Prose and Cons

by Amanda Flower

  I was in trouble. I could have counted on Lacey to distract Rainwater at least for a little while with her rambling. Now I was strictly on my own.

  Rainwater sat across from me in Lacey’s vacated chair. “Tell me what happened from the beginning and describe the person who chased you in detail.”

  I was relieved to see the police chief didn’t think I was making up the story.

  I told him what I could from the beginning, but before I could get to the part about what I found in the room and what the man took, the police chief stood up. “I need to call this in and send some uniforms over there to search the house and secure the scene.”

  I felt a twinge of guilt for that. If I hadn’t already been inside of the house and turned off the alarm, maybe the police would have caught the culprit in the act of breaking and entering.

  Rainwater stepped a few feet away and spoke into his cell phone in hushed tones. I’d much rather he was speaking to Officer Clipton as opposed to Officer Wheaton. The buzz-cut officer grated on my last nerve, and I knew the feeling was mutual. Rainwater turned away from me, making it clear he didn’t want me to overhear his conversation.

  Fine, I thought, and checked my phone for messages and e-mails while he was in the middle of his conversation. I had missed three text messages from Grandma Daisy asking what was taking me so long. I swallowed when I saw a text message from Nathan asking how I was and saying he would do whatever he could to make the police allow my grandmother and me to open Charming Books the next day. I knew it was Nathan because he signed the text message. I didn’t have his number in my phone, and I hadn’t given him mine for that matter. I didn’t know how he’d gotten it. I suspected that a certain meddling grandmother was to blame. I was beginning to wonder why she seemed to be so dead set on forcing Nathan and me back together.

  Rainwater returned to our table and clipped his cell phone onto his duty belt next to his gun. He sat. “I doubt they will catch the person who saw you. He is likely long gone by now. About what time did you see the man?”

  “I had technically broken into Anastasia’s house too. I didn’t mean to,” I added in a rush. “Emerson got loose and jumped through an open window.”

  “Open window?” His voice was sharp. “There weren’t any open windows in that house when we searched the place earlier today.”

  I shrugged. “That’s how Emerson got inside. The window was on the second floor. Emerson shimmied up the drainpipe like he was Tarzan on a vine.”

  A smile flashed across Rainwater’s face, but came and went so quickly, I wasn’t sure I had seen it there at all. “And you too? Did you follow him through the window?”

  I winced. I couldn’t see any way out of this other than telling the truth. “I had a key.”

  He held out his hand.

  I stuck my own hand in my jeans pocket to retrieve the key and dropped it into his palm.

  “Where did you get this?” The police chief turned the key over in his large hand.

  I bit the inside of my lip. I had certainly made a mess of things. If I told him the truth, it would only look worse for Sadie. To the police, it would have given her even more opportunity to tamper with the dress.

  When I didn’t answer, he asked, “How did you get past Anastasia’s security system?”

  I winced. “I had the code.”

  The police chief’s phone rang before he could question me further. Rainwater held his index finger up at me as he stood up. “I have to take this. Hold that thought.” Again Rainwater turned away from me as he spoke on the phone in a hushed tone.

  It took everything I had not to lay my head on the white linen tablecloth in front of me and go to sleep. The adrenaline that had been coursing through me while being chased by the bearded man seeped out of my body all at once. Emerson shifted from my shoulder to my lap, where he curled up and fell asleep. Oh, to be a cat, and sleep whenever and wherever you felt like it.

  Rainwater returned to the table. “I’m sorry about that. Officer Clipton was just reporting they’re on the scene. They found a broken lamp in the great room that must have been the crash that you heard.”

  I nodded wearily.

  “You look exhausted.”

  I nodded again.

  “Breaking and entering will do that to you, I suppose.” He said this with just a hint of teasing in his voice.

  I looked up.

  “You do realize I could have you arrested for breaking and entering, trespassing, tampering with a crime scene, and even fleeing the scene of a crime if I felt like it.”

  “Do you feel like it?” I asked.

  “I haven’t made up my mind on that score yet.”

  I frowned and scratched a slumbering Emerson between the ears. “Well, I have information that might keep me out of jail.”

  He leaned forward. “What is it?”

  I leaned back in my chair under his intense scrutiny. “Anastasia was none other than Evanna Blue.”

  “The author?” he cried, clearly shocked by this news.

  TWENTY

  The festivalgoers dining and drinking in the big tent glanced over in our direction at his outburst.

  I knew Rainwater would immediately understand the implications of that news. Maybe another police chief wouldn’t know what it meant, but Rainwater was a writer; he knew. He blinked as he processed this new information. He pressed his lips into a thin line. “My officers have been in and out of that house all day. I went over there twice looking for evidence that might help us determine what exactly happened to Anastasia Faber and how she was killed. You’re telling me you went in there after we did and discovered she was an international best-selling author and keeping it a secret all this time?”

  I nodded.

  “How?”

  “In a secret room.”

  He arched one of his black eyebrows at me. “A secret room?”

  “On the second floor of the house behind one of the bookcases in the big sitting room at the end of the hallway. There is a latch behind the shelf. When you press it, the door opens and you’re inside Anastasia’s secret writing office.”

