I released a watery chuckle. “Current evidence suggests otherwise.”
“Temporary and passing, but that’s why you have me.” His words were muffled against my neck, and I took solace in his embrace.
oOo
That little pale face was killing me. So far, I’d managed not to shed a tear, but my eyes were brimming again, for about the hundredth time since Pete and I had somberly laid out the facts as we knew them at the breakfast table.
I decided more coffee was in order and quickly rose to lean over the sink and stare out the window at a frosted winter wonderland for a minute.
Burke looked even smaller than he had when huddled under the duvet in the trailer. A wisp of a boy who just might vanish altogether. Which was one of the main things I was worried about. That he’d flee—again—before his grief could settle into place.
What place that was, I didn’t know. But in my experience, grief often feels like an anchor, and I was hoping—weird term, I know—that Burke’s grief would somehow anchor him in Platts Landing, with Pete and me. Willingly, though—not under duress.
Burke hadn’t cried either—or spoken. We were all valiantly dry-eyed. But he was absolutely stricken, sitting with his hands tucked under his thighs, the toes of his sneakers not quite dragging on the floor from the height of the chair seat, his pointed little chin just an inch above the tabletop.
I slid a fresh mug in front of Pete and cradled my own as I perched my fanny back on the warm seat I’d just left. It was disconcerting, that little surge of warmth, and I shifted on the hard surface.
Burke shuddered, deep and involuntary, the spasm racking his entire body. I took a chance and touched him for the first time since we’d broken the news, a soft hand on his shoulder. He flinched, but neither of us pulled away. He was so very skinny under the thin T-shirt and way-too-large wool sweater we’d scrounged for him.
“We’ll go into the museum today,” I said quietly. He’d enjoyed being in the museum the day before, and sticking to a routine seemed advisable—what little we could cobble together at the moment. “There’s a lot of work to do,” I added hopefully. I appreciate the chance to work when I’m in emotional distress, and I wondered if rigorous physical activity would have the same soothing effect on a child.
Burke just nodded mutely and kicked at the table leg. Pete rose to clear the dirty dishes and shared a glance with me, his expression strained and solemn, the lines around his gorgeous eyes etched deeply.
Tuppence was a last-minute addition to our party. She’d tagged along as Burke and I carried our insulated lunch bags out to the pickup, and when I opened the passenger door for Burke, she followed him right on up to the bench seat. He had to scoot over to make room for her since she always insists on riding shotgun and her gangly seventy pounds takes up a lot of space.
I shook my head, marveling at the intuition of dogs. Normally, I don’t take Tuppence to work with me. Dogs in public institutions are generally taboo, and she usually enjoys the chance to wander the campground, sticking her nose into gopher holes and patrolling the perimeter. But today she clearly had an agenda. Besides, she’s well-mannered around people and not too stinky. Burke needed all the loving he could get, and if it happened to come with four legs and long floppy ears and mild halitosis, so much the better.
Frankie knew. I’d sent her a text so we wouldn’t have to speak about the situation in front of Burke. I’d also texted Rupert, who had grudgingly admitted that he ought to remain quarantined at home since his virulent head cold had progressed to the messy, splattery stage. He gave me carte blanche with regard to Burke’s presence in the museum, just as he did with everything else. Frankly, he was the most lenient boss in the world.
CHAPTER 7
The morning was full of more potential exhibit sorting, so we camped out in my office. Even within the confined space, Burke stuck to me like a tenacious shadow—helpful, somber, never making a fuss, but remaining steadfastly within arm’s reach. I desperately wanted to pull him into a hug and squeeze him—to somehow force all the pain away. But he was as skittish as he was clingy, and I didn’t want to thrust invasive physical contact on him without permission. We still didn’t know what his background was, what his past contact with adults had been flavored with—goodness, kindness, or evil?
He missed his dad, though—there was no question about that.
