“Um, no. I'm Jayce Bonheim. We met in Antoine's the other night?”
His gaze traveled from my boots to the top of my head, returning to linger at chest level. He flushed and looked at his bare feet. “Yeah?”
“You dropped a twenty at the bar. I just wanted to return it to you.”
“I did?” He shook his head. “Are you sure? Because I don't think so. I never took my wallet out.”
Great. I’d chosen an honest teenager to interview. What were the odds?
“Well,” I said, “I don't know who else to give it to, so I may as well give it to you. Can I come in?”
“Um, sure. I guess.” He stepped from the door, and I walked inside the boot room to a whole lot of pink. Cream-colored walls with watercolors of pink hydrangeas and water lilies. Pink cushions on the boot bench. Pink curtains in the windows.
David led me into the living room (pink) and disappeared into another room.
The music fell silent.
Returning, he flopped onto a faded rose, eighties-era sofa set. Short, puffy pink curtains swagged the top of the windows in a floral print. It was hard to imagine his stylish sister, Angela, lived with such retro décor.
He eyed me warily. “You said you were at Antoine's?”
“I’m there most Friday nights, and sometimes other nights too.” I sat on the squishy, matching chair opposite. “There aren't a whole lot of nightlife options in Doyle.”
He snorted, stretching his arms across the back of the couch. “Tell me about it.” Then he colored again and folded his arms over his chest.
We stared uneasily at each other.
“Oh!” I dug into my purse. “Your twenty dollars.”
“I really don't think it's mine.”
I pulled a twenty from my wallet. “Well, no, not the exact bill. I spent that one, but it doesn't make a difference. Cash is cash.” I extended the bill across the coffee table.
He hesitated, then rose and took it, dropping back onto the couch. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” I said, starting to like the kid, who wasn’t really a kid anymore. “I thought it might be Alex Mansfield's, but Candace told me I was mistaken; he never went to Antoine's.”
He stiffened, drawing slightly back. “Plus, he's dead.”
“Yeah. I didn’t know that at the time,” I lied. “I guess I should pay more attention to the news. Did you know him?”
“That poser?” David's face contorted with anger, and he looked away. “No.”
I hesitated. “But you knew he was a poser.” A word I'd only heard in eighties teen movies.
“We went to school together” He shrugged. “And then…”
And then David had disappeared, while Alex had continued with his life, gotten married, had a career. “I'm sorry,” I said in a low voice. “My sister-in-law is returned too.” And maybe Karin, I added silently.
“Did she get older?” he asked, his expression suffused with longing.
“No. Not so's you'd notice. But she wasn't gone as long as—”
“As long as me?” He laughed harshly. “Why did you really come here? Not to return twenty dollars I never lost.” He crumpled the bill and tossed it onto the table. “To talk to the freak?”
“I don't think you're a freak, no more than I think Emily – my sister-in-law – is one.” What had Karin avoided by living in Angels Camp? Her neighbors there probably didn’t question her “lost in the woods” story. I was starting to wonder why I’d doubted her alternate version for so long.
He slouched on the couch. “It’s okay. I’m not offended. I've always been a freak. I'm used to it.”
“But you’re right. I’m not here only about the money. I came to ask you about Alex,” I said. “I heard he'd been bothering you.”
“Well, he's dead, so he's not going to bother me anymore.”
I looked away, toward the white brick fireplace. Did this kid know how guilty he sounded? I forced myself to meet his gaze. “But why was he bothering you at all?”
His face contorted, and he leapt to his feet. “You want to know, ask Eclectus. The guy's a freaking evil magician.”
Evil magician? “What—?”
“Ask him, okay?” Fists bunched, he rounded the coffee table. The veins in his neck bulged.
I stood, heart galloping. “Okay. I will. Thanks.” I turned and strode into the hallway. He might be physically a teenager, but he was still bigger and stronger and faster than me. I got to the front door first and yanked it open.
Angela stood on the porch, her chest heaving, her key aimed where the knob had been. Puffs of her breath steamed the chill air. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Jayce? What are you doing here?”
“Returning something David dropped,” I said, struck by how different the two siblings were. Where David was tall and rangy, Angela was short and waif-like. David's hair hung loose, while Angela's blackish-red hair was carefully dyed and styled. She seemed to vibrate with near-constant tension, and David… Okay, there the family resemblance was strong.
“What did he drop?” Her mouth pressed into a slash, the corners of her lips whitening.
“My phone,” David said from behind me.
Her brows pinched. “Your phone?” Roughly, she tugged down the zipper of her red motorcycle jacket. “You know how expensive that was. It's not a toy, David.”
“It's my money.”
“We're a family, David!”
“Whatever.” He slouched into the house.
“Well.” Her smile was perfunctory. “Thanks for returning it. Sorry, but I can't stay to chat. I was just running home for a quick break while Marley manages the store. I left my lunch in the refrigerator. So, I guess I shouldn't blame David too much for his absentmindedness. It must run in the family.”
Music blared, and I cringed.
“That's fine,” I said, raising my voice above Peter Gabriel’s and stepping past her. I paused. “Angela, are people giving David problems? About being Returned, I mean.”
