Verse and Vengeance

by Amanda Flower

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When I stepped into the village hall, the great door closed behind me with a thud. Not that Grandma Daisy, Vaughn, and Bertie, who were standing in the middle of the hall staring at the hole in the marble floor, noticed.

  “I don’t know how the building has stayed up all these years,” Vaughn said. “It was built over an aquifer.”

  Grandma Daisy stared down the hole. “Can you fix it? Can the aquifer be contained and the building made stable again? We don’t want to lose this part of the building. It’s part of our history. Runaway slaves hid underneath this spot prior to the Civil War. That makes the village hall the perfect place for the Underground Railroad Museum.”

  Bertie snorted at that comment.

  “We can fix it,” Vaughn said confidently. “But it’s going to take a lot of money.”

  “I’ll get you the money you need,” Grandma Daisy said, and then spotted me standing with Emerson in the doorway. “There you are, Violet,” my grandmother said brightly. “Why did you bring Emerson?”

  “He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” I said. My brain was still occupied with seeing Fenimore outside the hall. Why had I told him to meet me at the bookshop later? I had nothing to say to him, and I seriously doubted I wanted to hear whatever it was he had to say to me.

  “Pets aren’t allowed in the village hall,” Bertie said in her high-pitched voice. My grandmother’s secretary scowled at me. Then again, I didn’t know if she was scowling at me or everyone on earth. I suspected that Bertie found just about everyone on the planet equally taxing.

  My grandmother laughed. “I don’t think Emerson would consider himself a pet. He is more like a roommate. Wouldn’t you say, Violet?”

  “He likes to think so,” I said, noticing that Vaughn stood off to the side with his hands in his pockets. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. I gave my grandmother a questioning look.

  “Bertie, I think that will be all. Violet and I would like to talk with Vaughn now.”

  Bertie didn’t move.

  Grandma Daisy didn’t seem to be daunted by Bertie’s lack of motivation to leave. “If you could just drop the notes that you took this morning on my desk before you leave, I would greatly appreciate it.”

  “Very well, Mayor Daisy,” she said in a churlish tone, and then she made her way up the grand staircase.

  Grandma Daisy shook her head. “She is very good at her job,” she said, as if she was trying to convince herself as well as the rest of us.

  I looked from my grandmother to Vaughn and back again. “Grandma Daisy, you asked me to come here. What’s going on?”

  Grandma Daisy smiled. “You told me about the necklace yesterday, and I took it upon myself to get to the bottom of it.”

  “You found it?” I asked, glancing at Vaughn. Had I been right in thinking he stole it from my pocket?

  “Not exactly.” She looked at Vaughn.

  “Jo took it,” Vaughn blurted out. “That’s all I can think that happened to it.”

  “She took it from my pocket? That’s not possible. I didn’t even have it when I saw her. The only person I saw when I had it was you.”

  “I don’t have it. I would never steal anything.” He shook his head. “She took it originally, or at least that’s my best guess. Daisy told me you found the necklace in the museum.”

  I glanced at my grandmother, and she gave me a nod. “It was on the scaffolding,” I said. “I found it right before you showed up. Unless you saw me take it.” I held up my hand. “Wait. You were there when I rescued Emerson? You watched the cat jump on my shoulders.” I folded my arms. “Why didn’t you say that yesterday?”

  “I didn’t see you take the necklace. I didn’t even know about it until your grandmother asked me about it this morning.”

  “Then how did you know it was there?”

  He sighed. “I didn’t, but I know if there was a necklace at the top of the scaffolding, Jo put it there or dropped it.”

  “I’m not making the connection,” I said.

  “I hired Jo to work with me on the museum,” Vaughn explained. “Mostly to do errands and other small jobs to save the guys and me some time while working on the project. It hasn’t gone well. When she does show up for work, she usually climbs up in the scaffolding for hours at a time, daydreaming her day away.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’t you fire her then?”

  He rubbed the back of his head. “She’s my sister. I was hoping that if I could give her some more time, she would find direction.”

  “How do you know the necklace is from her, then?”

  “No one else could have dropped it up there. It had to be Jo.”

  “So it’s hers?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Most likely she stole it from someone else. I know my sister, and that’s what she does. It’s a compulsion to … to take things. My guess is she stole it from you a second time when she visited your shop yesterday afternoon. Daisy told me that she was there.”

  I wished my grandmother hadn’t told Vaughn so much about Jo. I knew she liked him, but I felt like something was off here. “Where is Jo now? It sounds to me like we need to ask her.”

  “I—I don’t know where my sister is. I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning. I went to her apartment near campus this morning, and she wasn’t there.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. I told myself Jo was fine, but I couldn’t discount that she was missing or at least appeared to be missing. What did she know about Redding? What did the garnet necklace I found have to do with any of it? My stomach sank, and I prayed she was safe. No matter what trouble she might be in, we could sort it out. I just needed her to be okay.

  My grandmother clapped her hands. “See, I did solve part of the mystery.”

