Where I Can See You

by Larry D. Sweazy

  “You could say that. I think she sits in terror every day, waiting for me to come home to tell her I’m a lesbian—which I’m not, by the way. I’m just more like my dad. Practical, less interested in flare, and more interested in the job than what I see in the mirror or what anybody else thinks.”

  “What are you doing here, Sloane? What’s so important that you’re willing to piss off Burke to tell me?”

  She trembled—distantly. Hud only saw it because he was staring at her, watching every fiber of her being for a sign of something, anything, that would explain her presence. She made him uncomfortable.

  “I think you should be careful, that’s all. I just think you should be careful.”

  “It’s a little late for that. I’ve been ambushed with a boat oar and shot at in the last two days. My face is peppered with little pieces of glass that the wiry little EMT assured me would work themselves out over time, and Burke has put me on the sidelines of the first case I caught since coming on the squad, and I should be careful? Speaking of glass, how’s that deputy, Moran? The ambulance drove off with her last night.”

  “She checked out fine from what I heard, was cleared for duty.”

  “Good. Now, what exactly is it that I should be afraid of? Leo Sherman?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Sloane said with resignation. “I’ve known Leo for a long time. He loved his job, his wife, where he lived. It doesn’t add up.” She paused and stared at Hud for a long second. Her soulful brown eyes felt like a trap, and he had to look away from her quickly. “If he wanted you dead, he would have killed you the first time.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have time. Burke was there pretty quick from the way he tells it.”

  “Maybe. But he wouldn’t have missed the second time. Sherman was as good a shot as there was and a skilled deer hunter. We wouldn’t be sitting here talking if Leo Sherman had pulled that trigger. I’m sure of it.”

  “Then who’s taking shots at me?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. And I wish I knew where Sherman was. It’s like he’s vanished into thin air.”

  Hud sighed. “That seems to happen around here.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up anything.”

  “Burke told you about my mother?”

  “He mentioned it.” Sloane paused and drew back. “You should be wary of him.”

  “Who?”

  “Burke. You should be careful of Burke.”

  Hud leaned back in his chair and dug into the pocket of his robe for the pack of cigarettes. “You mind?” he said, as he struggled a Chesterfield out of the pack.

  “Suit yourself. Your house, your lungs.”

  Hud proceeded to light the cigarette, took a deep drag, then exhaled away from Sloane. “I’ve known Paul Burke most all of my life. He’s more bark than bite. Always has been. If you were around as a kid, then you know that to be true. You’re like your old man, and so is Burke. He’s always been kind of a bully, but he doesn’t scare me. Never has.”

  “That’s the problem. Burke’s stepped into his father’s shoes. He idolized his father. You know that,” Sloane said.

  “You would know. Seems like you’re two peas in a pod, now that I know you a little better.”

  “More than I want to be.”

  What’s that supposed to mean? Hud wondered but didn’t ask. Her voice cracked, suggesting an exposed nerve had been touched. “What’s Burke’s dad have to do with me, with what’s going on now? He’s been dead for years,” Hud said.

  “As long as Burke wears his badge, his father’s legacy is still alive. Burke will do anything to protect what he thinks of him. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. He’s been on edge ever since you came back. This murder case has him wound up tight as a drum. One more hit and I think he’ll snap. Just be careful. That’s all I’m telling you. This place has changed. Burke’s changed. Everything is one push away from falling apart. Look around; it doesn’t take much to see that.”

  Hud tapped the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. “I’m still not sure what you’re telling me.”

  “Just do what he tells you to do, that’s all. Do your job, don’t rile him. Ease your way back into his good graces.”

  “I didn’t know that I was out of them. He hired me.”

  “So he could keep an eye on you,” Sloane seethed. It was almost like she wanted to call him an idiot, but she’d restrained herself, bit her lip, and grabbed the edge of the table. After a long second, she stood up from the table abruptly. “I have to go. Really, I shouldn’t be here.” She started to walk away, but stopped halfway to the red curtain and turned back to Hud. “Forget that I was here, please. Don’t mention it to anyone, especially Burke. You can’t tell Burke I was here.” There was fear on her face and in her voice. Her comfortable complexion had suddenly bleached white.

