by Carrie Marsh
“I know he was cursing The Almighty at that moment for making him love that dog so much. He told me he’d never get another dog again. He couldn’t go through that kind of heartbreak. It would kill him. I truly believe it would,” Grace had whispered to Mary after the whole ordeal with Haus was over.
“That cat of yours is a strange creature,” Henry continued. “But it’ll pull through just fine. And when Ray is caught, he better insist on someone staying with him at all times. I’d hate to think what Andrew would do to him if he got him alone.”
Grace nodded her head in agreement.
“What would I do without the two of you?” Mary’s voice hitched a little. “And you are right, Henry. I love that cat but it’s Andrew’s baby. If anything happens…” She choked the words down and cleared her throat so as not to start crying.
Finally, Andrew and Reggie came down from the bathroom. Reggie was tucking his things back in the little black bag he carried. Andrew had Alabaster in his arms.
“Mrs. Tuttle, you have a very strange cat.”
Mary looked at Henry, who folded his arms and nodded his head.
“But he’ll be fine. He just had the wind knocked out of him. No broken bones. No head trauma. He favors his back left leg a little so there might be a sprain. But other than that, I can’t see anything else wrong with him.”
“Thank you so much, Reggie.” Mary wiped her eyes and shook the vet’s hand. “Please send me a bill.”
“No worries.” Reggie waved Mary off. “I owed your son a solid for some help a while back. Now we’re even.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Yeah, thanks again, Reggie.” Andrew held the door open for his friend.
Alabaster looked up, his eyes small green slits. His purring motor kicked in.
Am I dreaming?
“You gave me a scare, you tough kitty.” Mary telepathically soothed with tears breaching her eyelids and running down her cheeks. “Your Andrew is here. You just lay still.”
I knew he’d come.
“Somehow, so did I.”
Outside, Officer Higgs had done as he was told. Within minutes, Tree Top Lane was quiet again as if nothing had happened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
COFFEE AND PASTRIES
COFFEE AND PASTRIES
It was early the following morning when Andrew’s cell phone rang, waking him from a deep sleep in his old bedroom.
“Tuttle, here,” he said groggily. “Katie, what have you got?” His eyes blinked open, suddenly wide and alert as he spoke to the officer. He went to sit up but felt a heavy weight on his chest. Looking down, he remembered he had held Alabaster until he fell asleep. The cat was still there breathing normally but the slightest movement set off his purring mechanism and Andrew could feel it through his shirt.
“Ray Hulka was apprehended at a Gas City filling station just outside Momence. He should be arriving back here within the hour.” Katie yawned into the phone.
“That’s what I like to hear.” Andrew stretched. “I’ll be in shortly. Thanks, Katie.”
Slowly. he raised his torso off the bed and managed to slide Alabaster down onto the comforter that had been on his bed for over a decade. The cat lazily clung to Andrew’s shirt, his claws hooking into the fabric without coming anywhere near his skin.
As Andrew stood from the bed, he stretched his arms over his head, turned around to look at the soft gray lump of fur that was rolled up there. He bent down and got on one knee so he could be eye level with the cat.
“You saved Mom’s life,” he whispered as he scratched Alabaster behind the ears. “I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t do what you did.” He leaned forward and with rapid succession kissed the cat on the head, making a smacking sound as he did so. “Such a brave kitty. My good boy.”
She would have done the same for me, Alabaster replied, even though Andrew couldn’t hear him.
“Andrew?” Mary stood in the doorway, pulling her robe on over her flannel pajamas. “Would you like some coffee?”
“I would.” He stood up. “They got him.”
Mary blinked and sighed. “I’m glad.” She looked at her son. “I’ve got some things to tell you.”
As Mary got the coffee ready and Andrew took a seat at the counter in his usual spot, she told him of her adventure to the Hulka house and the letters she had recovered.
