A Festival of Murder (29 page)

“So
you killed him,” Canberry said flatly.

“It
wasn’t my intention. I know how to do it right when it needs to be done.”
Horace’s shoulders trembled as if he were suppressing memories, though Nicholas
wasn’t sure they were recent ones.

“What
happened that night, Horace?” Nicholas asked. “You’re the only person who
possesses the truth. Unless you share it, our only choice is to assume the
worst about you.”

That
seemed to strike a chord in Horace. He paced slowly to the fireplace and stood
staring down at the glowing embers. “I’d built a type of firework that was a
cross between a missile and a mine,” he began slowly. “The names are military
terms but they have little to do with their counterparts. A mine shoots a fan
of sparks and I’d made mine extra powerful and in a tube to get some height out
of them. But like I said, it was a hybrid and something I’d come up with on my
own, so I was testing one out to make sure it worked correctly. If I do a job,
I do it right.

“That
night, just as I was lighting one up, Johnson came at me, tried to grab it out
of my hand so he could present it as proof that alien activity up in Hightop
could be written off as fireworks.” Horace turned his head and stared hard at
Nicholas. “I recognize the signs of PTSD, seen it plenty of times in my friends
and I have a touch of it myself.” He nodded when Nicholas flinched. “Something
happened to you. Something life-changing. Maybe it was an abduction. Maybe not.
But I wasn’t about to let this two-bit reporter write that off as fireworks. So
we ended up struggling and . . . somehow I hit him with it.
Didn’t mean to hurt him so badly but sometimes if you hit a man in the head
just right . . . it can happen.”

He
hung his head. “I didn’t know what to do about it. It was an accident.” He shot
a glare at Canberry. “But I knew how it would look with my family history and
all, so I set it up like he’d drowned. But I didn’t realize I’d burned him with
the tube.” His glare moved to Nicholas. “Or that someone would go snooping out
in the woods. I’m surprised at you, Trilby. I thought you of all people would
understand my situation and keep this to yourself.”

“What
Mr. Trilby understands is that a serious crime was committed in which a man
lost his life,” Canberry said stonily. “Intentionally or not, you killed Rocky
Johnson.”

Horace’s
eyes glazed over. “It never should have happened. But yeah, it did.”

Canberry
turned his head and nodded. Nicholas had been unaware of another officer, the
one Canberry had brought up with him when he’d planned to bring Nicholas in for
questioning, loitering behind the entrance to the kitchen. The man stepped out
into the living as Canberry pulled out his cuffs and said, “Horace Grant, you’re
under arrest for the murder of Rocky Johnson.” He began reading Horace his
Miranda rights.

Horace
didn’t resist. In fact, the fight seemed to drain from his body entirely,
leaving behind a docile and compliant man who was entirely unlike the
intimidating man Nicholas had come to know. It was disturbing to watch him
silently cuffed and led to the front door of Nicholas’s cabin. At the threshold
Horace paused, resisting the officer’s pull on his upper arm so he could look
back at Nicholas.

“I
only did it for Hightop,” he said in a thick voice. “Because I didn’t want
anyone to lose faith in the aliens. Or in you.”

Nicholas
stomped down a flare of shame. “I believe you, Horace.”

“It
was real.” Horace licked his lips, eyes bright with anxiety. “Wasn’t it?”

Horace
could have been referring to a hundred different things, but Nicholas could
give the man only one answer. “It was real.”

A
flicker of a smile crossed Horace’s face before he turned and allowed himself
to be led out of the cabin.

“I’m
impressed,” Canberry said, pausing in the same spot Horace had, to look back at
Nicholas.

“Don’t
be,” Nicholas said with a heavy sigh. “It was dumb luck. All of it. If Phoebe
hadn’t seen that article and I hadn’t tripped over that fuse . . .”
He shook his head. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy. Just misguided.”

“It’s
enough for me and hopefully for a jury of his peers, too.” Canberry lingered,
as if about to say something more—perhaps apologize for suspecting Nicholas?
But in the end, he walked out without another word.

Nicholas
shut the door behind him and slumped against it. Finally everyone had left. But
he wondered why, after finally being left alone, he wished for the company of
his friends and neighbors.

He
looked out the window and when he saw her, his fingers tightened around the mug
he held.

The
sky was barely dipped in shades of pink when he stepped onto his front porch.
Overlapping peach and rose glimmered gently on the snow-flocked trees. She didn’t
hear him until he was four feet behind her, when the crunch of snow beneath his
boot fell just as she paused for breath, and then she whirled, shovel clutched
in her hands. Her eyes widened before they fell away from his face, as guilty as
a child caught reaching for a cookie.

“I
thought you might like some tea.”

Phoebe
eyed the mug for a long moment before shifting the handle of the shovel to the
crook of her elbow and accepting his offering with cupped hands. As she blew
across the surface of the liquid, her eyes searched his expression.

Nicholas’s
own gaze moved over the fresh snow covering his yard. “Looks like five inches.”

She
had dug an oddly crooked path from her parked car to the middle of his front
yard. As they drank in silence, he tried to see if she had dug around a tree
stump, a rock, or other protuberance to explain the strange bend in the path
she had made. But he saw nothing, and in the back of his mind he mocked himself
for looking. He knew there was nothing in the yard to change her course. She
had her own reason for doing so. It was the reason why she was here.

“What
are you—”

“You
didn’t try to explain away what happened,” Phoebe cut him off.

