Cornwall and Redfern Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (10 page)

Tuesday I got fired.

Allison Seymour, the town librarian, interrupted her vacation to come in and hand me a letter. The board regretted that, due to financial constraints, they were forced to cut back part-time staff.

“I'm really sorry about this, Bliss. Walt Sheffield dropped this off at my place last night and directed me to give it to you this morning. I didn't know anything about it, honestly.”

Walt was the Library Board head and a major butt-kisser. I saw the Weasel's hand all over this. As the mayor, Mike would only need to put a word in Walt's ear and, poof, one troublesome ex-wife gone. Andrea was on the board, too. It was a wonder it hadn't happened sooner.

“Listen, Bliss, you have two weeks' notice, so that will give you time to find another job. I'll give you an excellent reference, and you can take time off for interviews if you want.”

I could have fought it. I had seniority, but who would I complain to? Certainly not the municipal leaders. The Ministry of Labour? If the paperwork didn't kill me, the phone bills would.

I thought about options. There were none. Finally, I said, “I think, Allison, instead of putting in the two weeks, I'll just leave now. I'll start job-hunting immediately.”

“Wait, but Bliss! You have to stay for two weeks. I'm on vacation and so is Cheryl. Bailey can't cover the library alone.”

I opened my desk drawer and looked in. Funny, there was nothing personal in it, not a photograph, not a lipstick, or a Band-Aid. I closed it again. Picking up my purse, I walked toward the coat room where I gathered up my boots and jacket. Allison followed me, wringing her hands.

“Bliss, you know that if you leave now, the board won't give you any severance pay.”

I said to Allison. “I won't get any severance at the end of two weeks either. I believe the library owes me for last week, yesterday, and three hours for today. You can mail it to me.”

In the parking lot, I was snapping on my helmet when a tall shadow blocked out the sun. I looked up to see Thea Vanderbloom, cap tucked under her arm and mirrored sunglasses folded into her breast pocket. Without the glasses, I could see she had pretty eyes, dark grey, with thick, curled lashes.

“Hey, Moonbeam, where are you off to?”

“No place in particular. I've just been fired.” For some reason, I handed her the letter and removed my helmet again. My head felt like it was going to explode. Maybe from anger, maybe from fear, I couldn't tell.

“That's cold. I suppose the mayor is behind it.” She handed back the letter while I looked at her in surprise.

“No doubt in my mind, but how did you know?”

“Hah! Everyone knows about what happened to you. Mike Bains is pretty slick. So where are you going, really?”

“I guess I'm as free as a bird, so if you've come to arrest me, I've nowhere else to be at the moment. Break out the handcuffs.”

Officer Vanderbloom slapped me on my bad shoulder so hard I almost flew over the seat of my bike. “I've met my arrest quota for the month. Since you aren't doing anything, how about I buy you a cup of coffee?”

Why not?

“I'm here on a goodwill mission,” she said, once we were seated in a corner booth at the back of the Mason Jar Cafe, next door to the police station.

After the waitress laid our coffee cups on the table, I set to work opening two packets of sugar and three 18 percent creamers. I needed the calories. Officer Vanderbloom watched and, when I had finished stirring and took my first sip, she tried again.

“Are you with me, Moonbeam?”

“Oh, sure, sorry. What did you want to say, Officer Vanderbloom?”

“Call me Thea. Okay, Neil sent me on a, well, kind of diplomatic mission to smooth the waters with you.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, brother, he's such a guy sometimes. He thinks I'll automatically know the right thing to say to another woman.”

I took another cautious sip of my coffee but found that, thanks to the three creamers, it was lukewarm.
I took a bigger swig. “I don't think I follow you, Thea.”

“Okay, the heck with it. I'll just say it in my own way, which is probably not subtle but will save time. Neil says that every time he tries to talk to you, you either puke on him or cry. Or yell. You have him on the run, so he sent me to say you aren't a suspect in Julian Barnfeather's death, and we don't think you're dealing drugs.”

“I don't get it. How can you just arbitrarily decide I'm innocent?”

What?

“You're losing it, Moonbeam. You don't have to get it. Let's just say that the police in this town know more than we let on. So, all you have to do is let us question you and answer to the best of your knowledge. Because of where you work, the cemetery I mean, and where you live, you probably know more than you think.”

The waitress refilled my cup. Thea waited patiently while I doctored my coffee again. This time, I only used two creamers.

“You want me to be your stooge?” I asked finally.

Thea pressed her full lips tightly together. “The word would be
stoolie
, if we even had such a thing, which we don't. And we're not asking you to be one. But I'm beginning to see what the chief means.”

