Chapter 16 #2
Ms. Angela scoffed. “And what makes you think you can have that?” Her tone was icy and firm, but Katherine thought she spied a twitch in the corner of one eye, as if the woman hoped they didn’t know what she thought they might. Katherine smiled inwardly.
“Because we know what’s really going on there,” Mrs. Chrysler said.
Twitch. Twitch, twitch. That’s it, Katherine thought. They had her.
“And we think there are some trolls up in the Stinky Mountains who would be very interested to hear about it.”
The twitching stopped. Ms. Angela crossed her arms across her chest under her umbrella. “Really?”
“Yes. Show it to her,” Mrs. Chrysler directed Katherine, and from her bag she withdrew the lump of plop, holding it high for Ms. Angela to see. The stink of it carried on the wind, making its identity unmistakable.
Ms. Angela’s reaction was inscrutable, and Katherine frowned. “It’s not Stinky Mountains plop!” she shouted. “The record we took from Merchants Lane, Imogene. Let’s show that to her too.”
Mrs. Chrysler withdrew from her bag the ledger page with Angelo’s signature and held it up. Now the woman’s eyes opened wider, and Katherine grinned.
“We know you’ve been mining plop from the Eagle Heights development in secret,” Mrs. Chrysler shouted.
“We know you’ve been shipping it out in caskets and profiting handsomely.
And we know that all of the plop trade is controlled by a Stinky Mountain troll cartel, who really wouldn’t like it if someone were cutting into their business, you know.
So, if you want us to keep quiet about it, you will forfeit the retirement home and the rest of the property to us. ”
Ms. Angela stood in silence a beat, and Katherine began inwardly practicing the next stage of the negotiation, the timeline and terms of the surrender of Eagle Heights.
“Is that all?” the woman finally asked, her voice cool. Katherine shifted her weight uneasily.
Ms. Angela patted her towering hair, scoffed with a cruel smile, and addressed her driver over her shoulder, “I thought they actually had something.”
Katherine’s confidence sank right through the stonework beneath her feet. What was going on here?
Ms. Angela turned her eyes back to the bridge. “You, ladies, are wasting my time. And you”—she pointed at Ruben, then down at her own feet—“are coming back with me. And I am going to make sure that you never put another toe out of line again. Now get over here.”
Mrs. Chrysler and Katherine stood more closely together in front of Ruben, shock morphing into defiance.
“You’re bluffing!” Mrs. Chrysler said.
“Am I?” Ms. Angela turned to the driver again with smug satisfaction.
“Am I bluffing? Do you think?” The driver, clearly uncomfortable, shook his head vigorously and shrank further under his tricorn.
Ms. Angela took another step forward onto the bridge.
“Who do you think I’ve been supplying, you nincompoops?
” This woman really seemed to love that insult, Katherine noted with incredulity.
“The Stinky Mountain seam has been faltering for years. Talk to the trolls. I dare you. I’m sure they’d have more than a few things to say to you, if you go blabbing that the product they’re selling doesn’t come from their mines. ”
Shocked and infuriated, Katherine clenched her jaw. Next to her, Mrs. Chrysler stood frozen.
“You’re lying!” Ruben burst over Katherine’s shoulder.
Ms. Angela eyed him coolly. “I’m not.” She jerked her chin toward the carriage. “Now, let’s go.” She turned to leave, obviously confident that he would follow. The rain began to pick up again.
Mrs. Chrysler stepped forward, her shock and embarrassment finally catching up and transmuting to rage. Katherine noticed the ledger sheet was still clenched in her fist. “If you’re not worried about the plop, then why did you respond to our note? Why did you meet us here?” she charged angrily.
Ms. Angela turned to face them, both eyes narrowed to contemptuous slits. “If you don’t know, I am certainly not going to tell you.”
Katherine advanced, catching up with her friend. Her Elvish boots crunched easily through the undergrowth, helping to steady her gait, if not her nerves. “Then there is something more you’re hiding,” she said. “We found out about the plop. You can bet we will learn whatever else there is too!”
“Really?” Ms. Angela said with mock concern.
Her face hardened into a determined grimace.
“So you’re all troublemakers, are you? Don’t know when to quit?
