Those Who Mourn: A Wolf Creek Mystery (Wolf Creek Mysteries Book 1)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  She took to glancing around in between pages, seeing Mrs. Kaye through her glass fronted office talking earnestly on the phone. Probably trying to recover unreturned books, Susan guessed.

  The assistant librarian was at the desk checking out a stack of books for a young mother and her two children while the teen volunteer took books from the cart and placed them back on the shelves.

  Half a dozen people browsed the shelves while nearly twice as many concentrated on the computers. Susan sighed over the days when people came to the library for books.

  She watched as an elderly woman loaded library books onto her e-reader. She couldn’t complain about this one. Mrs. Jeffers had vision problems and the electronic reader allowed her to adjust the type to something she could see so she wasn’t dependent on the small stock of large print books.

  Finally her impatient gaze came back to her own hands, placed on the back of the chair where the woman acting as first reader of Sayers’ mystery was seated. Something was wrong. Something was missing.

  It took less than half a second to realize that her green-stoned ring was gone.

  It might not be a real ring, but it had felt real. It had been part of her identity even though she couldn’t remember its history and now it was gone.

  She felt like weeping.

  Before they left the farm, Grandpa tried to make a present of the ring, insisting David have it ‘for the girl he would marry someday.’

  David, who was feeling increasing concern that the reappearance of the ring meant something dire as far as Susan was concerned. His memory for every detail of her appearance was sharp and he was having a hard time convincing himself that it wasn’t the same ring.

  The gold band had been unusually wide, the stone large and shiny. This one, now that Grandpa had cleaned it up, was the same. It was a ring for a fairy tale princess or a Hollywood starlet, almost garish against Susan’s delicate, long fingered hand.

  He shook his head. “It’s yours, Grandpa. Your piece of luck. I can’t take it.”

  “It’s what I want, David,” Grandpa responded firmly. “Surely you can accept a gift from your old grandfather. Surely you can’t refuse something that’s such an important part of your family history.”

  Grandpa had a way of winning arguments by playing the family card. David smiled weakly, but accepted the gift, putting it for safety within the folds of his wallet and placing it in his pocket. “We’ll debate this later,” he promised as with obvious satisfaction Grandpa started the engine and edged down the driveway of the property that seemed today to be strangely haunted.

  To his surprise Grandpa didn’t turn to the west at the next corner which would lead them back the way they had come, but instead headed south down toward the river breaks.

  This had been a favorite drive for David when he was young. The change in landscape from flowing acres of good cultivated farm land and pastures where cattle grazed changed within a few miles to the red streaked heavily eroded bad lands that edged the North Fork of the Red River. He never saw this branch of the river without remembering the melancholic film that had starred John Wayne and Montgomery Cliff.

  He used to tell Grandpa that anytime he was feeling a little blue the movie Red River showed up on the local TV listings. And Grandpa who saw his favorite film as anything but depressing would insist on them watching it together.

  Now as the red canyons began to streak the soil, the sandy river showing through gaps in the landscape, and low ancient mountains glimmered in the distance when they topped a rise, he thought this would have been a good setting for the old western movies that used to be so popular and which his grandfather still favored over any other.

  There were more houses down here than in the old days. Back a few years home builders scorned the area for its poor soil and broken environment, but the newcomers who had come in to work in the up and down oil exploration business liked the view of mountains and river and were attracted to the abundant wildlife that flourished in the river area. Three newish and rather important looking homes were set into the area, joining the single aging house that had been here before his earliest recollections. Each occupied abundant acreage, lending an attitude of isolation and even shunning company that the area exuded.

  He was surprised once again when Grandpa pulled into the long skinny dirt trail that led to the older house, an adobe dwelling with a green tinted tin roof. The roof looked new but other than the white pickup that peered around from the back, the place looked abandoned. It had no lawn, the hard-packed red earth of the front yard sported a few cactus plants and a couple of scrawny mesquite trees, all of which looked as though they had struggled up naturally from the ground. The dominant greenery, however, was provided by a dozen lilac bushes that clung to the front of the house, overgrown and, even at this time of year, adorned with a few scant purple blossoms and sending out a scent that reminded him of Susan.

  He tried to pull away from that thought. Lilacs were one of the few plants that survived this part of Oklahoma’s harsh, arid climate. When he was a boy and drove with Grandpa past aging abandoned homesteads, they often saw lilacs flourishing even in the driest springs, their scent almost too heavy in the air.

  Somehow the barren environment suited the dwelling that seemed to fit so much more naturally into the river area than the well-landscaped and carefully watered mini-mansions that lay nearby.

  “Been a long time,” Grandpa said. “I’ve been feeling guilty about ignoring Mirales for years. But you know how it is, son. Some folks just seem to want to be left alone and after everything that happened, I just couldn’t face that sort of tragedy. What do you say when you face somebody who’s been through the worst that life can offer and make it pretty clear they just want to be left to themselves.”

  “You know the people who live here?” David spoke in a low voice, feeling like the worst kind of intruder. If Grandpa knew these people didn’t want visitors, why had he come here?

