“Ed Warner wants me down at the station.”
Zoe stood in their living room the next morning dressed in a jumbled outfit straight from the children’s department of a whimsical boutique: colorful animals on the shirt and trees on the mismatched shorts that fell below her knees. Her wild, uncombed hair was held back by a pink headband.
Zoe’s outfit might’ve been colorful, but her face was dead white.
“I can’t go alone.” The words were a moan. “And I can’t ask you, Dora.”
“Calm down, dear,” Dora bent to put her arm around the little woman, almost burying Zoe’s head against her breast. Dora stepped back. “Why can’t you ask me? You haven’t done anything. I’d be happy to go with you.”
“I wouldn’t put you through it.”
Dora sputtered, but Zoe looked toward Jenny. “Could you go?” she asked. “I smell the guillotine.”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Michigan doesn’t have the death penalty, nor a guillotine.”
“You know what I mean. The first thing Ed Warner will say will be, ‘Off with her head.’ That’s what anyone would say.”
Jenny lowered her voice to a big-dog growl. “Cut it out, Zoe. You pull that stuff in front of the police chief and you’ll end up confined forever.”
Zoe had the good grace to blush. “Sorry. A bad habit. I blame Lewis Carroll. I think he gets a hold of a person’s mind and . . .”
Jenny gave her an exasperated look. “If you want me to go out in public with you, the quoting and the living a fairy tale stuff will have to stop. Understand?”
Zoe’s head drooped. She nodded. “I’ll try my best,” she promised.
Jenny took a deep breath, certain the victory would be short-lived. “Now, why does he want to see you?”
“He didn’t say.” Her voice was small.
“Okay. When does he want to see you?”
“Now. As soon as I can make it.”
“May I get dressed first?” Jenny motioned to her mismatched pajamas.
Zoe nodded. “Maybe it’s about the hatchet. I looked in my shed. Mine is still there. So it can’t be that one.”
“Let’s get to the station and find out.”
“Maybe he only needs a gardening tip or two. You have such a lovely garden,” Dora said, nodding and smiling now, hoping she’d solved the riddle of a policeman wanting to see Zoe.
Jenny threw on the clothes she’d worn the day before. Her long hair took all of thirty seconds to brush. Lipstick. Sandals from under her bed.
She drove her car because Zoe was too nervous, especially if she had to use the elevated pedals that were on hers. She swore she’d fall right off of them—she was that shaky.
The station was at the far end of Oak Street, a block beyond the old Cane mansion where Adam and Aaron’s sister, Abigail, lived alone in her big house, except for the people who worked there.
The house, the grandest in Bear Falls, sat atop a grassy mound—tall and rigid, built of solid limestone blocks. It stood beneath a canopy of old maples. The manicured yard bloomed with crabapples and mock orange, all surrounded by a black wrought iron fence. An arch of the same wrought iron stood above the front gate. The ornate, entwined leaves of the arch spelled out “Cane.”
“I’ve always detested that house,” Jenny said. “Looks like something out of a horror movie.”
Zoe shivered. “Citizen Kane.”
“Abigail must know Adam’s dead by now. I wonder what she’ll do about a funeral.”
“Humph. Throw him in the lake, I imagine. Might as well do him in all the way. Treated him badly when he was alive, I heard. Her own brother.”
“Brothers,” Jenny corrected. “She was like that to both of them. Aaron is the younger one. Both somewhere in their late sixties, older than Abigail. Before their father died, they got along okay. That’s what my mother said. I never heard much about it. Whole different generation.”
“I wonder if Aaron knows about Adam yet. He lives out in the woods somewhere, doesn’t he?”
“Abigail must have told him,” Jenny said as she pulled into the police station parking lot. “Ed Warner, if nobody else. Maybe Ed should think about that brother first when he looks for a killer. Kind of biblical: Cane and Abel. Or Cane and Cane.”
“Yup.” Zoe thumped her hands in her lap. “His brother could’ve done it to him. Or maybe Abigail. She’s maybe sixty-six or seven, only a little younger than the boys. But what she would be doing in my backyard at night, I can’t imagine. Still, anyone’s better than me.”
The red brick building bore the discrete sign “Bear Falls Police Department” affixed to one of the heavy oak doors. Jenny let Zoe go in first, waiting for the little woman to straighten her colorful top and set her shoulders straight.
***
Ed Warner, head bobbing to one side, said no when Jenny asked if she could come into his office with Zoe.
