by Laura Childs
“Doesn’t matter,” he said in a low, papery voice.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
He shook his head. No.
“But I think I know who you are,” Suzanne told him.
Again, a shake of his head.
“You knew Walter,” said Suzanne.
There was no response.
“Is that why you came here?” she asked. ‘To see Walter?”
Silence for a few moments, then the man said, “What?
“You knew Walter Thetz?” asked Suzanne.
The man seemed to fade away for a while, then said, in a low voice, “Walter died.”
“How do you know that?” Suzanne asked, edging closer.
More silence, then, “Went to the hospital. They told me.”
“Is your name Dillworth?” asked Suzanne. “Did you serve in the army with Walter?”
Time spun out again, then the man said, “Doesn’t matter now. It’s all in the dim.”
“The dim,” said Suzanne. “You mean the past?”
The man stared into the fire.
“What’s your name?” asked Suzanne.
Dark eyes stared at her. “Anson.”
“Anson Dillworth?” she asked.
A slight nod. “Just Dil.”
“What are you doing here?” Suzanne asked.
He fed a few more sticks into the fire, then said, “Nothing. Just... passing through.”
“You can’t stay here,” Suzanne pointed out. “It’s going to turn cold pretty soon. And eventually snow. This isn’t a very good place to hole up.”
“No place is,” Dil replied.
“Where did you come from?” asked Suzanne. “Where were you living before?”
“Home.”
“Your home?” asked Suzanne. Maybe Dil had a family who was frantic with worry. Maybe he’d wandered off because of drugs or alcohol or...
“A home,” said the man.
“Oh man,” said Suzanne. She put a hand to her head, scrubbed at her hair. This was a guy who needed serious help. She wanted to give it to him but. . . how? And, she had questions to ask.
Suzanne edged closer to the fire. “Did you know Ozzie?” she asked him.
Dil shook his head.
“How about Bo?”
Again a shake of the head.
“But you knew about the Cackleberry Club,” prompted Suzanne. “You went there the other day. Yesterday.”
A ghost of a smile played at Dil’s lips. “Sandwiches. Good ones.”
“Dil... can I call you Dil?”
The man nodded.
“How did you know about the Cackleberry Club?”
He lifted his head and stared at her then. “They told me...”
“Who told you?”
“Lady at the hospital.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Said Walter’s wife ran it.”
“That’s right,” said Suzanne. “I’m Walter’s wife.”
Dil stared at her, licked his lips, stared some more. Finally said, in an incredulous tone, “You’re Walter’s wife?”
“Yes. I’m Suzanne. Suzanne Thetz.”
The man slowly reached out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Suzanne accepted his hand. “Nice to meet you, Dil.”
Dil picked up a long stick and poked at the fire, while Suzanne tried to figure out what to ask next. She didn’t want to go there, but she knew she had to at least broach the subject.
“You were in the park last Sunday,” she said.
“Park,” he repeated.
“During the fair,” Suzanne pushed. “You remember, the face painting and the food and stuff.”
“Okay,” said Dil.
“Did you see something?”
Dil pulled his knees up and lowered his head. “No.”
“Did you do something?”
Dark eyes stared up at her. “What?”
Suzanne swallowed hard. “In that big house over on Front Street?”
“I walked by it,” he said. “That’s all.”
“Did you see anything?” asked Suzanne. “Anything at all?”
Dil’s eyes were glassy. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t think so.”
“But you came up here,” said Suzanne. “You were hanging around downtown, then you came up here.” She paused. ‘To hide?”
“People were looking for me.”
“Do you know who?” she asked.
He shook his head again. No.
“But they scared you.”
“They scared me,” Dil echoed. He gave a little shiver. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember things.”
“I understand,” said Suzanne.
She sat with him by the fire for a while. Talked to him softly, trying to pry a little more information from him. Pretty much convinced that he couldn’t have had anything to do with Ozzie’s murder. And certainly not Bo Becker’s.
As Suzanne carefully cajoled Dil, he finally let loose with a jumbled, rambling explanation. She learned that he’d seen combat in the Gulf War, returned home and gotten divorced, then fallen on tough times. He’d been treated for depression, held down menial jobs off and on, and then landed in a halfway house for veterans somewhere in St. Louis. One day—Suzanne wasn’t clear if it was two years ago or six years ago—Dil had finally walked away from his halfway house and embarked on an aimless journey that had led him from one town to another.
Dil had seemingly crisscrossed the country, occasionally circling back to the Midwest where he’d originally had roots. Last week, when he’d randomly hit Kindred, some spark of memory had ignited within his brain and he’d remembered Walter. His long-ago buddy from the Gulf War.
But, of course, Walter wasn’t here anymore.
