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  Unsure about whether this was a dig at her, Victoria only smiled. “I talked to Corporal Jager the other day.”

  “Oh yes, I was there.” Adam took out a cigarette from his front pocket, and said, “Even if I hadn’t been, the whole town heard. It seems you bought a world of drama back from the big city with you. First Boyd’s death, then that scene with Jager, and now… Karen’s inheritance.”

  Ignoring this blatant speech, Victoria pressed on. “I didn’t mean the scene at the café. I talked to Corporal Jager earlier, and he told me a story about the dolls.” Victoria said.

  Adam’s face paled. “That was a very nasty business.”

  “Do you still have it?” Victoria asked. “I’d like a look.”

  “Have it? I would have burnt it as soon as I could, but Corporal Jager confiscated it as evidence. Still, I suppose there’s a photo on my phone somewhere.” He scrolled through his phone and showed her a picture.

  It was not much more than a piece of wood with nails sticking out of it. Black paint marking the eyes and a curve of tiny triangles representing the toothy smile. Still, seeing it made her quiver with fear.

  “When did you find this?” Victoria asked.

  “Inside my register,” Adam said. “I lock up the shop every night at 7 pm after I’m done cleaning and organizing. I open up at 7 am every day. Now I’m very sure there are only two keys to the shop; one’s mine and the other ones with my wife. That day was the same as any other. I had about five customers the day before. I’d tallied up the day’s earnings, locked everything up, and left for home. There was no one inside the shop when I left and no one hanging about outside either.

  I opened up at 7:00 a.m. the next day, dusted the place a bit, watered the plants and went to the register. It gave me a huge fright, seeing this… this filthy thing inside my cash register. I nearly had a coronary. Corporal Jager didn’t even believe me at first. He kept asking me where my keys had been, but they were with me all night, as always. I keep all my keys under my pillow when I sleep. My wife had her set in her wallet too. There was no sign of the store being broken into; there was no cash or jewelry stolen. I hope it was just the local teenagers… but…” He shuddered. “I sometimes lie awake at night wondering.”

  “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it,” Victoria said. “The town I grew up in was so safe that there was no need to lock the stores up.”

  “It wasn’t just that the town was safe,” Adam said. “It’s also that it was poor. We grew our wealth, and the consequences came with it. But Victoria, I can assure you about one thing. This was no thief or vandal. This… this monstrosity was something altogether more sinister.”

  “Did the police analyze the figure, in forensics?” Victoria asked.

  Adam laughed. “When I first went to them, they tossed it in a drawer and nearly transported me to a psychiatrist. No, Corporal Jager was most unhelpful. But by the time four more shop owners came with the same doll, well that’s when Jager decided to spur himself into action. He did a forensic analysis of the doll.”

  “What did he say were the results?” Victoria asked.

  Adam waved his hand in the air. “The results said that the dolls were made from readily available materials. Local wood, local yarn, local paint. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “On the contrary, it does,” Victoria said. “If all the materials were locally bought, it indicates that the person who did it lives in our town.”

  “No, see, the materials were all local, but no one living could have created them! The materials are more than a hundred years old.” Adam smiled triumphantly.

  Victoria stared.

  “Yes,” Adam said. “I hunted a long time in the town library, and I found the preserved diary of Jebediah Larch’s wife, Amelia. Her life was full of tragedy. She was forcibly married to Jebediah, a much older man. This was either because her parents did not approve of the man she loved, or because Jebediah had offered to pay off her parents’ debts. Not only was she married to a man she disliked, but she was also forced to leave her beloved home in England and travel far away to Canada a year later. In the journey, she lost her baby. Still, she was a pioneer’s wife and with a grim outlook she kept on working, hoping to build something of value.”

  Funny, thought Victoria, how she had only ever heard of Jebediah and his brothers. Their wives were important early settlers too. Hearing Amelia’s story now, she felt a twinge of sadness for the woman, so far away from her homeland, who struggled to build a new life.