  I adjusted Emerson in my arms. The cat shifted. I knew he wanted to get down, but I wasn’t going to lose him in the village hall again. “We don’t know that for sure until we find Jo and ask her, and we still don’t know where the necklace is now or who it belongs to.”

  Grandma Daisy shrugged. “I solved part of the mystery then.”

  I sighed. There was no point in arguing with her. “Vaughn, do you know where your sister might have gone?”

  He shook his head. “Jo is a free spirit. She floats through life.” He frowned. “I thought that was changing. The last few months, she had been so focused. She was going to class and most of her jobs. She said she was working on an extra project for class, which took her away from the museum, but I didn’t mind it. I liked to see her have some focus, but in this last week it all fell apart. I don’t know what happened.”

  Grandma Daisy patted his shoulder. “Violet will figure it out. She always does.”

  Vaughn’s eyes narrowed just a bit when she said that.

  “Won’t you, Violet?” Grandma Daisy asked with a smile.

  I frowned, wishing that my grandmother wouldn’t make such bold promises on my behalf. If Vaughn didn’t know where his sister was, I didn’t know how I would be able to find her. “I’ll do what I can.” I swallowed. “I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”

  I needed to get away from the village hall to think. Emerson must have had the same idea, because after I said goodbye to Grandma Daisy and Vaughn, he jumped out of my arms and ran to the door. When I opened it, he ran down the hall’s great stairs and jumped into my bicycle basket.

  I walked down the steps at a much slower pace. “I think we are both ready to go home.”

  Emerson looked at me and meowed. As I was pedaling away from the village hall, I spotted my grandmother’s secretary Bertie across the street standing alongside the river. It struck me as odd; I couldn’t remember a time ever seeing her there. Part of me wanted to ask her if she was all right, but a larger part of me wanted to return to Charming Books. The only thing that might make it clear what was going on was the books themselves. I hoped they would talk to me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Richard was with
a customer when I came into the shop. I waved to him as I ran up the stairs to the children’s loft. There were two little girls and their mother reading quietly. I smiled at them and went into my apartment. Before I could close the door, Emerson slipped inside.

  The copy of Leaves of Grass that I had been reading the night before was still on my nightstand. I picked it up and walked over to my dresser. The scrap of verse Richard had written down for Redding to give me was there. I picked it up. “All truths wait in all things.” I knew this had to be part of a longer poem. I sat cross-legged in the middle of my bed waiting for a moment, hoping that the shop’s essence would find the right page for me. Nothing happened. I waited another minute. Still nothing.

  “What good is having access to magic if you can’t control it,” I grumbled.

  The shop didn’t seem to care about my plight. Finally, I did what I should have done in the first place—I flipped to the book’s index and looked for the verse. I found it quickly. The line was from Whitman’s most famous poem in Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself.” “Song of Myself” described a journey to uncover one’s own identity and self-worth. The “I” in the poem was Whitman, but it was also everyman. It was also me. As I sat there flipping through the pages, I realized the “I” was also whoever had killed Redding.

  I read the stanza aloud that contained Redding’s quote.

  All truths wait in all things

  They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,

  They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,

  The insignificant is as big to me as any,

  (What is less or more than a touch?)

  Logic and sermons never convince,

  The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

  It didn’t take a Whitman scholar to know that Redding, at least, had wanted me to know he would find out the truth about Charming Books. Redding had wanted me to know he would be patient. Now he was dead, and his promise and threat were unfulfilled.

  My chest tightened. Or was it? I didn’t know where Redding’s guitar briefcase was. There could have been notes in there about Charming Books, and he certainly had taken enough photographs of the shop and of me. What would Rainwater think when he saw all those photographs on Redding’s camera and on his phone? Had he seen them already, and was that the reason he’d been avoiding me?

  I picked up my phone off the bed and sent Rainwater another text. Still I received nothing back.

  Another thought hit me. If Redding had notes in his guitar case, there could be more notes about Charming Books in his office or on his computer or just about anywhere. But since I didn’t wholly know Redding’s motive—or his killer’s—I couldn’t allow myself to speculate too much on these things. His simply having photos of me did not automatically incriminate me or my shop. Well, that’s what I told myself, anyway. Besides, any prying Redding might have done paled in comparison to Jo’s safety, or Bobby’s innocence, or finding the true killer before someone else got hurt. How could I possibly get rid of them all and erase whatever knowledge the private investigator had about my shop? It seemed like the search was hopeless, and the only one who seemed to know anything was Jo, and she was impossible to find. I dropped my face into my hands. I was on the verge of indulging in one heck of a pity party when I heard a shuffling sound. I lifted my neck and saw the papers of Leaves of Grass flutter in all directions. Then, just as quickly as it started, it stopped.

  The book fell open to the middle of the poem called “Starting From Paumanok.”

  What do you seek so pensive and silent?

  What do you need camerado?

  Dear son do you think it is love?

  Listen dear son—listen America, daughter or son,

  It is painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet

  it satisfies, it is great,

  But there is something else very great, it makes the whole

  coincide,

  It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands

  sweeps and provides for all.

