by Joan Hess
“No one saw anything in the field across the river?”
Grady’s smile vanished. “What do you mean?” he asked in a hard voice.
“There was a report of activity in that area.”
“The young people were told not to cross the river, and none of them did. What’s this about?”
“Did you hear a shotgun blast?”
“Oh,” he said, nodding, “that was the night some woman shot and killed her husband. Who are you?”
“A friend of the accused woman, who has the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. Do you mind if I speak to your choir members?”
“Good luck with that.” He stood up and went through a door next to the platform, apparently unconcerned by the possibility I might be gunned down by the sopranos or trampled by the tenors.
I gazed at the sprawl of teenagers. Some were texting; others were in cozy conversations. They hardly looked outstanding, or upstanding, for that matter, but there might be a future mathematician or surgeon among them. I made my way up the steps and approached a trio of girls. No one showed a flicker of curiosity.
“I’d like to ask you about the camping trip a year ago,” I said.
“Really?” said a well-developed brunette in a tight halter. “That was ages ago, like history.”
“Bianca can’t remember what she had for lunch,” inserted a less-developed blonde with dark roots and braces. The third girl whipped out her cell phone and began to text.
I looked at the blonde. “Did you hear a loud noise around midnight?”
“You mean Jessie’s fart? It was like an explosion. We all had to scramble out of the tent before we died of asphyxiation. I almost threw up.” Her laugh was brittle as she studied her fingernails.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“You ought to ask Miss Yates, the church secretary,” the brunette said. “She had some kind of allergy thing and spent the night out on the rock, splashing water on her legs and feet. She went through a whole bottle of calamine lotion.” She took out her cell phone to update the world on the current noncrisis.
“How do I find Miss Yates?” I asked the blonde, but a cell phone had appeared in her hand as well and her mind had left the building. Perhaps they should text their Sunday morning choral presentation, I thought as I went back down the steps and followed Grady’s path into what proved to be an office.
He was standing next to a desk occupied by an older woman with short silver hair and faded blue eyes. She clutched a wadded tissue in one fist. Although I was not at my best, I was offended by the apprehensive expression on her face. I resisted the urge to check behind me for ghouls or armed men in ski masks.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Not among ye faithful, I surmised. “Claire Malloy. I live in Farberville and own the Book Depot on Thurber Street. I’m trying to help Sarah Swift before her trial begins on Tuesday.” I could have offered a more detailed autobiography, but I felt as though I’d covered the essentials.
“She shot her husband,” Grady added helpfully, eliciting a gurgle from the woman, who seemed ready to take refuge under her desk.
“Sarah Swift has been accused of shooting her husband,” I corrected him. “I’m here with her lawyer’s permission.”
“What do you want from me?” the woman asked.
“Are you Tricia Yates?” I waited until she nodded. “You were with the choir at Flat Rock the night it happened. I was wondering if you might have seen or heard anything?”
Grady snickered. “I already ran through the list of high crimes and misdemeanors, including Stanley’s vodka and Carter’s nocturnal expeditions to visit the girls.”
Tricia Yates continued to regard me with anxiety. “I don’t understand why you think I know anything. It was a horrible night. I wasn’t happy until I got home and took a long hot bath. If you think I had time to wander around that nasty field, then why don’t you volunteer to chaperone this group when they go on a retreat in October? Tell me your name again, along with a telephone number.”
“Yeah,” Grady said.
“Then you didn’t hear a shotgun go off about midnight?” I persisted despite the warmth of my reception, which registered thirty-two degrees on the Fahrenheit scale and zero on the Centigrade scale.
Tricia dropped the tissue on her desk. “I heard frogs, birds, and a whole lot of giggling.”
“Yeah,” Grady said again.
He was beginning to annoy me. “Could I speak to Ms. Yates privately?” I said as I sat down and crossed my legs.
