“Val, I think you’re—” He broke off as a sheriff’s department car turned in to the driveway. Baxter’s—I’d come to recognize
its small individualities.
I looked at my watch. It was closing on three. Ah, well, it was probably better that Baxter got to see the graffiti in all
its glory. It might help me make my point.
He strode toward us. “What the hell?”
I elected to interpret that as referring to the graffiti. “I was just showing Willem,” I said, pointing. “I found it when
I stopped by here about an hour ago.”
“Hasn’t it become obvious she needs police protection?” Willem sounded coldly furious.
Baxter matched his tone. “It’s hard to protect somebody who won’t stick to agreed-upon schedules. The only person I’ve heard
of who’s expressed the sentiment on that wall is your father-in-law. Should I protect Val from him, do you think?”
“To the best of my knowledge, Clete attacks only with his mouth. Like Val, here. But if you think I might be wrong, by all
means take whatever steps are necessary. God, if anything happens … Do you know anything more about Mariah?”
“Not much,” came the terse response.
Willem let the silence ride until it was clear there’d be no amplification, then gave a little shrug. “I’d better be going.
We have a three-thirty staff meeting.” He took both my hands in his, a gesture susceptible to various implications, I suppose.
“Val, please take care. I’ll see you at the wake tomorrow?”
“I guess.” Or maybe not, considering the makeup of the crowd. It wouldn’t matter to Mariah. “I did mean it, what I asked you
to do.”
His mouth tightened. “If that’s what you want.”
Watching him get in his car and drive off, I wondered how good a chance there was of things holding together between us. We’d
have no common business causes to take up anymore, no common business, period. I’d just more or less declared war on his family.
And Mariah wouldn’t be around to put things in perspective. I felt my eyes watering.
Turning back toward the house, I picked up the dangling side of the blanket, thought,
Shit, who cares,
and let it drop.
“Did I come in on the end of some argument?”
Willem had still looked a little red-eyed; I must too. And then that last exchange. Baxter’s curiosity must be revved way
up. Tough. “No,” I said.
He let that hang for a while. Then: “It wasn’t the best of ideas, having him out here.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“Forget it.”
“Willem and I wanted some private time to deal with losing Mariah. I don’t see why I should have to explain that, or justify
it, and I don’t give a shit who might have driven by and noticed his car here. Neither would Willem.”
That induced another hanging silence, broken by “You know where he claims to have been yesterday afternoon? Sitting out on
the rock cliffs at the bird sanctuary, contemplating nature.”
“That sounds like a good bet. It’s one of his favorite places to go on a hazy day. You feel like you’re inside the clouds.”
“Naturally there’s no one who could vouch for this.”
“Would you expect there to be? It was a weekday afternoon.”
“Right, when most of us have something we’re supposed to be doing. And I assume if he brought along a female companion his
sense of chivalry would dictate keeping that to himself, just as he continues to hoard the name of the woman he claims to
have spent the night with in Marysville.”
“Willem’s thoughtful that way. Does this make a problem for you?”
“Val, when you didn’t show up back at my house, what was I supposed to think? And then you turn up here, alone with a person
who’s smack in the middle of everything and hasn’t produced an alibi for either murder. That’s my problem.”
“Oh for crissake! I did not sign up to notify you of my every movement. And whatever knock you want to put on Willem, he’s
no more violent than Roxy is. Or were you thinking of us more as co-conspirators?”
“Look, just forget it.”
“You’ve told me that twice in the last five minutes. You didn’t mean it either time.”
His sudden, broad smile let the extra pressure out of the atmosphere. “Got me there. But as long as I’m pissing you off, what
did you ask him to do that he didn’t like very much?”
“Spread the word that I’ve had it with this shit, and if any more of it falls on my head I’m going to start offering in-depth
views of this whole crappy situation to whoever might be interested.”
“Oh, Val. You didn’t think you were enough of a target already?”
“Too big a one. Just sitting, waiting to get hit. Jack Garrett gave me the idea. He was here when I got home, taking pictures.”
“Val, he’s only trying to get a story out of you.”
