Page 33

CHAPTER 33

I finally got rid of Oxley Crothers by telling him that our discussion was over because he had two choices: keep sleeping with Hermione and lose his bookstore, or boot her out of the store and lose the sex. He kept insisting there must be a way he could get both, but I told him that Hermione was a black hole into which all his possessions were going to be sucked—he whimpered a little bit when I said “sucked”—so it was all or nothing. He was still waffling over the answer when I pushed him out the door.

Then I went back to Lian’s mask. I’d added the lace around the eyes and found a scales-of-justice online that I could print out and glue on, but then the only other things I could think of were Mei and Rowan, which was a real disservice to Lian. We are not the sum of the people we care about, we are full people on our own. So I added tea cup earrings because she did love her chai, and found some flame stickers because even though Lian was always calm, there was also anger burning in her, and I put those in her eyes in the scales. And then I thought, That’s enough. She’s a minimalist . Law and anger on a sexy mask. That was Lian.

I thought about a mask for Betty that I could take her. I’d told her Ozzie had labeled a mask for her, too, an owl. She’d frowned and said, “Wisdom?” and I’d said, “Raptor,” and she’d laughed, delighted. So I dug out the owl mask and worked on it for her, adding a row of teacup charms across the top for her to shoot at and a frowning llama keychain face peering through the cups, and then the black lace mask that I’d decided was going on all my honey pot masks—yes, I was going to do a series of collaged masks, it was too much fun not to—and then I realized I didn’t know what her weapon of choice was. I figured it must be a gun, or what were all those teacup targets for? And then there were her many lovers, especially the Russian. Maybe a bear for him? But there had been Melissa, too, and the only thing I could think of for Melissa was a coffin, so no. And Betty would not want herself defined by her lovers. By her llama, maybe, but not her lovers.

I was gluing the last of the guns down when Max came through the door, his face grim.

“We need you in Ecstasy,” he said. “Betty’s been shot.”

I dropped the mask. “Get Jackie!”

“Already did,” he said, and of course he had. “But we could use a little help over there. It’s a bit of a nightmare.”

I came out from around the counter. “Why did you take her to Ecstasy?”

“Jackie wanted her there. She doesn’t have a clinic and?—”

I cut him off, remembering. “Poppy was?—”

“She’s fine but upset,” Max said. “Turns out the shooter was Junior. I think it’s giving her Serena flashbacks.”

“ What? ” I didn’t wait for an explanation; I was out the door and then into Coral’s, looking for my Poppy.

Nightmare was an understatement.

Jackie had Betty in a chair and was adjusting the bandage on her shoulder, but my eyes went to Poppy, standing behind Betty’s chair with blood on her hands, which I fervently hoped was Betty’s and not hers. She was wide-eyed and breathing heavy, and Marley was behind her, holding onto her as if he were propping her up.

Coral was sitting beside Betty, looking grim and angry.

Dmitri was on Betty’s other side, holding her good hand, saying things in Russian that sounded like endearments and curses and promises, with Anita and Quill watching until Coral sent them back to the kitchen.

And of course, Hermione was by the counter, crying as Oxley Crothers kept handing her paper napkins and trying to reason with her to get his keys back while she sobbed, but most of her attention was slyly devoted to finding out what was going on with Betty. Oxley looked at me, his eyes pleading with me to come help him, but he’d made his bed, he was stuck with Hermione in it.

Also watching it all was Louise and her fancy coffee thermos, sitting at a nearby table. She was actually drinking from it this time instead of walking out with it, observing everything with a smile, as if it were an amusing reality show. A laff riot.

And then Dottie burst in the bakery, saying, “What the hell? I saw Max help Betty out of the truck, is she all right?”

“Shot,” I said, and then Bea followed her in, saying, “What’s going on now?” and I gave up on everybody else and went to my daughter as the honey pots congregated around Betty’s table.

“Are you okay?” I said to my kid.

She nodded. “I never saw anybody die like that before. Serena just went to sleep when Herc injected her with that stuff. Junior . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t think I want to learn to shoot.”

I was going to say “You wanted to learn to shoot?” but we could talk about that later, when that shocked look was out of her eyes.

