Donn's Hill

by Caryn Larrinaga

  “That’s all you can think about right now? The footage you got for the episode?” My voice rose higher and higher with each word. “Kit, Brian is dead!”

  She glanced at me again. “That’s not our fault. And at least we found the body. The important thing is—”

  Something inside me snapped. I was tired and hungry, and the scrape down my back burned against the salve the EMTs had given me. Plus, I had come face-to-face with yet another dead body. I was at the end of my rope.

  “Yeah,” I interrupted, “the only important thing is that you got something to use in your precious show. Brian’s wife and daughter will totally understand. They lost their husband and father, but at least you’ve got a stellar episode for next season.”

  Kit’s mouth fell open, and then she snapped it closed. Her face hardened, and her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Wow. ‘Precious show’? That’s your job you’re talking about. My job. My dad’s job. We all depend a lot on how this next season goes. You should act a little more grateful.”

  “Oh, I should be grateful, huh? You’re right. These last two weeks have been just peachy.” I packed enough sarcasm into my voice to sink a small ship. “Thank you so much, Kit, for the opportunity to get the shit scared out of me. I’m so happy I got to see Tom Bishop’s rotting dead face in the water. Finding Brian—why, that’s better than getting a Christmas bonus!”

  “Jesus, Mac! You’re going to blame me for that?”

  My blood was pumping, and suddenly I didn’t feel tired anymore. I could leap out of the van and run the rest of the way home. I was starting to see things clearly for the first time in weeks: I’d come to Donn’s Hill to get away from death, but ever since I’d met Kit, my life had been nothing but dead bodies and malicious spirits.

  This is all her fault.

  “You know what, Kit? Screw you. You’re the most selfish person I know. Oh, you act all generous, like you’re trying to help people with your show, but you’re really just in it for you. And then you dragged me into it. I don’t even recognize my life anymore. I wish I’d never met you.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I wanted to reach out into the air and grab them before they entered her ears. But it was too late.

  Kit pulled the van into the carport at Primrose House and cut the engine. For a moment, she looked as though she was about to cry. Then her features closed off, and she turned to me with a face like a blank wall.

  “Yeah?” Her voice was cold and steady. “Likewise. Death follows you around like a shadow. We’ll be better off without you.”

  “Great. I quit.”

  I jumped out of the van and slammed the door behind me. I hope it breaks. My eyes burned as I stormed up the path to the kitchen door. I tried the handle; it was locked. Swearing under my breath, I rummaged around in my handbag for my keys.

  “Stupid bag, so much crap,” I muttered. I could hear my keys but couldn’t find them. I was on the verge of turning it upside down and letting the contents spill all over the patio when my fingers finally wrapped around something small and metallic. I yanked the key ring out of my bag with a triumphant, “Ha!” and jammed my key into the dead bolt.

  I burst into the kitchen, which was illuminated by a pool of light in front of the open refrigerator door. Someone in a set of dirty coveralls was bent over, foraging the shelves for a late night snack. I slammed the patio door shut, and the figure jumped at the sound, straightened up, and turned around.

  It was Graham. Concern filled his eyes when he saw my face. “Whoa, are you all right?”

  This is just what I need, someone being nosey. “Mind your own damn business,” I spat. I started to storm past him toward the foyer but stopped just shy of the door and spun around to face him. “But you don’t even mind your own business, do you, Mr. Landlord? Did you take a look at those pipes over my apartment or check the roof for leaks yet?”

  Deep down, I knew I was being ridiculous, but it was too late to stop it. My emotions had burst into the engine room, torn off the brake handle, and thrown it out the window. I was just a passenger now, along for the ride, while my anger, frustration, and exhaustion ran the train right off the tracks.

  He stared at me, eyes wide and mouth agape. “Mac, I—”

  “Save it,” I growled.

  I stomped up the stairs to my apartment and flung myself onto the bed. I stared at the ceiling, letting my emotions roil and rage inside me, growing in strength and battling each other for control. Hatred was a clear contender, and it chewed through my world with abandon.

