by N. C. Lewis
Chapter 11
Amy stood outside the door of A.E. Antiquarian Books that Saturday at precisely nine a.m. under a clear blue Texas sky. The early morning air in the doorway of the store had the redolence of cedar and oak and faintly of overripe fruit. Not punctual she remembered thinking, for she'd expected Alan Earl to arrive earlier. Didn’t he have things to prepare before the store opened at eleven?
She was about to reach for her cell phone when she saw Danielle hustling along the sidewalk in a tie-dyed Keep Austin Weird blouse and handmade, peach-blossom print, flared skirt. On her feet she wore golden pumps.
"Over here, Danielle," she called, waving a hand enthusiastically.
"Sorry I'm late," huffed Danielle, glancing at the store. "Where's Mr. Earl?"
Amy shrugged. "Keeping us waiting, I guess. Seems he's not an early riser."
"Well fancy that, I almost broke a leg to get here on time!"
"Let's give him five minutes; if he doesn’t show, I'll call him."
They clustered together in the narrow doorway, waiting and looking out at the street. Cyclists rode by, mothers jogged pushing three-wheeled strollers, and men in hard hats hurried along on their way to the construction site on ninth street.
"Maybe he's already inside," said Danielle peering through a glass panel in the door. "It's kinda dark in there, looks like one of those gentleman clubs. Where's the bell?"
"No bell," answered Amy.
Danielle rapped a knuckle hard on the window.
"Hey! What do you think you are doing?" boomed a voice from behind.
The two women spun around. A slender man with a lean face, large hooked nose, and dark eyes glared back. His wrinkled face was leaking sweat out of every pore.
Neither woman spoke. Instead their eyes grew wide as they traveled the length of his body. He was in his early sixties and wore sandals, a loose-fitting, ankle-length robe with an all-white fez balanced atop his head. In his hand he carried something that looked like a magician's wand.
The man tilted his head, raising his voice above the sound of the traffic. "That store is private property. What do you think you are doing lurking in the entrance way?"
"Are you lost?" asked Danielle with a cheeky voice.
"Lost, no," answered the man, slightly bewildered.
"Are you sure? Sixth street is that way," Danielle grinned, pointing to the area of town where people dressed in flamboyant and outrageous outfits.
The man growled. "I'm Sage Oats." He half turned and pointed to a building across the street. "My followers worship in the temple."
Amy and Danielle gazed at the building. At first glance, it appeared to be an ordinary house. It had iron railings, shrubs growing in large pots, and window boxes filled with flowering plants. But on closer observation, faces peered out of every window. Male and female. They stared through the glass panes at Amy, Danielle and Sage Oats.
"Now," said Sage Oats at last. "Answer my question or else I'll call the police. Who are you?"
Amy's mouth went dry. She didn’t want Nick to find out the police had been called on her first visit to a client. If uniformed officers showed up, he'd soon hear about it. "We are here on business with Mr. Earl," she said flashing a friendly smile.
Sage Oats lowered his voice to a whisper. "Alan Earl is a snake oil merchant. Ladies don't do business with the man. He will drag you down lower than a viper's belly."
"Oh no, no." said Amy, startled. "We're not involved in anything underhanded." She handed Sage Oats her business card. "I'm Amy King and this is my business partner, Danielle Sánchez. We're here to help Mr. Earl stage his business."
He snatched the card, leaned forward and asked, "Is Mr. Earl selling up and leaving?"
"No idea," replied Amy.
The sage grunted, eyes sliding over the business card like a barcode reader. He muttered something inaudible under his breath, shook his magician's wand, then looked up.
"Y'all are stagers!" he made the word sound like something terrible. "That's just a fancy word for deception!" He stared at Amy with a look of utter disgust. "I came over here to warn you, to keep you from falling into a pit of vipers. But you ladies are part of the very fabric of the snake pit. You are engaged in the business of visual trickery. " He spat out his words in such a way that his crooked yellow teeth jutted out of his mouth like a snarling wolf.