She gestured at him to leave. When he was gone, she said, “I told you that I have nothing to contribute. It was an ordinary campout. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Grady supervised the boys while they put up the tents, unloaded the gear, and gathered firewood. I organized the girls for kitchen duty. We ate hot dogs and burned beans for supper, and had a lovely prayer service at sunset. After that, we all sat in a circle around a fire and talked about keeping Jesus in our lives. They were all very earnest, naturally. You’d have thought they were little saints, not jail bait and drug dealers.”
“One of the girls mentioned that you developed an allergic reaction,” I said with a slathering of sympathy. “What a miserable night.”
She shuddered. “Hellish. I must have walked through poison ivy somewhere along the path. I had blisters for two weeks.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear the shotgun.”
“Maybe I heard something, but I didn’t worry about it.” She put the tissue in a wastebasket and picked up a pen. “I need to finish the books for August, so if there’s nothing else…?”
There was, but I wasn’t sure what it was. “Thanks for your time, Ms. Yates. I hope you don’t get roped into chaperoning this retreat.”
“Not on my life.” She tried to smile, but the result was tepid.
Grady had failed to reorganize his troops and was pacing across the front of the room, his brow creased and his lips tight. I wasn’t sure if he was anticipating another round of atonality or more questions from me, but I went out the front door to my car. My visit had caused Tricia Yates’s visible disquiet. I didn’t understand why, since I’d asked mild questions with low expectations of learning anything of relevance. There was more to their story than they had shared, but I couldn’t force them to elaborate. I knew where they and the choir would be the following morning, should I come up with a way to coerce any one of them to spill the truth.
The sun was not yet over the yardarm (or my arm, anyway), so I decided to drive back to the Lippets’ road and have a look at Flat Rock. I debated calling Peter, but I didn’t need any discouragement. I retraced my route and turned past the bridge. I saw no indications of a path or a stile before the Lippets’ house, so I continued. The road grew rougher, and I slowed to a crawl as I gazed at pastures on both sides of me. At last I came to a dirt road with a padlocked gate. I parked, put my cell phone and keys in my pocket, and locked my purse in the trunk of my car.
I walked across the road to a stile next to an overflowing trash bin. This stile did not have railings, but I made my way up the steps, carefully eased over the barbed wire, and came down without a mishap. Giving a modest salute to my vast, unseen audience of avian admirers, I followed a trodden path through a field of cornstalks. My audience was now composed of grasshoppers that buzzed in my face and gnats that swarmed around my head. Crows jabbered as they swooped down to attack the cornstalks. I flapped my hands and muttered rude things until I reached yet another stile. As I ascended it, I saw the river and a large expanse of, well, flat rocks. Eureka.
After a short hike across a weedy expanse, I arrived on an especially fine flat rock that abutted the river. A shift in topography had created a wide pool that looked like a lovely place to swim. The high trees on the far bank made rippled shadows on the still brown water. The avian choir, initially silenced by my arrival, resumed calling for mates. Based on Grady’s assessment of his choir members, I hoped they relied on
other mating calls (or tweets).
Except for a crushed plastic bottle caught in weeds on the far bank and some charred wood, I saw no recent signs of human occupancy. Had there been skinny-dipping hippies the previous evening, Lippet had cleaned the area of bodies and litter. He had done so umpteen times since the choir had camped a year ago. However, anything of significance had happened on William Lund’s property, which was going to require me to walk on water. Regrettably, that was not among my many talents.
I did what I was sure Sir Henry Morton Stanley had done when he failed to find Dr. Livingstone having tea in a proper tent next to the source of the Nile, which was to throw propriety to the breeze and take a break. Once I’d found a place to sit, I took off my shoes and let my feet dangle in the water. I scooped up water and cleaned my face. The serenity and the solitude were intoxicants. People, including my beloved husband, had been yammering at me for three days.
I was pondering whether or not to call him to find out if the FBI had been more forthcoming when my cell phone buzzed in my back pocket. My hand began to tremble when I saw the call was from Caron, who could be whooping with success or begging for bail.
“What’s up, dear?” I asked carefully.
“We think we know where it is, but there’s a problem.”
