Prose and Cons

by Amanda Flower

  “Violet, what on earth happened to you?” my grandmother wanted to know. “I only sent you fourteen text messages. None of which you took the time to answer.”

  I rubbed my shoulder. “I know, Grandma Daisy, and I’m sorry. I had a bit of a spill.” I gave her a brief version of the morning’s events, but I thought it would be best to leave Charles Hancock from my tale at least until she calmed down a bit.

  “Why on earth would you climb that trellis?” She flailed her arms, and the scent of lavender, which I always associated with my grandmother, wafted around me. Usually I found it comforting, but it didn’t have the same soothing element when I was being reprimanded even if I deserved it.

  “David wanted to know the same thing,” I admitted. At my feet, Emerson purred as he wove around my legs. At least one of them was happy to see me in one piece.

  “I should think so. I’m surprised David didn’t throw you in the village jail for sheer stupidity.”

  At her mention of Rainwater, I felt my cheeks heat up.

  My grandmother studied me and opened her mouth to say something before snapping it closed again.

  “What do you need me to do?” I asked, looking around the shop. There was one customer in the cookbook section, but other than that, the shop was empty save for the usual suspects: Grandma Daisy, Emerson, and Faulkner.

  “You’re covered in dirt. Go upstairs and clean yourself up. You can tell me more about it later.” She made a shooing motion with her hands.

  I didn’t even attempt to argue with her and headed up the staircase to my apartment. Once inside, I sat on my bed and pulled my cell phone out of my jacket pocket. I called Richard at Springside. The English professor was in his office and picked up on the first ring.

  “Richard, I was wondering if I could ask you a favor,” I said.

  There was a shuffle of papers on the other end of the line. “How can I help you, Violet?”

  “Can you cover my class today?” My American Literature I class was taking their midterm today. If it was canceled, it would put grades and everything on my syllabus behind, but at the rate I was moving, there was no way that I would make it there in time to administer the exam. Briefly, I told Richard about my fall and asked him if he would be willing to give the exam to my students that afternoon.

  “Of course, Violet, I would be happy to proctor your exam later. The quiet while they are taking the test will give me time to mark my own midterms. I should have finished them last night, but I got caught up on a bit of interesting research. I think I’m onto something with the article I’m working on—”

  “Thank you, Richard.” I cut him off. Typically, I loved hearing about Richard’s research, but I knew from experience the conversation could go on for hours if I allowed it. I didn’t have time for that, and neither did Richard if he was going to administer my midterm. “I owe you big-time,” I told my department chair. “The department secretary has the exams. All you will have to do is hand them out. If you could bring the finished tests to the Red Inkers meeting tonight, I’d appreciate it. If not, I can pick them up tomorrow.”

  “Are we still having the Red Inkers meeting?” he asked uncertainly.

  “I think we should,” I said. “It will give us all a chance to talk about what happened.” I essentially repeated what I had just told Sadie a little while ago outside the shop.

  “You’re sure you will be up to it if you’re not feeling well?”

  “I’ll be fine in a few hours,” I reassured him.

  “Well, if you insist, I will let the others know.”

  I thanked him and said good-bye as I headed to the shower.

  I stood in the shower until the water ran cold, which wasn’t long at all for a house of Charming Books’ age. Back in my bedroom, I dressed quickly, and I was in the middle of drying my long, wavy hair, which was a time-consuming process when I was completely healthy. With an injured shoulder, it took twice as long. I was almost done, or as done as I was going to be under the circumstances, when Emerson batted my right hand with his pristine white paw.

  I turned off the hair dryer. “What’s wrong?” I asked the tuxedo cat.

  With the hair dryer off, I could hear the ringing of my cell phone on my dresser. I leaped up to answer it and groaned with the effort. I snatched up the phone just before it went to voice mail.

  “Violet, thank goodness you answered,” Lacey said breathlessly on the other end of the line. “He’s here at the Food and Wine Festival.”

  “Who?”

  “Coleridge! Anastasia’s brother. If you want to talk to him, you had better get your behind down here to the festival quick. I heard him just tell someone he planned to leave the village as soon as he finished eating his lunch.”

  “On my way,” I said, and ended the call without saying good-bye.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Grandma Daisy wasn’t thrilled when I said I planned to go back out again after just returning from my battle with the trellis. However, I didn’t give her a chance to argue, because I was out the door before she finished her first complaint about it.

  Emerson followed me out the door. I pointed at the lawn. “Stay here.”

  He meowed. Whether it was in agreement or protest, I couldn’t be sure.

  Officer Clipton still hadn’t brought my bike from Puffin Lane B&B to Charming Books, so I was forced to walk to the festival. It was probably for the best. I didn’t know if I could get a firm grip on the bicycle’s handlebars with my shoulder hurting so badly.

  Emerson sat in the middle of Charming Books’ lawn just like I had told him to do. Was I hallucinating or was the cat starting to listen to me? I hurried down the street toward the Riverwalk. The closer I came to the festival, the more crowded with pedestrians the street became. As I wove through the crush of jovial people who had already partaken of the many wines that the local wineries had to offer the tourists, I kept my eye out for Fenimore the troubadour. I didn’t want to run into him again. Rainwater claimed the musician didn’t have anything to do with Anastasia’s murder, and that might be true. However, he had mentioned my mother, and I was going to avoid having a conversation about her with a stranger at any cost.

