Dead spread, p.20
Dead Spread, page 20
“Get the Benadryl,” Inez said, “Hurry.”
I raced to the bathroom and grabbed a pink pill that Aunt Inez used when her seasonal allergies flared up. (“They should call them ‘sneezenal allergies,’” she would say.) Grist washed it down with a healthy swig of Hoggarty Heaven Cabernet and within about ten minutes he could speak again.
“Allergic to walnuts,” he said, happily, as though it had never happened. “One or two bites and my mouth swells—I’ll be fine. But more than a few,” he drew his finger across his neck. “It’s lights out for Grist.”
We eventually were able to laugh about it, chalking it up to yet another culinary disaster by Carrie. Cheap food, bad food, food that could kill you—you never knew what you were going to get when you dined at Chez Carrie. People who had never shared a meal with me mentioned how they’d heard I was bad at dinner because “someone” had mentioned it to Walker, Lister, or Daisy.
That “someone” was also a dinner guest at my house that night. That “someone” was Emma.
Chapter Thirty
I chastised myself for forgetting this. Inez got sick shortly after so the memory must have been buried somewhere under my trauma. Is it possible that someone slipped Grist some walnuts? How would anyone even do that while he was in the hospital? And were they trying to kill him—or shut him up?
I stopped dead in my tracks. How did these pieces fit together with what I was going to tell Officer Bucket? I had zero proof that someone had tried to poison Grist with walnuts. And I had no real motive other than it looked like he suspected that the items in his museum might be fake. But what did that have to do with anything? A few inauthentic wine presses hardly seemed worth murdering anyone over.
In the blink of time it took for me to attempt to connect the dots on all these unrelated things, Waggery took the opportunity to duck out. Literally. I found him at the duck pond, the exact thing I’d hoped to avoid.
I was living on repeat. Here I was, for the second time today, begging Waggery to get out of the pond. Here I was, for the second time today, watching tourists snap photos and laugh at my raven. Here I was, for the second time today, wondering how I’d gotten here.
I was so accustomed to seeing Grist here, showing off Prosperity’s Prohibition-era oddities and other historical curiosities to throngs of amused tourists, that I found myself scanning the plaza for his top hat out of habit.
On his tours he shared the story of how Agustus Hoggarty made and stored wine at full winery capacity for thirteen years during Prohibition so that when it was lifted—as he predicted it would be—he would be one of the only winemakers with enough capacity to slake the thirst of every drinker in the Bay Area. Grist loved telling high school classes about the clandestine network of tunnels underneath Prosperity, and then refusing to tell them where to find the hidden trap doors. He grew positively incandescent when he talked of Prosperity’s bright future, and how the mayor was leading the charge.
And when he wasn’t on a tour, his favorite thing to do was sneak into the backgrounds of people’s photos. I told him he was the world’s first photo bomber, and he might have been. I smiled when I thought of the hundreds of people over the years who got their film developed or posted on social media, only to find a be-whiskered man in a silk curlicued vest, old-timey pants, and a top hat smirking in the distance, like he’d arrived by time machine.
He was a Magician, and his influence on me was nothing short of enchanting.
I was snapped out of my reverie by Waggery, who was diving head first into the duck pond.
“Waggery, stop,” I yelled. He continued to dive into water that was too deep for him to stand in. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine him injuring himself, or worse, and I couldn’t bear it. Not ever. But especially not today.
“Waggery. Come here right this second or you’re going to be in trouble. Get over here right now.”
My outburst attracted the attention of the tourists, who started filming me instead of him, no doubt to have proof when they contacted animal control with reports of an abused corvid. I never spoke to Waggery this way. Not even the time he got into the dumpsters behind High on the Hoggarty and dragged trash down the entire block, which I alone had to pick up lest our fastidious mayor cite me for littering.
The tourists were shocked, but my raven got the message, and he perched on the guardrail in front of me. He dropped something into my hand. Was this a gift? Something new for his treasure pile? An apology?
I couldn’t begin to sift through what Waggery’s intentions were. That, along with an apology and lots of snuggles and snacks, would have to come later. That’s because Waggery handed me a shiny object shaped like a cigar holder with a deadly corkscrew and a small, jagged knife inside.
Chapter Thirty-One
I was drying the item off and trying not to attract more attention when I was startled by my favorite Fool.
“You know what you should do—”
“Flynt. You’ve got to stop sneaking up on me like that,” I said. “This is not the day for surprises.”
“Sorry, Carrie. I noticed that you’ve got something that might be of interest to me. To the wine museum. You should bring it by.”
“Oh, this?” I held up the corkscrew. “Yeah, Waggery fished it out of the pond.” I put it in my pocket.
Now that I wasn’t screaming at my raven, the tourists turned their attention back to enjoying the duck pond. Occasionally someone would glance over, probably charmed by how docile Waggery was behaving, perched like a pet parrot on the guardrail.
“Strange how something like that ended up in the pond,” he said, gazing at me through his Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses.
