A Curious Affair (25 page)

And you want us hidden in case the sheep man comes to ask
questions because Smelly butt is gone
.

Atherton had a point. Tyler would probably be around once the inn noticed Wilkes was missing. Not because he suspected me of anything, but because I was the one who’d insisted that Wilkes killed his uncle, and would want to know about any suspicious behavior.

I took a long, slow breath and thought things through again. Should I begin this lie? Once started, it would take on a life of its own. I reminded myself that Tyler was a compassionate man, a committed one who still wore a cuff acquired in childhood to honor a soldier who never came home from Viet Nam. But there was no denying that such devotion to what he thought was right could work both ways. I trusted him ninety-nine percent, but that still left a single percent of doubt. Might he put together reports of animal fights and Wilkes vanishing and begin to wonder if they were related? He knew there was a played-out mine somewhere
on the property and it wasn’t too big a stretch to think that Wilkes might go looking for it.

I exhaled a long, loud breath. Until I had gotten involved with Tyler, I hadn’t realized that there were so many gradations of the truth, and that I would spend so much of my time selecting which shade of gray I wanted to live in.

“Yes. Tyler is a friend but…” He was my friend, not the cats’. At least not in the way that I was their friend, their protector.

I understand
. Atherton turned and walked away. He wasn’t limping, but I could tell his muscles were strained. He’d left bloody paw prints on the rock.
We
are grateful, Jillian. Not everyone wants us
.

His words hurt. Because they were true. No one wanted the strays, the castoffs. They were, to many people, just living garbage.

“You saved my life, Atherton. I think it’s a push. Anyway, I want you. Others will too, I promise.” And they would, if I had to bribe or blackmail them into it. We were having no more strays on our hill. By next winter, every cat would have a home.

I went back to the shaft. The hog wire that had covered it was buckled on the left and almost rusted through everywhere else. It wouldn’t hold an adult’s weight but would probably catch any child or dog that was unlucky enough to wander this way. I couldn’t imagine anyone coming up here, but later I would need to find a better grating. Just in case. For now this would have to do. I bent down slowly, favoring my ribs, and pulled it back into place. Then I scattered more pine needles and downed limbs on top. I was sodden and cold but didn’t stop until things looked pretty much as they had before our fight. The returning rain would also help wash away the red splotches on the rocks and Atherton’s damning footprints.

Jillian?
a distant voice called.
I hear a car on the road
.

“Coming.” It was probably nothing, but I hurried as best I could.

Ants robed in angry orange were already busy crawling over the needles and down into the mineshaft. The drizzle didn’t seem to bother them. I also saw the first of the yellowjackets arrive. Rain would not deter these aerial scavengers, either. There is another local name for these wasps: meat-bees. As a child I watched them strip a dead sparrow of its flesh in under an hour. Wilkes was bigger than a bird, but every obscuring bite was welcome. I had seen enough dead animals to know that blowflies would also come soon to lay their maggots in the corpse. They were always hungry and worked swiftly.

My stomach rolled over as I thought about the animal kingdom dining on Wilkes only yards from my neighbors, but a voice that could only have been mine said: “
Bon appetit
. And be swift about it.”

I went home and looked after the cats. They assured me again as I wiped them down with a wet washcloth that they weren’t badly hurt. It took almost the last of my strength to pour out food and water and to drag out all the linens in the cupboard for their bedding. Some of the cats were uncomfortable being indoors, but none protested when I explained that it was to keep them safe. I also left the door ajar so that they would know they were not prisoners.

I finally showered, taking inventory of my own hurts. I put antibiotic cream on my various scratches and bandaged the worst ones. The bruises would have to heal on their own; I wasn’t going to a doctor.

Unable to put it off any longer, I dialed the sheriff’s office. I knew Tyler was on duty and hoped that I could speak to him directly because, in spite of the shower, my
jaw was locked tight and snapped painfully every time I forced it open.

A volunteer dispatcher answered. I didn’t recognize his mellow baritone voice and worked especially hard to speak clearly. I managed, but felt like I was forcing open a pair of rusty scissors every time I spoke.

There was a rasping noise as he laid the phone against his shoulder and called to Tyler. I thought I heard him say, “It’s your girlfriend.”

