Crowning the Slug Queen (A Callie Stone Mystery Book 1) Read online

  “Well, I was thinking of taking a vacation. I have a little free time from work,” now that was an understatement, “and I was feeling like it would be nice to come home.”

  “The guest cottage is free right now, although I don’t know how long it will remain that way. You know how your mother likes to bring home stray people she finds at community meetings. The last guy had a three foot beard that I swear had a nest of starlings living in it.”

  “Well, hold the room for me. I’ll be there in the next day or two.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Maybe it was the difference between real air and the canned air inside the plane, but Callie didn’t remember the air in Skinner ever smelling this good before. If one could aerate watermelon, fresh cut grass and strawberries, this is what it would smell like.

  Although there were cloudy gray skies, the green of the trees and the verdant landscape had shown brilliantly while the plane was circling. She had forgotten how green it was, even in the rain.

  Callie stood in front of the lone luggage carousel in the Skinner airport. Although a single carousel might be parsimonious by East Coast standards, Callie could still clearly remember when the luggage in Skinner was unloaded directly from the airline carts outside a garage style door and tossed directly on the floor of the terminal, so one carousel was definitely better than none. One carousel also made the wait for baggage short.

  Not that she had much luggage. Unlike her usual business trips where suits and evening wear put her at the maximum weight limit, this time she was on vacation. All she packed were jeans, blouses and comfortable shoes. She didn’t have anyone to impress here anyway. Although she supposed even the cut of her jeans was different than the usual casual style that Skinnertons sported.

  Some things hadn’t changed. The upper walls were still papered with cardboard cutouts of flying people and clouds. From the ground floor, the black and white photos of real people sailing through the air looked life size although Callie supposed they were a bit smaller. There were kids with toys, men holding onto their hats and women in 1980’s style blouses and billowy skirts. The blue and green floral print on the skirt of the woman directly in front of her made Callie realize that those might still be in fashion in Skinner. There was occasionally a sense of timelessness to Skinner with its activist vibe hearkening back to the 1960’s. Like loose, billowy skirts, that vibe hadn’t gone out of fashion either.

  Later renovations to the airport created additional indoor jet ways so she should have had a half decent chance of debarking directly into the airport instead of into the dicey weather outside. Skinner welcomed her with its typical gray skies and rainy mist, so of course, she had to leave the airplane by a staircase that led the passengers outside before leading them back into the terminal to get their luggage.

  As her flight had taken her through the airport in San Francisco with its bad weather making flight delays probable, she had told her mom and grandma not to try and come to the airport to greet her. Besides she wanted to rent a car for her stay and could get to her mom’s place on her own.

  Once she picked up her suitcase and was on her way out of the airport, she began to think about getting something to eat. As it was almost six p.m., she was certain her mother would have something prepared and might even be expecting her. Callie didn’t really feel up to whatever organic, vegetarian soup her mom would have thrown together. If she was going to be here a while, she might have to conspire with her grandma to cook some real food.

  Dusk was falling as she drove south on Hwy 99. She had only returned to town sporadically since high school, but she didn’t see that it was too different. There were a few new restaurants, but the homeless folks were still on the corners begging and although there was a steady mist coming down, almost no one was using an umbrella. Some things never changed. Nothing in Skinner was very far away from anyplace else. It was almost if the town had been created for the legion of bike commuters which populated it.

  For dinner, she decided to let nostalgia rule her choice. The Cloudburst Pub had been one of her parent’s favorite places to eat. This was before her dad died and her mom embraced the Bohemian life of a flower child. Skinner would never be known for its fine dining establishments, but even a local place like the Cloudburst offered some good basic food.

  Callie drove down to Fifth Street and realized that the area had undergone some sort of renaissance in her absence. The area known as the public market looked to be filled with stores that were more commercial in nature instead of the stores that featured handmade crafts in the past. Admittedly, none of the stores looked to be branches of any national chains, but Callie found their crisp commercialism at odds with her childhood memories of market booths and handwritten signs.

  She parked in the lot for the public market and crossed the street to the Cloudburst. The main feature of the dining room was a glass wall that showcased the large silver tanks used to make their beer. These days it seemed you couldn’t swing a dead cat in Skinner without hitting a brewpub. She supposed it was the morose weather that encouraged beer drinking.

  The tables looked full so she walked to the bar and sat down. “Just drinking or would you like a dinner menu?” asked the bartender, wiping down the counter between them with a green striped towel.

  She looked up at him and realized she knew him, but couldn’t place his face. From his expression, he felt the same. She smiled, “Now where do I know you from?”

  His brown eyes sparkled. He had short sandy blond hair and from the way it was spiked, Callie assumed she used less mousse in a month than he did in a day. “How often do you come in here?” he asked.

  “Never. Well, not since I was a kid. I used to come in with my parents, but I can’t imagine you would have been bartending back then.” He looked to be in his early thirties, close to her age. “I just came back into town today, so whatever it is we have in common must have been back in the late 80’s or early 90’s. Unless you’ve been to New York City lately.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m pretty much a dyed in the wool Skinnerton. I’ve done some traveling up and down the West Coast, but I’ve never been out East.”