  I turned my thoughts away from Fenimore and back to the murder itself. I had three remaining suspects: the journalist, Daven York; the agent, Edmund Eaton; and the brother and Harry Potter doppelgänger, Coleridge Faber.

  The shop’s essence had directed me to read “The Purloined Letter,” and if I was right in my interpretation, then the books were trying to tell me the killer was the most obvious suspect. Coleridge had to be the killer. It was the scenario that made the most sense if the books were right, and I had no reason to doubt them.

  Lacey was in La Crepe Jolie’s tent and waved at me wildly from across the green. If she didn’t want to draw attention to my arrival, she was failing miserably. “Violet, over here!” she called.

  I waved back to acknowledge I’d seen her. I hoped it would put a stop to her crazed-pageant-queen-on-a-float wave, but it didn’t.

  “Violet!” she called again.

  Some of the festivalgoers turned to stare at me.

  I ducked my head and hurried over to her tent.

  Adrien was at the crepe station again, whipping up delicious crepes. My stomach rumbled, and I wondered when I had last eaten. However, this wasn’t the time to think about food.

  Lacey slid out from behind the booth. “You got here fast.” She gave me a tight hug.

  “Eee,” I cried.

  She stepped back. “Are you all right?”

  I rubbed my shoulder. “I’m fine. I fell this morning.”

  “Yes!” she said. “I heard you jumped from the second-floor terrace of Puffin Lane B&B.”

  “I didn’t jump,” I said, and left it at that. If I spoke any more about the morning’s events with Lacey, we would be there all da
y. “Where’s Coleridge?”

  She pointed in the direction of the big dining tent. “He’s in there.”

  I followed her line of sight and found Coleridge in the far corner of the tent, sitting alone. Half a dozen plates of food surrounded him. “He must have a big appetite,” I said.

  “I heard him say he would leave after he was done eating. I didn’t know how long it would take you to get here, so I went from booth to booth gathering up samples of the food and wine from the other vendors and gave it to him. I told him it was a gift from the village in memory of Anastasia, who was such a prominent member.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  She grinned. “I learned all my tricks from you and Colleen in high school. You two could convince just about anyone to do what you wanted. Remember when you talked Coach Bryant into canceling gym class because he needed to take time to relax and strategize before the big football game that night?”

  I laughed at the memory. Colleen had really been the one that sweet-talked the coach out of teaching class, not that it had been much of a challenge really. It was the first time that I recalled a memory that involved Colleen without the black cloud of loss that I had associated with her since the day she died.

  “Does he look like Harry Potter to you?” she asked. “I think the resemblance is uncanny, but then again if he wore a red-and-white-striped shirt, he could just as easily look like Where’s Waldo. It’s the glasses, I think.”

  She had a point.

  She grabbed a small plate of madeleines from her table. “Here, take these. You can use it as a cover.”

  I took the plate from her hand and thanked her.

  I smiled at people eating in the big tent as I carried the plate of cookies to the back where Coleridge sat. Now that I stood right next to his table, I could see there was even more food piled across the table than I had been able to see from La Crepe Jolie’s booth. Clearly, Lacey had taken her job seriously in keeping Coleridge at the festival until I showed up.

  Coleridge peered at me with red eyes over his Harry Potter glasses. “I really don’t need any more food. I have more than enough as you can see.”

  “Everyone in the village feels terrible about what happened to your sister.” I set the plate of cookies in the one empty spot on the edge of the table. “We just want to show you how much we care.”

  He snorted. “That’s a load of crap. I know very well that everyone in Cascade Springs couldn’t stand my sister. I can’t blame them. She was a pretentious snob, and I couldn’t stand her either.” He spoke with so much venom that I took a step back. Perhaps I was right in thinking that Coleridge was the killer. He certainly had strong feelings where his sister was concerned.

  “Do I know you?” He studied my face. He wagged his finger at me. “You’re the owner of the bookstore. I’m going to sue you for everything that you have.”

  I froze. I had forgotten about his threat of a lawsuit. It was a very real threat, I was afraid. Anastasia did die from falling down the back stairs of Charming Books. She might have been made unsteady from the liquid nicotine soaked into her dress, but it was the fall that actually killed her.

  “Or I would.” He swayed in his seat. “If I had any money to do it, which I don’t.” He swallowed what was left in the wineglass in his hand. “Do you know my sister didn’t leave me a blasted thing? She had all that money and every last penny is going to charity.” He set the empty glass back on the table and reached for another full one.

  I sat across from him at the table, shifting some of the plates aside so that I could rest my hands on the edge of the table.

  He took a big gulp from the glass in his hand.

  I wondered how many glasses of wine Lacey had given him to keep him from leaving. The only saving grace was it was unlikely he had gotten to the festival by car, so he wouldn’t be driving.

