Chapter 25 - On the Trail

We went straight to the hardware store because, as Rall told me, that’s where we’d find Betty Hamlin. If there’d been a death in the family, she would have only been there ten minutes late. A burglary wouldn’t delay her at all.

It’s a good thing we did. The theft actually took place at the store, not her house. The store was in one of the old buildings that were the heart and soul of Craftborough. It was two stories tall with inventory on both floors. We found Ms. Hamlin at the front door, repairing the window herself. We gathered all the details we could, but when we asked her what was stolen, she shrugged.

“You don’t know?” Rall sounded surprised.

“Rall Axton, do you have any idea how large my inventory is? I checked the expensive stuff and the dangerous stuff—it was all there. If they took something small, let ‘em have it. It’s not worth my time to count every screw and nail.”

Dr. Morgan was more of a stickler. We found him leaning over a counter, counting every tiny piece of disposable equipment in one of a dozen similar bins.

“I have to keep track,” he said. “It’s a serious matter when someone breaks into a doctor’s office.”

“Did you check all the medicine?” Rall asked.

“It was the first thing I checked. The lock and the safe were both intact. Nothing was missing.”

“Is anything missing?” I asked.

Dr. Morgan stretched, then rubbed his eyes under his glasses with his thumb and index finger. “A needle.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “A…needle?”

“A hypodermic needle.”

“You mean the kind that you use for injections and blood drawing?”

“Yes.”

Okay. I hadn’t misheard. Maybe I’d misunderstood. “Do you mean only the tip? Like, the needle part of the needle—not a needle with a syringe?”

“Only the needle. No syringe.”

“How many did they take?”

“One.”

If he’d noticed that only one needle had gone missing, this man was more than a normal stickler. He could probably give Count Vasil a run for his money.

“Are you sure you didn’t miscount?” Rall asked.

“After the third time I counted, I was sure.”

I felt like bowing. Long live King Stickler!

We got all the details from His Majesty, then left him to continue his counting. I was walking down the front steps in a thoughtful mood when I caught sight of a trail. Like Kirby’s place, the doctor’s house doubled as his office. Unlike Kirby’s place, this building had a front and back yard. Along the side of the building, leading from the front to the back, was a disturbed line of snow. Someone had gone through the trouble of scuffing out their footprints as they walked. I thought I had a shrewd guess who.

Rall saw me bend down over the trail and came to stand beside me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Footprints,” I said.

Rall Axton had a good sense of both comedic and conversational timing. With him around, even short pauses were unusual. When I noticed that an unexpected one had slipped in after my statement, I looked up.

Rall was eyeing me. “You really are a Sherlock, aren’t you?”

My tiny smile was lopsided and I felt my nose crinkle a bit. “Like I told Ansel, I’m just an obnoxious amateur.” I pointed to the boot prints next to the scuffed-up trail. “I think these footprints are hers. They’re about my size, and you can see, she was being careful not to mess up the other trail.”

“Shall we follow her and see where the trail leads, Miss Cole?”

“I think we shall, Mr. Axton.”

Rall and I were also careful to stay off of the scuffed-up trail. It led us around the side of the house and ended at the fence in Dr. Morgan’s backyard.

“Can you boost me up?” I asked.

Rall laced his fingers together to give me a step. When I was balanced on his hands, I could easily see over the top.

“Anything?” he said.

I pushed myself up and jumped to the other side.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.

“The trail keeps going,” I called over the fence. “You can walk around. I think it’s heading to the side street that wraps around this block.”

Rall found me a minute later, sitting on the curb with my boots in the slush that had been thrown to the side of the road by the plow. He had to cross the road to get to me.

Rather than get his slacks muddy and wet, he decided to stand in the clear road.

“What are you doing over here?” he asked. “Ansel’s footprints stop with the trail.”

It took me a moment to untangle myself from all the thoughts cluttering up my head so I could answer.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I admitted to him. “But that’s what Ansel probably thought, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

“I’m so used to walking everywhere around here—Olivia said most people walk—but if you’d just stolen something—especially if you had to break a window to do it—you’d probably want to get away from there quickly. But you wouldn’t want to park out on the main street, because that meant your car would be easier to spot.”