Shortly before lunch, I attempted a commiserating form of therapy. At least, I hoped revealing my own past pain would be of help to Burke. “My dad’s dead too,” I mentioned as I tapped police reports into folders by date. We were sitting cross-legged on the floor, dusty artifacts piled around us in concentric circles. “He died when I was four. But he’d been gone for a while before that.” I didn’t see the need to euphemize for Burke, so I added, “From drugs. He overdosed.”
Burke shnuffled—from dust or allergies or a blossoming head cold of his own or grief, I couldn’t tell. “I kinda knew,” he replied so quietly I barely heard him. “My dad wouldn’t leave me for so long unless something bad had happened.”
Factual acknowledgment. Was that progress along the grief spectrum? But I had to seize the opportunity while it was sitting there in the silence between us. “Had he left you alone before?” I asked in as gentle of a tone as I could muster.
Burke nodded. “We practiced a few times. He had to go out hunting anyway. So I held the fort, and marked the days off on the calendar for him.” The tiniest flicker of a smile swept across his face before those huge, somber eyes regained dominance. “He said I was good at it.”
I grinned back at him. “What does that mean, holding the fort? Sounds like you’d need a musket and a powder horn. Any Redcoats around?”
I’d been trying to lighten the tone just a bit, hoping to set him at ease—and to test his knowledge of American history at the same time, multitasking at its finest—but he answered with the utmost sincerity.
“Just drowsy black bears usually, and sometimes a cougar. The little creatures wouldn’t stick around if they saw me, except this one big raccoon that I made friends with.” Again, his face was brightening. “We had some honey in the cabin, and I’d smear a little on a stick. He’d lick it right off then wash his face over and over again like he had a germ phobia.”
Chuckles. I could hardly believe my ears. The little guy beside me was chuckling jerkily in short hiccups, as though his skill in the expression of mirth was rusty and he didn’t really know how to do it. I couldn’t help but join in.
“I’ve never had that kind of encounter with a raccoon, but Tuppence here”—I pointed at the hound who’d wedged herself under my desk for lack of snoozing space anywhere else—“met a cranky skunk once. We both reeked for days after that.”
Burke’s face crinkled with distaste. “Oh yeah. I stay away from them,” said the young voice of experience. “But if you shoot them right between the eyes, then you might not get any scent on you. You still have to be careful when you skin them, though.”
That entire set of facts was news to me, and I squinted at Burke out of the corner of my eye, still keeping my hands busy with paper shuffling. It was difficult not imagining the recoil of a rifle slamming his frail body to the ground. Was he a marksman at the tender age of eleven? It wasn’t unusual in these parts, actually, for kids to learn how to shoot—out of necessity, for self-protection in the woods, and often simply because the rest of their family members already knew how. Shooting in Sockeye County was kind of like riding a bike anywhere else. It was the odd person out—including me—who wasn’t proficient in that basic life skill.
The afternoon was spent in preparation for the wedding reception. We trooped downstairs to help Frankie tackle the myriad tasks on her to-do list. And Frankie pressed Burke—sensitively and gently, in a way I hadn’t yet—by sending him on errands throughout the museum, testing the strength of those tethers he’d seemed to be holding so closely.
He adapted immediately to her requests, darting into the Imogene’s nooks and crannies to fe
tch things or count things or scout for and consolidate all the assorted accoutrements she needed, Tuppence hard on his heels with a degree of canine eagerness and tail jauntiness I hadn’t seen from her in a long time. Frankie gave Burke a safety whistle from among the gift shop’s various logo-ed trinkets in case he should get lost in the sprawling mansion. It’s amazing what kinds of items can be custom screen-printed, and I was pretty sure Frankie had special-ordered all of them to round out the selection of enticing mementos in the shop.
The Imogene is a great labyrinth of public spaces and even more convoluted private back hallways and former servant stairwells, including, even, a multistory laundry chute that’s equipped with climbing handholds and footholds for the more adventurous explorer. One of the great perks of having an experimental architect at the helm back in the day when building codes were far more lenient.
