“I hear you have a fish pond,” he said.
Mandy nodded.
“How come you call it a fish pond?”
“’Cause it got fish in it.”
“Really?”
Mandy nodded again.
“Right here in the house?”
Mandy looked up at him. “Inda back yard!” she said. Crockett’s stupidity knew no bounds.
“You do not!”
“Do too.”
Crockett’s tone became sarcastic. “Okay, kid. Show me. I wanna see a pond with some fish in it.”
Mandy glanced at her mother. Cheryl nodded.
The girl wiggled off the couch and headed for the kitchen. “C’mon,” she said.
From her position at the rear of the back yard, Martha McGill watched Crockett as he and her great granddaughter left the back of the house and walked across the lawn to the pond. He was a relatively large man, six feet or more, over two hundred pounds. Martha was a bit put off that a man his age, he must have been between fifty and sixty, would still be wearing his hair, at least what was left of it, in a ponytail. She was a bit put off by his facial hair, too. She’d never been fond of beards or mustaches. A lot of men wore them though, even Paul.
This man with Mandy was unusual in some ways. He didn’t speak to the child as if she were a baby. Of course, certain allowances were made for her age and vocabulary, but he did not condescend and there was an undercurrent of humor in their conversation. Then there were his eyes. There was a kindness in them, a weariness, too. He carried both sorrow and pain, but he did it with a casual dignity that she found appealing. Behind those eyes she sensed both honor and ruthlessness. He would be a dedicated friend and a relentless enemy.
She rather liked that.
Crockett and Mandy approached the pond, and the fish approached them, clamoring near the surface. Crockett smiled.
“You told them I was coming,” he said. “Look how glad they are to see me.”
“They always do that,” Mandy replied, sitting on the grass by the stones edging the pool.
“They do?”
“Yep.”
“Oh,” Crockett replied, obviously disappointed. “I thought it was because I was so pretty. Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
“No.”
Crockett stifled a laugh at the open honesty of the child. “They’re beautiful,” he said. “Do you have names for them?”
“Not da fish. Mom said we maybe get a puppy. I name her Judy.”
“Do you visit your grandma out here by the pond?”
Mandy nodded and kept her eyes on the fish.
“Does she sit on the grass with you?”
Mandy shook her head.
Crockett smiled. “Would she sit on a stone, if you left her alone?”
Again Mandy shook her head.
“Would she sit in a tree if you let her be?”
Mandy smiled. “No.”
“Would she sit on a mouse if you stayed in the house?”
The thought of Gramma sitting on a mouse was almost too much for Mandy. “No!” she giggled.
“If she sat on the fence, would it make any sense?” Crockett asked.
“Gramma doesn’t sit onda fence!” Mandy replied, falling to her back on the grass and laughing.
“Let’s see,” Crockett went on, taking a seat on the ground beside the girl “If she sat on a log, would she look like a frog? If she sat in a chair, would she look like a bear? If she sat on a stool, would she look like a mule? If she sat on a cat, would you know where she’s at?”
“Gramma sit inda wadder!” Mandy yelled through laughter, patting Crockett on the knee.
“In the water?”
Mandy nodded vigorously.
“With all those fish?”
“Uh-huh. With da fish.”
“Wow. Can I see her?”
Mandy shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Just me.”
Crockett smiled at the girl. “Grandma must love you very much,” he said.
Mandy nodded as she got to her feet. “I’m gonna get food for da fish,” she said, and headed for the house, her little legs churning beneath pink terry shorts.
Crockett watched her go and turned his attention to the pond. The koi were gathered in front of him, refusing to give up on the possibility of food. He looked into the water for a moment before Mandy returned, leaving a trail of fish munchies behind her. She tossed what was left of her burden into the pond. The water churned.
“Do you talk to your grandma?”
“Nope. I just listen.”
“She talks to you?”
“Nope.”
“No?”
“Gramma in my head,” Mandy replied, patting her forehead at the hairline.
