I wanted to ask him what the publisher was more upset about, but I was afraid that I would be disappointed by the answer. “What did you tell him?”
“The same thing I told you, that I don’t know how the word got out. We only know of one person who knew Evanna Blue’s true identity.”
“Who’s that?”
“Her name is Sadie Cunningham.”
My heart sank. That was what I was afraid he’d say.
He shook his head. “But I would be surprised if it were her, to be honest. Anastasia was so certain that she had found a way for this Sadie to keep quiet. I have worked with Anastasia for a very long time. If she did something to keep a person quiet, it should have worked.”
In Sadie’s case, it was with the threat of exposing Sadie’s earlier transgressions in life.
“What about her literary works?” I asked. “The Anastasia I knew dreamed of being published in literary fiction. In fact, she went out of her way to disparage popular and genre fiction.”
He sighed. “I know. Trust me, I know.”
“Was there any chance of her literary work becoming published?”
“Quite frankly, no.” He took a deep breath as if he knew he needed to fortify himself for what came next. “It’s something to write for the love of it; it’s another to write for profit. The lucky authors are the ones who write for both. Anastasia was not one of the lucky ones, at least in that sense.”
“Did Anastasia threaten to stop writing as Evanna?” I asked.
He started to stand up. “I have said too much.”
I jumped to my feet. “You need to talk to the police about this. They will want to know what you’ve told me.”
“No, thank you. I have no interest in becoming involved in any of this. I plan to be on the next plane to New York City just as soon as I check into a few more things.”
“Like what?” I asked in my most innocent voice.
“That is none of your business.” With that, he stomped out of the tent. As he left, I saw a figure standing in the shadow of La Crepe Jolie’s tent. There was a long line of tourists waiting to order a crepe from Adrien. The shadowy figure wasn’t in line for a crepe. He was just staring at me.
Fenimore.
TWENTY-NINE
I stomped over to him. I’d had just about enough of the troubadour skulking around me. It seemed in the last two days, he was everywhere, or at least everywhere I was, which only made it seem that much worse.
“Why are you following me?” I demanded.
“I need to talk to you,” the man said in a raspy voice as if it had gotten worn out by years of smoking or singing. Perhaps a combination of both.
I hadn’t expected that answer. “What about?”
He glanced around at all the festival activity. “I need to talk to you in private.”
Like that was going to happen. I folded my arms. “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say to me out here in the open.”
He adjusted the strap of his guitar on his shoulder. “I don’t think that’s true. I believe you would like to hear what I have to say when we are alone.”
If this stranger seriously thought I would be willing to be alone with him when a murder had just been committed in the village, he was cracked. “Does this have something to do with Anastasia?”
“Who?” he asked, appearing genuinely confused by the question.
“Or you might know her as Evanna Blue. Does that name mean anything to you?”
He furrowed his brow. “I don’t know who you are talking about.” He removed an e-cigarette from the pocket of his flannel jacket. I saw the amber liquid slosh back and forth inside of it.
I interrupted him. “What’s that?”
He stared down at the piece of plastic in his hand. “I’m trying to quit smoking. It’s not good for my singing voice. I suppose at my age it’s a little late now to save it completely, but I am trying. There are so many things that I want to make better. You should know that.”
“Why should I know that?”
He fiddled with the e-cigarette in his hand and didn’t answer my question.
I took a step toward him. “So you don’t know anything about Anastasia’s death, even when you hold that”—I pointed at the e-cigarette—“in your hand. Don’t you know how foolish it is to flash that around after what happened?”
“What are you talking about?” Fenimore stared at me as if I had two heads.
“Everyone in the village knows what happened, even the tourists, and you’re not really a tourist, are you, Fenimore?” I balled my fists at my sides. “You have been to our village many times before.”
His mouth hung open. “You’re as fiery as your mother. I should have expected you to be so. It’s like looking at her caught in a time capsule. It is almost too much to bear.”
I stumbled backward as if he had slapped me across the face. “Stay away from me,” I whispered.
Unable to process what he had just said to me, I started to walk away. How would this man, who was only in the village for the festival, know my mother? I didn’t want to know. Clearly, he was using it as a diversionary tactic to distract me from the e-cigarette in his hand. Well, he could talk to Chief Rainwater about that if he refused to speak to me about the matter. I turned to go.
“I wanted to talk to you about Fern,” he called after me.
I spun around. There was only one Fern in my life, and that was my mother—my mother, who died when I was thirteen. What could this man possibly say about her? “What did you say?”
He held out his hands with the palms facing up. One hand was empty. The other held the e-cigarette.
“Violet, is this man bothering you?” Nathan walked up beside me and glared at Fenimore.
I tore my eyes away from Fenimore’s face. “Nathan, I’m fine.” I refocused my attention onto Fenimore. “What do you have to say about my mother?”
“Now is not the time.” He turned and ambled away with the e-cigarette clasped in his fist so tightly I was surprised that it didn’t snap in two.
