Crimes by Moonlight

I shake my head.

“Thousands,” she says grimly. “From Alaska to Florida. Two years ago, though, Mother was on eBay looking at jewelry for our store in Detroit, and she spotted this.”

She hands me an oval cameo brooch, set in gold and rimmed with garnets. White on pink, it’s carved with the profiles of three women. Nothing I’d ever wear, I had assured my dad when I asked if I could put it on eBay along with some other pieces of antique jewelry. I think it fetched around $300.

“It was my grandmother’s,” I say.

“I know. My mom recognized it.”

“You came here because of a brooch?”

“Mother’s gone,” she says simply. “I suppose you could say she drowned. She was dying of cancer, and last summer she just merged into Lake Michigan. I have no other family.”

She won’t beg. I can see that.

“Okay,” I say at last. “But you have to teach me how to do animals. I can’t keep myself from wilting when I’m a plant, so I’ve been afraid to try a living form.”

She laughs and shifts into the shape of a large golden retriever and almost licks me to death before I can make her stop.

OH, and the shoplifter? The next time Jane covered for Dad, I said, “I’m sorry you’re having a rough time right now, Jane, but you can’t steal any more money, okay?”

See, the stolen items were portable, but they were also so cheap that most customers wouldn’t bother with a credit card. On Saturday morning, I watched a woman pay cash for a Blue Willow cup and saucer from Neva Earle’s booth. Jane pointed out a tiny chip on the underside of the saucer and told her it was being sold “as is,” meaning it could not be returned. Then she simply pocketed the cash.

I suppose I should have had her fired or arrested, but she’s been around since I was a baby. Besides, business is starting to pick up again, so Dad has her working more hours, and she’s gradually paying back what she stole.

Dad’s as absentminded as ever, but he’s noticed that Kendall and I are friends.

I’m still not totally convinced that Kendall ’s interested only in me and not Dad, too, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. A cousin’s one thing. A shape-shifting stepmom’s quite another.

Oh, and last week? I changed into a tiger and scared Tommy Bertram so bad he wet his pants.

Wait’ll he sees my dragon.

The Trespassers by Brendan Dubois

I was dreaming that something was chewing on my ankles when the phone thankfully rang, and I fumbled at the side of the bed and grabbed the cordless phone, and murmured something intelligible into the receiver. I looked at the bloodred numerals of the clock radio and saw that it was 2:34 a.m. A hellish time for about anything, especially a phone ringing in the dark.

The female voice on the other end said, “Sorry to wake you, Chief, but you’ve got a situation.”

I yawned, scratched at an intimate place or two, and swung around and put my feet on the carpet. Behind me my wife, Tracy, kept on slumbering. Sweet girl, she could sleep through most everything, including a Cat Five hurricane hammering at the windows.

“Go ahead. What’s going on?” I asked.

The voice-which I now recognized as one of the duty dispatchers for the county-said, “You’ve got an untimely death.”

Damn, I thought. It was Saturday morning. This meant that I probably had to kiss the weekend good-bye, even though I had earlier promised Tracy a nice drive south to visit her parents in Concord… but with an untimely death in town, that was all done.

“Go on. Where?”

“ Fourteen Mast Road. Officer Harris is there, securing the scene.”

“Fourteen? Did you say Fourteen Mast Road?”

“That’s right, Chief.”

Damn. The Logan place. Tracy shifted on the other side of the bed and then started gently snoring.

I yawned, scratched myself in another, somewhat less intimate place, and said, “All right. Tell Harris I’m rolling, should be there in about fifteen minutes. All right?”

“Absolutely,” the dispatcher said. “You want me to contact the state police?”

I hesitated. Protocol demanded that the state police be called in for something like this, especially in a small town like Salem Falls, New Hampshire, which had a three-man police department, one-third of which was on vacation, one-third of which was on the job, and one-third of which was sitting in a pair of pajama bottoms, talking to a young lady who probably wasn’t more than twenty-one years of age.

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “I’ll take care of it when I get to the scene.”

I sensed the uneasiness coming through the phone line, but she was a professional and said, “As you say, Chief.”

I hung up the phone and managed to get dressed and out the door without waking my wife or our two girls-ages eight and five-which I thought was a major accomplishment.

IN my cruiser the engine started on the third try, and I backed out to Rutland Road, where I live with my family. I flipped on the heater as I drove down Rutland, the headlights picking up the dead leaves scattered across the cracked asphalt. It was the middle of October, just a couple of weeks left before Halloween, but I didn’t see any trick-or-treaters about, just quiet homes with one or two displaying a flickering blue light in the window that either meant an insomniac or someone who had fallen asleep while watching The Tonight Show. There were also a couple of lighted displays of pumpkins or witches from those who really enjoyed celebrating this time of year, and I’m sure they were new arrivals to our fair town.

And speaking of lights, I didn’t bother switching on the overhead light bar. I knew Fourteen Mast Road quite well, knew I’d be there in less than ten minutes, and so what was the point of switching on the strobes and getting all gung ho? But I did switch on the Motorola police radio, slung underneath the dash, and contacted the same polite woman I had talked to earlier.

“County, this is Salem Falls Unit One, responding to Fourteen Mast Road.”

And her brisk voice replied, “Salem Falls Unit One, ten-four.”

And I resumed driving, shivering in the coldness of the cruiser’s interior, wondering what in hell I was about to step into, and also wondering if the fine townspeople of Salem Falls would finally purchase me a new police cruiser at the next town meeting.

FOURTEEN Mast Road was on the left side of a narrow country road, at the top of a hill that offered great views of the Montcalm Valley and the Green Mountains of Vermont, over on the other side of the border. The house was an old Victorian, three stories tall, painted yellow with white and black trim. It had a nicely trimmed lawn and a wraparound porch, and I saw a Salem Falls police cruiser parked in the driveway behind a white Ford van, which, in turn, was parked behind a light blue Volvo. It looked like most of the lights were on inside, and I was happy to see that the cruiser-operated by Officer Melanie Harris-had its strobe lights off. Nothing like flashing lights to get attention, and even in a small town like Salem Falls, it would take just under an hour for most of the adult population to know something was amiss at the Logan place.

I pulled over on the side of the road-the driveway being full-and called off one more time to dispatch, “Salem Falls Unit One, off at the scene,” heard a quick reply, and then switched off the engine. I got out and walked up a flagstone path to the porch and checked out the Ford van. It had Massachusetts plates-which got my attention-and on the side of the van was one of those magnetic signs that said N.E.G.H. with a 1-800 phone number underneath, and some odd logo with a broomstick and sheet.

I went up the porch steps, past a couple more Halloween decorations, the door opened up, and Officer Melanie Harris came out, shaking her head, a slight smile on her chubby face. “Chief, you’re really not going to believe this one-”