Side street mystery; Post haste

It is at the post office where Pierre Reaux bumps into Faun

He looks almost comically awkward when all his papers go flying, so, taking pity, Faun runs to help him and when she gathers his papers he begrudgingly smiles. He wears a black hat. Somewhat fedora you might say, but on him it becomes another article entirely. 

Awkwardly he says,

“we might ‘ave got off to a bad start, Mam—mad—rrr—Mizzz—“

“Just Faun is fine,” she coolly asserts the papers under his coat covered armpit like a friendly jab, “there you are, all sorted.”

She starts to step away but he follows her,

“excuse me—Mzz—Faun, madamme— I just wondered if I may talk to you for just one moment of your time?”

Faun pauses just a step to look at him but then continues to the yellow Volvo anyway, 

“Is there something you want, Monsieur Reaux?”

“Well….as you know my jurisdiction is only as far as the Canadian border—“

“Yet we find you here so frequently,” Faun stopped to smile now 

“Yes well…. You ‘ave the Sam’s Club and the Walmart….” he scratches his jaw thoughtfully as he tries to seem casual 

“You come here to shop at Walmart?” she looks at how he is dressed. Three piece suit and that trench coat was far from Columbo 

He is inspecting his nails as he smiles looking back up at her,

“not me, Mz Faun—but most of ze characters I must investigate do tend to frequent such places.”

He says all this with his heavy French Canadian accent whilst twisting his mustache absently 

“So how can I help you today?” she asks now 

“You are still running ze bookshop for ze Bishops?”

She waits a moment to reply. She looks at his expression to read him. 

“I am. The chief of police over there could have told you whatever you’d like to know,” she watches his face.

“Have you remained in contact wiz Monsieur Grant?”

Faun had sensed this must be about him somehow 

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it seems he may need your help.”

in bed with a wolf

It was somewhere after passing out and waking to get up in search of the toilet to vomit in and feeling miserable after when she noted the unfamiliar surroundings. Then remembered ….Greg….what was he said about the morning ….? 

But her head was just pounding too hard to contemplate anything in any great depth and it’s funny how the mind goes to familiar things when in a moment of abject misery ….Imogene always kept sodium bicarbonate in the bathroom medicine cabinet next to a handy glass. 

“Aha!” Diandra found it 

Then it was ….two —what do they call them here? In the drawer next to the first aid kit.

After that she got into the shower and sat on the floor of it and let the water beat down on her until the danger red finally went away. 

It must have been after that when she dropped back onto the bed Greg had hours before dumped her in, her hair spilled out in twisted, mad, wet, ringlets and her skin scrubbed to a flush, she fell naked back asleep. 

But as the sunlight later came spilling in with the morning when she opened her eyes 

….there was Greg at the foot of the bed 

who do you want next to you when your world falls apart

side street baskerville a party for tea

 

But by the end of the day, Faun did not want to reflect upon the meeting with the two authorities which, mostly was tedious and all about the fact that Monsieur Pierre Reaux was not kept abreast of the ongoing details of the case. It was a wasted hour of listening to and watching him exclaim and strut over the documents and the paper trail of how Sullivan and she and third party had left him in the dust. 

It just buried Faun under more stupid nonsense. 

Sheila did not see Faun again until after closing time when she handed Faun the cash till,

“What did Inspector Clouseau have to say?—sheeze —you look like you’ve not see daylight in a year! Did you even eat anything all day?”

Faun took the till and quietly started counting the drawer down 

Sheila cleared her throat,

“hello?”

Faun looked up in mid count,

“thirty-seven….” her eyes focused on Sheila and for a second or two it seemed she seemed to go blank. Then she said, “I’m sorry …. yeah—Clouseau needs a clue—I don’t want to get into it, he’s an idiot —but, it’s just more stuff they need—paperwork—total waste of my time….sorry…. I can’t believe it’s so late—I never even saw the sun today….sorry I left you out there on the floor all day.”

“It was your day off, and I wasn’t alone, the girls took a shift today —so, the change might be off—“

Faun dropped the pennies back in the coin slot and looked at Sheila—six foot two black trans beauty wearing one of her usual imaginative ensembles, this one involving a red tartan kilt with a matching hat 

“Oh…. I didn’t realize ….” Faun again looked blank 

“Ill do the till— sweetie, why don’t you go home?”

After about a minute of considering and nervously rearranging the objects of the desk in front of her Faun sighed in defeat,

“yeah….” and stood up and reached without looking for her hand bag and coat but paused by the office door. She looked into the office and back at Sheila, “King Leopold?”

“Oh! We have him—I meant to tell you, can we drop him off tomorrow? Gary and he seemed to have hit it off—“

“So, who dropped him off? Who was the guy?”

