Boiling Over

by Thea McAlistair

  It was the first time I’d said it out loud to someone, and there was an odd rush to it, less like I was telling a secret and more like being able to reveal a surprise. Dawning passed across Judith’s face, and all at once, she relaxed and smiled.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed,” she said.

  Wouldn’t have guessed? Well, we weren’t smeared-lipstick levels of obvious. But better not to be noticeable, right?

  “Yeah, so you see my problem here. If Bella gets hurt, Sev gets hurt, and I can’t have that.” I lowered my voice again. “I understand hiding, and I even understand you might feel you have to do what’s expected of you, but there are plenty better men to attach yourself to than Walter Trask. So, why were you going to marry him?”

  She sighed. “He has, no, had money, a lot of it. My mother’s illness burned through our savings, and now my father is not well either.” She cast a glance at the stairs. “He can’t work anymore, and I’m an only child.” She sighed. “What else could I do besides marry rich and local?”

  She looked tired, maybe scared, and who could blame her? People were descending on her like vultures, me and my nosy questions included.

  “For what it’s worth, I think Miss Lamar is very sweet,” I said.

  “She is.” The last of Judith’s tension eased. “I knew the first day I saw her that we would be something special.” She glanced at the stair as if making sure her father wasn’t going to come down them. “I’d tolerate a hundred Walters to see her every day.”

  I nodded. There wasn’t anything else to say. Sure, Judith had been evasive, but she was also a scared young woman trying to blend what she wanted with what was needed. I stood. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”

  “My pleasure.” She started walking me out. “Perhaps you and Mr. Arrighi will do the same for me sometime.”

  “Sure.” As long as Sev and I weren’t still fighting by then. “Anytime.”

  Judith smiled softly and shut the door behind me.

  By the time I got back to the house, the Oldsmobile was sitting in the driveway. Sev and Pearl were home. As I stepped onto the porch, I heard Crista’s voice. I stood with my hand on the knob, waiting, listening. She was chittering in Italian, and when she stopped, Sev answered and laughed. My stomach clenched up, and my ears burned.

  I stepped back. I didn’t need this right now. But if I didn’t go in, where would I go? The library was closed along with every store, and I had no desire to pop into whatever church services were happening. I could try hunting down Ed again. Something was happening with him, and I was going to need to find out at some point. The question was whether I was more scared of Ed and his weapons or of what I might find if I opened the door?

  I started walking toward the woods.

  The path to where Trask’s body had been found was now familiar to me, and I got there without a problem, besides the usual one of sweating through my clothes. Once there, I headed in the direction Ed had indicated when we’d met. The track twisted, going one direction and then the other until I wasn’t sure where I had come from. After what felt like forever, the path petered out—less of a track and more of a slight dent in the undergrowth. Still, I followed, stepping gingerly over the roots and branches and rocks in the way. I cursed aloud when I tripped for the fourth time. If I ever got out of this place, I was never going to set foot in the country again.

  The smell hit me first: blood. I quickened my pace on the rough terrain. Between the trees, I saw some kind of structure made of slatted wood and stone. As I got closer, I realized it was supposed to be a house. Or, well, if not a house, at least something with an approximation of a window and a door. I stopped in my tracks. I was being astonishingly stupid running into the woods by myself.

  I heard footsteps crunching through the undergrowth. I looked up the path, hoping my heart would get out of my throat and quit choking me. Sure enough, Ed was making his way through the woods, a rifle slung over one shoulder and a couple of rabbits over the other.

  “Hello, Ed,” I squeaked.

  “Hello, yourself.” He stopped. “I thought I told you not to come by.”

  “I wanted to ask you something about Walter Trask.”

  Ed snorted and turned in the direction of his house. I could have walked away, but I knew Bella was boiling to death back in town, and Sev was slipping away from me. The faster I got this done, the faster we could all get out of this godforsaken place.

  Ed noticed me tailing him and grunted. “Stubborn.”

  “Driven.”

