Prose and Cons

by Amanda Flower

  “Of course,” Nathan said smoothly. “We want everyone to follow protocol.”

  A thought just dawned on me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about it before. “What about my apartment? Will I be allowed back into my apartment today?”

  David shook his head. “That is a particular place of interest. Isn’t it where Anastasia changed for the Poe-try Reading?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “In that case,” Rainwater went on, “we need to search it as well. Do you know what room she changed in?”

  “No, not exactly. I only gave her the key to my apartment. I would guess my bedroom. I told her to use my apartment. I didn’t give her any more direction than that. It’s small and there are only a few places that she could have comfortably changed her clothes.”

  “We found her garment bag and her other clothes on your bed,” the police chief said.

  I frowned. Why had he asked if he already knew the answer? A blush crept across my face when I realized I was still wearing the black dress. “I can understand why you wouldn’t want me to go back into the apartment.” I gestured to my dress. “But you can’t expect me to wear this all day. Can’t I at least change my clothes?”

  Rainwater nodded. “If you go up through the front stairs and let yourself in that way.” He paused. “And one of my officers will have to go with you.”

  “Not Officer Wheaton, I hope.” I wrinkled my nose.

  He shook his head. “I will ask Officer Clipton to accompany you.”

  “Have I met him before?” I thought that I had met everyone in the tiny village police department that summer when Grandma Daisy had been a murder suspect.

  He smiled. “I don’t think so. Officer Veronika Clipton is a new hire.”

  My face was hot again. Some great feminist I was by assuming that Rainwater’s officer was a man. “Wait, I need my key to get into the apartment. Has anyone found it? Was . . .” I trailed off. I was about to ask if it was with Anastasia.

  The police chief seemed to understand the direction of my questioning. “The key was in Anastasia’s hand.”

  Something about this small detail of Anastasia’s death turned my stomach. She had the key in her hand because she was going to return it to me. Had she fallen in her rush to return the key? That didn’t sound like Anastasia. I couldn’t imagine her being in a hurry for anyone other than herself. I internally winced at my uncharitable thoughts and was glad that no one else could hear them. I bit on my lip. I was the one who’d given her the key. If I hadn’t and told her to change somewhere on the first floor of Charming Books, would she still be alive? Was her death at least in part my fault?

  “Vi,” Nathan said. “You’re not responsible for that poor woman’s death. It was a freak accident.”

  I stared at Nathan, surprised that he could so easily interpret my expressions like he had when we were teenagers. Back then, it seemed he always knew what I was thinking. At least he had until Colleen died.

  Grandma Daisy removed her key ring from her pocket and slipped off one of the silver keys from the ring. “Here, take my spare key to your apartment. You can keep it until you get yours back.”

  It would be a while before I got my own key back, since it was now evidence in a police investigation, and we all knew it. I folded my fingers around the key.

  NINE

  Officer Veronika Clipton was a petite woman who looked like she was fresh from the police academy with flushed cheeks and bright green eyes. Her blue police uniform did nothing to hide her shapely figure. She moved with the ease of an athlete. I suspected when she rode a bike, she never fell off it like I did . . . on a regular basis. I followed her up the spiral staircase to the second floor of Charming Books but couldn’t stop myself from looking behind me. Grandma Daisy and Nathan were below, directing the Red Inkers and the volunteers they’d conscripted off the street as to what should be moved to the front yard for the sidewalk sale. I didn’t spot the police chief. I imagined he had returned to the crime scene behind the kitchen.

  “Oh my!” the officer said, and paused at the top of the stairs. She had stepped into the children’s room, which resembled a woodland fairy paradise. “This is amazing.” Her voice held as much awe as that of any child seeing the space for the first time.

  “It’s always been my favorite spot in the shop.”

  “I can see why.” She shuffled into the room. “I would have loved this as a kid. I still love it as an adult, but as a child this would be pure magic.”

  Magic. It was funny that she chose the word.

  I lifted my long black skirt and took the last few steps to join her on the landing. I couldn’t wait to get the dress off. I hoped that I would never have an occasion to wear it again, because I was certain it would always remind me of Anastasia’s death.

  I crossed the children’s room and unlocked the door that led into my apartment with Grandma Daisy’s key, giving me an unobstructed view of my living room.

  Slowly, I pushed the door inward. I don’t know what I expected to find. The police had already searched my home. Everything was where it should be, but something felt off. I had a sense that my possessions had been moved or shifted, but I couldn’t pick out which ones had been touched. Perhaps they all had been. I tentatively stepped into the room with Officer Clipton on my heels.

  The stack of five Edgar Allan Poe books still sat on the coffee table in front of my couch. The pile was slightly askew. A rendering of Poe’s face with his luxurious black mustache and penetrating eyes stared back at me, and I felt the guilt over Anastasia’s death settle on my shoulders. It was a familiar feeling. I had carried Colleen’s death with me for twelve years until I was finally able to let it go over the summer when I learned the full story of what had happened to her. I couldn’t go back to that place of carrying someone’s death on my conscience. I knew the only way to avoid that would be to find out what had happened to Anastasia, and if Rainwater discovered her death was the result of foul play, then that meant finding her killer.

