by Sam Cheever
“Isn’t it beautiful?” the wood sprite asked.
I blinked, forcing a smile on my face that felt stiff and artificial. “Very...um...”
“What kinds of wood are here?” Hal asked. He crouched down and ran a hand over a wide plank with a more stripey grain.
“Oak, ash, pine, some mahogany I think.” She looked around. “I think that’s cherry over there by the stairs.”
“It’s not finished?” Hal asked, seeming truly interested.
“No. I’m totally ecofriendly. My woods are unfinished, protected only by some oil and these rugs. I use no chemicals in my home at all.”
A spotted bug flew past my nose and I watched it land on the window over the kitchen sink. It joined what looked like hundreds of its beetle friends there. The insects sort of looked like ladybugs but the color on their backs was more pink than red. “No bug spray, I see.” I tried to keep all judgment out of my tone, but I really didn’t like the idea of bugs crawling all over my kitchen.
“None. I embrace all of Mother’s creatures.”
“Mother?” I looked around, wondering if the mother of the sprite would be a sprite too. Or maybe a fairy.
“Mother Nature.” She looked at me as if I were of questionable worth. Clearly, eco was more than a goal for her. It was akin to a religion.
She pointed to the ceiling, which was open to the wood planks, the rafters visible. “I leave the ceiling open so the mouse poop can drop to the ground. That way I can just sweep it up.”
I twitched, my gaze shooting to the floor to make sure I wasn’t standing in a pile of the nasty stuff. “Oh. Really? How...”
“Very practical,” Hal offered, his lips twitching.
She seemed to take that as a compliment. “Well,” she turned to Lis, who’d gone pale during our strange conversation. “We really should get started.”
Lis nodded. “Where do you want me?”
The artist pointed to an area at one end of the large room. There was a two-level log setup with a brown drape behind it. “You can change into your costume behind that screen over there. Then have a seat on that log chair.”
Lis nodded, throwing me a wide-eyed glance as she went to do as she was told.
“Ms. Masterson, I’ve been a fan of your work for a long time.”
She was mixing paints and preparing a canvas for her work. “Why thank you, Mr...” She frowned, turning to us. “Oh my, I’ve done it again. Please excuse me for not asking your names.”
“I’m Hal Amity and this is Joey Fulle.”
I gave her a little finger wave. “Hi.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both. I’m so glad you could come along. It will be fun to chat while I’m working.”
“I’m sure Lis will have a lot of questions. She’s never had her portrait done before.”
“Oh, she won’t be allowed to speak,” Heather Masterson said, appalled. “I need her to remain perfectly still.”
Lis emerged from behind the screen with her eyes wide. “Is this right?” she asked, dubiously.
She was dressed in a skin-tight one-piece outfit that stretched from her broad shoulders to her narrow hips. The stretchy fabric was flesh colored with silvery sparkles, and was adorned by a ring of autumn colored leaves around her breasts and her hips. A matching ring of leaves encircled her head, the orange and red tones a great compliment to Lis’ shiny auburn hair. But the pièce de résistance was the small, stuffed chipmunk perched on her left shoulder.
I snorted out a laugh and then coughed to cover it as the artist scanned me a look.
“That’s perfect. Now take a seat on the lower level and rest your elbows on the upper one.” She hurried over and started fussing with Lis, moving her arms and legs and turning her head to an uncomfortable looking position before she was satisfied. “Perfect. Now no moving. Don’t talk or scratch or wiggle.”
Lis frowned.
“I’ll just grab some quick pictures...” Heather picked up an expensive looking camera and snapped pictures of Lis in her leaf costume from all directions. “Okay. Now we can get started.”
As Heather began slashing color across her canvas, Hal and I seated ourselves on a pair of chairs which were clearly crafted from rough lumber and sticks. The seats were hard and unpadded, but surprisingly comfortable.
“Where’d you get these chairs?” Hal asked, rubbing a hand over the smooth surface of one arm.
Heather kept working as she responded. “I made them. I made all of the furniture and built most of the house.”
Hal’s eyes went wide and I saw a new respect for the unconventional artist bloom there. “Really? By yourself?”
“Not entirely. But I did as much of it myself as I could. I thrive in nature, Hal...” Her hand stopped mid stroke and she turned to him. “I may call you Hal?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Please call me Heather.” She went back to work and I was shocked to see the seemingly random strokes of paint beginning to form a Lis-like shape on the canvas.
“That’s amazing. You’re very talented.”
“Thank you, Hal. Working with wood soothes me.”
“Did you cut the wood down from your own property?” I asked.
“I did.” She frowned. “But I only used what I removed to make room for the house. I abhor excess cultivation. The woods are Mother’s finest creation. They must be preserved at all costs.”
I lifted my brows at Hal but he didn’t bite.
“This is a beautiful area. It must be very inspiring to you,” he said.
“You can’t imagine. These woods and rivers and rocky ledges feed my soul, energize my work.”
“Do you ever do any landscapes?” he asked.
