Authors: Mollie Cox Bryan

Tags: #Cumberland Creek Mystery

Scrapped (7 page)

BOOK: Scrapped

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Chapter 16

Beatrice was looking at the Eiffel Tower, marveling at its height, the smooth yet geometric lines of it. She suddenly realized she was lying on the ground, in between beds of flowers on soft green grass, and beyond the lit tower was the Paris night sky.

Ed was present, his hand resting in hers, and as they looked at each other, his face beamed. He had always wanted to take her to Paris. Here they were, a dream come true.

But wait. She turned to see where the music was coming from and turned back, and he was gone. A sinking, sickening feeling came over her. Where was her husband? Her best friend? How could he leave her?

Beatrice awoke with words from
Leaves of Grass
turning over in her mind. What a dream. She reached up to her cheek and wiped a salty tear from her face.

“Stupid old woman,” she said out loud, then heard a weird noise downstairs. What was that? Something outside, or was it in her front room?

She reached in the drawer for her trusty pistol, felt its cool steel. She slowly unraveled herself from the blankets, sat up, and placed her bare feet on the floor. Her bedroom door was already open—she had started leaving it open because more and more she was concerned about intruders, with all the recent unexplained incidents. She wanted immediate access to whoever was fool enough to enter her home uninvited. Not just her, but her and her gun, which freaked Vera out to no end. That made Beatrice grin even as she heard another scuffling noise. This time she was sure that it wasn’t in her head and that it was at her front door.

She glanced at her digital clock: 5:30 a.m. What fool of a thief would be out and about at that time?

She walked gingerly down the hallway and saw streams of soft morning light coming through her stained-glass window. She began to descend the steps. So quiet. One step creaked—it always did.
Confound it!
Her heart skipped a beat as she wondered if the person at her front porch could hear it. She stood quietly for a moment and then began to move again. She swore she could feel the blood rush through her body. If only her joints did not ache so much this morning, she’d have already shot the guy.

The phone interrupted her last step to the first floor.
Blast!
Who would be calling at this hour? She let it ring. Let the goddamned answering machine pick up.

“Ms. Matthews? It’s Detective Bryant,” the voice said. “I don’t want to frighten you, but I am on your front porch and can hear you rattling around inside. So maybe you just better put that pistol down and open the door.”

What? What was he doing here? He knew her too well, knew all about that pistol. She had just taken another gun safety class, and he happened to be the teacher, supplementing from his day job as a detective.

She peeked out the peephole, and he waved.

She unlocked the door. “What’s going on, Bryant?” she said as she flung it open.

“I’m sorry to disturb you—”

“Get on with it,” she said, waving her hand around.

“There’s been some vandalism.”

“Why are you involving me?”

He stepped back and pointed to her house. “C’mon out here, Ms. Matthews.”

She realized what a fool thing it was to have come downstairs without her robe and slippers as she stood in the cold October morning, looking at the strange rune symbol painted on her pink house.

“What on earth?” She put her hands on her hips and looked at him.

“Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Until you realize the idiot was probably after Annie and her family.”

“What do you mean? How do you know that? Why Annie?”

“Your house number is six-ten. Hers is six-oh-one. It took me a while to think of that. But that has to be it,” he said, with a look of crushing concern.

Beatrice shivered. “C’mon in out of the cold, Bryant. Let me get you some coffee.”

Chapter 17

Every time Mike and the boys left the house on Mondays, Annie felt an onslaught of freedom and relief, tinged with a little guilt. Should she feel this happy because she had the whole house and the whole day to herself? She didn’t know what mess to tackle first, while her work called to her.

She straightened up the kitchen, always first, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, putting away all the cereal boxes and the milk and so on. She called Hannah Bowman, the young woman from the wake, who wasn’t at the bakery where she worked, so she left a message. Then she allowed herself to be drawn to the computer.

She looked up “runes.” A site all about runes—Runepedia—came up on her screen. Annie read over the first part and saw that Cookie was right. Germanic written languages used runic alphabets before adopting the Latin alphabet. As she read on, she was surprised to see that there were Scandinavian variants, known as “futharks,” the Anglo-Saxon term for which was “futhorcs.” She read on and learned that there was an actual study of runic alphabets called runology, which formed a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics.

