Prose and Cons

by Amanda Flower

  “I don’t know exactly.” Again she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  Sadie was holding something back again. Rather than push, I said, “This makes no sense. Why would she go to so much trouble to find this dirt on you and why would she threaten to use it against you? You haven’t done anything to her.”

  She bit her lip. “I know. I was completely shocked when she told me all this in the kitchen. She was absolutely furious with me.”

  Her mention of Anastasia being furious brought back to mind the phone conversation that I had overheard Anastasia having outside Charming Books. With all the commotion around Anastasia’s death, I hadn’t thought to mention it to Rainwater, but now I knew I should. Whoever had been on the other side of that line was another murder suspect and if Sadie was the primary suspect, we needed alternatives, the more the better.

  “Anastasia said she was in the process of gathering information on all of us,” Sadie said. “She said it was some kind of insurance. I don’t really know what she meant by that.”

  Grandma Daisy stopped her teacup halfway to her mouth. “All of us? Who is all of us?”

  “She didn’t say specifically, but I could only guess she meant the Red Inkers, as well as you and Violet.”

  I frowned. There wasn’t much that she could use against me. The entire village knew my history with the law because of Colleen’s death when I was a senior in high school. Since it wasn’t a secret, it robbed Anastasia of any power that the information might otherwise wield. But then, I felt the color drain from my face. That wasn’t my only secret, not anymore. I glanced at Grandma Daisy. The teacup in her hand shook ever so slightly. We had a much larger, much more valuable secret than any of the Red Inkers could imagine.

  FOURTEEN

  I bit the inside of my lip. If Sadie thought Anastasia had the ability to ruin her writing career before it even began, and Sadie’s greatest dream was to be a published writer, that gave Sadie a very strong motive for murder.

  “You should talk to Baskin about this before you talk to David again,” I said.

  She blinked at me. “But David is my friend.”

  “I know that,” I said, softening my tone. “But he’s also the chief of police and this is the second murder in the village in less than six months. He’s going to give this investigation his full attention and follow every lead, even those that incriminate his friends.”

  She held her teacup a little more tightly before setting it, still full, back onto the tray. “I think I’ll go and try to call Grant again.” Her face clouded over. “I know he’s busy and things between us have been strained since this summer, but I need to speak to him.”

  I reached across the coffee table and squeezed her hand. “That’s a good idea. We’ll figure this out, Sadie. I promise. Calling the lawyer was only a precaution.”

  “You think so?” She looked so hopeful.

  I nodded. “Someone as caustic as Anastasia must have many enemies. The question is who hated her enough to kill her.” I squeezed her hand again. “We’ll find out who.”

  “Violet, you have to help. You have to find out who did this.”

  I thought about the story that the books had wanted me to read, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Maybe the bookshop had wanted me to go to Anastasia’s house.

  “I wish I could sneak inside Anastasia’s house. Maybe then I would be able to understand why she was trying to gather information about the Red Inkers,” I mused aloud.

  “I can help you with that,” Sadie said. “I have a key.”

  I blinked at her. “You have a key to Anastasia’s house?”

  She nodded. “She gave it to me the last time she went out of town and asked me to water her plants. I never gave it back to her. I kept forgetting to return it to her when we had Red Inkers meetings.”

  Anastasia had a lot of nerve to hold a secret over Sadie’s head and then ask her to water her plants while she was out of town.

  “I have done it for her before.” As if she could tell what I thought about it from my expression. “It was not a big deal. She goes out of town quite a bit. I didn’t mind.”

  Of course she didn’t mind, because she was Sadie and just about the kindest person on the planet.

  Sadie pulled a key ring out of her skirt pocket and removed a silver key from the ring. She held it out to me. “Here is the key.”

  The key sat in the middle of her palm. I stared at it. Was I really going to break into Anastasia’s house? No. That would be stupid.

  “Take the key,” Grandma Daisy said. “If the police find it in Sadie’s possession, things may become worse for her.”

  “If you plan to go in there—,” Sadie began.

  “I’m not going to Anastasia’s house,” I cut her off.

  “I know.” She chewed on her lip. “But if you did happen to go in there, she has a security system. The code to deactivate it is eighteen sixteen.”

  “Eighteen sixteen?” I asked. “The year the village was incorporated?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. Anastasia never told me why that number was the code.” The key still sat in the palm of her hand.

  I took the key and pocketed it, promising myself I wouldn’t use it. “What does Anastasia do?” I asked, picking up my own teacup and saucer and leaning back into my chair. As I did, Emerson hopped from the couch to my lap. I held the tea high to avoid spilling the steaming liquid on either of us. The tuxedo spun three times before settling on my lap again.

  Grandma Daisy frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “What’s her job?” I sipped my tea.

  Grandma Daisy frowned. “You know, she has never mentioned a job other than writing.”

  Sadie picked up her teacup, but she still didn’t drink from it. It seemed she took comfort in its warmth. “I don’t think she needed to work. She lives in a huge house deep in the woods near the springs.”

