“Maybe we should have gotten a table inside,” said Sarah. “Did I feel the deck shake a bit?”
The wind had kicked up and the awning over the deck was flapping noisily. Honour took a hair clip from her purse and pulled her hair back, not very tidily, but at least getting it out of her face. “Oh, I think it feels wonderful. I love eating out on the deck.”
“Me too,” said Trudy. “Even if I sometimes feel like I could topple right over the edge into the grapevines.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll grab you!” Lizette laughed. “And then we can both roll down the hill into the Ok. You’ll fish us out, won’t you, Sarah?”
“Seriously, this deck is shaking.” She picked up her feet as if that would save her from a wind induced collapse of the deck.
Honour changed the subject, “I do think the dining room was particularly stunning today. I love the new pieces.”
The wine and food at Artisans’ Respite were definitely something to celebrate, but part of the allure of the sojourn to one of the Ok’s finest wineries and restaurants was the ever-changing gallery of paintings showcased in and around the restaurant and tasting room. Since it first opened for business in 1980, the winery -- and later restaurant - provided space for local artists to display and sell their work, and the result was an evolving tableau of paintings, some wonderful and some merely okay, that seemed to change with the seasons. Today’s offerings were a fusion of spectral color and style, featuring the art of two of the Finger Lakes’ newest celebrity artists - Charles Bailey and Cecily Winters. Bailey’s art was based on Native American themes, and featured varying shades of red and orange distinctly etched across his large canvases. Winters’ art celebrated the flowers that grew abundantly in the region with a surreal contemporary twist. Her vibrant and lavish pinks, purples, reds, and greens were beautifully contrasted next to Bailey’s more dramatically articulated designs. The result was a fusion of colors and styles that seemed to complement the mainstay of Artisans’ Respite’s award winning fusion wines, which Honour found difficult to define, both complex and simple at the same time - and delicious.
Honour was thinking about that as she looked around the restaurant beyond the deck and sipped the Swan White Fusion and trying to think of words to describe the wine’s palate. … She was interrupted from her thoughts by two things. First, the waitress brought the French onion soup - divine - and, second, Trudy said, “We really should start a blog.”
“A blog?” asked Sarah and Lizette simultaneously.
“A blog about lunch?” Lizette laughed. “Baloney sandwiches and potato chips, interrupted once a month by heavenly meals on the lake?”
“No. … A blog about fine living in the Finger Lakes! You know, about the wines, the restaurants, entertainment, and where to get a fabulous haircut and manicure.” Trudy grinned one of her magnificent, awe inspiring, movie star grins. One thing about Trudy was certain, she had a lot of confidence and envisioned herself as a walking billboard advertisement for her Nefertiti’s Amour beauty shops. Honour always looked forward to seeing Trudy each month. It was like taking the pulse of America’s beauty trends. Today she was sporting a Diane Keaton cut, heavy on the blond highlights, and layered just “oh so.” Her makeup, which was usually a little on the heavy side was downplayed today with a pop of hot pink on the lips.
“Well,” Honour diplomatically stated, “that’s certainly something to think about. My plate’s a little full right now, but maybe sometime in the future.”
“Sure!” Trudy was undeterred, enthusiastically adding, “The Fellow Travelers on the Finger Lakes! … One of my gals is a wiz on the computer. She set up Nefertiti’s Amour’s website. She absolutely lives for that stuff. Don’t know what I’d do without her. Anyway, let’s really think about it. Maybe we can even make a couple of bucks from advertising.”
Equally undeterred was Lizette - only she was undeterred from her soup. She barely came up for air. It’s funny what you can tell about people from the way they eat soup. Lizette was slurping her soup so enthusiastically that she didn’t seem to notice the steady drips on her shirt. Or maybe she just didn’t care. Honour couldn’t blame her. The French onion soup was unbelievably good, heavily laden with French bread croutons and Gruyere. And Lizette’s devotion to her task seemed to enhance the experience even more.
As if reading Honour’s mind, Lizette looked up and declared, “Okay, gals, try this - put some soup in your mouth and take a sip of the wine at the same time. Oh my God, really, you’ve got to try it. This Swan Fusion is the perfect pairing for the onion soup - trust me on that. It’s like heaven.” And with that Lizette proceeded to perform the balancing act of holding soup in her mouth while sipping her wine, totally unbothered by the spillage on her chin -- which she dabbed with her napkin.