“What's he so sensitive about, anyway? Hasn't he been thrown up on, or cried on, or yelled at before? He was a homicide cop in Toronto, wasn't he? You'd think he'd be used to the earthier parts of the job.”

“He was on the drug squad, actually. So he knows his drugs, and knows there's stuff going down in Lockport that needs to be stopped before this town becomes the Gateway to the North for drug trafficking.”

“The True North Strong and Stoned?”

“Nice one, Moonbeam, but yes, Lockport is perfectly situated. We're just down-peninsula from Tobermory. Beyond that, the North is wide open.”

“Wait,” I said, “are we talking about things like meth or heroin?” I was thinking of Ewan Quigley. If ever there was a disreputable character, it would be Ewan, and he was up to something besides supplying Rae with reefers. What if he was into worse stuff than pot? I didn't think he had enough room in his trailer for a meth lab, but he might have another location for the actual manufacturing. I hoped so, or else my innocent ass could be blown sky-high while I slept some night.

“Not specifically. Why, do you know something you need to tell me?”

“Of course not. But if you don't tell me what you're looking for, how will I know if I have relevant information?”

“Just answer our questions. And right now, I have only one for you. Have you ever seen anything unusual in the cemetery?”

“No, never. Redfern asked me that already. What kind of connection could there be between the cemetery and drugs?”

“Marijuana, Moonbeam. Marijuana. We are specifically concentrating on pot.”

I was confused, but at least she wasn't asking about Hemp Hollow. I didn't know how I could possibly steer the police to Ewan Quigley without mentioning seeing Pan dropping something off. A bag of money? Snitching on Pan would lead to Glory, then probably to Dougal, then directly to me.

“There's no pot growing between the tombstones, that much I can tell you. I've groomed the whole place at one time or another, and there's no pot.”

“Sheesh, Moonbeam, we know the stuff isn't growing merrily among the epitaphs, at least not out in the open. But, as Neil told you, Julian Barnfeather had a marijuana leaf on his person, and it was fresh, so he came into contact with it shortly before he died.”

“Maybe he was smoking it and he dropped some.”

Thea shook her head. “Are you for real? You don't smoke it right off the plant, you have to dry it first.”

“So what was a fresh leaf doing in Julian's hair?”

Her hands balled into fists and she leaned into me. “That's my question. Do you know the answer?”

I leaned away. Boy, she was getting as cranky as Redfern. “No, I don't.”

“Okay, just for the record, Ms. Cornwall, did you see anyone approach the maintenance shed at the Good Shepherd Cemetery last Saturday at any time during the day?”

“No, I did not.”

She wrote in her notebook, then sat back.

“It must have been you that left a pink lip print on the back of the chief's shirt yesterday.”

“It wasn't my fault. He stopped without warning. How did you know it was me?”

“Elementary, my dear Moonbeam. I know he went across to the library to see you, and he came back with lipstick on him. And, you're the right height.”

“Well, congratulations, Officer Vanderbloom, I believe you're ready to sit for the sergeant's exam.”

“Don't be flip. The chief was not amused when one of the guys pointed out the lipstick and ventured a guess as to how it got there.”

“Well, too bad. I was hoping his wife would be the first to notice.”

“His wife died three years ago, before he left the Toronto force.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, I hadn't heard about that. Was it an accident?”

“She had a congenital heart defect that she didn't know about. She got pregnant and for some reason just died in her sleep one night when she was three months along. I didn't hear this from him, by the way. He never mentions her.”

“That's horrible. No wonder he's so … uh …” I searched for a more charitable word than I usually used when thinking of Chief Redfern.

“Rigid?” Thea drained her cup and gestured to the waitress for a refill. “I didn't know him before, so I don't know how, or if, he's changed.”

“Well, you'd think he'd have a girlfriend by now. Somebody to mellow him out.”

She looked directly at me. “What about you? Have you found yourself another man to take your mind off your ex?”

“Hardly. Look at me. I'm one step from living on the street now that I've been fired from the library. Even if I wanted a man, which I sure as hell don't, what man would want me?”

“Ah, Moonbeam, there are plenty of men around who would be interested if you'd just pull your head out of your butt and stop trying to get even with Mike Bains. Get on with your life, why don't you?”

I was sick of being told what to do, and practically sputtered at her, “You haven't heard the latest. Look at this.”

Opening my purse, I unfolded both the final notice of taxes and the article from that week's
Sentinel
and shoved them across the table.

Thea might have been quick, but she wasn't that quick. “What am I looking at here? An article about the mayor running for MP, which is no shock, and a tax notice from the Town of Lockport.”

“Read the part about Mike donating fifty acres of wetland to the province. And this notice is for a fifty-acre property I own down by the river.”