Heather shook her head. “Not commercially. I prefer to paint people into nature. That’s how I honor Mother’s gifts.”
Good grief, I thought uncharitably. I liked the woods as much as the next gal, but I didn’t think it was healthy to center your entire existence around them.
But Hal was nodding with a thoughtful look on his handsome face. He seemed to be buying what the artist was selling. “It’s a shame. With your centered view of nature you’d create beautiful art. You could take your place with some of the greatest artists. Like Monet, for example.”
Ah! I finally saw where he was going with the line of questioning.
But Heather didn’t seem affected by his suggestion. “We all must honor our gifts as we see fit. My talents don’t lie in that area.” She spared him a quick smile. “My work is unique, Hal. Lots of people do landscapes. But no one else paints people into artistic representations of nature. I’d rather be unique than famous.”
I could respect her for that at least.
“Makes perfect sense.” Hal returned her smile. “If you don’t mind, we had a couple of quick questions for you about the other night...morning actually.”
“Oh? What kinds of questions?”
“You heard about the murder on Joey’s property?”
Heather’s tiny hand stopped mid-stroke. She turned a horrified gaze on me. “Murder? Oh my god! How horrible for you? Was it someone you knew?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. The police haven’t identified the victim yet,” I told her. I watched the artist carefully, she seemed genuinely upset.
Heather dropped her head into her hand. “I can’t believe such a horrible thing could happen here. Deer Hollow is a kind and loving place. Violence doesn’t belong here.” Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears.
“I agree,” Hal said gently. “Which is why we need to get to the bottom of what happened. So we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Heather sniffed. “Of course. How can I help?”
“Lori Pickering said you were sketching on the ridge near the road that morning. We were wondering if you’d seen or heard anything that might be helpful.”
“Lori Pickering?” She shook her head.
“She works at the produce stand on Country Road 57 near
the turn-off to Goat’s Hollow Road,” I clarified.
“Ah. The pretty blonde woman.” Heather nodded. “I’d like to capture her in snow and holly berries,” she mused to herself. After a moment, she shook out of her thoughts. “She’s correct. I was sketching the other morning. I often sketch the sunrise from that ridge. The colors rising up on the horizon there are stunning.”
“Do you paint sunrises?” Hal asked.
“Paint, no. I sketch them. Someday I might put them to canvas. But I haven’t exhausted my love of portraiture yet.”
Apparently, Heather Masterson had a linear type personality. No artistic multi-tasking for her.
“What time did you arrive at the ledge?” Hal asked.
“I believe it was midnight.”
“Midnight? That’s very early to catch a sunrise.”
“It is, yes. But I love the woods at night. I lie back and listen to the call of the night birds, the scream of the owls. She sighed, clearly deep in her happy place. I listen to the coyotes sing around their prey.”
I twitched in surprise. Hearing the coyotes howl and sing always made me sad. It was a reminder of how cruel nature was and I hated it. I understood that the coyotes needed to eat. Nature was built on survival of the strongest. But it still broke my heart. “You probably hear them a lot around here. You’re not too far from the river. There are dozens of dens cut into the ridges there.”
“Yes. Many dens,” she agreed.
For long moments we sat in silence. I was shocked to see that Lis had been almost completely recreated on the canvas and, despite my doubts about the form the art would take, I had to admit the blossoming result was magical.
My friend looked like a beautiful fairy. Albeit one with alarmingly big feet.
“That’s amazing,” I told the artist.
She nodded, not bothering to pretend to humility.
“Did you hear or see anything that night?” Hal asked gently.
Heather didn’t respond for a moment. Long enough that I thought she wasn’t going to answer him, but then she nodded. “I did, actually. It was very distracting. I was trying to listen to the woods and I kept hearing the roar of some kind of engine.”
“An ATV?” Hal suggested.
“You mean one of those all-terrain vehicles? It could have been. I hear them from time to time.” She frowned. “The man who lives in the woods behind me has one. Sometimes he rides it through the park.” She shook her head, clearly disgusted.
I had to assume that someone who was as eco-friendly as Heather Masterson would resent a gas-guzzling, noisy and stinky vehicle marring her ideal natural world.
“Did you by any chance see the vehicle on the road?” Hal asked.
“There was a truck. A big black one with a round insignia on the doors. It had something in the back. I guess it could have been one of those noisy machines.”
“Did you recognize the symbol?”
“It was really dark as you can imagine. But I remember thinking it was familiar. And I’ll admit I was curious what the truck was doing on the road so early.”
“What time was that?”
“I think it was about two in the morning. I’d been on the ledge for a while at that point.”
“You say it seemed familiar,” Hal urged. “If you had to guess, what do you think the insignia represented?”
She barely hesitated. “That landscape place on the other end of town.”
My pulse spiked and I leaned forward in my chair. “Mitzner’s?”
“That’s the place, yes. I protested there once about ten years ago. They were selling those cut Christmas trees.” She glared down at her canvas, clearly still angry at the memory. “That’s murder pure and simple,” she finished. “I don’t like murder and I really hate murderers.” She glanced over at us. “That man, Mr. Mitzner, I often see him driving around with one of those chippers. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was using one not too long ago. I could hear it tearing helpless trees into pieces through the woods.”
