Dark Jenny

THIRTY-ONE

The tavern had grown chilly as I told my story. No one had stoked the fire, and it had died to almost nothing. My mouth was dry from all the talking, and my winter-chapped lips were starting to crack. I picked up my mug.

The crowd leaned in closer as if I might whisper the next part of the story. In the dead silence I heard the wind whistling outside. I’d never had so many eager faces turned my way, and it was kind of funny. The last of my ale bit at the raw spots on my lips, but it felt great going down my parched throat.

“And?” Gary finally prompted. I could see his breath.

“Yeah,” Sharky added. “Who was the boy? Is he Kindermord?”

I held up my hand. “I’ll get to it.”

The room groaned its collective disapproval. Even Liz rolled her eyes. I winked at her and grinned. “Somebody better get the fire going again before we all freeze to death,” I added.

“So did you know then who did it, Mr. LaCrosse?” Sharky’s daughter Minnow asked.

“Who did what?” said Emmett the fur trader. “Is this still about that knight who died?”

“That’s the thing, it never really was,” I assured him. “And I didn’t know everything, but I knew most of it. By the time I got to the tent, I knew who did it, and why, and how. Although there was still one big surprise left.”

“What was the secret Kern told you?” asked Mrs. Talbot, my landlady. She knitted winter tunics on the side, and her current project had grown considerably since I started my story.

“How did Marcus and Medraft really die?” Drucker the gambler demanded. “I mean, I know they did die that day, all the songs say so. Right?”

“And who is Kindermord?” Sharky said, sticking tenaciously to his question.

“I’ll get to it all, I promise.” Angelina put my fresh drink down on the counter so hard a third of it bounced up and splattered the wood. I picked it up and sipped it before adding, “So… has anyone figured it out yet?”

“Figured out what?” Gary demanded.

“Would it help if I told you I already met both the murderer of Sam Patrice and the mastermind of everything else before I left Nodlon Castle to go to Blithe Ward?” I said.

“What?” Callie said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I didn’t know it myself at the time.”

“The ballads all say it was Ted Medraft,” she insisted. “He killed Marcus because he couldn’t have Jennifer, but Marcus gave him a moral blow before he died.”

“You mean a mortal blow, honey,” Liz gently corrected.

“ I bet it was that girl Iris,” Angelina said.

“No, I will say that,” I said, unable to keep the sadness from my voice. “It wasn’t Iris.”

“What gave it away?” Ralph demanded.

“The one absolutely impossible thing that happened,” I said.

“Finding two identical Jennifers?” Gary guessed.

“No. That was unlikely, but it wasn’t impossible.”

Liz snapped her fingers and said, “Your hand healing so fast?”

“No. Although that was a clue. But it wasn’t impossible.”

“That stupid Lord Huckleberry thing actually working?” Angelina said.

I laughed. “I can see why you’d think so, but no.”

Their eager faces now looked blank, and they exchanged puzzled glances.

“So the woman you called Dark Jenny is who’s in the coffin outside,” Angelina said without her usual disdain. Even she was now caught up in my story.

“No, don’t jump ahead of me.” I stood to stretch, and hands grabbed me to hold me in place, along with cries of protest.

“Hey, hey,” Liz said, slapping the hands away. “Don’t be rude, now. He’ll finish it.” She smiled at me the way a crocodile smiles at a calf drinking from the river. “Or at least he will if he knows what’s good for him.”

“I will, I promise. I just need to go upstairs for a minute and look at my notes again. This was complicated, and I want to make sure I get it all correct. It’ll give everyone a chance to get fresh drinks. Not on me this time, though.”

They grudgingly parted to let me visit my office. This time Liz followed, and I didn’t protest. She closed the outer door after I lit the lamp and said, “You don’t need to check your notes.”

I sank into my chair. “No.”

She perched on the edge of my desk and crossed her legs. “You’re just not sure if you want to tell the whole story.”

I took her hand. “How did you get this smart?”

“I’m not smart, I just know you. There’s something you don’t want everyone to know, and you’re trying to think of a way to finish the story without including it.”

I shrug-nodded. The danger of a smart girlfriend was that you couldn’t easily fool her.

She leaned down to look in my eyes. The lamplight made her impossibly lovely. “Then tell me. I’ll help you decide.”

“I can’t tell just you, they’re waiting.”

She got right in my face. “Let them. You don’t owe them. For that matter, you don’t owe me. But I would like to find out what happened, and I know you’d like to finish telling the story. So tell me, leave in everything, and then decide if you want to tell them.”

After the kiss I said, “I’m sorry you had to hear about Iris.”

“Long time ago,” she said dismissively.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

I got my office bottle from my desk and poured us each a drink. As we touched mugs, the impatient voices downstairs grew louder.

“Better make it quick,” she said.

I agreed.