Lake Silence (The Others #6)(51)
“What’s that got to do with Vicki’s dream and my boardinghouse?” Ineke demanded.
“Someone who thinks he can force Ms. DeVine out of The Jumble might also think he can buy the liens from the bank and call them in, forcing you to sell or forfeit this place when you can’t pay the debt,” Grimshaw said.
“I don’t think Yorick has the business savvy to plan this kind of hostile takeover,” Vicki said.
Julian looked at Grimshaw. “Which brings us to the phone call and the answer to a question.” He looked at each of them. “I contacted Steve Ferryman. He’s the mayor of Ferryman’s Landing, which is an Intuit village on Great Island. He knows some . . . people . . . in Lakeside.”
“The Sanguinati at Silence Lodge know about the sweet blood who lives in the Lakeside Courtyard,” Ilya said quietly.
“Do they?” Grimshaw asked just as quietly. What did “sweet blood” mean to a vampire?
“She has friends among the Sanguinati who live in that Courtyard—and we are all entertained by stories about Broomstick Girl.” The vampire’s smiled sharpened. “What did she say?”
“I e-mailed a picture of the tie clip to Steve and briefly explained what was happening in Sproing,” Julian said. “The question that was sent to Lakeside was this: besides this tie clip, what do detectives working in Putney, a bank manager in Sproing, and a businessman living in Hubb NE have in common?”
“And the answer?” Grimshaw asked.
“Schools and . . .” Julian retrieved the box and set it on the table in front of the sofa. “Somehow this is part of the answer. Big wheels and little wheels.”
Judging by the picture on the cover, the box held sticks and wheels that children could put together to form different shapes.
“Is this the literal answer or a symbolic one?” Vicki asked.
“Difficult to say,” Julian replied. “I don’t know exactly how blood prophets see the future.”
“But you didn’t ask about the future.”
“No, but the girl who answered the question is working with a prototype deck of prophecy cards, which is making it possible to ask questions that aren’t specifically about the future. However, I was warned that this is a new skill that is still being learned, and the answer depends as much on the person interpreting the information as on the person who is guided to selecting particular images.”
“May I . . . ?” Vicki waved a hand at the box.
Julian shrugged. “Go ahead.”
Vicki opened the box and smiled. “I had a set of these when I was a child. I loved playing with them, putting the sticks and wheels into all kinds of odd shapes or structures. My mother disapproved because I built shelters for my little stuffed animals instead of building a proper home for the dollies I didn’t want to play with.”
“Why didn’t you want to play with them?” Ilya asked.
“Dollies are creepy,” Vicki and Ineke said. They shuddered. Then they began taking pieces out of the box.
Grimshaw looked at Ilya Sanguinati, who was looking at the women as if he’d just discovered a hitherto-unknown predator and wasn’t sure what to think about that. Well, Grimshaw knew what to think about it. He was certain he could subdue Vicki DeVine if he had to. After all, she was short and plump and didn’t have the kind of muscle mass that indicated that she routinely worked out. Ineke, on the other hand, advertised that she buried trouble—and he still wasn’t sure if that was figurative or literal.
It made him glad he was the only person in the room carrying a real gun.
Vicki cocked her head. She set three small wheels on the table, equally spaced, then waited for Ineke to connect the wheels with short colored sticks before she pointed to each one in turn. “The first dead man. Detective Swinn and his team. The bank manager.” She placed a larger wheel below those three. “The bank president now living in Putney.” She placed another large wheel up and away from the others. “Yorick up in Hubb NE.”
“Big wheels and little wheels,” Grimshaw said as Ineke attached long colored sticks to the wheel representing Vicki’s ex-husband, connecting him to the three small wheels and the bank president’s wheel.
“Social status,” Ineke said before Vicki could respond. “Odds are better that the businessman and bank president would move in the same social circles—circles that would not include minions like detectives and employees.” She smiled at him. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Grimshaw replied. “The blood prophet had said ‘schools.’ Ms. DeVine, where did your ex-husband go to school?”
“Yorick’s family has lived in Hubb NE for generations,” Vicki replied. “He went to Smythe and Blake, the private college in the city.”
“It may be a private college where the future movers and shakers are sent to learn how to take over the family businesses, but land constriction made it necessary to share some things with the University of Hubb NE as well as the technical college and the police academy located in that city,” Julian said.
“Like the athletic fields and some of the general-use buildings,” Grimshaw said. “I remember how, at the dances, there would be four distinct groups holding their own piece of the room, and may the gods help anyone who dared to cross into another territory to ask a girl for a dance.”