If Onions Could Spring Leeks (4 page)

“See you there.” Roy gathered the few folders he'd brought with him as well as a toolbox I hadn't noticed he'd placed under the butcher block. It was an old rusted box pocked with dents. I'd seen it at the barn many times. As he lifted the box, the lid opened and two long wrenches fell to the ground, causing enough metallic clunking and clanging to make everyone jump.

“Sorry, folks. Sometimes the latch works, sometimes it doesn't. I really should get another one,” Roy said as he crouched to clean up the tools.

“Why in the world did you even bring it to our breakfast meeting, Roy? The noise was so loud I thought we were being attacked,” Lynn said.

The noise hadn't been quite that loud, but it had been startling.

“Sorry, Lynn,” Roy said distractedly. He was looking in the toolbox as if for something specific.

I was about to ask him what it was, but he suddenly closed the box, picked it up, and stuffed the whole thing under one arm before he hurried out of the kitchen.

Lynn watched him go as if she was expecting him to say something else to her, probably hoping for another apology. When he didn't offer anything else, she looked at me.

“Betts, what are we preparing tomorrow night?” she asked.

“I think we're frying some green beans. It's a simple but really good recipe,” I said.

“Frying green beans? No cheese? I thought all our dishes would include cheese. I can't imagine a more contradictory food item—frying something healthy like green beans. That makes no sense. Hopefully you and Miz will come up with something that will finally taste good enough to eat.”

“I hope so,” I said. I wasn't going to once again explain to Lynn that the name for the class was just for fun, but that not all vegetables truly needed cheese to taste good. Besides, doesn't frying anything make it taste better? But I refrained from going there.

Lynn tsked and then turned to leave. “Come along, Derek.”

Derek didn't ever apologize for his mother—either vocally or with shoulder shrugs or help-me glances. He just nodded and obediently followed behind her.

A moment later, the only ones left were Paul and me.

I quickly started picking up dishes and moving them to the sinks.

“Let me help,” Paul said as he reached for the same plate I was reaching for.

His hand lingered a little too long on mine.

“Sorry.” He smiled, pulled his hand away, and then reached for another dish.

I smiled briefly and continued to gather. Before long, we were at side-by-side sinks, rinsing and placing dishes into a dishwasher.

“Boy, that Lynn is something,” Paul said. “She's just never happy about anything.”

I gave a little shrug but didn't say anything, though not because I thought he was flirting. It wasn't wise to speak badly about any student, particularly with other students. Under the cover of darkness when Gram and I could confirm without a doubt that we were alone, we might have a bad word or two to say, but rarely.

After a pause that wasn't too uncomfortable, Paul said, “I hear Cliff was out of town this weekend.”

“Yes,” I said and then I wondered why I hadn't heard from him yet this morning.

I wasn't surprised that Paul knew that Cliff was out of town. If he'd seen Jake at all over the weekend it could have come up. It was kind of a big deal. The equipment Cliff was picking up was for Broken Rope's newest addition—its very own crime lab. Of course, the crime lab was going to be housed in a backroom space next to the ME's small office, a space that had just last week been used to store a bunch of nooses long ago packaged to sell to tourists. Apparently, the nooses had been far too real so tourists hadn't found them appealing. So, the “crime lab” was remedial at best, but it was a fresh start that was long overdue.

“He's really done well, Betts,” Paul said.

I stopped rinsing and loading and looked at him. He sounded genuine. “Yes, he has.”

“He's a good guy,” Paul said.

“Yes, very,” I said, now wondering where this was going.

“You know, I thought that once the two of you spent a little time together again, you'd get married quick, kid on the way, all that stuff.”

I was torn between wanting to defend my relationship with Cliff and wanting to tell Paul that he was beginning to dip his toe into that end of the pool that was none of his business. I was also tired of the strain that had come between Paul and me. It was ridiculous. We were all grown-ups.

“What's your point, Paul?” I said, getting to my own.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm just . . . well, Betts, let me just put my cards on the table.” He cringed, probably realizing how silly the cliché sounded. “Look, I've always admired your relationship with Cliff. It's really terrific. Or . . . well, or it used to be. I'm not seeing what looks like a big commitment and I'm not sure if it's you or Cliff, but if you feel like you don't belong together, I guess I'd just like to put my name up for consideration.” He blanched before he took another breath. “Oh man, that sounded absolutely awful. I'm sorry. Betts, I like you. I always have. It's pretty simple—I'd like to ask you out. If you're available to go out, that is.” Paul's shoulders slumped. “Holy cow, I sound like such a fool. Maybe we could just forget this conversation.” He smiled both sheepishly and hopefully at the same time.