She turned away into Marley’s arms, and he said, “What you need is butterkuchen . Or maybe Schokobrotchen . That’s chocolate.”

“Coffee with a shot of brandy,” Poppy said, and he said, “Yeah, we’ll start with chocolate and work up.”

So Poppy was covered. And she was not going to learn to shoot a damn gun.

Unless she really needed to.

Half an hour later, Jackie had cleaned Betty up with a fresh bandage on her, and Dmitri had gone to get his things from Nice Funerals to move out to Betty’s cottage, where his minion, Tanke, was evidently babysitting two llamas and a body. Betty had tried to say no to Dmitri, but he was adamant, plus there was that new llama to take care of—Dmitri said its name was Dolly—and I think she was too exhausted to deal with it all by herself. If Dmitri and Tanke were staying with her, that was about as safe as she could be. Two Russians and two llamas, all of them ready to stomp on anybody that came for her.

Hermione was avid to know everything but trying not to show it, and Oxley was getting frantic because she wouldn’t stop crying, so I went over and patted Hermione’s shoulder, and when, as expected, she collapsed into my arms while she kept an eye out over my shoulder in case Betty died horribly in front of her, I picked her pocket (very useful skill from being a magician’s assistant long ago) and got Oxley’s keys, handed them to him behind her back, and told her she should have some cocoa and rest. While she was thanking me for buying her cocoa, which I wasn’t going to do, Oxley escaped, and she sat down at the table with Betty and Jackie, probably hoping there’d be free food, too. She actually said, “No lasagna?”

Max went to tell Luke about the body out at Betty’s, and Marley left to find out what Pike was doing out at his place in the woods and tell him to get his ass back to Ecstasy, and then it was just me and the honey pots and Jackie and Poppy.

Most of us were trying very hard to get back to normal.

It occurred to me that no one had bothered to slip a note with possible enemies under my door since I’d asked. That had been, in retrospect, a naive request. Plus, the lists would have been ridiculously long and thus useless.

I looked around the table and saw my honey pot plot people: Betty (exhausted but tearing into butterkuchen one-handed), Jackie (keeping an eye on Betty), Coral (looking like somebody was going to pay as soon as she figured out who and her arm healed), Poppy (still pale but thinking hard now), Bea (looking actually upset for once), Dottie (glaring at Louise), and Hermione (looking for free food). Even with all the cross-currents, we were together. That felt right.

Except for Louise, still at the other table. “We should get a bet going,” she called out. “Which one of you is going to be next?”

“What are you so damn cocky about?” Bea said, drunk but still functional and clearly angry. “You could be the next one.”

I started to say “There’s not going to be a next one, Betty just took out the leader of the Cauldron,” but that seemed too easy, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to think. I’d had my doubts that Junior could run the Cauldron. And we’d closed the book on killings too soon once before with Geoffrey, although Max had assured me that Junior was most definitely dead. Three to the head, he’d said, impressed with Betty’s marksmanship. So maybe it was over.

Louise didn’t think so. “Oh, I’m protected, unlike the rest of you,” she said, looking at all of us with contempt. “I know people. And I know things. If anything happens to me?—”

“What the fuck do you know?” Dottie snarled. “If you know who’s doing this?—”

I put my hand on Dottie’s arm to stop her. “Louise, we need help here. If you know anything?—”

“I know everything.” There was a definite sneer in Louise’s voice, but there was a shift in her eyes that said she was bluffing.

“Then share, for God’s sake,” I snapped. “We don’t want any more people getting shot.”

“Speak for yourself.” Louise stood up, thermos in hand, empty now since she’d been swigging from it through all the uproar. “Nobody in this town ever gave a damn about me, so why should I care about them?” She smiled at all of us. “Let me know when the next body drops.”

And then she sashayed over to Anita for a refill and left.

“I hate her,” Dottie said.

“No shit,” Bea said.

“I’m not surprised it was Junior,” Betty said. “Incompetent as ever.” She looked thoughtful. “And then Dmitri showed up with a llama.”

Bea frowned. “Wait, the Russian brought you another llama?”