“Guy,” Sheila said, “his name —that’s his name—“

“But—“ and yet as Faun wished to press for more info on this little mystery her phone alerted with the dismal tone of Pierre Reaux —asking her to fetch yet one more piece of paperwork —this one from Arthur’s office.

It was awhile before Faun finally arrived back at her place in the freezing cold, fumbling for her key hardly noticing any of her surroundings except for the cold and all the snow and so it was with a start that she looked up from removing her boots inside the entrance via her kitchen, by the door that she noticed ….Grant standing there looking at her —still inside the partition between her place and the other side that lead out to ….the other kitchen and —to salmon sofas

“What….” the words seemed not to come to Faun as she stared up at him 

He looked ….terrible ….it was clear he had been traveling but it was not just a look of travel weary, it was something deeper. 

He stared at her. His dark hair and face were groomed as usual but something was obviously wrong; he appeared slightly crumpled in his woolen pullover and gray trousers 

“Something’s —wrong….” Faun said it looking at him as she carefully approached him in her stocking feet 

Slowly his eyes met hers; red veined and tired but it made the green of one of them almost brilliant 

“Don’t ask me,” he said and just stared at her. His eyes took a deadly serious look. “Don’t ask,” he said again 

Faun took a step back and started to turn away,

“all ri—“ but he reached for her as she started to move away. Faun stumbled and let him steady her as she looked again up at him. She stared into his eyes and said again, “all right ….” as she took a deep breath, “would you like tea?”

a royal Reaux side street mystery

Faun arrived on foot before the sun and found her way to the cash office without having to flip any lights. She focused on the neat list in her head of all the tasks of the day…. but what about King Leopold? 

It had not crossed Faun’s mind once to believe the king could be anywhere but with Grant 

and since Grant was nowhere to be found, it seemed a moot topic until she found Sheila’s handwritten yellow post-it note laying stuck to—right on top of the shop’s electric bill: “almost forgot to tell you—Guy called saying he is dropping off King Leopold”

which threw a wrench in her plot to stay focused on her to-do list and not get distracted 

Nevermind the donation boxes of books cluttering up the path to the public bathrooms that needed to be inventoried and shelved or tossed, not a safety hazard but —by early mid- morning even this was to be evaded by a surprise policeman visit 

Sullivan and Pierre Reaux both arriving through the shop’s front doors and one glaring her down as Faun dealt with a line of people whose only literary interest was reading the price out of their expected lattes

Out of nowhere, Sheila arrived too, appearing from the stacks and saying,

“I’ll take care of the line, why don’t you take Mr and Mrs Smith over there?”

“You have great timing,” Faun looked up and without argument stepped away from the counter and headed out to the floor over to the ‘Smiths’

“Can I help you with something?” Faun glanced first at officer Sullivan and then at the French Canadian 

“Perhapz ve can ‘av a word in a more private eh—rroom, nes pas?”

Faun glanced at Sheila who waved with a wink and then looked over at Sullivan whose eyes looked serious 

“Great,” Faun said

An alley way called Dawn off the side street

She felt differently she realized, staring out over the street in front of her, watching the coats of snow melt under the pummel of the constant rain which replaced the days of snow storms 

She had felt differently for awhile.

The tone of life had cast a new altered scheme of shades ….and it was so gradual, this change …. it was not possible to pin point any exact moment of the shift 

but there was a shift …. 

Faun looked down at her chapped hands— now softened ….but they still slightly stung, if she noticed ….

why had she come here….? and why had Grant been able to distract her from ….distract her from what is reality. But the change began when it was still present 

   and the events —a few shocking deaths between other

events …. smeared what remained of the dreams 

What world did those dreams belong in?

Sheila had no other message from Grant— so, it seems ….he forgot her, and now having shut up this part of the house Faun turned away from the window. She kept her eyes away from the salmon colored couches and focused on the door through which would close out these recent memories ….

and once through that door….Shut….with a click….she leaned against it and stared ahead at the interior of her little kitchen ….her bald reality glared back as she wondered how it was possible that he had achieved this ability to distract her from reality —that reality ….

And now with everything back in order at the shop and the bills sorted out and replied to whatever it was that Pierre Reaux needed (copies of the mud print photos) now done 

Faun faced the empty place ignoring the mockery of cheap fixes that existed for dates and fake friends —how did he distract her from that? she slid down the door and sat on the floor ….not a flashy red carpet promise, it was just—the ease that existed when he was around; a calm in which to think and breathe— was it illusion ….?something she had conjured up and blindly had believed in—her fault—so….it should be easy to conjure again, right? for herself ….

Faun reminded herself that he would have to contact her eventually about the book shop 

wouldn’t he? 

