by Mary Saums
Thus fanned, the book stood upright on top of the rock’s flat surface without a quiver, though in its place, I had no doubt I’d be shaking down to my shoes, considering Phoebe’s poorly concealed anger. She walked past the line we used for handgun practice, going farther out and turning where we usually stood to shoot the larger guns.
“Isn’t that the book you were raving about just yesterday?” I took out my handgun. I’d only brought the one this time, a Walther PPK. Phoebe had mentioned she might like to try it since it was associated with James Bond.
“That’s the one,” she said.
“I thought you said you were enjoying it immensely.” I popped the magazine in the PPK and racked the slide.
“I was.”
I was perplexed. “You said the beginning was the most exciting you had ever read.”
“It is.” She snapped the fully loaded cartridge up into her rifle and gave it another hard smack for good measure. “That boy can write up a storm. There’s no doubt about it. The first four pages of him describing how awful the villain is—and I’m not talking about a weenie villain, I’m talking about the most disgusting, godforsaken, lawless, heathen sub-human ever known—blew me away.”
She stared at me the way she always did when loading the AK. She loved the sound of it, more than actually shooting the rifle, I suspect. The distinctive clicks of the loading mechanism gave her a thrill and her face always reflected it as now, like a naughty cherub smiling with the macho pride of being cool.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “I had a little problem with page five.” She gave me the look as she pulled the bolt back and let it go to snap into place with a slick slock. Her grin widened. She took aim, squinting, with her cheek against the gun’s body, and fired.
The barrel roared as she fired three successive shots. Pages fluttered in the wake of them, but the book did not take a direct hit.
“Because on page five, when the disgusting, heathen subhuman spoke for the first time…,” She adjusted her aim and squeezed the trigger again. Boom. Boom.
“…that boy had a Southern accent.” Her hands went white as she gripped the gun’s body even tighter against her. She stepped closer and closer to the target, firing once with each step. “Which would’ve been fine, except the story is set…,”
Boom.
“…in North…”
Boom.
“…dad gone…”
Boom.
“…Dakota.”
BoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoom.
The trigger clicked but it didn’t matter that she’d run out of ammo. The paperback had lifted straight up perhaps six inches with the first of the last three shots and twirled in midair with the second. The third didn’t hit. Nevertheless, the book fell down again on the top of the rock, flat on its face, its pages sprawled out like lifeless limbs. It moved no more.
Phoebe let out a sigh. “But that’s okay. It’s a free country. And I’m used to that kind of garbage.” She examined her handiwork, one single hole just below the title on the cover and the top right corners singed, as she picked the book up. She held it away from her with two fingers by one end of the spine, as if she had bagged a squirrel or possum and held it upside down by the tail, as far away from her body as she could in case it might be diseased.
“I learned something though,” she said. “I learned never to buy another book that won four awards. You’d think using such a worn-out cliché in the first five pages would’ve disqualified it. Nope. Not in this world. Those judges were nothing but a bunch of cheese-eaters. Now I know. Now I ain’t so ignert.” She said the last word with an exaggerated accent. “And yes, that is a proper word. Ignorant, Ignernt, Ig Nert. It’s the superlative. It means ‘the most ignorant’ and is therefore better than that plain white stuff in hoity-toity grammar books.” Her face blazed with color as she turned to me. Her eyes watered with a mix of anger and hurt feelings. “Everybody wants us to be ignert, Jane. That’s all that matters. That’s what everybody thinks, don’t they?”
Slowly, I took the book from her fingers and set it upright again on the rock’s ledge. I placed my left hand gently on her shoulder and spoke in a soft voice.
“No, dear. Not everybody.” In one motion, I brought my right arm up straight, shoulder height and at its full length, and fired three successive shots at close range. They roared, hitting so soon one after another that the book looked stunned, jostled but unable to move until the final hit, and fell straight on its back like a domino with a firm splat. Smoke misted from its new holes.
“Dang, Jane. What do you think this is, open season?”
I smiled as I held it up for her inspection. “Yes. On cheese. Swiss, anyone?”
We laughed as we walked back to the line to finish up our ammo. I knocked off a few bottles I’d brought. Phoebe hit her book more consistently. In fact, she didn’t try to hit any of the other targets, only the book, emptying three more magazines of bullets in the effort, though only a couple made contact.
After we had taken thorough care of the deceased paperback, she underwent a change. Her body relaxed, her face emitted a glow of calm and joy, reminiscent of small children and Buddhist monks. With our guns emptied, we sat on two low rocks for a rest.
“Jane, you’re a true friend. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I really do want to be more calm and mindful of the universe, like they say, and all that. It’s the right way to be. It’s just that no-account book was the last straw. A lady can only take so many pushes on her hot buttons before she blows up.”
She reached down to a clump of tall spindly grass, broke off a green blade, and began using it as if it were a toothpick on her bottom teeth. “Yeah, Jane, I sure am lucky to have a good gun therapist like you when I need one. Now if only I could get you to show me some of those fancy moves, I believe I’d be a lot calmer all the time.”
