Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Alexandru
The drive to Lindenfield, another suburb of Cleveland, takes just under an hour. Razor Johnny’s mother manages a grocery store named Giant Eagle there.
Giant Eagle sits in a “strip mall” between a drugstore and place devoted entirely to the decoration of women’s nails, if Ms. Renfield is to be believed.
Constant beeps emanate from contraptions up front, and the whole place hums with unseen machinery. There are a startling number of babies in here as well, judging from the wailing sounds. All in all, decidedly hellish.
Ms. Renfield pauses near a checkout stand, straightening her jacket.
“What are we waiting for?” I ask impatiently.
“I’m getting up my nerve,” she says.
“Razor Johnny’s mother agreed to speak with us, did she not?” It was Ms. Renfield’s idea to ask her if Johnny had enemies, and to determine whether the state fair booth detail is significant.
“Still.” Ms. Renfield approaches a young woman in a green apron and inquires after Mrs. Kennison.
We are directed to a door marked “Employees Only.” We find Razor Johnny’s mother in a small office cluttered with papers.
She is a stout woman in her sixties, steel-gray hair pulled back, glasses perched on her head.
Her green shirt bears the store’s eagle insignia.
“You’re the folks who called about Johnny.”
“Thank you for seeing us,” Ms. Renfield says. “We’re so, so sorry for your loss.”
Johnny’s mother gestures wearily to two plastic chairs. “Sit if you want. I’ve got ten minutes before I’m back out on the floor.”
We sit.
Ms. Renfield folds her hands in her lap. “We’re looking into your son’s death. Privately. Not connected to the police.”
“I figured as much. You don’t look like cops.” Her gaze slides to me. “Do you… have a podcast or something? Is that what this is?”
“We’re interested in seeing this solved,” Ms. Renfield says.
She’s staring at my gloves. “Are you a movie star from England or something?”
“Just a concerned neighbor from Ashwood,” Ms. Renfield says. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your son? Anyone who had a grudge against him?”
“I’ll tell you what I told the cops: Johnny never talked about any enemies or people wanting to hurt him.
Johnny wasn’t the kind of man people wanted to hurt, I can promise you that.
” She rubs the bridge of her nose. “I know how people saw him what with the motorcycle gang and all. But he wasn’t like that.
He just wanted so badly to be cool. Fighting and all that.
To have girls look at him and think he was somebody. ”
“Did he ever mention Dooley Brogan?” Ms. Renfield asks.
“Never heard of him until it was all over the news. Do you think he did it? The police let him go.”
“We’re going to find out,” I assure her.
“Okay. Well… I don’t know what help I can be.
Johnny worked at an auto parts warehouse.
He came by for dinner every month or so.
Loved my meatloaf. I’d cook extra to send home with him.
” She looks down, and I fear she might cry, but she collects herself bravely.
“Lord knows he made mistakes, but he always had a kind word and...” She heaves a sigh.
Ms. Renfield looks genuinely sympathetic. “I’m so sorry. He was too young.”
The mother nods.
Ms. Renfield leans forward. “This might seem like an odd question, but do you remember having a booth at the county fair back in 2007?”
The woman blinks. “The county fair?”
“Your family and the Brogan family both had booths there. Right next to each other.”
“The county fair? In 2007?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Ms. Renfield says.
“Well, I used to make earrings, and I’d do fairs now and then. Feathers and beads and all that. You’re telling me the Brogans had a booth by me? It doesn’t stick out as anything I recall…”
“So you don’t remember meeting the Brogans during the fair? Or any weirdness with them?”
“I wasn’t aware I ever even met a Brogan, but if you say we were at the fair…” She looks bewildered.
“Likely just random,” Ms. Renfield says. We thank her for her time and make our way back through the fluorescent labyrinth. I pull my hat down as the electronic doors admit us to the dreadfully sunny parking lot.
We get into the car, but Ms. Renfield does not start the engine. “That was a whole lot of nothing.”
“Indeed.”
“So Dooley Brogan randomly killed that poor guy or somebody else is trying to frame him.”
I’m barely listening. The mother’s words keep circling back to me. He just wanted so badly to be cool. Fighting and all that. To have girls look at him and think he was somebody.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it: the training yard behind the castle, the smell of dust and horses. The cool weight of a sword in my hand and the warm sun on my cheeks.