“You see?” Trudy grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about -- a blog about all the wonderful things the Finger Lakes has to offer!”
“Yeah,” Lizette nodded, “blog that, Trudy!”
Honour imagined that Lizette encountered every meal with the same vigor. She could almost see her sitting in her office at her medical clinic with a boloney sandwich, chips, and soda, happily swishing the mixture in her mouth and dribbling down her white coat. Well, maybe that was too much. Nonetheless, Honour enjoyed watching Lizette eat. And Lizette seemed to enjoy everything. It was no wonder her patients loved her. She enjoyed helping them, talking with them, encouraging them, and healing them. And, as one of Lizette’s patients explained to Honour, she did not “harass her patients about vices.” Of course, that was understandable since Lizette seemed completely comfortable with herself and her extra twenty or thirty pounds.
Sarah, on the other hand, was a more complex eater. She was a preparer. She ceremoniously used her fork and knife to slice through, in cross hatch fashion, the croutons and cheese on her soup. Sarah hadn’t even begun eating her soup yet. She was still busy stirring and blowing. She seemed to have a cautious respect for anything edible -- tasting, testing, and pausing as if to consider each bite. Everything about Sarah seemed calculated. While Lizette seemed totally unconcerned about her appearance (today Lizette was wearing a polka dot shirt, long calico gypsy skirt, knee socks and crocs), Sarah’s ensemble was carefully matched down to the headband she wore on her head. She was a study in beige: khaki pants, brown long sleeve t-shirt, a patterned scarf with brown, tan, and beige designs, brown Mary
Jane shoes above which a half inch of brown wool socks were revealed. And on her head was a khaki colored headband that ironically matched not only her outfit, but her hair as well. For the life of her, Honour could not understand how Sarah got, and kept, her long hair so straight. No matter how humid the weather or how windy, her hair obeyed, remaining perfectly straight and in order. Unbelievable and worthy of Honour’s envy.
While Lizette ate unabashedly and joyously and Sarah ate as if the act required a marvel of engineering and caution, Trudy was another matter entirely. As a matter of fact, Honour almost doubted that Trudy even ate at all. She was, after all, incredibly thin. Honour paused between bites of her soup to wonder if she’d ever actually seen Trudy take a bite of food. After possibly pausing too long looking across the table at Trudy to see if she could catch her eating, Trudy tilted her head and said, “Are you okay, Honour? What is it?”
“Oh, nothing, Trudy. Just thinking I guess.” Not a bite had been taken. There was some stirring, clinking of spoon on bowl, but no journey of the spoon to the mouth. Interesting. But surely Trudy was eating her soup. Or maybe she’d just rearranged everything in the bowl.
But Trudy truly appeared to be interested in food, or at least talking about it. “Last month,” she said, “I had the crab cakes. I think I’ll try one of their gourmet pizzas this time. They sound so good.” She had abandoned her spoon altogether, examining her perfect hot pink fingernails. Upon closer examination, Honour noticed that every other nail was some sort of blush pink shade. It reminded her of some of her college students’ fingernail design tastes, only they tended to prefer decals as well as multiple shades and colors. Trudy began lightly drumming her nails on the table, which fortunately was covered with a tablecloth to blunt the sound. As if on demand, Trudy’s cell phone vibrated and she picked it up to read a new message.
“Hey, gals, Jimbo just texted that one of his boothies just brought in a load of dishes and stuff he thought I might be interested in. Some Spode, Blue Willow, Pfalzgraff. Do you want to stop by on the way home?”
All four Fellow Travelers were up for an adventure amongst the cavernous booths at Jimbo’s Antique Emporium. But, of course, that would have to wait until after the main course and, possibly, dessert.
Trudy convinced Sarah to go halfsies on one of the gourmet pizzas featured on the menu. Honour was intent on watching how the halfsies would play out, now convinced that Trudy was indeed a non-eater. Honour got her usual crab cakes, a specialty of the restaurant, and Lizette settled on the special of the day -- vegetarian lasagna.
After a brief moment of silence when their main courses arrived, the conversation picked up. Trudy looked over at Honour and resurrected an old conversation topic: “So what exactly is it that you teach at the college, Honour?”
Honour, with one eye on Trudy, now holding a single small slice of shrimp, mushroom, and onion laden pizza (it did look very good), and said for what seemed to be the tenth time, “I prepare pre-service teachers to teach reading and writing to young children.” Honour smiled as if that were the end of the conversation. After all, she had explained this several times already on the first Saturday of each month.