“Maybe so, but it was the most helpful advice anybody’s offered lately. I also told Willem I had a written version ready to
run in case I wasn’t around to do any talking. I’ll fax it to Donna tonight.”
“That’s better than nothing, but not much. You know damn well your sensible move is to get away from here for at least a few
days. Can’t you stay with your sister?”
“I got away for a few hours today and somebody decorated the front of my house and lobbed a porterhouse bone into Roxy’s run.
Maybe it’s a perfectly innocent bone, but I want it checked for poison.”
“I can do that. There are a number of things I can do. But they won’t add up to making you safe here, Val.”
“I don’t expect you to. The point is, this is my property, and it’s a lot less likely to get violated when I’m around, or
someone is. And there’s another point: that incident with my stepfather, back when I was thirteen. The bottom line was, I
was driven away from my home. That will not happen again. Not this easily.”
It was a few seconds before he managed what might have been a slight nod. “I’ve got to get back. Give me that bone you found;
I’ll have it tested. Did Emil Kanser have anything useful for you?”
God, how could that have gone totally out of my mind? “If you’ve got a few minutes—”
“Can it hold till this evening, do you think? I’ll be back as soon as possible. Definitely with binders, maybe with your site
plans. Is that all right?”
“Sure.”
“Meaning I can count on you to stay put till I show up?”
“Well, I do have an essay to write. I’d like to go talk to Skip, but he gets totally into his work—not much chance of channeling
his attention to anything else until he knocks off, which probably won’t be till after dark. If he’s available earlier I’ll
call in a message. You really don’t have anything new about Mariah?”
“Nothing good. Her blood alcohol content came up point-one-four. Phil’s citing that as grounds for treating her death as accidental.”
“Are you thinking of buying his version?”
“It’s shaping up as a hard sell.”
“Meaning you’ll have to buy?”
“Meaning there’s all that much more reason why I shouldn’t.” Once again both my hands got captured, briefly, by a departing
male. “Try to behave yourself.”
I
t seemed too quiet after he’d gone. I wished Willem back, so we could grope our way to a better pause or downsizing or farewell.
I did not suppose he would be back any time soon. Baxter I’d have liked to stay for the security his presence signified. I
shook my head, making a mental note to stop thinking of him as my own personal sheriff. He had plenty to do besides nursemaiding
a balky woman who kept extending his workdays.
I felt like making some resounding noise, among other things, so I got out the hammer and nails and tacked the blanket back
in place securely. Then I went in, turned on the computer, and set to work on my project: my short view of life in rural upstate
New York. Hard as I tried to sketch them in words, most of these individuals who had populated my environment the past four
years remained stubbornly out of focus. Maybe that was because I wanted to bring out the problems, or it could be that when
you try to define a person strictly in terms of what he’s done, you lose too many of the softeners, the modifiers, that are
operative in real life. I knew Clete Donnelly had his good qualities, as did Eleanor and Rodney and Kate—for the sake of believability
I shouldn’t portray them as a bunch of demons, but that’s how they kept coming out. Even with Willem and Mariah it was a struggle
to show the strong overall positives they had been for me.
My characters all reading like people you’d rather not be related to, I put down what I knew about the history and operation
of the Garden Center and Hudson Heights. Then, starting from the premise that Ryan Jessup had found out something he wasn’t
supposed to know and had attempted to capitalize on it, I speculated on what his discovery might have been, including the
various scenarios concerning the bat cave. I couldn’t bring myself to say that any of my characters was more likely than the
others to have been involved in the murders. If this was a fiction-writing assignment, I’d have gotten an F.
With both reluctance and relief I gave my document a title—“Speculations”—and did a save and printout, so I could get a better
sense of it as a whole than was possible from scrolling through computer screens. Five and a half double-spaced pages, I’d
produced, of distinctly bitchy guesswork. In cold, hard print, the bat cave idea really looked improbable. Regardless, the
reason two people had been killed might well lie under my blanket of speculations, and if I wasn’t around to feel it out,
I wanted someone else to. Worse came to worst, Jack Garrett could extract a free plot for a miniseries.
