by Maris Soule
“You’ve got to stop putting cars in the ditch.” He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and hugged me as close as my bulging belly allowed. “I don’t want to lose you, P.J.”
“And I don’t want to lose you, either.” I snuggled my nose against the bare skin of his exposed chest and inhaled the scent of Dove soap. Damp chest hairs tickled my cheek. “How long have you been up?” I hadn’t heard him get out of bed or take a shower.
“About an hour.”
I turned my head so I could see the clock on the nightstand. It was nearly eight o’clock. “You should have woken me. What about Jason?”
“Up, dressed, and fed. I figured you needed the sleep.” He released his hold and stepped back to resume buttoning his shirt. “I told him I’d drop him off at school. What you need to do today is relax. Watch some TV. Read a book. You’re going to be plenty busy when our daughter arrives.”
I loved how Wade said, “our daughter.” I’d been so afraid when I first discovered I was pregnant that he’d turn his back on both me and the baby. Instead, once he recovered from the shock, he’d welcomed the idea. And even though I told him he didn’t have to marry me, he insisted he would have proposed even if I hadn’t been pregnant.
I hoped that was true.
Since moving into the farmhouse, he’d helped me rearrange our bedroom to make room for a crib and bassinet and had hired an architect to draw up plans for an addition off this end of the house. With luck, good weather, and some of the money I’d inherited from my grandparents, by the end of summer, we should have a walk-in closet off this bedroom, a master bath, and a second downstairs bedroom, which for a few years would be a nursery.
That reminded me of my purchase at Patterson’s Furniture. “Honey, I’m going to call and have that loaner car towed back to the repair shop today, so, before you leave for work, could you bring the rocking chair on the backseat of the car into the house.”
His shirt buttoned, Wade tucked it in and zipped up his trousers. “Rocking chair?”
“The one on the backseat. You saw it last night, didn’t you? It’s a child’s rocker, so it’s not very big, but—” I pointed at my belly. “Miguel put it in the car for me. I think I might have trouble getting it out.”
“Miguel?”
“He works at Patterson’s Furniture. He’s the one who talked me into buying the rocking chair. Well, he didn’t actually talk me into it, but he showed me the chair and I—” I stopped. No need to explain everything. “It’s on the backseat of the Chevy.”
“Why were you at Patterson’s Furniture?”
The tone of Wade’s question made me realize I probably shouldn’t have brought up my visit to Patterson’s Furniture. How could I explain that I wanted to see if it was a real furniture store and see where both Jerry and Brenda had worked.
“P.J.?” Wade’s eyebrows rose, his tone censoring. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t get involved in this.”
“I just wanted to see the store,” I said, hoping I looked and sounded innocent. “See if they might have anything, that is any furniture, that would be appropriate for a little girl, and I found something. The rocking chair.”
“And on your way home you get run off the road.”
“I—” I wasn’t sure what to say. “Okay, maybe my being at the store had something to do with that. Or, maybe it doesn’t. There’s been a light-colored SUV hanging around here recently. I saw it yesterday, and Howard said he’s seen it drive by several times.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that?”
“I didn’t think of it last night. And maybe it’s all just a coincidence, my seeing that SUV and my being at that store yesterday. Maybe . . .”
Wade shook his head. “Do not go there again.”
His order jarred me. I haven’t had to answer to anyone about personal decisions for a long time. Even as a child and teenager, more often than not, I played the role of decision maker for my mother. As for my father, whenever he was around, he treated me like a princess. I don’t remember him ever ordering me not to do something.
I love Wade, but I wasn’t about to kowtow to him. “What did you say?”
He opened his mouth, I’m sure to repeat his command, then closed it. Either the way I was glaring at him or common sense made him decide to change his tactic. “Please,” he said. “Please don’t go back to that store. We don’t know what’s going on there, but we’re sure Mr. Herman’s death is connected to his employment there. And, you said yourself that your friend had been threatened and thought she’d been followed when she left the store. Less than an hour later, she was hit by a car.”
