by Jessica Beck
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I said with a smile.
“For what it’s worth, I’d still be honored to have dinner with you. Tell you what. Why don’t we go back to the Iron, and I’ll make something for you for a change?”
“As much as I appreciate the gesture, would it be okay with you if I cooked instead?” I loved my brother dearly, but I was in no hurry to sample his food again any time soon.
“It would be a great deal more than okay, as far as I’m concerned,” he said with a grin. “Can we still have that pork roast you were talking about? Ever since you mentioned it, I’ve been trying not to drool on my chin.”
“Why not?” I asked with a laugh.
He started to walk out of the store when I stopped him. “What about your wiper blades?”
“What? Oh. I don’t know the right size I need. I’ll have to come back when I’m driving.”
I looked at him skeptically, but I decided not to push it. After all, it wouldn’t be fair to point out that his excuse to leave me alone to deal with Timothy had been for my benefit and not his.
It was a pleasant late afternoon, and I enjoyed the walk back to the Iron with my brother. Thankfully no one was waiting for us when we got there, but I didn’t like the look of that bloody handprint that was still on the door. The blood had darkened somewhat and now looked crimson. “Pat, if you’ll clean that up with some ammonia window cleaner, I’ll get things started for our supper.”
“Tell you what. Let me watch you prepare the pork roast, and then I’ll clean the window when you put it in the oven. Is that a deal?”
“Since when did you take so much interest in my cooking?”
“What if you’re gone sometime and I have to fend for myself or, worse yet, run the grill in your place?” he asked me.
“Me? Where would I go?” I asked him.
“Who knows? You might want to take a trip someday.”
“Not alone I won’t, and the prospect of going with anyone else seems farfetched at the moment,” I answered.
“Do you mind an audience while you cook?” he asked again. “If you don’t want me hovering around, I understand completely.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re more than welcome to watch.”
We walked inside together, and I noticed that Pat was careful to lock the door behind us. Flipping on a few lights, we made our way back to the grill. I took out one of my favorite Dutch ovens and put it on the counter. Preheating the oven to 325 degrees F, I took out a two-pound roast and put it on one of my cutting boards reserved for meat only. Taking a sharp knife, I cut diagonal diamonds on the fat side, piercing the thin layer with two-inch-deep cuts about the same distance from each other. Taking some of the sauce I loved, I rubbed it into the top, being sure to get sauce into the crevasses I’d created. “Normally I’d let this marinate for four or five hours, but I think we’ll be fine if we go ahead and pop it straight into the oven. Besides, you don’t want to wait until midnight to eat, do you?”
“Not with our schedule set for getting up bright and early tomorrow,” Pat said from a barstool across from where I was working.
“I didn’t think so,” I answered with a smile. Taking out another knife and a clean cutting board, I prepped an onion, slicing it horizontally to make rings from it, peeled and chopped large chunks of carrots, and then quartered a few medium-sized potatoes. “Does that look like enough vegetables for you?” I asked him.
“Aren’t you having any?” he asked me with a grin.
I added another potato, a few more carrots, and one more onion, and then I spread them out on the bottom of the Dutch oven. After that, I poured in about a cup of beef broth and then added the pork roast last.
“Why beef broth for cooking pork?” Pat asked.
“Just about any liquid will do,” I said. “There’s something about the beef broth as it steams that I like, though I’ve used water in the past, wine, and even some hard cider once.”
“How was that?” he asked me.
“Not good enough to justify giving up the hard cider,” I told him with a grin as I covered the lid. The oven reached its temperature, and I put the cast iron pot inside and then set my timer for an hour and forty-five minutes.
Pat must have seen the setting. “Do we really have to wait that long?”
“Well, we might be able to get away with just an hour, but I don’t like to take any chances with pork. I know the government has come out saying that an internal temperature of 145 degrees F is enough, but I like mine to be at least 160. If you’re feeling lucky, though, we can always roll the dice.”
“No, your way sounds fine to me,” he said. “Is that all there is to it?”
“Pat, I don’t make magic back here. Most of the work is done by the oven and the cast iron.”
“I don’t know. That seemed pretty labor intensive to me.”
“Trust me, it’s not. This is one of the easiest meals I make.”
“Then why don’t you serve it more often?” he asked me.
“Mostly because of the high price of those roasts. If I could get a bargain like I did on these, I’d make this all the time. Now, what do we do in the meantime?”
“I’ve got a window to clean, remember?” he asked with a grin.
“I don’t mind doing it, if you’d rather not.”
“No thanks. A deal is a deal. You cooked, so the least I can do is clean the window.”
“I’ll at least keep you company,” I said.
We walked out together, and Pat had the glass shining again in no time. “There. It looks as good as new, doesn’t it? That was easy enough. It still leaves us with an hour and a half to kill, though,” he said.
“Maybe we should come up with a different expression, given the circumstances.”