Seeing no reason to keep a hard copy of the damn piece lying around the house, I meticulously tore the sheets in halves, quarters,
and eighths and dumped them in the ashes in the woodstove. Then, carefully outlining disposition and conditions for use, I
composed a covering letter for Donna, had my modem call hers, and faxed the package off. It felt good to get rid of it.
I’d scarcely done that when Roxy’s barking announced the arrival of some more gentlemen callers: Hudson Heights’ odd couple.
While Matt had been out at my place earlier in the summer, for a cookout, Thurman was making his first appearance.
I assumed, since I’d been the one to find her, that they wanted to talk about Mariah, though they didn’t come out and say
so. I couldn’t help noticing, from their verbal stumblings as I ushered them inside, that neither was feeling comfortable
about the visit. I also couldn’t help noticing the big bandage across the back of Matt’s left hand. Since Mariah was clutching
the jagged remnants of a martini glass in her own left hand, whoever had been holding her down must’ve faced the same way.
It seemed unlikely I was going to feel very comfortable about the visit either.
We settled on the porch, with beers for Matt and me and an iced tea for Thurman. It was outrageous to find myself a little
fearful of men I’d have told you two weeks ago were about as unlikely to be involved in a couple of murders as I was to run
for town supervisor of Pinehaven. What did I suppose they were going to do to me in the middle of the day, with Matt’s Jeep
parked right out front? I took the plunge. “You guys are wondering about what happened last night? How it could’ve happened?”
Matt did look genuinely puzzled. “I mean, it seems like Mariah would’ve had better sense than try to use a hair dryer in the
spa. Anyhow, don’t they have safety cutoffs on those things now? First Baxter Dye says something about ‘mysterious circumstances.’
Then Phil Thomson comes on TV indicating it was an accident. Then we’re back to Baxter, and it’s clear he’s not buying that
idea. He even sounded like he thinks her death and Ryan Jessup’s are connected. Which doesn’t make sense, either, as far as
I can see. How about you?”
“I don’t know how the two deaths might be connected. I do find it hard to believe what happened to Mariah was accidental.”
By way of explanation I launched into my unlikely-model-of-hair-dryer observation.
“That doesn’t sound like Mariah’s taste at all,” Thurman concurred. “But when she was drinking, you never knew what she’d
come up with, what she’d get it into her head to do. Her friends had been trying for years to get her to admit she had a problem.”
“Not all her friends,” I felt compelled to say.
He looked incredulous. “You honestly don’t think Mariah drank too much?”
“For most people, sure. Not for Mariah. She defined her drinking, confined it. Controlled it; she never drove drunk. Her alcohol
consumption didn’t inhibit her functioning, at least not that I ever saw. Maybe constant sobriety would have done that, who
knows?”
Thurman frowned but remained silent.
“It’s a hard call,” Matt said thoughtfully. “I thought she overdid it, myself. Mariah would have been more effective at those
hearings if people hadn’t realized she usually showed up fairly well tanked. Not that I minded at the time. And hey, it worked
for her, mostly. So I don’t know what to think. Maybe accidental, maybe not.”
It was hard to keep from staring at the bandage on his hand. I couldn’t wait to tell Baxter. “Let’s look at the ‘maybe not.’
You’ve been known to place a few bets, Matt. What would you say were the chances that two homicides within a week’s span in
a rural area like this were unrelated?”
“Slim to none,” he answered promptly. “Except where’s the link? What did those two have in common? Did they even know each
other?”
“There was no link,” Thurman said firmly. “Mariah barely knew who Ryan Jessup was and certainly had no interest in him. I
can’t imagine what common cause they could possibly have had. Can you, Val?”
It was easy enough to be sincere there. “I don’t see that they had much of anything in common. Including interests.”
“Then how could there be any connection between the deaths? Even if Mariah’s wasn’t accidental, which sounds like a very big
if.”
“I expect Baxter will sort it all out,” I said, immediately wishing I’d suggested more distance by going with “the cops.”
“Hopefully without making a major mess in the process.” Matt looked solemn. “Jeez, the rumors. First everybody was dumping
on you, and now we’re hearing nasty things about the Etlingers. And you can be damn sure those people who still have it in
for Hudson Heights are starting to salivate. If Baxter isn’t thinking in that direction, why does he keep hitting us for alibis?”