“No, we can't forget it, Paul, but probably not for the reason you might think.”

Paul's clumsy declaration didn't embarrass me or make me feel uncomfortable about his feelings. In fact, I was glad to
have the words spoken aloud, floating out there in the universe instead of being bottled up and causing discomfort. But, I had questions. I was about to ask him to explain what he thought he'd seen. Why in the world had he interpreted things the way he had? For a moment of gut-wrenching frustration, I wanted to be on the outside looking in. I wanted to be able to objectively observe myself and whatever it was that I was doing to cause people to think I wasn't head-over-heels crazy in love with Cliff. How in the world could everyone not see what I so strongly thought I felt?

But my questions were interrupted by Gram and April reentering the kitchen. And then the scent of woodsmoke.

Gram and April were laughing together lightly. Whatever their conversation had been about, it had at least ended cordially.

As the smell of smoke filled the air, I abruptly pulled my attention away from Paul, Gram, and April, and twisted my neck back and forth in search of the ghost that went with the smoke. But there was no Jerome.

Gram noticed the smoke, too. She stopped laughing, sniffed, and then looked around the room. It was obvious that she didn't see him either.

“Hello, Miz, Isabelle,” Paul said.

But it wasn't Paul's voice. Well it was, but it wasn't spoken with the same tones and inflections.

“April, dear, it's been great to have this little talk,” Gram said as she grabbed April's arm and led her though the kitchen and out the front swinging doors. I knew she'd make sure April's car was well out of sight before she came back in.

I swallowed hard and whispered, “Jerome?”

Paul blinked and shook his head. “I'm sorry, Betts, what did you say?”

“Oh. You know, Paul,” I said, searching for the best way to continue as normally as possible. “I really appreciate your honesty. I've felt like there was something you wanted to tell me. It's good to know I wasn't imagining things. But, I have to add that Cliff and I aren't on the verge of breaking up. Perhaps what you've seen is just the fact that we're all older than we were in high school. Relationships should be different after thirty than they were when we were seventeen, shouldn't they?”

Paul nodded and then squinted, confusion pulling at his features. “Sure, but, Betts, I'm not sure that's what it is. Never mind, though; I've stated my case. Now you know. Broken Rope is just too small to avoid anyone, so I'm not going to. I'm sure that later when I replay this conversation in my mind, I'll be mortified, but I'm not going to avoid you or be weird about it.”

He was trying to convince himself that he was going to accept what he'd done. I stepped toward him and gave him a friendly hug. “Paul, we've been friends for a long time. There's no way I would let this get in the way of that. I promise.”

“Thanks, Betts,” he said with an embarrassed smile. Then he sniffed. “I smell smoke.”

“You do?” I said as I stepped back just as Gram came and rejoined us.

“I do.” Paul sniffed deeply. “Do you think something's burning?” He looked around the kitchen once again, searching for the source of the smell. “It's right here, I think. It's staying with me. But there's nothing here that could be burning. It's not an electrical smell so I don't think it's wiring in the walls. It's woodsy, like something from a campfire.”

“Maybe something from outside?” Gram offered.

“It's pretty warm out there,” Paul said. “But maybe. How strange.”

“Hmm. I don't know,” I said.

“You don't smell anything?” he asked.

“Not like what you're smelling. I might have caught a scent of something earlier, but nothing right now.” I didn't want Paul to think he was completely crazy. Perhaps my casual suggestion would make him think the smell was dissipating and didn't need further exploration.

“Strange,” Paul said again. He looked at me a long moment, and I thought I saw a slight and brief shift in the focus of his eyes and the way he held his mouth. It was so fleeting that I couldn't quite register it before he normalized again.

“Paul?” I said.

“Paul?” Gram said.

“I'm sorry. I need to go. I don't feel quite right.”

“You want me to take you home?” Gram said.

“No, I'll be fine. I just need to go.”

We followed Paul out to his car. He seemed less wobbly with the fresh air and sunshine, and by the time he pulled out of the parking lot, Gram and I both thought he'd be fine. We hoped so. Once we were alone, we silently and in tandem walked over to Jerome's tombstone and looked at it.

“What do you think that was?” I said.

“I have no idea,” Gram said. “No idea at all.”

“What did you say to April?”

“I'll tell you later. Right now, I need to talk to you about some other things. You still have time?”

“Of course,” I said, even though I was going to cut it very close. Roy would understand.

