“That right?” Pete disengaged from me and shucked off his coat. “Well, I hope you like chili, Burke, because it’s smelling good in here.”
Have I mentioned that I love my husband? He didn’t bat an eye, didn’t object to having a stranger in his house, didn’t make the kid uncomfortable with questions. Just took his presence for granted and pulled out a chair for himself at the table.
Tuppence scooted over to get her welcome-home ear scratching from Pete while I pulled the cornbread out of the oven and ladled up big bowls of chili from the Crock Pot.
We were saving the urgent questions for the person most qualified to ask them. The person I’d called earlier. Her knock sounded two seconds later, and she wasted no time in letting herself in, stamping her feet as though to leave the accompanying cold draft out on the porch.
My eyeballs just about popped out of my head, and I juggled a bowl of chili for a moment before relaying it safely to the table. In the first time in—well, in forever—Sheriff Marge was out of uniform.
In jeans and loafers. Loafers! With socks, of course, considering the temperature outside.
“You can scrape your jaw off the floor,” she muttered as she shrugged out of her parka, revealing a floral print blouse tucked under a nifty hunter-green cardigan. A cardigan!
She looked like a Land’s End catalog model. Well, except her stout, compact physique wasn’t exactly catwalk material. And her short, tufty, salt-and-pepper hair was in need of a combing, and her reading glasses were riding low on the end of her nose. At least those aspects of her appearance were normal.
Her hat! It suddenly dawned on me. That iconic feature of her regular ensemble was nowhere to be seen. What’s a sheriff without a Stratton hat?
A grandmother. That’s exactly what she looked like. And what she really is, in her personal life. And maybe, just maybe, that’s how she wanted Burke to view her, so he wouldn’t be intimidated by the khaki creases and the badge and the duty belt and the gun and the Taser and the radio clipped to her shoulder, as she was—almost perpetually—attired.
I finally found my voice. “Sour cream? Honey butter?”
Pete gave me a nod, his eyes twinkling madly but remaining characteristically silent. We were going to pretend this was normal, even though Sheriff Marge had just shocked our socks off. All for the sake of a lost boy.
CHAPTER 4
Sheriff Marge waited until the boy was slathering his second wedge of cornbread with honey butter and I’d refilled his bowl. He had hollow legs, surely.
“Now, Burke,” she said, “do I know your mother?”
How’s a kid supposed to answer that? But Burke shrugged and shook his head. “She’s dead,” he mumbled around a mouthful.
There you go. Simple.
“How about your dad?” Sheriff Marge patted her left chest, realized her notebook wasn’t in its customary pocket location, and returned to spinning her coffee mug in careful circles.
“Gone.”
She inched forward to the edge of her seat. A parentless child was a very serious incident in Sheriff Marge’s domain. “When did he leave?”
“August 23rd.”
My brows mirrored Sheriff Marge’s as they arched above her reading glasses. Nearly five months ago. And the boy was so precise in his answer.
“Have you been staying with relatives?” she asked in a softer tone.
But Burke shook his shaggy head again, seemingly oblivious to the concerned glances the adults were sharing across the table. “I can take care of myself. My dad taught me how.”
None of us completely believed that grandiose claim as we watched him wolf down the last of the cornbread and lick his sticky fingers. A kid this hungry and scraggly wasn’t being cared for by anyone.
But he did still have body and soul together five months later, if he was telling the truth. And that really was something.
Sheriff Marge rocked a little on her seat as though she was trying to find a level spot. Maybe because she was accustomed to sitting on all those lumps and bumps associated with her uniform. She wouldn’t know cushy if it hit her in the backside.
“Where’d he go?” Sheriff Marge asked.
I got up and pulled a scratch pad and pencil from the junk drawer nearest the door, hoping to relieve some of Sheriff Marge’s fidgety discomfort. She shot me a grateful glance as I slid them next to her elbow.
“Oil fields. Looking for work. Nothing around here,” the boy said with a shrug.