  Instead of going into the house, he went around the back. I followed. Then I regretted it. Not only was there a butchering block set on a tree stump, but several racks with hides stretched across them propped in a semicircle. And if that weren’t enough, there were carcasses hanging from tree branches: a deer, a turkey, and something fat and furry with buck teeth that wasn’t a beaver. A large number of tools—shovels, picks, axes, and spikes—lined the back wall of the house and squatted in rusty piles. This was where the smell of blood was coming from.

  “Bears,” said Ed.

  “What?”

  “You’re looking at the meat strung up. To keep the bears from getting it.”

  Somehow that wasn’t comforting at all. I managed to drag my attention away. He dropped the rabbits onto the butcher block and turned back to me. The rifle swung, catching my eye and making me jittery.

  “Can you maybe put the rifle away?” I said.

  He squinted at me. “You got a problem with guns, boy?”

  Was I really going to be bullied by someone who probably didn’t know what a shower was? “A-actually, yeah. I saw people murdered with a rifle in front of me, so I think I have a right to not like them.”

  He watched me in silence and slipped the rifle off his back. “Fair enough,” he said as he laid it in the grass next to the block. My heart rate went down a few notches. Then he got out a knife as big as my forearm, and it shot right back up. I pretended I didn’t see him slicing into the rabbit’s body.

  “Anyway,” I said, “were you up here when Walter Trask was killed?”

  “Always up here,” he mumbled.

  “And did you see anything?” Did you maybe kill him?

  “Nah.”

  Right. This wasn’t going to get me anywhere. It was all-in or none. “You and Mr. Trask were arguing about land.”

  I braced in case Ed decided to take a swing, but he kept concentrating on removing the pelt from the rabbit. “We did. I didn’t kill him over it though. Besides”—he straightened—“if I was going to murder him, I could have done it any time. And I wouldn’t’ve left him there.” He held up a hand dripping with blood. “Think I don’t know how to get rid of a body?”

  If my stomach had been unruly before, it was nothing compared to now. But he did have a point. If my surroundings were any indication, Ed knew how to disassemble a corpse, and he probably knew very well how to hide his tracks. Plus, the man was armed to the teeth, so why bother using a tree branch?

  “Did you see anyone else up here the day Trask was killed? Robert Kelly, maybe?”

  “There was someone around, but I didn’t see. Just the tracks later in the day.” Ed looked at my shoes. “Not proper boots.”

  “Well, that could be anyone.”

  “No. Bobby Kelly’s got boots. Mr. Wallace too.”

  Did they? It hadn’t occurred to me to see what they wore on their feet as part of their police uniforms. And if they had boots, Oscar Gaines probably did, too, since he was out here all the time. Not to say any of them had been wearing their boots at the time. Using a tree branch as the weapon hinted that this had been a spur-of-the-moment choice, so whoever had done it probably hadn’t intended to be hiking.

  “You’re giving me a weird look, boy.”

  “Women’s shoes or men’s?”

  “Well it weren’t no heels. Most of the women here are sensible. Wouldn’t come out here wearing them anyway. I don’t remember the size if tha
t’s your next question. Everybody came walking through later, so no point in trying to go back now and look.”

  Once again, it seemed the mass search party had scrambled up the evidence. I still needed to figure out who suggested it. “Anything else odd?”

  He paused. “There was glass in the path. Wasn’t there later though.”

  Glass, out here? “Like a bottle?”

  “No. Clear. Like window glass, maybe.”

  Even stranger. But I wasn’t going to go searching for a shard of glass in the middle of the woods. That could be a new phrase if needle in a haystack ever went out of style.

  “Do you think Walter Trask’s death has anything to do with Leo Manco’s?” I asked.

  Ed shrugged. “They say Leo got shot by the border police for smuggling.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “It doesn’t do no good to poke around in other people’s business.” He gave me a sidelong look as the knife in his hand slit through another piece of flesh.

  I swallowed the bile creeping up my throat. “What do you know about James Smith? He’d been staying at the Reed house when Mr. Manco died. Supposedly, he was here to hunt.”