“Where is it?” I asked, then froze as an enormous dog bounded into view. Barking hysterically, it flopped across the flat rock, crouched, and growled in a most unsettling fashion. Its fangs were visible. Spittle flew from its mouth as it shifted its weight. Although it was more apt to be a German shepherd than a gray wolf (Canis lupus), it appeared to weigh close to a hundred pounds. Or five hundred. Some tormented soul had opened a cage in Satan’s kennel.
“What is it, Mother?” Caron shrieked.
“A dog—a nice dog. Nice dog, aren’t you? Yes, a good dog.” I sounded as convincing as a child miscast in a school play. “Good dog!”
The beast, whose pedigree must have originated with the Baskervilles, did not fall for my ploy. It continued to growl as it moved around me. The hairs on the back of its neck were stiff, making it clear that my mere presence had raised both its hackles and its primal instincts.
“Tell it to go away,” said Caron, always helpful.
“I’m not going to tell it to do anything,” I said in what I hoped was a steady voice. I scooted to the very edge of the rock and tried to gauge the depth with one leg. My foot did not make contact. The dog made an ominous gurgle as it approached. Clenching my teeth, I eased off the rock. The water was only waist high. That was the good news. The bad news arrived seconds later when the dog loosed a frenzy of barking, interspersed with ill-controlled lunges at my person. I shrank away, felt my feet slide, and fell backward. Despite the brute’s volume, I heard my cell phone as it slipped out of my hand, plopped in the water, and sank before my deeply appalled eyes.
“See what you made me do!” I said to the dog in my bad-doggie voice. “Now go away!”
The dog stopped barking and gazed at me with a look that, had I been a fan of anthropomorphism, might be described as wounded. I was preparing a less critical remark when it began to sniff my shoes.
“Don’t even think about it, Rover.”
The dog didn’t pause to think about it, but instead picked up one shoe with its mouth, wagged its tail, and took off in the direction of the cornfield.
“Come back here!” I yelled, adding an uncouth Anglo-Saxon expletive for emphasis. I also commented on its canine parentage via the Old Norse word bikkja. I may have said some other things as the seriousness of my dilemma hit me like a splash of cold water. I was soaking wet and semishoeless. My car was parked across an expanse of corn stubble, rocks, and whatever denizens lurked underfoot. I could not call the Mounties. More importantly, I could not call Caron back to learn what she and Inez had uncovered concerning the Ming Thing’s whereabouts—or why there was “a problem.”
I climbed out of the water. A puddle formed around my feet as I gazed rather sadly at the path the brute had taken. I could hear no barks or an owner’s voice. Serenity and solitude became less appealing. Spending the night on a rock was not at all appealing. Caron had no idea where I was, and Peter had left me at the courthouse. When darkness fell and I was missing, he’d call Evan. No help there. I could only hope that my adorable Sherlock might remember Miss Poppoy’s name and call her. Could I rely on her to answer the door—and say that I’d asked for directions to Flat Rock?
I reminded myself that I had a couple of hours of daylight to extricate myself from the situation. Since I was already as wet as I could be, I slipped back into the water and swam to the far bank. From a gravel bar, I could see a barbed-wire fence behind a line of scraggly oaks and pines. I made my way across the rocks to the edge of the Lunds’ property. The second story of the house and the barn were visible beyond the endless rows of blueberry bushes. Billy could have seen something, I thought as I ventured a few steps farther, feeling oddly furtive. Too many campers had come and gone over the previous year for me to anticipate finding any sort of clue.
As I swam back to the flat rocks, I tried to picture the campsite as constructed under Grady’s supervision: a tent for the girls, a tent for the boys, two tents for the chaperones, a primitive kitchen area, and a campfire. Although Grady and Tricia had insinuated that they had restrained their hormonal charges, teenagers were a devious subspecies. Larry Lippet had said he’d found condoms downstream.