Meaning jobs? That was most likely true. Sockeye County wasn’t exactly a hotbed of ready employment. Or meaning oil? Then even more true. Nary a drop unless you counted what was in the barges and rail cars chugging their way down the Columbia River Gorge from their sources deeper in the interior.
“Bakken?” Sheriff Marge queried.
Burke shrugged again, surveying the dregs of our meal on the tabletop as though immensely disappointed.
I rose and snatched the cookie jar he’d dipped into earlier off the counter—and plunked it in front of him. There was no point in going through the niceties of arranging the cookies on a plate. All the better to keep him occupied so he’d continue answering Sheriff Marge’s questions.
“Or maybe Alberta,” he said, displaying a mouthful of partially masticated oats. Clearly, table manners hadn’t been on the syllabus of survival techniques passed from father to son.
“You hear from him since he left?” Sheriff Marge continued prodding.
“Don’t have a phone.” Burke shook his hair out of his eyes and angled his arm inside the jar for another cookie.
“Where did you live with your dad?”
Burke stopped chewing for a moment, his lean face tight as he picked at a dried cranberry embedded in the new cookie. “Up on Gifford Mountain. Got a cabin up there,” he mumbled. The suspect cranberry proved not to be a deterrent, and he crammed the whole thing in his mouth.
It was the second time that day I’d heard the name of that particular mountain. I’m still relatively new to the area, and there are a lot of mountains, hills, ridges, valleys, gulches, waterfalls, lakes, etcetera. Most seem to be named for some pioneering explorer who stuck it out the longest in a particular spot. I had some difficulty in telling one of the many layered greenish-to-bluish bumps on the horizon from another and no idea exactly where Gifford Mountain was.
Some distance, gauging from Sheriff Marge’s reaction. The brows shot up again behind the reading glasses. “So what are your plans?” she asked.
As though Burke was an adult with full agency. My head swiveled back to view the small boy with his arm buried to the elbow in the cookie jar.
Those scrawny little shoulders shrugged again under the ratty T-shirt. “Hop a rail,” he said matter-of-factly. But then he winced, ever so slightly, and those mesmerizing blue-green eyes shifted around our ring of concerned faces. “There hasn’t been much in the traps lately. Figured my dad must have some money by now. I’ll find him.”
“I can do you one better,” Sheriff Marge announced after a hefty sigh. She patted her left chest again, then ran her hands up and down her thighs under the table. I suspected she was feeling rather naked without all the accoutrements of her profession attached to her person. And she is, after all, a woman of action.
“You tell me his name, and I’ll make some calls, see if we can locate him. Pete and Meredith here will put you up for a few days until I get the goods. Fair?”
I was staring at her like she must be daft.
But Burke was staring into the empty cookie jar. “Okay,” he mumbled, his disappointed voice bouncing forlornly off the glazed ceramic surface.
oOo
The cook doesn’t clean. It’s a principle Pete had insisted upon and faithfully abided by in our new domestic arrangements. Unless he was the cook. Then he held a double standard. Have I mentioned lately that I’m spoiled?
He’d stacked the dirty dishes, scooped them into Burke’s arms, and pointed the boy toward the sink. Apparently our guest was g
oing to be doing a little work for his room and board, and I suspected a healthy education in soap and water and scrub brushes was occurring in my warm kitchen.
While I shivered out on the porch, the kitchen door shut firmly behind me. “What was that?” I hissed.
“Most of Gifford Mountain is government land,” Sheriff Marge replied, huffing as she zipped her parka to her chin. “If they have a cabin up there, it isn’t sanctioned with building permits or a property deed. Off-gridders, most likely, hoping no one would notice them, barely existing. People who want to live that far out usually come with massive chips on their shoulders, too.”
So far, her explanation wasn’t helping. I hugged myself tighter and ground my teeth together to keep them from chattering. A cacophony of clinking sounds tinkled on the metal overhanging porch roof. Not plopping, not splattering. Clinking. The percussive music would’ve produced a merry ambiance under other circumstances, but there were tiny frozen shards of ice in that rain.