The two women looked at each other and shrugged. There was little point arguing with the sweaty man; they would never convince him otherwise.
"If you don't mind, we'll wait here until Mr. Earl arrives," said Danielle sourly.
"Calling him right now," added Amy reaching into her bag for her cell phone.
Sage Oats stepped back from the women and raised his hands in the air like an aircraft-landing signal officer. "Staging's like looting! Selling people a dream and snatching it away from them like a bait and switch. It's just like those fancy magazines with the computer-manipulated images of beautiful women and muscle-clad men on the front. You fraudsters and deceivers are growing bolder by the day!" His face twisted into a wolf-like snarl. "Mr. Earl will not be meeting with you this morning. Now go, leave this place of iniquity, and never come back!"
Amy was about to say something she would later regret when the sound of shuffling caused her to pause. It was somewhat like soldiers marching on a parade ground. She turned to glance in the direction of the sound.
Across the street, along the sidewalk and spilling onto the road were a sea of individuals, all wearing white, ankle-length robes. They shimmered like an incoming wave as they clapped their hands, stomped their feet, and chanted words in a foreign tongue.
And they were advancing, slowly, like a huge giant slug toward the bookstore entrance.
Chapter 12
Startled, Amy reached for the bookstore door handle and pushed.
It swung open.
The two friends hurried inside, slamming the door shut. Despite the warm sunlight outside, the bookstore felt chilly. As Amy looked around, she couldn't help shivering. The first thing she noticed was a distinct musty odor of decay characteristic of antique stores. The second thing, a faint scent like acetone mixed with rotting fruit. It turned her stomach. The third thing was the faces.
"Oh my gosh, Amy, look!" cried Danielle pointing to the window.
It seemed hundreds of unsmiling faces stared into the store. They all wore white robes, with a fez or scarf on their heads. and they were chanting and rhythmically thumping their fists against the windows.
Amy's breath quickened. "Danielle, it will be fine," she whispered. "We'll survive this." She pulled out her cell phone and was about to dial Nick when Sage Oats shouted words in a foreign language and clapped his hands. Like an early morning mist at noon, the faces vanished from the windows. Amy and Danielle stared, eyes wide, as the white-robed individuals ambled back across the street disappearing into the temple.
"Not what I was expecting," huffed Danielle. "I wanted something a little more exciting than teaching kids, but the attack of the white-robed zombies? Not what I was expecting at all." She laughed nervously at her own joke.
"Now I know how a monkey in the zoo feels," said Amy, her heartbeat pounding harder than when she jogged on the trail. "What was that about? And who is Sage Oats?"
Danielle began tapping on her cell phone. "According to Wikipedia he's the leader of the Austin chapter of the Natural Mystic Order of the Organic Temple. Err… they wear simple clothes, eat organic meals, and chant six hours a day."
Amy thought for a moment, then said slowly, "I guess that's what they were doing just now!"
"Says here they use it to chase away evil and as a form of meditation."
"Weird," replied Amy returning her attention to the store.
"The group?" asked Danielle.
"No, the front door. Why was it unlocked? And If Alan Earl is here why hasn't he come out to find out what all the fuss is about?"
"Maybe he fell asleep in the back."
"Let's loo
k around."
They walked to the counter at the back of the store, half expecting Mr. Earl to come out to greet them.
"Wonder where that leads?" asked Danielle, leaning over the counter and pointing to the hallway beyond.
"Only one way to find out; follow me," Amy said walking behind the counter, through the doorway, and into the hallway at the back of the store.
The air in this part of the building was still, heavy, and dense with the odor of something Amy couldn't quite identify. Rotting fruit, hospital corridors? Whatever it was filled her with a sudden nausea.
The first door led to a windowless office.
"This must be where Mr. Earl conducts his business," Danielle said, as she walked around the small space.
Amy pointed at the metal box on the desk. "What's in the box?"