  I hate this town. It’s all ‘howdy, neighbor’ on the surface, but they’re killing each other behind the scenes.

  The pipes in the bathroom began to clang. They’d been silent since the smudging, but the moment they started up again, it felt like they’d never stopped.

  Clang, clang, clink. Clang, clang, clink.

  I pushed myself off the bed and balled my hands into fists. I rammed them downward, pinning my arms against my body. “I hate this apartment!” I shouted. “I hate this town. I hate this room. I hate these stupid pipes!”

  The clanging grew louder, and my anger grew with it. I cast my thoughts backward, latching on to every misfortune I’d ever experienced, big or small, and relishing in the memories of bad times. The look on Josh’s face when I’d opened the door and found him in bed with his marketing intern. Standing outside my father’s hospital room after he’d died and being left with nothing but a thin, wasted version of him.

  “It’s not fair!” I grabbed a plate off my tiny counter, lifted it above my head, and threw it onto the floor. It smashed into several pieces with a satisfying crash. The pipes clanged louder, applauding my efforts.

  I stared down at the broken chunks of stoneware. I’d been so stupid to come here. I’d thought I could recapture some of the magic of my childhood, but that was impossible. I wasn’t a kid anymore. Life wasn’t all cotton candy and pony rides, and it hadn’t been for a very long time. It was just a broken plate, and I was an idiot to think I could put the pieces back together again and nobody would notice the gaping cracks—especially me.

  It was time to face reality. This town was a joke. I needed to move to a large city with more opportunities and try to leverage my experience at the ad firm into an executive assistant job somewhere. It probably wouldn’t make me happy, but at least it would be a living—one that wouldn’t involve finding dead bodies. I yanked open the wardrobe, retrieved my backpack, and started shoving my clothes into it. Screw this town. I hate everything about it.

  “Brrrlllll.”

  Striker hopped into the open wardrobe. She eyed my backpack and leapt inside with a light thump. I peered into the opening. She was already making herself comfortable on the few shirts I’d stuffed in there, turning around in circles and settling in. She wrapped her tail around herself and looked up at me, her huge yellow-green eyes meeting my red ones.

  As I stared at her, my anger melted away. I knelt on the floor, setting down the backpack and reaching inside to retrieve her. She allowed me to cradle her like a baby. As she purred, she stretched out her paws toward my neck. It was like a hug.

  For the second time in ten minutes, I felt like an idiot. How could I have forgotten about Striker? If I hadn’t come to Donn’s Hill, I wouldn’t have met her. Yeah, she was a cat, but she was also my friend. We shared a connection that was hard to explain.

  “I’m in no condition to be making any big decisions right now,” I told her.

  I walked over to the bed and climbed into it. Striker stayed on my chest, letting me pull the covers up over us both, and continued to purr. My backpack forgotten, I slipped away into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When I was a child, I was prone to bouts of what my mother called “hanger,” meaning I would turn into an irrational monster when I was hungry. One time I had started bawling and pounding the table at a Denny’s because I thought I was going to star
ve to death, and the table next to us had gotten their food before mine. But after I had a little food in my belly, my anger evaporated.

  Something similar happened when I was tired. Mom called it being “tanxious.” If I hadn’t gone to bed on time, I couldn’t sleep at all. It was as if I had to catch a literal train to dreamland, and if I missed it, I’d sit awake all night, worrying about things that no five-year-old should’ve been upset about: If my arms are dangling over the side of my bed, will a monster eat them? If I wake up in the morning without arms, how will I brush my teeth? If I can’t brush my teeth, will they rot and fall out?

  The day after my fight with Kit, I sat up in bed, chewing a protein bar and reflecting on the night before. Late-morning sunlight streamed through the sheer curtains in the turret. Striker lay on the plush cushion over the bookshelves, cleaning her face. I hadn’t yet gotten around to unpacking my backpack, but it was definitely going to happen. My sudden urge to leave Donn’s Hill had evaporated after a solid six hours of sleep.