She froze. “Problems? You mean harass my brother? Who would do that?”
“I don't know. I heard Alex had been bothering him.”
“Alex? Alex Mansfield? I don't—” She shook her head. “I don't really know what goes on in David's life. He's so… closed, since he's returned. Sometimes I worry…” She gazed past me.
“You worry?” I prompted.
“It's been a difficult adjustment for David.” She laughed shortly. “I'm not sure I'm helping.”
“You're doing the best you can.” I didn't know if that was true, but I wanted to believe it. Had I done my best for Karin? I swallowed, tasting something sour. “How is anyone supposed to cope with what's happened?”
“I just hope David can manage,” she said slowly. “Sorry.” She motioned at the yawning hallway behind her. “I should get going.”
“Right.” I backed toward the porch steps. “Take care.”
She shut the door. It didn’t deaden the thump of music, something from another eighties band, Yes.
Thoughtful, I walked down the steps.
High above the road, three crows hung, near motionless. A ripple of their feathers was the only betrayal of the breeze holding them aloft.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I so didn't want to make an appointment with Eclectus Hood. He'd helped me draw up my LLC for Ground years ago, and I knew the lawyer would bill me by the hour. My coffeeshop was doing well, but it wasn't doing that well.
Besides, I wasn't convinced talking to Eclectus would get me closer to finding Alex's killer. David’s issue with the lawyer might not have anything to do with the fight he’d had with Alex.
More importantly, Brayden was working a double shift on a weekend, when I was free.
Okay, that last bit had nothing to do with Eclectus, but it had lowered my enthusiasm for detecting on Karin's behalf.
But that Sunday, I spotted Eclectus beneath a patio heat lamp at The Barn an
d Brew. The lawyer wore jeans and a pressed white shirt beneath his plaid scarf and navy jacket. Strings of unlit twinkle lights lined the windows behind him. A small, ragged-looking dog sat at the lawyer’s feet.
I stopped on the sidewalk and sighed, unhappy. The universe was giving me a nudge I couldn’t ignore. Either that, or Karin had cast a networking spell.
Yeah, she could do that.
On the plus side, it was lunchtime, and the Barn and Brew had great burgers.
I walked through the opening in the low, wooden fence, and took a chair facing Eclectus at a metal table. Closed umbrellas leaned against one corner of the patio fence.
The dog leapt to his feet, tail wagging, and tilted his head. He only had three legs, and I had to work to resist swooping down on the animal to scratch his head.
A waitress bustled to my table. She nudged the hair piled high on her head with a pen. “What can I get you, Jayce?”
“A blue cheese burger, medium rare, and a hot chocolate.”
“You got it.” She snapped her gum and zoomed inside the barnlike restaurant.
I took my time taking off my electric blue jacket.
The dog’s ears perked.
I glanced at the windows to the restaurant interior. The place looked packed. Cars filled the small stone barn's parking lot and the street outside.
A crow landed on the closed umbrellas. It scrabbled for purchase and dropped to the fence.
“Here you go!” The waitress set the hot cocoa on my table and spun away.
I rested my lips against the rim and glanced over the heaped whipped cream at Eclectus.
The dog pranced on its three legs.
“Okay,” I said, “I can’t stand it anymore. That dog’s adorable. Is he yours?”
The lawyer smiled. “For three years now.” He pulled his ski cap lower, to the tops of his ears. They stuck out comically from the side of his head.
“What happened to his leg?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s the way I found him.”
The dog seemed to take our conversation as permission to approach and trotted toward me with his odd, three-legged gait. I bent and scratched behind his ears. It was hard to suspect a man with a three-legged dog, but I sent a gentle push of magic toward Eclectus anyway. I smelled paper, fresh out of a printer, and pretzels thick with mustard. No magic.
I sighed, straightening.
“Would you like to join me?” Eclectus’s face looked chapped, as if he'd been spending time outdoors.
“I'd love to.” Grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair, I sashayed over to his table and set my mug across from him. “How's your weekend going?”
“Sparky and I just finished a light hike on one of the peaks.” His face turned a shade redder. “Thought I deserved a burger.”
There was no such thing as a “light hike” on the peaks, because the only way to get to them was to climb a freaking mountain. I took a second look at the man. He had a gut, but maybe he was more fit than I'd thought.
“And you?” he continued.
Great. Our conversation was not exactly sparkling. How was I going to smoothly segue into Alex's murder?
Lie like crazy.
“It’s been a weird week,” I said. “An old friend from college is writing her dissertation on animal attacks. She's asked me to get as much information as I can for her on what happened to Alex Mansfield.”
“Is that why you were at Candace's house the other day?”
Crap. I'd forgotten we'd run into each other there. “No, I'd just stopped by to pay a condolence call. That was before I spoke with my friend. My sister's boyfriend is a deputy, but he's been cagey about what happened. I suppose he has to be. It wasn't only an animal attack, it was also a murder.”
“Are the police calling it that?” He frowned. “I thought the official line was the death was suspicious. And that means the sheriff doesn’t really know what happened.”
