Music of Ghosts

by Sallie Bissell

  They reached his cabin. Cochran walked up the steps and rapped on the door. “Nicholas Stratton?” he called. There was no answer. He knocked twice more, going from a knock to a near-pound. Just when he was about to have Whaley put his size thirteen shoes to the lock, the door swung open. Stratton stood there, wearing only a pair of canvas shorts.

  “Nicholas Stratton?” Cochran read the warrant to him officially, feeling silly since he’d been up here just two days ago.

  Stratton nodded.

  “I’ve got a warrant duly issued by Judge James Barbee to search your domicile, your vehicles, and your livestock structures.” He handed the warrant to Stratton, who looked at it as if it were written in Greek.

  “Is this where you guys wreck the house?” he asked, frowning.

  “My department doesn’t,” said Cochran.

  “Do I get to call a lawyer?”

  “You can call one,” Cochran replied. “But it won’t stop us.”

  “Well, okay.” Stratton stepped away from the door. “Come on in.”

  Cochran remained on the porch, directing the other officers to their assigned locations.

  “They won’t unlock any of my bird cages will they?” Stratton asked, frowning at the two men headed to the bird barns.

  Cochran shook his head. “Not unless they find evidence inside them.”

  As Whaley and Saunooke left with their partners, Pete Hastings moved in behind Cochran. Stratton stood there, blinking, his hair tousled from sleep.

  “Mr. Stratton, we are looking for the items listed specifically on that warrant,” Cochran explained. “If we find them, we will confiscate them as evidence against you. We cannot confiscate anything not listed on that writ. However, we can and may confiscate items belonging to the deceased Lisa Carlisle Wilson. We will not disturb your properties any more than necessary to execute a thorough search. Right now, you need to remain calm and allow us to do our work.” Cochran looked at Al Sayles, a burly traffic cop he’d asked to come keep an eye on Stratton. “Officer?”

  Sayles stepped forward, pistol snug in his holster. “Find a comfortable seat, sir,” he told Stratton. “This may take awhile.”

  Stratton started to say something, then apparently changed his mind. With a shrug of his shoulders, he went over and sat down on the couch.

  Cochran turned to Hastings. “Let’s start in the kitchen.”

  They searched the kitchen carefully. Stratton had only four knives, all held by a magnetized strip over the sink. Though none had curved blades, Cochran put them in an evidence bag just the same. You never knew, he told himself. Again he glanced at the refrigerator, looking for anything written in the same shapes carved on Lisa Wilson’s body. As before, he found none. But unlike before, he saw Mary Crow’s business card, paper-clipped to a calendar.

  Wonder when Stratton got that, he thought, taking note of the little gold-and-black card. It hadn’t been there when they’d notified him of Lisa Wilson’s death.

  They found nothing else of interest in the kitchen, so they returned to the living room, ready to start on the rest of the house.

  “Can I go in the kitchen now?” asked Stratton. “Make some coffee?”

  “You may,” said Cochran. Sayles followed Stratton into the kitchen while he and Hastings began to search the living room. It was, fortunately, minimally furnished. Stratton had a small couch, two filing cabinets that served as end tables, two chairs, and a reading lamp. What took up most of their time was a low bookcase, filled with books. Cochran and Hastings removed each volume and flipped through the pages, hoping something would fall out.

  As they worked Cochran realized how much Stratton’s library resembled his own—non-fiction titles about natural history, geology, tales of survival in extreme conditions. He pulled one small paperback off the shelf and smiled. A similarly battered copy of The Boy Scout Handbook rested on his own bookshelf.

  Still, The Boy Scout Handbook yielded nothing, so he and Hasting moved upstairs, where a loft served as Stratton’s office and bedroom. A huge topographic map hung above an unmade bed, flanked by expensively framed photographs of Stratton with a bald eagle, Stratton on skis, Stratton embracing a pretty, dark-haired woman dressed in buckskin and feathers.