Gram looked around and then said a moment later, “Let's get inside.”

I followed her, but glanced back at the cemetery before I went through the front doors. I saw nothing but a cemetery, but a tingling under my skin told me I might not be seeing everything that was truly there.

“Betts, have you ever experienced anything like that?” Gram said after she finished giving me the gruesome details of the nightmares she'd been having.

“No, Gram, I've had bad dreams but nothing like those. I might have a theory about what's behind them though. It might be a stretch, but maybe.”

“I'm listening,” Gram said.

“I met two ghosts; haven't had a second to let you know. Anyway, one last night, one this morning. Grace and then Robert Findlay. They were in love with each other back in 1888. Ever met them?”

“I don't think so,” Gram said.

“That's what they said, but I wasn't sure.”

I relayed the details that I'd gleaned from the two ghosts, but I did it backward. First I told Robert's side of the story and then I told Grace's, explaining how I thought Gram's
nightmares about being the victim of a murder seemed like they could be similar to what Grace might have experienced. Gram said her nightmares were unusually loud, as if there were train whistles blowing right in her ears. She also mentioned that the brutality she experienced as she slept was uncomfortably close to the real thing. All of it: the fear, the pain, the horror.

“I suppose that could be it, Betts. In the crazy ghost messiness, it makes sense that I've been dreaming about Grace a week or so before her visit to Broken Rope even if I've never had such dreams before. And, last night, it was all much worse. If I'm . . . experiencing even a little of what she, or anyone for that matter, went through, it was awful. I'm sorry for her,” Gram said.

The shiny panic I'd seen in Gram's eyes had dimmed a little. Of course, we couldn't be sure that we'd figured out the reason for the dreams, but it was a distinct possibility, and that was better than nothing.

“You told me the details of the . . . well, the murder, I suppose. What did the killer or killers look like?” I asked.

“There were two of them, but what good is knowing what they looked like, particularly if they're from 1888? They aren't still living, and it's not like we can find anyone from back then based upon descriptions.”

“It might lead somewhere,” I said hopefully. “Maybe we can describe them to Grace and Robert so they'll at least know.”

“Of course. That makes sense.” She bit her bottom lip a second. “I have an idea. Call Cliff. I think he has a sketch artist now.”

“He does?” I said.

“Yes, part of the new crime lab. We'll start there and with
Jake. Maybe he has pictures of all the old train stations. Maybe we can at least narrow down where Grace was—and confirm that Robert was at the Broken Rope station,” Gram said, her senses realigning again, coming back to normal after being frantic from the telling of her nightmares.

“How are we going to explain to Cliff why we need the sketch artist?”

“Good point. I'm not sure yet, but I'll think about it. Okay, let's start with Jake. You'll talk to him today?”

“Yep, right after my Trigger shift.” I didn't look at the clock on my phone because I didn't want Gram to think I was anxious to get out of there, but I felt the pull to do so.

“Of course. I don't suppose missing the shift would be a fair thing to do to Roy. Okay, okay, this afternoon then. How's that?”

“Definitely.”

Gram nodded and bit her bottom lip again, but with much less ferocity this time.

“Before you go, should we talk more about Paul and how it seemed like something Jerome-ish was happening to him?” she said.

I shrugged. “I don't know what else there is to say. It was very weird, but Paul seemed okay by the time he left. Have you ever seen anything like that?”

“Never.”

“I haven't seen Jerome since the poetry convention. Have you?”

“Heavens, Betts, I would have told you. No, I would have called you immediately and told you to come get him. These ghosts.” She shook her head and sighed heavily. “You're right. Paul seemed okay. We'll go with that until something changes.”

“Gotta go,” I said. I hopped off the stool and gave her a
quick hug and a kiss on her cheek. She was better, much better, but still a little off. She'd bounce back.

I grabbed my bag from a shelf by the front swinging doors and hurried out of the school.

Without one backward glance I fired up the Nova and sped a little too quickly out of the parking lot.

Gram was suffering from ghost overload. I was sure there was such a thing, but finding a cure would be difficult.

Since I was also suffering from a little overload, or frustration, or just a sense of feeling late and rushed, I didn't notice that another smell had filled the air outside the school and cemetery.

It would register later that at some point during that day I had smelled something tangy, something akin to an onion but not quite as strong. It was certainly heady, but not enough to make eyes water. I just wouldn't be able to place exactly where I'd smelled it, and I would unconsciously file it away to the back of my mind.