Rall said, “So they came around to the side street.” He glanced to the other side of the street, then turned to face me again. “The trail does end there. It makes sense if the thief had a car waiting for them.”

I shook my head.

“No?” Rall said.

“The trail doesn’t end there. It disappears there because you plow the roads and keep them clean. But, you see, I’m an idiot. I assumed the thief would be walking, just like me, so I kept going to the other side of the road. The car wasn’t parked over there. It was parked here.”

“How can you tell?”

I jerked my thumb toward the smear of snow beside me. “Because the thief destroyed all their footprints over here too—or as much as they could.”

“As much as they could?”

I stood up and batted some of the grunge off my backside. “I think the jig is up, Rall. Are you ready to turn in your ninja yoroi?”

“Must I?”

“This is too important. I have to call Olivia and let her know what we’ve found. She’s a smart witch, so she’s going to know that we’ve been working together.”

His expression became one of admirable resolve. “I understand.” He pointed at me. “Don’t forget, I tricked you into telling me everything.”

“Your sacrifice will always be remembered, sir.”

We saluted each other as two comrades would when one of them is going into a dangerous mission. I pulled out my phone and dialed.

“Where the hell are you?” Olivia demanded the second she picked up my call. “It’s noon.”

“Olivia, I’ve found something.”

“I thought you were out sight-seeing with my father.”

“Our thief broke into three different places last night. I’ve been going around getting as many details as I can.”

There was a pause.

“What makes you think it’s our thief?” Olivia said.

I looked at the snow beside me. “Something Mrs. Lehm said.”

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Olivia’s voice deepened so it could hold the ocean of sarcasm that flowed into her statement: “Oh. Goody. More trigonometry homework.”

I glanced down at the snow again. The thief had smeared out most of the print, but the last of it—the bit that was left behind when they lifted their foot from the snow—was still clear enough for me to make out each individual toe.

“No,” I said. “Someone’s been out here barefoot.”

There was a longer pause.

“Where are you?”

“I’m near Doc Morgan’s place.”

“Autumn wants to meet us for lunch. Can you walk back to the town center?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll meet you there.”

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

The town center had been transformed from one day to the next. The once open park was now a maze of tents, booths, and rope guides. All of the festival’s main structures had been set up. There wasn't any entertainment scheduled for that day, but small groups of people had already gathered around the gas firepits that a few serious-faced individuals were still checking. The early vendors had opened to cater to their needs.

Business was business. As long as people were standing around, they might as well make some money.

I spotted Jacky, Olivia and Autumn, hidden among all the booths. When I jogged up to the group, Olivia greeted me with the consideration and kindness I knew I could count on.

“Where’s my father?”

I watched her as I tried to decide what to say. Her eyes were cold, and her face was stern.

“He went home,” I said at last.

Maybe she’d catch the hint and let it go.

“Why?”

Or maybe not.

“He wasn’t sure he’d be welcome.”

I’d kept my voice gentle and neutral, but any diplomacy used on that girl was a waste of effort.

“Why didn’t he call me and ask?” Olivia demanded.

My temper flared. “Maybe he didn’t want to get snapped at!”

The two of us glared at each other—two piranhas, facing off in a river of irritation and feeling oh-so snappish, indeed.

Jacky stepped between us. A skeleton probably doesn’t have a lot to fear from piranhas.

“Olivia said that you found something,” he said.

“Can we please get something to eat first?” On cue, my stomach growled with comedic volume. “I’m a little hungry.”

Autumn’s laugh dissipated all my grumpiness. She put one arm around me and one arm around Olivia. “Come on, you two. How does some street food sound?”

We found a truck that was selling something hot and suitably unhealthy, and got three orders to-go and three hot chocolates. We found a bench in the nearby park and ate in silence. Since I’d scarfed my fare with all the grace of a starving dog, I was done before Olivia and Autumn. Jacky and I talked while they finished.

“The Barlowe’s house was the first one hit,” I said. “Mr. Barlowe heard the noise around midnight. The hardware store was probably next, but we don’t have an exact time. Ms. Hamlin says she didn’t leave the store before midnight, while someone in the neighborhood said they were taking their new puppy out to relieve itself around three in the morning, and they noticed the window was broken. Doc Morgan couldn’t remember when he came downstairs, but he thought it was closer to four in the morning.”

“What noise woke him up?” Jacky asked.