Danielle scurried to the desk and lifted the lid. "Oh damn," she said. "I was hoping it'd be full of hundred-dollar bills. But it only contains some yellowed manuscripts." She flicked through the documents. "Yuk, not even in English!"
Amy was only half listening. Hands on hips, she surveyed the room. "Something is not right here," she said at last. "It's as if Mr. Earl opened the store, then went back out and forgot to lock the door behind him. Where did he go?"
"Breakfast! And he'll be back soon. So, we'd better go back to the front of the store. We don't want him to find us snooping around in his office, especially if he hasn't had his coffee yet."
They left the office quickly and stood for a moment in the hallway. "I wonder where that door leads?" asked Amy.
"Probably a bathroom," replied Danielle tugging on the door handle. The door creaked making a grating noise as if it was trying to speak. Danielle peered inside. "Yep," she said, after a moment. "Tiny bathroom, but functional."
"What about that other door?" Amy pointed but did not move toward the door. Something, she didn’t know quite what, held her back.
"Let's see," Danielle replied, striding to the door. She yanked it open and looked inside. "Phew, it stinks. Looks like a closet." Then she gasped falling back two steps and began to scream.
Amy rushed forward, not knowing what to expect.
Slumped on the closet floor lay the body of a diminutive figure. Amy let out a cry thinking it was that of a child, but on seeing the stubble on the oversized, egg-shaped pale face, knew otherwise.
She put her hand to her mouth, too shocked to speak and wrapped an arm around Danielle. Together they staggered back to the front. In the gloom of the darkened store Amy reached for her cell phone and called Nick.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Hello darling," he said cheerily.
Amy closed her eyes for a moment as she fought to keep panic out of her voice. "Nick, listen—"
Instantly, he picked up the concern in his wife's voice. "Where are you?"
"At A.E. Antiquarian Books on Twelfth Street."
"Are you all right? What about Danielle, what's happened?"
"I'm fine, so is Danielle. Nick, we've discovered a body."
Chapter 13
The high whine of police vehicles came seconds after Amy hung up. In no time at all uniformed officers sealed off the bookstore with yellow tape. Crime scene technicians arrived and crawled over the closet and back office area, taking photographs and dropping samples from gloved hands into transparent plastic bags.
Amy and Danielle watched in a somber mood as two paramedics worked to maneuver the corpse into a body bag, load it onto a stretcher, and carefully pick their way out onto the street. From the official sounding conversations floating around the bookstore, they realized Alan Earl died of wounds caused by a knife.
"Amy King, Nick's wife?"
Amy half turned to face a woman with dark hazel eyes, a bushy afro, and finely painted pink nails.
"Detective Mary Wilson," the woman explained extending her hand.
They shook hands.
"I'll speak with Mrs. Sánchez momentarily, but first, Amy, I'd like to hear your version of what happened this morning."
Amy wished Nick was here to guide her. She took in a deep breath. "Danielle and I met outside the store around nine, as planned. Mr. Earl hadn't arrived yet. Then Sage Oats appeared, and he seemed upset with Mr. Earl, so we entered the store and—"
Detective Wilson interrupted. "Slow down. Why were you meeting with Mr. Earl?"
"I run a staging business. Mr. Earl wanted to hire my firm. We were due to meet at nine a.m. to go over his requirements."
The detective took out her notebook.
"How long have you run your staging business?"
"Well, err…Mr. Earl was my first client."
Detective Wilson tapped the pen on her lower lip. "I see… what exactly did he want you to do and when?"
Amy thought for a moment. Sage Oats had said Alan Earl dabbled in shady business. Now, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, Amy thought he might be right. "Mr. Earl wanted to use my staging service, but I'm not sure how or for what purpose. That is what we were going to discuss today."
Detective Wilson scribbled in her notebook. When she finished, she looked up with a frown. "How did you get into the store?"
"Turned the door handle."
Again, she frowned, then understood. "You mean the front door wasn't locked?"
"Yes. At first, we thought he'd left it open for us to come in while he popped out to a local café for a coffee."
"What happened when you got in here?"
