ALL THAT GLITTERS, chapter 1

chapter 9

Chapter 9

The skylight room of the former opera house boasted only a fraction of its former glory. There were no velvet-covered chairs, no posh decorated edgings, no grand stage. But the room was still ringed with an upper balcony, about twenty feet beneath the elaborate glass canopy that usually filled the room with golden filtered sunlight. It was one of Lucky’s favorite places in the world, at least in Vermont – she already had favorite places in Boston, thanks to being in college there. But at the moment, that seemed like another world, impossibly far away. What mattered were her father in the hospital bed, her mother’s agitated reactions, the police investigation hanging over them all – and now the ironic stupidity of Sean Perkins, weed whacker to the region, snagging a job at the shipping and receiving desk of Lucky’s mother’s bookstore.

Sean’s reddened face dripped sweat and his agitation made his voice squeak. He cut through Sandy’s demand with an anxious explanation.

“Celina’s just trying to get enough money to leave town. Not everybody has money to go to college and all that. Celina’s smart and she deserves a chance to start over where nobody knows her. All she asked me to do was wrap some boxes for her, that’s all. It wasn’t going to get anybody in trouble, honest.”

The whine of Sean’s last word with its fake honesty disgusted Lucky. Sandy made a face, and Michelle groaned. Sean began to protest again, but Sandy overrode him.

“You don’t think you might have gotten the bookstore into trouble, with its return address on these packages of Celina’s? Nice big shoeboxes full of local pot, right? Sean, you make me sick.”

“She said they’d be smaller boxes. Just, like, an ounce at a time. Those book boxes are perfect. And it’s not like anybody had to know or anything.”

Sandy made a fist, and the red-faced boy flinched. But all she did was strike the top of her own head with her hand as she said, “Dumb, dumb, dumb. Come on, Sean, even you should know they have pot-sniffing dogs in post offices. Sending marijuana through the U.S. mail? You are stupider than raccoon barf.”

“The main thing is,” Lucky cut in, “how many boxes have you shipped so far?”

“Uh, none, nothing. I mean …”

“Right. Try again. More than ten? More than twenty?”

“Jeez, no, maybe four. I told you, it’s no big deal. And they went out last week, so they’ve probably already gotten where they were going.” Sean actually looked baffled at the way everyone was staring at him.

Finally Michelle turned to Lucky. “Fire his ass, hope nobody’s spotted the other packages, and do a complete cleanout of all parts of the store he might have entered? Which I guess means the whole first floor.”

“Maybe the cellar, too,” Sandy suggested. “At night, after the staff’s gone home.”

“Not tonight, though,” Lucky countered. “Tomorrow. Because tonight we’ve got to – well, let’s get this idiot out of the building, and then I’ll fill you in.”

The three friends embarrassed Sean further by searching all his pockets and firmly patting him down, and Sandy offered to take him out of the building through the old office doors, instead of back through the bookstore. While she did that, Lucky made a quick call to Josie, saying only that she’d explain later, but nobody should let Sean back into the store. She kept it short.

Turning to Michelle, Lucky admitted, “I’ve probably left Josie thinking Sean had something to do with my dad getting shot. I’ll straighten it out tomorrow or the next day. Meanwhile, though, it’s extra incentive for them all to watch out for him. Anything else I need to know?”

Michelle shook her head. The solarium’s light was fading with the chill November twilight. Lucky flicked on a lamp, as Sandy came back to the room, wiping her hands on her jeans.

“Creep.”

“Definitely.”

Against the skylight, a gust of wind blew icy pellets of hail and snow, scraping across the glass. The room dimmed further.

“Your apartment?” Michelle reminded Lucky of why they’d come here in the first place. “Clothes and other stuff for your mom? Maybe some socks and a bathrobe for your dad, too?”

“Definitely. But listen: Jake called while I was headed up to you. He said Dad’s coming in and out of being conscious. And he keeps talking about barns, and basements, and, can you believe this, rum-running?”

“No way.” Michelle’s lip curled upward. “Like in Prohibition times? When they drove bootleg liquor through here, or served it up in hidden restaurants and dance halls? That’s crazy. Don’t you think it’s a concussion or a fever or something? Did he ever talk about that stuff before?”

“Never,” Lucky confirmed. “He’s not even into history at all. Politics, yes, but not history. Jake guessed fever, too, but he said Dad kept saying something about a shipment at the store, so he figured he’d let us know before we leave town.”

“I wonder if it’s one of sleazy Sean’s shipments? Could a package of that stuff have reached your dad’s store, maybe?” Sandy stood up, eager to go look. “Let’s pack the stuff from the apartment and go check the other store.”

As a group, they moved over to the window that looked out on Main Street. The “other bookstore,” the one for used books, Rivendell, stood dark across the road. Through the steady snow they could see a fluttering streamer of police tape flapping against the storefront windows as gusts of wind erupted.

“We should go there,” Lucky agreed. “Let’s see if we can find another flashlight, too, just in case. I know where the spare keys for the store are, in my dad’s bedside table. I can’t believe the police aren’t even looking for anything over there. But I guess that makes it easier for us, doesn’t it?”

Looking at a different angle, Lucky could see straight down State Street, with an angled view of the spotlit golden dome of the State House, barely visible through the thickening curtain of snow. It was almost dark out already.

“Let’s go,” Sandy urged again. Michelle gave a gesture of “you first” to Lucky, and they crossed the solarium, headed for the locked hallway that led through the antiquated structure to the apartment just beyond.