It took a world of convincing to get Dil to come down the bluff with her. And then some more fast talking to put him at ease with Baxter. But in the end, Dil relented. Drawn, finally, by the promise of a cheeseburger and French fries. And a motel room at the local Super 8.
“Wait here,” Suzanne told Dil, pulling up in front of Schmitt’s Bar on Main Street and taking the car keys with her, just in case. “I’ll be five minutes at most.” She held up a finger to Baxter. “You. Be good.” Then she hopped from the car and scampered into the bar.
Schmitt’s was dim, semi-crowded, reeked of stale beer, and easily cooked up the best burgers in town. Greasy beef patties sizzled on a hot grill alongside piles of stringy, crunchy onions. Big, fat sesame seed buns steamed atop the burgers. While she waited for her order, Suzanne chatted with the bartender, an amiable coot who wore old-fashioned, round John Lennon glasses and sported a braided goatee. Freddy.
“I understand there was quite an argument here last Friday night.”
Freddy eyed her warily. “Says who?”
“Says Sheriff Doogie,” said Suzanne. “He said Ozzie Driesden and Earl Stensrud really got into it.”
“And then Ozzie got his self killed,” mused Freddy. He peered quizzically at Suzanne. “The sheriff thinkin’ Earl done it?”
“I think it crossed his mind,” said Suzanne.
“Nah,” said Freddy. “That was just bar talk. You know how men are after a few drinks. Puffin’ up their chests and trying to outbrag each other.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Suzanne. Her eyes fixed on a sign that hung behind the bar, next to a big taxidermied muskie. It said: Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
“Say,” said Freddy, leaning forward. “You want a drink or something? I make a pretty wicked gin fizz. You ladies always seem to appreciate a nice gin fizz.”
“No, thanks,” said Suzanne. “Maybe some other time.”
Ten minutes later, Suzanne dropped Dil off at the Super 8. She registered as Suzanne Marley, her maiden name, and paid cash. That way she could hopefully keep Dil hush-hush until she figured out what to do with him.
Standing outside room twelve, Dil clutched a backpack and his white paper bag leaking grease and thanked he
r. “This is really nice of you, missus.”
“No problem,” she told him. “Listen, I’m gonna stop by tomorrow afternoon and we’re gonna figure out what to do with you, okay?”
Dil gave a faint smile and nodded.
“Good,” said Suzanne. “So you just stay put.”
“Okay.”
“You promise?”
“Sure.”
By the time she finally rolled into her own driveway, dragged herself into the shower, and let the hot water cascade down her body and ease the tension in her shoulders, Suzanne was pretty much convinced that Anson Dillworth wasn’t a viable suspect. Although Sheriff Doogie might disagree, Suzanne thought it was too far-fetched to view him as a wandering serial killer or even a spree killer. He was just too timid, too psychically wounded.
The question was, what to do with him?
“What do you think, Bax?” Suzanne asked, pulling on an oversized T-shirt and climbing into bed.
Baxter, who was already tucked into his expensive L.L. Bean dog bed, sighed deeply, essentially ignoring her.
So much for an outside opinion.
Settling back on her eiderdown pillow, Suzanne pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes. But sleep was slow in coming tonight, so she forced herself to make her mind go blank, and slowly chanted a sleepy time mantra that she’d adopted as her very own. Cham-o-mile. Cham-o-mile.
And it worked. For a few hours.
Three o’clock brought Suzanne wide awake from a fragmented dream. She sat straight up in bed with a sharp gasp, not knowing why, then thinking in her still sleep-fogged brain that she’d heard something. Had she? She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. And listened.
For some bizarre reason, the word ghost popped into her brain.
What? The ghost of Ozzie Driesden come to call on me? Or the equally unhappy ghost of Bo Becker? No. No way, silly girl.
Suzanne woke up a little more, remembering there weren’t such things as ghosts roaming about. Just... dangerous people.
Climbing out of bed, Suzanne tiptoed to the window, the Chinese carpet feeling warm and smooth underfoot. She pressed her face to the cool glass and looked down into the backyard.
Nothing.
She sighed, turned, and eyed the bed. Overwhelmed by fatigue, she desperately wanted to slide back under that mound of feathery covers.
But... she’d heard something.
Padding silently downstairs, Suzanne paused on the landing to try to get a sense of things, to figure out what person or thing had disrupted her sleep, had pierced the membrane of calm in her house. The antique clock in the hallway ticked steadfastly away. The faint, mechanical hum of the refrigerator reassured her.
Still...
Suzanne came all the way downstairs, turned, wandered through the living room. A faint blue light from a button on the TV cast an eerie glow as harmless shadows loomed up at her.
When she got to the kitchen, Suzanne paused and looked around. Nobody in the house. But, like an animal whose guard hairs have been riffled, she had the sensation that something had gone on. Moving to the back door, she peered out into the backyard again. Dark, quiet, nary a thing moving.