  Grandpa paused, seeming to consider. “Mirales’ mama was one of my best friends. We almost married, in fact, but broke up and each went in other directions. But after everything happened, I should have gone to her and offered what comfort I could. The honest truth is that your grandma was always jealous of my old girlfriend and so I thought it best to keep my distance. “

  “But Grandpa, what happened? What are you talking about?”

  Harry Johnson didn’t answer the question. “When Mavis died, I went to her funeral.”

  Mavis, he supposed, was the old girlfriend.

  So, if Mavis had died, why were they here? Surely it was too late to make amends.

  He waited while his grandfather tapped lightly on the door. And waited. No sounds came from inside. Nobody came.

  He turned to walk away. “Grandpa. Nobody’s home.”

  “They keep the pickup out back. And somebody’s always here.”

  Something like a shiver ran down David’s spine. Something irrational within him told him he needed to get out of here. The last thing he wanted to go into that house with the delicate scent of lilacs floating after him.

  “Let’s go,” he said sharply just as the door opened a scant crack. “Harry,” a warm voice welcomed his grandfather. He turned to see a sweet-faced woman of indeterminate years. She had familiar looking green eyes and, even though her face looked too young, short, well styled, white hair.

  “So good to see you,” she addressed Grandpa, not seeming to see the younger man who accompanied him. “Come in. Come in.”

  With a totally unexplainable sense of dread, David followed his grandfather into the house and felt warmth and the surely artificial smell of lilacs grasp and encircle him. Something like panic stirred within him.

  The woman whom he supposed must be Mirales, daughter of Grandpa’s late friend, looked to be in her middle years, her figure rounded and her hair prematurely, though attractively, aged. She moved briskly, even gracefully, and looked as though she were very happy to have visitors in her remote hom
e.

  She led the way into a large central room, its doorways arched and its floors covered with colorful rugs and southwestern hangings on the walls while windows were uncovered, allowing scenic views of the colorful surroundings.

  “This is my grandson, David,” Grandpa, somewhere in the background of his mind was introducing him. “Mirales Elliot, David, an old and dear friend.”

  David barely heard. His heart had skipped a beat and he could hardly breathe because there, seated on a wide sofa, was the fair haired, green-eyed beauty who had stirred his numbed body and mind these last few days. His good angel, the only woman he could ever love, sat on that sofa her gaze fixed on a tray of food that rested on her lap as though she didn’t quite know what to do with it.

  Joy infused him. He stepped forward, his knees threatening to give way beneath him and spill him on the floor.

  “This is my daughter, Susan,” Mrs. Elliot was telling him.

  Susan looked up and met his eyes, a puzzled look in her emerald eyes. “David?” she whispered as though lost in doubt.

  “Well, will you hear that?” Mirales Elliot’s question was more of an exclamation. “She hardly ever speaks, certainly not anything you can understand.”

  With increasing dismay, David realized that the woman seated on the sofa was severely damaged. After that first calling out of his name, she seemed to drift away, not aware of his presence or that of the others.

  “It’s her lunch time,” Mirales apologized. “It’s hard enough to get her to eat so you won’t mind if I see to feeding her. If we get off her schedule, she may forget to eat for days.”

  She sat down next to her daughter, motioning to the men to take chairs, than picked up a spoon to try to coax what looked like applesauce into her daughter’s mouth.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  When night fell, a strong September norther blowing against the windows, Susan felt her spirits fall even lower. The inexplicable loss of her ring roiled her emotions; it was as though she herself was disappearing. She waited, hoping that David would come as he had the night before.

  But then as hour after hour passed without the rattling of the front door, she reminded herself she was no longer a princess locked in a tower. She had proved she could leave the library when she so chose.

  Tonight she would go out on her own. She slipped out the door, feeling the wind whip pointlessly against her transparent form as only a distant observation. She guessed the night air should feel cold, but of course, it didn’t and she closed the door behind her, even knowing it would automatically lock, instinctively feeling she couldn’t allow that intruding wind to play havoc in her library. She’d figure out how to get back in later.

  Deciding which direction to take didn’t require much thought. She headed west toward Harrison Johnson’s house. Everyone would be abed there, but it seemed she would draw some comfort from seeing the house and knowing that David slept within. Surely that was the answer. He’d been up all of last night and no doubt had things that had occupied his time today. He must be exhausted and making up for hours of lost slumber.

  With no moon tonight and the buffeted lights seeming dimmed by the fierce, dust-clouded wind, she felt especially lost and forlorn and almost wished she hadn’t left the safety of the library.

  Still it was only a few steps and then she could comfort herself by looking at the house where David slept, then she would return to the library and find a way back in. Too bad, she thought, that as ghosts were reputedly able to do, she could not simply walk through walls. That had never been a talent she possessed.

  If anyone could have seen her, she supposed they would identify her as a sad figure standing there on the sidewalk outside the big, unlighted house, a wistful presence with her hair blowing in the wild wind and the heart that she didn’t have still seeming to beat faster as she stared at the house where the man she loved lay sleeping.

  Only someone was awake. She froze in place and even the wind around her seemed to silence as she observed the shadowed silhouette against the light that had just come on in a front room of the house. She was certain, or almost certain, that the figure pacing back and forth from one edge of the big window to the other had to be David.