“It’s entirely possible that Waggery put it there himself,” I said. “He’s been on a bit of a crime spree lately.”
“Why don’t you give it to me? You’ve been having a tough time and taking responsibility for a valuable item like this and finding its owner could be daunting.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know for sure, but I think Grist might have made a spot for an item like this in the museum.”
Flynt’s kindness and the mention of Grist’s name were too much for me. I started to cry.
I stuttered through my tears. “Thank you, F-Flynt. I’m on my way to the police station. Hopefully, I’ll be able to give it to Grist myself. At some point.”
“Carrie, why don’t you sit down for a minute? Collect yourself.”
He motioned to an empty bench under a weeping willow. Its long branches swept the ground lazily, blown by the cool afternoon breezes that whistled in from the coast every afternoon at this time.
“Take a deep breath,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on. Why are you going to the police?”
“Oh, Flynt,” I said. “I’ve got some bad news. Awful.”
“Worse than the news we got yesterday?”
“I think it’s all connected. I don’t know how yet, and I don’t know how I even fit into any of it. I appreciate your concern. But I can’t talk to anyone about this yet. I need to go to the police first.”
“Are you sure? Do you think maybe you’re overreacting?”
“Overreacting? Absolutely not.” I stood up. “I am one hundred percent not overreacting, Flynt.”
“You know what you should do?” He asked. “You should sit down, relax, and tell me everything. I’ll go to the police with you. You look like you could use a friend. Let me help you, Carrie.”
Exhaustion washed over me. How easy would it be to sit back down on this lovely park bench, in front of this picturesque duck pond, unburden myself to Flynt, and let him take the lead with Officer Bucket. Who knows? He might even have an attorney he can recommend who will work for me pro bono. I knew I wasn’t going to get in trouble for murder, but the things I was doing—running around town trying to solve a series of crimes on my own—couldn’t possibly be legal.
“Flynt, I—wish I could, I do. But I need to get to the police. Come on, Waggery.”
“Wait,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Are you sure you don’t need a friend?”
“You have no idea, Flynt. That reminds me, have you ever heard of—”
My phone rang.
“Hold on, Flynt,” I said. “Hello?”
“Hi. Is this the psychic?” A female voice mumbled this. I could barely understand her,
“Not a psychic. But I am the tarot card reader. Can I help you?” I held a finger up to Flynt to let him know I needed to take the call.
He nodded.
“Yeah, this is your client from this morning.”
This morning was a lifetime ago. “Misty? With the umlaut?”
“What?”
“Misty, how can I help you?”
“Misty, right. So, I came by to talk to you again about something in my reading. But you’re not here, so I called the number on your sign.”
Meddling Misty. Hank had warned me.
“What can I help you with, Misty?”
“Are you moving?”
“What? Misty, look. Now is not the best time—”
“There’s a moving van in front of your cottage.”
“A moving van?”
“Yeah. There are these guys, and they are loading up a truck with all your stuff,” she said. “I asked them what they were doing. They said they were from a collection agency, and they showed me some paper that says they can take your stuff. I signed it for you.”
“What?”
“Yeah. You should come home right now,” she said. “And you should probably get a doorknob.”
Beep.
My phone died.
I shook it, like that would help.
“What’s going on?” Flynt asked. “I’ve never seen that color on a human face before.”
“It looks like the collections agencies finally found me,” I said in disbelief. Why today, of all days?
“You know what you should do?” Flynt began. “You should come with me to the museum. Have some tea. Tell me everything that is happening. I want to help you. You and Grist.”
“I can’t, Flynt. There is literally a moving van in front of my house, loading up my stuff. Then I’m going to the police.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No. Absolutely not,” I said. “It’s too embarrassing.”
“What can I do to help?”
I didn’t answer him. I called Waggery, and I was grateful that he flew to my arm with no fuss.
“Let’s go, buddy,” I said. “We’re being robbed.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
On the sprint toward my cottage, I had some decisions to make.
I had been on my way to the police for several reasons, one of them quite specific: Emma was dead in her bed with a bag over her head, and I was certain that keeping that information a secret from the authorities for longer than a reasonable time frame was also a crime.
I was also sickeningly sure that Stormy had something, if not everything, to do with both horrific deaths, and I needed to call the police right now, tell them what I knew, and make arrangements to come in and talk about it in person after I figured out what was going on at my house.
One problem: my phone was now dead.
Two problems: Grist’s phone was also dead.
Apparently, my phone only had enough juice to receive the call from Misty. Who knew how long Grist’s had been unusable?
I was trapped between a rock and a prison sentence. All my choices were terrible.
Waggery flew ahead of me, making this whole turn of events slightly easier. I could relax if he remained in my sight line.
As I rounded the corner, I fully expected to see workers in jumpsuits, scurrying like ants, filling a moving truck with Aunt Inez’s burled walnut credenza, her mahogany reading table, and her well-loved sofa. I was steeling myself for the shock of discovering her antique mirrors and her beloved armoire stacked among her other items in the back of a dirty truck. The thought of her ceramics being mishandled or broken sent me into a panic.
