Eli was wearing mud-encrusted sneakers, but his stealth was better matched to leather moccasins. Clearly this was not the first time he’d practiced such evasive maneuvers. Why would he need to? But since he didn’t want to stick around, neither did I.
The trees dissipated — separated from en masse to individual trunks, and the gloom lightened. Eli pulled up short at the edge of a clearing, his hand hot and damp in mine.
A sprawling building slumped in the thick grass as though it couldn’t muster the energy to admit residents. It was mostly single story except in places where the roof dipped even lower. A man — Walt — was on the roof in one of these swayback segments, straddling the ridge line and nailing bright, luminescent cedar shakes over bald spots. The whole building was a rangy patchwork of variously aged parts. One of the three river rock chimneys puffed reluctant smoke wisps.
Walt caught sight of us and waved his hammer. I glanced down and squeezed — nothing.
Eli was gone — just gone. There wasn’t even an indentation in the dewy grass where he’d been standing. How had he slipped away without my noticing? And why?
Walt was edging toward a ladder propped against the close end of the building. I hurried forward and leaned on the ladder’s rails to steady it while he descended.
“Some storm last night,” he said.
“Do they happen often?”
“Fair bit. Several times a winter. Come in.” Walt tipped his head toward the door. “Meet the boys.”
I had to duck to avoid the door mantle and step over a high threshold at the same time to enter the building.
“This was the cattle hands’ bunkhouse back when several hundred head of beef ranged these hills. Dairy cows were kept separate, up by the main road. Pampered, they were.” Walt chuckled and led the way down a dark, narrow hall.
The remains of breakfast smells lingered in the stagnant air plus the added scent of boys.
This is hard to explain, but boys, especially when they’re growing fast, have an odor all their own, and it’s not pleasant — mostly acrid, newly formed sweat with top notes of rancid clothing and vestiges of negligent grooming. It doesn’t seem to bother them. In fact, they seem to wallow in it. I’ve encountered this same scent in the boys’ wings of orphanages the world over. Women everywhere are eternally grateful that the males of their species do eventually grow out of it.
The hallway emptied into a large, low room — the one with the working fireplace. Neat rows and columns of student desk and chair combos corralled boys bent over their books. A few laptops were propped open, their screens flickering. I did a quick count — twenty-one desks, four empty — seventeen boys. I wondered which desk belonged to Eli and why he wasn’t in it when everyone else appeared so industrious.
It was hard to tell from the shy and curious glances from under brows and long-hanging forelocks, but the boys appeared to range from about ten years old to older teens. A few had dark shadows forming on their upper lips.
“Online courses,” Walt murmured near my ear. “We have a tutor come help with advanced math and literary criticism as needed, as well as ACT and SAT test prep.”
“And this is—” I whispered, then bit my lip and tried again. “Is Skip involved with this?”
Walt nodded. “He pays our accounts — at the general store and for repairs and maintenance. We’re here rent free.”
“Why—” I hesitated, not wanting to ask the reasons for this unusual situation in front of the boys. I also wondered just how many people Skip was supporting. I wasn’t surprised, but I would have wanted to be part of it — if I’d known.
“Coffee? I finally got some brewing.” Walt applied gentle pressure on my elbow and ushered me through a different doorway into a kitchen. It wasn’t fancy, but the appliances were meant for large-scale cooking. Walt pointed to a stool at the peninsula countertop and stepped over to a gurgling coffee pot. “If you’re here in a couple weeks, maybe you’d like to judge the creative writing contest. The boys get tired of hearing critiques from me. Poetry, plays, short stories — their submissions will run the gamut.”
I accepted a steaming mug. “That’s amazing. I don’t think they do that even in the best private schools anymore.”
“Probably not.” Walt settled onto a stool opposite me. “I’m old-fashioned. The boys need to learn to imagine life through other people’s perspectives, even if the people are fictional. Develops compassion, sympathy, empathy and leadership.”