“You wait out here.” He gestured to a row of wooden chairs along one wall. “I’ll talk to you when I’m through with her.”
“She’s very nervous . . . alone,” Jenny made the mistake of saying.
Ed narrowed his eyes, first at Jenny and then at Zoe. “What’s got you so nervous, Ms. Zola? If you don’t have anything to hide, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”
Zoe gave Jenny a “they’re going to fry me for sure” look over her shoulder and followed the chief back to his office. Jenny sat and crossed her hands in her lap.
And waited.
A very long hour later, during which Jenny got madder and madder, they were back, with Zoe leading the way, face blank. She hurried to Jenny, putting her small hands out.
She whispered, in a stunned voice, “He says he’s got evidence. He told me not to leave town. Oh, how I wish I had a place to hide.”
The chief bent toward Jenny. “Could you come on back for a minute? Just have a question or two about the hatchet.”
Zoe worked her way up into a chair, feet not reaching the ground, and said she’d wait right there. Jenny followed Ed Warner to a large, utilitarian office with file cases lined along two walls. She took the only chair, other than the desk chair, that was in the room.
“Zoe didn’t do anything to anybody, you know.” She sat forward, signaling she wasn’t staying long.
Ed settled slowly in his chair. He sighed and gave her a rueful look.
“Don’t know much of anything yet. Got a ways to go, I’d say.” He cleared his throat and opened the folder in front of him. “You found the body. What would you say happened?”
She shrugged. “I know Zoe didn’t kill him. First of all, can you see her swinging that hoe and striking the back of Adam’s head?”
“Remember, he fell over a trip wire first. The man was flat on the ground. Anybody could’ve gotten him.” He leaned back, entwined his hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling. “And who else could have put that wire in her garden?”
He leaned forward to hit the floor with the legs of his chair. “But first of all, as I said before, it’s good to see you, Jenny. Been a long time. How’re you finding things back here?”
“To tell you the truth, Ed, not too good.”
He chuckled. “I understand that well enough.”
She asked about his wife, Milly Sienkievitz, and how his kids were doing. There was no rushing talk of murder, not when old friends met.
Ed launched into a five-minute monologue on his son, Wally, and his football prowess. Then there was another five minutes on Rebecca, his youngest, who was a math whiz.
Jenny answered questions about living in Chicago and then, after the proper interlude, they got down to business.
“Why did you tell Zoe not to leave town?” Jenny asked. “Sounds to me like you’re suspicious of her.”
He pulled his smile down slowly and shook his head. “Standard thing to say. I don’t want her gone until I find out for sure what happened to Adam Cane.”
Ed’s voice was slow and deliberate. “Ya know, Adam was threatening that dog of hers. Hated the dog. No reason in particular except Adam hated a lot of things.”
“Like what? Maybe that’s where you’ll find the killer.”
“Like his sister and his brother, Abigail and Aaron. Like just about every neighbor he ever had—except maybe your mom. Always said what a fine woman Dora Weston was. Talked a lot about your dad. Blamed us for not catching the guy who left him to die like that. But that’s about the only thing Adam ever felt bad about.”
“What happened when you told his sister he was dead?”
“You know Abigail. Didn’t say much. Shook her head and asked if she could see him.”
“See him? Isn’t that strange? After all the years they’ve lived in the same town and never bothered to see each other?”
“I thought it was, but the Canes are like that. Long as I can remember. All over the money. Just teaches you not to go thirsting after gold. Comes back to bite you in the—”
He cleared his throat and sat thinking. “That little friend of yours out there’s got quite a mind for investigation. She asked me about fingerprints on the metal stakes that held the trip wire. We had ’em tested in Traverse City. Told her nothing on ’em. Asked about the shoe print on the one book.” He shook his head. “Forensics lifted it, but it’s a kind of ordinary shoe. Big though. More like a boot than a tennis shoe or anything like that. Guess your friend is cleared on the library thing, what with those little feet of hers. Then she wanted to know if I talked to the other neighbors, see if any of them had a problem with your mom’s library. Said there must be some connection—two crimes like that within a day of each other. She talk to you about that?”
Jenny shook her head, then asked, “What about Adam’s brother, Aaron? Does he know his older brother is dead?”