  “Well, year after year passed, and Amelia bore no children. Eventually, Jebediah left her and began to live with a native woman he had fallen in love with.”

  “Her life was one hardship after another, was it not?” Victoria sighed.

  “The worst, sadly, was yet to come,” Adam said. “She began to be despised by the others in town. There were whispers about her, she was a strange woman, preferring books to the company of her townsfolk. Whispers about the books being “unholy” began to take shape around town.”

  “Oh. No.”

  “The townspeople began to shun her, and Amelia began to live as a recluse. She hunted her own food and refused to venture outside except at night. She stayed in the house and filled page after page of her diaries with her longing for a better life, and her hatred of the world that had denied her one. One dark winter night, unable to bear the loneliness anymore, she set her home on fire, and burnt with it.”

  “That’s… horrible.”

  “There are rumors of course. Rumors that it was not her, but Jebediah, tired of her repeated pleas to come back, who burnt her alive,” Adam said, with relish. “All we know is that only one of her diaries survived and here’s a picture I took of one of the pages. She drew a sketch of the dolls she used to play with as a child.”

  Victoria, knowing what she would see, was unwilling to look at it. Adam insisted. “You have to see.”

  He showed her an image of a yellowing book, with scrawling words on it. Sketched in charcoal, was the figure of a doll that looked eerily like the one he had found.

  “So you see!” Adam said triumphantly. “It has to be her Amelia! She’s come back to Larch.”

  Chapter 20

  It had to be false.

  That was the first thought that entered Victoria’s head when she left his store. It had been creepy, yes, listening to tales of Amelia in the shadows at the back of the shop. But out in the sunlight, better sense prevailed.

  Something, somewhere, didn’t add up. She had to speak to the others too and find out what had really happened. She strongly believed that solving this would somehow solve Boyd’s murder too.

  After all, wasn’t the central question in both essentially the same? How could someone enter a locked room and then vanish without leaving a trace?

  “Victoria?” A car pulled up to the curb, and Hanson, tugging at his jacket, got out.

  Victoria groaned internally. On the outside, she gave a sunny smile. “Hanson.”

  “Mr. Johannson to you,” He said. “I’m not fond of people who besmirch my name in public.”

  “Well, you do a good job of it yourself,” Victoria said, immediately on the defensive.

  “Everyone in town has heard of the little scene between you and Jager in Spring Hopes Café. I suggest you publicly apologize for dragging my name in the mud.”

  “I did not drag your name through the mud,” Victoria said. “I simply asked Jager why you were not interrogated. I also reminded him of the nasty fight you’d had with Boyd. Where, if I recollect correctly, you threatened to kill him.”

  “I was angry,” Hanson said. “But I had no intention of actually killing him! I had no need to, either. Boyd had proved to be a spectacularly bad Mayor. No one would have voted for him again next year at the election.”

  “No? Perhaps. But you needed to act fast, or that casino you’re so keen on would never grab hold in town.”

  Hanson’s face clouded with anger. “That casino is the only way thi
s town would survive.”

  “That casino is a way for you to make a lot of money,” Victoria said. “You don’t care about Larch. You don’t care about preserving its culture. The men who do, men like my father, like Boyd, like the historical committee, well you don’t care much for them, do you?”

  “Historical committee?” Hanson put his head back and laughed. “It’s a bunch of old men and store-owners getting together to talk about how great Larch was, that’s all. They’re fools who can barely run their own shops right.”

  “They’re good men,” Victoria said.

  “Whatever they are, I don’t much care,” Hanson said. “What I do care about is you. Do you think you can breeze into town, smear dirt about me all over, and that I won’t do a thing? I’m warning you, Victoria, I demand a public apology or else.”

  “Or else what?” Victoria asked. “You’ll kill me, the way you killed Boyd?”

  “These accusations again.” Hanson shook his head in disgust. “I tell you, I had no reason to kill him.”

  “But it’s convenient that he’s dead, isn’t it?” Victoria asked, sneering at him.

  “I was out of town,” Hanson said. “Everyone knows that alright? I was in Calgary, visiting… a relative.”