  “How did you find it?” he asked.

  I patted Emerson’s head. “I didn’t. He did.”

  Rainwater looked skyward for just a moment as if asking the heavens for some type of relief. Instead, all he saw was the ceiling of the big tent.

  “I can show you where it is,” I offered. Some of my energy had returned with the idea of seeing Anastasia’s hideaway again.

  “Fine. I need to get to Anastasia’s house as it is and see how the investigation is going. I will also need to know everything that you remember touching. Hopefully we can grab a print of this guy. Have you ever seen him before?”

  I shook my head. “Never.” I bit the inside of my cheek, well aware that my fingerprints were all over Anastasia’s office because of my search for information about the Red Inkers. The piece of paper with that information remained in the back pocket of my jeans. I didn’t bring it to Rainwater’s attention.

  He nodded at Emerson. “The cat is going to have to stay here. I can’t have him running around and potentially contaminating the crime scene.”

  Emerson opened one eye at the chief’s comment.

  “I’ll leave him with Lacey,” I said, putting what I hoped was a soothing hand on Emerson’s back.

  Rainwater nodded and stood. Standing over me, he extended his hand to help me to my feet. I hesitated, but finally put my hand into his and stood, lifting Emerson in my other arm.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, and removed my hand as quickly as was polite, although I had the residual feeling of his palm against mine.

  Thankfully, Lacey was more than happy to watch Emerson. She said she and Adrien would be closing up the booth in a few minutes and would run the cat to my grandmother’s house as soon as they were done.r />
  Everyone seemed to be happy with the arrangement except for the small tuxie. Emerson meowed at me from her arms, but when Adrien shook a piece of ham at him, he decided staying with the Duponts for a little bit wasn’t all that bad.

  I followed the chief to his department car, which was a small SUV with CASCADE SPRINGS POLICE emblazoned on the back of it. He unlocked the car with his key fob.

  “I’m not going to sit in the back, am I? There are enough people in the village who still think I have a criminal past. I’d rather not encourage the rumor mill.”

  He chuckled and opened the passenger-side door. “You can sit in the front. The only time I will ever make you sit in the back is if I arrest you.”

  “And you aren’t going to arrest me for my transgressions tonight?” I asked.

  He leaned on the opened car door. “Still haven’t decided.”

  In the darkness, I couldn’t tell if he was joking. Not that it would have made much difference in the light. The police chief had the most stoic expression I had ever seen.

  “That’s encouraging,” I said. “I guess I will have to be on my best behavior from here on out.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  I climbed into the car, and he shut the door after me. I could be wrong, but I might have seen a hint of a smile on his face.

  The passenger seat in the chief’s department-issued SUV was small, because it was partly crowded by a small laptop computer that was bolted to his console. I knew it was there so that he could look up people’s registrations during traffic stops or other arrests. Those were usually the worst of the offenses in our village, until recently. I wondered if I put my information in that machine, what would come up. I had a longer history with police interest than I wished to remember.

  Rainwater saw me eyeing the laptop and snapped it closed, folding it up toward the dashboard. So much for that idea. He started the car. He beeped his siren to encourage festivalgoers to move out of the way as he pulled out onto River Road. When we were finally clear of the Riverwalk area, he turned the siren on at full blast.

  The siren was loud but sounded muffled from inside the police vehicle, but it still made any conversation difficult, which was just fine with me. It gave me time to collect my thoughts and mull over what had happened in the last day. There was a lot to ponder, starting of course with Anastasia’s death.

  He glanced at me. “Did you get that key and the alarm passcode from Sadie?” he asked over the screeching of the sirens.

  I had been prepared to tell Rainwater all about Anastasia/Evanna and my discovery. I had hoped he would have forgotten about the key and the security system code. I should have known better.

  “Violet?” he asked when I didn’t answer. “I know she watered Anastasia’s plants when Anastasia was out of town. She would have needed a key and the passcode to do that. So answer my question. Did she give them to you?”

  I sighed. “Yes.”

  He gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly as if he had expected this answer, but was disappointed to hear it.

  “I know that Sadie didn’t do this,” I said. “She wasn’t the one who was in Anastasia’s house tonight. I’m certain of that.”

  He didn’t say anything as he drove by the lamppost at the end of Anastasia’s property and up the long driveway to the house.

  There were two village police cruisers with flashers and headlights on in the driveway. Their blue and red lights reflected on the sides of the large stone house and the trees. It gave everything an ominous glow.

  Rainwater parked his SUV behind the last cruiser, and Officer Clipton was already at his side by the time I climbed out of the car. The officer raised her blond eyebrows. “What is she doing here?”

  Hello to you too, Officer, I thought, and just when I was starting to like her too.

  “She’s going to show us the location of Anastasia’s secret room.” His tone was matter-of-fact, and I relaxed a little. Despite his dozens of questions, the police chief believed me at least as far as Anastasia’s secret writing office was concerned.

  “There is no such thing. Officer Wheaton and I tore this place apart. Trust me when I say we would have found a hidden room if it was there.”

