Interesting, Grimshaw thought.
When they’d all finished the meal, Osgood collected the dishes and took them and the delivery box back to Come and Get It.
Accepting that his knee required at least another day to heal before he could pretend it was back to normal, Grimshaw settled in to answer phones and read through the information the mayor’s office had provided about Sproing’s new residents.
It didn’t surprise him that a number of newcomers had lived in other towns in the Finger Lakes area. He made note of anyone who had come to Sproing from any of the places that had killings similar to the ones here.
Then he came across one name. He looked at it for a long time.
Ellen C. Wilson. He hadn’t known what the C stood for—until now. And until now, he hadn’t had any reason to think she had some connection with the academics who had come to Sproing to observe Trickster Night.
Observe? Or do something more?
He looked at the list of Ellen Wilson’s previous residences and considered how they tallied with some of the killings in other towns. Nothing in the information compiled by the mayor’s office to indicate if she’d ever taken courses at a college, but that didn’t mean anything. People were self-taught in any number of subjects, and it would be easy enough to do if a relative actually was enrolled at a college and taking courses that could become the twisted foundation for experimenting with other people’s minds.
Was all the whining and complaining and the particular way she pitched her voice simply the woman? Or was it all calculated to achieve a specific result?
Maybe she was behind some of what was happening in and around Sproing, but not all of it. He didn’t think she was the one who had persuaded Adam Fewks to put on a costume and pretend to be the Crowgard bogeyman.
But she might have a partner. Or a competitor?
Were all these deaths being tallied on some kind of scorecard?
Grimshaw carefully closed the folder and made sure all the papers inside were aligned so that no one would realize he’d found a possible connection between Ellen C. Wilson and at least one of the academics who had come to Lake Silence for Trickster Night.
Then he went back to the cell and said, “Professor Roash? Tell me again how you ended up coming to The Jumble for Trickster Night.”
CHAPTER 79
Vicki
Moonsday, Novembros 5
I was going to have to do something about food. Like, buy some, unless I was willing to talk to Bobcat and Cougar about letting my guests share whatever was left of the dead donkey. Which by now might be only a hoof and part of an ear. Since I wouldn’t be convinced that some butter and strawberry jam would turn those bits into a tasty, or even tolerable, meal, I doubted I could convince anyone else.
I pulled out a jar of peanut butter and a sleeve of crackers. Add a bit of jam to that and you had breakfast. Or lunch. Maybe not dinner since I was feeding adults, but I could tout PB and J as a valid choice for the other two meals—especially if the alternative was donkey bits and butter.
Really needed to drive to Sproing and buy whatever food Pops Davies might have left on the shelves. Or I could ignore token good nutrition and buy pizzas so we could all eat ourselves into a carb coma.
Ian Stern walked into the kitchen, saw me, and hesitated. He looked around, as if making sure we were alone.
My heart began to beat a little harder. I hoped he wouldn’t notice, but a psych doctor would notice things like that. Wouldn’t he? Maybe not. A Sanguinati psych doctor would—if there was such a thing—since all Sanguinati noticed little things like heartbeats.
Focus, Vicki.
“How are you feeling today?” Ian asked.
“Okay. Fine. How are you?”
He came closer. And closer. My heart beat harder.
“I’m concerned. You’ve been nervous since the phone call yesterday that made you ill.”
“I’m fine now. All okeydokey.” Yep, the phone call had made me nervous. Plus there was that tiny bit of excitement when a couple of my friends almost got blown up, and one of the Sanguinati youngsters did get blown up.
He shook his head. “I have a feeling that you’re suddenly uncomfortable around all of us, human and terra indigene, rather than just wanting to see the backs of some of your guests.”
Darn Intuit with a psych degree. “I . . .”
“I think you’re right to be uncomfortable,” Ian continued. “I don’t think it started out that way, but you’re now at the center of whatever is going on—and I have the uneasy feeling that someone wants to . . . disrupt . . . the center.”
“Is ‘disrupt’ a fancy way of saying ‘kill me’?” I hadn’t had enough coffee yet to have this kind of discussion. Not when mulling over breakfast was a challenge.
He seemed about to answer, then looked thoughtful. “Maybe not deliberately, but . . .” Hesitation. “Has there been a drug problem in Sproing? There always seems to be a little of this and that around the colleges, but I wouldn’t think the sale and use of substances could stay hidden long in a small village.”
“Why are you asking?” Doc Wallace had given me some pills for the times when an anxiety attack couldn’t be blunted any other way, but he gave me only a few pills at a time—partly to assure himself that I wouldn’t overuse them and partly because the medical practice in Sproing had to order supplies from Bristol or Crystalton pharmacies and shipments arrived when they arrived, so Doc divided the contents of one bottle of pills among the patients who needed them. But Ian wasn’t referring to the drugs you got from a doctor, who wrote that information in your medical chart.
“The way Aggie and Kira acted,” Ian replied. “Might have been blood loss. Might have been their reaction to a human sedative—or some other kind of drug.” He took a breath and let it out slowly, as if our chat had been the buildup toward what he really wanted to say. “I’m worried about Jenna McKay. She’s very groggy this morning, slurring her words. Similar to the way Aggie and Kira acted the other day. I actually came up here to see if you had any orange juice left.”
Caffeine wakes up a groggy brain. Orange juice is a staple for someone who has lost more blood than you’d lose from a cut on your finger.
“There’s some orange juice in the fridge, unless someone already drank it.”
Ian opened the fridge and pulled out the bottle. I took a water glass from the cupboard and set it on the table so our hands wouldn’t touch, accidentally or on purpose. He filled the glass, put the rest of the juice back in the fridge, and looked at me.
“I remember hearing about some substances that affected the terra indigene as much as, if not more than, the humans who used them,” Ian said quietly. “There are circumstances when a friend might not be a friend because they’ve been influenced by something—or someone. If you have a friend who can’t be compromised by . . . substances, tell that individual what you know. Just in case you find yourself with a friend who is no longer a friend.” He picked up the glass. “Thanks for the juice. I’ll take it to Jenna.”