“Is that why they’re here? Needing to learn those traits?”
“Their parents, if they have them, or case workers think so. More often than not I think it’s the adults in their lives who need those traits. The boys tend to straighten out on their own when they don’t have the pressure of living in the difficult circumstances they come from.”
“So they’re in the system?”
“Most are. It’s hard to place boys in foster homes generally, and older boys especially. Foster families are usually well intentioned, but not often well equipped to handle boys’ aggression, compulsion for adventure and a challenge, the need for meaningful work beyond book learning.” He shrugged and fingered the handle on his mug. His nails were cut short, with dirt shadows embedded in the rough calluses surrounding them. “The list goes on.” His gaze wandered to the window as though he’d forgotten I was there.
Walt’s nose was sharp and thin, pointed in profile. It’d been a few days since he’d shaved, and his stubble glinted red-gold in the window’s light. He had blue eyes too, but not with the same clarity as Eli’s. Could have been caused by a lifetime of worry. Maybe they were related.
“Eli?” I asked.
A slow smile spread across Walt’s face, raising his ears and squinting the corners of his eyes. But he didn’t answer or return his attention to me.
“He’s younger than the other boys. And not studying this morning.”
Walt turned at this, amusement in his eyes. “He found you in the woods, didn’t he?”
I nodded.
“I figure when he’s finished learning all there is to know out there, he’ll come in, sit down, and devour everything there is to learn in here.” He chuckled softly, his lips not parting. “Could take a couple decades for that to happen, though.”
Walt seemed ageless. He spoke with the wisdom of a patient man who’d experienced acres of sorrow, but he didn’t look old. My age even — maybe. “Is he yours?”
“Eli? Blood relation? No.” Walt’s gaze shifted back to the window. “But he reminds me of me.”
“You’re alone here.”
He waited so long to answer I wasn’t sure he’d heard me. He shoved his stool back and stood, gesturing to my mug. “Refill?” When I nodded, he said, “Suits me.”
His back was straight and cold as he stretched out a long arm to pour more coffee. I’d gotten too personal, too fast. I wondered how long it had been since he’d had more than a cursory conversation with a woman.
I tried a different tack. “Are hunters allowed on the property?”
Walt’s flash frown surprised me, as well as the intensity of his glare. “You’ve seen one?” If I hadn’t already witnessed his placidity, his tone would have scared me.
I shook my head. “No. Heard one, maybe — I’m not sure. Could’ve been a gunshot. It frightened both Eli and me.”
Walt’s jaw worked in a slight, tense chewing motion, reminding me of Terminator the goat as he settled back on his stool. “I’ll increase my patrols.” He studied me for a moment. “But there is something you should know. We have a hermit. He’s practically a phantom, invisible. But every once in a while he makes an appearance. Name’s Dwayne, and if you call him by his name, he’ll answer. Just so you know.”
I was beginning to wonder what made the window so attractive that Walt couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting over to it — or through it. Then he murmured, “I think Eli’s found him, where he lives. And I think he’s been apprenticing under Dwayne. That boy disappears like vapor.
I’m lucky he still shows up for meals.”
I took a deep breath, held it, then plunged in. “I have something you need to know too — why I’m here.” I gave him the big picture, the big unknowns. I tried to leave my personal speculation out of the account, just stick to facts. From the intensity of Walt’s frown, I figured he could hypothesize as well as I could.
“You’re expecting them to contact you, here?” he asked.
“I hope so. It would mean he’s still alive.”
“How long are you going to wait?”
“As long as it takes.”
Walt did the jaw clenching thing again. “Are you going to find out why? Skip doesn’t deserve this.” He exhaled long and hard, took his mug to the sink and rinsed it out. “Only met him twice. But given his history, his rough childhood, he really understood what the boys need. Mostly time and space.” Walt leaned against the sink and crossed his arms. “I’m having trouble putting the two together. The good and the alleged bad. You too, I expect.” He stared.