Was I the girlfriend? Did people know about us already? I almost groaned. The garden path to carnal knowledge is rarely straight and narrow in a small town. And the woods of emotion are thick and obscuring, and there are plenty of side paths on which to go astray—paths that didn’t lead to happily-ever-after even if they might be exciting. I wondered which path we were on and how many spectators and Peeping Toms were lurking in the shrubbery.

“Who was that?” I asked Tyler when he came on. I sounded pretty normal. For me. “He has a nice voice.”

“Oscar Levoi. He’s a retired policeman from Modesto who is helping out three days a week.”

“That’s great,” I said, and it was. The sheriff’s office couldn’t run without volunteers.

“What’s up?” Tyler asked. “Your jaw sounds a bit tight. Is the rain bothering you?”

It was raining now, a hard cleansing rain. I closed my eyes and picked a shade of gray that was very close to black. I promised that I wouldn’t live in this darkness for long and that my only lies to Tyler from that day forward would be to protect him and the cats from what I had done to Wilkes.

“A bit. One of the cats got caught in a tree. Maybe a coyote treed it. There’s quite a bit of fur about. Anyway, he started howling like blue bloody murder when it began to rain.” I heard myself lie smoothly, not so much
as hesitating as the word
murder
crossed my lips. “I got him out eventually but I’m kind of scratched up and have picked up a vile case of poison oak on my legs and face.” It made me oddly happy that the last part was probably true. I was already beginning to itch. “I’m going to lay low for a couple of days, just until my face heals and I won’t scare the neighbors.”

“Poor Jillian. Those cats have been a burden and a half. You have a heart of gold to bother with them. Do you need me to bring you anything?” Tyler asked with his usual ready sympathy.

“Nope. I have chicken soup in the cupboard, baking soda for baths, and calamine lotion. I am set for a couple days in solitary. And maybe I’ll finally get some work done. I’ve been lollygagging.” I actually had stronger things than calamine lotion and baking soda, but didn’t feel the need to go into why I required them. Vicodin or morphine for poison oak was a bit extreme.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stop by? I could come around nine to night. I have to go to the hospital first. Three drunks got into a peeing contest down at The Mule. For round two they got up on the roof and tried to pee on the hardware store across the street.”

“That old tin roof?” I was involuntarily distracted from my own problems. The Mule’s tin roof had the steepest pitch I’d ever seen on a building. It was practically a church spire.

“Yes, and they promptly fell off. Onto Dell, who was refereeing. In front of a bunch of tourists from the Modesto Baptist Church. With their pants unzipped. All four of them are on their way to the hospital. Dell has a broken leg. The others are concussed, and two need stitches.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” I said, and then almost laughed. I sounded just like my mother whenever she found me in dirty clothes. Which was rather often when I was young.

“Unfortunately, there were no fatalities.” Tyler’s voice was dry.

“Think of the paperwork you’ve avoided by having them live,” I said lightly. “I imagine that a corpse—let alone four—would be cause for a lot of red tape.” I couldn’t believe that I’d said that. I had gone from tempting Fate to taunting her.

“I think, in the long run, they’ll cause me more work alive than dead.” I heard Levoi laugh in the background, and then say something. Tyler snorted. “Anyhow, I can come by after I go by the hospital and look in on you.”

“I hope I’m asleep by then. Antihistamines knock me out.” This wasn’t a lie either. Especially when you took them with Vicodin. “I’d just as soon sleep through the worst of this, anyway. I hate looking like a leprous tomato, and refuse to let anyone see me. Especially you.”

“I don’t blame you, though I doubt you look all that awful, even with a rash.” I snorted, and he chuckled. “So, I’ll call you tomorrow and see how you’re doing. Maybe ply you with donuts and coffee.” It probably wasn’t wise to see Tyler until I had completely healed, since many of my bruises were clear hand or boot prints. I’d have to invent some excuse to put him off in the morning, but this promise of future contact made me feel better. This was going to be a long, lonely night. I needed to believe that better days were coming.

“Maybe, if the swelling has gone down. Good night, Tyler. Be safe—and stay away from falling drunks,” I added, glad that he was at the office with someone else listening in. It meant that we had to keep things brief and superficial.

“Good night. And call if you need anything. I’m serious, Jillian. You’re not alone anymore.”

“I will,” I said. But I wouldn’t. Not until the marks of Cain had faded from my body. My mind was made up.
No matter the invitation from him, I would never ask Tyler to share the burden of what the cats and I had done to Wilkes. This was a good man, a kind one, and he would never be asked to compromise his standards, to obfuscate, to lie. “Good night.”