Trudy, however, tilted her head and said, “That’s your whole job? I mean, my boys were reading Dr. Seuss books before they ever went to kindergarten. I don’t get it. Really, you put ABC magnets of the refrigerator, hand them a book, and voila, there you go. They read.”
Honour put her head down slightly, more than a little exasperated. Sarah, the librarian, came to her rescue. “It’s not quite that simple, Trudy. Your sons obviously had a lot going for them in that department. They had books. They had a mom who put alphabet magnets on the fridge. And I’m sure they went to preschool, right?”
“Well, sure,” Trudy soldiered on, “But, I guess what I don’t understand is why kindergarten teachers don’t just put the alphabet up on the board, point to it every day, sing the ABC song a couple of times, give the kids books, and just tell them to read.” Her wide toothy grin seemed to betray the fact that she was poking Honour a bit. Honour decided to play along.
“Well, what can I say,” said Honour. “It’s what I do - take something that seems relatively simple, and make a career of it. It’s a job.” Her smile was calculated to match Trudy’s. She noticed that Trudy’s pizza was being systematically scalped of its shrimp, mushrooms and onions. At least she was eating.
“I never eat the pizza crust,” said Trudy. Perhaps she’d noticed Honour’s attention to her eating activities. “I really just like the toppings.” Sarah paused mid-bite and looked around the table, as if wondering if she was missing the finer points of pizza eating. She set her pizza slice down on her plate, picked up her fork and knife, and began ceremoniously cutting her
slice into small edible bites. It looked like she was purposefully cutting the bits so that each had at least one delectable morsel on it -- a shrimp or slice of mushroom -- so that each bite now actually resembled an hors d’oeuvre. All that was needed now were toothpicks.
Trudy proceeded with her self-selected topic of conversation. Looking intently at Honour, she said, “I wonder sometimes if that’s what’s wrong with schools in our country, Honour. We make too much of everything, particularly in the younger grades. Geez, there are only, what, 24 or 25 letters in the alphabet!”
Honour felt Sarah’s foot tapping her on the shin under the table. Sarah held her fork up as she declared. “26! There are 26 letters in the alphabet. And, of course, we’re not making too much of it. Some children have great difficulties learning to read. And teachers need to know how to work with all children -- from your sons, who were obviously very bright, to other children who struggle to learn to decode words.” Sarah was ready to move on, thankfully. “So, Trudy, tell us about your new business venture. You said you were expanding, didn’t you? A new salon?”
Honour smiled appreciatively at Sarah. Finally a new topic of conversation. Trudy seemed not to notice the deliberateness of Sarah’s conversational maneuver. And Lizette seemed not to notice anything other than her meal. She had called the waitress over and, as if negotiating the Yalta agreement, was engaged in an in-depth conversation about wine.
“I really think a red is in order,” Lizette was turned completely around in her chair facing the waitress. “But, you know, to be a little daring, I was wondering if a nice rose’ wouldn’t be a little adventurous with the lasagna. What do you think?”
The waitress was very obliging. “Were you interested in a bottle or a glass? We have a couple of nice selections by the glass.”
“As much as I could probably drink an entire bottle, I think I’ll stick with a glass.” Lizette really lived for this stuff. She settled on a glass of Artisans’ Rose’ Folly and gazed lovingly at the rest of her lasagna while waiting.
Trudy, now happily the conversational focal point, explained her expansion of Nefertiti’s Amour. “No, not another shop -- four is really enough at this point -- but we’re introducing a new line of products. So exciting! An entire line of hair products, moisturizers, and -- maybe in the future -- even make-up. It was all my husband’s idea. He’s been such a gem the past few years. I mean, really, if it weren’t for Warren, I’d still just have the one shop. And he’s the one who urged me to do more retail business. Well, is is, after all, one of the smartest businessmen you’ll ever meet.”
Of course, Trudy’s Fellow Travelers were well aware of Warren Simmons’ notorious philandering and the conversation fell flat with Trudy’s adulation of her husband.
Honour thought it might very well be a good time to change the topic and poke Trudy a bit -- all in good fun. She tilted her head as if pondering the meaning of life, squinted her eyes, furrowed her brow, and asked a little timidly, “Say, Trudy, I was wondering - why did you name your salons after Nefertiti?”
Trudy bit, “Because she’s an icon of eternal beauty, of course!”