“So, you do believe she was murdered?”
“I’m not dismissing the possibility.”
Hearing his concern, I decided overreacting to his order wasn’t fair. He was worried about my safety, mine and the baby’s. I should be pleased, and I was. “Don’t worry. I won’t go back. I don’t know about the store’s owner, he wasn’t there, but the two guys I dealt with acted really weird. Oh, and I’m sure I smelled marijuana.”
Wade nodded. “I noticed it, too.”
“That’s right. You said you were there.”
“Tuesday and again yesterday. Investigating. That’s part of my job description.”
I got his meaning. I also understood why Juan let me take the rocking chair after I mentioned Wade’s name.” Do you think they’re dealing drugs, and Brenda was going to report it, and that’s why she was killed? Maybe she—”
“Enough.” Wade turned me toward the bathroom. “Go take your shower, Mrs. Nosy Detective.”
I decided that was one order I would follow.
Chapter Twenty-One
After Wade and Jason left, I called Schipper’s Repair Shop. Nate hadn’t heard about my accident the night before, and, when I said the muffler was about to fall off and the car didn’t steer right, he thought I was talking about my Chevy, not the loaner. He assured me my muffler was fine and he didn’t notice anything wrong with the steering. When he finally understood what I was saying, he didn’t sound pleased, not even after I told him I’d filed a report with the sheriff’s department and would contact my insurance company.
I was out in front of my house, inside the fenced area, tossing a ball to Baraka when Nate drove into the yard with his tow truck. Baraka gave a woof and ran up to the gate, tail wagging. Once out of his truck, Nate stood back, obviously eyeing Baraka’s ridge and size.
“He’s friendly,” I said and quickly explained that the ridge on my dog’s back didn’t indicate viciousness.
Baraka jumped up against the gate, and Nate came closer to scratch Baraka behind his ears. “He might be friendly, but I don’t think I’d chance coming into your yard without you here. Those are big teeth.”
He then turned back to the Chevy he’d loaned me the day before. After walking around the car and looking under it, at the muffler that now touched the ground, he came back. “I don’t see any damage other than the muffler. Are you sure another car hit you?”
“It was so close, I’m not sure if it hit me or if I hit it.”
“Either way, I would expect more damage to the fender.”
“It was just a tap. The road was slippery.” I wasn’t sure why I had to explain. “I’d think you’d be glad there wasn’t more damage.”
“Oh, there’s enough damage,” he said and started for his tow truck. “I won’t know exactly how much until I get this back to the shop. Meanwhile, I’m afraid I don’t have any more cars for you to run off the road.”
“I didn’t run it off the road, I—” I stopped myself. Why repeat what I’d already told him? “That’s all right,” I said and sighed. “I’ve been given orders to stay home and relax.”
“Probably safer if you do. Safer for all of us.” He grinned. “As for your car, I should have it ready early next week. I lucked out and found replacement airbags in Detroit.” He waved a hand at the Chevy in my yard. “I gotta charge you for this, you know.�
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I understood.
After Nate hauled the loaner car out of the yard, I tried to relax as Wade had instructed, but I couldn’t. The events of the day before kept playing through my mind. Were Mom and Ben really married? Would Arthur Hicks be able to keep them out of jail? Why didn’t Juan want to sell me the rocking chair? And who was driving the SUV that ran me off the road? Who and why?
Finally, I gave up. I had no answers, and since the temperature had reached the mid-fifties, and the clouds were breaking up, letting the sun through, I decided a walk in the woods might relax me. “Come on, Baraka,” I said, heading for the kitchen door where my hip-length, padded winter jacket hung on a hook above my snow boots. “Wanna take a walk?”
My dog reached the door the same time I did, tail wagging and body alert. As I slipped on my boots, then my jacket, all I could think was how nice it would be after the baby was born, when I could again see my feet and easily bend over.
I checked Baraka’s injured paw. The cut had already sealed and for more than a day he hadn’t been limping. As far as I could tell there was no reason to bandage the paw.
