Rainwater dropped his hand from my arm and straightened to his full six-two height. Wheaton was only a couple of inches shorter than the police chief, but he seemed to get the message and took half a step back.
“Forty-five-year-old female dead on the back stairs.” Rainwater’s tone was all business. “The victim is Anastasia Faber. It appears she fell down the steps and broke her neck in the fall. Apparent accident.”
“It’s no wonder,” one of the other officers said after peeking around the corner into the stairwell, “if she was coming down those stairs. There is no light and they are so narrow, I can’t fit my entire foot on one of those steps.”
A feeling of dread washed over me. Charming Books was going to be sued. There was no way around it. I tried to think of who in Anastasia’s life would bring the case forward. No one came to mind. In fact, no one came to mind when I thought about Anastasia at all. I blinked back tears as the lonesomeness that Anastasia must have endured hit me. In the few months I had known her, I couldn’t recall one mention of any family, not even in passing. Could it be possible that she didn’t have any family? Would there be anyone left behind who might mourn her death? I felt woozy and settled back on my stool. I was afraid that if I stood up, I would topple over.
“Clear case of accident, wouldn’t you say?” the officer who made the comment about the stairs said.
“Nothing’s clear until the coroner makes his judgment,” Rainwater replied. I felt his gaze on me.
What did that mean? What did Rainwater discover when he examined Anastasia’s body that I had missed? I knew there must be something. I swallowed. It was like Benedict’s death all over again. Colleen’s death even. Was I never to escape this type of circumstance as long as I lived in Cascade Springs? And since being the Caretaker was a life sentence, that would be a very long time.
“Take another officer and collect the names and pertinent information from the Poe-try Reading audience. We don’t have much to keep them here, and I want to get as many names as we can before they disperse. In case we need to speak to them again.”
“Why would we need to do that, sir?” the young officer asked.
“It’s just a precaution” was Rainwater’s answer.
I was becoming very tired of that phrase.
“And,” I heard Chief Rainwater say through my dark and hazy thoughts, “send an EMT over to check on Miss Waverly. She might be in shock.”
“The EMTs are already here, sir. I will meet them outside and let them know about Miss Waverly.” The officer moved toward the doorway where the staircase was. This was my chance to leave the kitchen. I didn’t think I could stand any more talk about broken necks, and I knew Grandma Daisy must need my help dealing with the tourists at the Poe-try Reading, or what was left of it. I started to stand.
“Not so fast.” An EMT carrying a medical kit entered through the back door. “We need to check you out before you can leave.”
I frowned. “I don’t need to be checked out. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Sorry, miss,” the EMT said, gently pushing me back onto the stool by placing his large hand on my shoulder. He had kind brown eyes set back in his dark skin. “The chief says we have to check you out, and he’s the boss.”
Emerson, who had concealed himself in the folds of my shawl, popped his head out right under my chin and meowed.
“Well, hello,” the EMT said. “Who do we have here?”
Emerson lifted his chin, inviting the EMT to give him a scratch.
The paramedic obliged. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to let go of the cat, so I can get an accurate reading with the blood pressure cuff.”
“All right,” I muttered, and reluctantly, I released Emerson. He jumped from my lap gracefully to the black-and-white checkerboard tiled floor.
The EMT read my blood pressure with a serious expression on his face.
“What’s the prognosis, Doctor?” I joked.
“I’m not a doctor, and some of the MDs at the hospital would be alarmed you called me one.” He grinned. His bright white teeth gleamed against his mocha-colored skin. “You can just call me Keenan.” He removed the cuff. “Even though I’m not a doctor, I predict you’ll be fine. You’ve had a shock. Your blood pressure and pulse are elevated, which is understandable, given the circumstances.” He placed his fingers on my wrist again and looked at his watch. When he let go of my hand, he said, “Your pulse is already falling back to normal.”
I smiled, grateful for his kindhearted teasing. It was what I needed at that moment. I glanced out the window again to see how Grandma Daisy was faring with breaking up the Poe-try Reading. Many of the members of the audience were out of their seats and whispering to one another. Clearly, they knew whatever had happened in Charming Books was much more than a small accident to call the attention of so many police and EMTs, especially in the middle of the Cascade Springs Food and Wine Festival.
As Rainwater had ordered, two of his officers moved from person to person collecting names and information. They made notes on minuscule notepads. Some of the audience members were standoffish, while others almost seemed to enjoy talking to the police, or at least, that’s how it appeared through the window.
I frowned when I saw the man with the guitar whom I’d seen while riding my bike the day before, standing just outside the white picket fence. He held the neck of his guitar and scanned the crowd as if he was searching for someone in particular.
“Violet?” Keenan asked.
I could tell from the tone of his voice that it wasn’t the first time he had tried to grab my attention.
I turned away from the window. “Yes?”
The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I just told you to take it easy for the rest of the day.”
Take it easy? How could I take it easy when one of the Red Inkers was dead in the back of Charming Books?
He rolled up his blood pressure cuff. “If you don’t, David might come after me, and I don’t really need that.”