“Couldn’t find him. Went out to that little house of his. Had a devil of a time finding it, too. He wasn’t there. Knocked for five minutes. I’ll try again later. Can’t quite imagine Aaron killing him though. Aaron was the small one. Kind of timid. Bet if he tried anything, Adam would’ve knocked him cold.”
“Think about the way it was done, Ed. Adam was a target, stretched out on the ground. You told Zoe even she could’ve killed him that way. Same goes for Aaron.”
Jenny got up, but he stopped her.
“About that hatchet you found at Adam’s . . . Shouldn’t have touched it, you know. Fingerprints. Now the only prints we’ll get off of it are yours.”
She winced.
“I know you’re worried about your friend.” He shook his head.
“Not exactly a bosom buddy. I just met her.”
“Well, whatever. I know you don’t think she had anything to do with Adam’s death, but I just don’t see anybody else.”
She almost laughed at Ed. “Come on now. You take Zoe for a crazed criminal?”
“Seen stranger things.”
He reached into the top desk drawer and pulled out a large glassine sheet, laid it on the desk, then pushed it to Jenny. She immediately felt tricked by her laid-back classmate. When she turned the sheet around, she saw it was a letter. Typed.
“We found this in Adam Cane’s house,” Ed said, watching her closely. “Now you tell me what I should be thinking about your neighbor.”
She read,
Mr. Cane,
I found an axe in my shed carved with WS, for your neighbor, Warren Schuler, along with pieces of the broken library wedged in the handle. That proves you had nothing to do with destroying Dora Weston’s Little Library. You come over tomorrow morning—just about dawn so nobody sees you. Wouldn’t want more trouble for you. I left the axe in my shed, on a shelf, because I don’t want anything to do with it and I wouldn’t want the police chief thinking it was funny I found it. Be happy to have you take it to the police chief yourself and clear your name once and for all. In return, I hope you’ll lay off my dog. And I’ll do my best to stop her from urinating on your front lawn.
Jenny looked up, in disbelief. “It’s typed. Anybody could have done that.”
“Who’d want to make a deal for Zoe’s dog but Zoe?”
“Come on! This is a setup.” Jenny was angry. “Everybody in this town knows the problems Zoe had with Adam Cane. I hope you aren’t taking that seriously.” She gestured toward the paper. “And Warren Schuler? Sorry, I can’t see Mr. Schuler out there in the middle of the night whacking my mother’s library with an axe. Lucky if he can find his way up and down his own steps. Did you find that axe? The one that’s supposed to belong to Warren Schuler?”
He shook his head. “But Ms. Zola was the first one who thought it was an axe used on the library. How’d she know that?”
“Even you said that’s what it was.”
He gave a slight shrug.
“This letter’s only a ploy to make Zoe look guilty. You talk to Mr. Schuler?”
“Just got back. Said he was down to Traverse City. Spent the night the library was destroyed with his son. I called his son on the way back here. Said his dad was there all right, too drunk to drive. And he never saw an axe with his dad’s initials on it.”
He reached back and scratched hard at his neck. “So you see, doesn’t look too good for your little friend.”
Exhausted from trying to follow Ed’s logic all over the place, Jenny stood to leave. “Chief, listen, your killer left that note for Adam. I’ll agree with you there. But it wasn’t Zoe Zola. First of all, it would have been better written. Second, she never would’ve said ‘urinating.’ Zoe’s a lot more direct than that. Third, none of that’s true. She doesn’t know who destroyed the library, and you said there was nothing in her shed for Adam to get.” She threw up her hands. “You believe anything you want to believe. I know she can be a big pain in the neck, but I won’t stand around while you take the easy way out and arrest Zoe for something she didn’t do. I’m not crazy about her, I’ll admit that, but I’ll get her a lawyer if I have to.”
He stood slowly, unfolding and stretching. His eyes were hard on her. “Not planning on getting in my way, are you, Jenny? I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Red faced, Jenny looked back from the doorway. “I’m going to do whatever it takes, Ed. Charging Zoe would be crazy.”
“Suit yourself. Maybe I should go a little slow. But one thing I’m not going to stand for is interference on this.” He raised his eyebrows. “You want to think hard about that before you give me ultimatums.”
Jenny’s mouth dropped. Had she just been threatened?
In the small lobby of the station, Jenny motioned to Zoe, sitting on the edge of her chair, to follow her out of there. They had things to do, and warning or not, Jenny was going to see that Zoe didn’t get railroaded just because somebody was outsmarting the chief.