  They searched the bathroom, finding nothing more lethal than a large bottle of ibuprofen. The office consisted of a desk with a computer and printer, but contained none of the warranted items—not a penknife, not a leather strap, certainly not a ring.

  They turned their attention to Stratton’s bedroom. Cochran started with the closet, rifling through his clothes, hoping to find a pair of Walmart jeans. Again, he was disappointed. Not a single pair of jeans hung in Stratton’s closet—all his pants were heavy twill trousers. Most of his shirts were pale blue and long-sleeved. He had a single black suit, a starched white dress shirt still in plastic from the dry cleaner, and a silk necktie that had some kind of hand-painted design on it. Cochran removed a black leather belt that hung from the hanger.

  “Working man’s wardrobe,” he said, thinking how very much it looked like his own. One suit for special occasions, everything else no-nonsense, work-related, probably bought at the local Tractor Supply.

  He closed the closet door and turned to Stratton’s drawers, removing each one and dumping the contents on his bed. The first two held tee shirts, boxer shorts, a couple of wool sweaters. The bottom drawer was different—either swollen or out of alignment. Hastings had to tug hard on the thing to pull it open. Finally, though, he wrenched it free. It held nothing but long underwear and heavy wool socks. They were rifling through those when a dark, heavy thing rolled out from a sock and on to the floor.

  “What’s that?” asked Hastings. “Chewing tobacco?”

  The thing bounced once, finally rolling lopsidedly underneath the bed. At first Cochran thought it was a can of shoe polish, then he realized it was an item beloved by northern boys.

  “A hockey puck,” he told Hastings. “Probably a memento. I’ll get it.” He knelt down on the floor just as he heard Whaley’s voice booming up from the living room. Hoping that the overweight detective had better luck than he and Hastings, he lifted Stratton’s rumpled bedspread and peered under the bed. It was empty, except for two pairs of boots and some dust bunnies. The puck had rolled near the head of the bed, where the frame met the wall. With Whaley thundering up the stairs, Cochran stretched out, reaching for the puck with one arm. As he pulled the thing from beneath the bed, something else caught his eye. A small, glittery thing. Tossing the puck to Hastings, he scooted forward to retrieve what he’d spotted.

  “Where’s Cochran?” he heard Whaley call.

  He reached forward, the little item still just beyond his grasp.

  “Under the bed,” Hastings replied as Cochran stretched out farther.

  “Look what I found in the dorm,” said Whaley.

  Cochran reached as far as he could, dust crawling up his nose, making him want to sneeze. Finally, his fingers curled around a small metal object.

  “What?” asked Hastings.

  “Lisa Wilson’s iPhone and diary!” said Whaley. He moved closer, lifted the bedspread from the floor. “You hear what I said, Sheriff?”

  “Yeah,” said Cochran, scooting out from under the bed. He opened his hand. In it lay a gold filigreed ring, old-fashioned, but well-worn, the band noticeably thinner at the back. It was the same ring Lisa Wilson had worn in the picture where she’d smiled up at Nick Stratton, a look of utter devotion on her face.

  Sixteen

  Mary jerked awake, lifting her head from the desk, for an instant unable to remember why she’d fallen asleep there instead of in bed. She hazily recalled arguing with Jonathan, then talking with her old friend Alex. For a moment she wondered if it hadn’t been some bizarre nightmare, then she saw the documents spread out before her. Her focus sharpened in an instant. The Moons were suing Jona
than for full custody of Lily.

  “I’ve got to get them out there,” she said, remembering Alex’s last words. “To Oklahoma. As soon as possible.” Willing herself awake, she hurried upstairs. Jonathan and Lily were still asleep, unaware of the journey ahead of them. Silently, she gathered Lily’s dirty clothes, then tiptoed into the room she shared with Jonathan. He lay on his stomach with a pillow pulled over his head, as if trying to hide the woes that plagued him. For a moment she was tempted to snatch his covers off and again ask him to explain all his lies. An affair she could understand—pretty eyes and perky breasts could have sparked a reckless moment of passion. But to lie to her about a custody suit? And some stupid duplex? That required thought; they were acts of deception that required attention, like a garden of poisonous plants. And then to turn the whole thing back on her, saying she wouldn’t understand …

  “Sleep on, Walkingstick,” she muttered, her anger again starting to simmer. “Enjoy your dreams.”