It suddenly occurred to her why Grant was able to distract her from the brutalities of life 

Tango for ‘tea’ down the wrong side a side street

In the end, Faun did wind up in Grant’s….

 it’s best not to get ahead of things, certainly, but, with the amount of chaos two teenaged girls can create and having to unknot the damage —an overcharge that was fixed with a refund for six thousand dollars; a complaint from someone in Berlin Germany for a phone call about a book they didn’t order that woke them in the middle of the night (Jennifer was still not getting the dialing sequence must be cleared by hanging up the receiver, not by pushing the red light) —and a few confusing issues they seemed to be having with ….money—as in the physical kind. So, their total disregard for safe keeping the cash went right over their heads. Several times Faun had found the cash register drawer left open so….

By the time the mothers —Paula and Pamela of Jessica and Jennifer (respectively) came to collect the girls (Jessica at 6:03, Jennifer at 6:07) 

when Grant found Faun in the cash office counting down the drawer—and having problems making it balance with the estimated cash deposite ….

he found her looking disheveled with the frustration of the task in front of her; her glasses askew on her face and her hair standing up in places where it looked like she had pulled at it in a kind of frustrated fit, juxtaposing the teal colored tweed skirt and matching suit jacket otherwise smart ensemble, contrasted by a cream colored satin blouse that had a long ribboned tie and pearl buttons. 

Her little ballet pumps with the big buttons, he noticed, were kicked off by feet, outlined in opaque black tights 

“You look like you could use a drink,” Grant said as he, after the fact, tapped lightly in the door as if meant as a knock 

Faun looked up,

“Oh do you have one?” as she looked hopefully for this possibility 

Grant laughed,

“I know where Arthur hid his sherry but I was thinking more along the lines of going somewhere—would you eat fish? There’s a place I read about….”

Faun stared at him for a moment. She was still adding and subtracting in her mind. 

And wasn’t there something she was supposed to …. make him suffer for …. a little longer?

“Ummm—but—oh! My wall!” as it hit her just then what it was she had meant to be asking about 

Grant went over to the desk where she was, took all the cash and put it in an envelope—

“No wait—that’s not the deposit—that has the base fund; I can’t make it balance—“ she was saying as he was still removing the cash from her fingers

“You need to get out of here, I think,” he said this as he placed the cash and the till into the antique safe and quickly shut it.

He turned and looked for her coat, recognizing the dark green adirondak coat,

“Let’s go,” he said slipping a hand under each of her arm pits, and while holding her coat, pulled her up from the chair, “the deposit can wait—I’ll clear it with the boss, so, don’t worry.”

The sea food place Grant had read about seemed to be very good; it had a waiting cue. But Grant insisted they wait and order drinks. Faun would be willing to swear it was a margarita. At least the first one was. And she would be willing to swear the seafood was probably amazing.

What were they talking about?

The Bishops….the shop….his childhood, where he grew up….he made her laugh at things he talked about….

It was just a bit hazy. Except for his eyes—as she could not look at anything else as they sat at the table….and what he said….everything he said….and for the first time in forever, she forgot to be self conscious and relaxed next to him

There was that moment after the paying of the check when Grant was helping her on with her coat

“Oh no….” Grant suddenly had said as they headed out towards the door to go and now —watching how often Faun paused to study the textures of the wallpaper 

“Hmmm….?” she was, at that point running her fingers over the velvety texture as she walked and humming to herself 

“You can’t drive,” he said 

His meaning wasn’t clear until they were outside.

“It’s so hazy out,” but she was squinting and then dropped the car keys in the little snow drift by the car door. “Shit.” And fell down on top of the drift. 

It was when she decided she felt comfortable there that when Grant leaned over her and said,

“give me the keys,” the other thing he said finally made sense 

After that 

It was awhile in the car. How long was she staring at the glove compartment? And still in the restaurant’s parking lot.

Finally she thought to look at Grant. He seemed to be having a personal conversation with himself. The tequila was making it harder for her to grasp most of it—or was it the translation? 

“Key…”he said under his breath and looked from the key to the areas of the antiquated steering wheel and dashboard. He tapped the spot when he located it with the key—but was not in a hurry to insert it. He let out a breath. “Right side….” he said aloud. Then looked at the key again. Another deep breath. “Two lanes —yellow lines….how do you turn right?”

“It’s two left turns,” Faun suddenly said

“Sorry?”

“Going back,” she clarified, “I mean from here.”

“Oh….that’s even better….”

But Faun did not remember the journey back.   

There was a moment she heard that terrifying sound of car horns being blown as they drove by some cars and someone yelled something that sounded like,

“pick a fucking lane—your other left asshole!!”

but it made sense with her dream somehow—so,

 it wasn’t until she was dumped actually into his bed       —quite similar as she had been the last time, as a matter of fact