I put the phone down. Atherton was there and I petted him gently. We were both too bruised for much physical contact.

I carry a snakebite kit in the car, purchased when Cal and I were fresh from the city and didn’t know that such kits are usually in effective and mostly unneeded in our part of town. Thriftiness wouldn’t let me throw it out, but I was vaguely annoyed by my old city-girl naiveté every time I saw it peeping out from under the car blanket and snow shovel—neither of these items ever being needed, either, since I didn’t go out in bad weather. But along with a scalpel, the kit also had cortisone cream. I hoped it was still effective. My ankles already felt like they were on fire, and the rash was spreading toward my knees. I was going to need something for the itching but wouldn’t take the stronger drugs until I absolutely had to, because I didn’t want to fall asleep and maybe get trapped in bad dreams. There
would
be dreams, of that I was certain. I was going to have a long, painful night.

Still, throbbing skin, bruised ribs and nightmares were far better than having my head caved in by Wilkes’s boot and my body dumped down a coyote hole like his now was. Far, far better. I would cope.

“Atherton? Have you ever watched TV?”

What is tee-
vee?

Appropriately, I showed him the wonders of
Nature
and the endangered snow leopards of the Himalayas.

The day after Wilkes’s death, Atherton had news. Mac-Duff, Annabelle Winslow’s manx who lived on Green Street, had finally caught a glimpse of Wilkes on Friday night, as the murderer had been forced to park on Green Street when the inn’s lot was full. He’d staggered toward the inn just before dawn carrying some kind of large pan and a lot of angry dejection that had led him to try and kick MacDuff, who’d unwisely gotten too close. It was Irv’s gold pan he was carrying, I was betting. And he’d probably finally gotten a lesson in the difference between panning for gold nuggets and flakes, and in mining for ore or carrying on a dry dig. Of course, while this was interesting to know, and I was grateful for MacDuff for passing the info along, it was too late now to be of much use. Still, at least I now knew where Wilkes had been and what he’d been doing all the days and nights I couldn’t find him in town.

It was four days before I saw Tyler again, and when I did it was in his office. Tyler was welcoming but a bit distant at first, perhaps because we weren’t alone, or
perhaps I had been putting him off with what might have seemed flimsy excuses and he was feeling a bit wary. Our favorite volunteer, retired officer Levoi, was there as well. I was surprised to find that he was a redhead.

I had taken the precaution of bringing in a…not a bribe; let’s call it a distraction. A culinary sleight of hand that I had made before and which garnered a great deal of praise. It had taken the better part of the morning and emptying my spice cupboard, but I had managed to whip up my favorite show-off dessert, Pêche de Vigne. I had to sacrifice the last of the brandied peaches that Crystal had given me for Christmas, but it was worth it. Sliced thin, covered in chocolate ganache and then drenched in dark chocolate, the brandied peaches gave the dish a piquancy and sophistication that fresh peaches did not have. As distractions went, it was a pretty good one. Levoi went into immediate bliss and left Tyler and me alone to talk.

“We got word this morning about Wilkes being questioned in a homicide in Oklahoma,” Tyler said, when Levoi had retreated to his desk out front with the dish of chocolates. I exhaled, bracing myself for the conversation I knew we had to have. But first Tyler would tell me about this homicide. There was about as much chance of this story having a happy ending as there was in a Sam Peckinpah movie. After all, Wilkes hadn’t stayed in Okalahoma, gracing one of their jails.

Tyler went on: “His late girlfriend was killed in a hit-and-run. Actually a hit-and-hit-and-hit-and-run. Somebody ran her body over with a car three times. That has to be deliberate. Even Mister Magoo isn’t that blind. There wasn’t enough evidence to charge Wilkes, but the police there are pretty sure he’s guilty. It turns out that he has a long history of violence against women.”

I nodded. This didn’t surprise me. Once a smelly-butt man, always a smelly-butt man. It was a comfort to know that he would never do anything cruel again.

“It sounds like something that cowardly weasel would do,” I said, when it became apparent that I should comment. I knew my face was red, but maybe Tyler would put it down to the poison oak. “I’m very glad he’s gone. He gave me the creeps.”

“So you think that he really is gone?” Tyler’s gaze was steady.