Germanic linguistics?
Cookie didn’t mention that. Annie wondered if she could find an expert in Germanic linguistics who knew about runes. That way they could approach the symbols with some semblance of academic rigor and not rely on these New Agers, whom even Cookie greeted with suspicion.

As Annie read further, she saw that the earliest runic inscriptions dated from around AD 150. Runes were first replaced by Latin letters when a culture that used runes underwent Christianization by around AD 700. But people never really gave up using runes—they continued to use them for “special purposes” in Northern Europe. Then the term “special purposes” popped out at her several times.
What special purposes?
She read more. The three best-known runic alphabets were Elder Futhark (around 150 to 800 AD), Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400 to 1100 AD), and Younger Futhark (800 to 1100 AD). Younger Futhark was further divided into the long-branch runes.

Those further divisions were going to have to wait. Annie’s eyes were beginning to glaze over. Better get more coffee and a shower, and then maybe she could start making sense of this.

Just then the doorbell rang. She walked to the door, still in her threadbare sweatpants that she called pajamas and a long Redskins T-shirt. She looked through the peephole.
Detective Bryant and Beatrice. Oh, boy. The two of them together?
They were like oil and water.
This ought to be good.

She opened the door. “What’s going on?”

“Can we come in?” the detective asked.

She glanced around at her messy home. Toys on the couch. Clothes thrown over chairs. Papers from the school on the coffee table and kitchen table. She shrugged. “I guess.” She grabbed the papers off the kitchen table and placed them on the counter. “Sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”

“No,” Beatrice said. “I’m fine.”

“Me too,” Detective Bryant said.

“I need another cup,” Annie said, turning her back on them, then pouring the coffee. She paused to listen to the noise of it and breathed in the scent of it. Then she turned around and sat at the table.

“I told him that you need some guards,” said Beatrice.

“I’m not surprised,” Annie responded.

“I’m going to ask you again. Why won’t you let us at least have a car outside?” he asked.

“I just haven’t had the chance to think. I was on deadline. The place was full of commotion. You know that,” Annie said.

“That is in the past. Today is today, and I think you’re going to need someone watching over your home at least,” he replied.

“I think we are overreaching here. Must be a logical explanation for that phone call,” Annie insisted. “Maybe someone else from the police called. You know, one hand doesn’t often know what the other is doing around here. You have a lot of new guys on the force. And I’m beginning to think the phone call was, um, just imaginary.”

“Pretending it didn’t happen won’t make it so,” Beatrice said.

“Bea, I’m not a child. Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Then stop acting like one,” she snapped back. “It’s gotten more serious than you know. More personal.”

“What?”

“Early this morning one of the officers who was driving around town spotted a weird symbol painted on Beatrice’s house,” the detective said.

Annie’s stomach tightened. “Why Bea?”

“We figured that it was meant for you. They got the address confused,” Bryant said. He explained the similarity of the addresses.

Annie felt the breath leave her and tried to get some air.

“So, between the phone call and now this, I’m afraid that we are going to have to place you under watch . . . whether you want us to or not.”

Annie shot a look at Beatrice. Exactly what she didn’t need while she was working on this story—the Cumberland Creek police force under her feet.

“You know, other symbols, like the swastika, are painted in barns in Jenkins Hollow. You told me that it was just some kids being stupid, that it was nothing to worry about,” she said.

“Between you and me and Bea, I can tell you that there is something to worry about. I can’t tell you why. But you need to know this could be very dangerous for you and your family,” he said.

“These people are anti-Semitic?” Annie said weakly.

“Oh yes,” he said loudly. “But that’s only part of what they are.”

“Lord,” Beatrice said. “What’s wrong with people?”

“That is not your problem,” Bryant said. “We have everything under control.”

“Like hell you do,” Beatrice said. “There’s been two murders in this town recently. You have nothing under control. Nothing.”

“Did it ever occur to you that there might be even more murders if we didn’t have some control here?” he retorted.

Annie felt a chill travel up her spine, even as she held the hot coffee in her hands.

“Last time you two got your heads together, you almost got killed,” he said to Beatrice. “Now, personally, I don’t like either one of you. But I don’t want to see you dead.” He crossed his arms over his stomach.