  “Well, I can tell you I saw him out here twice. And whoever he was, he was no hunter. Made an unholy racket stamping around. Wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t catch one thing.”

  Finally, someone to confirm my suspicions Smith wasn’t who he said he was. But why had he killed Manco, and would it have brought him forward to kill again?

  “Right. Well, thank you for your time, Ed,” I said. “I might come back if I have any more questions.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be here.”

  Since I figured that was about as good of a goodbye as I was going to get out of him, I wandered out of the forest. It was well into the afternoon when I got back to the house. Still, I hesitated in front of the back door, unsure of what I was going to find. But I’d faced down the roughest-looking man I’d ever seen in my life. Surely Crista wasn’t more frightening?

  I walked in on Crista, Pearl, and Sev chatting around the table, a large bowl of pasta in the center. And, kind of strangely, Sev was sitting in his undershirt. He turned his head.

  “There you are, Alex,” he exclaimed. “We were wondering where you’d gone.”

  I stood in the doorway. I’d accidentally done the exact thing I’d wanted to do last night—disappear with no note or explanation to make him realize how panic-inducing it was—but it seemed like he’d barely noticed. That, combined with the sickeningly sweet domestic scene I was witnessing, tipped my temper.

  “Can I see you in the living room for a minute?” I said.

  Sev’s face fell. “All right.” He nodded at Crista and Pearl. “Excuse us.”

  He followed me into the parlor. Even as we stepped into the other room, he had a curious expression. Well, I’d cure him of that.

  “What the hell are you doing half dressed?” I hissed.

  He blinked, shocked at my sudden and admittedly confusing chastisement. “There’s marinara sauce on the pasta, I don’t want my shirt to get stained—”

  “Did you even notice I was gone?”

  “I did? I just asked you where you were?”

  “I went up to see Ed.”

  That surprised him. “The man living up in the woods like some kind of wild animal? Alex, that was dangerous! You might have gotten hurt out there. You should have told me where you were going.”

  “I don’t have to tell you everything.”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes. “No, you don’t. But you can’t be angry that I am not worried and angry when I am.”

  He edged around me to return to the kitchen, and I let him go since I didn’t know how to stop him without raising my voice. I didn’t want to let Crista know we were having another argument, and I didn’t want to panic Pearl again.

  “Va bene?” Crista called.

  “Alex non sta bene cosi va a letto presto,” he answered with a brief look over his shoulder at me. “Dovremmo salvargli del cibo.”

  I had no idea what he’d said, but I didn’t like my name being batted around. Frustrated, I stormed up the stairs and slammed the door to my room. I leaned against it and groaned, already regretting what I’d done. Was I really going to spend another night like this? Jealous and scared and angry, not to mention starving because I’d walked off without supper again? Well, it was done now. Maybe I ought use the time to piece together what I’d learned about Trask. I dug my notebook out of the drawer of my bedside table and wrote everything down.

  Trask had had money but not a lot of friends, not real ones anyway. His brother hated him, and his fiancée had been using him as a beard. Judith’s dad hadn’t liked him much either, mostly because Judith hadn’t seemed to like him. The Gaineses couldn’t have thought well of him since it was Louise’s employment with him that had put their marriage on the final rocks. Apparently, Sheriff Kelly hadn’t cared much for him, nor had Ed, though I was sure Ed didn’t care for anyone. And of course, Crista hadn’t liked him since he’d—either directly or indirectly—been responsible for her husband’s death.

  Of those, I was pretty sure neither Ed nor Judith had done it, though for different reasons. Despite the land dispute, Ed probably didn’t care enough. And if he had, he would have been much better about covering the evidence. Judith had been using Trask for money, money she wouldn’t get if he was dead. Still, that left a lot of people, Crista included. She’d have had all morning to off him before Sev and I showed up. Then again, she was awfully tiny.

  And who were the Reeds and James Smith? Bella hadn’t come clean, and no one else I’d spoken to had much in the way of interaction with them. Meaningless, Bella had said. But how could they be when they were the linchpin to at least Leo Manco’s death?