She amazed me. Perhaps, I thought, she was finally interested in the meditative qualities I’d gone on about when talking of my daily tai chi and meditation practice.
“Wonderful. Would you like to learn a couple of steps here? We can go through the moves together, a few at a time until you learn them all. Anytime you like.”
“Hot dog. You’re the best. Show me one.”
We walked a few feet away from the rocks where the grass was soft and the ground flat. “Now,” I said. “The first thing about practicing tai chi is…”
“Whoa. Stop right there,” she said, holding up a hand. “That’s not the moves I’m talking about. Swinging my arms around like a windmill or standing like a flamingo on one leg while pretending my hand is a little Chinese basket doesn’t interest me in the least. Jujitsu is what I’m talking about. Karate. Things to defend yourself. Fighting off bad guys. Stuff that makes you want to go ‘Hee-yah!’ Maybe if I already knew any of it, that boy who mugged us wouldn’t have gotten away.”
I sighed. It was also true that he might not have been killed if I’d been able to hold him until the police arrived.
“Sorry,” Phoebe said. “I didn’t mean it to sound like I could have done a better job than you did. Only that, if there had been two of us karate chopping him at once, he might not have gotten away.”
“You’re quite right. Don’t apologize. You made me think of something else that has been weighing on my mind.” I told her about the visit from Detective Waters and all that we talked about, except for one thing, his questions regarding Michael. Those had no bearing on the situation whatsoever. Just thinking of the detective’s suggestions gave me a feeling of disloyalty. I trusted Michael with no reserves and would have been uncomfortable in relaying what amounted to gossip to Phoebe.
“Goodness, Jane. You poor thing. It is beyond me why somebody would have any interest in a bunch of old bones, no offense, much less steal or kill somebody over them.”
“It’s not quite clear whether that’s actually the case. We don’t know anything for certain as yet.”
“Get real, Jane. You know as well as I do t
hat the whole thing sounds like somebody is after you or wanting to find that grave. That crazy Graybear boy, for one. I’m sure Dan Waters is already on the stick as far as that kid is concerned. If he’s the one, Dan will put an end to that foolishness right quick. It’s the chance that it’s somebody else that is so worrisome.”
She was right. As always, Phoebe got straight to the heart of the matter. It was precisely my fear. Someone unknown to me wanted access to the bones site, a person who most likely thought they could find native artifacts to sell on the black market. But was that enough to lead them to murder?
“I think we would both feel better if you taught me a self-defense lesson or two,” Phoebe said. “It would get me ready in case we get into any more trouble, and it would be good for you since you might be getting a little rusty. Right now, you need to be on your toes.”
“Good point. All right, then. Let’s start with a few simple pressure point techniques. Kyusho Jitsu.”
“Bless you.” Phoebe bowed low from the waist, her palms together.
She did remarkably well. We practiced grabbing each other by the wrists and arms, using the proper twists to bring an opponent to the floor. Phoebe particularly enjoyed learning the vulnerable points on the body that could be struck or merely pressed, just so, in order to immobilize an attacker.
We rode back to my house in a good mood, both feeling better after the rigors of the workout. Phoebe didn’t have time to come in for lunch as she had last-minute things to do related to her Halloween party at the library. We set a time to meet the following afternoon. I would go to her house, then to the library to help entertain the children.
Twenty-Five
Jane Takes a Closer Look
Later that afternoon, the movie crew’s trailer parked once again at the Piggly Wiggly. I wondered if they had filmed anything in town yet. Their gear always seemed to be here, in the grocery lot.
“It takes a long time to get prepared, they say,” the cashier told me. “They’re working somewhere around here. They must not need all the fancy equipment yet.”
She could be right. Interviews and the like would take time. I returned with my groceries to my car, right next to the trailer. Through one of its windows, I couldn’t help overhearing a conversation inside between two men.
“We’ll do it tonight.”
“But if we’re not using the regular stuff, what do I bring?”
“Just shovels and those bags. I want to get it all in one trip and then split. Don’t forget to pick up more batteries for the lamps.”
Shovels? To make movies? A familiar twitch in my stomach told me something was wrong. That same feeling served me well on many a dangerous mission in my younger days.
I quietly opened my car door. When I sat behind the wheel, I heard the trailer’s door open. In my rearview mirror, I saw two men walk from the trailer toward the Pig. One was young, a bodybuilder, not very tall. The other man was taller and had gray hair. Neither turned around.
When they entered the building, I got out of my car and walked behind the trailer. I tried to see inside the small windows. The trailer looked mostly empty. What I saw beside the small dining table shocked me. There was no doubt in my mind that it had belonged to me. The green metal box stolen from the antique trunk in my den had unmistakable scratches and paint marks I would recognize anywhere.
Immediately, I thought of calling Detective Waters. I paused. How would I explain the illegal devices inside? I decided I wasn’t ready to do that. I peeked around the trailer and waited until the parking lot was clear. I took my ring of keys from my pocket. By feel, I found the one I would need.
