Verse and Vengeance

by Amanda Flower

  “This was on him, Chief,” Officer Clipton said. She was a curvy female officer and wore a reflective yellow smock over her uniform. All the police on the sidelines of the race were wearing them so that visitors and villagers alike could find the police quickly during the race if the need should arise. And boy, had it ever.

  Rainwater looked up, and by the flicker in his amber eyes, I knew he took notice of me standing there with my mouth hanging open. “What is it?” Rainwater asked.

  “A book. It was in the pack on the back of his bike.” Clipton shook her head. “Who rides in a bike race with a book?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t a part of the race,” Wheaton, a male officer with a buzz-cut and a massive chip on his shoulder, suggested. “He’s not dressed for it. What book?”

  “He was on a bike. Poetry. Leaves of Grass,” Clipton said. “I’m sure you’ve never read it.”

  The other officer scowled back at her.

  I felt woozy at hearing the title.

  “We have to secure the scene,” Rainwater said. His voice was sharp.

  “I just got radioed that there is another pack of riders coming this way.”

  “We need to divert them,” Rainwater said. “Clipton, take a couple of officers and make the pack of riders turn around. They can come down Chickadee Street since it runs parallel to this road. We can add them back into the course. The riders might have to wait for a moment to get everything settled, but it won’t cause too much trouble.”

  “Got it, Chief.” Clipton was all business as she ran up the hill we had all just come down. I doubted she would even been winded at the top.

  Rainwater made no comment about me being there. Another of his officers was diverting the riders back on course.

  “I have to get back in the race!” one man in bright orange biker shorts yelled.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the officer said. “But there has been an accident. If you want to get back on the course, you will have to go back up the road and follow the detour.”

  The orange-shorts guy’s face turned bright red, which didn’t go with his ensemble at all. “This is completely messing with my time. I was making good time until you stopped me.”

  “Sir, I understand you’re upset, but this is a police order.”

  “I don’t care what it is. I’m in a race.”

  Rainwater’s brow furrowed. “Take the detour, or one of my officers will detain you until the end of the race.”

  Riders who were determined to return to the race walked their bikes back up the steep hill so they could rejoin the newly diverted course. I wasn’t among them. I was less than five miles from the end of the race, which was a great physical accomplishment for me but didn’t seem to matter now. A man was dead. A man I knew. A man who had possibly been following my every move for that last week.

  A high, clear voice broke through the crowd. “Out of my way. Village mayor coming through. Step aside!”

  I grimaced. I loved Grandma Daisy with my whole heart. She was my favorite person when it came right down to it, but this was the last place I wanted her to be right now. I knew her well enough to know that the moment she saw Redding, she was going to make a scene, which would only draw attention to the fact that Redding and I had had a dispute in the past. I would much rather everyone in the village forgot my connection to the private eye.

  I pushed through the crowd to reach her and spotted my grandmother a few feet away, standing in front of Officer Wheaton and shaking the end of her silk bike-printed scarf at him. Wheaton glowered at her, but then again, Wheaton glowered at everyone, so that really didn’t mean anything at all.

  “What on earth is going on here?” Grandma Daisy asked Wheaton. “I was cheering at the finish line, and then suddenly the stream of riders coming through slowed to a trickle, and one of the final riders said there had been an accident. I’m the mayor of this village, and I have a right to know what is going on!”

  “Ms. Mayor,” Wheaton said as coldly as possible, “there has been an accident, but I’m not at liberty to say more at the moment. I will tell you that the course has been diverted to the next street over and the race has resumed. You should see riders coming in to the finish line at any moment now. I would advise you to return to your post at the end of the race.”

  “Who do you think you are talking to, Wheaton?” my grandmother asked.

  “Grandma!” I hurried over to her and grabbed her arm.

  She blinked at me. “Violet, what are you doing here? I thought you would be on the course. Aren’t you going to finish the race?”

  I squeezed her arm. “I’m not going to finish it now. Something has happened.”

  “I know. I have been trying to find out what it was from Wheaton, but the officer isn’t saying a word. Where’s David? I know the police chief will tell me.” She narrowed her eyes at the young officer.

  “Let’s talk privately. I can bring you up to speed, at least with what I know.”

  She glared at Wheaton one last time and then let me guide her to the patch of grass where I had abandoned my bike.

  “Violet, what on earth is going on? We can’t let anything ruin the Tour de Cascade Springs. We have a lot of money for the museum riding on this event. What is this about an accident? Was anyone hurt?”

  I bit my lower lip. “It’s much more than an accident. A man is dead.”

  Chapter Five

  I told her about the accident at the bottom of Breakneck Hill but didn’t have a chance to tell her who that man was before she burst out, “What? This is a disaster!”

  Most of the riders had gotten back on the revised course by this point, but there were still a good number of onlookers standing around. One of Rainwater’s officers went from spectator to spectator, asking them what they had seen at the time of Redding’s accident.

  I turned my grandmother away from the crowd and whispered, “It gets worse, but you have to keep your cool. People are watching.”