  I shut the notebook. The sun had shifted angles toward evening. I didn’t hear any movement downstairs. Tentatively, I opened the door. Silence. Something caught my eye on the floor. It was a note in Sev’s handwriting: We left you a bowl.

  Now embarrassed, I crept downstairs. I saw Sev and Pearl in the parlor, sitting on the couch—Pearl was doing her best at reading one of the books Bella had given her, and Sev was doing his best to guide her along. He caught my eye as I moved past the doorway, but he didn’t say anything before going back to what he was doing. God, in what universe was I anywhere close to being worthy of his patience?

  On the kitchen counter was a bowl of pasta, as promised. I ate standing over the sink, alone, and it was only after I snuck back upstairs, I noticed a reddish-brown stain on my shirt.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In the morning, I bolted straight for the front door without even stopping in the kitchen. I was about to open it when Sev called my name. I froze, hand on the doorknob. I couldn’t face him, not yet.

  His arms slipped around my waist, his face pressed against my back. “What’s wrong, Alex?” he asked quietly. “You’re not yourself.”

  I stayed motionless. How could he know what I considered myself? He’d only known me for a month. And yet he wasn’t wrong. I didn’t feel like myself when I snapped at him. Or maybe I was just dredging up the nasty parts of me I kept hidden, that Donnie and Martin had kept down. If that was the case, which pieces were the real me?

  “I’m fine,” I answered, though the tone of my voice betrayed me.

  He took a breath, and it whispered around the base of my neck. “Please don’t lie to me, caro.” When I didn’t reply, he continued in a low tone, “I know I fell in love with a good man.”

  God, why did he have to say that? “You can get Pearl to school okay, right?” I asked, my voice hovering on the edge of cracking.

  He let me go slowly. “Of course.”

  “Thanks.” Without looking at him, I turned the knob and stepped outside.

  He didn’t follow me out. Good or bad, I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t do anything, not even tell the truth. Maybe if I tried to make it up to him somehow? Not sure what I
could do, though, besides getting Bella out of jail. Or maybe I should start with something simpler, like getting his suit back from the cleaner’s. When he got home from work, we would talk.

  But it seemed even doing something as easy as picking up dry cleaning wasn’t going to be so quick. Main Street buzzed, particularly around the post office. A telegram, no doubt, and probably important. I shouldered my way into the building.

  It looked nothing like the big government post offices in the city, the ones with soaring ceilings and marble and glass kiosks. This was more of a wooden table with a pigeonhole cabinet behind. The place had been built to fit five people at the most, and I was number six. Luckily, I was taller than everyone else by some inches and got a view of the small crowd; Richard Trask and Mr. and Mrs. Gaines were making the most noise, yelling over each other, but Judith and her father were there too. The postmaster, a Black man—the only one I’d seen in town—was behind the counter trying to keep order. He held a piece of paper in his hand, keeping it back to prevent anyone from snatching it. So, I’d been right; there was a telegram, and apparently the news had come as a shock to some people.

  “Please,” he begged, “I’m just the messenger.” He glanced at me. “Excuse me, sir. I’ll be right with you.”

  Before I could say anything, Richard Trask took a leap for the letter. The postmaster jolted backward out of the way. Almost as soon as he did, Fran burst in with Crista.

  “I brought her, Joe!” Fran exclaimed. Crista just looked bewildered.

  Now there were eight people crammed into the space, and Judith got shoved into her father. She yelped and he grunted and the volume in the room increased to a grumbling roar. The counter tilted, and Joe the postmaster scrambled away, losing the telegram in the process. Oscar Gaines dove for it, but I moved faster.

  Will be there Wed but for now: business to Mr. O Gaines to continue as he sees fit. House to Mr. R Trask. Remaining personal assets to Mrs. C Manco.

  The parts about the business going to the partner and the house going to the brother I understood, but bank accounts and everything going to Crista? I glanced at her. She looked as confused as I felt.