And Elisabeta watching from the gallery above, dark hair loose over her shoulders. How hard I fought when she watched. Showing off. Desperate for her regard.
I feel Ms. Renfield watching me. “You all right? You got quiet.”
“This investigation becomes tedious.”
“We’ll figure it out. Let’s see if Hardware Sam knows anything new when they open tomorrow.” She starts the car and we pull out of the parking lot, leaving the Giant Eagle behind.
Village men sit on chairs outside Hardware Sam’s the next morning, paper coffee cups in hand, speaking in low voices. Ms. Renfield greets them brightly; even so, they are wary as we pass.
The store smells of sawdust and metal inside. A peasant pretends to be examining a package of lightbulbs but is in fact staring at me over the top of it. Truly. Even kittens know better than to gaze upon predators.
I greet Hardware Sam, a lanky man of perhaps seventy with leathery skin—a farmer once, by the look of him. Or perhaps he once drove a supply wagon.
Ms. Renfield grins at him. “I hear the police have been reaching out to every sporting goods store in the western hemisphere to find out who purchased that bolt that killed Razor Johnny.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Good luck with that. No murderer worth his salt’s gonna buy something like that with anything but cash, and he’ll go out of the region to do it. Or better yet, order it online.”
“Oh, right,” Ms. Renfield says. “You could order those things from anywhere in the world.”
Pilar gazes adoringly at her mate. “Sam and the guys have been laughing about that.”
“I think our boys in blue enjoy a little road trip around Ohio on a nice May afternoon, that’s what I think,” Sam says.
Bored now, I stroll around the store. The axe handles are of decent quality. The chains are sturdy. One could do worse for supplies, should certain needs arise.
Hardware Sam comes up next to me. “So who do you have doing your handyman stuff up there at Kingston Manor, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t mind in the least,” I say. “My underling, Gregor, attends to the building.”
“Underling.” Sam laughs uncomfortably. “Well, if you ever need a specialist of any sort, I’d be happy to give you reliable referrals—electricians, plumbers, all licensed and bonded.”
“Gregor sees to such matters. There is very little he cannot master.” I pick up an octagonal metal item and turn it in the light. “He once repaired a collapsed wine cellar while three of his ribs were still knitting themselves back together.”
Sam blinks, as if he cannot discern my meaning. “Okay. That’s...impressive. But some of these older buildings have tricky wiring. Electricity’s no joke. Your man could get quite a shock if he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Knocked flat on his back or worse.”
I put back the octagonal item. “Could such a shock kill him?”
Sam frowns. “Not usually, but it’s possible.”
I wave my hand. “Gregor will be fine. He has an excellent constitution. He once fell from a battlement and was walking again within the week. More like dragging himself around, actually, but it did not seem to hamper him.”
Sam’s pulse kicks up—a bright spike of alarm—and then he begins to laugh. “Okay, okay, I get it. Message received. Your man’s got it under control through thick and thin.”
Pilar emerges from a nearby door marked “staff” with a tray of pastries. “Hot cross minis?”
Ms. Renfield is suddenly by my side. “We’re saving ourselves for lunch.”
“Your loss.” Pilar ferries her tray out to the front, where the men sit talking. Ms. Renfield once told me that Pilar brings those pastries out at unpredictable intervals, just often enough to keep the townsfolk lingering, the gossip flowing. Clever woman. It is the same principle as a slop trough.
“So, did you hear anything else interesting?” Ms. Renfield asks.
Sam touches the side of his nose. “The police have an unusually open channel with the Snag Tooth Riders. They’re promising to share any findings with those folks, trying to get a jump on extracurricular vigilantism, if you know what I mean.”
“The police do not look kindly on that,” Ms. Renfield says.
“There’s something else…” Sam hesitates, serious now. “I talked to my mother on Sunday. She says she remembered something new. I don’t know if it’s anything. It might not be. You know her.”
Everything in Ms. Renfield suddenly and quite mysteriously changes. Her pulse pounds furiously. Grief and dread roll off of her in waves.
“Is this about the Crossbow Killer?” I ask.
Hardware Sam and Ms. Renfield exchange glances. There is much they are not saying.
“Just a cold case.” Ms. Renfield lies. “A thing from a long time ago.”
“Hey.” Sam snaps his fingers and turns to me. “Have you given any more thought to joining in on the men’s poker game?”
I straighten. This peasant would try to distract me? “I would prefer to hear about this cold case.”