“Focus, Bea,” I said.

“Okay.” Bea said. “What I don’t get is why anybody would kill Betty. She really is retired.” She looked at Betty. “I think.”

Poppy spoke to the group for the first time. “Junior wasn’t trying to kill Betty. He was aiming for me.”

My heart stopped. “Poppy, honey, no.”

“I thought so, too,” Betty said to her. “That’s why I knocked you over.”

“ No, ” I said. “She is not part of this?—”

“Of course I’m part of this,” Poppy said. “I’m part of Rocky Start. This is all of us.”

I started to say “No, that can’t be, no, that’s not true,” panicking, and then Jackie said, very calmly, “I don’t think he came for Poppy.”

That made no sense since Jackie hadn’t been there, but I was all for her take on things.

Poppy shook her head. “He was looking right at me as he came forward, getting ready for the kill shot.” She sounded calm, but there was panic under that, I could tell.

Jackie was calm, nothing panicky about her. “Were you looking at him when he shot the first time, or was your back to him?”

“My back,” Poppy said, surprised by the question. “My back was to him.”

Betty nodded.

“From the back, you look just like your mother,” Jackie said. “She’s a little shorter than you, but otherwise, same dark curly hair, same voice, same body, same movement. I thought that at dinner the other night. From the back, a lot of people probably can’t tell you apart.”

“So he was gunning for me?” I said, and the relief washed over me. Nobody wanted to kill my kid. Thank God, nobody wanted to kill my Poppy.

And then the other shoe dropped.

“He was after me ?” I shook my head. “That makes no sense.” But, of course it did. I’d shot his mother; wounded her, but still, that was motive to come after me. And there was also the snake, which had obviously not crawled into my oven on its own.

“It makes perfect sense,” Jackie said. “You’re not looking at this logically.”

I glared at her. “Okay. Explain. Logically.”

“The knife attack on Ms. Schmidt two days ago, the snake in your oven, and now this attack on somebody the shooter thought was you. What have they accomplished?”

“Well, they’re annoying the hell out of me,” Bea said.

“You’re all upset,” Jackie said. “You’re arguing with each other. The blonde is making fun of you. The postmistress wants to kill her.” Dottie nodded enthusiastically. “Ms. Witch is using the distraction to try to take over a bookstore.”

“Am not,” Hermione said absently, but no one paid attention to her.

And then I saw what Jackie meant. “He was destabilizing us. This wasn’t just an attack on Coral or Betty or me, it was an attack on Rocky Start.”

“She’s right,” Betty said quietly. “It’s the confusion. He was coming for something and he wanted to take out any resistance. Coral and I are injured, Bea’s drunk?—”

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” Bea snapped.

“You started day-drinking because of Harvey,” Betty said. “And you got much worse when he was killed. You’re just as injured as Coral and me.”

Bea looked at her in horror and then began to cry.

“And the one person keeping you all together,” Jackie said, “is Rose. I’ve only been here three days and even I can see that. She’s the anchor. If somebody wants to create confusion here, Rose is the logical target.”

“You’re exaggerating,” I told her.

“No,” Betty said. “She’s not.”

Coral nodded in agreement.

“Okay, wait.” I looked around the table. “Nobody knew I was going out to Betty’s today, so why would they go out there to shoot me? They have to have been after Betty.” I looked at Betty. “Sorry.”

She shrugged and then winced hard.

“Stop that,” Jackie told her and checked her dressing. While she was doing that, she said, “Everybody at this table knew. We all heard you tell Betty that the other day. That you would stop in and check on her.”

That shut us all up.

Okay, Rose, I thought once I’d absorbed the shock, lead. “So the good news is, that’s going to help us a lot. Now we know what to do next. This isn’t over just because Junior is dead.”

“How the fuck does that help us?” Bea said, through her tears.

“We have a traitor among us.” I looked around the table. “Somebody here told Junior I’d be at Betty’s. All we have to do is figure out which one of us it was and make them cough up what they know. I’m voting for Louise, but I’m open-minded.”