  Before Hud could say anything, tell her that her presence wouldn’t be known to anyone, Sloane spun around, pushed through the curtain in a rush, and disappeared.

  The sky was clear of clouds, a mild topaz blue that reflected down on the lake, making the whole world look calm and serene. A flock of sandhill cranes circled high above the water, their chorus of melodic calls filling the air. The big gray birds sounded like the French horn section of an orchestra. It wasn’t long before a distant flock of Canadian geese filled in the absence of any other sound, and the presence of the birds became a full performance. Red and yellow leaves fluttered to the ground. There was hardly a breeze, and the sun felt warm on Hud’s face. Gee had called days like this Indian summer, but all that mattered to Hud was that he didn’t need a jacket. It was nice to feel free, be alone in the world. Even in its decaying state, Detroit was always noisy, with a throng of people coming and going somewhere.

  Sloane’s visit had unsettled Hud. That and the closed up air inside the house. It smelled of death and loss in there, and it was too much for him, one of the things he had purposely avoided. He still expected Gee to bust out of her room, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, dressed in a clean purple flower-print muumuu, her hair freshly colored black and piled up two stories atop her head, barking orders for the coming day. But that didn’t happen. There was no one there to tell Hud what to do at home. Maybe that was part of his problem.

  He’d dressed for the day, opened all of the windows to air out the house, then made his way outside to smoke a cigarette. He was already back up to his pack a day habit. His .45 was stuffed comfortably in the small of his back, and he was keenly aware of everything around him. Or tried to be. Spotting a sniper with a scoped rifle would have been impossible, and it would most likely be too late if he did see one. Still, he wasn’t going to walk around like nothing had happened the day before.

  He puffed on the cigarette thoughtfully as he gazed at the shop. The outside was in as bad a shape as the inside was. The sign at the entrance was faded, almost a ghost of its original self. Another winter and it would be. A Closed banner was pasted across the road sign, and another one stood in the door. Even though it was past the season, people still pulled into the parking lot and came up and peered in the dirty windows. A sash hung cockeyed, and, like the rest of the building, it was severely in need of a coat of paint. At one time, there were plywood cutouts of boats and T-shirts nailed to the shutters, but they had fallen to the ground or been stolen. With the settling foundation and the sagging roof, the place really looked like it was ready for the bulldozer.

  Hud turned away from the shop and stared down the ravine at the Dip, which was in similar disrepair, and longed to see something that wasn’t so depressing. He had no desire to revisit the ice cream shop. Pulling Timmy Sizemore out of the lion’s cage had been enough of a reunion.

  He walked away, allowing his feet to take him down a familiar path, one that wound past the back of the shop, beyond the two-car garage, and ended up at the shore of the lake. But to get there he would have to go through a small resort—seven cottages, each about the same size as the gar
age, that were, at one time, painted bright green to go along with an Irish motif. The place was called the Shamrocks. To full-timers, the resort was called the Shams, mainly because it was the most expensive resort on the lake and didn’t even offer inside bathrooms. Every little cottage had an outhouse, and all of the vacationers shared a shower room, set at the back of the office. People gladly paid whatever the rent was in the summer, just glad to have a place to stay. But that was a long time ago. It was in the off-season that the Shams had earned its most notorious reputation, but those days were long gone, forgotten by most people.

  Hud knew the cottages would be in as bad a shape as everything else around the lakes. He was right, of course, and didn’t linger to consider what was left of the Shams. A big red Condemned sign was posted next to the road. He kept walking; he’d spent enough time poking around the place to last a lifetime. The cottages didn’t look as if they’d housed a vacationer in ten years. Another victim of decline, another memory eroded by time, weather, and neglect.