“What circumstances are those, exactly? We don’t have a body, and the only eyewitness’s account is a bit shaky, and that’s putting it lightly. If she really saw Bones in that hole, then what happened to him? Did someone drag him away, or did he crawl?” Pat asked.
“Did the way that grass and those weeds were bent look as though he could have crawled away under his own power?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. All I can say for sure is that he was nowhere around that dig site when we checked it out.”
“I wonder if Kathleen’s deputies found anything that we missed,” I said.
Pat frowned before he spoke. “We both know that we won’t hear a word about it, even if they did. Unless.”
“Unless what?”
“Why don’t we invite Kathleen to join us for dinner?” he suggested. “There’s enough to share, isn’t there?”
“We could feed six people, if we had to, based on how many vegetables I put in that pot,” I conceded.
“You’re right. That gives me an even better idea. We could invite her, and the three college kids, too. After all, they have to eat something, don’t they?”
“Pat, do you honestly believe that Kathleen is going to fall for that?”
“The only way to find out is to ask her,” he said with his most impish grin.
Why not? What could it hurt to at least make the offer? If she declined, then at least we’d tried to do something constructive. And if she said yes, we might end up getting more out of those students than anyone could expect. “There’s just one problem with your idea,” I told him.
“What’s that?”
“If we succeed, there won’t be any seconds, let alone leftovers.”
Pat pretended to ponder that for a full ten seconds before he finally shrugged. “If it helps our investigation, then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“Wow, now I know that you’re serious,” I told him as I picked up my cellphone and made the call.
To my surprise, Kathleen agreed to the plan almost immediately, whether it was because of what I was offering or because it gave her an opportunity to extend her examination of these kids.
Either way, it looked as though Pat a
nd I hadn’t been completely cut out of her investigation after all, and Timothy’s refusal to have dinner with me had made that possible in the first place. If I was being mature about it, I’d thank him someday.
Just not today.
CHAPTER 10: PAT
“We need to come up with a plan before everyone gets here,” I told Annie after she got off the phone with our older sister.
“I thought that after everyone got here, we’d eat, and then we’d have ourselves a nice little chat,” she said.
“Don’t you think we need to come up with something better than that?”
“Pat, Kathleen has been grilling them for over an hour. Do you really think we should hit them with more questions of our own? Not only will it possibly infuriate our big sister, but the kids are going to resent it as well. On the other hand, if we keep it loose and unrehearsed, we might just be able to learn something new.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“That’s what I like I about you. You’re not afraid to admit when you’re wrong.”
“I never said that I was wrong,” I corrected her.
“Wasn’t it implied? Anyway, we have a little time to kill before everyone gets here. Should we make dessert, too?”
“Do you have time to make a pineapple upside down cake?” I asked her. It was my favorite dessert in the world, and not just because Annie used a cast iron skillet to bake it in. I loved just about everything about it, including the warm pineapple slices and maraschino cherries on top.
“There should be if I get busy on it right away,” she said.
As Annie started assembling the ingredients, I asked her, “Should I call the hospital and see if Peggy is still there, or should we just wait and ask Kathleen about her when she gets here?”
“I don’t know. It might be awkward to ask with her friends there. Why don’t you make the call, and I’ll finish this up?”
“Sounds like a good division of labor to me,” I said with a grin. “I’ll trade a phone call for some of your pineapple upside down cake any day of the week.”
I came back into the Iron ten minutes later after going out onto the front porch to make my call. Sometimes I got better reception out there, but this evening it had been a little sketchy even there. The cell phone industry liked to claim that there was coverage everywhere civilization ruled, but there were times when I couldn’t even get a signal upstairs in my bedroom. Oddly enough, there were other instances when I had as many as two bars on my phone. I didn’t understand it, and no one I’d ever asked had been able to explain it to my satisfaction.
“Did you have any luck?” she asked me.
“They’re keeping her overnight,” I said.
“Why? Was she hurt after all, or is she really in shock?”
“That I couldn’t find out,” I answered with a shrug. “But if you ask me, I’ve got a hunch our big sister has something to do with it. I’m sure she doesn’t want her only witness to what might have been a murder disappearing on her.”
“Would she really do something like that?”
“I’m sure she believes she’s helping Peggy at the same time, but don’t kid yourself. Right now, that girl is the only one who believes without hesitation that Bones is really dead.”
“Well, I’ve got to say, if it’s a practical joke, it’s in pretty horrific taste,” Annie said.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just wondering if he was unconscious when Peggy found him, but soon after she left, he managed to get away from the site altogether.”
“Why hasn’t he asked anyone for help if that’s what happened?” she asked me.
“Well, someone did just try to kill him, and they failed through no fault of their own, apparently. Wouldn’t that make you reluctant to show yourself if it were you?”
“I suppose so,” she said. “Maybe I should run home and have a look around before everyone gets here.”