“It’s not important,” Ms. Renfield insists.
I do not like this one bit. I turn to Hardware Sam. “This would be the poker game attended by Maverick Cooper and Derek Van Pelt the teacher?”
Sam smiles. “Them and a revolving cast of guys. Very low stakes. Get me your contact info and I’ll send you the details. We’d love to have you.”
“I look forward to it.”
“What is this cold case that troubles you so?” I demand as we head back down the walkway.
“You know me,” Ms. Renfield says. “Always trying to find people for my overlord to drain.”
“You are hiding something.”
She unlocks her car. “I think your vampire senses are on overdrive.”
I get in and turn to her, letting a bit of ice creep into my voice. “I am not one of your village friends to be managed and deflected.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m well aware of that,” she says.
“I await an explanation.”
“Guess you’ll be awaiting awhile.” With that, she simply starts the car.
I know that tone. She will brook no further argument. I am thwarted. Genuinely, thoroughly thwarted, a sensation I have not experienced since before the Mongols burned the Carpathian Valley.
Thwarted by a human who should, by all rights, be kneeling at my feet.
It is intolerable.
I would have thrown her father into a dungeon for such impertinence. Three days in the darkness counting grains of rice tended to correct his behavior. I should consign her to the same fate.
The idea sits ill with me.
She would not break anyway.
I gaze out at the maddeningly quaint homes we pass on the way up to Bluff Road. The stupid geese with their mocking eyes. No Renfield has ever infuriated me so.
But then, that is not true.
The vision comes to me unbidden—Elisabeta draped in rubies and silk, looking down at me, eyes flashing in the torchlight.
“Tread carefully, little Renfield.”
Ms. Renfield goes straight to her office, and I retire to my library.
The book I am reading, an account of equestrian practices in the 1700s, does not hold my attention in the least. I cast it aside and look for another, but I cannot banish the frustration this Renfield causes me.
I finally settle into my chair with a book of maps. I set to studying the lines, losing myself in memories of long past battles and hunts.
Gregor scuttles in to tend the fire. I watch him labor, a pathetic figure in front of the grand green marble surround.
The admittedly magnificent stonework is one of the finest original architectural features in this old house.
The marble had been plastered over some decades ago; the workers who toiled to restore this home informed me that this is what saved it from being vandalized by the hordes of squatters and marauding teenagers who dwelt here during its decrepitude.
Gregor pokes at the logs, attempting to arrange them in a pleasing way, hair clasped at the nape of his neck as it has been since he turned up at my door all those years ago.
I sit back and tune into the sounds of the mansion, mapping the slight groan of roof beams settling in the midmorning sun.
A squirrel traversing the roof. The scratch of a beetle in the wainscoting.
The ticktock of the foyer clock and the faint whir of the mechanical motion behind its casing.
Wind stirs the trees along the bluff and the town beyond gives off a distinct hum.
And then:
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch-crunch-crunch.
Crunching. Cutting through it all.
Harriet.
Eating Bugles.
Crunch. Crunch. Tap tap. This is the sound of her working away in the south wing.
“Anything else you wish, overlord?” Gregor asks expectantly.
Annoyance spikes through me. These two underlings of mine truly are infuriating.
“Those Bugle corn chips of hers are an infernal breakfast food,” I say. “I will not have my Renfield dying of scurvy or some such thing. You bring her an apple.”
“Shall I inform her that you have instructed her to eat it?”
“No. You will carve the apple into a pleasing shape and then set it upon her desk. An untouched apple she might ignore, but an apple cut up specifically for her in a pleasing shape… She will not ignore that.”
“Yes, overlord.”
“You will hand-roll the pasta. Bring out your eyeglass and fashion each piece into a hawk—the hawk upon the crest of House Miramonte.”
“Yes, overlord,” Gregor says.
“You will once again mill grains from which you will bake bread, and you will hand-churn the butter, this time without making a dramatic show of it to Ms. Renfield, are we clear?”
“I have but eight hours. I am not sure I can accomplish these things, overlord. The pasta fashioning alone…”
“Am I to understand that you would rather languish in the cistern?”
“I will get right to work.” With that, Gregor backs out of the room.
My enemy and once friend, Algernon a.k.a. Nero, would kill them both without a second thought. But then, Nero has no moral fiber whatsoever. No sense of propriety.