  Hud walked steadily down the hill, keeping an ear out for any sign of human presence. There was no one to be seen. The cranes had flown on, but the geese still winged their way from one end of the lake to the other. The trail was lined with tall pine trees and deciduous trees that had lost nearly all of their leaves. Woodpeckers worked out of sight, and nuthatches and chickadees bandied about in search of a seed or two for a quick meal. Hud walked and smoked, taking it all in, never losing the feel of the .45. He had walked that trail a million times as a kid, usually carrying a fishing pole and pail of worms for bait.

  Hud slowed when he came around the next bend. He was almost to the lake. The house he was staring at sat on the lakefront, just at a point, giving it one of the best views on the entire body of water. Unlike everything else in the area, the house looked exactly like it had when he was a kid. It was freshly painted, a spotless white that almost seemed to glow in the bright sunlight. All of the windows shone like diamonds, and the shutters were painted a deep blue. A fishing boat sat covered next to the garage, and he could see the water of the lake just beyond, smooth, calm, and dotted with ducks and geese.

  Hud stopped at the driveway just as the back door of the house opened. A woman stepped outside, not elderly-looking or decrepit, just an older, more mature version of the woman that he remembered so well. “I was wondering when you’d get around to coming by to say hello,” Paul Burke’s mother said with a hard, direct glare.

  “Did you want to die?”

  “You know, I’m starting not to like how you ask questions. I thought you were pretty good up ’til now.”

  “I won’t apologize for that. You walked into a tense situation alone, didn’t call for backup, didn’t let anyone know your intentions. It’s an obvious question. You had to know the risks.”

  “I was involved in an investigation. It was a meeting with my snitch.”

  “Off the record. It was an off-the-record meeting.”

  “It’s in the report. I’m not answering that.”

  “Okay. You’re hostile. You refuse to cooperate. Is that really how you want this to go? I’ve been extremely patient . . .”

  “I don’t see how the Detroit incident is relevant. I’ve already said that.”

  “Do you refuse to cooperate?”

  “I’m still sitting here aren’t I?”

  “Can we continue?”

  “Yes. If we can get past this.”

  “We will. I just have a few more questions that I need answers to before we go on.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Helen Burke walked with the precision of a drill instructor, even when she was on a stroll. Her short gray hair looked soft and cared for, washed, cut, and set twice weekly at the local beauty parlor if she still adhered to her former routine. Her hair was a fitting contrast to her deep, hard-as-steel blue eyes. She wore a light jacket, just a little heavier than a windbreaker, that looked like it had never been worn. Her jeans were creased, recently ironed and starched, and her tennis shoes bore no marks or wear. They glowed white. If Hud had to guess, Helen Burke polished or bleached her shoes regularly, just like everything else that came within her reach.

  “The place looks the same,” Hud said, as they walked the lane that edged the lakeshore, water on one side, vacant cottages on the other. Some were rentals, while others were seasonal regulars who had already winterized and gotten on with their life elsewhere, waiting for spring to roll around again so they could visit the lake every weekend again. At least, that was how it used to be.

  Helen walked along steadily, looking straight ahead, almost ignoring Hud. “It’s my sanctuary. Always has been. But you know that, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I suppose so.” He twitched at her tone, not quite sure what it meant. The chief got as much of his no-nonsense personality from his mother as he had from his late father. Maybe more.

  “Times have changed,” Helen went on. “The lake has changed. It’s dirtier than I ever remember. We all get older, I suppose.” She stopped walking, and Hud followed suit, automatically allowing her control of the moment. There was no use fighting it. “I was sorry to see Gee go,” she said. “It’s the end of an era. Especially with that new, big buy-everything-you-need store just outside the entrance on the south end of the lake. It’s the one economic bright spot in this miserable place, I guess. But all of those fast food restaurants popping up around it are just awful. There’s hardly anywhere to get a good meal around here. Even Johnny Long’s isn’t what it used to be. Do they even have supper clubs in the outside world anymore?” Most full-timers were keenly aware that they lived in an isolated world, and Helen more than most.