  “Did your dear nephew Corporal Jager take an interview of this relative?” Victoria asked. “Or did he decide there was no need to follow due process, and that he’d just take your word for it?”

  “Randolf isn’t in my pocket like you seem to think he is,” Hanson said. “He’s my nephew, and I adore him, but he has his own ways of doing business, and he’d certainly arrest me if he ever felt the need to. I showed him receipts of my hotel bill, and a memo from the lady I was with. I have a very strong alibi.”

  “It’s so easy to drive back from Calgary to Larch,” Victoria said. “Just an hour’s drive at that time of night. Do you have any proof that you didn’t come back?”

  Hanson colored. “This is ridiculous. I don’t have to answer this.”

  “You don’t have to answer to me, but any decent police officer would have asked you these questions.”

  “I slept, Victoria. It’s hard to believe, I know, but I was fast asleep, far away in Calgary, when Boyd was murdered.” Hanson said. “The entire town will be on your suspect list, won’t it? Because no one really has an alibi. It’s easy to slip out of bed, murder someone and come back home. At least according to you.”

  “All I know is, you had a motive,” Victoria said.

  “I’m warning you,” Hanson said his voice dark with fury. “I’ve had enough of your little games. If I hear one more word out of your mouth about me why I’ll start spreading a few rumors of my own.”

  “ threat,” Victoria said. “Really classy.”

  “Your sister, for example,” Hanson said. “What if she knew about the will? What if she needed the money to save her dying café? What if, Karen killed him?”

  Victoria turned back to Hanson, her eyes dark with fury. “You don’t talk about my sister that way.”

  “Then you don’t talk about me that way,” Hanson said. “Simple. We’ll both agree to a truce.”

  Chapter 21

  Victoria walked away from Hanson furious with him, but a little doubtful of her own self. Hanson was a wicked man, but he had been very sure of his alibi. He hadn’t been taunting her when he spoke of it, nor had he any signs of pride at getting away with murder. No, he had been very disgusting when he threatened to smear Karen’s name, but he had been equally sincere in thinking that his own had been smeared.

  Hanson, in other words, had reacted like a man who had not committed the crime.

  Then again, what good were instincts? Many a murderer could put on a sincere face and convince the world that they had not done it. And Hanson, Victoria knew, was an avid manipulator.

  “Mom,” Byron smiled as she entered home. “Where have you been?”

  “Just out dear. How was your first day at school?”

  “It was OK,” He said. “What’s for lunch?”

  She headed to the stove and started up a chicken and pepper stew. “How’s your grandfather doing? Did you go up to see him?”

  “He’s fine. He and Annie are becoming best friends, I think. He was telling her stories about the town, and teaching her how to clean those old locks of his.”

  Victoria smiled. “Those locks are his pride and joy. He’s convinced they belong in a museum.”

  “When you get old enough, everything you own belongs in a museum.” Byron pointed out.

  “Don’t be mean,” Victoria said. “So did you make any friends yet?”

  “No,” Byron said. “But I did talk to this one guy about the dolls.”

  “Oh yes,” Victoria said. “The car rental girl told you all about them, didn’t she?”

  “She did,” Byron said. “I was just kind of fascinated by the whole thing.” He took out a piece of paper, and Victoria could see he’d drawn on it.

  “So here’s the main street,” He said. “There’s the town square, city hall, the RCMP detachment, and the arcade. Down here, we have our very own Karen’s café, Adam Denner’s boutique, Boyd’s general store, Troy Smith’s Sporting goods store, and BeeBee Gordon’s Pancake house.” Byron had marked them all off in crosses at various points across the street.

  “Yep.”

  “Doesn’t it seem curious that the dolls have only appeared in stores on the main street?” Byron asked. “But the stores aren’t side by side or anything, they’re fairly well spaced apart. So if it’s a ghost, it’s a very wide-ranging ghost.”

  “Ghosts don’t exist.” His mother said.