He
paused. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

He
hadn’t seen much of Phoebe since the police arrested Horace Grant. While the
media coverage that followed didn’t quite live up to the hype required of a
term like “circus,” it had been hectic and demanding enough to keep Nicholas
holed up as if riding out the Armageddon that Horace had been anticipating.

“Horace’s
fireworks,” Phoebe said. “A lot of people who were here that day are convinced
it was meant to cover up genuine evidence of aliens. That the show was only a
decoy.” Phoebe took another sip of her tea. “You could have set them straight
with the truth, but you didn’t. It would have diffused interest in you like we
talked about.”

Horace
had been formally charged with Rocky Johnson’s murder, but what everyone in
Hightop was talking about was the Great Greeting that Nicholas had allegedly
helped summon. He was aware that outside of town, skeptics were making the same
sort of accusations against him that had driven Horace to kill Rocky Johnson.
They accused Nicholas of being a charlatan and staging a fake invasion.
Nicholas could handle them without responding with violence or even words. What
surprised him was how many people had come away from the Greeting feeling more
passionately about aliens than before, even with the evidence of fireworks
lying burned and wilted in the snow in front of them.

“People
want to believe,” he said after thinking about it. “Who am I to stop them?” He
ignored his tea in favor of admiring her in the pinkening light. “You once
accused me of being without faith. That’s no longer true, Phoebe. I’m hoping for
that happy ending right along with everyone else.”

She
smiled at that. “Then Hightop is better off than it was before.”

“I’m
sure Captain Sam might argue that. I understand Canberry has dragged him in as
a witness. He’ll be involved in the trial, that’s for certain.”

“But
it will be closure for him. I think all this time he was afraid of Horace
hurting him in retaliation for telling what he knows. He’ll be able to sleep
better knowing Horace is going to jail. If Captain Sam sleeps at all.”

“I
believe he’s nocturnal. Much like an opossum.”

She
laughed. “Speaking of animals, a little bird told me Winchester has found
himself a new home.”

Nicholas
couldn’t stop his own smile from spreading across his face. “Kevin has agreed
to take over Winchester’s care. Toby’s frequent visits to the thing finally
convinced Kevin that it should be a new addition to their family. Besides, he
knows best how to care for an alpaca. It’ll be good for both of them.”

“You’ll
miss Winchester, though.” Phoebe’s lips twitched with what he suspected was a
suppressed smile. “Admit it. He’s grown on you.”

“I
can’t care for an animal while I’m traveling.”

Dismay
flitted across her face. “Oh? Where are you going?”

He
pulled the envelope for the cryptozoology conference from his parka pocket. “We’re
going to Washington State. That is, if you’d care to join me there.”

She
bit her lip before glancing down at the shovel propped in her arm. “You haven’t
asked me about this.”

“Because
I no longer care. I trust you.”

“You
need to know.”

“Then
tell me. What are you doing here, Phoebe?” He truly didn’t care if she never
told him; however, that purposefully crooked path in the snow behind her was
beginning to agitate all of his senses, like one squiggle on a grid.

“I
didn’t believe your abduction story until just recently,” she admitted,
watching him closely.

“When
you read those articles.”

“No,
it was before then.” She shifted one hand to the shovel as her gaze turned
distant. “I found something last week. Outside your shop. I thought nothing of
it at the time. Thought it was a prank or early promotion for the festival. It
was buried beneath tire tracks the next day, so I forgot about it. But a week
later, when I was thinking of visiting you, I saw more of them in front of your
cabin, lines of them, and I knew then that this wasn’t a prank.” She tapped the
handle with her gloved fingers. “I began carrying this around with me since
then. Just in case.”

“You
were thinking of visiting me,” he said, gazing at her intently.

She
huffed. “You’re missing the point.”

He
shrugged. “All I care about is that you’ve been thinking about me.”

“I’ve
been trying to protect you,” she said, urgency leaking into her voice. “I didn’t
think you could handle anything more. And this is—this is much more, Nicholas.
This made me believe everything.”

A
chill rushed through his body, but he realized it wasn’t born from fear. For
the first time he was excited to hear someone’s extraterrestrial experience. “Has
anything changed for you, now that you know for certain?”

Her
smile was unexpectedly shy. “Of course, it has. It’s brought me closer to you.”

He
looked down at the untouched snow around them. When his eye began to find the
impression of something in the snow, something vaguely shaped like a foot, but
not quite human, he deliberately looked away.

“We’re
no longer bound to Hightop,” he said. He waved the envelope again, just
slightly, to catch her eye. “Let’s leave. Leave the evidence you’re working to
hide from me, leave the attention. We’ll go to Washington and spend a week
locked up with Bigfoot fanatics, chupacabra worshippers and whoever else
champions the absurd and make-believe. It’ll be educational and
adrenaline-inducing.”

“Because
we’ll be running from them.”

“Exactly.”

Finally,
she relaxed. “We’re asking for trouble going there with that attitude.”

“Trouble
found me once already. With you by my side, I think I can handle a little more.”

Many thanks to my amazing editor, Samantha Ashpaugh,
for catching my numerous mistakes and ensuring the story made sense. Thanks
also go to Isabella Coclovo-Kozzi and Melesia Kay Tully for beta-reading and
convincing me to give this book a chance. And, of course, thanks to all my
friends, former coworkers, and cozy mystery readers who helped make this book
possible.

Thank
you for reading all the way to the end! I hope you enjoyed A Festival of
Murder.

Please
support me by leaving a review on Amazon!