I sniffed the air, and I could tell that the roast, as well as the cake, was close to being ready to take out of the oven. “Is that really a very good idea?”
“You can handle things here. Just take everything out when it’s ready,” she said.
“Why the sudden urge to go home?” I asked her.
“What if Bones woke up and somehow managed to stumble to the nearest house? Where would he go?”
“Your place,” I said. I glanced at my watch. “Let’s roll. We’ve got twenty-five minutes before Kathleen shows up. How much time is left on the oven timer?”
“Everything should be finished in around ten minutes.”
“Then we wait together and pull everything out of the oven, and then we rush over to your place,” I said.
“Pat, it’s not going to work. We don’t have time to get there and back. Just let me go now.”
“Annie, it’s not going to happen. You’re not going to your place without an escort.”
“Then I suppose you can go, too, but I don’t know why you’re so afraid to do a simple task here.”
“Sis, we both know that timing on when something is done is highly subjective, especially with cast iron. You’ve had a lot more practice with it than I have. But that’s not the real reason. Neither one of us needs to go someplace that secluded alone. If Bones really does need help, then he’s going to need more than we can give him. We should just call Kathleen, tell her what we’re thinking, and then let her check it out herself.”
“Why so timid all of a sudden, Pat?” she asked me. “You aren’t losing your nerve, are you?”
“You bet I am,” I said without hesitation. “That’s the best way to stay alive, as far as I’m concerned.”
Annie hesitated for a full five seconds before she spoke again. “What if he’s at my cabin, and he’s gravely injured? Any delay may cost him his life. Do you honestly want that hanging over your head for the rest of your life while we try to get ahold of our big sister?”
“That’s why I want to tell Kathleen,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I think we should call her now.”
“Go on,” Annie said, “but don’t go outside, okay? I’d like to at least hear your end of the conversation when you make the call. Besides, I bet I get better reception in here than you do out on the porch.”
“It wouldn’t take much,” I said as I dialed Kathleen’s number.
“We’re on our way, Pat, so don’t you dare cancel on me at the last minute,” our older sister said.
“We wouldn’t think of it,” I said. “Annie and I have been talking, and there’s something we wanted to ask you.”
“I can’t really talk right now,” she said.
“Are you still with the kids? How’s that going?”
“Sure, later is fine,” Kathleen said.
“So, you don’t want to talk about it in their presence, is that it?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “Was that all?”
“No. We think you should send someone over to Annie’s cabin immediately. What if Bones woke up, stumbled through the woods, and made it to her place? He might be in trouble.”
“Yes, we did that already,” Kathleen said. “There was no sign of any cat in the tree. It’s probably Mrs. Hickman’s overactive imagination again. If that’s all, I really do have to go. I’m on my way to dinner with friends.”
“Got it. See you soon.”
I hung up and breathed a sigh of relief.
“What did she say?” Annie asked me.
“They already left, but she managed to let me know that she checked your place out earlier, and it was all clear.”
“Did she say that in so many words?”
“No, she had to speak in code, since she wasn’t alone. She said that there was no sign of a cat in the tree, so Bones wasn’t there when her people checked your place out earlier.”
Annie frowned at me. “That’s quite a leap going from looking for Bones to not seeing a treed cat, wouldn’t you say?”
“You had to hear both sides of the conversation to fully underst
and,” I said. “She didn’t want to tip the kids off about what we were talking about. It made perfect sense to me.”
“Is that why Kathleen gets so frustrated with us sometimes? I swear, it’s like you two were speaking in some kind of code that I wasn’t aware of.”
“The only secret language I know is the one we made up as kids,” I said with a smile.
“Looking back on it, we must have driven everyone around us crazy back then.”
“What makes you think that stopped when we grew up?” I asked her.
Annie pulled out the Dutch oven with our pork roast and lifted the lid to peek inside. The aromas were nearly magical, and I was beginning to regret inviting anyone else. Still, it was for a good cause, so I decided to keep my disappointment to myself. Next, the pineapple upside down cake came out, and I immediately started having regrets again. The sacrifices I was willing to make in order to uncover the truth could be quite painful at times.
I heard a car pull up out front, and when I walked to the front of the store, I saw Kathleen get out of her squad car, along with the three kids she’d been interrogating. No one looked particularly happy about being there, so I knew that so far, things hadn’t gone that well.
Maybe Annie’s food and my company would make things better, but even if they didn’t, at least we’d all get to eat a delicious meal and dessert, too.
“Hey, Pat. Hi, Annie. Thanks for feeding us,” Henry said solemnly. The young man was quite a bit more subdued than he’d been earlier that day when we’d first met. Had it really just been that afternoon that all of our paths had crossed for the first time?
“It’s our pleasure. We’re just sorry about everything that’s been happening today,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” Gretchen said. “Hey.”