  Grandma Daisy looked over her shoulder at all the staring faces. “What could be worse than having a rider die at our first annual Tour de Cascade Springs, a race that one day will be the high point of the cyclist season in New York State?”

  I shook my head. Leave it to my grandmother to set her aspirations higher than anyone else would dare. I leaned close to her and whispered, “It’s Joel Redding.”

  Grandma Daisy removed her cat-eye glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t even process that. We saw him just outside Charming Books yesterday. He’s been following you around the village for near a week. That Joel Redding?”

  I nodded. “The very one.”

  She put her glasses back on and resumed holding her scarf like it was some kind of security blanket. “I’m sorry to hear he’s dead. The poor man.”

  I felt a but coming on and waited.

  “But,” she began.

  There it was.

  “But at least he won’t find out about you-know-what at you-know-where.”

  “Grandma, a man is dead. We shouldn’t be thinking about the shop right now.”

  She blushed. “You’re right. You’re right. And Redding told you he was just out for a walk. That doesn’t mean he was following you.”

  I frowned, thinking of the photos Redding had taken of me standing at the top of Breakneck Hill. They would be the last photos he ever took. I shivered.

  Grandma Daisy twisted the end of her scarf around her hand. “Are you sure it’s Redding? Maybe it’s just someone who looks like him,” she said, with a little too much hope in her voice. “With all the spandex and biker shorts going on in the village, everyone is looking the same at the moment. I hardly recognized you in that getup.” She looked me up and down. “You have a beautiful figure, my dear, but not many people can pull off this look.”

  I crossed my arms around my chest. “Grandma, this is not the time for jokes.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  I scowled. “I knew it was Redding before I saw his dead body with my own eyes. It
’s him.”

  Grandma Daisy straightened her shoulders. “I had better take a look for myself. It might be gruesome, but I’m the mayor and it’s my job to look at the underbelly of life in Cascade Springs.” Without so much as a backward glance at me, she marched over to the crime scene.

  Until that moment, I hadn’t even known that Cascade Springs had an underbelly.

  With a sigh, I followed her. At least most of the spectators had been interviewed by this point, or perhaps the police had just taken their names and their race numbers and then asked them to leave the area. Only law enforcement, Grandma Daisy, and I were left behind at the bottom on the hill.

  “Mayor coming through,” Grandma Daisy announced again. Although she was hard to miss. My grandmother’s sleek silver bob was perfectly in place, her signature eyeglasses were back on her face, and she was wearing her favorite uniform: jeans and T-shirt. Instead of the Charming Books tee she usually sported, she wore a T-shirt advertising the Tour de Cascade Springs. Grandma Daisy was a big proponent of wearing what you support on a T-shirt.

  “David, tell me what’s going on,” Grandma Daisy said the moment she reached Rainwater.

  Rainwater was crouched next to the body, having a whispered conversation with a crime scene tech who must have arrived when I had been trying unsuccessfully to calm my grandmother down. The police chief stood up. Even out of uniform and in biking shorts like the rest of the riders, he had a commanding presence. “Daisy, I don’t think you should be here. I’ll be sure to inform you of everything that is going on when I know more.”

  Grandma Daisy put her hands on her narrow hips. “I don’t have to remind you that I am the mayor of this village and have a right to this information the moment something goes down. It’s my job to keep everything on an even keel, and how am I supposed to do that when I don’t know what’s going on in my little village?”

  Rainwater’s cheek twitched. I didn’t know if he was fighting a laugh or a groan in exasperation.

  Grandma Daisy leaned forward to take a better look at the deceased. Leave it to my grandmother not to be afraid of a dead body. I averted my eyes.

  “It’s Redding, all right,” my grandmother said, as if her announcement made a difference in some way. “I never forget a face. Names are a different story. I can barely remember my own name on some days.”

  Rainwater looked at my grandmother curiously. “When was the last time that you saw him?”

  I inwardly groaned, but Grandma Daisy kept her cool. “I remember him from being in the village this winter. He hung around the bookshop back then because he wanted to know what Violet knew about the murder.”

  He nodded as if he wasn’t completely convinced and then said, “We will have to get to the bottom, then, as to why he is back in the village.”

  I felt like I might be sick.

  “My officers have gotten the names and numbers of the people who may have witnessed the accident to follow up,” Rainwater said.

  My grandmother cocked her head. “You think it was just an accident, then?”

  His cheek twitched. “We aren’t making any assumptions at this point, but this is a steep hill.” He glanced at me. “He may have just lost control of the bike. I’m more curious about why a copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was on his person.” In his gloved hand, he held up the book.

  I felt the color drain from my face as he said that.

  “And why Violet went so pale when she saw it.”

  Rainwater noticed everything.

  “Chief,” the crime scene tech called. “We found something!”

  Rainwater turned back to the scene. I peeked around him and saw the tech leaning over the handlebars of Redding’s bike.

  “Violet,” Grandma Daisy whispered in my ear. “What is this about a book? Do you have something against reading the first great American poet?”