The beam of his full attention was disconcerting. I preferred his fascination with the window.
“You need anything, you’ll tell me?” he asked.
I half shrugged.
“Yes. You must. The boys will help too. They don’t know their benefactor, but they’re good workers. I’ll send over a crew this afternoon to set up living quarters for you. Won’t be fancy, but it’ll do.”
I left the bunkhouse with instructions to follow the muddy rutted track that started behind Walt’s parked pickup. I was to follow the right-hand path at the first fork and the left-hand path at the second. He assured me the track would eventually pass by the main house.
I also came away with a fierce determination to make sure Walt and the boys didn’t suffer from Skip’s absence. I needed to find out how they were being funded and ensure the support continued. Maybe in that process, I’d find clues about my other problems.
Follow the money. I didn’t even need to write that age-old principle in my notebook. Clarice would be proud of me. If it worked.
CHAPTER 8
It took me close to an hour to find the main house. I thought I followed Walt’s directions, but navigation has never been my strong suit. But the time wasn’t wasted.
Blue gaps started appearing between the clouds, and slanting rays winked amid thick trunks in moist, sparkly shafts. The tree branches still dripped a soft patter, almost like a polite golf applause for the spectacular display the forest was putting on. Green — I’d never seen so many different shades of green, from the brilliant chartreuse of lichen clinging to craggy bark to the black-tinged emerald moss mounded over fallen logs and stumps.
The trees came in all shapes and sizes and colors, from smoothly conical and teal-tipped to scraggly with droopy branches. It was a wild, time-worn forest and strictly volunteer, not a crop mass planted in tidy rows by a lumber company.
Between the exercise and the scenery, my mind settled on the reality of my new situation, and my to-do list grew. Once I identified action steps, I started feeling better, more purposeful and less lost.
I did a quick check for sneaky farm animals in the vicinity before pulling open the kitchen door.
Clarice was bent over the sink, scrubbing, her elbows pink from the exertion. A giant handkerchief scarf printed with neon lemons and limes bound her bouffant, and she had a ruffled red apron tied around her middle. The floor shone with wet patches, and I froze, my foot dangling a few inches above a cream-colored tile.
“Don’t bring those muddy boots in here,” Clarice growled without turning around.
“Yep,” I replied, hopping to keep my balance. I leaned on the doorframe to untie my laces.
“You need to get rid of that rental. Racking up unnecessary expenses. We’ll have to implement austerity measures.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. I’d already come to the same conclusion. But when Clarice barks orders in that tone, something’s irritating her.
“That urchin came back.”
“Eli?”
My comment prompted one arched brow over her shoulder and a grunt. “Has a name, does he? Squirt about scared me to death. Brought that.” Clarice jerked her head, hair and scarf toward the table.
I tiptoed into the room in my socks and picked up the small carved wood object, no bigger than a golf ball. It was a bright-eyed, perky little brown bird — maybe a sparrow? — with a round hole in its open beak and a slotted hole in the tail. A whistle. Just the type of treasure a boy would carry around, but the delicate carving had to be beyond Eli’s skill set.
“He didn’t say a word,” Clarice huffed. “But it was clearly not meant as a present for me. Those blue eyes don’t miss a thing. He was looking for you.”
I slipped the whistle’s leather thong lanyard around my neck and gave a test puff on the bird’s tail. It warbled — sweet and high and delightful.
Clarice wiped her hands on the apron and came over for a closer inspection. I held the bird out to her, and she stroked it with a tentative finger. “Beautiful,” she murmured. “Who’d have thought? I wonder where he got it?”