I took a step after him, but Nathan reached out and grabbed my hand. “Violet, where are you going?”
I jerked my hand from his grasp. “I have to know what he was going to say.”
The two seconds that Nathan held me back were just long enough for Fenimore to melt into the growing crowd of festivalgoers and disappear. I looked left and right. All I saw were people carrying plastic cups of wine and dishes of steaming food. Fenimore was gone.
My heart thumped in my chest.
“Violet, what’s wrong?” Nathan asked.
His voice was so full of concern that I turned to look at him. The concern that I had heard in his voice registered in his eyes as well. “He said something about my mom.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say about her?”
Nathan had known my mother from our growing up together, but I was still angry at him for stopping me from learning what Fenimore had to say. I might not have another chance. “That I was fiery like she was.”
His expression cleared. “I can vouch for that,” he teased. “Why are you so upset by it?”
“I don’t know exactly. It was just how he said it. It’s just—” I searched for the right words. “How would he know what my mother was like? How would he know her at all?”
“Let me find him. I’ll find out what he knows about your mother.” He took two steps in the direction in which Fenimore had melted into the crowd.
This time, I grabbed his wrist to stop him.
A slim woman with steel gray hair and a serious-looking clipboard stood a few feet away. “Mr. Mayor, we need you to judge the ice wine dessert contest now.”
Nathan looked from the woman to me and back again.
“Go,” I said, releasing his wrist. I hadn’t realized until that m
oment that I had still been holding it. I dropped my arm to my side. “I’ll be fine.”
“If you need—”
“Mr. Mayor?” the officious woman repeated.
I gave Nathan a small smile. “You should go. Your public awaits. Thank you, though.”
His eyes lit up with just enough hope in them that it worried me, making me wish I could take my gratitude back, not because I didn’t mean it, but because I didn’t want to hurt him. For the first time, I realized that was exactly what I might be doing, and I wondered if I was hurting myself in the process too.
THIRTY
Nathan went off with the woman, who I could only assume was his secretary although we weren’t formally introduced.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” someone said to the right.
I turned to find Chief Rainwater at my side, and the thumping resumed in my chest, which had nothing to do with my encounter with Fenimore and his saying my mother’s name. I swallowed. “I’m fine. Have you spoken to Fenimore about Anastasia’s murder?”
His eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“Fenimore. The troubadour who is in the village for the Food and Wine Festival. I couldn’t tell you if Fenimore was his first or last name. No one I’ve spoken to seems to know the answer to that either.”
“Is that the guy with the guitar and harmonica?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’ve seen him around town.” Rainwater rested his hand on his duty belt just in front of his gun. “Why should I talk to him about Anastasia’s death? Did he see something?”
“I don’t know that,” I admitted. “But I think he might have something to do with it.”
“Why’s that?”
“I saw him with an e-cigarette,” I said, and waited for Rainwater to praise my detective work.
“A lot of people smoke e-cigarettes, Violet. It’s become very popular in recent years,” he said, and disappointed me in the process.
“Yes, I know that,” I said, biting back my irritation. “But why would he flaunt it in front of me so soon after Anastasia’s death?” I described how Fenimore pulled the e-cigarette out of his pocket.
“That doesn’t sound like flaunting to me,” he said, and before I could protest, he asked, “What motive does he have?”
I frowned. It was an obvious and reasonable question. I couldn’t just say the man was crazy. Fenimore might be a tad eccentric, but that didn’t make him a murderer, especially in Cascade Springs, where everyone had his or her own flavor of eccentricity. “I don’t know,” I said finally.
“Are you sure that’s all of it, just you seeing him with an electronic cigarette?” Rainwater asked. He searched my face with his piercing amber eyes.
My mother’s face came to my mind’s eye. As always in my memory, it was somewhat fuzzy, as if covered with a piece of clouded glass that softened her face into impressions more than features. Many times, I wondered if I would forget what she looked like if it weren’t for the photographs that I had, which had been taken throughout her life. Without those, would her face continue to fade into a blur of color before disappearing entirely from my memory?
“Violet?” Rainwater asked, taking a step toward me. There was still a good two feet of space between us, but it felt so much smaller.
I licked my lips, which felt terribly dry. “That was all.”
How was it that I was able to tell Nathan what Fenimore had said about my mother, but I wasn’t able to tell the police chief? Because Nathan knew my mother, I told myself, and Rainwater never did. He never would.
The words about my mother caught in my mouth. “That was all,” I repeated.
He took another step toward me, and now only one foot of space separated us from each other. “I don’t believe you.”
Before I could answer, there was a high-pitched squeal, and a pink-and-purple blur raced toward the police chief and catapulted into his arms. Rainwater let out an “umph” upon impact.
The girl in Rainwater’s arms appeared to be about five or six, and she flung her arms around Rainwater’s neck. “Where have you been? We have been looking for you everywhere!” the child admonished him.