I hoped the mansion’s idiosyncrasies would delight Burke, as they should any curious, energetic child—any normal child who wasn’t grieving. It was what the Imogene had been built for—even though her original purpose hadn’t been truly fulfilled—the housing of boisterous children and their extended family.
It’s easy to forget the old girl had been a house—with all the usual trappings of high-class domestic life—before she became a cultural institution, but Frankie was taking full advantage of that fact, tapping into the Imogene’s stores of vases, table linens, even some fancy silver serving pieces and candelabra, for the wedding reception. A wealth of riches.
Tired but uncomplaining, dirty with a degree of compacted grime that would require a long soak in the tub, and a stomach that had recently resumed growling audibly to remind everyone nearby of his nutritional needs, Burke was also obliging me by washing up in the men’s room again, enabling me to sneak in another phone call to Sheriff Marge for my daily update.
“Sorry,” she grunted, the regret and resignation deep but muffled in her sigh. “Had an emergency out on the far side of Lupine. Except it wasn’t, but we didn’t know that until the contractors showed up to resume work.”
“Huh?” I said.
A car door slammed, and the sound quality of the call jumped up a significant notch. She must’ve just hoisted herself into the driver’s seat of her snazzy new police command vehicle, shutting out the dull thumping cacophony that had been in the background. It had sounded like jackhammers. How well I knew that headache-inducing aural assault.
“It’d be funny, except it’s not. Wasted an entire day.” Sheriff Marge wheezed a bit—a sort of gruff air expulsion that I knew from experience was accompanied by a series of jiggling ripples that radiated out from her Kevlar-coated core. It made me grin, just thinking about it, and I felt tension I didn’t know I’d stockpiled ease out of my own shoulders.
“Do you know Ira Cupples?” Sheriff Marge continued.
“The only Cupples I know is Bernice.” I gritted my teeth against the memory of that overbearing harridan—the one I avoided assiduously, the one who appointed herself dictator of Sockeye County’s woeful historical society and held the title with a tenacity and subtlety befitting Imelda Marcos.
“Her father-in-law.” Sheriff Marge made the connection for me. “He lives with Bernice and Junior. Has dementia, which has been getting rapidly worse, apparently. About two months ago, I had to take away his driver’s license. He told me in no uncertain terms what he thought of me for doing that. If I didn’t know better I’d think Bernice was his blood relative instead of just married in. Those two have exactly the same temperament.”
The idea of two such human scourges operating in my vicinity gave me shudders.
Sheriff Marge’s voice returned to its usual weary gruffness. “But today he didn’t recognize me. Still remembered how to dial 911 though. And how to wave a shotgun around. Didn’t remember to put shells in it, but there was no way we could tell that from fifty yards away.”
“Are you telling me you had a standoff with Mr. Cupples?” I asked quietly.
“Oh yeah,” she sighed. “Full response. All my deputies and me, with three state troopers and about half of Klickitat County’s deputies assisting. All for a nut case with a shotgun who forgot that his daughter-in-law was having some renovations done to their old shed. So she can finally display the—and I quote directly from her recent irate phone call—priceless historical artifacts so indicative of our county’s rich and varied history.”
I groaned straight into the phone. “Which means her minions finally told her to shove it, and she has to do her own hard work.”
“I got no comment on that,” Sheriff Marge stated wryly.
“I still don’t really understand,” I replied. “Mr. Cupples called you and then he wanted to take a potshot at you?”
“Pretty much. He was under the delusion the place had been robbed, due to the construction crew having moved junk out of the way in order to begin work. Frankly, there’s nothing in that shed worth stealing, but any change seems to upset Ira. So he was out there defending a pile of trash from unknown thieves, and then he forgot how to tell the difference between cops and robbers when we arrived.”
“How’d you, um, disarm him? I mean it’s over, right?” My tongue stumbled over the scenario that was still disjointed in my imagination. If there was one job in Sockeye County I didn’t want, it was Sheriff Marge’s. “Peaceful resolution?”
“He fell asleep. Sat down on a bale of hay and slumped over to his left side. Initially we thought maybe he’d had a stroke. But nope. Just exhausted from all the excitement—excitement of his own creation, I should point out.”