“Oh. I see,” Crockett said. “You don’t hear her with your ears. You understand her in your head.”
Mandy smiled up at him. Impish innocence without guile or agenda. “Yep,” she said.
“Isn’t that wonderful?” Crockett went on. “Do you answer her?”
Mandy shook her head. “Gramma knows. Will you read to me now?”
“Sure,” Crockett said, levering himself to his feet. “You go find a book. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Mandy zoomed toward the house, and Crockett turned his attention back to the pond, peering down into the depths.
“Martha McGill,” he whispered, “I don’t know if you’re there or not, but I don’t deny any possibility. I’m here to help. And if I can, I will.”
Behind where the fish were feeding the water humped as if something large had nearly broken the surface. Crockett didn’t notice. He’d already turned away.
CHAPTER TEN
Crockett returned home to find Satin, Nudge, Danielle, and Dundee parked on the couch watching an old Eddie Izzard concert on the tube. Danielle, barefoot and in lightweight sweats, looked a little perplexed. Satin, wearing Levi cut-offs, a ratty Grateful Dead t-shirt, and flip-flops, was giggling.
Crockett glared at her. “Don’t you have a home?”
“Fresh sun tea in the fridge,” Satin said. “We’d like some, too.”
Crockett fixed three tall glasses of tea as Eddie discussed alternate settings for Captain Kirk’s phaser. Then, he carried the drinks into the living area, and passed one each to mother and daughter.
“Ah,” Crockett sighed, easing back in his recliner. “A quiet evening, my pipe and slippers, and good looking women.”
“Got it made, huh, Crockett?” Danni said.
“Long as I got good looking women, I don’t even need my pipe and slippers.”
“How’d it go with the ghost today?” Satin asked.
“Didn’t meet the ghost. Met the family. This has got to be a gradual thing because of the child. I’m going back in a few days and talk with them some more. Great little kid. Don’t wanna rush her.”
“This little kid talks to a ghost?” Danni asked.
“Maybe,” Crockett said.
“Mom told me some stuff. She told me about that Ruby lady and the other one, ah, Carson.”
“She did, huh?”
“Yeah. I think what you did was cool. What you’re doing for me is cool, too. I really do appreciate it. I know I acted kinda badly toward you when I first got here. I didn’t understand a lot of things. I still don’t, I guess. But I’m trying to. Mom explained a lot.”
Crockett turned toward Satin. “Being a mother must be tough. The constant sacrifice, the concern, the worry. I don’t know how you do it, sweetheart. A giant among women, that’s what you are. An angel of motherhood. I am humbled to be in your presence.”
“About time,” Satin said.
“And now I also understand some of the things you have had to give up in your ongoing effort to help me be the man I can become.”
“That’s even better,” Satin said.
Crockett smiled. “Thought you’d like it.”
“That was so much better, one might even consider it to be foreplay.”
“Shower,” Satin replied. “It’s faster.”
“Oh, God,” Danni said. “It better be fast. I don’t need this. Nudge and me’ll be out on the porch.”
The next morning Crockett padded into the kitchen in the pre-dawn gloom to find coffee already in the pot. He poured a cup, splashing a bit on his sweatpants, added cream, splashing a bit on his t-shirt, scorched his thumb lighting his first Sherman of the day, stumbled over Nudge and nearly fell, and finally lurched out onto the porch. Danielle, cocooned in a terry robe, was sitting in her customary canvas chair as she peered into the early half-light and ground fog. A turkey gobbled in the distance, its cry made soft around the edges by the dense humidity.
“Mornin’, kid,” Crockett said.
The girl seemed unaware he’d intruded on her reverie and continued to stare into the morning.
Smiling, Crockett sank into the swing. He was halfway through his coffee when Dundee, her daybreak toilette attended to, wagged her way up the steps and over to him for a pat. Then she took her morning hello to Danielle. The ever-faithful mockingbird began his dawn concert as Dundee’s prodding broke Danni’s almost trance-like state. She scratched the dog’s ears, then adjusted her position in the chair, sipped her coffee, and looked at Crockett.