“He wasn’t sure about that either. He said it was loud enough to wake him, and that’s all he remembers. It could have been the window or the door.”

Jacky gazed off into the distance. “The times might not be certain, but the relative order seems to be straight forward—the Barlowes’, the hardware store, and then the doctor’s.”

Autumn crinkled her wrapper up in her hand. “Are we sure the break-ins were all done by the same person?”

Oh! I knew this one!

“There can always be more than one person.” I shook my finger in the air. “Never forget that.”

Jacky added, “But neither can we ignore the possibility that it could’ve been done by one person. There was enough time.”

“Enough time, yes,” Autumn said. “But why would the thief pick the lock on the first house, then break the windows for the other two places?”

“Maybe the locks on the last two places were different,” Olivia suggested. “The Barlowes’ was a private home, but the hardware store and Doc Morgan’s were businesses.”

“I’ve never concerned myself with locks,” Jacky said. “Emerra, did you notice them?”

Behind my sternum, a discontent hum vibrated like an indignant speck. I didn't know much more about locks than Jacky did, but I'd known a few interesting people, and at least one of them had made a special study of various ways to get past them. From what she’d said, if a lock took a straight metal key, they were pretty much the same when it came to picking them.

Everyone was watching me, waiting for my answer.

“I mean, we can check them,” I said, squashing the speck. “I didn’t notice the locks particularly. But if someone picked the lock on the Barlowes’ door, why would they lock it again once they were inside?”

Big Jacky’s empty sockets stared at me. “I’m afraid you’re not leading well.”

“Huh?”

Olivia said, “I think he means he’s not following.”

I turned from her to him. “Oh, but this way it’s my fault?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Jacky,” I said, “remember what Mr. Barlowe said—he heard the noise, he went downstairs, and when he checked the door, it was locked.”

“He also said that when he searched the house he didn’t find anyone. It’s possible the thief hadn’t broken in yet.”

That sounded profoundly unlikely to me, but I didn’t have a better explanation. How had the thief gotten in if he hadn’t picked the lock? If he had picked the lock, why would he lock it behind himself while he was in there, only to leave it unlocked when he left? Unlikely or not, Jacky’s explanation made the most sense. Barlowe heard a noise. It wasn’t the thief. The thief picked the lock and came in later.

I scowled and took a sip of my cocoa.

Autumn said, “I’m less worried about the locks than I am about that footprint.”

“Yes,” Jacky mused. “I believe Emerra's right. Mrs. Lehm assumed that they belonged to Kirby, but only the thief would bother to obliterate their tracks. The bare footprints probably belong to them.”

“But what good did scraping out their tracks do?” Autumn asked. “You could still follow where they went!”

“They probably didn’t want to be identified by their footprints,” Olivia said.

“All right, but why weren’t they wearing shoes? It’s awfully cold to be running around barefoot.”

There should have been cricket noises. It was the middle of February, the sun high in the sky, and the air was filled with the chatter and laughter of the dozens of people around us—but there should’ve been crickets. If I’d had a sound recording on my phone, I would’ve played it. It was that kind of silence.

The only explanation I could come up with was something about the staggering number of weirdos in the world.

“We may have to leave that question for later,” Jacky said.

The rest of us nodded. There wasn’t much point trying to decipher the life choices of a weirdo.

He went on, “We must speculate.”

“You mean more than we already have been?” Olivia grumbled.

“In the absence of knowledge, it’s all we can do.”

Olivia didn’t have a quip for that comment.

Big Jacky went on, “I think it’s safe to assume that these thefts, whether they were carried out by one person or more than one person, are all related.”

“Why would you assume that?” Autumn asked.

“The bare footprint already ties these crimes to Kirby's kidnapping, and Olivia has conjectured that, considering how rare crimes are in this community, concurrent incidents are more likely to be related than not. If we accepted that as true with the incident at ARC Hall, then the same logic applies here. Which is more reasonable to assume—that there’s one driving motivation behind all three thefts, or that three different people all decided to act on their own on the same night?” Jacky paused to see if there’d be a response. When there wasn’t, he added, “There’s also the similarity between the three thefts.”

“Only the last two were the same,” I pointed out.

“I wasn’t considering how the thief gained entry,” Jacky said. “I was thinking of what was stolen.”