  “Do you know when I heard that my sister died and was rich, I thought that I would quit my job? I sent my boss a scathing e-mail and told him just what I thought of him, the scum. There is no going back to that office.” He took a swig from his wineglass.

  “Maybe you should eat something,” I said, noting that although Coleridge was surrounded by empty wineglasses, most of his plates were still filled with food. “You need to soak up the alcohol.”

  “I don’t need to do anything. Except to get out of this horrid little village and salvage what is left of my life.”

  “When did you find out that Anastasia didn’t leave you any money?”

  “This morning. I met with her lawyer. Pompous jerk. I think he almost enjoyed telling me the news that I had been written out of her will.”

  “And did you know your sister was Evanna Blue?” It was a question that I knew he’d been asked many times over the last few days, but I still needed to ask it.

  “No, I had no idea. It’s just like my sister to keep a secret like that.” He sipped from his glass again.

  “If you had known and thought you would stand to inherit her money, it would be a very convincing motive for murder.”

  He slammed his glass on the table, and I was relieved it was plastic. If it had been anything else, it would have shattered. “If you think that I killed my sister, you’re wrong. I was working ten- and thirteen-hour days for my troll of a boss back in Newark. If you don’t believe me, ask the police chief. He confirmed it with my boss, and I have even more proof.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and removed a piece of folded paper. He set the plane ticket on the edge of the table. “Read it. Don’t be shy now.”

  I reached across the food and picked it up. The date on the ticket stub was the day that Anastasia died, which coincided with his story. If he was in Newark until after her death, then there was no way that he could have poisoned her dress. I set the plane ticket back on the table. Whether he was on the plane would be easy to verify, and I knew that Rainwater already had by this point.

  He picked up the ticket and tucked it back into his coat pocket.

  “What can you tell me about her literary agent, Edmund Eaton?”

  “Nothing,” Coleridge said. “I just met him this morning. He was at the meeting with the lawyer too. The lawyer said he had to be there in order to know how to handle Anastasia’s contracts and royalties with her publishers. He didn’t seem too happy about Anastasia’s will either.”

  “What charity did she leave her money to?”

  “What charity didn’t she leave money to? She left money to children’s charities, the poor, the elderly, libraries, animal rescues, and environmental groups. You’d think she would be willing to leave a million or so to her only living relative,” he said bitterly.

  Knowing what Anastasia had done with her wealth made me like her a little bit more. Perhaps she’d had a soft heart underneath her tough exterior and superior demeanor. If she had, it was a secret that she’d kept well hidden, and if anything, Anastasia Faber could keep one whopper of a secret.

  Coleridge struggled to his feet and held on to the table to steady himself.

  “You’re not driving, are you?” I asked just to be sure.

  “No.” He blinked at me from behind his round glasses. “I don’t even have a car in this village.”

  “Good,” I said, relieved. “I suggest you go back to wherever you are staying and take a nap.”

  He nodded dumbly. “A nap sounds good.”

  I stood. “Do you need help getting there?”

  “No,” he said. “My B&B is just up River Road a bit. I need the walk. It will help me think.”

  I took a step back. “Okay.”

  I watched Coleridge stumble away, bouncing off people in the crowd as he went, and with him left my hopes of solving Anastasia Faber’s murder.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Before I left the dining tent, I cleared Coleridge’s table. The local teenagers who were in charge of keepin
g the festival pristine were running in all directions. They certainly didn’t have the time to take care of that many plates of food and empty wineglasses. I kept the small plate of madeleines for myself and ate them as I walked back to La Crepe Jolie’s booth.

  “How did it go?” Lacey wanted to know, as breathless as ever. The lunch crowd was beginning to finally taper off, and Adrien was making some fresh crepe batter before the next onslaught of tourists.

  “He’s not the killer,” I said, unable to hide the disappointment from my voice.

  She smiled. “Cheer up, Violet. Eliminating a suspect moves you one step closer to who actually did it.”

  If only that were true, and I wished I had Lacey’s optimistic outlook on life. I hadn’t appreciated it as a teenager, and I was embarrassed to remember that Colleen and I would sometimes snicker behind Lacey’s back about her over-the-top happiness. What a waste that was. A little over a decade later, Lacey had a thriving business and a gorgeous husband who adored her. It seemed happiness wasn’t so bad after all.

  Despite the dull ache in my shoulder, I gave her a hug. “Thank you for that. I needed to hear it.”

  Lacey beamed from ear to ear. “Anytime,” she said, and I knew that was true. Whenever I needed picking up from a dark mood, Lacey would be there, and I needed a friend like that in my life. It made me want to be a better friend to her. And I would be, I vowed if only to myself.

  “I should be getting back to Charming Books, or Grandma Daisy is bound to send out a search party for me.”

  She laughed. “Not before Adrien and I feed you. He would never recover from it if you left La Crepe Jolie’s booth hungry.”

  “I am a little hungry,” I admitted. More than a little actually, I thought.

  “I know,” she said. “I can hear your tummy rumbling.”

  Twenty minutes later, I polished off what was left of my mushroom and ham crepe, and thanked Lacey and Adrien for another excellent lunch. As usual, they refused to let me pay for the meal.