Now she got it. “Are you saying he's donating your land? Maybe there's another property. Although, if you don't pay this by Friday, Bains could buy this piece of wetland before it goes to public auction.”

Thea folded up the papers and passed them back. Standing up and placing her cap perfectly straight on her head, she looked out the window at the street and said, “Moonbeam, it looks like you're finally getting screwed again, but not in a good way.”

For the first time in two years, I didn't know what to do with myself. There was no place I had to be. It was too early to make my second trip of the day to take pictures of Glory's gestating jungle monstrosity. And it was way too early for the yoga class I taught on Tuesday evenings at the Golden Goddess Spa.

Then I thought of something constructive to do. I should be calling prospective cleaning customers. Initially, I had been desperate to fill my empty Wednesdays with a paying job, so, playing a long shot, I responded to an ad placed in the
Sentinel
by Fern Brickle who required cleaning help four hours a week. Fern, well-to-do but not part of the country club set, had agreed to give me a week's trial. To my surprise, and probably hers, I turned out to be superb at cleaning. Toilets I wasn't so crazy about, but they came with the territory.

Glory heard about my success at Fern's and, when her own cleaning lady quit on her, she begged me to step in. Despite her complaining, I knew Glory never had her house cleaned so thoroughly, but now I wasn't sure if she wanted me back at all.

Allison must have been watching for me to return for my bike. As I zipped my jacket and tucked my hair into my helmet, she came sprinting down the steps to the parking lot.

“Wait, Bliss. Please, can I talk to you?”

Determined to stand firm, I waited for her to reach me.

“Bliss, I called the board, and they agreed to keep you on till the end of the month. That should give you more time to line up something else.”

I seriously considered it. I would be crazy not to. Continuing to work a few more weeks at the library would give me a chance to resolve some key issues without worrying so much about money, issues like pollinating two giant plants, finding another place to live, extricating myself from marijuana purgatory, screwing the Weasel right back … Actually, these issues were so pressing, I didn't have time to work at the library.

I hopped on my bike and called to Allison over my shoulder, “Gotta go. Oh, and thanks for the offer, Allison, but I've made other plans.”

It was peaceful and quiet at the back of my trailer, but I couldn't shake a feeling of unease. There was no smell of four-legged carnivore and no sinister rustlings in the underbrush. I was fishing at the bottom of my purse for my key when I emerged from the shade of the trees into the bright sunlight of the courtyard. A sense of being watched forced my eyes upward from the key in my hand.

Snake was staring at me. He wore his dusty leathers and chains, with a skull-patterned do-rag wrapped around shoulder-length, greasy black curls. I froze for a second, then darted up the two steps to my door and tried to open the lock. My fingers wouldn't grip the key and I dropped it twice onto the platform porch. I looked behind, but Snake hadn't made a move in my direction. Neither had he taken a step back. Finally, on my third try, I jammed the key home.

Locked inside, I watched through the narrow slit in the curtain as Snake opened the Quigleys' door without knocking. He looked up once toward my trailer before closing the door. God, where was Rae? Should I check on her? No, I didn't think Rae was in immediate physical danger from Snake. But I could be. Who knew what was going on in that shack built onto the back of the Quigleys' trailer?

With the baseball bat securely between my knees, I sat on my worn bench and contemplated the bottle of wine tempting me from the counter. I looked at my watch and sighed. Pretty soon I had to do the ugly plant run, then I was due at the spa. I wasn't looking forward to returning to the trailer after dark tonight.

With fingers still shaking, I pawed through the junk drawer again until I located the list of potential cleaning customers. Within the hour, I had booked two clients for Fridays, starting next week. The rest of the list had found alternate cleaning help but would keep me in mind if circumstances changed. Two phone calls went unanswered and I left messages.

A stomach rumble sent me to the fridge. Empty. Not even a cracker. Simon probably had more crumbs in his cage than I did in my whole trailer. I perked up when I remembered the stacked cans in my cupboard.

Somehow I had to find work for Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Suddenly, my hasty decision to walk away from the library before the end of the month didn't seem like such a smart move.

I turned over one of the old tax notices and, with my pencil stub, wrote the total of my bank account on the top of the page. Then I wrote down what I could reasonably expect to earn in the next three weeks before rent was due again. I could probably make the rent payment without dipping into the bank account, but it would be close. I still had to buy gas for the Savage. And, if I wasn't mistaken, Dougal was starting to take note of the amount of food I was removing from his fridge. Well, I would cut back on food for a while if I had to. And there was the slight possibility I could coordinate the pollination of the two Titan Arums, but I shouldn't count on that money. The whole thing seemed too quixotic to actually work.

