted. “When I thought you and your daddy might be hurt all I could think about was finding you.”
The girl started to put some double-sided sticky tape on top of Action Man’s head, and then proceeded to stick tiny bundles of cotton wool with purple glitter on. Paula smiled and looked up at Fiona. She gasped.
“You’re glowing!” Paula exclaimed. She reached her hand out and tried to snatch at something over Fiona’s head. “And what’s that?”
“It’s my halo, said Fiona. “But only brave boys and girls can see it. I’m an angel you see.”
Paula looked at her dubiously. “There’s no such thing as angels.”
“Fiona is the best angel in the world,” said Wren. “She was sent to sort my life out.”
“Are you telling the truth?” Paula demanded.
Fiona smiled. “You know I’m telling the truth. I can see it in your eyes.”
The girl burst into tears and hugged Fiona so tightly she thought she might pop. After a minute Paula let go and wiped her snotty nose on her sleeve. Wren smiled down at her.
“You’re not here about the crash, are you?” Paula asked.
Wren shook her head and said, “We think you might have seen something that happened before the crash.”
“It’s complicated,” said Paula. She picked up her doll again, idly playing with it. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Tell us and we’ll tell you if it makes sense or not.”
Paula nodded. “The woman was standing near Mrs. Claus. I think she was her daughter. They argued a lot, and Mrs. Claus snatched something off her and threw it on the floor. Mrs. Claus was very mean. She looked like she was sucking on a lemon. She scared me.”
That corroborated Chelsea’s story. But what happened next?
Paula continued. “After that Mrs. Claus started curling ribbons with this Nutcracker sword, and then the man came up to her. He talked to her, but he kept looking out towards the windows, like he was waiting for something. Then I heard a car horn. He grabbed the Nutcracker and stabbed Mrs. Claus and then the car crashed into the store. I can’t remember much after that.”
Wren nodded. “What did the man look like?”
“I didn’t hear much, but one time, when he was shouting, he called her Mom.”
Fiona looked at Wren. Paula did see Everett murder his own mother. If only the police had asked the little girl about this sooner then maybe Everett might not be dead. And why had he been looking out of the window? Did he know that Kerry was about to come crashing through into the store at any minute, or was he just plucking up the courage to commit his foul deed?
“Is Daddy going to be safe?” Paula asked, her lip quivering. “I know I can trust you because you’re an angel.”
“What do you
mean?” Fiona asked.
Paula walked over to the coffee table and brought them a Kindle. She switched it on. There was a message on it, saying “If you tell anyone what you saw at the toy store your daddy might get hurt.”
“It just appeared on my Kindle home screen later that day,” said Paula. She looked at Fiona, and then at Wren. “You won’t let my daddy be hurt?”
Oh dear! Somebody is threatening this poor girl!
Wren took Paula’s hand and squeezed it. “You have an angel on your side, and you have me, and you have all your daddy’s strong drag friends. Nobody will ever hurt him as long as we’re around.”
Paula smiled. “I believe you.”
The girl seemed happier as she began to play with her Action Man again. Fiona and Wren found Keegan talking to Benedict in the kitchen.
“She saw Everett kill Delia,” said Wren. She looked directly at Benedict, who flinched at her candid stare. “And someone hacked her Kindle and sent her a message, saying they’d hurt you if she told anyone.”
Benedict put his hand to his mouth, astounded. “If Everett wasn’t already dead, I...”
“I think we can officially call this case closed,” said Keegan.
They headed outside. Benedict gave Wren a weak, forced smile before he shut the door on them. Fiona understood why he acted this way, but he had to know Wren better than that. Right?
Keegan stopped by the side of the road. “Something isn’t right.”
“I know what you mean,” said Fiona. “Everett is a vet. What does he know about hacking?”
They told him the rest of what Paula said, and he seemed to agree with them. This case wasn’t over, not yet.
“I need to visit Chelsea one last time,” Wren revealed. “I need to know what secret she’s afraid that Lenny will reveal. I think that’ll explain everything.” When Keegan was about to object, she interrupted him. “I need to do this bit on my own. Will you trust me?”
Keegan nodded, though reluctantly. “Okay. But what is it you think you’re going to find out?”