“Which means I expect Burke’s dad to be in the system,” Sheriff Marge continued. “There’ll be something—a drunk and disorderly, a disturbing the peace, maybe a misdemeanor theft or trespassing. Something. I’ll put in some requests in North Dakota and points along the way, see if we get any hits.”
“Surely you can’t send the boy off to live with a father who neglects him so terribly? He’s practically starving.”
“No,” she sighed. “But I don’t want him disappearing again. If I can find the father, demonstrate that he’s not fit to care for Burke, then we can move to the next step.” Her steely gray eyes peered at me from under the brim of her fur-rimmed hood. “Maybe he’ll learn to like living here, and we can convince him to stay. You and Pete would make terrific foster parents.”
By the time I’d found my voice, she was off the steps and trotting toward her SUV with the sheriff’s logo emblazoned on the side.
oOo
What do you do with a stray boy who might disappear again of his own accord, who has no money, no means of support, and an unfounded sense of self-sufficiency? Pete and I decided that I would take him to work with me.
Pete couldn’t have Burke on a working tug. The kid’s physical safety amongst the machinery was the primary reason. Pete’s liability insurance would certainly rule out carrying such a young passenger. We also didn’t know if Burke could swim, not that swimming ability would make much difference if a scrawny child fell into the churning Columbia in January. He’d be gone in an instant, life jacket or not.
The Imogene Museum had the predominant benefit of being on dry land. Well, dry was a relative term, but the old girl was a substantial fortress against the howling wind and clattering mixture of sleet, freezing rain, and plain old rain we were being plastered with.
And boring, I feared, for an eleven-year-old accustomed to roughing it. Her dusty halls and echoing rooms held a lot of enticement for me, but I could hardly expect my enthusiasm would rub off on the youngster.
I still found it difficult to believe Burke’s claim that he was eleven. If it was true, he was hiding it well in a body more the size of a malnourished eight-year-old. Then again, as far as Sheriff Marge or Pete or I could tell, he hadn’t lied about anything. And if I kept him close throughout the day, maybe he’d inadvertently reveal more about his past in a way that might help us secure his future.
So he was perched on my pickup’s bench seat, way at the other end against the passenger door, all awkwardly angled skinny limbs and a blank expression of pure disinterest on his scrubbed face.
Because there had been some bathtub time the night before as well. Pete had ordered it, in a tone and with a manner I’d never witnessed from him before. And Burke had complied, without complaint or objection, splashing sedately behind the closed bathroom door for a good twenty minutes before emerging in a state that pretty much passed my inspection.
The whole dynamic between Pete and Burke was magic, and my estimation of Pete went up even more, if that was possible. I thought maybe Burke had been missing the considered guidance that is so aptly supplied by a responsible and measured adult male. Of course, Pete had been in the Navy, and perhaps he was accustomed to giving orders. Not to me—I’d never felt that way, but…new facets. Hmmm.
“So, we’re sorting in the basement today,” I finished explaining, glancing again at the melancholic boy beside me as the windshield wipers squeaked across the glass.
And then I remembered the pinup girl in the basement. The really provocative, intricately alluring pinup girl in fishnet stockings and feather boa. And I gulped, suddenly empathizing madly with Sheriff Marge’s earlier objections. Try explaining that to an eleven-year-old boy. Rats. Rats. Rats.
I didn’t know how long ago Burke’s mother had died, but even if he’d been raised with females around, it was unlikely he’d ever seen that particular degree of femaleness in a normal, propriety-observing household. Not that he’d had that either, necessarily. But still…
Jim Carter was my saving grace. He had his pickup and trailer backed up over the curb and sidewalk to within inches of the double glass doors of the Imogene’s entrance. Frankie had propped the doors open for him, and he was busy unloading stacks of folding chairs with a hand truck.
After I parked, and we’d hopped out of my truck, I plagiarized from Pete’s playbook and suggested that Burke could help Mr. Carter with the very manly activity of heavy lifting. And Jim took it in stride, jutting his chin toward the open door to his pickup’s cab. “Grab those rags, will you? We’re going to have to wipe these chairs down once we get them inside. Dripping all over the parquet,” he grumbled.
