Page 21 of Crossroads Magic
He pointed to the corner of the bar closest to the front of the room. I turned and spotted an old-fashioned black phone with a rotary dial and the receiver resting on top of it.
I stalked around the bar to the corner. A tall stool with arms and a back was tucked into the corner, clearly there for the convenience of whoever was using it.
I pushed the stool out of the way and lifted the receiver. “What is the phone number for the police?” I said to Hirom.
“Police?” He looked utterly confused and glanced behind me.
Benedict Marcus cleared his throat. “There is no police force overseeing Haigton Crossing,” he said, his tone apologetic.
“Then who do I speak to about this?”
“St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department.”
“And the number?” I rapped out impatiently.
“It really won’t do you any good,” Benedict Marcus said. His tone was still apologetic.
“He’s right, ma’am,” Hirom said. He’d moved down his plank to the end of the bar where we all stood. “No one hurries the Sheriff’s department. They get here when they get here.”
“That’s utterly outrageous! There’s been amurder!”
“They’ll get here faster than they would normally,” Benedict Marcus assured me.
“Best settle in and relax, ma’am,” Hirom added.
I stared at him. “Give me the number, or I’ll fire you right here and right now.”
He stared back at me. His eyes narrowed. Then, silently, he reached beneath the counter and bought out an actual, honest to goodness phonebook.
I stared at the dusty volume. I don’t think I’ve seen a phonebook inyears, and even then, it was a curled up moldy stack of brown pages in the bottom of a Dumpster.
I pulled the phonebook over to me, and opened the front cover. The last phonebook I’d ever owned had a list of emergency numbers at the front. Sure enough, this one did, too. Including the non-emergency phone number for the Sheriff’s Department.
I dialed the number while Hirom, Marcus and Ghaliya all watched me with silent fascination. It took a couple of numbers to get used to the rotary dialer. It had been a while since I’d used one.
With a series of clicks and buzzes, the call went through and was answered promptly by a pleasant male with a tenor voice. “St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department.”
“I want to speak to the officer in charge of the homicide investigation at Haigton Crossing.”
“At where, ma’am?”
“Haigton Crossing,” I repeated.
Silence.
“You do know where that is, don’t you?”
“I…ah, yes, next to the forest, I think,” he answered. “It’s just…”
“We’re talking abouthomicide,” I told him. “Surely someone in your department is interested in that?”
“I…just a moment, I’ll put you through.”
The phone went dead. There was no awful music. Just silence.
I refused to look at everyone watching me. I had a feeling that even the three men at the table by the fire were listening hard, too. But I didn’t care. This situation would be dealt with right now. Screw the small-town pace that things normally got handled with. This was murder. This was my mother.
Someone would pay for this.