“Of course,” thought Honour and she said, still with tilted head and furrowed brow, “But in the famous statue of Nefertiti, she doesn’t appear to have any hair -- it’s all covered by
a crown. She could have actually been bald, right?”
Sarah jumped in, “It was common for ancient Egyptians to shave their heads and for upper classes to wear wigs. I think they had a problem with head lice.”
Lizette’s wine had arrived and she was contentedly at work. The word lice, however, caught her attention. “That’s a tough problem, head lice. We’re beginning to see some resistant strains. Usual treatments aren’t working.”
And, thus, as it usually did, the Fellow Travelers’ first Saturday conversations unfolded -- going from one topic to the other. The foursome ate, drank, and talked about everything from head lice, which lead to a discussion of dogs (and fleas), and then on to the city council’s recent discussions of budget cuts (for animal control and the library in particular).
The checks were delivered eventually, along with Honour’s take-out container -- it was her own personal tradition to take half of her main course home with her to finish in the evening. Honour gazed around the deck noticing the variety of diners at Artisans’ Respite. One group was obviously a bridal shower, with the young woman at the head of the table wearing some sort of tiara with a makeshift veil attached. The other eight women were fashionably coiffed and dressed and they were all a little too happy and loud, probably after a morning of wine tastings around the lakes. They were having fun, nonetheless, and who could blame them for that? The fifteen or so other tables on the deck were all filled, too, with an assortment of diners, from tourists taking pictures of the lake and each other to families trying valiantly to keep their children occupied with crayons and paper placemats.
Honour’s attention was diverted to the doorway that led from the restaurant’s dining
room to the deck by two men who were apparently deep in conversation. Actually, it was only one of the men that diverted her attention. As if on cue, Carly Simon’s voice filled Honour’s head, “He walked into the party like he was walking onto a yacht. …”
Honour’s gaze lingered on a tall man with sandy blond hair. His head was bowed slightly as he listened to a shorter man she recognized as the son of the vineyard’s owner. They seemed unaware of the other occupants of the deck, hands in pockets, nodding and chatting.
“Stop staring,” Honour chided herself. He looked familiar, however, and she had great difficulty averting her gaze. “Could it possibly be?” Of course, unlike the iconic man in Carly Simon’s song, he wore neither a hat strategically dipped below one eye or a scarf that was apricot. He was dressed almost exactly the same as the first time she’d met him - blue jeans, white button down Oxford shirt with sleeves rolled up and, yes, that distinctive watch on his left wrist.
Honour realized that she was staring and she blushed. “Damn it,” she thought. He caught her and for a flash of a second his eyes met hers. “Did he nod in her direction?” Did he recognize her?” Honour felt her flush deepen. She, probably too quickly and far too un-coolly, turned her head back to the Fellow Travelers.
Trudy noticed, of course. “What’s wrong, Honour? Your face is red. Are you okay?” And then Trudy, who didn’t miss much, turned her head in the direction of the two men and said, “Oh, my, now that’s a tall glass of cool water.”
Lizette and Sarah looked over at the two men now. “So uncool. So junior high,” she
thought.
“Who’s that with Michael? Lizette asked. “A reporter maybe, doing a feature article about Artisans’ Respite?”
Sarah, uncharacteristically giggled, “Gawd, he looks like a movie star. Has he been in a movie recently?”
“I don’t think so,” Honour whispered as she handed her debit card to the waitress. “I think I know who he is. I think I’ve met him before - in Chicago last year. For crying out loud, quit gawking at him!”
“Well, who is he?” asked Trudy. “Don’t keep us in suspense!”
“I’m not sure, but I think he’s an Englishman named Colin Ascher -- unless he has a double. I’m not sure and, quite frankly, I don’t care.”
“Your blush says otherwise, Honour,” Trudy grinned. “Why don’t you go ask him?”
“Yeah,” Sarah, piped in. “Don’t you want to know if it’s the same guy?”
“No, in fact, I don’t want to know. I don’t care. I definitely hope its not Colin Ascher because that would mean he’s now standing in my time zone and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Trust me on that.”
Honour’s Fellow Travelers exchanged curious glances with each other, certain there was an interesting story there, but not willing to pursue it. Honour walked purposefully toward the restaurant’s front door, acutely aware that her path would lead her straight toward the two men and there may have to be some elbow touching involved to get past them. She looked straight ahead resolutely and when she was within two feet, they both stepped to one side to let her
and her friends pass.