Maybe she’d heard a raccoon tippy-tapping at a garbage can lid? One of the neighborhood’s masked bandits on a nighttime errand?
Suzanne gave a low snort, was about to turn, when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flutter of something.
What?
Her hand crept up to the super-duty Schlage lock she’d installed on the back door, hesitated for just a moment, then turned the latch. Pulling open the door, Suzanne stared at a piece of paper that had been taped to the outside storm door.
She drew a quick breath, opened that door, snatched the paper, slammed both doors, and clicked the lock. All in the space of about two seconds.
Carrying the piece of paper with both hands, Suzanne walked over to the stove, punched on the night light, laid the paper down, smoothed it out.
It was a typed note. Probably composed on an old-fashioned typewriter. All it said was Back Off.
Chapter twenty four
“Who do you think left the note?” asked Toni. It was Flapjack Friday at the Cackleberry Club and they were all in the kitchen, shredding potatoes, pulling tins of muffins from the oven, stirring pancake batter, pondering Suzanne’s rather amazing account of her encounter with the mysterious Dil last night and her subsequent discovery of the note taped to her door.
“I’ve no clue about the note,” Suzanne told them. She’d moved on from shredding potatoes to frosting cinnamon rolls. “Could have been anybody. Between George Draper, Earl Stensrud, Ray Lynch, and those two drug dealers, seems like we’ve got a whole cast of suspects.”
“Don’t forget Missy,” said Petra.
“Missy ...” said Suzanne.
“I thought the drug guys were in custody,” said Toni.
“They probably still are,” said Suzanne, licking a bit of frosting from her thumb. “So, okay, that narrows the list somewhat.”
“Well,” said Petra, looking nervous as she added golden raisins and chopped walnuts to her pancake batter, “the note was obviously from someone who knows you’ve been investigating.”
“Which is pretty much everybody in Kindred,” added Toni. She draped an apron over her hot pink T-shirt and blue jeans, piled her hair on top of her head, and popped on a pink scrunchie.
“You haven’t been all that subtle,” she told Suzanne as she washed her hands at the sink. “Asking questions and all.”
“I thought I was the height of discretion,” said Suzanne, rolling her eyes.
“What I want to know,” said Petra, “is what you plan to do with Anson Dillworth?”
“Talk to him, for one thing,” said Suzanne. “I get the feeling that he saw something or knows more than he’s letting on.”
“Maybe you should turn him over to Doogie,” said Petra.
“In this particular case,” said Suzanne, “I’m not sure I trust Doogie’s interviewing skills.”
“More like interrogating skills,” said Toni. “If you turn him in and . . . say . . . nothing comes of it, Doogie might still lock your guy up as a vagrant.”
“Now that I think about it,” said Petra, “there’s another scenario. A bad one.”
“What?” asked Toni.
Petra wiped her hands on her apron. “If Doogie’s desperate to find a fall guy, he could browbeat this Dil fellow into confessing to Ozzie’s and Bo’s murders.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Doogie,” said Toni, “since the entire town is breathing down his neck, hoping for a break in the two cases.”
“I just don’t believe Dil was involved,” said Suzanne. “And there’s no evidence, even circumstantial, that would link him.”
“Hah!” said Toni. “When did Doogie ever need evidence?”
“Toni’s right,” said Petra. “You need a plan.”
“An escape plan,” said Toni. “Get your poor soldier boy out of town fast.”
“What I’d like to do,” said Suzanne, “is hook him up with some sort of veterans’ group.” She glanced at Petra. “You know any groups that might lend a hand?”
“Not personally,” said Petra, “but Donny’s case worker at the VA might be able to put us in touch with one. I could give her a call.”
“Would you?” asked Suzanne. “I’d really appreciate it.”
“What a crazy week,” lamented Petra. “Murders, book signings, the Knit-In, and now we’ve got Take the Cake happening tomorrow.”
“Along with our gourmet dinner,” Toni pointed out. “And Suzanne’s gotta go strut her stuff this afternoon!”
“Wish I didn’t,” muttered Suzanne. There was way too much going on in her head as well as her life.
“We’re never going to get all this done!” exclaimed Petra, suddenly looking frustrated.
“You know what they say,” joked Toni. “If life hands you lemons, get a receipt!”
“On
e good thing,” said Suzanne, pulling back a chintz curtain and gazing out the window, “is that the sun is starting to come out. And, oh .. . hey, here’s the truck with the tents and chairs, I think.”
“Excellent!” said Toni. “I’ll run out and show them where to set up.”
“Hang on a minute!” exclaimed Petra. “Group hug and a prayer, okay? I think we could all use it.”
