by Lynn Bohart
“Look at this one,” Diane had said. “I’m telling you, you could bounce a quarter off Bud’s abs. He also has one tight ass.”
She had giggled at this, while Lee kept silent.
“God, I never thought I’d get a guy like Bud. He’s never satisfied. He always wants more.”
“And you’re more than happy to give it to him,” Lee had quipped, not really in the mood to banter about Bud’s sexual prowess.
“Wouldn’t you be?” Diane had asked. “C’mon, Lee, I know you don’t like him that much, but you have to admit he’s sexy.”
Lee had begun to retreat, tired of hearing about the man she couldn’t stand. Diane was oblivious to Lee’s change in body language.
“When we were in Sisters last weekend, he hinted that maybe we’d make the relationship permanent. I really thought I’d never get married again, but now…”
“Married!” Lee had snapped. “You’ve got to be kidding? C’mon, Diane. You can’t be serious. I know the guy is good in bed, but…”
Diane had glared at Lee, and Lee quickly tried to back track. But the tension that had been growing over the past few weeks erupted into an ugly exchange.
“What I meant,” Lee began, “was that Bud isn’t right for you – long-term.”
“Right for me? How would you know who is right for me? You’re just jealous, Lee. You go home to an empty house every night and can’t stand that I don’t.”
“That’s not it at all.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve noticed how you clam up every time I want to talk about him. You probably think I’m not attractive enough to get a guy like that.”
“No, what I can’t stand is finding out that you’ve left work early or come in late because of a hot date with Mr. Libido.”
“Really? Do you have a problem with my work performance?”
“No,” Lee had stumbled.”But, you’ll have to admit that you’ve been distracted.”
“Distracted? Maybe I’m in love, Lee. Did you ever think of that? No. Because you don’t really think about anybody but yourself.”
“I just want you to focus on your work,” Lee had shot back.” That shouldn’t be too much to ask.” Lee had stood up and turned for the door. “I think I should go.”
“Wait,” Diane called her back.
Lee turned back only to have a camera flash in her eyes. Diane had grabbed her Olympus camera off the mantel and taken a picture.
“What the heck was that for?” Lee asked, not happy.
Diane had put the camera back on the mantel.
“It has all my pictures from Sisters on it. I want to get it developed. Once I’m married, I’ll put that picture of you in my scrapbook with all my other single friends.”
Even now, the memory of that argument drew Lee into a tunnel of grief. Diane would never have the chance to get married again, and Lee would never have the chance to apologize. She thought about the old camera still sitting on the back seat of her car, wondering what had happened to the film and that last picture. She wiped her eyes and looked around the room hardly recognizing it as Diane’s anymore. The carefully organized, pristine environment was gone.
Diane’s purse sat on a chair on the other side of the room. Lee went over and picked it up, thinking maybe Diane had taken out the roll of film to have it developed. But there was no film anywhere in the pockets. As Lee threw the purse back onto a chair, something besides the voice in her head filled the room.
“What the hell are you doing with Diane’s purse?”
Lee swung around to find Vern Mathews standing in the entryway.
“I…I was just making sure her wallet was still there, you know, what with the break-on and all,” she lied.
“How’d you get in here, anyway?”
“I have a key Diane gave me some time ago,” she said, picking up her purse.
She tried to maintain her composure and stood as tall as she could, but her height would never intimidate Mathews, who had at least four inches on her. The veins stuck out on his neck, and she began looking towards the open door behind him.
“You were trying to steal something,” he said, taking several steps forward. His gaze swept the room. “What did you take?”
“I didn’t take anything,” Lee snapped, conscious how it must look after the place had been burglarized. “I told you, I was just checking to see if anything had been stolen.”
His eyes bored into hers as the muscles in his jaws clenched and unclenched. She didn’t like her odds and began to circle towards the entryway. He countered, blocking her retreat.
“I’ll just take a look into your purse,” he said, extending his hand.
Lee sandwiched her bag between her elbow and her ribs. “You will not. I told you I didn’t take anything.”
He lunged forward and yanked the purse away, catching her hand in the strap and nearly pulling her off her feet.
“I don’t believe you,” he snarled, shoving his big hands into the pockets. “I’ll just bet that… what’s this?” He pulled out the onyx bird.
“That’s mine,” Lee exclaimed, trying to grab it from him. “Carey gave it to me.”
He kept it away from her, a self-satisfied grin slithering across his face. “Well, well, well. I did catch a thief. Perhaps I’d better call the…ouch!”
Mathews’ hand jerked back and flipped the figurine into the air. Lee just barely caught it before it smashed against the coffee table. She looked over to see Mathews shaking his fingers.
“Dammit! Get out of here!” he yelled, throwing her purse at her. “Or I’ll call the police.”
Lee grabbed her purse and sidestepped around him, not trusting that he wouldn’t reach out and snag her. But this time he kept his distance until just before she reached the door.
“Just a minute! I’ll take that key,” he snarled, coming forward. “We own this condo, now.”