“Hi,” she said. “It’s really pretty here.”
“My favorite place at my favorite time of day,” Crockett said.
They sat silently for a few more minutes. His cup empty, Crockett stood, took Danni’s cup from her hand, and went inside for refills. When he returned to the porch, Danielle was sitting in the swing.
“Ya mind?” she asked, accepting her freshened coffee.
“Not me,” Crockett said, easing down beside her.
Danielle skootched over next to him and leaned against his left side. As if it had happened a dozen times before, Crockett slipped his arm around the girl’s shoulders and she settled in. “Thank you,” she said.
Crockett’s reply was to start a gentle motion of the swing.
Looking through the sliding glass door from where she stood in the kitchen, Satin Kelly smiled and, coffee in hand, went back upstairs to give the two of them more time.
Danielle had been dozing against Crockett’s side long enough that his left arm was only a dim memory when Satin came out onto the porch. She sat in the canvas chair and smiled at him.
“You takin’ a run at my kid?” she asked, her voice soft in the morning air.
“Sure. Looking for that fountain of youth. You know how us old guys are.”
“Danni is finally relaxing here,” Satin said. “She may sleep like that for another hour.”
“Not unless she wants to pay for my shoulder replacement. That’s the bad thing about young stuff. No respect for the infirmities of age.”
Satin gazed at her daughter’s face. “God, Crockett, she looks like she’s about five years old.”
“You wanna carry her upstairs and put her down while I go get her jacket and shoes out of the car?”
Satin’s eyes crinkled. “I swear, I haven’t seen her so relaxed since…well, not for a long time.”
Crockett grimaced. “And no good deed goes unpunished,” he said, attempting to rotate his left shoulder slowly enough so as not to disturb his sleeping companion.
“You got no arm left at all, do ya?”
“If you see it laying around, would you leave it on the kitchen counter? I may need it later.”
“I’ll wake her up.”
“Oh, don’t do that. Another hour and I’ll be missing an arm and a leg.”
Satin squatted in front of her daughter, moved a coffee cup from the seat of the swing, and put a hand on the girl’s knee. “Sweetie, time to wake up. Danielle? Honey?”
Danni rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, grunted, screwed herself a little farther into Crockett’s side, and draped her free arm across his stomach.
“That went well,” Crockett said.
Satin chuckled and patted the girl on her leg. “Hey, Danni. Time to wake up. I’m gonna fix breakfast.”
The girl jerked and slowly opened her eyes. Confusion rippled across her face for an instant before she swayed into a sitting position. “Oh, God,” she said, pulling away from Crockett. “I didn’t mean to just fall out. Shit! How long was I asleep?”
“How do I know?” Crockett said. “I fell asleep, too. What is it, about one-thirty?”
“It’s twenty after seven,” Satin said. “You slept for about an hour.”
Danni stared bleakly at the floor, her eyelids at half-mast. “Not enough,” she said, and shuffled woodenly inside.
“She’ll sleep for three or four more hours,” Satin said. “Feeling safe can really relax a gal. How you doin?”
Crockett rubbed his shoulder. “I need coffee and the tube of that muscle cream stuff that’s in the junk drawer in the kitchen.”
“Allow me,” Satin said.
“Really?”
“Sure. Mommies are very grateful to people who help their daughters.”
Crockett bumped his eyebrows. “In that case make it a double shot of single malt and the massage oil from the bathroom.”
“Don’t push your luck,” Satin said. “Gratitude is a finite commodity.”
An hour and a half later, Crockett had taken a very hot shower, Satin had rubbed about a quart of Doctor Feelgood’s Snake Oil into his shoulder, he’d finished a breakfast of corned beef hash and pancakes, and had carried his plate into the kitchen. He spied Dundee’s dish in the sink.
“You feed the dog this morning?”
