Crowbones

CHAPTER 39

Grimshaw

Watersday, Novembros 3

Chief?” Osgood pushed the Hold button on the phone. “It’s Mr. Sanguinati for you.”

Ignoring Viktor’s wary look—the expression of a teenager wondering if he’d done something wrong and this was about him—Grimshaw took the call.

“I need to see you in my office,” Ilya said. “Now.”

Hearing controlled anger in the Sanguinati’s voice, Grimshaw figured the meeting with the mayor had not gone well. And he wondered if he should call the EMTs to see if Roundtree was suddenly suffering from acute anemia—or something worse.

“Mr. Farrow will be joining us,” Ilya added.

“I’ll be up in a minute.” He hung up, then looked at Osgood. “Anything I need to know about?”

“A complaint from Ellen C. Wilson about Pops Davies not serving customers whose account is overdue and whose last check bounced. He’s now requiring cash, which, apparently, is insulting to someone of her status.”

“She doesn’t have any status outside of being the village pest.” The woman seemed to have enough money when it suited her, but he didn’t think she did any work—unless her job was to harangue shop owners to see how long it would take them to ban a customer.

“Pops has made a countercomplaint about Mrs. Wilson’s son, Theodore, stuffing a few things in his pockets and bolting out the door while Mrs. Wilson badgered Pops,” Osgood continued. “And a couple of other people complained about Pops limiting some items and keeping some things behind the counter.”

“Did you get the names and addresses of the people who made those complaints?” Grimshaw asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Anyone we know besides Mrs. Wilson?”

Osgood shook his head. “Newcomers.”

The rookie made it sound like he’d lived in Sproing all his life when, in truth, he’d been transferred here during the troubles that past summer and was still living at the boardinghouse—and didn’t seem to be in any hurry to find his own place.

“Go over to the general store. If Pops wants to make a formal complaint about the shoplifting, you take his statement, and we’ll deal with it.” Grimshaw paused. “And see what he has to say about any other newcomers.” He remembered something else. “Did you ask Pops about selling bleach to Adam Fewks?”

Osgood nodded. “The name didn’t mean anything, but he recognized the picture from the student ID and confirmed that was the boy who purchased a bottle of bleach on Trickster afternoon. He thought it was an odd purchase for a boy that age, but he saw no reason to question it.”

That crossed another item off the list. They didn’t know what Fewks had thought he could do with the bleach in the moments before the terra indigene came hunting for him, but at least they had confirmed where he’d bought it in the village.

Grimshaw walked over to the desk with the computer.

“Am I in trouble?” Viktor asked.

“Can’t see how,” he replied. “Have you sent those e-mails out?”

“I sent the message to the ITF agents.”

“Hold off on the messages to the police until I find out what’s scratching at Ilya.”

Grimshaw stepped out of the station and almost collided with Mayor Roundtree.

“You have got to do something about . . . them,” Roundtree said, poking a finger at Grimshaw.

“No, I don’t,” Grimshaw replied. “My job is to handle human-against-human crimes and to stop any fools from antagonizing the Others to the point of starting another purge.”

Roundtree’s face turned an alarming shade of red. “You think you’ll get reelected with that attitude?”

“I wasn’t elected; I was hired. If Ilya Sanguinati decides I’m not doing my job, he’ll fire me. He’s the only one who can. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mayor, I’m going upstairs to find out what you said that pissed him off. And then, if you want, I’ll come to your office to hear your version of that meeting.”

“My version? My version? Who do you think you are?”

“I’m the chief of police, and you are one word away from being arrested for causing a public disturbance.”

Grimshaw waited while Roundtree did a passable imitation of a landed fish. Then he walked around the other man and went upstairs.

Well and truly pissed off, Grimshaw thought when he entered Ilya’s part of the office.

Ilya handed him a sheet of paper with “From the Mayor’s Office” as the heading. Must be the letter Roundtree’s office submitted for the next issue of the Sproing Weekly.

After reading Roundtree’s latest thoughts, Grimshaw understood why Ilya was angry. The letter was one long whining complaint about roads being closed and the terra indigene’s high-handed control of the village, which made law-abiding citizens too fearful to live and work in Sproing. Grimshaw figured Ilya would have filed that away for future reference when dealing with Roundtree and remain unruffled. But the Sanguinati’s leader wouldn’t shrug off the paragraph strongly hinting that Sproing’s troubles were mostly due to the current ownership of The Jumble.

“If Roundtree makes a move against Victoria, we will kill him,” Ilya said.

If that was Ilya’s conversation opener, every human in and around Sproing was in trouble.

Julian appeared in the doorway of Ilya’s office. “The village is starting to feel unhealthy. Cracked. And something is seeping in through those cracks.”