What I saw instead was…nothing.
There were no movers; there was no truck. There was no notice on the door or any indication that anyone had been there at all.
I opened the door and turned on the lights. Waggery took his spot on his perch, fluffed his feathers, and made a few contented purring sounds. I took a mental inventory of everything in the room, and from what I could tell, nothing was out of place.
Was this a prank? Was Misty messing with me? Why would she do that? I didn’t even know her before today. How was she involved in any of this? Is this what Hank meant—that Misty sowed chaos? If so, I could see why he didn’t want to continue dating her.
Numb, confused, and losing my resolve, I thought about what Aunt Inez would say to me when I was upset or worried. She would ask me how I was doing right then. The answer was always that I was fine. And she would remind me that all we have is the present. And in the present moment, there’s nothing to worry about.
She would say, “Most of the things we worry about never happen.”
And I would respond, “That’s why I worry about everything. It’s like magic.”
“I’m fine,” I said to Waggery. “We’re fine.”
He blinked at me, content on his perch, and I marveled at his confident presence. He could be a handful and hard to wrangle, but if I’d had to choose a life unbothered and alone or a life with a mischievous creature who sometimes made life messy, I would choose the mischievous creature every time.
“And with that,” I said, “I need to plug in my phone.”
I went to the kitchen desk and saw the pile of collection notices and finally saw them for what they were: noise. People I don’t know yelling at me about something I had nothing to do with. They were from people—or not even actual humans, but corporations—screaming for what they thought was theirs. These letters had no understanding that there was a person on the other end who’d had a tough turn of events and was doing her best. A person who had recently lost three people, and two of those in the last twenty-four hours. These notices meant nothing, not when people were dying and others were working to cover it up.
I would pay attention to them again when I was good and ready. I shoved the whole pile into the trash.
If nothing else, these past few hours had helped me get my priorities straight. Who had time to worry about debt when everyone around you harbored secrets and they were using them against you?
I watched my phone charge, as if that would make it go faster. I was even more rattled by what had been a confusing turn of events. Why would Misty lie to me about collection agency vans? What did she have to do with any of this?
My phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize. I left it plugged into the wall and answered it.
It was Grist.
“Grist. What’s happening? I’ve been so worried. I have your phone, but it’s not charged. Do I need to come there?”
“Carrie, listen to me,” he said, sounding weary but determined. “I’m a little beat up and the drugs are disorienting. But your old uncle is going to be fine.”
Hearing his voice was all it took to throw wide the floodgates. I started sobbing uncontrollably. I couldn’t speak; I could barely breathe.
“There, there,” he said, over and over. I remember when Aunt Inez died, he stayed with me for hours and hours, letting me cry it all out. He never once told me to stop or that I needed to pull myself together. He allowed me the space to be in my sorrow for as long as I needed. I have to think now that he did that at the expense of expressing his own grief. But that’s how he was. Always putting other people’s needs before his own.
I needed to pull myself together. I could fall apart again—and properly mourn my friends—when I got to the bottom of how these violent, distressing events tied together.
“How are you calling me?” I asked when I had finally calmed down enough to speak. “I have your phone.”
“It’s called a landline,” he said with a weak laugh. “Surely you’ve seen one in old movies.”
Millennial jokes were a favorite of his. “I’m so glad to hear your voice.”
“Have you had a chance to collect yourself?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I have so much to tell you.”
“I can’t wait to hear it. But I need you to do something for me. Right now. It’s important. And it might be dangerous.”
“I’m listening. But there’s some weird and terrible stuff going on that you might not know about yet. I need to tell you what’s happening, but I have to go to the police first.”
“Police?”
“Yes. Grist, Emma is dead, and I think I know who killed her. What I am not sure about is why.”
“Emma Fort-Knightly? She’s dead? Oh, no. What happened? I saw her this morning.” His voice sounded small.
“You did? When?”
“She came in with the ladies from the Historical Society. She came by for a quick minute and left shortly after they brought in my breakfast. Then you came, and I had my episode.”
“Grist, I think she might have poisoned you.”
“Emma? Well—” and he went silent.
“Grist? Are you still there?”
He took a deep breath. “And now she’s—dead?”
“Yes. I don’t even know if the police know yet. I was on my way to tell them what I think happened, when I was stopped by Flynt Burns. While I was with him, Hank’s girlfriend called and said that there were men here repossessing my furniture. I got here and there’s no one. No van, no moving guys, nothing. I plugged in my phone, which had died, and then you called. Grist, what does all this mean?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, carefully, slowly. “I’m going to need you to do something. Something drastic. Did you go to Finders Keepers?”
“That was you? You put the receipt in my pocket?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Not Lillian?”
“Lillian?” he asked. “No. It was me.”
“I went,” I said. “And I know that the items in the museum are fakes. But Grist, I need to go to the police. Now. This can’t wait another minute.”