As he put out his left hand, Lee caught a glimpse of a red burn mark across his right palm. Lee reached into her pocket and reluctantly handed him the key.
“Now, get out of here,” he ordered, pressing the injured hand to his chest.
She turned and fled around the building to the parking lot. As she slipped behind the wheel of her car, she looked up and saw him staring at her through the living room window. Suddenly she felt sorry for Carey. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to come home to a man like that.
As she drove away, she contemplated the incident. It seemed as if the bird had come to her rescue somehow. But what was Mathews doing there in the first place? It was the middle of a weekday. Mathews wasn’t the kind of guy to help Carey out with cleaning the condo, so why would he go there? Especially when he knew he’d be alone? Perhaps he, too, was looking for something.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lee found Marion’s elegant figure draped on a wooden bench inside the door of their favorite Mexican restaurant, her long legs crossed at the ankles. Dressed in green wool pants, a pale blue sweater and an understated plaid jacket, she looked out of place in the garish “South of the Border” atmosphere.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Lee tried to smile.
The older woman stood up and took Lee by the elbow and steered her back toward the door.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said in her low, melodic voice. “We wouldn’t get a table for another fifteen minutes, anyway. They wouldn’t seat me alone, and someone’s throwing a special party.” She gestured toward the back of the restaurant where black balloons floated among the large fiesta hats hung along the wall. “I think it’s someone’s fiftieth birthday. Let’s grab a sandwich at the yogurt bar and go sit across the river. We actually have a little sun to enjoy.” She squinted at the sky as they emerged outside. “For a few minutes anyway,” she added cynically.
Although Lee felt too jittery to eat, she let Marion order sandwiches at a small shop across the street, and then the two women strolled toward the cement bridge that arched across the Willamette River. Marion chatted easily ab
out the university where she was a professor in the English department, but Lee was only half listening. Halfway across the bridge, she stopped to look upriver, feeling spiritually and emotionally drained. The gathering dark clouds muted the bright greens of the trees and surrounding mountains into cool blues and grays as the river rolled happily under the bridge. Lee gazed at the crisp, clear water, getting lost in its tranquility.
“How long are you going to make me wait?”
Lee looked up as if waking from a dream. “What?”
Marion raised an eyebrow and continued across the bridge. Lee grabbed a last look at the river and followed. They turned left at the end of the bridge and tromped across the damp grass to a bench a short distance from the river’s edge.
“Am I that transparent?” Lee finally asked as she sat down and took the wrapping off of her sandwich.
Marion dipped her chin to look over her glasses at Lee, the sun glinting off her silver gray hair. “Not necessarily, but you sounded less than casual this morning when you called. And, you haven’t said a word since we bought the sandwiches.” She lifted her sandwich and took a bite, swiping a blob of mayonnaise from her chin.
Lee ignored her lunch, looking out across the river as it ambled west. This was such a peaceful setting, contrasting the chaos that battled for control of her mind. She had chosen Marion to share her thoughts with because she was one of the most intelligent and honest women Lee knew. Marion wouldn’t judge Lee, nor would she judge the information. She would feed it back little by little, like dissecting a poem, until Lee saw it clearly. At least that’s what she hoped. The recent encounter with Vern Mathews however, had left Lee feeling unsure of how to begin. Finally, she just blurted it out.
“I think Diane was murdered.”
Marion stopped chewing and swallowed. Her pale blue eyes turned in Lee’s direction. “That’s a bold statement.”
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
Marion eyed her for a moment and then threw back her head and laughed, her voice as rich as bell chimes. “Well, how the hell would I know? I mean, I teach English. I can diagram a sentence with the best of them. I know my seventeenth-century authors backwards and forward, and I’ve written some pretty mean Haiku in my time. But I have never, for the life of me, known the difference between a schizophrenic and a psychopath.” She placed her hand gently on Lee’s knee. “God help me, though, you don’t look like either one to me.”
“I’m serious, you know. I think someone killed her.”
Marion dropped her hands in her lap, the sandwich held loosely between them, the wide smile fading. “I know,” she said, wiping her mouth. “I could tell something was wrong when you called. I don’t think you’re crazy. Murder though,” she shrugged. “That’s a pretty big leap.”
Lee twisted on the bench to face her friend. “Marion, it is hard to have a close friend die. But, then to feel, to believe, that someone purposely took that friend’s life – well, it changes everything.”
She shifted her gaze to a young woman walking along the river’s edge with a large black dog. The girl tossed a long stick end over end into the river and the dog leaped in with reckless abandon, barking and sending up sparkles of water.
“Lee, I’ve never known you to exaggerate, so I can’t believe this is just a hunch on your part. What makes you believe she was murdered?”
Lee thought of the onyx bird and reached over and rested her hand on her purse as she spoke. “Small things. Inconsistencies, mostly.”
“Well, what about the police? Have they looked into it?”
“No. There were no obvious signs of foul play, so they didn’t go any further. They accepted the suicide note.”
“So, what’s keeping you up at night? You look like you haven’t slept much. Maybe you just need some rest.”