  I don’t know how long I stood in my living room coming to this decision, but it must have been longer than I thought, because Officer Clipton cleared her throat. “I thought you wanted to change out of that dress, but if you want to keep wearing it, that’s okay.” She paused. “I guess you could say it makes a statement.”

  I looked down at the black satin dress with its intricate lace overlay. It was a beautiful dress, but I most certainly wanted it off.

  Officer Clipton picked up the top volume of Poe books off the end table. “Why so many versions of the same book? Do they each say something different or something?”

  “They are each different selections of his works, except the one on the bottom, which is Poe’s complete works. The forewords are different, each commissioned by a different publisher to write them, but they all contain Poe’s best-known works like ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’”

  “I think the chief mentioned you were some kind of professor or something. Is that why you have so many?” Her question was casual and sounded friendly enough, but something about it put me on guard. Officer Clipton was gathering information about me through this casual exchange. Unlike Officer Wheaton, whose approach to questioning was downright hostile, Officer Clipton was subtle and got her quarry to trust her. I had no doubt she was an excellent police officer, but I had had enough dealings with the police to be wary of any questions and how I answered them, no matter how innocent they might seem on the surface.

  “I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed for the reading.” That explanation sounded lame even to me.

  “If you say so. I’m not much for reading.” She said this in a confessional tone as if she were admitting some great failing.

  It was a tone I was used to as a college English professor. For some reason, students felt they needed to tell me that they didn’t l
ike to read. Some said it with trepidation like Officer Clipton had, and others stated it with bravado as if it were something to be proud of.

  “You just haven’t met the right book yet. I bet I could turn you into a reader.” As the Caretaker, I knew I could.

  She laughed. “I doubt that.” She set the book back on the table.

  Seeing the stack of Poe collections made me wonder what had happened to Anastasia’s copy of Poe, the one she’d cut her finger on the day before. “Did Anastasia have anything else with her when she fell down the stairs other than my key? She should have had a copy of Poe’s works with her. I could have sworn I saw it in her hand when she arrived along with the garment bag.” I closed my eyes briefly, trying to think back to that moment when I almost ran into Anastasia in the kitchen.

  Officer Clipton’s face clouded over, and I knew I had pushed my luck too far. “You’ll have to take questions like that to the chief.” She changed the subject. “You had better get changed. The chief doesn’t want us up here very long. The crime scene guys will need to process your bedroom.”

  “Process my bedroom?” I asked.

  “Anastasia’s garment bag and clothes were on your bed. We need to see what else she touched in here.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the thought of Anastasia poking her nose into my things. Not that I owned anything of real value. There was some costume jewelry that had been my mother’s, but that was sentimental to me. It certainly wouldn’t impress Anastasia.

  Rather than argue, I went into the bedroom with the female police officer on my heels. I felt Officer Clipton watching me as I collected the jeans and the sweatshirt with the shop’s logo on it that I’d had on earlier in the day. I carried them to the adjoining bathroom.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “You really don’t expect me to change in front of you. I mean isn’t that taking this a little far?”

  Her face turned a slight shade of pink that would have been beet red on my pale skin. “Right. Go ahead.”

  In the bathroom, I quickly changed out of the dress and hung it on the back of the bathroom door. I was relieved to have the dress off. I felt lighter not being weighed down with so much fabric. I slipped into my jeans and sweatshirt, feeling much more like myself. I removed the band holding my hair in a tight bun and allowed my long wavy strawberry blond hair to fall to my shoulders. That was more like it.

  Back in my bedroom, Emerson sauntered into the room through the open door that connected to the living room.

  The police officer blinked at him. “How did that cat get in here?”

  “He’s my cat, and he lives here. He has free run of my apartment and of the shop.” I didn’t say “and of the town,” because I feared Officer Clipton would enforce leash laws if there was such a thing for cats in the village.

  She sniffed. “We can’t have him creeping around up here. He could contaminate the crime scene.”

  There wasn’t much Officer Clipton and I could do to keep Emerson out of a place that he wanted to be. He was a determined feline and a master at breaking and entering, but I thought it was best not to share any of this with the young police officer. “I’ll take him with me.”

  She edged around Emerson.

  “Are you afraid of cats?” I asked, noticing that she was more than a little alarmed every time Emerson came within three feet of her.

  “Not afraid.” She sneezed. “Allergic.”

  I plucked a tissue from a box on the nightstand beside my bed and handed it to her. Then I picked up Emerson to stop him from leaping on Officer Clipton and sending her to the emergency room with an allergic reaction.

  She sneezed. “Do you have everything you need?”

  The cat wriggled in my arms so fiercely I had to let him go to avoid being scratched.