  Wheaton stood in the back doorway of the mansion and scowled at me.

  Chief Rainwater gestured to the house. “Miss Waverly, after you.”

  The fact that he called me “Miss Waverly” in front of his officers wasn’t lost on me. Without a word, I led the group of three officers into the house, through the kitchen, down the long hallway, and up the stairs. I walked with purpose up the curved staircase and directly into the sitting room. I was surprised to see that the bookcase was closed. After chasing me out of the house, the man must have run back upstairs and closed up the office. Why would he have done that? To cover his tracks?

  “There’s nothing here,” Wheaton protested. “I have been through this room three times myself.”

  I ignored him and walked up to the bookcase that I had opened just a few short hours before. With an expert hand, I hit the latch behind the case and the bookshelf clicked open.

  Behind me there was an audible gasp from the police, and I couldn’t help taking a little bit of satisfaction in proving Wheaton wrong. I wasn’t above that. I turned on the light.

  Officer Clipton swore under her breath. “How on earth did you find that?”

  “Emerson,” I said simply.

  She blinked at me.

  “Emerson is her cat.” Wheaton supplied the answer to the unspoken question.

  “Like that is supposed to clear it up. Is knowing a cat told her about this room making this any clearer to anyone else?” Clipton asked.

  “Violet, can you step back?” Rainwater asked.

  I stepped out of the doorway.

  Rainwater and Officer Wheaton went inside. There wasn’t enough room in the small space for more than two people. Officer Clipton and I watched from the doorway. The office was just as I had left it. The only thing that was missing was the printed e-mail that had been on the desk. My phone sat in the back pocket of my jeans. The intruder had taken the e-mail. I knew that I should tell the police about the photo I had taken of the e-mail, and I was about to when Chief Rainwater said, “I want to know who was aware that Anastasia Faber was Evanna Blue. We need to contact her publisher. There must be someone there who knows. They might also have a list of the people who signed a nondisclosure agreement. This is the reason that she was murdered. I would put all my money on it.”

  “A nondisclosure agreement?” Clipton asked.

  Wheaton glanced up from Anastasia’s desk, where he was in the process of taking a picture. “A contract that people ask others to sign to keep a secret.”

  “In this case,” I said, “a contract that kept Evanna Blue’s true identity a secret.”

  “Evanna who?” the female officer asked.

  “Clipton, you need to get out more,” Wheaton said to the other officer before going back to taking photographs.

  I found it quite interesting that Wheaton knew who Evanna Blue was, and I was just about to comment on it when Rainwater spoke up.

  “Officer Clipton,” Rainwater said. “Can you take Miss Waverly home?” He turned to me. “Thank you for your help tonight, but we’ve got what we need to take it from here.”

  I had been dismissed.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The next morning, sunlight was streaming in through the large window of the bedroom that had been mine in my grandmother’s house after my mother’s death. When I was in the pale yellow room with the ruffled gingham curtains, it was difficult not to remember that time and how many tears the pillows on the four-poster bed had absorbed. The light coming through the window was tinted ochre as it broke through the oak tree in my grandmother’s front yard.

  I peered at the foot of the
bed for any sign of Emerson, but the cat was gone. My bedroom door was open a crack as well. I knew that the tuxie would be in the kitchen begging my grandmother for breakfast. My own stomach rumbled at the thought of one of Grandma Daisy’s extravagant breakfasts. I wondered what she was making. Chocolate chip pancakes would be my request if I was given a choice. I could use a ruler-high stack of chocolate chip pancakes after the night I’d had. On second thought, Grandma Daisy could hold the pancakes and just hand over the bag of chocolate chips. Sometimes chocolate chips straight up was the only medicine that would do the trick.

  I rolled onto my stomach and reached for my cell phone on the nightstand. I yelped as soon as I saw the time. It was after nine, and I had a ten a.m. class to teach at the college. If I didn’t leave now, I would never make it, and if I didn’t make it within the first fifteen minutes of the class session, my students would bolt and I would be even further behind in my lesson plan than I already was.

  At least I’d had the good sense to bring my massive tote bag that I carried for class to my grandmother’s house for the night. I’d had some grand plan of marking papers the night before. That hadn’t happened. By the time I had gotten home from Anastasia’s house, it was after midnight.

  I tore out of my bedroom and into the bathroom, where I took the world’s fastest shower, and ran back into the bedroom a moment later, throwing open the small overnight bag. I wriggled into jeans and a sweater, perhaps not professor-appropriate attire, but I hadn’t thought about teaching when I threw together my overnight bag the day before. I had been distracted by murder at the time. Sadie would be aghast at my clothing.

  I shoved my feet into ankle boots, selected by Sadie—at least I had those to show her—and dropped my cell phone in my tote bag.

  “Violet?” my grandmother called up the stairs. “Is that you up there making that racket?”

  I didn’t even bother to answer. I twirled my wet hair into a knot on the back of my head. This was as good as it was going to get. As I stormed down the stairs, I remembered that I had left my bike parked outside La Crepe Jolie, and my car was parked by Charming Books. I didn’t have time to retrieve either before class. My grandmother’s car was the only option.