“Nope,” Satin said. “I thought you did when you made coffee.”
“I didn’t make coffee.”
Satin stood up and peered over the counter. “Danni?”
“Must have been. The coffee was ready when I came down, and the dog didn’t beg for anything.”
“Wow. That’s more than she did in a week when she was living with me.”
“Just like any other woman,” Crockett went on. “All they need is a good man to straighten them out.”
“Right. I cook like Betty Crocker, and I look like Donna Reed.”
“Where is the dog, anyway?”
“Changing the subject, dear?”
“Safer if I do.”
“To answer your question,” Satin said, “Dundee is with Nudge.”
“Where’s Nudge?”
“On the bed with Danni.”
“Dundee, too?”
“Yeah. They’ve taken a real shine to her.”
Crockett smiled. “That makes three of us,” he said.
Satin rounded the breakfast bar, put her arms about his neck, and kissed Crockett warmly on the mouth. “You’re very good for her, you know,” she said.
Crockett patted her on the bottom. “Like mother, like daughter,” he said.
“Still want that scotch?” Satin asked.
Crockett smiled. “Little early in the day.”
“How ‘bout the massage oil?”
“If you insist.”
Satin nuzzled his neck. “I’ll be up in about ten minutes,” she said. “Don’t start without me.”
It was late morning before Crockett, bleary from too much sleep, schlepped back downstairs. Satin was sorting laundry. Danni was on the couch, Dundee at her feet and Nudge on her lap. Crockett did a double take, then advanced on Danielle’s position to see if he actually saw what he thought he saw. Sure enough, draped across the girl’s thighs, Nudge purred contentedly as Danni clipped his claws.
Crockett shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said.
“Don’t believe what?” Danni asked.
“I don’t believe he’s letting you do that. I tried once, and it took the paramedics almost thirty minutes to stop the blood flow. Nudge damn near deboned me.”
“Nothin’ to it, Crockett. First, I clipped Dundee, now him. No trouble at all. Oh, and I found some dirt in Nudge’s ears. I think he h
as ear mites. You might wanna get some stuff for him from the vet. I cleaned out what I could with Q-Tips.”
Crockett’s voice climbed an octave. “He let you shove Q-Tips in his ears?”
“Sure.”
Crockett peered at her. “If I can get rid of your mother, will you marry me?”
Satin’s voice echoed from the laundry room. “I heard that.”
Danielle giggled. “Thank you for the porch this morning,” she said, never interrupting the kitty manicure. “You’re a really nice man.”
“Nice, huh?” Crockett asked. “That’s all? Just nice?”
“Yeah.”
Crockett turned toward the laundry and raised his voice. “Love you, honey!” he said.
Danielle smiled and started on the next paw.
Shortly after lunch Satin left to return home and get back to work, both on her data entry business and her upcoming shift at Wagers Café the following morning. Crockett also departed to go to the grocery, his supply of guy food insufficient to the more selective palates of the ladies spending so much time at the cabin. When he returned about two hours later, Danni had finished the laundry, vacuumed, and dusted. Crockett admired her results and industry as he put the groceries away.
“Damn,” he said. “This is too good. Thanks, Danni. With you around, I can become a man of leisure.”
“What do you do, anyway?” she asked.
“Ah, I dunno. I guess I’m retired, sorta. I used to do some voice work for studios and stuff, but that kinda fell by the wayside a couple of years ago. I have a pension from my old gig as a cop, and a lady with tons of money set me up pretty well after an investigation I did a few years back.”
“That Ivy lady?”
Crockett smiled. “Yeah. That Ivy lady.”
“Mom told me about her. She sounded real nice.”
“She is real nice,” Crockett said, fishing a bottle of ear mite medicine out of the bottom of a sack.
“Maybe you should become one of those private detective guys, or something,” Danni said. “I could be your receptionist.”
“Great idea! I’ll rent an office in a rundown building in a seedy part of town…”
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