I had no words. Should I offer condolences? To whom? For what, exactly? My main thought was that I was glad I’d had no part in that situation. But then the door of the men’s room swished open, and I remembered that I had a different problem on my hands—a little boy’s broken heart.
“So that means you weren’t able to pursue those leads you had in mind today?” I asked quietly as Burke shuffled up to me.
Sheriff Marge’s tone immediately resumed officialdom. Somehow she knew I had an observer on my end. “Correct. Tomorrow, I promise. I’m going to tell the emergency dispatchers to double-filter any requests before they pass them through, and we’ll all go out to Gifford Mountain. Dale’s recruited a few old-timers who know the area well and are willing to help supplement our search party.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“We’ll get some answers, Meredith,” Sheriff Marge promised before she hung up.
CHAPTER 8
It was a sound I’d never heard before. My eyes flew open in the dark, and I held my breath, straining to hear a repeat of the soft whimper. Had I been dreaming?
Beside me, Pete was breathing evenly and deeply, one arm crooked under his head and the other slung across my belly—a warm and comforting weight.
We live out in the country, and there are all kinds of nocturnal noises, usually from rambling creatures foraging for food or fighting or mating. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between those activities just from the sounds the animals make. But this noise had come from inside the house, I was pretty sure.
But not sure enough to wake Pete—just yet.
The next time the whimper came, it extended into a short but muffled keening, high-pitched and young. Very young.
I sat bolt upright and swished my hand over the covers, searching for the satin edge of my robe. I was halfway down the hallway before I managed to find the armholes, but then I stood panting and still in front of Burke’s closed door, afraid of scaring him further by barging in. Maybe he was just disoriented from partially waking in an unfamiliar room.
Tuppence’s nails clicked on the wooden stairs as she trotted to join me. Her rough fur prickling against my bare leg offered the solidity of companionship. Then she sat on my foot and whined.
All was silent again on the other side of the door. “I don’t know,” I whispered down to her. “What should I do?”
I heard the mattress in our ro
om creak as Pete sat up, then a muted thump as a foot or two hit the floor. “Babe?” he called softly.
I had my mouth open to whisper a reply when the keening started eerily again. Burke wasn’t fully awake. He couldn’t be. The noise was far too incoherent—a soul-piercing form of terrified.
I quickly turned the knob and eased the door open. “Burke? Burke, honey, it’s Meredith. I’m coming in.” I had no idea if he was afraid of monsters under the bed or any of the other pernicious childhood myths that seem so deeply embedded in their fertile imaginations.
He was a curled lump under the covers, only his face visible in the small crack of moonlight that crept around the edge of the window shade. His eyes were open but unseeing, and his mouth was stretched in an agonized grimace. The unearthly keening continued and was just about my undoing. It seemed he was completely unaware of my presence.
I scooted onto the bed beside him and gathered him up in my arms, quilts and all. I tucked his head under my chin and started rocking, holding him for all I was worth.
The hall light clicked on, and Pete’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. “Babe?”
“I don’t know what to do,” I whimpered, still rocking.
Pete came in and placed a heavy hand on Burke’s head, studying the boy’s face in the dim light. “He’ll come around. Let’s try food.” And with that, he bent and lifted Burke from my lap, cradling him up against his chest.
I preceded Pete and his precious cargo down to the kitchen, turning on more lights as I went. Then I swished around, starting the coffeemaker and rummaging in the fridge for anything that might tempt a hungry boy.
But it was Tuppence who successfully nudged Burke out of his waking nightmare. As soon as Pete had sat down, she’d placed her front paws on the edge of his chair and stretched to stick her nose right into the middle of the bundled quilts that encased Burke in his arms. And sneezed. And snorted. Then sneezed some more. Messy, splatty sneezes that make you feel as though you need to take a shower after you’ve been blessed with one.
Stray Narrow (An Imogene Museum Mystery Book 7) Page 5
