Karthey
smiled; she knew he would not leave his room until eight o’clock. She had half
an hour to enact the wild, impulsive idea that had just entered her head. She
got up and threw on her bathrobe, intent on acting upon the impulse before she
convinced herself otherwise.
Karthey
slid her feet into her slippers and ran lightly down the left-hand stairs,
across the entryway, and down to the kitchen. She found eggs, some zucchini, a
red bell pepper, and half an onion in the refrigerator. She quickly mixed all
these together and fried it in a pan. Putting this together with a glass of
orange juice, half a grapefruit, utensils, and a napkin, she set these all
(facing away from her) in the dumbwaiter, waiting until after the clock had
struck quarter-till-eight before toasting a piece of bread and spreading butter
on it. She then scampered to the top of the stairs to wait for the sound of
Cramwell’s cane on the steps.
^^^^^^
Cramwell
Fornberg groggily regained consciousness as the clock struck eight—goodness! It
was loud! The sound was much louder than he’d been used to hearing it before.
The next thing Cramwell noticed was that he was still fully dressed…and sitting
in an armchair down in the cloister, next to the painting of Jelilah. Why on
earth—
The roses.
Cramwell’s
heart jumped as he remembered them. That foolish Mavis girl! Why had she gone
into Jelilah’s garden? Was she not content to stay in the house? Did she not
have plenty to do there, without going outside at all? No one was supposed to
go there—much less take flowers from it! Much less roses, for heaven’s sake! Cramwell shuddered at the memory.
He hated roses; red was his least favorite color.
He dimly remembered serenading
Jelilah, and then he sat there in that armchair and spoke with her, though what
he said, he did not know. Now it was morning, and time for Cramwell to put on
his dressing gown and collect the paper—but he was already wearing his dressing
gown. He had put it on before coming downstairs, and then fallen asleep down in
the cloister. Confound that Karthey Mavis! The longer she stayed, the more
Cramwell found his docile, innocuous routine completely derailed, much like the
kidnapper had derailed his routine in Precinct.
Ah,
yes; the kidnapper. Cramwell had to admit as he thought to himself that he had
actually been quite pleased with the information Karthey had left him on the
desk—if only she hadn’t left that vase with the horrid roses on it, too. The
list, though; she had certainly been thorough. Cramwell thought about making a
visible “network map” of sorts. He had matched people with their places of
employment. Now he could map out their schedules, the likeliest routes they
would take to reach each successive destination, most of which Karthey had
listed.
At
this point in his train of thought, Cramwell almost jumped out of the chair
when he realized he was now ten minutes late. Bother that Karthey Mavis! He
shuffled out of the cloister, taking care to lock the door behind him and place
the key in a little recess behind the candelabra on the right, where he usually
kept it. Cramwell stopped by the front door to pick up his paper, and went to
the dining room to put it on the table before going downstairs to the kitchen
to prepare his breakfast.
As
he laid the paper on the table, a squeaking sound coming from the general
direction of the dumbwaiter gave him pause. Cramwell cautiously turned heel and
stared at the small door in the wall. Apprehensively, he advanced toward the
wall. The squeaking stopped; so did Cramwell. When it did not continue, he made
his way toward the door and very quickly jerked it open.
He
stood and blinked for several moments, not fully comprehending what he saw. A
nice breakfast, all laid out for him in the recess of the dumbwaiter; who had
done this thing? Who but that meddlesome Karthey Mavis? Cramwell carried
everything to the table and commenced his daily routine (with the exception of
wearing yesterday’s clothes under his dressing gown). He opened the paper,
grateful that yet again, there was more news and speculation about the previous
four kidnappings, but as of yet no new victims. He finished his meal and the
paper by nine, returned his dishes to the dumbwaiter, moved to the sunroom to
read for fifteen minutes, headed upstairs, changed his clothes, and by
nine-thirty was on his way down the hill, without ever having seen his
guest—just as it had been for the last week. He thought no more on petty
inconveniences.
Karthey,
for her part, made up her mind to be as unobtrusive as she could possibly be.
She stayed put until she heard Cramwell leave, and then she spent the next few
hours cleaning up. Just as the clock struck eleven, she remembered Derrik. She
had almost forgotten the meeting! Karthey dropped the duster right where she
was, dove for her coat, and flew down the hill in eager anticipation.
Derrik
was just walking up when she reached the gate. Karthey was so excited to see
him that she jumped up and down like a child half her age and waved her arm.
“Derrik!”
she cried, “Derrik!”
She
saw him break into a run when he heard her calling and saw her waving. He
clutched at the bars of the gate, his eyes wide with astonishment.
“What
happened?” he begged his sister, “Did he try something yesterday? Do you want
to run away now?”
Karthey
saw that he must have mistaken her overjoyed reaction for terror. “Oh no!” she
cried, “Derrik! I found a garden yesterday,
with red roses in it! Cramwell smashed the roses, and he was angry with me, but
he actually asked me for help, too. He’s been asking about a whole bunch of
people from town—“
“Wait
a minute,” her brother interrupted, “He speaks to you, now?”
Karthey
shook her head, “Nope, still texting; but I saw him once, Derrik! I actually saw Cramwell Fornberg!” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were wide, and
Karthey could not hold still. She fidgeted with agitation.
Derrik
raised his eyebrows, “You actually saw him?
Without his hat on? I don’t think I ever saw him whenever he went to town. I
could see that hat coming a mile away, and I knew to stay away. What did he
look like?”
Karthey
ceased her wriggling and tried to remember what she observed, “Well, he’s not
very tall, and he’s not very old, and I guess you could say he’s really—“
“Little,
creepy munchkin?” Derrik guessed.