Crap. “Why here?” Grimshaw laid the letter facedown on Ilya’s desk. Then he looked at the other two men. “Why now?”

“Why is Roundtree trying to get people stirred up when last winter he was all about cooperating and everyone working together to get through the hard times?” Julian countered.

“Last winter he wasn’t dealing with us,” Ilya said. “Last winter he could pretend, or even believe, that everything that wasn’t human was Out There, not sitting in an office in the building next to the village government.”

And last winter, something the Others called a contamination hadn’t appeared in Sproing. Grimshaw took a seat, stretched his legs, and crossed them at the ankles—a deliberately relaxed position, even if he didn’t feel the least bit relaxed. “So, what did you and the mayor wrangle about?” he asked Ilya.

“Reopening the roads, among other things,” Ilya replied.

“Well, everyone wants the roads open, so that’s not a surprise,” Grimshaw said. “And I imagine Roundtree would like to pin the blame for this current trouble on someone who lives outside the village limits.”

Ilya gave him a sharp look. That letter had made it clear enough where Roundtree wanted to place the blame. Then the vampire flicked a look at Julian, confirming Grimshaw’s suspicion that the Sanguinati knew more about Julian Farrow’s past than he did—and didn’t want to aim Farrow toward Roundtree.

“It may have been a mistake to rent some of the cabins to colleges in the Finger Lakes without stipulating approval of the individuals who want to make use of that arrangement,” Ilya said. “Especially since we reduced the time on the leases to four months to accommodate the number of professionals who wanted a chance to have contact with the terra indigene.”

“You can’t preapprove Vicki’s guests or Ineke’s, and they’re more transient than professors coming to observe the terra indigene in order to write papers for academic journals,” Julian pointed out.

“The influx of new residents is now a concern,” Ilya said. “It didn’t seem within Silence Lodge’s duties to preapprove them either. Now it seems that knowing where those humans came from is vital to the village’s survival. Do you agree, Chief Grimshaw? Is the difference between new and settled residents the crack Mr. Farrow is sensing?”

“Could be,” Grimshaw agreed. “We certainly have a few people stirring up trouble within the human community. And those still-empty storefronts are becoming an itch I can’t scratch.” He looked at Ilya.

“None of the buildings that supposedly have new occupants belong to the Sanguinati,” Ilya said.

“Any chance of someone picking the locks, so to speak, and taking a look around the inside of those buildings?” Julian asked.

A flicker of amusement in Ilya’s dark eyes. “Mr. Farrow. Are you suggesting, in front of the chief of police, that the Sanguinati break a human law?”

“As long as you don’t set off a smoke alarm or write your name in the dust, how is the chief of police supposed to know?” Grimshaw asked dryly.

“I would prefer that human methods of gaining information about the occupants be employed first,” Ilya replied, his voice equally dry.

Not angry anymore, Grimshaw thought, watching Ilya. Still pissed off, sure, but there’s not that smoldering anger that could turn into a flash fire of violence.

Julian cleared his throat. “You should both know that some of my customers are going to The Jumble this evening to do their weekly book exchange.”

Grimshaw felt his heart beating. “Which customers?”

A hesitation before Julian looked at Ilya. “The Five who come at dusk.”

Ilya hissed, showing his fangs.

“Those five?” Grimshaw asked quietly. “Why?”

“A compromise—and a gamble,” Julian said. “I thought it would be safer for everyone if the Five didn’t come into the village right now. Conan and Cougar will make sure none of Vicki’s guests cause trouble. The Five only want to deal with the Reader.”

Silence.

Grimshaw focused on breathing and tried not to think about those voices in the dark. Moooonkey man.

“Vicki can handle it,” Julian said. “Gods, she survived the Elders who live in the lake, so she can supervise the exchange of used books.”

Was Julian trying to convince them or himself? Grimshaw wondered. Then he said, “Vicki will be fine. They’re female, aren’t they? Other females don’t trigger her anxiety attacks, so as long as the guests can be corralled for the time your customers are browsing, everyone will be fine.”

The men agreed on a plan. Julian would close early as he had intended to do and head over to The Jumble to be on hand if Vicki needed assistance. He would take Karol and Viktor with him and make sure they were safely tucked in with Vicki’s employees before the Five showed up. Grimshaw would talk to some of the owners of existing businesses and see what he could find out about the newcomers. Since Ilya had sent Boris home because he’d planned to be at his office most of the day, Grimshaw agreed to drop Ilya at The Jumble before heading home.

He doubted any of them would get any rest, let alone sleep, that night. There was no way to tell where trouble would strike next, but he figured between the three of them and Osgood, one of them wouldn’t be too far away from the next body.