“Mom.” Andrew stared at his mother with the same look her late husband Ward would give her when she burnt dinner or went overboard with the credit card. “Do we need to have the talk again about how I am the policeman with the badge and you are a civilian? If you need a refresher course, just say so.”
“I know it was daring but I did get these letters. They may fill in some blanks for you and, well, there is the stuff he told me last night but you already know all that.” At the mention of her conversation last night with Ray about his relationship with his cousin, Mary rubbed her stomach and wrinkled her nose as if something suddenly smelled foul.
“Let me see them,” Andrew sighed. Mary passed him the letters she had taken from the Hulkas’ garbage can. His eyes skimmed over them before he folded them up and put them in his pocket. “You’re lucky. These go along with what his wife told us.”
“Can I ask? What did she tell you?” Mary poured two cups of coffee and took a seat across from her son.
Andrew told his mother that when Hillary Hulka called the police station, she informed them that she believed he was responsible for his cousin’s death.
“She had suspected that Ray and Summer were having an on-again-off-again affair.”
“Eww,” Mary interrupted. Her son nodded in agreement.
“But she was unwilling to leave him. Not without solid proof.”
“So, what changed her mind?”
“She told dispatch over the phone they had to get to your house immediately. That if anything happened to you, she’d never forgive herself. Did you know Hillary Hulka very well?”
Mary shook her head, looking puzzled.
“I swear, she stopped into the store the other day and rambled on a little incoherently then left. That was the most I ever spoke with her. Wait!” Mary snapped her fingers. “The sun catcher.”
Andrew cocked his head to the left.
“I wanted to talk to her. Before I knew all the sordid details of Ray’s filthy behavior. I made her a sun catcher. It had Tiger’s Eye in it. Those stones help promote truth and honesty. Sometimes, they don’t work. Maybe she was more receptive than I first guessed.”
“I don’t get that.” Andrew slurped his coffee. “But, whatever. She said her husband was on his way to your house and that if he could kill his own cousin, he wouldn’t think twice about hurting anyone else.”
“That poor girl. What an ordeal.”
“It isn’t over, either.”
“Why?” Mary enjoyed talking with her son about sports, politics, weather but she especially liked to hear about his police work.
“She’s going to come to the station and make a statement. She’s promised to give us as much information about Ray as possible. How humiliating to have to talk about your husband’s infidelity. With a blood relative, to top it off. I hate to say it, Mom, but you might have to do the same. It depends on if Hillary’s statement is enough. I’ll try to keep you out of things but I don’t want you to feel blind-sided if you have to come in.”
“Anything to help, honey.” Andrew could tell by the glint in his mother’s eyes that she’d love to be part of the scandalous story.
After a few more minutes, Andrew left his mother’s home, passing Grace and Henry as they were coming in carrying their own coffee cups and a loaf of rye bread.
“She’s in the kitchen,” Andrew said as he held the door open for them.
“How is she feeling?” Grace asked in a whisper before setting foot in the house.
“Like herself.” Andrew kissed Grace on top of the head and shook Henry’s hand as he went to h
is car and left for the station.
Grace stepped inside and quickly hurried to the kitchen.
“I got coffee,” Mary shouted to her friends.
“Great. We’ve got rye. Beautiful recipe from Henry’s great-grandmother.”
The trio sat down and began to discuss the whole sordid story of Ray Hulka and the new news that he had been apprehended.
“Just when you think you’ve heard it all,” Grace said, slathering butter on her third piece of bread. “And in the town of Morhollow. That’s the kicker. Nothing ever happens around here. When it rains, it pours, I guess.”
“Are you kidding?” Henry spoke for the first time since the Deitzs arrived over half an hour ago. “It’s in these small towns that the really weird stuff happens. And it’s always the quiet ones.” Henry held up an imaginary microphone to his mouth. “He was a quiet guy, kept to himself until the day they found him naked on top of his roof claiming the twenty-eight bodies buried in his yard were there when he moved in.”