  The shadow was neither that of an older man or of a woman and since Harry Johnson and June Allie were the only other possible occupants of the house, the pacer was surely David.

  As she wondered what could be keeping him up at this hour of the night, she heard a footstep crunch on the sidewalk behind her and realized she was no longer alone.

  Whirling around she saw a threatening figure stepping out from the shadows that loomed all around her, highlighted for an instant as the shrouded light from the closest street light shone through as the wind blew aside branches of the big tree that had shut off its illumination.

  She could clearly see the features of the face turned toward the house, but there was only time only to take in the fact that a gun was being leveled in the direction of the man she loved.

  Beyond thought or plan, knowing there was no time for hesitation, she threw herself with all her will and purpose and several barely spoken words of prayer at the attacker, heard the gun go off in a blast of sound and then found herself pressed to the sidewalk as the gunman dropped his gun as he turned to make his escape.

  David was not such a fool as to rush out at the sound of a gunshot. It was the call that shrieked over the wind, “God help us!” in a voice he recognized as Susan’s that sent him rushing out regardless of any possibility of danger.

  He ran toward the center of both sounds, shriek and shot, yelling, “Stop! Stop!” in his fiercest voice to the figure that dashed away and across the street, expecting to chase him down but stopping abruptly as he saw her lying there on the ground.

  All thought of the attacker was banished as he dropped to her side. “Susan,” he said, “Darling Susan,” and he reached for her only to find his hand passed through her insubstantial body.

  “You’re safe. Thank God, you’re safe,” she uttered the word in a breathy gasp, reaching out as though to touch him. But before his eyes, before the touch could reach him, she faded from his view and neighbors were spilling out of nearby houses to see what was happening.

  Susan felt heavy, weighted down, and she didn’t know where she was. She turned over in bed, smelling the fresh clean scent of her sheets and pillows. Mama always insisted on everything being neat as a pin, whatever that meant, she thought sleepily.

  That was good. She felt safe within the carefully kept house that her mother managed. Mama always took such good care of her. Not like Grandmama who might start to iron a pillowcase and then go off to leave the iron burning through the case while she got caught up in a dazzling sunset or the newest mystery from the library. It was always a good time with Grandmama.

  But then she remembered with a vague sadness that Grandmama had gone on, but she’d left a legacy of a granddaughter who was so much like her.

  She turned over and tried to go back to sleep.

  ‘David,’ she suddenly thought. Then she remembered too that David was all right. She had managed to deflect the bullet that was intended to kill him.

  She went to sleep to nightmares where the face of the would-be killer reflected on a hundred mirrors within her confused mind.

  David tried to get up from the ground, but only managed to stand when an elderly man he vaguely recognized as a neighbor dressed in pajamas and robe helped him to his feet. His main concern was Susan and what could have happened to her, but he found himself saying, “Somebody tried to shoot me.”

  “Come on, Dave. You must have been sleep walking.” That voice was that of one of his least favorite people, Simpson Allie.

  June came bustling up behind him, pulling a long chenille housecoat that looked to date to another time around her person. “Where’s Harry? Most likely you was trying to shoot him. Look for the old man, everybody; he could be lying on the floor inside bleeding to death.”

  “No
,” the first man shouted. “Here’s a gun right here on the ground.”

  “Don’t touch it,” David ordered. “It may have fingerprints.”

  The man stepped back as though he’d been warned of a rattlesnake, but June circled around her son and would have picked it up except that he police chief pulled up and jumped out of his car. “Don’t touch that, June!”

  Frowning, she turned around to point at David. “If there’s any fingerprints on that gun, they’ll be his. We found him like this out here with the gun on the ground nearby where he was laying. He tried to kill Harry.”

  “We heard a gunshot,” the pajama clad man asserted. “It looks like somebody shot out the big window in front of the house.”

  David remembered the sound of shattering glass that had mixed with the other sounds and walked over to see that pieces of glass glittered in the thin light that shone on the porch.

  “See he’s all dressed and everything when decent folks was still in their bedclothes.” June glanced meaningfully at the neighbor who had been first to arrive on the scene, seeming to ignore the fact that her own son wore jeans, shirt, and boots. “Arrest him.”

  “Now, June,” Jon soothed, his big handsome face troubled. “You know I can’t do that. As far as we know nobody’s been hurt.”

  “But Harry . . .”

  “I’m sure Harry is asleep in his bed. He wouldn’t have heard the shot, his hearing is poor.”

  Jon took charge and with the help of two deputies who pulled up to the curb sent the neighbors back into their homes and told David to go inside to check on his grandfather. “We’ll talk in the morning. You can tell me just what happened.”

  A little reluctantly David headed obediently into the house. Wind blew in through the open window where several panes were missing, but he ignored that and the fact that he was chilled from the cold north wind. “Grandpa,” he called. “You okay.” He guessed Jon was right, Grandpa’s hearing must be going if he’d heard none of the hullabaloo. “Gramps,” he called, turning on lights as he went down the hall, his mind more concerned with what had happened to Susan than whether his grandfather’s sleep had been disturbed.