With precision, however, the tall man bent his head forward slightly as Honour passed and whispered into her ear, “Cheers.” And that’s when she knew. Yes, it was that limey bastard, Colin Ascher. “Damn it,” she thought. “Of all the gin joints - why was he here? Damn it.”
As the group walked into the parking lot, Honour was sure that her face now matched her auburn hair and she kept her gaze downward as if watching for large boulders that might trip her along the way to Trudy’s minivan. In spite of herself, she hoped that Colin Ascher wouldn’t notice that she was getting into the purple and white monstrosity with Nefertiti’s profile emblazoned on the side and the bold black words Nefertiti’s Amour. But, she thought, “What did she care?” She hoped never to see him again.
The drive to Jimbo’s Antique Emporium was uncomfortably silent until Trudy thankfully turned on the CD player. She sang along to Fleetwood Mac while Honour, Sarah, and Lizette looked out the window at the lake to the east. They pulled up to the ramshackle barn within ten minutes and crunched their way across the gravel driveway to the entrance.
Jimbo was at his usual perch behind the counter and cash register, looking even more like Santa Claus than ever with his flowing white hair and beard and rosy cheeks. He looked up from a stack of old National Geographic magazines when the four entered. “Hello! Good to see you! ... Trudy, you’ll want to check out number 22. Good stuff in there!” And, as if directing traffic, said, “Lizette, I just got in a lovely pair of brocade wingbacks -- that would be number 12.” He grinned at Sarah then and said, “I’ve set aside a box for you. I think you’ll
like this.” He picked up an opened box from the floor next to him and set it on the counter. In it were children’s books, obviously vintage.
“Ooooh!” Sarah immediately started pulling out the books and thumbed through them, carefully turning the pages. “These are magnificent!”
Honour hadn’t waited for directions from Jimbo, but headed up the rickety stairs that led to the second floor. This is where her treasures were stashed, hopefully hidden from casual browsers. In the corner were several pieces of furniture that, while needing a little TLC, were on her wish list. Among the items in booth 47 was a stately curio chest and lovely small coffee table upon which set a glass covered tray, both crafted of mahogany. Honour had visited the pieces regularly over the past three months, waiting for the inevitable 20% off sign that she was sure would appear sooner rather than later. Then, and only then, would she strike - asking for an additional 10% off because the pieces really needed to be refinished. She’d already mentally placed the pieces in her living room. She could barely contain herself when she saw the neon orange 20% off sign posted on the wall in the corner. But wait. … Something was wrong. All the furniture, including her treasures, were gone. The only things in booth 47 were a rag tag set of baskets, bins of old and soiled linens, and metal shelves loaded with inexpensive plates.
“Oh no,” she thought. “Maybe 47 was no longer 47. Maybe the boothie had moved locations within the barn.” Honour almost ran back down the stairs.
“Jimbo -- booth 47. Has it moved?”
“No. We haven’t reshuffled booths in almost a year. Why?”
“The furniture is all gone. The curio. The coffee table. And all the other pieces.” Honour sounded a little panicky as if she were alerting Jimbo of a possible theft on the second floor of the barn.
“Oh sure,” Jimbo nodded. “I noticed the other day that someone came in and bought some furniture from the booth. Things move quickly once they’re discounted. I wasn’t here, but saw where it had all been sold.”
“Crap!” said Honour. “Oh, well.” She shouldn’t have waited for the 20% off sign -- or she should have asked Jimbo to call. It was her own fault. Her inherent frugality had gotten the best of her.
Jimbo tried to cheer her up. “Hey, Honour, I have something for you. It’s an old McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader.” He pulled the book off the shelf behind him and set it on the counter. “Consider it a gift from an old fart to a literacy professor. It’s not in great shape, but I thought you might like to show it to your students.”
Honour was touched by his thoughtfulness. “Thank you, Jimbo. Really, thank you! How very thoughtful!” And she did feel better.
Jimbo looked over her shoulder out the front door of the barn. “That car’s still there. It was here when came in this morning at 7:00 and it hasn’t moved. That’s really odd.”
Honour turned around and saw the black Toyota across the road, haphazardly parked on the shoulder. “You don’t recognize it? Maybe one of the boothies left it there yesterday afternoon?”