  “Well, that narrows it down. What high school did you go to?” she asked.

  “North Skinner. I graduated in 2002.” He continued to wipe the bar as he spoke with her, then turned around and grabbed a menu for her.

  “That must be it then. I graduated in 1999, so we’re just a few years apart.” Something in the way he cocked his head at her finally jogged her memory. “I know. Drama class. Were you in West Side Story? You’re Jeremy Bilson.”

  He laughed. “Yep, that’s it. I was playing Riff, so I died in the first act. Not too memorable of a role.”

  “No, it was!” she said. “Was it you whose pants split on opening night when we were in the middle of the dance scene in the gym?”

  “Thank goodness, no. I would have never lived that down. That was Mark Kearny—I think he was class of 2000. Although I can picture you in one of those frilly red skirts the Puerto Rican girls wore, I have to admit your name still escapes me.”

  She reached across the bar to shake his hand. “Callie Stone. Nice to meet you again, Jeremy.”

  “Now I remember! It wasn’t your stellar acting skills that came to mind for me. You’re the girl who got the full ride scholarship to some fancy school back East. There was an article in the Skinner Times about it.”

  Callie had been a nine-day wonder when she got her scholarship. It wasn’t the fact that she got it—numerous students had gotten scholarships and many more went on to college. But there was something about Skinner that kept people local. The state school, the University of Oregon, was in town and the majority of high school graduates went there or at least stayed on the West Coast going to schools in Washington or California. Callie was one of the few to take such a big step and depart for another world.

  “I can’t believe you remember that,” she said, shaking her head. “I went to Johnson and Wal
es in Rhode Island and learned how to be an event manager.”

  “That’s right. I guess it stuck in my mind because I accidentally got into the hospitality industry through bartending. I learned the job sort of on the go. Now I’m manager here. Some days I wish I had a bit more training.”

  Callie shook her head. “I’m not sure all that schooling made me any better at organizing. You either have the temperament for it or not. Nothing in a textbook can substitute for real world experience. If you’re already managing a place like this, you probably already know a lot of what they would teach you.”

  “What can I get you to drink?”

  Callie looked at the wine list, but as the majority of the wines were local, she didn’t have a clue to what was good and what was not. Besides, now that she wasn’t with Peter, maybe she should branch out to something new.

  “It looks like you brew your own beer here. What would you recommend?” she asked.

  “Do you drink a lot of beer? Are you a hops or a malt girl?”

  “No, I’m a total novice and wouldn’t know a hop from a malt if you put them both in front of me.”

  “Well, then I’ll start you off with our Liquid Sunshine Lager. It’s fairly light and will go good with almost anything on the menu.” He went off to get her beer.

  She ordered the fish tacos, another recommendation from Jeremy, and while they were waiting for the meal he came back over to chat.

  “So, if you don’t mind me asking, what brings you to town?” he asked.

  “I needed a little vacation, so I came to visit my mom and grandma. I’m not really sure what I’ll be up to. My mom has a large garden and I’m sure she’ll persuade me to spend countless hours weeding or something.”

  Coral Stone’s house and environs were something of a wonder to Callie. On just over an acre of land, her mother had a rotating system of crops allowing her to almost live entirely on what she grew herself. She canned, made her own compost, and had solar panels for heating water and generating electricity. While Callie could value her mother’s attempt at living off the grid, there was an intense amount of work that went in to maintaining such a system.

  “Are you going to be here long?”

  “At this point, at least a few weeks. I’m taking it easy and not really thinking about when I have to be back. My plans are sort of open ended.”

  “I’m not prying,” he said, “I have a particular reason for asking. The pub is sponsoring Skinner Days and one of the key organizers quit yesterday. Her husband fell off a ladder and broke both his legs, so she had to take time off to care for him. The main event, which is sort of a comic beauty pageant, really needs a little help, if it’s going to be a success.”

  She looked at him incredulously. “We’ve been talking for about twenty minutes and you think you know me well enough to offer me a job?”

  “The pay isn’t great as you’d be a volunteer, and I think it will only take a few hours. With your background, something like this would be a piece of cake.” He smiled at her, his brown eyes full of laughter. “Giving back to the community—that’s what we’re all about here in Skinner. The pageant is next weekend, so it will be a very short job and then you can go back to vacationing. The planning committee doesn’t meet again until Monday, so you have time to think about it.”

  “Let me see if my mom has anything more exciting planned for me first. Can I have your cell number? I’ll get back to you.”

  Privately, she thought she needed vacation more than she needed work. And would he really want someone who couldn’t even remember to bring the CD of "Taps" to a military memorial? But maybe after a weekend spent with her mom, grandma, and Coral’s garden for company, she would be looking for something more.

  She paid the tab and left the restaurant. The skies had cleared and it wasn’t raining for the moment. She wasn’t quite ready to go home yet, so she took the drive up Franklin Butte and parked in the lot at the top that overlooked her hometown.

  She was glad to be here. She could see the lights of the city almost magically sparkling as the many trees waving back and forth caused the streetlights to wink in and out of view. She breathed in the sharp, clean air and felt the weight of her life back in New York fall away somewhat. In fact, it surprised her at how easy that seemed.