Burke scrambled to comply, and I stood there in awe, in the pouring rain. Why was it so easy? The kid was eager to please. And God bless crotchety Jim Carter. But was it too easy?
Frankie appeared at my elbow with an arm draped ineffectually over her helmet hair, trying to protect it from the onslaught of frigid moisture. “I’d ask if he’s your nephew, but I know he’s not.” Her perfectly sculpted brows were riding high on her forehead.
“I’ll explain,” I whispered back, “but first things first…” I held up an apologetic finger as we hurried around the trailer’s ramp. “Give me ten? And keep the boy up here until I get back?” I made a beeline for the stairs to the basement, my shoes squelching on the glossy oak parquet floor Jim was so gruffly concerned about.
Once I had the revealing marquee draped with two old painter’s canvas cloths and a moth-eaten rug, I trotted back up the stairs and followed the wet tracks to a back hallway that was stacked to the gills with a few hundred folding chairs.
“This will be out of the way,” Frankie burbled, clipboard propped against her hip. “We can cordon off this section, and visitors can still access the taxidermy room if they go around through the Victorian costume display first.”
“You’re the woman with the plan,” I agreed.
“Got another two loads to get the rest of the tables in,” Jim grunted, and checked his watch. “We’ll be pushing it.” He clumped off at an urgent pace toward the ballroom and his empty trailer beyond.
The goal was to have all the unloading completed before the museum opened at ten a.m. and Frankie was chewing her lip while squinting at the diagram with squiggles on her clipboard.
I patted her shoulder. “How much do you want to bet we have no more than a dozen visitors today, and none of them show up until after lunch? It’s January, and it’s raining,” I reminded her, trying to be reassuring.
“I know.” She blew out a deep breath and turned her attention to the small boy who was shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot. “Who’s this?”
I figured an eleven-year-old could speak for himself. But it seemed two steady gazes on him were too heavy for his thin neck. His head dipped, and he stubbed his toe against the pile of rags waiting expectantly to be put to use.
“Burke Brightbill, ma’am,” he said softly.
“Burke,” she repeated. “Is that like James Lee Burke?”
A tentative smile appeared on his face, and he glanced at her from under his lashes. His sudden shyness was just about killing me. “Might be. My dad has read a bunch of those.”
“Me too,” announced Frankie, inexplicably surprising me yet again. But I shouldn’t have been. I knew from experience that she was certainly one for adventure—both the fictional and real-life varieties, apparently.
“Well now, Burke,” said Frankie, taking charge. “Once you have this floor mopped up, I think I could rustle up some hot chocolate in our kitchen. Not the fancy stuff, just from a packet, but does that sound like a fair deal?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Burke was already on his knees, swabbing the rags over the water-splattered floor.
I followed Frankie into her own personal domain—the gift shop that was located in what had been the mansion’s ladies’ cloakroom just off the front entrance.
She whirled around and flashed a tentative, quizzical smile at me. “So, is there some indiscretion in your past that I need to know about?” Uncertain merriment danced behind her light-brown eyes.
I chuckled. “Not that kind. Burke’s not mine. Or Pete’s,” I added as an afterthought. But then I sobered, remembering Sheriff Marge’s foster parenting poke—prod, nudge, direct order? It’d been much more than a suggestion, coming from her—one I wasn’t prepared to think about at the moment.
So I quickly filled Frankie in on the excitement of the past afternoon and evening. Her brows rose in increasing increments and her mouth formed into a perfect O as I proceeded.
“That poor child,” she murmured when I’d finished, shaking her shellacked hair.
“While it feels like child labor, I do think it’d be a good idea to keep him occupied today.”
She was already nodding. “No reason he can’t be part of things. I expect he’ll appreciate feeling useful. We’re all working.” She glanced at her clipboard again, and I took that as a cue to get my own rear in gear.
Stray Narrow (An Imogene Museum Mystery Book 7) Page 3