“Mighty kind of you,” Beatrice said, while Annie was trying to keep breakfast down.

Chapter 18

Vera was on her way to pick up Elizabeth from Bill’s place when she saw the strange symbol painted in black on her mother’s pink Victorian house. Double take. She slammed on the brakes and pulled alongside the house, leaving the car running as she ran up to the patio, where Cookie was knocking on the door.

“I can’t get any answer,” Cookie said, her green eyes filled with worry. “The door is locked.”

Vera reached under the doormat and found the extra key—even though she had told her mother that this was an unwise place for it. She opened the door, and the two of them searched the house.

“She’s not here,” Vera said. “Where would she be?”

“We had plans to go to the craft show in Charlottesville today,” Cookie said. “She must have forgotten.”

“Maybe she’s at Annie’s,” Vera suggested, picking up the phone.

Sometimes it hurt Vera that her mother and Annie had gotten so close. She knew she’d never be as smart as either one of them, but damn, Beatrice was her mother. That ought to count for something.

“Hello, Annie?”

“Yes.”

“Is my mother there?”

“Yes.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“She’s fine,” Annie said. “We’re just having coffee and discussing the day’s events.”

“The day’s events? It’s only eight in the morning,” Vera said.

“Yes. Why don’t you come on over?”

“Will do,” Vera said and hung up.

The next thing Vera knew, Cookie was getting in the passenger side of the car. It wasn’t as if either one of them needed to ride the two blocks to Annie’s place. It was just that the car was convenient.

“Oh, bother,” Vera said, remembering that she needed to pick up Elizabeth.

“Give me your phone. I’ll call and tell him to meet us at Annie’s,” Cookie said when Vera explained her predicament.

“How weird to see a rune symbol on your mother’s house,” Cookie said after talking to Bill.

“Is that what that is? I don’t even want to know. All kinds of weirdness going on here these days. I just hope Mama’s okay.”

“I’m sure she’s fine if she’s with Annie.”

When they opened the door to Annie’s bungalow, the two were sitting at the computer and looked up like nothing was wrong.

“Goodness, Mama, you gave us a start!”

“Oh,” Beatrice said to Cookie. “I forgot about the craft fair.”

“I guess I can forgive that after seeing that huge thing painted on your house this morning,” Cookie said.

“What happened, and are you okay?” Vera said, rushing up to her mother and hugging her.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Can’t you see I’m fine? Stop fussing over me. I’m looking for a painter to come and paint over that damned monstrosity and the whole house while he’s at it,” Beatrice said.

Annie smiled weakly at Vera. Annie looked beautiful in her grungy clothes, without a stitch of make-up on. The always made-up Vera marveled silently at that.

“Oh, well, good. You need to get that taken care of ASAP,” Vera said. “Mama,” she added, holding up a brown paper bag, “I brought you some of the poppy seed rolls you like so much.”

“Oh,” Beatrice said, her eyes lighting up. “Let’s have some.”

Annie sliced a roll as each of them claimed their spot around the tiny table. A high chair still sat in the corner, even though Annie’s boys hadn’t used it in years. Her fridge was covered with drawings and memos. Cereal boxes had been haphazardly placed on top of the fridge.

“Oh my God, this is good,” said Cookie, taking another bite. “This is just the way they make it in Eastern Europe.”

“You’ve been there?” Annie said.

“Ah, um, yeah, I was, as a child,” she said, obviously a little uncomfortable talking about herself, as usual. “Where did you get this, Vera?”

“From a little neighborhood bakery in Brooklyn. I try to pick Mom up a roll or two when they have it,” Vera answered.

“I never had it before Vera brought it home. I’m quite taken with it,” Beatrice said. “I’ve only had poppy seeds in lemon poppy seed rolls. I understand you can make all kinds of things with it.”

“We ate poppy seed cake every year for the holidays,” Cookie said, grinning and suddenly looking like she was seven years old.

“Cake? Really?” Beatrice said.

Each of the women sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying her poppy seed roll and coffee.

“So, Mom, what are you doing at Annie’s? Why didn’t you call the cops?” Vera finally asked.

BOOK: Scrapped

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