  Looking back on the night before, I knew I’d been hangry and tanxious. I cringed, recalling the spiteful things I’d said to Kit and Graham. I didn’t really mean any of it, and I didn’t know where half of it had come from. I sighed. The plate in the kitchen wasn’t the only mess I needed to clean up.

  I stood up and stretched, checking my wristwatch. I only had a little while until my volunteer orientation for the Afterlife Festival, and I had a lot to do. As much as I wanted to tackle my apology tour, there was something I needed to do first. Brian Andersen had been a nice man, and the first person to make me really feel welcome in Donn’s Hill. Now he was dead.

  In the calm light of day with some food in my belly, I remembered the conversation I’d overheard between Gabrielle and Brian. He’d gone to that cabin looking for clues about Tom’s death, and he’d ended up dying there. Something about the whole situation stunk. I had to do something about it.

  I retrieved my handbag from the corner where I’d tossed it. After a few moments of digging, I found what I was looking for: Deputy Wallace’s business card. She’d given it to me the first time she interviewed me, after Tom Bishop’s body had surfaced at the lake. I ran my finger over the raised seal on the card, under which “Driscoll County Sheriff’s Department” was printed in gold lettering.

  I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the number on the card. I figured I’d have a few moments to collect my thoughts while a receptionist connected me, but the deputy’s brusque voice answered straightway. “This is Wallace.”

  My thoughts were still a jumble, and they refused to come out of my mouth.

  “Hello?” she demanded. Her voice already sounded irritated. I needed to pull myself together.

  “Uh, hi,” I said. “Deputy Wallace? My name is Mackenzie Clair, with the—”

  “Yeah, I remember you. The body magnet. What can I do for you?”

  Her callous manner threw me off balance. We were only a few sentences into this conversation, and it already wasn’t playing out like I’d hoped.

  “I…” I cleared my throat. “I think I might have some information for you regarding what Brian Andersen was doing at that cabin.”

  “Okay. What’ve you got?”

  I took a deep breath. “I think Tom Bishop was using the cabin as a secret office. And I think Brian went there to—well, I don’t know exactly. I think Brian thought there was something at that cabin that would help him figure out who killed Tom Bishop.”

  She was silent on the other end of the line. I wished I could see her face. I hated talking on the phone. Texting was even worse. Zero context clues.

  “What’s your source on this?” she asked at last.

  I was afraid that might come up. I didn’t want to tell her about my foray into the bushes or the conversation I’d overheard Brian having with Gabrielle. And I also didn’t want Gabrielle’s love life to get dragged into all this just so she could get falsely accused. That left me with only one alternative: I had to lie.

  “He told me.”

  “He told you he was going to the cabin to look for clues about Tom Bishop’s death?”

  “Yes… on Monday, when we were chatting in the coffee shop. Some teenagers came in while I was there. You can ask them. I asked him if he had any theories. He told me about the cabin.”

  She made an odd noise. It sounded like a snort. “You and Brian Andersen were that close, huh? You’ve been in this town less than a month, and he already made you his confidant?”

  “It’s true!” I was insulted that she didn’t believe me. Even though I was, in fact, lying, I still felt offended that she was calling me out on it. I kept talking, needing to defend myself. “That’s not all he told me. He told me about the drugs moving through Main Street Diner and the mini red-light district at the E-Z Sleep Motel.”

  “All right, now I know you’re lying. You expect me to believe Brian Andersen outed the illegal business interests of his best friend to you? And if that was true, why didn’t you come forward with this information earlier?” Her voice deepened and grew louder. It sounded like the phone was practically in her mouth. “Tell me what’s really going on, Ms. Clair, because you can be damn sure I’ll figure it out anyway.”

  Crap. I needed to cut off this conversation before I got myself into real trouble. “Listen, believe me or don’t. I don’t care. I just wanted to do my civic duty by passing the information along. Search the cabin. If you don’t find any evidence of a secret office, you’ll know I’m lying.”

