Chapter Fifteen
T hat night after work, I called the retreat center and, fortunately, didn’t get Wanda on the phone.
Lucky as that was, it meant I didn’t know if Lise was in.
Another call to the café confirmed that Lise’s Kia was in the retreat center’s parking lot, so she was still in Wilfred. I’d keep a lookout for her.
In the meantime, however, I could check out what was happening at the Empress. Once again, I wondered: could Ian have encountered someone he knew when the construction crew moved in? Perhaps someone who could broadcast something about his past that he didn’t want known?
I made my way down the hill. Orson wouldn’t have started his shift at the tavern yet, and maybe I could catch him.
I stopped on the bridge over the Kirby River—more of a creek this time of year—to rest my palms on the cool stone balustrade and watch the water drowse past with tufts of cottonwood seeds here and there.
The parking lot at Darla’s Café was already filling up with pickup trucks and cars full of families looking for an easy weeknight dinner.
I walked past it, past Patty’s This-N-That, its windows dark but the memory of Babe Hamilton lingering, and found Orson outside the Empress, surveying its progress.
He greeted me with a salute of his coffee mug. “Josie. How goes it? Isn’t she lovely?”
We gazed at the Empress, looking, to me at least, more rundown than lovely.
The cinema’s vinyl siding had been ripped off, revealing peeling tar paper and the rotting planks of its original siding, along with the ghost of a painted ad for Packard cars.
The building’s few windows were open cavities.
A mess of weatheraged shingles were piled toward the rear.
Orson clearly saw the potential, not the current reality.
I got down to business. “Have you seen Ian lately?”
He shook his head. “Still gone, is he?”
Gone was one word for it , I thought, remembering the specter of his body in the library. “He can’t be far. His van is still here. I wondered if he’d stopped by late at the tavern.”
“Nope.” Orson tipped his coffee mug all the way back, then examined its depths.
“He’s done a runner. Take my word for it—I’ve seen it before.
Darla’s second husband, for instance. Kirk, I believe his name was.
” Apparently having exhausted interest in his mug, he looked at me.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do with all that milk. ”
Before marrying Montgomery, Darla had hooked up with a string of losers. Why any one of them would leave her, however, was beyond me. “Ian is better than that, I hope.”
“Kirk thought the world owed him a golden throne and a kingdom to lord over. Spending his days fishing and drinking while Darla worked wasn’t enough for him. I wonder where he ended up?”
While fascinating, Darla’s romantic history wasn’t why I’d sought Orson. “Ian disappeared at about the same time work started on the Empress. Could the two be connected?”
“Lalena doesn’t have the cleanest history with fellows, you know. Always going after the ones who were too slippery to get caught. Although I did think it was different with Ian.”
“Me, too. Which is why I wonder if someone on the crew scared him off.”
Orson set his coffee mug on the bumper of a construction rig and cupped his chin in his hand to ponder my question.
“You mean, did he see someone he’d rather not run into?
He is a mysterious guy. Never would say how he ended up in a wheelchair.
Roz once tried to get him liquored up to talk about his past, but he stuck to his milk and didn’t give a thing.
All I know is he’s from Baltimore, and I only know that because he keeps an eye on the Orioles on the tavern’s TV. ”
Aha, Baltimore. That fit. “You’re sure? Maybe he likes the team for other reasons.”
“You mean because it’s named after a bird? That’d be Ruth’s shtick. No, we talked about it. He’s from Baltimore, all right.”
“How about the construction crew? How did you find them?”
“I didn’t advertise in Baltimore, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
I gave Orson my best as if glance. “Seriously. Where did you find them?”
“Like everyone else, I took bids from construction companies. I liked this one out of Portland. Decent price, and the project manager really got my concept. ‘The Empress Taproom.’” Orson let out a contented sigh. “The tavern’s all well and good, but Wilfred is ready for a classy joint.”
Construction workers could easily travel. It wasn’t out of the question that one of them hailed from Baltimore. “You don’t happen to have a list of the subcontractors, do you?” Maybe insurance would require it of him.
“Nope. You need to go to Tyrone Beaudrie for that.” He parked his hands on his hips and looked up at the Empress, now more of a scraggly street urchin than royalty.
“You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tyrone is an East Coaster.
I stirred him a martini the other night, and he asked for a vodka from New York.
” He shook his head. “I told him, we have plenty of fine liquor out here. People and their snobberies. Martini drinkers are the worst, if you ask me. I’d take an old-fashioned drinker over a martini drinker any night of the week.
