Prose and Cons

by Amanda Flower

  I stared openmouthed. Grandma Daisy reclined on one of the white rocking chairs on the porch across from a man in a rumpled suit. A second man in jeans and a Windbreaker stood a little off to the side holding a video camera with a fuzzy microphone attached to the top of it.

  “I’ve known Anastasia for years,” Grandma Daisy said regally as she rocked in the chair. “She was a regular customer in my bookshop, Charming Books, in Cascade Springs, New York, where the perfect book picks you,” she added for the free advertising, I was sure.

  A hand grabbed my arm, and I yelped.

  The journalist in the rumpled suit glared at me.

  The small fingers wrapped around my upper arm dug in a little deeper. “Shh,” Sadie hissed.

  “Sadie, let me go or I might need amputation because of lack of blood flow to my fingers.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and lessened her grasp just a little bit, enough to restore feeling to my fingers at least. “Violet, you have to help me.”

  The journalist cleared his throat loudly.

  Grandma Daisy glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, that’s my granddaughter, Violet. She’s a college professor.”

  “She’s interrupting the interview,” the reporter said. “We won’t be able to use your last comment because of the noise.” His voice was nasal and had a distinct Long Island sound to it.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said before I led Sadie around the corner of the old Victorian’s wraparound porch.

  As we walked away, the reporter asked my grandmother, “Now, can you repeat your last answer?”

  “Violet, you must help me,” Sadie said barely over a whisper when we were safely out of the reporter’s view.

  “I am trying to help you, Sadie. That’s what I have been doing all this time.”

  She finally let go of my arm completely to wipe away her tears. “I know that, and I’m so very grateful. But things are worse now.” She removed a tissue from the sleeve of her ruffled blouse and patted under her eyes.

  “How could they possibly be worse?” I asked.

  “All of these reporters are here because they learned that Anastasia was Evanna Blue.” She lowered her voice even more. “But I already knew.”

  “You what?” I hissed.

  “I knew that Anastasia was Evanna.” She whispered it again as if it was still a secret worth keeping.

  “How long have you known?”

  “A few months.” She squinted at me as if she feared my reaction.

  “And how did you find out?” I buttoned up my jacket against the cold breeze wafting off the river. From this side of the house, we had a clear view of the corner where River Road turned to follow the Niagara’s path. Sadie should have been freezing in her ruffled pink blouse, but it appeared that she was too agitated to notice the chill in the air.

  “The last time I was there to water her plants when she was out of town, it was late at night. I went then because I had forgotten to water,” she began.

  This sounded eerily similar to my predicament last night with the birch tree and my clandestine run for fresh springwater.

  “When I got to the second-floor sitting room, where most of her plants are, I noticed light shining from behind the bookcase in that room before I turned on the overhead light. I went over to investigate with the light still off and when I reached behind the bookshelf, I hit the latch, and the bookshelf swung open. It took a second for me to realize what I’d found. When I did, I couldn’t believe it.”

  “You said the light was left on in that room?” My brow wrinkled. Something about that sounded off to me.

  “I guess Anastasia forgot to turn off the light the last time she was in there.”

  I frowned. That didn’t sound like Anastasia to me. She had carefully kept this secret for over a decade; why would she leave the light on in a room that she so strictly protected like a national security secret? “Did you tell anyone? Anyone at all what you discovered? Did you tell Grant?”

  “No, I never told anyone, not even Grant. I promised Anastasia I never would tell, but I don’t think she believed me. She needed reassurance.”

  The pieces fell into place in my head. I had been right about Sadie holding back information when she talked to Grandma Daisy and me the night before. “Was this the reason she was so determined to find some dirt on you and how she learned about your plagiarism?”

  She nodded miserably. “Yes. I promised her I would never tell, and I’ve kept that promise. Instead of believing me, she threatened me.”

  Sadie was right; this was bad for her. The police would think this was just extra ammunition for her already convincing motive to kill Anastasia.

  As if she had read my mind, Sadie asked, “What if the police find out I knew? Wouldn’t that be worse?”

  That was a good question. If Rainwater found out that Sadie was hiding something more from him, it might convince him that much more that she had something to do with Anastasia’s murder.

  “What should I do?” she whimpered.

  I knew the right thing to do was tell the police and reveal everything that she knew about Anastasia and how she’d learned it. The problem was, I didn’t know if that was the smart thing to do. This might be a case where it was prudent to do the smart thing over the right thing.

  “Why don’t you go over to your shop while I think about it? I need to find out if anyone else knew about Anastasia’s pen name before we divulge this information to the police.”

  “Oh, Violet.” She clasped my hands in her smaller ones. “You don’t know how much it means to me that you say ‘we.’ I know I can survive this if I have someone to lean on.”

  Not for the first time, I wondered where Grant was in all of this. He should be the one that Sadie was leaning on right now, not me. I didn’t say any of this to her, though. “Of course, you can lean on me, Sadie. We’ll get through this and soon it will all be a distant memory.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes again. “Not for Anastasia, it won’t.”