The girl was Native American like Rainwater and had the same amber-colored eyes. For the briefest of moments, I thought it might be his daughter. The thought that Rainwater had a child made my pulse quicken.
The girl looked at me. “Who are you?”
Somehow I found my voice. “I’m Violet.”
“Violet!” She beamed. “Uncle David talks about you.”
Uncle. I blew out a breath. The girl was Rainwater’s niece. I should have known. He had spoken of her often at Red Inker meetings and always fondly. Seeing how the girl clung to her uncle’s neck, the fondness went both ways.
“I’m Aster Cloud,” she said proudly.
“Hello, Aster,” I said. “I’ve heard so much about you from your uncle.”
Her face split into a grin, and she pointed behind me. “That’s my mom.”
A small Native American woman smiled shyly at me. She was just over five feet tall and her long hair cascaded down her back in a black sheet. I was immediately envious of her gorgeous hair.
Rainwater adjusted his niece in his arms. “Violet, this is my sister, Danielle, and”—he smiled down at his niece—“you’ve just met Aster, the troublemaker in the family.”
“Uncle David!” the child cried in outrage.
He laughed at her pint-sized annoyance. When he recovered, he said, “Danielle and Aster have been staying with me for the last few months.”
His comment took me back to when I first returned to Cascade Springs and heard a woman’s voice in Rainwater’s house. At the time, I had assumed that it was a girlfriend of the police chief’s, but I realized now that it was much more likely his sister. I couldn’t help but admire Rainwater for taking his sister and her daughter in when they needed a place to stay. There were a lot of siblings in the same predicament who wouldn’t do that.
“Just until I can get back on my feet,” Danielle interjected, and then lowered her voice. “I’m in the middle of a divorce. My ex-husband . . .” She trailed off.
I noticed Rainwater’s jaw tighten when Danielle mentioned her ex-husband even for the briefest of seconds.
Aster wriggled out of her uncle’s arms. “It’s ice cream time.” She took hold of his large hand in her tiny one and pulled. “You promised.”
He laughed again, and his eyes sparkled. “Okay, okay.” Rainwater stopped despite Aster’s persistent tugging on his hand. “Violet?”
“Yes?” I asked.
“Would you like to join us for ice cream?” the police chief asked me.
I would, I wanted to say, but instead, I said, “I had better get back to the bookshop. Grandma Daisy has been there alone for too long.”
He nodded. I could be mistaken, but I thought I saw disappointment in his amber eyes.
I waved to Danielle and Aster. “It was nice meeting both of you.”
Danielle gave me a shy smile.
I turned to go.
“Violet,” Rainwater said.
I turned to face him again.
“I’ll talk to Fenimore,” he said.
I nodded.
Aster yanked on Rainwater’s hand. “Come on! You promised to buy me an ice cream.”
The police chief laughed. “I did indeed.” He gave me a half wave as he allowed Aster to drag him away.
Danielle nodded to me before following her daughter and brother in the direction of the homemade ice cream tent.
It wasn’t until the trio disappeared around the side of one of the white canvas tents that what Aster had said hit me. “Uncle David talks about you.” Rainwater spoke of me with his family? Was that good or bad?
THIRTY-ONE
By the time I returned to Cha
rming Books, I felt like I had swum the length of the Niagara River. I was emotionally wrung out. When I entered the shop, the downstairs was still busy with customers. Grandma Daisy stood at the sales counter grinning from ear to ear with every swipe of a credit card. The shop had lost at least a half day of income with Anastasia’s death, but it seemed that its notoriety as the place where a famous person had been killed more than made up for any loss. It made me wonder if anyone would have cared that Anastasia had died if it remained a secret that she was Evanna Blue. Something about that made me terribly sad. No life should be more valued above another, but I knew that didn’t hold true in reality.
Trudy handed a middle schooler a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “This is the book you’ve been looking for.”
The child nodded and danced over to who I assumed was her father with the book hugged to her chest.
“You on the payroll now?” I teased Trudy.
She laughed and it sounded like the chime of church bells. “Not quite yet. I’m just lending a hand where I might be needed. You know I like to make myself useful. When I stopped in to pick up my book order for the week, I saw how busy Daisy was and decided to pitch in.” She gave me a beady look. “I was surprised to find you not here. Where had you wandered off to?”
“I was down at the Food and Wine Festival, talking to a few people.”
“About what?” She raised one eyebrow.
“Anastasia. I’m trying to find out who might have known Anastasia was Evanna Blue before she died.”
“And how did that go for you?” Again the eyebrow went up.
I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
She smiled. “Those are the best kind.” She began to cough and reached in her pocketbook for a tissue. “Excuse me.” She coughed into the tissue. The cough was deeper in her chest this time.
I touched her arm. “Trudy, are you all right? That cough sounds bad. Are you sure it’s just allergies? Maybe you should get it looked at.”
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