He didn’t move when I opened the door, didn’t dash out of the house, simply stood looking out. I didn’t say anything or move. I’d trained him to wait for my command, but having found him outside Sunday, I wanted to see what he would do. Finally, he looked up at me, his velvety brown eyes questioning.
“Okay,” I said, and he trotted out of the house and down the steps.
What his behavior told me was even if I had left the door ajar Sunday, for Baraka to paw it open and go outside, there would have had to be something out there that he would want to get at. But what?
I had no answer.
Once outside, I thought about locking the door, then decided not to bother. I wasn’t going to take a long walk. Not the way I felt.
Baraka danced back and forth at the bottom of the steps, his focus on me. I made a sweeping motion with my hand toward the path that would take us by the old chicken coop and into the woods. He dashed in that direction.
His paw definitely wasn’t bothering him.
I followed him past the chicken coop. Once we started construction on the addition to the house, the coop would be torn down. None too soon, in my opinion, considering the building still smelled of decay and mold even after the hours I’d spent cleaning out the laying boxes along with tossing the old magazines, newspapers and bottles my grandfather had piled on the floor, year after year.
I will be forever grateful to Harlan Benson for my inheritance of the house and forty acres, but not for the mess he left me. Although I was told my grandparents did raise chickens for several years, once those hens and roosters were gone, Grandpa Benson turned the chicken coop into a dumping area and the woods behind the house into a junk yard. Cleaning up the area seemed an unending task. Before the snow fell, Wade and I filled a twenty-yard Dumpster; yet, discarded car parts, tires, and chicken wire still created a hazard zone between the coop and the woods. Next month we would order a larger size Dumpster, and maybe hire someone to help with the cleanup.
As I walked along the path that went through the woods, I remembered back to when I was nine, just a year before my father disappeared from my life. I’d asked him then why there was so much junk around Grandpa’s place. “ ‘Cause he’s too lazy to haul it to the dump,” Dad had said, then laughed and motioned toward a rusted bedspring half-covering a broken ceramic toilet. “And someday, Honey, all this junk will be yours.”
He was right.
Junk, trees, tillable acres, a two-story house and outbuildings, I inherited them all. It was the woods I loved the most. I could feel my body relax as Baraka and I walked by pines and hemlock, their green needles a contrast to the barren branches of the maples and oaks. A rabbit dashed across the path and Baraka took off after it. I stopped where I was and watched my dog zigzag through the trees, his golden red coat and sleek body reminding me of a female lion on the chase. And then the rabbit went to ground and the race ended. I started walking again as Baraka pawed at the hole that had swallowed the rabbit. Finally, I called his name, and he came bounding to my side, a smile—or what looked like a smile—on his face.
I walked to the far end of my woods and thought about the changes that had occurred in the last twelve months. Julia and John Westman no longer owned the farm northwest of mine and I hadn’t seen Nora Wright, whose farm was almost directly north of mine, since last summer. So far no one had shot at me, which I greatly appreciated, and no one had threatened me or my grandmother with a shovel.
Some changes had been good.
Feeling more relaxed and a little tired from the walk, I turned and headed back to the house. Even Baraka had expended his initial burst of energy and only occasionally trotted off to the side to investigate a pile of snow that hadn’t yet melted. We were halfway back to the house when the crows started cawing. That’s when I remembered I’d forgotten to buy the ceramic crow I saw at Patterson’s Furniture store. It would have been a nice gift for Howard.
I shrugged off the thought. I certainly wasn’t going back there.
The trees blocked my view of the sky, but the incessant cawing seemed to be coming from an area near my house. Warning that someone had arrived?
I picked up my pace; Baraka also seemed more alert. We were beside the chicken coop when he started to growl. A low, throaty, threatening growl. That’s when I saw someone coming out of my house through my kitchen door. Short and stocky, from the side he looked like the salesman from the furniture store, but I wasn’t completely sure.