  I frowned and read the poem again. What was the shop’s essence trying to tell me, and what was the thing greater than love that Whitman was driving at? I read the next three stanzas in the poem, and it didn’t become any clearer as Whitman waxed on about religion and democracy. So then, if it wasn’t Whitman’s message the essence was trying to tell me, what was the essence’s message? I read the first line again. “What do you seek so pensive and silent?” That could have been about me sitting in the middle of my bed trying—and it would seem failing—to understand what Charming Books wanted me to know.

  The pages of the book started to move again. I lifted my hands from the pages and let them flutter open on their own. Finally, after what seemed like minutes, the book fell open a second time. The poem in front of me was “Rise O Days From Your Fathomless Deeps.”

  Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep

  Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour’d what the earth gave me,

  Long I roam’d the woods of the north, long I watch’d Niagara pouring

  This time the shop’s essence wasn’t pulling any punches. It wanted me to go to Niagara Falls. I snapped the book shut and jumped off the bed. I moved so swiftly I scared Emerson.

  The tuxie leaped off the bed with a yowl. I couldn’t sit there any longer and wait for the books to tell me something. I had to know for myself what Redding knew, and that meant going to his office in Niagara Falls.

  When I came out of my apartment, the mother and her two little girls were gone from the fairy loft. I wondered how long I had been in my apartment pouring over Whitman. It was afternoon at least.

  On the main floor, I found Richard engrossed in another arcane English text that the shop must have given him. He looked up from his book. “Truly, Violet, your selection in the store is mind-boggling. It’s almost like I think of a book that I want and it appears.”

  “Huh,” I said. “That’s crazy.”

  “Crazy is as crazy does!” Faulkner cried from the tree.

  I shook my head at the bird. “If you’re okay here, I think I will go out for a little bit.”

  Richard waved me away. “Go ahead. I don’t mind being here at all. I can read all day.”

  I smiled. At least Richard was happy. I wished he could stay on and work for us through the school year, but I knew that would be too hard with his teaching load.

  I left the shop and was surprised Emerson didn’t follow me. I really didn’t know what the cat was thinking half the time, but maybe that was for the best. My Mini Cooper was parked on the street. Typically the only time I drove was when I had to leave the village.

  I unlocked the car and climbed in. I yelped when I saw Emerson sitting on the passenger’s seat.

  “How on earth did you get in here?” I cried. “The car was locked! It was locked, wasn’t it?” Now I couldn’t remember if it had been or not. Sometimes my grandmother borrowed my car if she had an errand to run outside the village. She might have left it unlocked, but even so, the cat didn’t have thumbs! How had he gotten the door open? I rubbed my forehead. I had the feeling of a migraine coming on.

  I knew from past experience that I would have no luck removing the cat from the car. “Fine, you can come, but you are staying in the car when we get to the city. Understood? I don’t want anything to happen to you. You might know your way around the village but not Niagara Falls.”

  Emerson placed his forepaws on the dashboard and smiled at me in that smug way cats mastered two millennia ago.

  It was late on a Sunday afternoon, and the traffic getting into Niagara Falls was congested, as people had decided to visit the majestic landmark on such a beautiful day. I wasn’t actually going to the Falls themselves. I had the address for Redding’s detective agency programmed into my phone, and instead of taking me toward the tourist spots, the GPS took me into the city.

  Redding’s office was in a rundown part of t
he city. Trash cans lay on their sides, and a mangy-looking dog walked up the sidewalk. Emerson ducked low in his seat when he saw the dog. “You really do need to stay in the car.”

  He looked at me, and I think he actually listened for once.

  There wasn’t a parking lot in front of Redding’s building as far as I could see, so I parked in a spot on the street. I didn’t see a meter, so I hoped I wouldn’t be there long enough to get a ticket. I got out of the car and locked it. Emerson watched me from the window.

  Redding’s detective office was in a nondescript three-story brick building with narrow windows. To me it looked more like a prison than an office building. There was a metal door that led into the building. Beside the door was a peeling sign that read REDDING, DETECTIVE AGENCY, INQUIRE WITHIN.

  I wasn’t so sure about the inquiring within part. All my senses were telling me to leave. It was an especially bad idea with my cat. I might have locked Emerson in the car, but I wasn’t certain he wouldn’t find a way out.

  I started to turn and retreat when the door to the office opened. If I hadn’t jumped back, the heavy metal door would have hit me in the face.

  “Oh! Excuse me!” a large man said. “I didn’t know anyone was here.” I guessed he was in his thirties. He had black hair and wore jeans and a polo shirt. The polo was tight around his thick upper arms. He started to step around me and looked over his shoulder at me. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I was looking for Joel Redding’s office,” I said. It was worth a shot, I thought.

  The man turned all the way around now. “Why is that? Do you have a need for a detective?”

  “No. I mean, I know that he can’t help me.” I trailed off.

  The frown on the man’s face deepened. “Are you a reporter?”

  I held up my hands. “No. I’m from Cascade Springs, and …” And what would I say? I was trying to find out who killed him to get my former student off the hook for the crime?

  “What’s your name?”

  “Violet Waverly,” I said.