  “A lady of leisure?” I asked, surprised by the news. Maybe this was why Anastasia could afford her high-minded ideals of writing only literary fiction. She didn’t have to make a living off her work like other writers did.

  “But if she’s never sold a book to a publisher, how can she live like that?” Grandma Daisy asked.

  Sadie shrugged. “All I know is the house is huge and expensively furnished. Anytime I go over there, I break out into cold sweats because I’m afraid I will knock over one of her expensive pieces of art. Maybe she has a rich uncle or something.”

  “I think the answer as to why she was killed might be in that house,” I said.

  Grandma Daisy gave me an appraising look. She knew the books must have told me something, but I couldn’t tell her what that was in front of Sadie without risking revealing the Waverly family’s best-kept secret. Instead she asked, “Are you thinking about using that key?”

  “You should go,” Sadie said. “It might be the only way to find out what Anastasia knew about all the Red Inkers.”

  I laughed. “The place must be crawling with police. If there is anything to find, David would have found it by now.” I felt Anastasia’s house key burning a hole in my pocket.

  The key reminded me about something else that I’d forgotten. The tree. I stood up abruptly, which sent Emerson and my empty teacup falling to the floor. Emerson hissed. I scooped up the teacup, which thankfully was unbroken, and set it back on the tray.

  “Violet?” Sadie asked, sounding alarmed. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I just remembered something I have to do,” I said. “It’s nothing to worry about.” I shot a glance at my grandmother.

  Grandma Daisy seemed to get my message. “Sadie, dear, why don’t you try to call Grant again? Violet and I will give you a minute so you can talk to him in private.” Grandma Daisy gave me a nod toward the kitchen. I refilled my cup from the teapot before I followed her out of the room.

 
; “Violet, what’s wrong?” Grandma Daisy asked, setting her own teacup on the counter.

  I started to pace. “I forgot to water the tree.”

  “What do you mean you forgot to water the tree?” my grandmother hissed.

  “I was supposed to water it last night, but that was the night the Red Inkers were there. I was too tired after the meeting to walk out to the springs and collect the water. I thought that I would do it tonight.”

  “You forgot to water the tree!” My grandmother stared at me as if she had never heard such a thing.

  “Do you think it can hold on for another night? Maybe it will be all right? What will happen if the tree isn’t watered on schedule?”

  Grandma Daisy frowned. “I don’t know if any Caretaker has forgotten to water the tree before.”

  Great. I was the worst Caretaker in the history of the Waverly family and Charming Books.

  “Then, I’m going to have to go over there and do it. The police are gone by now and everyone is at the festival. No one will see me. I’ll be in and out before you know it.”

  Grandma Daisy nodded. “You have to go. I’ll stay here with Sadie.”

  I said a quick good-bye to Sadie as I left the house. She barely nodded. She was staring at her cell phone in her hand. It looked to me like she didn’t have much luck getting ahold of Grant. I added having a talk with Grant about neglecting his fiancée to my growing to-do list.

  FIFTEEN

  Sometimes I do something really stupid and even while I’m doing it, I know that it’s stupid, but I do it anyway. In college my attempt at a pixie haircut—stupid. Later in grad school when I had a crush on one of my professors and told him about it—double stupid. I knew that this breaking and entering into Charming Books would be right up there, pushing the professor crush to a distant second.

  I wished Grandma Daisy were with me. Grant should be the one with Sadie and comforting her after her long day. My grandmother should be with me committing a felony. That’s what family was all about, wasn’t it?

  I parked my bike behind Charming Books and walked over to the gardening shed. Thankfully, it was unlocked. Grandma Daisy was forever forgetting to lock the shed after tending to her flowers. The spare watering can was on the top shelf, and I grabbed it. As I did, a trowel sitting on the same shelf clattered to the wooden floor of the shed. I froze, expecting police with guns drawn to charge toward me. I held my breath for a full minute. When nothing happened, I gave a sigh of relief and carefully set the trowel back on the shelf from where it had fallen. I had a feeling that Chief Rainwater had thoroughly searched this shed. He would notice if one garden tool was out of place.

  I poked my head out of the shed, looking left and right. I couldn’t believe I was moving like a thief on my own property. I kicked myself, not for the first time, for not watering the tree the day before. Now the situation was dire and I didn’t have any choice in the matter.

  I took a deep breath and headed for the woods and the path that led toward the springs. Dappled light from the moon streamed through the branches, giving the autumnal-colored leaves an eerie glow. An owl hooted somewhere high in the trees. There was a rustling under the brush to my right. I told myself it was a mole or a chipmunk, not a snake. The snakes should be hibernating soon for the winter or at least I consoled myself with that theory.

  The springs were a quarter mile from Charming Books. I could grab the water and return to the house in less than a half hour, maybe twenty minutes if I ran. I tripped over a root and almost face-planted in the middle of the path. Okay, running wasn’t a good idea.

