Chapter Three
S ummer nights in Wilfred were worth waiting for all year.
The day’s heat settled into a soft warmth that encouraged thrown-open windows, and crickets chirped in the meadow.
Sundays were especially nice. The aromas of roast beef and fresh pie drifted through screen doors, and kids played outside until porch lights switched on and mothers called them in.
Until lately, my Sunday evenings had been spent at Sam’s.
I’d looked forward to them all week. Sam was a wonderful cook, and I was turning into a decent prep chef.
We’d take our plates to the small porch off the kitchen and watch the lights in Wilfred, below the river, twinkle on as the sun set.
A baby gate across the steps was enough to keep his toddler son Nicky playing at our feet but was no barrier to Rodney, who leapt over it and plopped nearby, flicking his tail.
That was then. Tonight I was at Darla’s Café, awaiting the fried chicken special.
Alone. The patio was no substitute for Sam’s kitchen porch, and the neighbors surrounding me—friendly as they were—were no substitute for Sam.
Wherever he was. I looked at my phone. Five texts I’d sent him over the past few days, and he hadn’t responded to a single one.
Was he still in D.C., testifying on the stolen art case?
Or was he simply avoiding me now that I’d confessed I was a witch?
My heart ached. I returned my phone to my pocket.
Darla clearly read the sadness on my face.
Wilfred was small enough that no one’s business remained private for long, and she knew something was up between Sam and me.
“Here you go, honey,” she said, and slid a platter of chicken and potato salad next to my tumbler of iced tea.
“I’ll bring you a slice of Marionberry pie. On the house.”
I managed a weak smile in return. No Sam, and my magic was on the rocks, too. As my mood cratered, voices at the patio’s edge caught my attention.
“Work starts early tomorrow, Cliff,” a man said.
The lenses of his sunglasses glinted in the fading sunlight.
He slipped them off to reveal surprisingly warm eyes.
Darla had pointed him out a few days earlier.
He was in charge of the construction crew turning the Empress Theater into a brewpub. “You can’t be out partying all night.”
The man’s chiding tone caused his tablemate, Cliff, to face him head on.
Like everyone else on the patio, I stopped eating to listen.
I vaguely recognized Cliff from seeing him alight from a dented white van a morning earlier in the week.
I’d glimpsed empty beer cans and a rumpled sleeping bag through the door behind him.
The renovations at the Empress, a long-abandoned movie house from when Wilfred was a thriving timber town, had brought in a number of construction workers. Most drove in from nearby Gaston and Forest Grove, but a few camped out locally in vans or RVs.
“I’ll do whatever I want.” Cliff’s tone was chilling. Who was the boss here, anyway?
The man with the sunglasses, now set beside his plate, tipped his head in warning. “I’ll see you tomorrow, on time and ready to work.”
Cliff’s gaze skimmed the diners. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but seemed to think better of it. “All right.” He left the patio and entered the café, likely to pass through to the tavern.
Orson appeared at my side before I could tuck my fork into my potato salad. Besides being the tavern’s bartender, he owned the Empress. “A partier, that one,” he said.
“You’d know, with your job,” I said. “He hasn’t made trouble, has he?”
“Not to speak of.” Orson gazed thoughtfully at the café door through which Cliff had just disappeared. “He’s more bark than bite. The man he was talking to? Construction manager. Drinks vodka martinis. Although….”
Although, what? When it became clear that Orson wouldn’t elaborate, I said, “Hey, who’s watching the tavern?”
“Cutting back my hours. Ned Tohler has been at me for months for a spot behind the bar, so I’m finally giving it to him.” Orson pulled out a chair and sat without asking. I didn’t mind. It made me feel less alone. “You can expect tonier cocktails from now on.”
The Tohler brood was sizable. Ned favored 1970s button-downs with wide lapels.
I had no idea where he found his bell-bottom pants or white patent leather loafers, but I appreciated his style and predicted a profusion of Harvey Wallbangers and tequila sunrises to come.
If I recalled correctly, his twin Ted ran a deli in nearby Gaston.
“Nope,” Orson added. “Don’t need to work now that the Empress is on its way to becoming a brewpub.”
“Are you going to keep your place upstairs?” Orson had inherited the Empress from his father.
For years the theater had sat with its windows boarded up and marquee dismantled.
I’d thought the building was just another unused storefront until I’d had occasion to visit Orson.
He’d converted the theater’s projector room into a makeshift apartment with a mini-fridge and wellworn recliner.