“Yes, he’s gone. I hear that he skipped out on his bill at the inn—didn’t even bother to pack his stuff.” Atherton had heard this from Beaumont, the hotel’s resident cat. I had also heard it from Crystal, who had a friend who worked at the establishment.

Tyler nodded, his expression as somber as I had ever seen it. “It seems that he was using Irv’s gold panning supplies. We found them in his room. We also found the poker that killed Irv in his car. It was wrapped in a blanket in the trunk. I don’t think there can be any innocent explanation for this.” He paused. “It looks like you were right. The man is a murderer.”

“I can’t think of any innocent explanation for the poker,” I agreed as I looked over at the window where Hula Girl was watching the birds. I probably didn’t need to mention to Tyler that cats tend to be avian epicures, and that he should keep her indoors until nesting season was over. I tried to think of something else appropriate to say but my mind was nearly blank. I couldn’t think of much of anything that wasn’t some form of a lie, and I was getting tired of telling them. “Maybe Wilkes had an accident. The rivers are running fast with snowmelt this time of year. Or a mountain lion might have gotten him. It’s wild country out here. Anything could happen.”

“Maybe. That would explain his failing to pack up his
gear or take his car when he left.” Tyler was still watching me. I could feel his gaze, and that day the weight of his regard was burdensome.

“Relax, Tyler,” I said, managing a smile. “I promise that I didn’t kill him for Irv’s long-lost gold mine, so you don’t have to worry about your love life becoming a conflict of interest on this case.”

“That’s good.” Tyler nodded again. I can’t say that he appeared relieved, but the shoulder seemed to relax a bit. He knows I’m a bad liar and was certain that I was telling the truth, however limited the selection. This shouldn’t have surprised me. If anyone knew about shades of gray, it was a small-town sheriff. “I’m sure that if you ever killed anyone it would be in self-defense,” he added.

This statement shook me a bit, and it was all I could do not to reach for my ribs where the print of Wilkes’s boot was still visible, but I think I managed to keep my poker face in place.

“Or to protect someone else. Especially if they were defenseless.” I thought I needed to make this point. “I could never stand by and watch someone smaller or more vulnerable being hurt.”

Hula Girl jumped up onto the desk and regarded me with wide eyes. She couldn’t understand Tyler’s words, but mine were plain enough and she was feeling alarmed.

“I don’t suppose you could. And that’s as it should be.” Tyler said slowly. “It’s the job of the strong to protect the weak.” He waited a moment for me to say something, but when I didn’t his voice became brisk. “So, I’ve put out an APB on Wilkes and have told Dawg and Farland to keep an eye out on the country roads, just in case he’s been hurt. If his body fell in the river, it will probably wash up downstream eventually, dead or alive.”

“Probably. Though there is some hard water this time of year and lots of rocks where a body might get hung
up. The water will go down eventually, but there are a lot of scavengers out there. He might never be found.”

“I suppose it would be better if we didn’t find him alive,” Tyler said thoughtfully. “I like things tidy, but a murder trial would cost the county a lot of money.”

I nodded. Tyler nodded, too. We shared a long look and I knew that we’d never discuss this again. Unless I brought the matter up. In that moment I thought of Cal and honesty. And regret.

“Levoi,” Tyler called suddenly. “Bring back that chocolate. It’s not nice to bogart the candy my woman made me.”

“I wasn’t bogarting,” Levoi promised, but his voice was sticky with peach and chocolate, and almost half the truffles were gone.

I did laugh then, though it hurt my ribs. I hadn’t heard anyone use the term
bogart
since smoking a joint behind the gym my freshman year at the Sadie Hawkins dance. I also didn’t mind Tyler calling me his woman. It suggested that we had a future after all.

Suddenly, I knew what I needed to do.

“Never mind those. They’ll just make you fat,” I said. “Let me fix you some lunch. There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you anyway.”

A strange expression flitted across his face. It looked a lot like relief. Maybe I had been acting more oddly than I realized. I hadn’t meant to worry Tyler.

“Let me get my coat,” he said.

Are you going to tell him about us?
Hula Girl asked when Tyler’s back was turned.

“Yes.”

I smiled at Tyler as he escorted me to the office door and opened it for me. The bells clanged loudly.

“Tyler, have you ever heard of a horse whisperer?” I asked as the door closed behind us.