Well, I can make trouble too. The trolls will be hearing from me about you.
Today. They’ll use their connections to find out who you are.
And by the time we’re finished with you, you won’t have a bit to your name, a roof over your head, or a friend to count on. ”
“You don’t frighten us,” Katherine bluffed, taking another step forward.
“Keep those things away from me!” Ms. Angela suddenly shouted.
Katherine looked down to see that her cats had emerged from among her skirts and were taking some menacing steps ahead of her, hackles raised.
Like the man, then? Tilly sneered. Terribly allergic? She began to scratch behind an ear, sending a purple puff of shedding fur and dander downwind.
“I don’t know how you got your hands on those,” Ms. Angela said, gesturing to the plop in Katherine’s hand and ledger sheet in Mrs. Chrysler’s and backing away, “or how you got into my rest home to take him”—she pointed at Ruben—“but know this: You, or whoever you’re working for, won’t be setting a toe on that property again.
I’ve engaged a new security firm, and they’ll be guarding the entire perimeter.
And the trolls will be very unhappy to hear you’ve been meddling. ”
“Is that so?” Mrs. Chrysler said, marching forward and getting up in Ms. Angela’s face.
Or, getting up at her chin anyway, as high as she could reach.
The older woman’s wet hair was plastered to her cheeks, and her wet coat was plastered to her figure, making her look like an angry, melted candle, dripping with thick wax.
“Yes,” Ms. Angela replied, looking her up and down with disdain, and lingering a beat on the unflattering way the wet clothes clung to the old woman’s front.
Mrs. Chrysler stepped back and adjusted her supports.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
“And, sooner or later, gravity happens to all of us… You sooner, rather than later.” Without warning, she slapped the umbrella from Ms. Angela’s hand, sending it billowing over the ground, and, as the wind would have it, over the side of the bridge.
As if on cue, great sheets of rain descended from the sky on the heels of the wind.
“My suede!” Ms. Angela burst angrily and retreated for her coach.
Mrs. Chrysler whipped out her duckie scissors, which glinted in a well-timed flash of lightning, and snipped them menacingly in the air. “You think the rain would damage your suede?” she called after Ms. Angela, who cast one more disdainful glance over her shoulder.
“Drive on, you nincompoop,” they heard her order the coachman after rushing inside. He sprang to life and urged the mule back the way they’d come.
Mrs. Chrysler returned to the group on the bridge, smoothing stray strands of gray hair out of her eyes. The rain didn’t let up, but still no one moved for a few moments, paralyzed by how badly the confrontation had gone.
Mrs. Chrysler looked down at the paper in her hand. The ink had run into a smeary mess. “Oh, godsdarnitalltoheck,” she said.
“How could we have been so wrong?” Katherine finally muttered in disbelief.
“I told you I preferred straight-up thieving to all this sleuthing, Katty,” Mrs. Chrysler said. “So, the plop doesn’t matter? We’ve hit a dead end? With just one day left?”
“You think she’s right about the trolls?” Ruben asked.
“That could definitely be trouble, Katty,” Mrs. Chrysler said grimly. “Especially if they’re from the far side.”
Katherine nodded. “There’s got to be a way out of this,” she said. “That woman still has something she doesn’t want found out. You heard her.”
Ruben nodded gloomily. “But what?”
“We’ve still got all those documents,” Katherine said. “We’ve got to be able to do something with them.”
Mrs. Chrysler sighed deeply. “Why didn’t I pack a rainslicker?” she accused the world in general. “Katty, I can’t think when I’m like this. Let’s get somewhere warm and dry.”
“All right. Where to?”
“Back to the Midden?” Ruben suggested.
“No.” Mrs. Chrysler shook her head and Katherine eyed her quizzically.
“I’m sorry to say it, gang, but I think it’s time to see the nuns again.
” When Katherine looked taken aback, she continued emphatically, “Just look at us. We’re wet.
We’re dirty. We’ve been wearing the same clothes for three days.
It’ll be clear from the sight of us that at least we’ve been trying, anyway.
Maybe Sister Agatha will have pity on us. ”
Katherine tried to unstitch her brow. “Maybe.”