She dropped her paintbrush into a jar of liquid and stood up. “You’ve destroyed my mood. I need to go meditate before I can go on.” Without another word she turned and left through a pair of unfinished French doors, descending a set of stairs to the floor of the woods beyond the glass.
I hurried over and looked out the door, just in time to see her drop into a cross-legged position on the ground.
“Can I move now?” Lis asked, barely moving her lips.
“You might as well, she’s out there communing with nature,” I told my friend.
Lis groaned, rotating her head back and forth as she stood up. “What a wackadoodle.”
Hal was staring out the window, a thoughtful frown on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just thinking about what she told us.” He turned his head and refocused on me. “I don’t think we can ignore it any longer, Joey. Buck Mitzner’s name just keeps popping up. We need to find out if he also has an ATV.”
“Almost everybody has one of those around here,” Lis offered.
“But not everybody was on the road at two am that day. And not everybody has a chipper on their property.”
“And not everybody has serious anger issues,” I couldn’t help adding.
“I guess we know where we need to go next,” Hal said.
I nodded, sighing my regret.
“To lunch?” Lis offered helpfully. “I’m starving and...” she glanced around the strange house, clearly searching for something. “I really need to pee.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
My phone rang as we were climbing back into Hal’s car a couple of hours later. I looked at the ID on the screen and grimaced. “Hey, Arno.”
“Joey. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Where do I start? I asked myself. “I don’t think so. Is there something you want me to tell you?”
Silence pulsed through the phone line. I waited patiently for him to elaborate. I got that he was mad. He was mostly always mad so I was used to that. But of all the things I’d done over the last couple of days, there wasn’t a single one I wanted to share with him.
No sense making him even more mad.
“Buck Mitzner tells me you and that PI of yours have been harassing him and going behind his back to speak to Reverend Smythe about him.”
I rolled my eyes over to Hal and he looked a question at me. I shook my head. “If asking him a couple of questions is harassing then I guess we did. But it wasn’t my fault Reverend Smythe came over to my table at Sonny’s. That was his idea.”
More silence. Then, “Why did you speak to the Reverend about Buck?”
“More like he spoke to me. What exactly are you mad about, Arno?”
“I’m mad because I told you to stay out of this. From what I can tell you’re doing the exact opposite of staying out. Do you know what the exact opposite of staying out is, Joey?”
“Um, staying in?”
“Yeah. In up to your delicate blonde eyebrows. We’re dealin’ with a killer here, Joey. This isn’t a game.”
That comment didn’t set well with me. “I know it’s not a dang game, Arno. If you’ll recall that body turned up on my property. Not your property. Not Buck’s property. My property. Nobody has a bigger stake in this than me.”
“I understand...”
“No. I don’t think you do understand. I have a professional working with me. We’re working this methodically. I know the stakes. But, whatever’s going on, it’s tied to my parents and their death and I have every intention of figuring it out.”
“Not if you’re in jail.”
My pulse spiked and for the first time I understood just how mad he was. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Try me.”
“I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“Doesn’t matter. I can hold you for twenty-four hours.”
“Arno...”
“All I want is for you to
keep me apprised. Like it or not, this is my job. Not yours. And I want to know why you believe it’s tied to your parents.”
I swung my gaze toward Hal again, thinking. Finally, I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me nod. “All right. We’ll come in. We should be there in ten.”
“I’ll be holding my breath in anticipation.”
Smart ass.
ARNO WAS WAITING FOR us inside the door. He glanced toward the Information Officer at the front desk. “I’ll take care of this, Bob.”
Bob skimmed a heated look over Lis, whom I hadn’t been able to convince to go back home, and then reluctantly nodded.
To my surprise, Arno took us through the small building, past half a dozen desks covered in paper and stained coffee mugs, and into a room marked with a small sign that said, Interview.
He wasn’t fooling me. Interview was just a more polite word for Interrogation.
The room was hotter than Lis in front of a camera and smelled like stale coffee and sweat. The table in the center was heavy old wood, scarred and marked up from years of use, and with an iron ring bolted into the top.
I hoped Arno wasn’t going to chain any of us up to that iron ring.
Though I wouldn’t put it past him. Especially with the way he was eyeing my friend.
He inclined his head at her. “Lis. How’s things?”
She shrugged, clearly fighting a grin. “Things are good, Arno. How’s the crime biz?”
He shook his head. “Have a seat. This won’t take long.”
Hal waited for Lis and I to pull two of the four straight-backed wood chairs away from the table and drop into them before taking his own seat and crossing one long, muscular leg over the other at the knee. He fixed his dark green gaze on Arno and gave him cop face. Which I could tell bothered Arno because it was so unreadable.
I fought a smile. “What do you want to know,” I asked Arno, glancing at my phone for the time just to annoy him. “We were just heading to Sonny’s for lunch.”
