Prose and Cons

by Amanda Flower

  “I will,” I promised, and couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You do realize everyone else in the village, including my own grandmother, is pushing me toward Nathan, not David.”

  She clicked her tongue. “The mayor is all wrong for you,” she said with conviction.

  I arched my brow. “Really?”

  She nodded. “You would never fit in with that family.”

  My cheek twitched. Renee had repeated what I had heard from Nathan’s parents my entire life. The comment didn’t hurt any less coming from her. In fact, it chafed a little bit more.

  “Trust me. I’m a librarian, which means I’m all-knowing,” she said, completely unaware how her comment had affected me.

  “I didn’t know that about librarians,” I quipped, hiding my feelings from her.

  She nodded seriously. “It’s true. We get a badge and everything with our master’s degrees.”

  I smiled and thanked her for the article. Renee turned to go back to the library. As she left, I spotted the troubadour, Fenimore, standing outside the library. He cradled his guitar in his arms, and he was watching me with such intensity that I looked away.

  I shook off the creepy feeling that his persistent stare gave me and climbed into Grandma Daisy’s car.

  The traffic in the central part of the village was terrible due to the Food and Wine Festival. I would have thought that the festivalgoers would have tapered off on Monday. Apparently, I was wrong. Since I was making no progress by car, I turned off on a side street, opting to leave my grandmother’s car at her house and walk to Charming Books. I pulled the car into the driveway. The house was still. Grandma Daisy and Sadie must already be on River Road, and I had no doubt Emerson had gone with them.

  As I walked, I fashioned my long hair into a braid. It was the only thing that could be done with it when it was so unruly. The braid would restrain it for a little while at least.

  I was a block from Charming Books when pedestrians and cyclists crowded the sidewalk. I wove through the throng as my unease grew. The congestion became worse as I came closer to the bookshop.

  “She was killed in this very store,” someone said in his best announcer voice as if he were telling the world that there was a sale on turkey at Thanksgiving.

  “Do you think they will build a memorial?” another voice asked in the same tone. “They should,” someone answered the question. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Who is going to write her books? She’s the only author I read. Her work speaks to me. I don’t know how I will go on.”

  I still couldn’t see who was saying these things. There were just too many people on this section of River Road, more than there should be even in the middle of the Cascade Springs Food and Wine Festival.

  I pushed through the crowd, muttering “excuse me” and “pardon me” as I went. Finally, I broke through the crush of bodies in front of Charming Books and my mouth fell open. There were at least a dozen reporters with microphones in their hands and video cameras pointed at their faces standing in the tiny front yard of Charming Books. The street was completely blocked by news vans. There was no way any traffic would be able to move an inch. I hadn’t seen a snarl of traffic like this since I’d left Chicago.

  Press from as far away as New York City stood on the sidewalk in front of Charming Books. I started when I spotted a cable news truck as well. The commentator from NBC New York recorded a sound bite. “International best-selling author Evanna Blue’s identity has been revealed only through her tragic death. Murdered right here while she was participating at a reading in this small bookshop in Cascade Springs, New York.”

  Evanna Blue’s true identity was news, national news, and my beloved Charming Books was smack in the center of it.

  A man shoved a huge camera lens in my face and snapped a picture. Another man thrust a microphone in my face. “Miss, how do you know Anastasia?” he asked breathlessly. “Are you a family friend?”

  “No comment,” I said, and ducked away from them.

  Officer Clipton stood in the middle of the street shouting at the news vans to move or they would be cited for blocking traffic.

  “Excuse me.” I stepped around a reporter who barricaded the gate into Charming Books’ front lawn. Flashbulbs went off in my line of vision as photographers snapped pictures of me.

  Officer Wheaton stood sentinel at the front door of the shop, stopping the press from entering. I broke free from the throng and stumbled up the steps. Wheaton stepped in my path. “Chief says no one gets in.”

  I glared at him. “This is my home and business, Wheaton. Get out of my way.”

  He scowled down his perfectly straight nose at me.

  “Move,” I hissed, ever aware of the photos being taken of me. I blinked away the bright lights, which hurt my eyes.

  A strong hand reached out from inside Charming Books and around Wheaton. I yelped as the hand pulled me into the shop and slammed the door shut after me.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  My captor steadied me before releasing my arm.

  “Sorry about that,” Chief Rainwater said. “I just didn’t want to give them any more opportunity to snap footage of you.”

  I rubbed my upper arm where he had grabbed me. “Thanks. I think.”

  He winced. “Did I hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “What’s going on out there?” I demanded. “Is every reporter on the East Coast in our village? Did I see a CNN truck? Please tell me I didn’t.”

  He grimaced. “It seems that way, I know. I was just about to go back out and help my officers clear the street.”

  I took in the shop. The lights were off and the cash register drawer stood open as we left it every night when we removed the money. “Where’s Grandma Daisy? She told me she was coming straight here when you gave her the all clear to return to the shop. Does she know what’s going on?”