“David?” I asked, still feeling slightly dazed from seeing the man with the guitar through the window. There was something about him that gave me goose bumps. It was almost as if I thought that I should know him, even though I had seen him for the first time only the day before. When I looked out the window again, the man was gone.
“Chief Rainwater,” Keenan said. “I suppose I should call him by his official title when we’re on the job. On Dungeons & Dragons nights he’s just David.”
My eyebrows shot sky-high. “Chief Rainwater plays Dungeons & Dragons?”
“Oh yeah, he’s the one who started the club in the village. We play at least once a week. David can’t make it every week between being the police chief and the fact that he spends every spare moment writing his book.”
My eyebrows shot up a little farther with this new information about the chief of police. He sounded like a true Renaissance man. Chief, writer, role-playing game aficionado. It just seemed a little too good to be true. I wondered what else I didn’t know about Chief David Rainwater. Every tidbit I learned made me that much more curious about him. Briefly, I wondered if that really was his appeal. Nathan I knew. I knew him better than almost anyone in my life. Rainwater was a mystery.
“Hey,” he said. “Next time we play, you should join us. I think you would really like it.”
“I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons before. I’m afraid I would just slow you all down.”
He gave me a lopsided grin. “I’m sure David would bring you up to speed in no time. Until then, put your feet up,” he went on. “Read a book. You have plenty of those around here, I gather.” He chuckled at his own joke.
His comment brought my thoughts back to the situation at hand. Read a book. That was just it. Had I read a book, the book that the shop had wanted me to read, Anastasia might still be alive.
EIGHT
After Keenan said I was free to go, I slipped out the back door of Charming Books into the garden. Despite Rainwater’s officers’ best efforts to question the crowd about what they might have seen or heard, many of them had left the Poe-try Reading. The few that remained watched the police coming and going from the shop with ghoulish attention. Perhaps they were hoping for an exciting story about their visit to Cascade Springs they could tell their friends and family back home. Grandma Daisy, Richard, Sadie, and Trudy huddled together. The man with the guitar was gone as well. I wondered if I’d imagined him being there in the first place.
Sadie waved me over to their group. “Violet, are you all right?” She gave me a hug so tight it nearly took my breath away. Despite her petite frame, she was strong from moving heavy dress forms around her shop. “I can’t believe what has happened.” There was a tremor in her voice. “Poor Anastasia.”
Trudy sniffed. “Poor Anastasia, my eye.”
We all stared at her.
Trudy folded her arms. In her pin-striped period dress, she looked like a geriatric Mary Poppins that was just about to break into song except for the scowl on her deeply wrinkled face. “I’m not saying I wished the woman dead, goodness knows, but I will not pretend I liked her now that she is gone. She was rude and uppity. I’m sorry she’s dead, but I won’t pretend I will miss her.”
I winced at Trudy’s harsh words. I wasn’t necessarily a fan either, but I’d never be so blunt about someone who had passed. Truthfully, I found myself wondering if perhaps I should’ve been kinder or tried harder to see past Anastasia’s cantankerous demeanor. Maybe there was a reason she was so guarded and quick to lash out at others.
“Even so,” Grandma Daisy said evenly, “I have to echo Sadie’s sentiments as to ‘poor Anastasia.’ It’s just so terrible.”
Richard nodded. “To fall down the stairs like that, to lose her life in such a senseless accident. Anastasia must be furious to know that was how she died.”
If it was an accident, I thought. I hoped that I was wrong, but I suspected that Chief Rainwater didn’t believe that it was. I cleared my throat, eager to change the subject. “Did you all see a man with a guitar wandering around here?”
Trudy adjusted her pocketbook on her arm. “You must mean Fenimore. I thought I saw him lurking about a little while ago.”
“Fenimore?” I asked.
She nodded. “He’s a troubadour. He floats from village to village playing his harmonica and guitar for tips. He is usually here every year for the Food and Wine Festival.”
“I’d never seen him at the festival before,” I said.
She waved away my comment. “Well, only in the last few years, then. I don’t think I ever saw him before you left the village. Knowing Fenimore, he was here for the free cookies. He has a knack for sniffing out free eats.”
“I’ve seen the man a few times myself.” Richard touched his Poe mustache as if he was surprised to find it still there. “Does he just go by ‘Fenimore’? What’s his last name?”
Trudy shrugged. “Can’t say that I’ve ever heard it. He’s always introduced himself as Fenimore. There was nothing more than that.”
“Violet, Daisy.” Rainwater stood in the doorway of the shop. “May I have a word?”
I swallowed.
Grandma Daisy took my hand and gave it a little squeeze before we walked over to the chief together.
I linked my arm through my grandmother’s to demonstrate that we were a united front. We could survive this. We had survived much worse. “What happened?” I asked. “Did she trip down the stairs?”
“It appears that’s what happened. Everything points to that, but the coroner and I agree that something is off about her fall.”
“What do you mean ‘off’?” Grandma Daisy asked.
“I can’t put my finger on it, but we’ve decided we will do a complete investigation.”