The hound from hell had not brought back my shoe. The remaining one was covered with slobber, but I put it on my left foot. Walking across the flat rocks presented no problem. The stile was a good hundred feet away, however, and no one had rolled out a red carpet to cover the rocky ground. My first step with my bare foot was miscalculated and elicited a yelp. I tottered on my shod foot as I inspected my heel, which was not bleeding profusely or even oozing. The first stile looked very far away; the second stile was a good deal farther. I looked carefully before putting down my unshod foot. At this rate, I would be back at my car by the time the teen choir sang for the Sunday morning congregation. Unless it got dark, as it tended to do every night, in which case I might miss the opening statements at Sarah’s trial.
I spotted a piece of wood that might serve as a walking stick and made my way over to it. As I reached for it, a snake slithered onto the edge of the rock. My retreat lacked grace, and I ended up on my derriere in the weeds. I blinked to hold back tears of frustration. The sun was over the yardarm, whatever that was. The shadows from the trees covered the width of the water. The chirps and twitters had lost enthusiasm; the birds had either found mates or called it a day. Before much longer, they would call it a night.
Desperate situations call for ingenuity and immodesty. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my bare foot, then secured it with strategic tucks. It slid off after one step. Huffing with irritation, I took off my bra and secured my makeshift moccasin. I hobbled toward the first stile. I felt a few stabs of pain, but I forged ahead without pausing to examine the wounds. Bleeding to death was not a concern. Being caught in the dark was at the top of the list, along with snakebites, bats, and other wonders of Mother Nature.
I reached the stile and made it to the top. As I lifted my left foot to step over the barbed wire, I heard a sound that chilled my entrails. The blasted dog came racing down the path, barking its head off. It could not have done so with my shoe in its mouth. I cringed as it stopped at the bottom of the stile and assessed its chances of ripping me to shreds, as it surely had done to my shoe.
“Go away!” I shouted. “I’ve had enough of you! You’re a bad, bad dog!”
The bad, bad dog sat on its haunches and growled.
The only potential weapon I had was my remaining shoe, but it didn’t seem wise to sacrifice it. It did not seem wise to retreat down the stile, since the dog wasn’t hampered by the fence, nor did it seem wise to continue my minimal progress. I sat down on the top of the stile to try to think of something that seemed even the least
bit wise. Nothing came to mind except to outwait the dog, although its minute canine brain could take eons to determine we were at a stalemate: I wasn’t coming down, and if it tried to ascend the steps, I’d bash it on the head with my shoe. Or fist, I amended. When facing severe danger or deprivation, violence has a certain charm.
And so I sat for what seemed like a very long time. The dog had the audacity to relieve itself on the bottom step of the stile, staking out its territory. I watched Venus rise in the western sky. The dog snuffled and then plopped down in the stubble. I stayed on my perch and concocted recipes for such unknown delicacies as German Shepherd’s Pie and Hound Hash à la Florentine. This reminded me that I hadn’t worked out menus for lunch and dinner on Monday—with Peter’s mother. I was considering the possibility of sirloin burgers when I saw a flashlight in the field.
I made it to my feet. “Over here!” I yelled, abruptly aware of how dark it had become. The light bobbled as it came closer. “Be careful! There’s a vicious dog at the bottom of the stile!” I waved my arms but then dropped them when I realized the inanity of signaling in the dark. “The stile!” I repeated.
“Hold yer horses!”
To my dismay, I recognized the voice.
8
“This way, Deputy Norton,” I called, although I would have been more pleased to be rescued by anyone else in the county, including Billy’s mortality-challenged buddies. Had I hackles, they would have been sharper than porcupine quills. The beam of his flashlight hit my face. “It’s Claire Malloy,” I added as I squinted at the darkness.
“Yeah, I ran the plates on your car,” he said. “You’re trespassing on private property, so I’m gonna have to take you in. You might want to put on your clothes before we get to the department. Then again, maybe you like parading around half naked.”
I abruptly realized I was indeed half naked, since I was wearing my shirt on my right foot. I fumbled to untie my bra as the light moved forward. “Beware of the dog,” I said in a pathetic ploy to slow him down. At that moment, I could hear his smirk.