Grace and Henry stayed with Mary a little while longer then left to open the bakery. Mary decided there was nowhere else she’d rather be than at her bead shop. Still concerned Alabaster may have still been hurt, she bundled him up and brought him with her.
“How are you feeling?” she asked the cat who sat properly on the counter next to the register. After turning on all the lights in the empty store and unlocking the front door, she rubbed his head.
I went to sleep with Andrew back home in his old bed. I dreamed of Andrew all night. Then I woke up on his chest. I am feeling fine.
“You were so brave, Ally. But what would I do without you? Please don’t take any chances like that again, okay? Promise me?”
I was just about to say the same thing to you.
Mary brushed a tear from her cheek, leaned down, and kissed Alabaster’s head. In return, he head-butted her, rubbing his head affectionately along her chin.
So, what happens now?
“Well, Andrew will get Ray back in the station, and they’ll question him about Summer.”
It’s as simple as that?
“That’s it in a nutshell.”
Will you have to give a statement?
“Only if Hillary’s statement isn’t good enough, I guess. Andrew said he would keep me out of it if possible.”
It wasn’t long before Mary’s cell phone rang. It was exactly where she had left it the previous evening on the other side of the register. Its ring tone startled her and Alabaster until they realized what it was. When she looked at the screen, she saw Andrew’s familiar number.
“Hi, honey.”
“Hi, Mom.” His voice was heavy. “Mom, I’m afraid you’re going to have to come down to the station.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Ray is claiming that you were trespassing on his property. That the letters you have were stolen from his garbage and you were using them to blackmail him.”
“What?” Mary’s mouth went dry. “What about Hillary? What about her statement?”
“We can’t find her.”
Mary stuttered and choked as her mind raced. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, honey.”
Andrew didn’t say anything more but hung up. When Mary repeated what her son had said, Alabaster’s eyes bugged.
“What am I going to do?” Mary’s gut had tightened up like she was standing on a window ledge no more than four inches wide over a busy city street. It was windy. Pigeons were trying to perch there. All the windows were locked from the inside.
Alabaster said nothing.
“Wait a minute. This man killed someone.” Mary folded her arms over her chest. “It’s bad enough how he carried on but he took Summer’s life. We don’t even have a clear reason why.”
Yes. So?
“So, I think it is time Mr. Ray Hulka sees what he did.” Mary’s eyes simmered like boiling water in a pot. “I think it’s time he looked it right in the face in the bright light of day in a police station crawling with people.” She looked down at Alabaster. “Are you ready?”
“Meow, meow.” He purred.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SEEING THINGS
SEEING THINGS
The scaly book was tucked in the corner of the kitchen on top of Mary’s vintage china cabinet. The black, leathery texture made it look more like a shadow than an actual thing sitting crookedly on the top shelf. But when Mary reached for it, she felt it pulse with a life of its own.
“Hello, old friend,” she muttered. “I need your help.”
Mary. Alabaster hopped up on the kitchen table. You haven’t done that kind of magic for decades. We aren’t talking about a protection spell or even an invisibility spell. The incantations contained in that can make you sick.
“So, what do I do, Alabaster? Let that man scare me with his lies? Let him get a lawyer who will build on those lies and suddenly I lose my business before it gets started? I lose my house? My son? I’m willing to take the chance. I saw my mother do it once before.”
And do you remember what it did to her?
Mary did but she pretended that she didn’t hear Alabaster’s question. Instead, she flipped to the page she was looking for and prepared to read the words written in what looked like brown ink. It was actually crow’s blood.
Ray Hulka was sitting alone in a holding cell when Summer Moran walked in through the concrete wall.
He was lying on his back, his feet crossed and arms folded behind his head as he relaxed and whistled on the metal cot. He was going over his story in his head. Just as he had done with Hillary dozens of times to keep her in place, he recited his story about Mary Tuttle over and over until he not only could recite exactly what she had said when she tried to shake him down but he also started to believe it himself.