“We don’t know what was stolen from the hardware store,” Olivia said.

“We know that it wasn’t expensive, and we know that it wasn’t dangerous.”

I mused, “And I think Ms. Hamlin would have mentioned if it was money.”

Jacky continued, “In all three cases, the item stolen was relatively cheap. Since the thief couldn’t expect to sell them, they must have wanted to use them.”

“But if they weren’t expensive, why didn’t they go in and buy them?” Olivia asked.

Autumn let out a quiet groan. “Olivia, honey, I’m awfully glad you’ve never been that poor—”

“No, that’s not it.” My sudden interjection surprised everyone, including myself. I looked up at them. “You can’t buy them. Mr. Barlowe orders in his jugs because you can’t buy them anywhere around here. Those little needles aren’t expensive, but you’d probably have to drive for a few hours before you could find a medical supply store that sells them. And how much would you stand out if you tried to buy only one?”

“What about the hardware store?” Jacky asked. “Presumably the thief could have purchased whatever they stole from there.”

My mouth started moving while my brain was still churning over the question. “What if it’s something like that—like the needle? They can’t buy it because if they bought it, it’d stand out. Especially in a small town.”

Jack Noctis was impressed. You could hear it in his voice. “That sounds reasonable.”

I beamed. Think before you speak? Not this chump!

“How did they know that Mr. Barlowe made wine?” Autumn asked.

“Insider knowledge,” Jacky said. His voice was off-handed.

“You think they live in town?”

“They wouldn’t have to. They could’ve asked Kirby.”

Autumn’s relaxed expression faltered. I could see a flash of tension pull the corners of her mouth into a frown.

Kirby was there, hidden behind all of this—a lost figure in the shadows. We’d been so busy trying to bash out what we knew about the thefts, we’d forgotten we were looking for a kidnapper.

My heart squeezed up with sorrow.

Jacky put his hands in his pants pockets and raised his skull. “What can we learn from what they stole?” he asked the sky.

“If they stole the stuff rather than drive out and buy it or order it in,” Olivia said, “either they’re in a hurry, or they can’t leave town.”

“Or both,” I added.

Autumn’s eyes scanned the cluttered horizon, broken up by the booths, ropes, heaters, and people. “Could it be about the festival?”

“It’s possible,” Jacky said. “Even likely. They could be here for the festival, or they could be using it as a cover. If the festival doubles the population, it doubles the number of suspects.”

Olivia said, “If they did steal those things to use them, that means they haven’t accomplished their objective. And considering all they’ve gone through, it’s not going to be something small.”

Jacky bent his skull in a single nod. “I agree. The circumstances of these other thefts also raise an alarming possibility about the incident at ARC Hall.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been assuming that because the ward was tripped and no one was found inside, the perpetrator either failed in their objective, or they were testing the ward. But what if they succeeded? What if they were after another element needed to help them in their larger objective? If it was a piece of information, or if the object they stole was small enough and of seemingly little importance, it might have been overlooked during the inventory.”

Autumn, Olivia, and I all exchanged uneasy glances. It was hard to imagine someone successfully breaking into ARC Hall—you know, what with it being impossible and everything—but it was equally difficult to imagine why someone thought it’d be worth their time to steal a single hypodermic needle.

Jacky didn’t join in our friendly pooling of anxious looks. He was staring out at nothing again. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.

“A glass jug, a hypodermic needle, and something inexpensive that you can find at a hardware store.” He lowered his skull to look at Olivia and Autumn. “Can either of you think of a reason those things might be useful?”

“You mean for magic?” Olivia asked.

Jacky hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s curious, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Olivia, who’s the most talented witch currently residing in Craftborough?”

Olivia’s face stiffened. “My mother.”

“And the second most talented?”

A faint scowl crossed Olivia’s face. “My sister Nylah.”

Jacky turned to me. “And Nylah Oliversen said that she found nothing.”

I nodded.

Jacky crossed his arms and tapped his finger bone on his sleeve. “The two most sensitive witches in the whole town have been searching, and they’ve found nothing. Iset surmised that the thief would have at least a basic understanding of magic, and I’m inclined to agree with her—especially considering that ARC Hall might be involved—yet, the most notable thing about all these incidents is the distinct lack of magic.”