Watch the Shadows by Robin Winter from Chapter Twenty-six
Watch the Shadows by Robin Winter From Chapter Twenty Six, p.73
“Mrs. Meg, can we talk?”
Meg jumped. This time it was Officer Ray, and he had a look on his black face she simply couldn’t figure out. Bad news? She didn’t think so. But then he scowled as if he were practicing looking serious, so she didn’t know what to think. She looked around the tables covered with bags of bread, plastic utensils and peanut butter jars under the awning. Thank the Lord it hadn’t started to rain yet this fall, or they’d all be freezing. The homeless moved along, some casting glances at her and especially at Officer Ray.
“Bad news, but I don’t think you should broadcast it. We found a pair of toes in the bushes at the park a week ago, but no certain ID. Female, that’s about it; nothing like nail polish for a clue. Didn’t find a lot of blood. I think it’s reasonable to assume they’re Jenny’s toes, but the thing is, we’ve got no way to determine identity. Maybe she had some kind of accident and ran away. Something bad is going on in Isla Vista these days, and Goleta too. You told me some of your folk here been disappearing? That Winsome fellow? Got a bad feeling about it.” He shook his head. “Other business, less scary. I have a little problem that could be a big one if it isn’t handled right. You know that place with the fancy fish—koi—that some of the rich folk with gardens buy to put in ponds?”
“Yes?” she said.
“Come over here, will you?”
She walked some distance from the tables where the men and women were gathered, warming hands in worn mittens on their paper cups of coffee. Meg looked back. How tall and settled Dwayne looked these days. He hardly coughed any more. He saw her looking and gave her a wink that made her smile.
“You know how special some of those koi are at the Garden Center,” Officer Ray said. “Worth a hundred thousand or more, they say. Well, we’ve been getting complaints that a couple disappeared. Big things.” He made a gesture with his arms. “At the start it wasn’t top expensive breeding stock that vanished, so they just let us know they has losses. I thought raccoons, but these fish are too big for raccoons, and the business has this electric fence to keep the critters out.”
Why was he telling her this?
“A day ago I got another call. This time they’re upset. They lost a huge monster fish, maybe this big, near two and a half feet long, with a special color of scales on him. It’s the color and shine that made him rare.”
“That’s too bad,” she said. “Do they have insurance? Can you insure fish?”
“Apparently when one’s worth twenty thousand dollars, you can.”
“Twenty thousand dollars?”
“Real special koi from some famous breeder in Japan, I’m told.”
“What a strange story…”
“And why am I telling you? Because I found something, heard something, and I need you to pass a message on. I heard Charlie telling Ilene about a good dinner they had together with Rapper. Barbecue. I discovered a long, stout fishing pole hidden in a clump of ceanothus bushes half a block from the Garden supply. Following that lead, I found a fire-pit and a batch of nice big fish bones, and Mrs. Meg, that was no ocean fish. I fish a bit myself when I get the chance, and I know.”
“Twenty thousand dollars?”
“You bet. A twenty-thousand-dollar fish dinner. But it has to stop. I took the fishing pole, but I don’t want to hear about even one more fish dinner. Make it so, Mrs. Meg.”
She couldn’t help it. Meg laughed so hard she cried. She tried to think about the poor fish. She tried to remind herself of the horror the owners must have felt. She tried really hard, but all she could do was laugh—laugh so hard she infected Officer Ray, who finally had to take off his glasses and blow his nose.
About Robin Winter; author of Watch the Shadows:
Robin Winter first wrote and illustrated a manuscript on “Chickens and their Diseases” in second grade, continuing to both write and draw, ever since. Born in Nebraska, she’s lived in a variety of places: Nigeria, New Hampshire, upper New York state and now, California. She pursues a career in oil painting under the name of Robin Gowen, specializing in landscape. Her work can be viewed at Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara or on-line.
Robin is married to a paleobotanist, who corrects the science in both her paintings and her stories. She’s published science fiction short stories, a dystopian science fiction novel, Future Past, and Night Must Wait, a historical novel about the Nigerian Civil War.
You may contact Robin or read her blog, or on her website.
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