So, without touching my bank account, I could survive for a month. Put another way, if I paid the back taxes on the swamp, I had a month to sell it back to the Weasel. Or I'd threaten to blow the whistle on his crooked scheme to donate land he didn't own to the province.

On the other hand, I could let the swamp go, allow the Weasel to take it away from me, and use my savings to keep myself going for six months while I tried other means of squeezing my share out of him. I could even find a safer place to live.

Turning my hands on the table, palms up, I looked at them, envisioning one choice in each. I had to make a decision now, and it had to be a choice I could live with, no matter what happened. I looked at the numbers written on the paper.

What the hell.

Tomorrow afternoon, when I was finished cleaning Fern Brickle's house, I would stop by the registry office and pay off the taxes. Then I'd wait for the Weasel to find me and offer me a deal. Let next month take care of itself. And the month after that. Who cared? No pain, no gain, Cornwall.

At Arlington Woods, Pan looked alarmed when I asked to speak to Glory. I still had half an hour before my class at the spa.

“You might want to think twice about that, Bliss. The Mistress of Darkness is still chewing nails, and I don't mean her own.”

Pan was walking me around the side of the house to my bike after visiting the greenhouse. We had taken our look at the plant, and I had snapped the required pictures. The pot crop was coming along well, too.

“I need to know about tomorrow, Pan. It's my morning to clean, and I want to know if Glory still wants me to come.”

He whirled to look at me. “What do you mean? Of course she wants you to clean the house. You know I don't clean.”

“I've noticed that. But after the other night, I got the impression she was really angry. She yelled at me to get out.”

“Mostly she meant your cousin. Just the sight of him sends her into a frenzy. She's been eating her special food like crazy, but it hasn't helped.”

“What special food? Oh, you mean …
special?
”

Pan nodded his sleek head. “Cookies, casseroles, dips, you name it.”

“You can make all those kinds of food from … you know?”

“Certainly. But it's very rich, and Miss Yates is going to hate herself when she comes out of this, then she'll hate your cousin even more when she has to go to a fat farm to lose the ten pounds she put on.” Pan pressed his fingertips to his temples and looked every inch the overworked servant.

“So, are you the creator of all these special dishes?”

“I don't cook.”

“You don't clean, you don't cook.” I was afraid to pose the obvious question, and instead asked, “Who does the cooking, then?”

“Herself doesn't eat breakfast, eats lunch only on occasion with her closest female friends, and eats dinner at the Club. Unless a gentleman takes her out.”

“Well, I know that, Pan. I mean, who cooks these special meals? I'm pretty sure the Glorious One doesn't slap on an apron and start chopping up the pot and other herbs.”

He smirked. “I'd love a picture of that.”

I thought about telling him I had seen him the previous night, dropping something off at the Quigley trailer. Trouble was, I didn't know if his errand had to do with Glory's diet or something more personal. If Pan was there on private business, it was probably in my best interest to keep quiet.

Pan seemed to make his mind up about something. Moving closer until our noses were almost touching, he whispered, “The less people who know about this the better, but since you keep asking questions and you know about the stuff, I'm going to explain a few things. But if you blab, we could both get hurt.”

I could tell he was serious, so I didn't laugh. Honestly. This was Lockport. Then I thought of Snake and Ewan Quigley and lost even the desire to smile.

He whispered, “Okay, there's a person in town called the Baker. The Baker takes private stashes and turns them into gourmet meals to die for. A lot of the influential people in town use the Baker's services.”

“It must be expensive.”

“The Baker takes a cut of the stash. No money changes hands.”

“Then what does he do with his cut?”

Pan shrugged. “I don't know, but I'm guessing the Baker sells it.”

I sucked in a breath. “Okay, we've crossed over into serious criminal activity here.”

“That's what I'm saying. Now you know how dangerous this whole thing is.”

“I never doubted that. I don't even like being in the same room with those plants. I keep thinking the feds are going to come smashing through the glass windows with guns blazing.”

“Well, how about me. I have to water and feed the stuff.” Pan managed to look highly affronted at his servitude to the Cannabis Queen.

“Glory must pay you well.”

“I do all right. So, you see what I'm saying here?”

“Not really.”

“We're both in this, right along with Miss Glory and all her society friends. Maybe more so. Who do you think is going to do more time if they catch us?”

“You. They won't charge me just for being in the same room, especially if I plead family connections. You, on the other hand, will be kissing your ass goodbye for a few years.” I didn't add that I could be forced to testify against him. No point branding the words
Witness for the Crown
on my forehead.

He nodded and stepped back. “I guess. Anyway, remember what they said during the Second World War, ‘Loose lips sink ships.'”

I agreed. I didn't want to be the torpedo aimed at anybody's ship.