•   •   •

Downtown was busy. It was still morning, but the tourists and the actors were out in force. Since the barn was behind Bunny's Restaurant, she'd allowed the Trigger drivers to park their cars in her small but conveniently located parking lot. I had to circle it three times before a space opened up.

“Hi, Betts,” a voice called from the front of the lot as I was running toward the back of it and a walking path that would take me to the barn.

I stutter stepped and turned to wave. Opie. My new “best friend,” and my brother's reignited love acquaintance. I
couldn't bring myself to use a stronger word than “acquaintance.” Opie and I had been enemies since we were kids. And when Cliff broke up with her in high school and then started dating me a less-than-polite time span later, she and I had really not liked each other.

But since she'd started dating Teddy—well, they'd had a brief breakup—but since they'd gotten back together, and Gram and I had been the ones to tell her that one of her ancestors was a semi-famous historical figure from Broken Rope, she had been doing everything in her power to be nice and friendly to me. Surely something heinous was being plotted, but she'd yet to follow through on any mean intentions.

“Hi!” I waved and smiled and then moved along quickly. She seemed okay with the fly-by greeting.

The barn was old, and had once housed real horses and real buggies that some of the town's residents had owned, sharing the space and the responsibilities for caring for the animals and the equipment. Jake had explained to me that it had been a unique operation and, according to some records that he'd found, had worked well for about a decade, after which some less-than-enthusiastic participants let things slip too much, so everyone had to go back to caring for only their own horses. The barn had been reinforced over the years and used to store different items. Just when it was about to be torn down for good, Roy jumped in and said he'd fix whatever needed fixing so he could use it for the Triggers.

The town council had approved, and since it was technically on Bunny's property she gave her okay, too. Roy had reinforced the structure of the building, and it looked okay, from a distance at least. It was still pretty old.

The front double doors of the barn could be opened wide,
wide enough to allow the Triggers to travel through. The doors were typically swung open because the barn had also become a tourist attraction, bringing a few curious people around Bunny's as well as down the paths in between the boardwalk buildings to see the goings-on inside. Roy had been a welcoming figure and he'd found a new small bit of fame with his summer role this year.

But at the moment the doors were closed. A couple reasons for this occurred to me. Maybe Roy had gotten hung up somewhere and hadn't made it to the barn yet, or maybe he was working on some top-secret addition for the Triggers and he didn't want to be bothered by curious tourists.

I pulled on the right door. No,
pull
was too delicate a word; I
heaved
the heavy right door open, using both hands and stepping backwards as I moved.

“Roy?” I called as I walked inside.

The barn was jam-packed. The three Trigger wagons fit snuggly next to one another, and there were pieces of equipment and worktables everywhere else. A number of coiled ropes hung from long nails that had been pounded into the wood-planked walls. The ropes had been there when Roy took over the barn. I asked him why he hadn't removed them, but he said there was some Broken Rope superstition about removing those particular ropes from their resting places. I'd never heard the superstition, but I was all for not messing with juju.

“Roy?” I called again.

Still no answer. Evidently, he hadn't arrived yet. But I'd seen him ready the Triggers enough times to know what I needed to do.

I stepped carefully around the machine at the end, which was Trigger One and the one I drove, and threw my bag into
the space below the driver's side of the bench seat. The machines had brakes, but Roy always placed bricks on each side of the wheels when they were parked. I had a faint memory of him working on some brakes recently, but I couldn't remember which Trigger had been involved or why. Everything looked fine so I picked up the first two bricks and carried them to a small table against the wall. I did the same with the next two bricks, but when I went back toward Trigger One to pull the bricks from another wheel, I stopped in my tracks. I was frozen solid, just like I'd heard happened to people when they came upon something that wasn't quite right. The scene before me was not only not right, it was horrifying and sickening.

After I unfroze myself, I hurried to the body on the ground. I had no thoughts of protecting evidence. I was merely trying to help the person who I quickly determined was beyond help.

“Derek!” I said as I tried without much success to roll his big body over.

“Derek!” I said again, but he still didn't answer.

There was no mistaking the vacant look in his eyes. He was dead. The side, top, and back of his head were covered in blood, but I couldn't see any specific wound through all the mess.

I was about to exclaim his name again, though I understood that he wasn't going to answer, when stars suddenly circled in front of my own eyes. A second later I realized there was pain to go with the stars. Someone had hit me on the back of my head. Before I passed out, thinking I was headed toward my own death, I managed to do two things: I eliminated Derek from the list of people who might have hit me, and I wondered if I'd maybe see Jerome after I
died.