  “Not all scholars agree he was the first great American poet. I mean, most do, but there is still some debate on the topic.”

  “Violet …”

  “Sorry, I’m still trying to defend my dissertation. I’m experiencing post-traumatic oral exam.”

  “Violet.” She yanked on her scarf for emphasis.

  “It’s the same book that the essence revealed to me last night,” I said, barely above a whisper.

  She sucked in a breath. “Then how did it get out here? The shop has never been able to send books outside Charming Books before.”

  “That’s something I would like to know,” I said out the side of my mouth. “Could it be it’s just coincidence that the shop wants me to read Leaves of Grass and Redding just happens also to be a big Whitman fan?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences when it comes to the shop’s essence.”

  “Me either,” I said, and scooted closer to the scene so I could overheard Rainwater’s conversation with the crime scene tech.

  “What is it?” Rainwater asked.

  “The brake line, Chief. It’s been cut.”

  “What?” Rainwater asked.

  I swallowed and shared a glance with my grandmother.

  Grandma Daisy ducked under the crime scene tape. “The brakes are cut how?”

  I didn’t follow my grandmother but stopped at the edge of the scene.

  The tech looked at Rainwater as if to ask if he could speak about it in front of Grandma Daisy and me. Rainwater gave a slight nod.

  “Well,” the tech said, “I noticed the tube around the brake line was a little loose, so I pulled it back and could see both the front brake and back brake had been cut about three-quarters through. The last quarter on both was frayed, so my assumption is someone moved the tubing over the brake wire back, cut the wires most of the way, replaced the tubing, and then waited. Something like this couldn’t have happened on accident. When the victim had to hit the brakes on this big hill, the brake lines snapped, which made him lose control and crash.” The tech looked up at Rainwater. “I’d say you have you more than just an accident on your hands, Chief.”

  Rainwater didn’t say a word. Instead, he looked back at me. There were so many questions in his amber eyes.

  “There’s something else,” the tech said.

  Rainwater turned back to his tech with a sigh. “What is it?”

  The tech adjusted the department ball cap perched on his head. “I know where he got the bike.”

  “How?”

  The tech pointed under the crossbar. “It’s a rental from Bobby’s Bike Shop. There is a sticker under here.”

  I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I thought back to when I’d seen Jo making her way to Bobby’s booth. Could she be involved? She couldn’t possibly know Redding, could she? Or could Bobby be involved? At the very least, one of them would have to know how Redding had gotten one of their bikes.

  It looked like I needed to have a conversation with Jo and Bobby.

  Chapter Six

  Rainwater turned back to Grandma Daisy. “I promise to tell you more when I can, but now that we are dealing with a possible murder, I need to ask you to leave, even if you are the mayor.”

  Grandma Daisy ducked back under the crime scene tape to come to my side. “I understand, David. You have a job to do. Besides, I need to get back to the finish line to greet and congratulate the winners. Violet, you’re out of the race now; would you mind going back with me to the finish line?” She gave me a meaningful look and did everything but wiggle her eyebrows Groucho Marx style.

  Rainwater rolled his eyes at me to let me know he didn’t miss Grandma Daisy’s expression.

  “Sure, Grandma Daisy,” I said, glancing back at Rainwater. “Do you need me here? Do I need to give a statement or something?”

  The police chief shook his head. “I’ll stop by the shop later. I’m going to be here for a while.”

  I nodded, knowing Rainwater was going to feel the weight of Redding’s death heavily on his shoulders.

  Grandma Daisy and I walked back to where I had left my bike. I picked it up, and
we walked back to the top of Breakneck Hill. I never would have believed it would one day live up to its name.

  When we reached the top of the hill, I said, “I know you don’t have your car here. I can walk my bike with you to the finish line.”

  “Who says I’m walking?” my grandmother asked. “I’ve got wheels, too!” She pointed at a nearby golf cart. MS. MAYOR was painted on the hood in neon-blue paint.

  I closed my eyes for a long moment and let out a breath. “Where on earth did that come from?”

  My grandmother blushed. “Charles Hancock made a donation to the village. He thought it would be easier for me to fulfill my mayoral duties if I could travel around the village more quickly. As you know, having a car in the village is too cumbersome. I’m not much of a bike rider, so a golf cart is just right.”

  I suppressed a smile. Charles Hancock was a determined eighty-something man who happened to have a very public crush on my grandmother. He made no secret of his affection for her, having gone so far as writing a sonnet about her that he recited the day she was sworn into office, and now apparently giving her a golf cart.

  Charles had pined for my grandmother for years, and just in the last few months she had started to soften toward his advances. However, I took care to make no mention of her change of heart when it came to him. Grandma Daisy could be very prickly on the topic. I think she had been resisting Charles for so long, she might have felt like she was conceding something by giving in to him now.

  I must not have hidden my amusement very well, because my grandmother narrowed her bright-blue eyes—the same color as mine—at me. “Are you laughing at me, Violet Waverly?”