“Hey!” I yelled.
He looked my way, and I knew exactly who it was. “Miguel!”
Baraka bolted forward, barking as he headed for the door. Miguel yelled something in Spanish and jumped off the side of the stairs. Without looking back, he ran to the truck parked in the driveway.
“Miguel, wait!” I yelled, also running in that direction. A clumsy imitation of running. I didn’t get far.
Melted snow and ice had turned a low spot on the path into slime, and my right leg slid out from under me. I automatically twisted to the side, falling on my hip rather than on my back and using the side of my arm as a buffer. Still the thud radiated through my body. All I could think about was my baby. My poor baby, who was getting banged and thumped and possibly injured.
For a moment I didn’t move. Past the edge of my house I heard Miguel swear, then Baraka yelped. The truck door banged shut, followed by the revving of an engine. There was the crunch of gravel under tires, then no noise, and finally a squeal as those tires took hold on the paved road in front of my house. By the time I pushed myself up to my feet, I knew he was far away.
“Baraka!” I yelled, praying my dog was all right, that the yelp I’d heard hadn’t been due to anything serious happening to him.
“Baraka, come!”
I sighed in relief when he slowly came into view, his tail between his legs, and his entire body taking on a shameful appearance.
I walked toward him, telling him over and over that he was a good dog, that he’d tried, and that I hoped he was all right. He rubbed his head against my side, the spark he’d had during our walk gone. I ran my hands over his back and sides, felt him flinch when I touched his left front shoulder. With him by my side I walked to where the truck had been parked and looked for anything Miguel might have dropped.
What I found was a small rock with blood on it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Yes,” I once again repeated to Wade. “The baby and I are fine. She’s acting as she always does, poking her fists and feet into my sides” I was being bruised internally as well as externally. “And no, I don’t think the blood on the rock came from when Baraka cut his pad. It was fresh when I first saw it.”
I’d called Wade as soon as I’d taken off my muddied boots, jeans and jacket and checked to see if anything downstairs had been taken. TV, computer, Xbox—all the valuable items a burglar might steal were untouched
. As far as I could tell, my purse hadn’t been touched. My wallet, credit cards, even the envelope with what was left of the money the Sporbachs had given me was still there, and the loose change that Wade dropped into a cup on the dresser was at the same level as I remembered.
I leaned my cell phone against that cup of change and kept talking as I slipped on a clean pair of maternity jeans. “I think he swore because Baraka bit him.”
The jeans, with their maternity insert, had seemed ridiculously oversized when I first purchased them. Now I could barely get the pants around my middle. “Yes,” I continued as I cinched the tie-strings. “I was careful. I put gloves on before I picked it up, and I put it in a paper bag.” Exactly as he’d explained wet evidence such as blood should be handled and packaged.
“I’m sure it was one of the men from the furniture store. The short one. They didn’t want me to buy the rocking chair. Kept giving me reasons why I couldn’t have it. I think Miguel came here to get it back. But he wasn’t carrying it when I saw him. You did take it out of the car, didn’t you?”
When he assured me he had, I asked the next logical question. “Did you put it upstairs?”
His answer surprised me. “The woodshed?”
Clothes changed, I slipped on my shoes. “Okay, I’m going to go look.”
I didn’t bother with a jacket, simply went down the back steps and over to the shed where wood was stored to fuel our wood-burning fireplace during the winter. Most of the wood was now gone, and it only took me a moment to spot the rocking chair on a shelf along the back wall.
“It’s there,” I told Wade and shivered, the cold air making me wish I had grabbed a jacket. “Why did you put it in here? And up on a shelf?”
Wade’s explanation that since our daughter wouldn’t be using the rocking chair for a while and it would be safer up off the dirt floor made sense, so I decided I would leave it where it was. “If I’m right and he was after the rocking chair, I don’t think he thought about looking in there,” I said and headed back into the house. “And, if he wasn’t after it, I have no idea what he was looking for. Nothing inside the house seems to be missing.”