“Yep. Finally getting windows. A proper kitchen, too. It’s nice to see the old girl come back to life.” He leaned back, crossing his ankles. “Soon we’ll have lots of people here. Wilfred will be a destination, just like in the old days.”
“Not just for a construction crew, either,” I said, eyeing a few people who’d waved at the construction boss before settling at tables at the patio’s edge. The renovation was giving Darla’s business a definite boost. “It’s hard to imagine town before the mill closed.”
I’d seen photos in the library. The café had been a thriving soda counter, and the highway—a slender ribbon of road barely worthy of the name—was lined with businesses. Old cars, then new, parked at angles in front of the post office, a grocery store, a barber shop, and, of course, the Empress.
“It was a different town in those days,” Orson said. “I still get a start when I go into the old post office and find it full of groceries.”
The arrival of Buffy and Thor cut our conversation short. They ran to my table and rested their hands on the table’s edge while they caught their breath. Thor drained my glass of water. Buffy reached for my iced tea, but I slid the glass toward me before she could take it.
“My cue to leave,” Orson said. He’d been burned more than once by Buffy and Thor’s moneymaking schemes. It had taken him two days to remove the furniture polish they’d used to wax his car. Orson tossed me a salute and crossed the patio, toward home.
Thor set down my empty glass and wiped his mouth. “It’s a mystery.”
“What’s a mystery?” I said.
“Ian,” Buffy said. “He’s disappeared.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You couldn’t find him anywhere? Maybe he’s away buying books for his stall.” It broke my heart that Lalena could be right, and Ian had left town, leaving only a vague voicemail as a goodbye.
While I spoke, Thor was shaking his head. “Ian is totally gone. He’s vanquished.”
“Vanished,” I corrected. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Buffy said. “We did a complete investigation.”
Thor took the chair Orson had vacated and flipped his cape over its back. “First we checked the usual places.”
“Grandma’s”—Buffy referred to the This-N-That— “his trailer, and Aunt Darla’s. He wasn’t there.”
“But his van is still in his driveway,” I pointed out.
“I know,” Thor said, clearly proud of his deduction. “No one saw a friend pick him up.”
“Next step,” Buffy said, “we got Duke’s stepladder out of the shed and looked in Ian’s windows.”
“ I looked in the windows.” Thor tapped his chest. “Not you. You’re too little to get on a ladder.”
“I am not. Besides, I’m a lot more graceful than you. Grandma says.”
“What did you see?” I asked. If they started bickering, I’d never get answers.
“Nothing.” He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back. “But get this.”
“Yes?”
“His milk was on the counter,” Buffy said quickly.
Thor nudged his sister’s shoulder. “I was going to tell her that!”
“A glass, or the whole carton?” I asked. Ian would never squander milk.
“Both,” Thor said. “Pretty bad, huh?”
“So we checked places they might hide a body,” Buffy said.
“You what?” I didn’t want to speculate who they might be.
“That was my smart idea,” Thor said. “Not Buffy’s. We searched the stacking house, Lyndon’s compost heap, and the dumpsters behind the Empress and the café.”
“He might be in the millpond,” Buffy added. Some-how she’d gotten hold of my iced tea after all and took a deep swig. “We looked around the edges but didn’t see anything.”
“Except Roz and Lyndon holding hands.” Thor snickered.
“They’re in love, dummy,” Buffy said. She replaced my iced tea on the table and pulled a drumstick from my plate to crunch through its buttermilk crust.
“And the other lady, the one at the retreat center,” Thor said.
The visitor Wanda had mentioned this afternoon at the This-N-That. Her arrival had roughly coincided with Ian’s disappearance. I made a mental note to follow up. “What was she doing?”
Thor shrugged. “I don’t know. Looking around, I guess.”
“She didn’t have a murder weapon, unless it was poison. Like, in a tiny jar.” Buffy set the chicken bone, stripped clean, on my plate. “If you’d like us to continue looking, it will cost you. We take tips, too.”
“That’s enough for now,” I told them. Their investigation had certainly taken a grisly turn. “Your tip is the half of my dinner you’ve eaten.”
After they left, I picked up the remaining piece of chicken, now cold. For whatever reason, Ian had skipped town.
How much heartache could one tiny town hold? My pain alone was enough to cloud the valley. Add La lena’s sadness over Ian’s disappearance, and together we could fill the millpond with tears.
“Here you go, honey.” Darla deposited a slice of pie on my table, but my appetite was gone.