“Not necessarily,” Dottie said at the same time, speaking fast. “One of us could have told somebody who told somebody . . .” Her voice trailed off as we all looked at her. “Not me. Somebody else.” She stopped for a moment. “You’re right, it’s Louise!”

“No, she was surprised,” Betty said. “Enjoying the confusion, but she was surprised when she heard that Junior showed up. That’s why she stayed, to find out what happened. She looked uncertain at the end, for all her gloating.”

“She was showing off,” Bea said. “She doesn’t know shit.”

“I don’t even remember you saying anything,” Hermione said to me. “But it’s all over.” She beamed at the group. “So what’s everybody’s favorite Christmas song?”

“Not now, Hermione,” I said as I looked around the table.

Not a community, after all.

“One of us is a traitor,” I said, “And whoever it is better start talking now.”

The entire table went silent, and I didn’t care. I looked at Bea. “You said you know people, so you weren’t worried. Who have you been talking to, Bea?”

“Not anybody who would shoot Poppy!” Bea sounded insulted.

“Did you tell anybody I was going to Betty’s today?”

“ No, ” she said. “Why would I? That’s not news.”

She looked confused, not guilty, but her eyes shifted away from me.

“Who are you talking to?” I said and she stood up.

“I don’t have to put up with this,” she said and walked off, so she was definitely talking to somebody. Just not about me going to Betty’s. Probably. Maybe.

I looked at Dottie. “Sold any information to anybody lately, Dottie?” Dottie tried to look indignant, so I said, “I know Norman is dead, so you wouldn’t have been selling info to him again, but you probably have a new source of income now.”

Coral glared at her. “You betrayed those children to Norman? For money ?” she said, her voice with a savage edge.

“No!” Dottie said. “I just told him when Oddities would be empty! And that was weeks ago! Norman’s dead!”

“So who are you talking to now?” I said and Coral leaned forward a little.

“Nobody!” she said, trying to sound outraged and just sounding scared. “Herc calls sometimes about what he sees on the feed, but he didn’t ask anything about Betty or Poppy! I swear.”

“How about Mei?” I said.

She stopped and then stuck her chin out. “Mei wasn’t out at Betty’s. She has nothing to do with this.” She looked around at everybody staring at her. “It wasn’t me! It was that husband-stealing bitch Louise.” She focused on me. “Go ask her! She’s the troublemaker!” She shoved her chair back. “ I didn’t talk to anybody ,” she said and walked out.

“She talked to somebody,” Betty said.

“Yes, but was it Junior?” I asked. “We’ve got enough leaks in this town to start a flood. I think Dottie tells Herc everything he asks for, but I don’t see Herc trying to kill Poppy or Betty. What’s the point? Serena might, but she’s dead. We need to find out which one of us was cozying up to Junior.”

“There’s a horrible thought,” Betty said.

Jackie looked at me. “So now what are you going to do?”

“Talk to Louise.”

“Good luck finding her,” Betty said. “She tends to stay on the loose, and since she’s not vamping Lionel anymore, she could be anywhere.”

“I’ll find her.” I stood up to go. “I’m anti violence against women, but if she set up an attack on my kid, I will be all for it.”

“Do it yourself,” Betty said. “If you send Max, she’ll just enjoy it.”

“And on that I’m leaving.” I waved to them all and left but when I stopped at Oddities’ door, Jackie was behind me.

“Betty is no dummy,” she told me. “At least consider that he wasn’t after Poppy, that he thought she was you. Be careful, Rose.”

I was surprised; she sounded like she cared. “Thank you.”

“I still don’t think we’re staying,” she said. “Although Hester wants to now that she’s working with Coral, and Luke has promised to help us get set up.” Her voice slowed a little bit when she said “Luke,” but then it went back to its usual briskness. “But I do see what you mean about there being good people here. I don’t know how many of them worked for the CIA?—”

“Everybody at that table except for Hermione and Poppy. And me and you.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “They’re good people now. Yell if you need my help. And be careful. Somebody’s out to get you, and I do not want you to be the next person I stitch up.”

Then she turned and went next door to her pharmacy while I stood there gaping at her.

My life just kept getting weirder and weirder.