Then there are Negroni drinkers, like that new gal. ”
My ears perked. “New gal?”
“Kind of reminds me of you, but freckled. A sweet lady. I made her a Negroni the other night, and the first thing she did was pull it up to her nose and sniff it.” He smiled with satisfaction. “She really appreciates craftsmanship in a cocktail. Said she could smell the Cynar I subbed for Campari.”
“You must mean Lise Bloom.”
“If that’s the name of the gal staying at the retreat center, then it’s her.” He nodded slowly. “Funny, she was asking about you, too.”
Me? “What did she want to know?”
He shrugged. “Nothing in particular. Told her you were a librarian.”
Stranger and stranger. Could Lise Bloom be from Baltimore? This bore following up.
“If you’re going to ask me if I’ve seen her since,” Orson said, “the answer is no.”
After talking with Orson, I walked the two blocks to the Wallingford Guest House to find Tyrone Beaudrie.
Night was falling, and dusk clung to front yard trees.
I glanced behind me, knowing this was the moment the few clouds in the sky would show orange and pink underbellies as the sun lowered on the horizon.
Now that my magic was back in full force, Wilfred’s beauty practically made me tipsy.
The Wallingford Guest House was in a renovated Queen Anne with a wide porch festooned with gingerbread.
The guest rooms were all on the second floor.
Tonight the ground-floor rooms were warm with lamplight through the lace sheers, but the upstairs rooms were dark.
Tyrone wasn’t there. I didn’t even bother to mount the porch steps and ask for him.
I retraced my steps and headed for the café. Unless he had driven into Forest Grove or Portland, Tyrone would be at Darla’s. There was nowhere else in town to go.
My one fear about approaching the café was that I’d run into Babe Hamilton.
She would have to know I’d broken her spell.
Would she try something else— something more dangerous?
Or would she leave in defeat? The crows that had dogged me the past months had vanished, and I didn’t sense a renewed dampening of my magic.
However, I didn’t want to drop my guard.
Buffy and Thor were at the café’s entrance, stopping incoming customers. I placed a protective hand on my purse.
“Josie,” Buffy said, turning a coy eye toward me as I approached. “Need fashion advice? I didn’t want to say anything, but you dress kind of boring.”
That was their line today? Fashion consultations?
I looked from Thor’s cape and eyepatch, now turned up, to Buffy’s glitter-spangled tutu and lime-green T-shirt sporting a unicorn.
My wardrobe tended to be a comfortable mix of jeans, cotton skirts, and practical shoes.
Unicorns and capes wouldn’t add much to my cachet as a librarian.
“No thanks,” I told them. “But how would you like to earn a dollar each? It will take you two minutes.”
“Doing what?” Buffy said.
“Just tell me if Babe Hamilton is anywhere inside.”
“We can’t go in the tavern,” Thor said. “We’re just kids, you know.”
“That’s okay. Check the patio and café.”
After a shared glance, they took off, Buffy to the café and Thor to the patio. They returned, breathless, holding out their palms. “No Babe,” Buffy said.
“That will be two dollars each,” Thor added.
“One dollar each,” I corrected. I doled out the bills.
“Why do you care where Babe is?” Buffy asked. “She didn’t come into the shop today.”
“Never mind. Here comes your grandma.”
Patty crossed the narrow highway that served as Wilfred’s main street. “Kids, it’s time for bed. Stop bothering Josie and get over here.”
Buffy and Thor ran off to greet her, and I turned to the café.
A quick survey of the café and patio not only confirmed that Babe Hamilton wasn’t there; Tyrone Beaudrie wasn’t, either.
I went to the doorway connecting the café and tavern and let my vision adjust to the lowered light.
There he was, at a booth along the far wall.
I returned to the counter at the café and ordered a bowl of Cajun macaroni and cheese to be delivered to the tavern.
“Tyrone?” I hovered at the edge of his booth.
Tyrone Beaudrie was examining a wide set of blueprints. With only the illumination from a low-wattage bulb in the red-shaded lamp on the wall above us, they couldn’t have been easy to read.
“Thanks, but I’m still working on this.” Tyrone touched his nearly full pint of beer.
“I’m not the server. Josie Way, librarian. Remember? We talked a few days ago.”
“Yes.” He smiled, and charm replaced his tired expression. “Sorry. It’s dark in here. It’s a pleasure to see you. Please, have a seat.”