  I ended the call and tossed the phone into my handbag. Great. She’d either write me off as a crackpot or add me to the list of suspects on a corkboard in her office. But I’d known that was a risk before I even dialed her number, and I’d still gone through with it. Calling Deputy Wallace was the least I could do to help ensure that whoever killed Brian was brought to justice.

  I mentally crossed that off my to-do list for the day and moved on to my next task. I knelt by the kitchenette, swept up the shards of the plate and dumped them into the garbage. At least no one had seen that part of my little temper tantrum, although that probably would have been easier to apologize for.

  After a quick shower, I resolved to go find Kit and Graham and make amends. But first I needed to give Striker some love. I sat down on the window seat next to her.

  “Thanks for being there for me last night,” I told her as I stroked her back. “You saved me from compounding my stupidity. Want to come with me to visit Kit and Graham? I could use your moral support.”

  Striker followed me downstairs to the second floor. I took a deep breath, knocked on Kit’s door, and waited. There was no answer. I pressed my ear to the door, trying to hear if Kit was inside and just not responding to me, but I couldn’t make out any sounds. Maybe she’s downstairs.

  The kitchen was empty. My shoulders slumped; I was really hoping to run into one of them while they were eating. Hard conversations are always a little easier if food is involved. I looked out the window and saw that the door to Graham’s studio was open.

  “Here goes nothing,” I muttered.

  I opened the patio door, and Striker dashed outside. Several finches were perched on the bird feeder, and she galloped across the lawn to jump at them. They scattered, flying up into the branches of the tall sycamore that shaded the house. Striker trotted back to me, looking pleased with herself for having defended her territory. I patted her head.

  “Look at you, little tough cat.”

  Music streamed out of the open garage door, but I didn’t recognize the artist. It sounded loud and angry. I swallowed nervously—that didn’t bode well—but I forced myself to walk into the studio. Graham was standing in front of a table full of finished pieces, picking them up and putting them back down. The shelves and tables were packed with colorful glazed sculptures. The overhead lights gleamed on the shining, semi-reflective surfaces. The effect was stunning.

  “Hey,” I said, raising my voice so he could hear me above the music.


  Graham jumped, and I cringed. I was hoping to avoid that by calling out to him, rather than slinking up to him under the cover of the music and tapping him on the shoulder. Oh, well.

  He turned to face the door, and his expression drooped when he saw me. “Hey,” he said. He turned back around and continued picking up the sculptures.

  Deciding to take his lack of a dismissal as an invitation to stay, I moved forward to stand next to him. He didn’t turn to look at me; he just kept working. I realized he wasn’t simply picking up the sculptures for the sake of hefting them into the air and setting them back down again. He was marking the bottoms with little price tag stickers. I wasn’t surprised to see the high dollar amounts. His work was gorgeous, and I thought the sculptures were worth every penny.

  “Do you have a minute to talk?” I asked.

  He nodded then walked over to the stereo to turn it down. He pulled two cans of cola out of a mini fridge that stood next to the stereo cabinet and offered me one as he took a seat on a tall stool. I joined him, sitting down on a stool across from him.

  I cracked the can open and took a deep breath. “Listen… I’m sorry—really sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped all over you last night.”

  Graham took a sip of his soda and examined the can. “Apology accepted.”

  “Yeah? Just like that?”

  He raised his head and looked into my eyes. “Just like that. On one condition, that is.”

  “Okay. Name it.”

  “Can you tell me what the hell was going on? I mean, I haven’t known you for very long, but…” His face began to redden. “I feel like I know you pretty well already, and that didn’t seem like you. You were like… a rabid animal ready to attack anything or anyone that crossed your path.”

  I burst out laughing then covered my mouth with my hand. “Sorry. It’s not funny. But you described me perfectly when I’m not feeling well.” I explained about my dual conditions of hanger and tanxiety and told him about my fight with Kit. He was a sympathetic listener, nodding along with my story.