But when he heard the movement behind his head, he turned, expecting to see that pretty Officer Katie or maybe that blow-hard Captain. He didn’t expect to see her.
“I’m dreaming,” he stuttered.
“No,” Summer replied. She looked as beautiful as he remembered her on that last night. “You’re not dreaming, Ray. This is real. I’m here.”
A cold sweat broke out over Ray’s body. Bile surged up his throat but he managed to choke it down. He shook but he couldn’t decide if it was from fear or from excitement. How could this be?
“Are you an angel?”
“Ray, I can’t hear you,” Summer whimpered. “Why did you do this?”
“You were going to go. You were going to leave with Bruce.”
“Why did you do this, Ray? I can’t hear you?” She stood there in the short skirt and blouse she had worn on that last night.
“You said you were going to leave with Bruce after you saved your money. What was I supposed to do? You left me no choice. You wouldn’t listen to me,” Ray breathed.
“I can’t hear you, Ray.” Summer’s voice was quiet, almost childlike. “What did you do?”
“If you just would have listened to me. Regina told me you didn’t really love Bruce but were just using him to make me jealous. Okay. It worked. I couldn’t stand the idea of you with him. I gave you your freedom, Summer. I didn’t interfere. But then you said you were leaving with him. After everything I did for you. The money I gave you. I didn’t ask you any questions about who you were with or when. Then you tell me you’re leaving?”
“You lied, Ray.”
“No, Summer.” Ray stood and took a step closer to the image he saw in front of him. She was so pale. Her blond hair was mussed, like she had just woken up and her lips parted when she spoke but Ray couldn’t be sure they moved with the words. He didn’t care. He was terrified but his attraction was stronger. “I always told you the truth. I love you, and I know you love me. But you wouldn’t stop talking. You wouldn’t stop telling me you were leaving with Bruce. That you loved Bruce. Then you started to laugh and… I’m sorry for what happened. But I can’t change that now. It’s too late. You’re gone.” Ray’s eyes squinted as
he said those words as if they hurt coming out of his mouth.
Before his eyes, Summer’s face began to change. She became gaunt and her skin started to wrinkle. Her throat distended as the objects lodged in it began to protrude as if they might burst through the paper-thin skin.
“I’m not gone, Ray,” Summer hissed. “I’ll be right here. I’ll always be with you. Until you tell what happened. We will be together forever.” The hair that had looked so pretty now began to look as if things were living in it. Her full lips peeled back from her teeth to reveal dry, cracking gums and a black tongue. “Until you tell our story, Ray, I’ll never leave you.”
Ray didn’t realize he had been screaming. He didn’t know it was his own voice that was echoing in his ears in an almost deafening tone. He had no idea he had wet his pants like a frightened school boy. He stood still and stared as the thing he had loved for so much of his life twisted and contorted into a twiggy, knotted monster.
“Tell our story!” it screamed over him.
By the time Andrew and Katie rushed to the cell, Ray had folded himself into a crying bundle on the floor.
“Ray? Mr. Hulka. What’s the matter with you?”
“I want to talk!” he cried. His face was streaked with terrified tears, his eyes were red and a string of drool hung from the left side of his mouth down to his chest.
“Okay, calm down.” Andrew looked at Ray suspiciously. Nothing like this had ever happened in the jail but, then again, Andrew couldn’t remember a murderer ever being held in there either. A guilty conscience has a way of pushing everything to the surface.
“I saw her!” Ray babbled. “She knows. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I loved her. You’ve got to believe me when I say that. I knew it wasn’t right. Maybe that was why I loved her. Please, put me in another cell. She’s in here. I can smell her skin. Can’t you smell it?”
Andrew inhaled as he motioned for Katie to unlock the door but to keep her hand on her pepper spray just in case this was some kind of game. He didn’t notice any smell except for the foul stench that came from Ray.