“Like a murder investigation?” My pulse quickened.
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it anything like that just yet, but it is most certainly a suspicious death.”
“Are you saying someone pushed her down the stairs?” Grandma Daisy asked.
“No, no. There is no evidence of that.”
“Then how else can her death be anything but an accident?” Grandma Daisy tightened her hold on my arm.
He pursed his lips together in a thin line. The police chief knew more than what he was saying. “I called you over to tell you that we will have to close down Charming Books while the investigation is going on.” His brows dipped down as if in regret to have to share this news with us.
Grandma Daisy gasped. “But it’s the festival. This is the busiest time for—”
Grandma’s protest was interrupted by someone shouting my name. “Violet!”
My stomach dropped. I knew that voice as well as my own. Grandma Daisy’s fingers dug into my arm as if she felt my body tense, ready to leap into the flight response. There was no way to escape.
Mayor Nathan Morton strode through the side gate. The autumn sunshine gleamed off the top of his blond, perfectly styled hair, and his suit was pressed and tailored to his body. He didn’t wear a tie, but his shirt was open at the throat. As it was the weekend, I guessed he wanted to give off the impression of the approachable village mayor for the Food and Wine Festival. His dark brown eyes were focused on me. He reached me before I had the willpower to break eye contact. “Violet, are you all right? I heard there was an accident at Charming Books and someone was hurt.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I got here as soon as I could.” He took a step closer to me. “Please tell me you’re all right.”
There was such naked and sincere concern in his eyes that something got stuck in my throat, and I couldn’t speak.
“Mayor Morton,” Rainwater said. His tone was respectful, but clearly he was not pleased to see Nathan there.
“Chief Rainwater.” Nathan nodded in return and spoke in the same expressionless tone of voice. “Tell me what happened.”
Rainwater was quiet for a moment as if he was trying to decide what to say. When it came down to it, Nathan was his boss, and he had to answer him. “Anastasia Faber fell down the back stairs of Charming Books. She broke her neck in the fall and died.”
“So it was just an accident.” Nathan exhaled a breath.
“At first glance, yes,” the police chief countered. “But we need to do a thorough investigation.”
Nathan’s perfect brow wrinkled. “I don’t think that is necessary if this was so clearly an accident.”
“With all due respect, sir, both the county coroner and I agree that a suspicious death investigation is required.”
“On what grounds?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”
Nathan’s jaw flexed. “Very well, but I am here to be of service to Violet and Grandma Daisy.”
I swallowed as he called my grandmother by the endearment. It shouldn’t have bothered me. It was the name that all my childhood friends called my grandmother, and Nathan had been calling her that his whole life.
“Nathan,” Grandma Daisy said, interrupting the two men scowling at each other. “David was just telling us we’ll have to close Charming Books because of what happened.”
“Is this a murder investigation, Chief?” Nathan frowned. “I see no other reason for you to ask the Waverlys to close their shop in the middle of the Food and Wine Festival otherwise.”
Rainwater folded his arms. The fabric of his tweed coat strained across his chest as he moved. He was still wearing his Dupin costume, although the bowler hat was gone. “It is a suspicious death. The coroner will know more after he examines the body more thoroughly. It’s always better to follow procedure in order to protect the rights of every citizen.”
Nathan nodded. “I agree, but I don’t see why you have to close down the entire store because o
f that. With a building of Charming Books’ size, it should be no trouble to quarantine off the place where the woman fell.”
“I respect your opinion, Mr. Morton, but the coroner and I agree that it would be best to close the shop for the day at least and do everything by the book.”
Nathan shook his head. “That would never do. This is the Food and Wine Festival. Chief, there must be something that you can do. If you close the Waverlys down all weekend, you’re putting their entire business at risk.”
“I don’t think it is as bad as that,” I said, coming to Rainwater’s defense. “One day won’t put us out of business, and maybe we can open by tomorrow.” I gave a hopeful look to the police chief, but his expression was impassive.
Okay, maybe not.
Nathan frowned at me like I was arguing for the other side. “If the Waverlys can’t make sales from inside their shop, at least you can compromise and let them sell books outside.”
Grandma Daisy clapped her hands. “That’s a wonderful idea, Nathan. A sidewalk sale! In fact, I think it’ll do even more to attract visitors, and there is nothing to be said that we couldn’t continue the Poe-try Reading out front. It will be less formal, but that can’t be helped. We will just tell the audience that there will be an intermission. We should be able to have everything moved and restart the reading in that amount of time.”
“A great idea, Grandma Daisy.” Nathan beamed at her.
Rainwater frowned. “I suppose there’s no harm in that as long as my officers supervise what is taken from the shop.”
“Good,” Nathan said with a curt nod. “Why don’t we go inside and start selecting the books you’d like to bring outside?” He waved the Red Inkers over. “Your friends can help, and I’m sure we can scare up a few more volunteers. You can’t object to that, can you, Chief Rainwater?”
I glanced at the police chief. The hard lines of his face seemed to be sharper than before as he clenched his jaw. “I have no objection, but no one goes into the kitchen.”
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