  She gathered up the rest of their clothes and went down to the utility room. She started a load of laundry, then headed back to the study to make hard copies of all the papers Alex needed in Ok-

  lahoma.

  “I almost wish he’d had an affair,” she whispered as she started the copier. “Then it would be just between him and me. Now it’s between him and me and the Moons and some lawyer in Oklahoma.”

  By eight fifteen, she’d finished her copying and the laundry. Laden with fresh, still-warm clothes, she went back upstairs. Angrily, she stomped into their room and dropped the laundry basket on the bed. Jonathan sat up immediately.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, blinking in the morning light.

  “Nothing.” She started piling his clothes on the bed. “You need to pack. You’re going to Oklahoma, so be sure and take your good suit.”

  “Huh?”

  She separated his jeans from his underwear. “After I went through all those papers last night, I called Alex. She’s meeting you at the Holiday Inn in Tulsa the day after tomorrow. She’s graciously agreed to take your case.”

  He looked at her, uncomprehending. “Take my case?”

  “The custody case the Moons brought against you?” A fresh wave of anger roiled inside her. “Alex wants you and Lily in Oklahoma, ASAP.”

  “Oklahoma?” He started to laugh. “You tell Alex I’ll go to hell before I’ll go to Oklahoma.”

  Mary looked at him, appalled. Never had it occurred to her that he might just refuse to go. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “The Moons can shove that lawsuit up their ass. I’m not going back to Oklahoma.”

  “So you’re just going to stay here and ignore their complaint?”

  “I haven’t committed any crime. They can’t come and arrest me.”

  She folded her arms, furious. “Let me explain how this works, Jonathan,” she spoke slowly, as if explaining some point of law to one of her backwoods clients. “If you don’t answer this complaint, the court will render a judgment against you. The states honor each other’s judgments. The Moons will present their Oklahoma order to Jerry Cochran, and he’ll have to enforce it. There won’t be a thing you can do.”

  “The fuck I can’t!” he told her. “I’ll take her into the woods, or Canada. I’ll … ”

  “We explored Canada last night, Jonathan. Take her out of the country and you’ll be a fugitive. Her photo will be on websites all over the Internet.”

  “I’m not going to give her to those goddamn Moons!” he cried. “She belongs with me.”

  “Then you need to go back to Oklahoma and work with Alex. Right now, it’s your only shot.”

  He gave her an odd look. “You sound like you want us to go.”

  “I want you to obey the law,” she replied.

  “I’m sure you do. My obeying the law works pretty good for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It gets Lily out of your hair. She’s a real pain in the butt. You said so not three days ago.”

  “Gosh, that must have been after I took her swimming. Or took that owl to the vet for her. Or picked her up at Brownie camp yesterday afternoon.”

  “See? You resent all those things. If we didn’t have Lily, you’d be free to do what you want, take the clients you want and—”

  “Work on murder trials?” she finished his sentence.

  “Yeah. Work on murder trials. I know how you get off on them.”

  Her anger flared so quickly that she had to turn away to keep from slapping him. “You do what you want, Jonathan. Lily’s your child. But I strongly advise you to pack your bags and get yourself and your daughter out to Oklahoma.”

  Furious, she stormed downstairs, back to the kitchen. Spooning coffee into the coffee pot, she told herself that Jonathan and Lily could do what they pleased; she was going to sit down and eat breakfast. She’d just retrieved eggs from the refrigerator when Lily came into the kitchen.

  “Hi, Mary.” The little girl yawned, still in her pajamas. Mary wondered if her angry words with Jonathan had awakened her, but she looked more sleepy than distressed.

  “Morning, Lily.” Mary tried to smile.