Amy hesitated, wondering whether she should mention the Sage Oats incident. He hadn’t committed a crime, and although he was gruff, he and his white robed followers were probably only concerned citizens.
"We waited inside the main bookstore area. After a while we thought Mr. Earl might be in his office."
Detective Wilson arched her brows. "Really?"
Just like Nick, she thought, and unphased continued, "So, we went behind the counter, along the little hallway to his office."
Detective Wilson scowled. "Did you call out to him?"
"Yes, but he might have been listening to music… wearing headphones. So, we went to his office."
The detective scribbled.
Amy explained how they looked in the office and bathroom before finding the body in the closet.
"And that's when we found him," she said at last with a somber sigh.
Detective Wilson seemed satisfied. "That'll be all for now, but if you think of anything else, please let me know."
She walked over to Danielle, who had been standing out of earshot, and went through the same questions.
◆◆◆
When Nick arrived, he ducked under the police tape at the entrance and strode into the bookstore. Two uniformed officers milled around and nodded at him as he stood, hands on his hips. On seeing Amy, who sat, eyes closed, in an armchair, he rushed over.
They hugged.
Then he wrapped his arm around Danielle, kissing her lightly on her forehead.
He looked from his wife to Danielle with sad eyes. "Let's get out of here. I'll clear it with Detective Wilson first." He strode to the back of the store where Detective Wilson was speaking with a crime scene technician.
"Mary, okay for the ladies to leave?"
"Sure," she said with a friendly smile. "Looks like the victim died a day or so ago, knife wounds. Anyway, we'll know more once we have the medical report. I've already got a couple officers questioning people from the neighboring buildings. Hopefully, someone will have noticed something suspicious. Give my regards to your wife."
Chapter 14
The sun had come up hot and fast and it was only ten o'clock. A small crowd gathered outside the store. They sipped coffee from paper cups, watched the police activity and talked in hushed tones. A weasel-faced man wearing tattered blue jeans and a torn white T-shirt shoved his way to the front. "What happened?" he asked to no one in particular, his eyes moving quickly from the store to the uniformed officers.
"Someone broke into the store and killed
the owner," answered a plump woman with penciled eyebrows. "Twelfth Street used to be such a friendly place, but not now, not after this."
The weasel-faced man broke out into a grin. "They say what comes around goes around."
"What do you mean?" replied the plump woman.
But the man had slipped away.
◆◆◆
Nick stood for a moment outside the store, blinking in the bright sunlight. "Oh no," he muttered. "The press is here!" He pointed across the street where an Austin City News Service truck had pulled up.
"Looks like it's parked outside Sage Oats' temple," said Amy.
"Let's listen. Perhaps we might learn something," added Danielle, not waiting for a response and hurrying across the road. Nick and Amy had to jog to catch up.
"Don't mention you discovered the body, either of you," cautioned Nick. "This is an ongoing police investigation, and you don't want to complicate things."
"Okay, okay," Danielle huffed. "I'm not going to think about the body again until I have to."
"Me neither, darling," added Amy, holding on to Nick's arm. He grinned, turned, and kissed her on the cheek.
It was a modern news truck with a large satellite dish attached to the side, aerials and antennae pointing from the roof. The driver half dozed with his feet on the dashboard, arm hanging out of the window. Peeking up just above the bottom of the window was what appeared to be a large cup of coffee in the cup holder on the armrest.
Nick tapped on the window, flashed his badge. "What's the deal?"
The faint aroma of coffee reached his nostrils as the driver glanced at the badge, then pointed a thumb. "Jack's recording an Austin Real Neighborhoods feature. This week it's about residents taking back Austin's neighborhoods from overcommercialization."
"So, you're not here to cover the events at the bookstore?" asked Danielle.
Nick frowned.
The driver sat up straight, his eyes showed immediate interest. "No way, what's going on over there? "
"Usual city stuff," added Nick.
The driver craned his neck. "That's a lot of activity—a lot of activity…"
"I suppose so," Nick admitted with a smile.