  He nodded. “She’s out there somewhere, I’m afraid. As soon as the press showed up, your grandmother sprang into action. You know how she is.”

  I did. Unfortunately.

  “And Sadie?”

  His frown deepened. “I haven’t seen her. She wasn’t with Daisy when she arrived.”

  I bit my lip, wondering where my friend could be. I prayed she wasn’t out on River Road in this mess. The press would eat her alive, especially when they discovered that she was the prime suspect in Anastasia’s murder.

  “What are all these people doing here?”

  He ran a hand back and forth over his short hair. I noted that he was still in uniform and how the fabric pulled tight against his chest as he moved. I dropped my eyes to the floor, where I found Emerson lying across an open volume of Poe’s works.

  Rainwater didn’t seem to notice any of this when he said, “The press got wind of Evanna Blue’s true identity. Everyone wants a piece of the story. It’s big news, or it will be for the next day or two until they find something else to move on to. I just don’t know how they found out that quickly. I swore my officers to secrecy.”

  “I know how.” I fished in my bag for the article that Renee had given me and handed it to him. “The story must be all over the Internet by now. There’s something else that you should know.”

  He looked up from the article. “What do you mean?”

  “Check out the byline.” I pointed to the spot on the paper.

  He read the name. “Daven York? Should I know him? Is he from the village?”

  I shook my head. “That’s the guy who broke into Anastasia’s house last night. I’m sure of it. I recognize him by his picture.”

  Rainwater gripped the piece of paper a little more tightly and it crinkled in his hand. “Did you see him outside with the other reporters?”

  “No, but there was such a crush of people that I could have easily missed him.”

  “I need to talk to Mr. York.” The police chief’
s tone was as menacing as I’d ever heard it.

  “He’s the one who broke the story. He must have some type of informant,” I said. “How else would he have gotten wind of Anastasia’s death so fast, and how else would he have known where exactly her secret office was?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Last night when he came into Anastasia’s sitting room, I hid behind her sofa.”

  Rainwater grimaced as if the image pained him.

  I forged on. “He went directly to the bookshelves and felt for the lever behind them. Someone would have had to tell him to do that. The only reason I found the lever was because Emerson showed me.”

  The tuxie meowed at that comment, not without a little pride, I thought.

  “You make a good point. That could only mean that someone here in the village would be able to tell him that.”

  I walked across the room and dropped my tote bag behind the sales counter. The bag was heavy from all my textbooks from class. “I might have an idea,” I said, and told him about the man who asked about Anastasia yesterday afternoon during Charming Books’ sidewalk sale.

  He followed me across the room and leaned on the counter. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I forgot the moment you and your officers stormed Sadie’s shop.”

  He folded the article by quarters. “We didn’t storm her shop.”

  “Call it what you will, but the commotion made me forget. Everything happened so fast after that.”

  “Everything? Does that include breaking and entering into a murder victim’s house?”

  I gave him a look and was surprised to see humor in his amber eyes. I quickly glanced away.

  “What can you tell me about this other man? Did you recognize him?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ve never seen him before either. Could it be the two men were working together?”

  “I’m able to believe just about anything at this point.”

  My eyes fell to Emerson lounging like a lion across Poe’s works. I wasn’t so sure about that. I knew of at least one thing the police chief would not be able to believe.

  “We can’t rule out that Anastasia herself might have told the reporter about her secret room.”

  “Anastasia?” Rainwater asked.

  “After she kept this secret for so long, and it was clear from the e-mail that I found that she was becoming increasingly agitated that Evanna’s work was doing so well when she, Anastasia, was having zero success in getting her literary fiction published.”

  “What e-mail?”

  Whoops. I had forgotten I hadn’t told the chief about the e-mail that had been on Anastasia’s desk when I entered her office for the first time either. I removed my cell phone from my back pocket.

  “What e-mail, Violet?” Rainwater asked.

  I held up a finger. “One second.” I found the photo I’d taken of the e-mail in my photo gallery. I handed him the phone.

  He pinched the screen for a better look at the image and his eyes widened. “Why didn’t you tell me about this last night?”

  “I had planned to,” I said, half-fibbing. “But I forgot in all the confusion.”

  The police chief arched his eyebrows as if he didn’t quite believe me. “You seem to forget to share information with me a lot.”

  I shrugged. “It was a busy night. I assume that you would have found this eventually in her e-mail, though.”

  He nodded. “Yes. One of the crime scene techs over in Niagara Falls is going through her computer now, but that takes time and we aren’t the only case that the Niagara Falls PD has to worry about. We don’t have the time or manpower to go through her computer ourselves with just a half dozen officers in the village, and we are still dealing with security for the Food and Wine Festival.”

  I held up a hand. “I wasn’t judging you. I know you have your hands full.”

  “I know and I appreciate that.” He tapped the screen and started to type on the touch screen.