  Lily rubbed her eyes. “Did Dr. Lovebird ever call back?”

  “No,” Mary replied, grateful that at least the child was concerned about the owl and not their argument. “You want some eggs?”

  “I guess so.”

  Mary cracked two more eggs to the chipped blue bowl her mother had always used. Just as she reached to turn on the stove, she heard Jonathan coming downstairs. She was beating the eggs into a pale yellow froth when he sat down at the table, across from his child.

  “Lily, there’s something we need to talk about,” he said, his voice raspy.

  The little girl looked up, still sleepy. “What?”

  “You and I are going to have to go back to Oklahoma.”

  “This summer?”

  “No. Today.”

  “Today? But I have to finish my mask at camp. And tomorrow night is Debra Fisher’s sleepover.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. We’ve got to go back today.”

  She looked as if she might cry. “But we just came back from there.”

  Mary handed Lily a glass of orange juice, waiting for Jonathan’s response. “We have to go. Grandpa and Grandma Moon are suing me.”

  “What for?”

  “They want a judge to say that you come and live with them.”

  “Live with them?” She put her juice down. “All the time?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “But I don’t want to,” said Lily, her chin beginning to quiver for real. “All my friends are here.”

  “That’s why we have to go to Oklahoma,” said Jonathan. “To tell the judge that you like it here, and that you don’t want to leave. Mary’s friend Alex is going to help us.”

  Mary walked over to put an arm around Lily, but the child twisted out of her chair, pinioning her with a dark, hate-filled look. “This is all your fault.”

  “My fault?” Mary frowned. “Why is it my fault?”

  “Because you killed my mother!”

  “What?”

  “You killed my mother! Grandpa Moon told me!”

  Mary stood there stunned, unable to come up with a reply. Jonathan finally spoke.

  “Nobody killed your mother, Lily. She was sick, then she died,” he repeated the official explanation they’d used ever since Lily had been old enough to wonder about her biological mother.

  “That’s not what Grandpa Moon said,” Lily cried, tears spilling down her cheeks. “He says Mary killed her! He says you two covered it up. That’s why you’ve never told me what really happened!”

  Jonathan’s eyes flashed, angry. “Grandpa Moon doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”

  “Yes, he does! He showed me the newspap
er! Mary did kill my mother. Mary’s a big liar, and I hate her!” Sobbing loudly, Lily ran back upstairs, again slamming her bedroom door so hard the windows shook.

  A tomb-like quiet settled over the house. The skillet on the stove began to smoke; Mary turned off the burner. She’d lost her appetite.

  Jonathan got up from the table and poured a cup of coffee. “If I could get my hands on that son of a bitch, I’d kill him.”

  Good idea, Mary thought. Just like you buying the duplex and ignoring the custody suit. But she said nothing. Reopening their argument would be like raking sharp fingernails over scalded flesh. She took the uncooked eggs and dumped them down the drain. “If you’re going, you should get ready. Lily’s clothes are washed—all you need to do is put them in her suitcase.”

  “You aren’t going to help her pack?”

  Mary thought of the dark fury in the little girl’s eyes and shook her head. “I think I’ve done enough for Lily.”

  He left the kitchen in a huff. Mary slapped ham on rye bread as she listened to their footsteps overhead—Jonathan’s heavy tread interspersed with Lily’s lighter footsteps. She heard Lily crying, another door slam. Finally luggage began thunking down the stairs, hitting every riser with a loud thud. The front door opened and closed half a dozen times, then Jonathan stood in the doorway, his face as wooden as the tribal masks they sold in Cherokee.

  “We’re going,” he announced.

  She wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Then I’ll come say good-

  bye.”

  She followed him to the truck, carrying a tote bag filled with sandwiches and a copy of the Moons’ complaint. Lily sat buckled in the passenger seat, reading on her Kindle. Mary walked over and rapped briskly on the car door. “I want to talk to you, Lily.”

  Slowly, the child rolled down her window. “What?” she said, her eyes red and swollen.