  “Fast food and those big stores are what people want,” Hud said. “Little mom-and-pop shops like ours can’t compete, and nobody wants to shop around anymore. Not even in vacationland. They want everything under one roof.”

  “It’s a shame. What’re you going to do with it? Tear it down?”

  “The shop? I haven’t given it much thought. Clean it up, sell it, I suppose. I don’t want to live there, but I hadn’t thought about tearing it down. I don’t think I could do that. But I don’t want to stay there.”

  “It’s that hard?”

  “Hard enough. I’ve changed, too. No sense in living in a past that I can’t change.”

  “You really expect me to believe that?” Helen Burke said.

  Hud stiffened, tapped his chest for a cigarette, then decided against it. Helen had been a smoker once, too, and then become a fierce opponent of it once her husband died of lung cancer—just like Gee. “You can believe what you want.”

  “It’s not that simple, and you know it, Hud. You’ve been asking questions. I still hear things, even though I’m not out and about like I used to be.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “When it comes to that girl and Kaye Sherman, it is. It sure is. That business needs to be put to rest as soon as possible. We’re all lucky it’s not the middle of the season. It’d be the straw that breaks the camel’s back around here. We don’t need any more bad press. But that’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. Don’t go playing coy with me Hud Matthews. I’ve always been able to tell when you’ve been up to something and now’s no different. I don’t care how old you are or what your job is. I know what a cop does. I married one and raised one.” She paused, looked closer at Hud’s face. “You look like hell, by the way. Maybe you’d be better off selling T-shirts again. Police work doesn’t look like it suits you very well.”

  Hud resisted the urge to touch his face and test the swelling. He could feel how it looked from the inside out. “I’m not up to anything other than getting on with my life and taking care of the things I need to.” It was Hud’s turn to pause. “Did you know Kaye Sherman well?”

  “You’re assuming that I knew her at all.”

  “I know you knew her. You always made it your business to know all of the full-timers.”

  “Part of my unofficial dut
ies.”

  “Sure, if you say so. Did you know her well?”

  “Our circles overlapped from time to time. I can tell you this: Kaye Sherman was a good, honest woman. Kind hearted as the day is long. And her Leo was a decent man, too. At least I always thought he was, but I have no idea what he was doing with that Pam girl.”

  That Pam girl . . . touched a nerve. “Do you know Harriet Danvers?”

  “The old woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only one that I know of. Our circles never cross, I can promise you that. I heard she was the one that called in the murder.”

  “Seems to me you know a lot for not being out and about much.”

  “I can see why someone shot you.”

  Hud didn’t know if Helen was kidding or not. It was always hard to tell with her. She was always serious—except when she wasn’t.

  Helen smiled quickly. “Sorry, you’ve always been a bit of a smartass, Hud.”

  “Gee taught me well.” Hud stared at Helen Burke longer than he should have, and he knew he couldn’t stop the thought that was forming in his mind. “The circles seem to be the same now, only with a few more people missing.”

  Helen stiffened, sneered, then looked away to the lake. “Time marches on Hud. You aren’t the only one who has lost somebody.”

  “Suck it up, right? Get on with my life. Keep a stiff upper lip . . .”

  “Don’t you get that fresh with me, Hud Matthews. I’ve never tolerated such behavior from you or anybody else, and I’m not about to start now.”

  “You have somewhere to go,” Hud said. It was almost a whisper. “You can put flowers on a grave, mark the anniversary. There’s a place you can go to talk to your husband if you’re so inclined. I don’t have any of that. Just questions that nobody could, or would, answer for me. I have old faded pictures and a bedroom with a lock on the door. It quit smelling like her in there ages ago. I used to sneak in and try to conjure her up in my mind anyway I could. Now even that’s mostly gone. It’s just a museum now. I can barely picture her in my mind, and when I do, she looks like an old black and white picture, not a real person.”