Karthey
frowned at her brother, “No! He just seemed sort of…sad, really; very solemn, like there was something
really big that he did not want to talk about.” She looked her brother straight
in the eye. “He’s not creepy, Derrik; I think he’s afraid.”
Derrik
actually took the time to seriously consider his sister’s words. “I think I’ve
heard Dad talk about that kind of thing,” he said, “He’s seen it in, like,
testimonials and court proceedings and stuff, like when somebody has witnessed
something obvious that everyone else knows about, but to that one person, the
event was traumatizing—so traumatizing that they don’t even want to talk about
it, because to talk about it would be to bring up those feelings again. The
thing that seems to be obvious to everyone else, but no one wants to talk
about: he calls it ‘the elephant in the room.’”
Karthey
smirked, “Yeah, I think Cramwell has one of those; only this one’s a woman. I
think she might have been his wife.”
“The
one he—I mean, that people think he
killed?”
Karthey
frowned and shook her head, “I don’t think Cramwell is the type of person to
kill people, any more than you or I. I really think she died from something
else, and he couldn’t save her or something, so he’s been feeling guilty all
this time.” She confronted her brother with her hands on her hips. “I thought people
had moved beyond that theory.”
Derrik
shoved his hands in his pockets and licked his lips guiltily. “Well, yeah,
but—“
“Then
drop it.”
Derrik
looked at his sister curiously, “Karthey, do you like Cramwell?”
Karthey
blushed furiously, “No! Not in that way—not really,” she answered quickly. “I
just think people have been treating him unfairly without realizing it.”
“So
now you’re his advocate?”
“Derrik!”
Karthey clutched at the bars of the gate between them. “Think about it: what if
these things I’m telling you about Cramwell could help us solve the case? What
did you find out about the notes?”
Derrik
huffed and brought his sister up to date, “The forensic detective analyzed the
notes and compared them with witnesses who could remember times when Cramwell
suddenly acted completely unlike himself, and concluded that the notes most
likely showed up in the places where Cramwell went every day, which would mean
that the writer—who we still assume must be the kidnapper—knew Cramwell enough
to know his daily schedule.”
“Which
doesn’t say much, because Precinct hardly knows him at all, and everybody there
knows his schedule.”
Derrik
pursed his lips in thought, “Good point,” he conceded, “Anyway, the codes
suggest that the writer also knew Cramwell well enough to know that he would be
able to solve them.”
“Yeah,
being the only one in town with a code book anymore, at least the ones from the
library,” Karthey supplied.
“Right;
we’re looking into previous associates of Cramwell now, just to see if any of
them might have found their way to Precinct or the nearby towns with a bone to
pick, and is choosing now to pick it with him.”
Karthey
recalled the map she had seen in the library that morning. Multiple colored
lines crossed over each other in every direction—but each color in a specific
direction. “I think Cramwell’s trying to
find out the next target,” she mused to her brother, “I saw a map he’d been
marking routes on, based on the information about some of the people that I
gave him yesterday.”
Derrik
looked at her in surprise, “You mean he’s making a map of who would be where at
what time and whether they’d meet each other, and trying to figure out a
possible pattern from the victims that way?”
Karthey
paused a moment to sort out what her brother just said, and confirmed it with a
nod, “Yeah, something like that, I think. He only gave me fifteen names, but he
had more than that on his map. I think he’s figuring out more on his own.”
Derrik
was visibly impressed with both his sister’s observation and Cramwell’s
uncharacteristic actions, “Wow, okay; maybe we should start doing that.”
“Somebody
should,” Karthey agreed.
Derrik
checked his watch and smiled at his sister. “Well, I should be getting back to
town. I’ll tell you what, though, I’m glad we get to talk, little sister. I
sure do miss having you around.”
Karthey
felt her throat constrict with emotion as she replied, “I miss you too,
Derrik.”
“We’re
so close, Karth!” Derrik enthused, “I can almost feel it! We’ll catch this guy
soon, you’ll see.”
“I
hope so! I’m doing everything I can!” Karthey cried.
“See
you tomorrow, Sis.”
“Hug
Dad for me!”
Karthey
stood at the gate and watched her brother depart back into town. He disappeared
around a corner, and she was alone once more.
She
returned to the house and finished the dusting before sitting down to a quiet
lunch. After she finished her meal, Karthey sat in the library and began
reading through the dustier codebooks Cramwell had, since these were obviously
ones he hadn’t touched in a while. She meandered next door to the study and
took a closer look at the map. She smiled as she studied the route of each
color, making a short game of trying to guess whom each thread belonged to by
its route. This one that went from the neighborhoods to the school, past the
café, to the thrift store, to the library, back to the school, and out to the
diner—that had to be Mrs. Forquist. The one that went from the café, to City
Hall, to the park, to the library, back to City Hall—definitely Mayor Heartlin.
And the one that seemed to zig-zag back and forth and through the neighborhoods
in a random manner, stopping in at most (if not all) the establishments in
downtown Precinct—Karthey smiled as she traced with her finger the line that
looked as busy as the person it represented, Alivia Rogner.
Karthey
returned to the library with her head swimming with thoughts of Precinct. Previous associates, Derrik had said; how many people did Cramwell actually know? How on
earth was she supposed to figure that out? What sort of information did the
police have that would tell them that? Was it possible that the kidnapper was
someone from Cramwell’s history, who had followed him to Precinct? What had really
happened out at the seaside?
Karthey
closed her eyes as the clock struck three, trying to shut out the swirling,
nagging, discombobulating thoughts. She tried to envision each mystery as an
individual in her imagination, to try to keep them all separate; they insisted
on combining into the single, irreducibly complex Cramwell Fornberg. No matter
how hard she tried, he was always standing there in front of her, staring right
at her—
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