  I reached for my phone. “What are you doing?”

  He stepped back out of my range. “I’m sending this picture to my phone and now I am deleting it.” He handed the phone back to me with a smile on his face. “From your gallery and from your sent text messages for good measure.”

  I grabbed the phone back from him. “You can’t erase it from my phone. It’s my picture.”

  “You shouldn’t be walking around with police evidence in a murder investigation on your phone.”

  I scowled. Just when I was beginning to think that Rainwater and I were on the same team too. It was a good thing I’d sent a copy to my e-mail the night before. I was an academic. I knew how to back up my work.

  “I did it for your own good. You seem to be forgetting that this isn’t a game. Anastasia was murdered in such a way that took premeditation and a good deal of hatred.”

  I shivered. “Do you think the reporter, York, is behind it? Would he kill her just for this story? Wouldn’t it have been better to reveal who she was while she was alive, so he could interview her or something?”

  He frowned so deeply that lines I had never noticed before appeared on the sides of his mouth. If anything, the lines gave his handsome face more character. “I have no idea what the press thinks will make a printable story. And thank you for this information. I know it will help us with the investigation.”

  I thought the police chief was trying to be nice after commandeering my phone until he said, “Stay out of it.”

  I shoved my phone into the back pocket of my jeans.

  “Now,” he said as if that was settled, “I need to go outside and help my officers clear the street.” He walked across the room and placed his hand on the doorknob. He turned and said, “By the way, you might want to put that watering can back in the shed where it was yesterday afternoon.”

  My mouth went dry and I stared at the watering can that I had used the night before when I broke into Charming Books to water the tree. It sat on top of one of the low bookcases in the middle of the room as plain as day. Rainwater probably noticed it the moment that he set foot in the shop that morning, and he knew that I had been there.

  He left the shop before I could utter a word about it.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  After Rainwater left, I went to the large picture window and stared out. Rainwater and Wheaton were marching toward the reporters with their hands outstretched in the universal stop sign. The newspeople didn’t appear happy about the interruption to their sound bites. I searched the faces for Daven York, but I didn’t spot him. I supposed he didn’t have to be there with the others, since he was the one who broke the story. Everyone else was trying to catch up with him.

  With a great ca-caw, Faulkner swooped down and landed on his perch next to me, causing me to jump. “Where have you been?” I asked.

  “Nevermore!” he cried.

  I scowled, but his comment of course brought to mind Poe and the books and how the shop’s essence wanted me to read them. I turned away from the window back to Emerson, the birch tree, and the Poe book.

  I sighed and walked over to the foot of the tree. Emerson pawed at my pant leg and meowed. I looked down at him. He ran to the front door and back to me. Lassie had nothing on my tuxedo cat.

  “I thought you wanted me to read the book.” I pointed at the book of Poe still sitting open on the floor.

  He scratched at the front door.

  “All right. I’ll go. I need to find Grandma Daisy anyway and make sure that she’s staying out of trouble, but you have to stay here.”

  He flattened down on his haunches with his black ears pressed back against his head.

  “I know that you don’t like this idea, but that’s just too bad. I can’t have you outside with all those people. There’s too great a risk that you might get hurt. If you got hurt, I would never forg
ive myself.”

  He flattened his body even more and his whiskers turned down.

  I sighed. There wasn’t much I could do to keep the cat in the shop, especially when we finally did open for business and people began to come and go. Emerson had mad escape artist skills that would put the world’s top magicians to shame. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got behind that bookcase in Anastasia’s house?” I asked the cat.

  He pranced back and forth in front of the door with his sleek black tail held high.

  “Fine,” I said as I stooped to pick up the volume of Poe. To my surprise, this time instead of falling open to “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the book opened to the first page of “The Purloined Letter.” I wrinkled my brow—yet another direction that the books wanted me to investigate? I hadn’t read the story in a very long time, but I knew it was about a stolen letter that was hidden out in the open. Did that mean that the answer as to who killed Anastasia was right in front of my face? I looked to Emerson and Faulkner as if they had the answer, but for the moment both were silent.

  I set the book on an end table beside one of the couches, where another volume of Poe sat. This one was a thin paperback. I reached for it, and as I did, the book flew open. The pages fluttered and finally fell open to “The Purloined Letter” again. The shop essence most definitely wanted me to read this story, but that would have to wait. It had been well over fifteen minutes since Rainwater left the shop, and who knew what was going on outside? Who knew what my grandmother was up to?

  I slipped the paperback into the back pocket of my jeans. It was tight, but I wanted the book close to me in case I got a spare moment to read Poe’s famous detective story.

  Emerson waited at the door. I picked up the cat and deposited him on the couch and then I ran full speed for the door before he knew what was happening. I heard his outraged meow through the closed door behind me. I would pay for that move later. I knew it.

  “And how long have you known Evanna—excuse me—I mean Anastasia Faber?” a voice asked.