  It shouldn’t surprise her that she didn’t miss the absence of Bill’s constant phone calls and texts, but she wondered at her lack of concern over Peter. Had her relationship with him been so superficial that he could walk out on her without saying good-bye and it didn’t faze her?

  That didn’t say much for her ability to fall in love. It’s not that she thought that she and Peter were ever going to get married or anything like that, but as her constant companion for over four years, she felt they had a serious connection. How could he leave so abruptly and how could she really not feel badly about that? Maybe she had just gotten into a habit with him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The transition from city to country was abrupt. One minute Callie was on the main thoroughfare known as the Beltline, a freeway which wound itself around the north side of the city, the next, she was on River Road on the outskirts of Skinner, by the rail yards.

  The last vestiges of civilization were a pizza parlor, a beauty salon and a mini mart. After that the city lights faded and Callie was left driving in the dark, misty night with only her headlights for illumination.

  Coral Stone owned about a football field’s worth of land. The plot was L shaped, bordered on two sides by an orchard of filbert trees. The house and land had once belonged to the farmer who had owned the orchard, but had been sold as a separate parcel when he retired. The filbert trees were now harvested by a collective farmers group, which sat nicely with Coral’s thoughts on how the world should be run.

  Callie pulled off of River Road onto the gravel drive bordered by filbert trees that led to the house. She remembered the long walk from the bus stop to the front door. They had moved here after Callie’s dad, Paul, had died. Her teenage years had been rough, with her mother’s sudden change, or growth, or whatever, from housewife Esther to free spirit Coral.

  She stopped the car for a moment and heard the subtle sound of the raindrops and wind rustling through the leaves of the trees. This had been a supremely lonely sound and before this, she associated it with melancholy memories of life after her father’s death. Now, the inconsistent, rhythm less taps and pats sounded soothing.

  As a teenager, her walks down this lane had always been slow. She knew that once she got to the house it would be time to go out and do whatever chores needed doing. That included digging through the beds to remove the celery blight that had hit one year or stirring the compost barrels to ensure good aeration. There were some times of the year when it was nice to be out in the garden, but for the most part Callie remembered it as an endless list of tasks.

  Callie had petitioned her mother to attend North Skinner High on the other side of town, instead of the nearby rural high school. She wasn’t interested in all the Future Farmers of America had to offer. Those would have been activities of which her mother might approve. Callie knew shearing sheep and growing blemish free vegetables would never be her way out of Skinner. She found it ironic that Skinner’s reputation was one of a sort of urban oasis. A place where you could get the benefits of the big city, while enjoying the benefits of the countryside. Well, she had had too much time with the country portion when she was growing up.

  Callie pulled in behind her mom’s red Ford pick-up truck. The lights were on in the living room, but the rest of the two-story farmhouse was dark. Coral’s energy conservation in action. Callie did notice new lights by the path that led to the front door. Solar, of course. She almost felt like knocking, it had been so long since she identified this as home, but she took a deep breath, turned the handle and went in.

  Grandma Minnie got to her first and grabbed her in a hug, her head only coming to Callie’s shoulder. Grandma Minnie was wearing a blue floral blouse, we
ll-sewn, but obviously homemade and pale blue stretch slacks. “Look at you. We were expecting you hours ago.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “But that means you missed dinner, doesn’t it?”

  Callie winked at her. “The plane was held up and it took me a while to get my luggage and the car. They fed us on the plane,” she said for her mother’s benefit since her grandma had already figured out the ploy.

  Coral sailed in to the foyer like a ship at sea. Her auburn hair, worn long and straight, was a shade darker than Callie’s, and shot through with gray. “That plane food is full of chemicals and additives. You can’t have gotten a good meal. Let me get you something.” Coral was dressed in loose tan canvas pants and Birkenstocks. Her flowery tunic, while pink, had the same floral pattern as Grandma Minnie’s blouse.

  Knowing dessert was usually the most edible thing on the menu, Callie said, “Do you have any of your pie?”

  “Yes, the raspberries are just finishing, so I have a freezer full. We have a berry pie tonight.”

  “That sounds good.” Callie sighed to herself in relief.

  A little later, sitting around the kitchen table with cups of hot tea, and the remains of their pie, Coral asked, “How long are you staying? The cottage is empty for the next two months. I had a pair of WWOOFer’s back out. They got a better gig in the South of France.”

  Keeping up Coral’s organic garden was more than a full time job. So she worked with an organization called World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. The workers provided could definitely be a mixed bag. Some enjoyed the labor and relished the opportunity to learn about organic farming. Some were just trying to travel the world and find free places to stay. A WWOOF’er worked a farm in exchange for free room and board.

  “I don’t think I’ll be here for two months, but my plans are sort of open ended. How about two or three weeks? I could help out on the farm as you’re short labor.” Callie couldn’t believe those words came out of her mouth. However, when she contemplated the days doing nothing in Skinner, she thought maybe it would give her time to think without being depressed. She could work and accomplish something until she figured out what her next step was.