  She had me there.

  “Why don’t you go over to your shop and make a few sales while I check on some leads. You might as well be making money with all these extra people in the village.”

  “I can’t.” She choked on the words as if they pained her. “I’m closed for the day. The place is surrounded by as many reporters as Charming Books.”

  “You can’t let them impact your business.”

  “Who’s going to want to buy a dress from a potential murderer, especially one who killed someone with a dress?” She looked like she was on the brink of tears yet again.

  “Do the reporters know that was the murder weapon?”

  “Yes,” she choked out in a sob. “I’ll be ruined.”

  I wrapped my arms around her. “How did they find out about the dress?”

  “I don’t know,” she moaned. “David told me he would keep it out of the press, and I know you and Grandma Daisy wouldn’t have said anything.”

  From the lawn, I saw Officer Wheaton scowling at me. I rubbed her back. I was happy to be comforting Sadie, but she needed Grant. When I did run across her no-good fiancé, I planned to give him a piece of my mind whether he wanted to hear it or not.

  TWENTY-SIX

  After some coaxing, I convinced Sadie to go inside Charming Books and wait out the worst of the reporters. I noted that at least two of the news vans were gone from the street. Three still remained, but I was happy to see some progress.

  As I came around the side of the wraparound porch back to where I’d left my grandmother and the reporter, I found my grandmother was gone. In her place in the rocker and sitting across from the same rumpled man was yet another man I didn’t recognize. He was about forty, I would guess, with short brown hair divided into a deep side part. He wore perfectly round glasses, which perched on his tiny round nose, and reminded me of
Harry Potter.

  “All of this must have come as shock,” the reporter said in a soothing voice.

  The man with the Harry Potter glasses nodded. “It has. It has. I had no idea my sister was this famous author.”

  Sister? This must be Coleridge, Anastasia’s brother, whom Trudy had mentioned.

  Coleridge placed a hand over his heart. “You don’t know how much it pains me to have learned it after she was gone.”

  “You didn’t know before?” the reporter asked.

  “No!” Coleridge cried. “I had no idea. I wished she would have told me. I hate to think of how difficult it was for her to keep this secret for so long. As her only sibling, I could have been there for her through all of this.”

  Coleridge seemed to be playing the caring-brother card a little too heavily in my opinion.

  The reporter asked Anastasia’s brother a few more questions about the siblings’ growing-up years. Coleridge answered with elaborate stories about how close he and Anastasia were. If they were so close, why hadn’t she mentioned her brother at a Red Inkers meeting? I wondered.

  Finally after what seemed like an eternity, the reporter said, “Thank you so much, Mr. Faber. We give you our deepest sympathy.”

  Coleridge bowed his head as if receiving a blessing rather than condolences on the passing of his only sister. His mannerisms seemed to be so over the top that they rang false.

  The reporter clapped his hands on his knees and stood. “We got what we need,” he told his cameraman. “Let’s clear out and we can make the midday news. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to leave this strange village.”

  Strange village? If only he knew that he was standing in front of a magical bookshop.

  Grandma Daisy stood in the doorway of Charming Books and called to the reporter, “Remember to mention us as Charming Books on River Road in Cascade Springs.”

  “I’ll remember,” he said. He walked over to his camera guy, and the pair spoke in hushed, excited tones.

  “Grandma!” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

  “An interview,” she said simply. “Isn’t it exciting? He’s from a cable news channel, you know the one with that darling Rachel Maddow. Isn’t that something?”

  “Grandma, you gave him a sales pitch for the store when I assume that the interview was supposed to be about Anastasia.”

  She adjusted her scarf around her neck. Today she was wearing one that was decorated with leaves and pumpkins. “I don’t see anything wrong with that. Anastasia was a regular customer. I would think that she would want the store to flourish.”

  I rubbed the spot between my eyebrows. I could feel a headache forming there. “Are you going to do every interview you are asked?”

  She shook her head and her silver bob brushed her cheeks as she moved. “Certainly not, and there won’t be an opportunity to. You will notice that now that I gave that interview, the other news crews are leaving too. They know that they have been scooped.” She said this with a twinkle in her eye.

  In front of the shop, I found that she was right. The other reporters, cameramen, and sound technicians loaded their equipment into their news vans, which had dozens of antennae coming out of the roof. Okay, perhaps Grandma Daisy knew more about the press than I did.

  Grandma Daisy smiled. “See what I mean?”

  “But the police chief wouldn’t want you to talk about the investigation,” I said.

  “Who said that I spoke about the investigation?” she asked. “It was a personal interest piece. I shared what I knew about Anastasia the person, not the murder victim, and her place in our community.”

  I arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Oh, all right, it will be a kinder and gentler view of the person Anastasia really was. No matter how awful that woman could be, I can’t speak ill of the dead on the national news.”

  I gave her a hug. “You’re a good person, Grandma Daisy. Do you know that?”

  She hugged me back. “I’ve been told that a time or two.” Before she let me go, she whispered, “Her brother is leaving. If you want to talk to him, this might be your only chance.”