  “Of course, they don’t.” Byron agreed. “But there’s going to be a whole flood of ghost hunters in town soon anyway. I even wrote to a TV show about it. If they choose to profile our town, I might get to be on TV!”

  “Byron!” Victoria was a little annoyed. “I’d have thought, with all that’s going on, you’d leave this alone for now.”

  “I can’t,” Byron said. “I know it’s been a shocking few weeks, but Mom, I’ve never come across anything like this. It’s absolutely fascinating.”

  “Your homework is fascinating too,” Victoria said. “You should try focusing on that.”

  “Mo-om.” Byron groaned. “Anyway, I asked Grandpa about how he found the doll...”

  “You mean how Aunt Karen found it,” Victoria said.

  “No,” Byron said. “The doll was found in Spring Hopes Café, but Grandpa found it. Aunt Karen was on bed rest that week because she’d just had her accident.”

  A sudden chill went up Victoria’s spine.

  Karen’s accident. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

  Karen’s accident had occurred a week before Boyd had emailed Victoria, and a month before Victoria had actually moved back home. But Victoria knew the details all the same.

  Karen’s best friends in school had been two fellow cheerleaders, Daisy Gordon, (daughter of BeeBee Gordon), and Minnie Rainer. Minnie had moved away to work in Calgary in the software industry while Daisy now worked in Edmonton as a Vet. Still, the three best friends had an annual tradition that they had vowed would never be broken. Once a year, on the anniversary of their graduation, they never failed to meet and act like silly young girls all over again. It was a tradition that was dear to them, and not even when Minnie had been pregnant did they fail to uphold it.

  Their night would mostly go the same way each year. They’d meet for a good dinner in an upscale restaurant. Sometimes in Calgary, sometimes in Banff, once or twice even in Edmonton, which was farther away. After dinner, they’d drive through the night, music loud, talking to each other, reminiscing about the old days. Nine times out of ten, they’d end up in Beebee Gordon’s backyard, taking turns on the old swing set that Daisy’s father had set up in the woods behind their house.

  “I must have been… a little over enthusiastic this time.” Karen said, thoroughly embarrassed when telling Victoria of her accident
. “The others told me not to do it, that we were getting too old; but it was a tradition, you see, and I was determined to prove I was as young as ever.”

  Karen had climbed onto the swing, taken off and in mid-air, the swing had broken, depositing Karen to the ground with her foot under her.

  Now, looking back on it, Victoria wondered if it had been an accident after all. Could somebody have deliberately frayed the rope that held the swing together? There was no way of knowing anymore, of course. It just seemed… unusual, that the only business in which the doll had not been found by the owner was Karen’s.

  It was probably just paranoia on Victoria’s part, she told herself. But the thought persisted. Could the person who planted these dolls have wanted Karen out of the way in order to plant it? After all, it wasn’t more than two days later that their father had found the doll inside the store’s cash register.

  Chapter 22

  Annie was jumping with excitement as she met her mother, so was Vanilla.

  “That little pup takes after you,” Victoria said. “You both shake your tails when enthusiastic.” Victoria wiggled her own hips, and both she and Annie giggled.

  “She’s the best dog in the world.” Annie scooped her up, and gave her a kiss, before setting the wriggling puppy down on the ground, “and Grandpa is the best man in the world.”

  “What’d he teach you?” Victoria smiled.

  “He was showing me the Haas Locks, and telling me all about them. They’re so much fun Mom, they’re like, the best, most intricate puzzles in the world. They’re beautiful too.”

  “You liked them?”

  “I loved them,” Annie smiled. “Then Grandpa told me how his Dad was a locksmith growing up, but how he’d gone out of business. You know, our family used to be really cool. We even have an uncle who used to be a bandit!”

  “I’ve heard that story,” Victoria smiled. “I don’t know how much of it Grandpa makes up, though.”

  “Grandpa is the coolest. He gave me this! He said it belonged to his uncle.” Annie took out a leather case and opened it up, to reveal a neat row of metal tools, hooks of all sizes and shapes. “He said he had an extra set, so I could have these! He’s so amazing Mom!”