  I grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand and shoved it into the back pocket of my jeans. I was happy she didn’t say I had to leave it behind. Not that I thought she saw me with Emerson circling her like a shark on the hunt. If I didn’t know better, I would say my tuxie was purposely distracting the police officer so I could grab my phone without being noticed.

  TEN

  After Officer Clipton, Emerson, and I left my apartment, I locked the door after me, and Officer Clipton went down the spiral staircase first. I followed her with Emerson in my arms.

  I noticed there were a number of the smaller bookcases missing from the shop.

  By the time I got outside, Nathan had already mobilized the Red Inkers and some passersby to move the books and shelves that Grandma Daisy wanted to use for the sidewalk sale into the front yard. With the village mayor at the helm, Charming Books was all set up.

  “What do you think?” Nathan asked me.

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “I can’t believe you did all this so quickly.”

  He shrugged. “Getting people to do what I need them to do is one of my gifts.”

  How well I knew.

  Nathan watched me for a moment. “The only person my charms don’t work on is you.”

  My body tensed. I needed to keep this conversation on the shop. It could too easily veer into other topics that I didn’t want to discuss with the village mayor. “I know Grandma Daisy appreciates the help. Thank you for the wine as well. Grandma Daisy was thrilled to get it.”

  “And you? Were you thrilled?”

  “It was very kind.” I kept my voice neutral.

  “Violet, I don’t think we can go on like this. At first, I thought it was adorable you were playing so hard to get. You were punishing me, I understand that. I know I deserve it after what I put you through when we were kids, but—”

  “I’m not punishing anyone,” I interrupted him. “Least of all not you.”

  “Oh?” He arched his eyebrow at me.

  Was Nathan right? Was I punishing him? I told him months ago that I forgave him for everything that had happened between us after Colleen died. I lowered my voice. “I’m not punishing you.” I bit my lip, not sure I could explain how I felt. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything with me. All I’m saying is I miss you. I didn’t realize how much until you reappeared this past summer as if out of thin air. In all that time, no one ever replaced you to me.”

  I didn’t know what to say. No one had replaced Nathan in my life either, but there was the small fact he had been willing to let me go to jail for a crime I didn’t commit just because he didn’t want to get involved. Forgiving and forgetting were two very different things. I cared about him still, but I didn’t know that I could trust him. “We can talk about this later. I should help Grandma Daisy. The yard is filling up with customers.”

  “All right,” he said, if not conceding the war, at least conceding the battle. “But the next time I see you jump into the bushes, I might just dive in there after you.”

  I turned away so he couldn’t see the flush that filled my cheeks.

  “Violet!” a voice called.

  I turned to see Lacey running up the street, holding a bakery box. Her face was flushed red, and one of her silver barrettes dangled beside her ear.

  I met her on the sidewalk. “Lacey, are you all right?”

  She bent at the waist, trying to catch her breath. “I’m fine,” she gasped. “Adrien and I just heard the news about Anastasia, and I came running at the first chance I had to make sure you were all right.”

  “We are okay, Lacey. Thank you,” I said, touched by her concern.

  She gave a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad.” She held the bakery box out to me. “Adrien boxed up some more cookies for you. He copes with bad news by feeding people.”

  I took the box from her and smiled. “Since I cope with stress with sugar, we are well matched.”

  “I need to get back to the festival. We’re so incredibly busy. It’s hard
to keep up.” She glanced around. “You will tell Daisy that we’re thinking of you two?”

  “I will,” I promised.

  She squeezed my free hand. “You know you can come to Adrien and me any time you’re in trouble. We’re there to help.”

  “I do,” I said, making another promise.

  When I turned back to the sidewalk sale, I found Nathan had gone. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed to see he’d disappeared. The fact that I found myself conflicted at all as far as Nathan was concerned was truly worrisome.

  I set the new box of cookies on the refreshment table. A young couple stood a few feet away from me poking at the books. I saw them as the perfect escape from this conversation.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked the couple.

  “A gift for my father,” the woman said. “He’s retiring and he likes books. At least I always see him reading something. I just never paid much attention to what he read.”

  “I’m sure we have just the book for your father here. What are his interests?”

  She made a pained expression. The man beside her, who I assumed was her boyfriend because neither of them wore any rings, appeared bored. If I wanted to make this sale, I would have to do it fast before he convinced her to leave Charming Books and head to the food and wine tents on the Riverwalk.

  “Let me see,” I murmured. We stood in front of a bookcase of romance fiction. I didn’t know the girl’s father, of course, but I was betting this wouldn’t be his first choice for reading. Nevertheless, I ran my finger along the spines. As I passed one of the books, it popped off the shelf.

  A travelogue about Ireland fell to the grass at the girl’s feet. She bent to pick it up. “This is perfect. Now I remember that Dad said he always dreamed about going to Ireland after he retired.” She hugged the book to her chest. “He will think I’m the most thoughtful daughter in the world for remembering that, and to think it was mixed in with the romance novels. I never would have found it if I had gone to the travel section. How strange. It was meant to be.”