  The closer I came to the springs, the more the path widened. I could hear the water bubbling down the side of the springs’ rocky face and into the pool at the end. Moonlight shone on the surface of the water. Even though I couldn’t afford the time, I paused to take in the view. The moon’s rays reflected off the moss and the golden maple leaves and the silver birch leaves, giving everything a glow that was both beautiful and haunting. Even if I hadn’t already accepted and known what the water in the springs had the ability to do, I would have believed all the stories about its mystical and healing properties in that moment.

  A twig snapped behind me, and I jumped behind a birch tree. The tree trunk was narrow, so it didn’t afford much cover. Even this late at night, with so many visitors in town, it was possible a tourist who had drunk a little too much wine at the festival had stumbled into the park. Every year, it seemed some tourists wandered off and the police had to go look for them.

  A doe tiptoed up to the spring and drank from the cool water. I let out a sigh of relief. It was only a deer and a deer wouldn’t reveal my secret.

  I let the animal drink its fill, and then took a step forward. The doe watched me and calmly walked back into the trees.

  Kneeling beside the springs, I dipped the watering can inside and collected some of the water. My action caused ripples to run across the silvery surface in tiny waves.

  I filled the watering can and hurried back into the trees. As much as I wanted to stay and admire the beautiful place, I knew I had to hurry back to Charming Books and water the birch tree.

  The trip back to the shop was short with no incident. I knew better than to go into the shop through the back door, which led into the kitchen and was too close to the crime scene. The problem was the only other door to Charming Books was the front door, a place where anyone could see me enter the shop.

  Like a thief, I crept around the side of the bookshop. I stuck my head out around the corner and looked in both directions. Near the point where River Road turned and began to follow the Riverwalk was a small cluster of people laughing and talking so loudly they were almost shouting. Clearly, they had enjoyed the festival. I doubted that if I did backflips across Charming Books’ front yard, they would remember seeing me.

  They were causing such a scene, I suspected they would distract anyone else who might see me too, which was just fine with me.

  I ran up the front steps of the shop with my shop key in one hand and the full watering can hugged to my chest in the other arm.

  The old lock stuck just as it always did, but finally it gave way. With a sigh of relief, I slipped inside. Ambient light poured in from the skylight above the tree and from the streetlamps through the front windows. It was enough light to see Emerson sitting at the base of the tree with his black tail swishing back and forth across the floor.

  “How on earth did you get over here?” I demanded. “You’re supposed to be home with Grandma Daisy and Sadie.”

  “Stowaway!” Faulkner cawed from somewhere in the tree.

  Emerson looked up and squinted at the bird.

  “Okay, never mind how you got here,” I said. “I’ll just water the tree, and then you and I are heading back to Grandma Daisy’s, no arguments.” I shuffled toward the tree and poured the water into the ring of dirt that surrounded it.

  The first time I’d watered the tree under my grandmother’s instruction, I had expected something to happen, like the tree to move or shimmer or something. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened when I watered the tree.

  I shook the last droplets from the watering can and stepped back. My foot bumped into something. I turned around and found a hardback volume of Poe’s work at my feet. In front of my eyes, the cover opened and pages flew until they settled to a particular page near the middle of the book. “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

  Even in the moonlight it was too dark to read the words of the story. I picked the book up from the floor and carried it to the window and read the first page. As I read, I felt Anastasia’s key in my pocket. Did the book want me to go to Anastasia’s house? Was I taking this interpretation of the shop’s cryptic messages too far? According to Sadie, Anastasia lived alone. There would be no one there at this time of night. The police would have been and gone.

  I held the book to my chest. Emer
son looked up at me and meowed. “Maybe we will swing by there on the way home just to look around. If it’s anything close to the House of Usher, going inside at night is a really, really bad idea.”

  Emerson meowed again and Faulkner swooped down from the birch tree onto the sales counter. As he walked across the polished wooden surface, his talons clicked. The pair of them seemed to agree with my plan. I was taking advice from a Houdini cat and a talking crow—I had come a long way since I’d moved back to the village.

  When Sadie had described Anastasia’s house, I’d recognized the description of the home immediately. There weren’t many houses close to the natural springs. The area was protected, and the village took the zoning to an obsessive level, but there was one mansion that had been built not far from the spring in the 1920s. The original owner had been a robber baron in New York City. Becoming chronically ill, he heard about the healing waters of Cascade Springs and moved to the village to retire. The man had lived well into his nineties.

  The robber baron’s home had to be Anastasia’s house today. There wasn’t another large home close to the springs. By car, it would have taken me fifteen minutes to reach the house, even longer with the festival in full swing. However, on bike I could ride on the trails passing the springs and cut through the park to make it there in half the time.

  I stared down at my tuxedo cat, who sat by the front door of Charming Books. His tail swished back and forth over the floor, and he focused on the doorknob, a not-so-subtle hint that he was ready to leave. That was a problem. “Emerson, you are going to have to stay here with Faulkner. I’ll come back for you.”

  The tuxedo cat arched his back in an impressive Halloween display and plopped down in front of the door again.

  I stuck my hands on my hips. “Emerson, I don’t want you to get lost. You’ll be much safer if you stay here with Faulkner.”