One never knows when the tools and skills required in a former job will come in handy again. In my part-time work for the government, it was necessary to know how to get inside places that others wanted kept locked. I was a spy, you see. I worked in cities all over the world, wherever my military husband was assigned. I became proficient in shooting and fighting, skills I already possessed that my husband, the Colonel, helped me advance. And now, only a special aptitude with a skeleton key was called for. Easy.
Stepping up to the trailer’s front door, I slid my special key in the lock, opened the door quickly, and closed it behind me to take a closer look.
What struck me first was the absence of film equipment. No lights or stands. No cameras. I did find a couple of boxes that, upon inspection, contained what looked like smuggled goods from Central America. I saw no sign of my missing statues, though my search was hurried. I took my own box and left.
Another surprise waited for me on my own doorstep. As I unlocked the door, I happened to look down. A round piece of mud lay on the threshold. Imprinted on it, I saw tread marks from a shoe.
I stopped cold. It was true that Michael might have tracked this here, after playing about in the woods for the last few days. Yet I didn’t think so. We each made a habit of leaving our dirty work boots on the porch on a small mat I’d set to the side of the doorway, precisely for that purpose. The soil bits on our mat had a dark brown hue. This divot of mud was brick red.
I eased the door open, though I felt a bit silly for doing so. We were the likely culprits. However, as soon as I entered the living room, I knew someone had been here in our absence. A smell of sweat with the faint odor of onions greeted me.
Quickly, I set down my gun bag, retrieved the PPK, snapped in a new magazine, racked the slide, and systematically searched the house for intruders. In the kitchen, I noted the back door’s dead bolt had been unlocked. Not as I’d left it. A brief glance out the door’s window and onto the screened back porch made me reasonably sure my visitor or visitors had left the premises this way. A few tiny clumps of the dirt speckled the porch’s wooden slats. Still, I continued through the house, looking in every conceivable hiding place from basement to roof.
When searching the den, a terrible thought hit me when I saw my trunks. My guns. Thank goodness I’d moved them and stashed them all over the house. Even so, the trunks’ locks had not been tampered with. That was a small relief. Other guns about the house were hidden, some not so well, I realized, given the present circumstances. Most all were under lock and key, but a determined thief could easily take off with some of them, case and all. Luckily, I accounted for all of them during my search.
With a great exhalation of relief, I returned downstairs. No one was in the house now, and only a few papers and notebooks on the desk looked disturbed. So far as I could tell, nothing was missing.
I took a few minutes of rest in my easy chair, as well as a nice shot of brandy. With an effort, I shook off the troublesome events and packed a lunch for Michael and myself. He would be hungry and ready for a break.
On the way through the forest, my mind worked on problems of security once again. Several plans formed, ones I dearly hoped would never be necessary. Before I left the house, I called the police station. Detective Waters was out. It was just as well. As I calmed down, I realized I had nothing but suspicion to report since I couldn’t tell him about the metal weapons box and had seen no sign of my statues in the trailer. How would I explain my presence in the trailer at all? No, it was better to think it all out for a bit. On my walk to the bones site, my head cleared. I came to the conclusion that my imagination was getting the better of me, an old woman with old thoughts of intrigue still rattling about in her head. I would buy better locks and take more precautions at the house.
When I arrived at the site, Michael and Homer were not at the dig pit. They approached from the west on a trail that followed the curve of the stone wall’s remains. We met under the rock overhang to eat our lunch in its shade.
Michael didn’t take the news of our intruders well. His voice shook a little after I told him it was clear someone had been searching through our notes and paperwork. I imagined he was thinking about his own recent experience with thieves, when he was attacked at his former university. We ate in silence for a while.
I tried to lighten the mood by talking about
Phoebe’s shooting session. He laughed when I described the book. I asked how his work went after I left. He said he had become distracted from the skeleton but refused to say more. A twinkle in his eye told me he had found something.
“It must be extraordinary,” I said.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re not telling me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He munched on his sandwich, observing it as if its contents fascinated him.
“You’ve found something. You’re humming again.”
He stopped tapping his foot. His head stopped the barely perceptible movements it made in time with his song. With a throaty laugh, he wrapped his sandwich again in its foil, grabbed my hand, and led me to his discovery.
He had not worked on the areas where it appeared corners had been constructed, as I suspected. Instead, he had painstakingly brushed away the dirt surrounding the protrusion we noted, midway between the imagined rectangle of the burial container’s edges. I sat back on my haunches. Michael followed suit.
It was then I suddenly saw a deep blue aura where Michael had been digging. Other than seeing this phenomenon immediately surrounding the bones, what I saw thus far at the site had been subtle, like a fine pale mist. Here before me, however, the same dark blue, almost like a shield, covered what Michael had exposed. The color distracted me at first, to the point that I couldn’t differentiate clearly between the dirt and the object.
“Well? What do you think?”
As my vision adjusted, I could see the upper part of a large curved object about three inches thick, its arc above the dirt about one foot wide. A space, perhaps an inch wide, separated the object from something else Michael had exposed.
“Definitely a wall of some sort,” he said happily.
“What’s this then?” I gently traced the curve.