Lee shrank from the remark, knowing that her appearance had to be off-putting to someone like Marion who was as comfortable in her own skin as a pair of old shoes. Marion wore little makeup, yet her skin was the color of peaches, and her short hair wasn’t just gray, it was as rich as polished silver. Her long, lean body was weathered, but sound, leaving Lee to think that if Marion were a musical instrument, she would be a cello − not because of her shape, but the strength and depth of her soul. Feeling a sense of comfort in her presence, Lee finally voiced the one question she’d kept hidden from everyone.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Marion? Or the paranormal?”
Marion stopped with the sandwich poised an inch from her lips. She didn’t say anything, but the sharp chin tilted to one side, and the straight brows knit together.
“Don’t tell me you think Diane is talking to you?”
“Maybe. First in dreams and now…well, now I’m not sure how she’s doing it.” Lee reached into her purse and pulled out the onyx bird and handed it to Marion.
“I don’t understand,” Marion said, putting her sandwich on the bench and taking the bird. “What’s this?”
“Carey gave it to me at the funeral. It was one of Diane’s favorite possessions. I was with her when she bought it last year from an old Indian up in Yakima. He went on and on about how it was her totem.”
Marion wrapped both hands around the bird as if it were a warm cup of coffee and looked up with an odd expression. “Totem? Like an Indian spirit?”
“He said it belonged to her. I thought he was just trying to get her to buy it, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t even know what kind of bird it is.”
Marion rubbed her finger along the crest of the bird’s head. “It’s a hawk,” she replied with confidence. “You can tell by the hooked beak and the elongated body. But, I thought girls’ totems were always things like doves or deer.”
“Not according to this guy. He held it cupped in both hands, much like you’re holding it now. He said she had a strong spirit and that her totem was strong. We both laughed, thinking he was joking, but he just looked at the two of us and said he was dead serious. He told Diane that one day she would need this totem and to keep it close.” Lee paused, her eyes drifting to the river. “Of course, I made some snide remark, but Diane bought it, and now that she’s gone, strange things have been happening.”
“Like what?”
Lee sighed, watching a duck float aimlessly among the shallows of the river. “If I tell you, you might change your mind about me being crazy”
Marion smiled. “Give me a chance. There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”
“Okay,” Lee said. “Twice, I’ve left the bird at home. I mean, I’m positive I left it at home. And yet both times it showed up later in my purse.”
She glanced at Marion for a reaction. Her friend frowned, but encouraged her to continue.
“The first time was the night after Diane’s funeral, when I stopped by her condo to check on something. Just before I left, I heard a thud and found my purse in the middle of the living room floor with all its belongings strewn across the floor. Along with everything else was the bird. There was no one else in the condo. A moment later, I thought I saw something flit past the mirror in the hallway and found a bird feather on the carpet where there hadn’t been one ten minutes before.” Lee shivered. “Then there are the birds around my house.”
“Around your house?”
Lee realized Marion hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time she’d been speaking. Instead, she listened with the bird held just above her lap as if she were about to release it into the air.
“I’m beginning to feel like Tippi Hendren in The Birds. Suddenly, groups of birds surround my house and seem to be watching me all the time. It’s like this bird is connected to all other birds and together, they’re trying to tell me something. I just don’t know what.” She looked over at Marion who watched her quietly. “Now, do you think I’m crazy?”
Her friend unwound her fingers from around the bird and stared at it. “Do you believe in coincidences?”
Lee considered the question. If all the occurrences with the bird had been
coincidences, then Diane’s spirit was truly gone, and she was on her own. If they weren’t coincidences, then something other than a natural phenomenon was at work here.
“I don’t know. I guess I do.”
“Well, I don’t. Things happen for a reason.” Marion handed the bird back to Lee. “Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you handled it?”
“Maybe twenty minutes ago. I was just over at the condo, and Diane’s brother-in-law showed up and tried to take it back. Why?”
Marion picked up her sandwich again. “The stone was warm when you handed it to me. Very warm. As if it were alive.”
The chill that emanated from deep within Lee’s soul rippled to the tips of her extremities. The two women were quiet for several moments, Marion nibbling at her sandwich, and Lee watching the bird as if it might take wing. Someone whizzed along the path on roller blades behind them, leaving the running sound of wheels on pavement in their wake.
“You know, Lee, this is nothing to fool around with,” Marion began again, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “If you really think there is reason to believe Diane was murdered, you need to talk to the police.”
“I know,” she replied.
“But you should also find out more about that bird. There’s a Native American woman who works at that new age gift shop downtown called Inspirations. I don’t know her name, but one of my students used her for some research last quarter on Native American mythology. Why don’t you go talk to her? Take the bird. See what she says.”
“That’s a good idea,” Lee said, growing quiet.
“What else is going on?” Marion asked, watching her out of the corner of her eye.
Lee put the bird back on the bench, allowing a long moment to stretch between them. “Someone broke into my house last night.”
Marion gasped, reaching out for Lee’s hand.
“You’re kidding? What happened?”
“They destroyed my living room looking for something, but nothing was stolen. But Diane’s condo was broken into, too.”