“No. I was here until around 8:00 last night. Nobody was here except me after 6:00
and that car was definitely not there. Besides the boothies usually park in the back so they can use the back door for loading and unloading. Anyway, why would someone park across the street? There’s always plenty of parking.” Jimbo left his perch and walked to the front door. “I’m going to go check it out. Something just doesn’t smell right.”
Honour followed, now curious about the car. Jimbo crossed the street and walked around the car. It had, indeed, been parked haphazardly with its rear wheels almost extending into the road. But now they could see the problem. Its right front tire was a shredded mass of rubber, the result of a blown out tire. The front end of the car was within a foot of the fence that ran alongside the road. Beyond the fence were grape vines, now fully laden with beautiful purply-red bunches of grapes, clearly on the eve of harvesting.
The car held no clues, however. It looked brand new. The front window on the driver’s side was partially down so Jimbo and Honour could peak inside. Nothing was visible - no keys, sunglasses, or anything else that might have revealed anything about who had left the car on the side of the road.
“Well, if it’s still here at the end of the day, I’ll call the state troopers.” Jimbo started to walk back to the barn. Honour was captivated by the vineyard on the other side of the fence. Walking a few feet beyond the car, she absently began picking up a few stray pieces of litter in the grass alongside the fence -- a Doritos bag, a receipt from Jimbo’s, a chewed up drinking straw, and a wadded up piece of paper. She stuffed these in the pocket of her jeans and, running her index finger along the top of the white picket fence, she walked back in the direction of the car, looking out across the vineyard. The clusters of grapes were so full that they threatened to bring down their host vines to the ground. Honour was tempted to reach across and sample a grape or two. She could almost taste their sweetness. She wondered what variety grapes these were and who owned the vineyard. This was too far away from Artisans’ Respite to be theirs.
Now leaning across the fence, Honour looked at the ground before her. About twenty feet beyond the fence, she saw something that was distinctly out of place. A shoe. An Air Jordan perhaps - black with what appeared to be the signature Air Jordan logo on the side. Did someone throw the shoe out a car window? That would have to be a pretty good lob to land that far away into the vineyard. Maybe a worker lost a shoe in the vineyard. That seemed unlikely since the harvesters clearly hadn’t been here yet. But, then, leaning closer, Honour noticed that the shoe seemed to be attached to a leg.
“Jimbo! Come back!” She yelled, “I think I found the owner of the car!”
Jimbo half trotted back toward Honour, wiping sweat from his brow. They both stopped short at the fence looking in the direction of the shoe. “I think there’s a body over there,” Honour pointed. “At first I thought it was just a shoe, but I think it’s a body.”
Jimbo reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone. Before he could speak or, for that matter, even dial 911, Honour hoisted herself over the fence and ran toward the shoe. Foolish, she knew, but her curiosity got the better of her. Her footprints now complicated -- and contaminated -- the crime scene -- if indeed there was a crime scene. She stopped a couple of feet from the shoe and, sure enough, a body was attached. Stooping down, she could see now that the body of a young man lay crumbled among the vines. The one leg that was visible from the road extended beyond the vines, but the other was bent and hidden from view. Honour stared at the scene before her, like something out of a movie. She was fixated. The slender man had certainly met a gruesome end. His dark curls were matted with blood, his facial features unrecognizable under the dried dark blood that covered his face, t-shirt, and arms. His contorted body seemed to have been fighting the inevitable. Around his neck was a tightly drawn rope, squeezing his neck and causing his swollen tongue to protrude from his mouth.
A slight nausea crept up from Honour’s stomach. She’d never seen anything remotely so gruesome in her life. But she couldn’t look away. Nor could she make out Jimbo’s words as he called to her from the side of the fence. She followed the rope that was around the man’s neck to see that it was wrapped around one of the stakes that held a vine upright. She knew she would never forget that scene. Not for a million years. At least in movies the camera pans away and some of the gory details are lost. One of his hands seemed to be reaching for the rope around his neck. Honour noticed the bracelet around his wrist. It was leather with a small silver ankh on the front.
Police sirens were blaring in the distance and this seemed to awaken Honour from her trance. She turned and joined Jimbo on the other side of the fence. She couldn’t speak. Jimbo put his hand on her shoulder and patted. But the blood had drained from her face and she silently slid to the ground, head in hands, unable to move. As the sound of the sirens drew nearer, Jimbo walked across the street and returned with a bottle of water. “Drink some water,” he said. “You probably could use some brandy, but this will have to do.”
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