  I stepped back from my grandmother to find Coleridge already on the lawn, heading toward the gate.

  I launched down the steps. “Coleridge,” I called.

  He turned in surprise as if he hadn’t expected anyone to know his name.

  As I hurried over to him, I spotted a black-and-white cat stalking through the lawn. Emerson. The sneak got outside after all. I would have to worry about my mischievous cat later. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

  He frowned, which wrinkled his tiny nose. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Violet Waverly. I’m a friend of Anastasia.”

  “A friend?” he snorted. “I wasn’t aware that my sister had friends.” His entire demeanor changed from the grieving-brother persona that he’d portrayed during his television interview to someone I could easily see as Anastasia’s blood relative.

  “She did,” I said, mentally adding “sort of.” I went on to say, “I knew her through the Red Inkers.”

  “The red who?” he asked.

  I was surprised that he didn’t know. Anastasia had been a loyal member of the group, attending almost every meeting, since it began years ago. Wouldn’t her brother know about such a large part of her life? Maybe he didn’t know her at all. “Did you know about your sister’s pseudonym?”

  “No.” His answer made it clear that he was tiring of our conversation.

  “You never asked her how she could afford to live in such a large house?” I asked.

  “Unlike some people,” he said pointedly, “I’m not one to pry. I knew my sister was wealthy, yes, but I didn’t know about her being this famous author, who frankly I never heard of.”

  Grandma Daisy joined us and cocked her head. “Have you heard of J. K. Rowling?”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Look her up. She might have borrowed your glasses. You might want to take it up with her.”

  Ah, Grandma Daisy had also caught on to the Harry Potter glasses. I shot her a disapproving look. I didn’t believe that Coleridge was the type who liked to be teased.

  “Coleridge, my boy,” Trudy said as she came through the front gate. “I haven’t seen you since you were learning to tie your shoes.”

  He blinked at her as if he knew that he should recognize who was speaking to him, but couldn’t quite place her.

  “It’s me, Mrs. Conner, your first-grade teacher.” Trudy smiled. “I know first grade is a distant memory to you.”

  “Oh” was his response. Apparently Coleridge didn’t find that fact to be especially impressive.

  Trudy gave him a grandmotherly hug, which he stiffly accepted. “I’m glad you were able to meet Daisy and Violet here. I know they are absolutely heartbroken for you and so sorry Anastasia died in their bookshop. It’s a terrible shame and a shock how it all happened.”

  He spun and faced Grandma Daisy and me. “You’re the owners of this bookshop?”

  I considered denying it for half a second, but Grandma Daisy straightened her spine and said, “Yes, we are, and Trudy is right. We are absolutely heartbroken over your sister’s death.”

  His lips curled into a sneer, making him look less like Harry Potter and more like Snape. “You will be heartbroken after I’m through with you.” He pointed at Charming Books. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? I doubt you will feel that way when I hand you a lawsuit that will bury you and your great-great-grandchildren in debt for the rest of their lives.” With that, he stomped away.

  If Coleridge was anything like his sister, I knew that wasn’t an idle threat.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  After the news crew and most of the pedestrians blocking the street moved on, Grandma Daisy and I opened Charming Books for the day. Customers
flowed into the shop and business was brisk. I saw more than one book fly off the shelf and hit an unsuspecting shopper. The shop’s essence was working overtime.

  I left Grandma Daisy with the customers and went to find Sadie. She was curled up in the children’s loft in one of the beanbag chairs made to look like a boulder. Not much larger than a child herself, she fit snugly in the chair. In her lap, she had a copy of Winnie-the-Pooh.

  She closed the book when I reached the landing with Emerson close on my heels. I wondered how he’d gotten back in the shop. I supposed I should just come to accept that I couldn’t control my cat’s comings and goings. He took independence to a new level.

  She chuckled. “This was my favorite book growing up. I thought reading it would make me feel better.”

  I sat in the beanbag across from her. Unlike Sadie, I was not a perfect size for the small chair. My long legs were forced to bend, and I looked like I was a floor gymnast who got caught in a pose. “Did it work?”

  Her lips, lined in bright red lipstick that complemented her black hair, curved into just a hint of a smile. “I think so. You must think I’m silly to turn to a children’s book in a time like this when I should really be trying to see how to escape this mess that I’m in.”

  “I don’t think it’s silly at all,” I said. “I’m a bookseller, remember, and a literature professor. I make sense of the world through books.” I could feel the volume of Poe sitting in the back pocket of my jeans as I said this. I knew Sadie wouldn’t take my statement as literally as I meant it. “I read everything, and children’s books are just as well written as novels for adults.”

  She hugged her book to her chest. “I should have known you’d understand. I know Daisy would too. She and you are really the closest people I have to family in the village. I’m so grateful for you both.”

  “What about Grant?”

  Her brow furrowed. “Grant is Grant.”

  I interpreted that to mean that Grant was a selfish jerk, but I could have just been projecting my own opinion of Nathan’s younger brother. “Have you heard from him at all?”