I’d already ruled out Walt because he was direct and unpretentious and would have given me the whistle himself if he’d wanted to. The only other person on the premises who might be capable of such craftsmanship would be the hermit. Clarice already had enough worries. I didn’t want to bother her with the tale of a reclusive man she would most likely never meet. I shrugged and let the whistle drop against my chest. I’d wear it until I could thank Eli properly.
oOo
A stairstepped group of shy, lanky boys in desperate need of haircuts and toting an assortment of brooms, mops and buckets showed up just as Clarice and I were wrapping up a feast of tuna salad on saltines complimented by V-8 juice. Next time we went shopping, I was going to handle the menu planning. I honestly don’t know how Clarice keeps her barrel-shaped figure on such meager fare.
The tallest boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, took charge, announcing they had come to clean in a voice that cracked. He coughed into his fist and merged back into the group, blushing.
“Right ho.” Clarice zipped my paper plate away just as I lifted my last cracker. “Follow me.”
She marched through the far doorway and up a half-flight of stairs, the boys straggling after her. I took up the rear.
When we’d clustered at the end of a long, chilly room, barely lit by sunlight peeking through cracks in what appeared to be floor to ceiling drapes along one wall, Clarice leaned in like a quarterback in a huddle.
“We’ll only clean what we need,” she said. “Two bedrooms and a bathroom, plus the kitchen which I’ve nearly finished.” She turned. “You and you—” she pointed at the two biggest boys, “come with me. The rest of you start near the fireplace and work this direction.”
The young boys scrambled off as if they knew exactly what she was talking about. I followed Clarice and the taller boys up another flight of stairs. We turned a few corners and went down a short hall.
“These’ll do,” Clarice announced, pointing at two open doors opposite each other in the hall. “Pick.”
Her intent look my direction meant she was talking to me. I gestured to the right.
“Good. Let’s get these cleaned up. We can sleep on real beds tonight.”
The room was hardly bigger than my dorm room in college. It was crowded with two single beds, a nightstand with a lamp between them, a four-drawer dresser and a single ladder back chair.
“We could move out one of the beds,” ventured the tallest boy.
His eyes, with lashes as long as a girl’s, were level with mine, and I suddenly felt old — old enough to be his mother. “Good idea. What’s your name?”
“Dill.”
“Like pickles?” I asked.
“Like Bob Dylan. Everyone shortens it.”
I laughed. “You don’t mind?” I also breathed a slight sigh of relief. Dill’s parents had to be a little older than I am if they we
re impressed enough with the aging rocker to name their son after him.
Dill shrugged and grinned. He proved to be a boy of few words which suited me fine.
We worked in tandem, lifting the bed and crab-walking with it down the hall to a larger room that was already stacked with miscellaneous furniture.
I lost count of how many buckets of dirty water we emptied and refilled with short-lived clean water. I scooted the chair around the periphery of the room, wiping down the walls and sending clouds of dust billowing. Dill polished the window until it became translucent, then he propped it open to let in the sweet, damp air.
I sniffed appreciatively. Is it possible for the absence of scent to be a scent of its own? It had been so long since I’d been in a place where car exhaust, city sewers and masses of people hadn’t influenced the air I was breathing.
Dill noticed. “It’s from the storm last night. Brought out the sap.”
“Sap?”
“From the trees. That piney, sweet smell. Sawdust smells like that too, when they chop the trees up. Ever been stuck behind a sawdust hauler on the road?”
I shook my head.
Dill shrugged — one shoulder this time. Clearly, I had missed out on something amazing.
Clarice popped her head through the doorway. “Good. I’ll bring clean sheets in a jiffy.”
“Sheets?” I was starting to sound like a parrot.
“Found a linen closet and the biggest laundry room I’ve ever seen. Those washers were built to last.” Clarice’s lips pursed into a tight, lipsticked frown. “Kept myself occupied while you were out rambling this morning.”
I held up my right hand as though I was swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “As instructed, remember? But no more shirking, I promise.”
Clarice grunted and disappeared.
“She always like that?” Dill asked.
“Yep. But you always know where you stand with her.” I grinned at him. “A trait I particularly appreciate.”
He snorted softly. “You wanna see something?”
Bait & Switch (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 5