I shook my head. “Still, it’s hard to believe something like that could happen in Doyle.”
“It has happened here before.”
The dog’s gaze ping-ponged between Eclectus and me.
I crossed my legs. Playing shocked and innocent had been a mistake. Brayden’s wife had been killed in my café last year. The town knew I was no stranger to murder.
“That's what makes it even stranger,” I said, “don't you think? Doyle's never been exactly a high crime town. I read the crime reports in the local paper. Most crimes are driving without a license or drunk and disorderlies. How do we go from petty crime to murder?”
He shook his head. “It's a good question.”
A crow squawked, and I turned my head. On the patio fence, a second crow had joined the first. Sparky gave a short bark.
“And Alex worked for the Sheriff's Department,” I continued. “They must be taking his murder personally.”
“We all are.”
Complaining loudly about the crowd inside, a trio of women from Eclectus's age set took a table nearby.
“Did you know Alex well?” I shook myself. “Of course you did. You were at Candace's house paying condolences too.”
One of the women shot me a look and bent her head towards the others, whispering.
“We went to school together,” he said. “But we grew apart, even if I was their lawyer. When you have a family, they become your focus. It's easy for old social ties to fade away.”
“You knew him back then? What was Alex like in high school?”
“The smartest kid on the team, but he wasn't a natural wrestler. He spent too much time in his head. When you're wrestling, you have to feel what's happening, and your body reacts automatically. At least, it does if you practice enough.”
A bird cawed.
I looked over my left shoulder and froze. Crows lined the short side of the wooden fence.
Sparky circled his master’s chair and sat, staring at the birds.
“Is something wrong?” Eclectus asked.
I tore my gaze from the birds. “No, I— We’re having a Hitchcock moment.” I gestured to the crows facing us.
He scowled. “Wharton’s damn birds.”
“These are Wharton’s?” I asked, surprised. “How can you tell?”
His expression smoothed. “I can’t, of course. I just associate him with crows. Filthy scavengers.”
Ill at ease, I retrieved my jacket from my chair and shrugged into it. “Were you a high school wrestler too?”
He laughed. “Guilty. I did a lot of stupid things back then. We all did.”
I glanced at the line of crows and slipped my hands into my pockets. There was something uncanny about the birds – about Wharton and Eclectus too.
What had David called the lawyer? An evil magician? Could he have been speaking literally?
“Who do you think could have killed Alex?” Gently, I pushed my awareness toward the lawyer again, extending my magical senses. But I didn’t feel any magic.
Eclectus stared at his hands, veined and dotted with sunspots. “Alex was under a lot of pressure. At work.”
I stilled. “You think he took his own life?” But if Alex and Eclectus had drifted apart, how had he known Alex was under pressure at work? Had Candace told him?
“Like you said, murder in a town of this size doesn't make much sense.”
The waitress arrived with our food, including a burger patty in a bowl for Sparky. Our conversation turned to lighter things. The fundraiser for the restoration of the old wellhouse. The reelection of a local judge. The coming snowfall and prospects for winter tourist season.
We finished eating. Eclectus claimed an appointment, and he and Sparky hurried off. But I had nowhere to be and lots to think about. I ordered another mug of chocolate.
More crows lined the Doyle Hotel, across the street. Pine boughs swayed on the railings beneath the large birds.
I’d swear the crows were watching me. Pa
ranoid!
Shivering, I pulled on the fingerless gloves Karin had knitted me last winter. She'd embroidered a fox on the backs, with a knit tail dangling from each glove. They were a little too cute for my taste, but Lenore had claimed the fox was one of my spirit animals.
I smiled. They also gave Brayden the opportunity to make foxy Jayce jokes.
The waitress brought another mug.
I thanked her and burrowed lower in my chair. Between the heat lamp and my own body heat, I'd finally gotten it nicely warmed. I spooned a dollop of cream off the top of the drink.
The phone rang in my jacket pocket, and I checked the screen. Karin.
“Hi, witch,” I said into the phone.
“Have you learned anything?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” I said, smug. I glanced at the women nearby and lowered my voice. “I just finished talking to Eclectus Hood.”
“The lawyer? Why?”
“Because he was at Candace's after the… you know,” I whispered. “And because David told me to.”
“David who?”
“David Senator. You remember, the kid who returned?”
“I'm confused.”
“Okay. Wharton told me he'd seen the murdered Alex Mansfield pushing David around. So, I went to talk to David—”
“Because he might have decided to get revenge,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“What did you think of him?” she asked.
A crow landed on my table, knocking the spoon from my dish. It clattered loudly on the metal table.
I swore, jerking backwards, and shooed it away.
“What’s wrong?” Karin asked, her voice high and thin.
“Nothing. Just a hungry bird. Where were we?”
“David Senator.”
“I kind of felt sorry for him. He looks the same way he did when he disappeared, and it's been twenty-plus years. He can't even order a beer at Antoine's.”
“Only you…” She blew out her breath. “Getting a beer is the least of his problems.”
“I liked him,” I said. “I mean, in lots of ways he's a normal teen. But he turned off his music before he answered the door—”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
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