by Garry Ryan
“Matt wants a dog,” Lane said.
“What?” Harper looked at Lane like he hadn’t heard correctly.
“We have to go to the animal shelter tonight to look for a dog.”
“Oh?” It was Harper’s turn to be lost for words. He remembered what happened during last October’s snowstorm and what he’d found when he went looking for Lane’s dog, Riley.
“I don’t know,” Lane said.
“Man, you’ve been weird ever since the sweat lodge.”
Thankfully, Lane’s phone rang. “Hello.”
Lane looked at Harper. “We’re on our way.”
Fifteen silent minutes later, they were headed west toward the mountains, the very edge of town where the city and the country rubbed up against one another. Lane noticed a gas station on the north side of the highway as they passed it. It was a rare example of nineteen fifties’ architecture. The metal shone and the stucco had a fresh coat of white paint. I wonder how long before it gets torn down? he thought.
Lane looked down the two lane highway. He broke the silence, picking up where their conversation had ended at the coffee shop. “How weird have I been acting?”
“Out there. Distracted. You know, distant. Thinking about something else all the time. What happened to you?”
Lane thought for a minute. “I still haven’t figured that out. When I do, I’ll let you know.”
Harper decided not to push it. “Is Fibre gonna be there?”
“He’s on his way.”
They turned south onto the gravel road leading to Blake Rogers’ acreage.
Lane could feel the sweat gathering along his hairline when they got out of the air-conditioned car and faced Blake’s ranch-style house with its red brick front. He stood next to the car and waited for Rosco the German shepherd. In the quiet, he listened to the ticking of the car’s cooling engine. He heard Harper moving his feet on the gravel. Lane looked across at his partner. Harper was checking and rechecking every shrub, every corner, every bit of cover where someone might hide near the ranch house.
Blake opened the door. Lane watched him step out into the sun. Again, Blake was dressed in black. He put on his black stetson.
“Morning detectives. It’s Harper and?…” Blake motioned with his right hand.
“Detective Lane,” Harper said.
“We need to go around back.” Blake led the way to the south side of the house.
Lane looked at the Quonset and corral. There were no horses or cattle. Grass grew knee-high inside the fence. He could see no evidence of trampled or grazed grass.
They followed Blake around to the back of the house.
“Didn’t find these ‘til this morning. I got up and went to check the yard.” Blake pointed at the white vinyl siding.
“Where’s Rosco?” Lane asked.
Blake looked away. “Don’t know.”
Lane and Harper looked back at the house. The bullet holes were relatively evenly spaced, working their way from the lower north side of the wall up to where one round had shattered a roof tile at the south peak of one gable. Lane counted five bullet holes.
“Didn’t hit any windows.” Harper looked at Blake before looking back at Lane with his best “I don’t buy it” look.
“That’s why I didn’t notice it last night,” Blake said.
Lane walked north to the stacked round bails about twenty metres from the north end of the house.
“There’s a guy who cuts the hay for us. He takes a percentage for his cattle. Duds liked to feed it to his horse.” Blake followed along behind Lane.
Harper followed Blake.
Lane turned and studied the ground.
Blake said, “What you lookin’ for?” “Whatever is here.” Lane said the words without looking back at Blake.
“Does Rosco do this often?” Lane looked at the ground while listening intently to Blake’s tone of voice. He’s not so cocky all of a sudden, Lane thought. What’s caused the change in behaviour?
“What? What are you talkin’ about?” Blake asked.
“Does Rosco often disappear for a day or two?” Harper asked.
“You never can tell about a dog.” Blake delivered the reply like a joke.
“Dogs get hungry.” Lane stopped, looked back at the house to get his bearings. He looked at the stack of bails. One sat on its end while the others lay on their sides stacked end to end, making one long cylinder. He spotted a glint of something on the upright bail. He walked to the stack. The hay crop whispered against his pant legs as he moved. The ground was uneven and soft underfoot.
“What do you see?” Blake’s voice was pitched higher.
Harper and Blake followed until they stood next to Lane by the bail. Lane reached over and pointed at a dime-sized piece of glass at the top of the bail. He showed it to Harper.
Harper looked at Blake. “Do you do any target shooting?”
“Never.” Blake shook his head emphatically.
“The forensic team will be here soon. We’ll wait for them.” Lane looked down and found a shard of glass about a metre from the bail.
“You know who did this, don’t you?” Blake asked.
“Nope,” Harper said.
“It’s obvious. Eva Starchild’s been behind this from the beginning.” Blake folded his arms, then leaned defiantly against a bail.
Harper drove into Eva’s back yard. There was one car parked near the garage.
Lane looked at the fire pit where the rocks for the sweat lodge were heated. The air above the pit wasn’t wavering from the heat.
“Think she heard us comin’?” Harper smiled before calling in their location.
To Lane’s ears, the Chev’s doors sounded unnaturally loud when they closed.
Their feet crunched on the sand and gravel driveway.
The first rap of Harper’s knuckles made the back door shudder. He looked over his shoulder at Lane, then tapped with a polite tattoo.
Eva opened the door, smiled then nodded at Lane as if to say, “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Can we talk with you?” Lane asked.
“Come.” Eva was wearing a blue nightgown and a white hand-knit sweater. She turned, then walked up the stairs and into the kitchen.
Lane stepped inside and looked at the landing. Pairs of shoes lay scattered there. He looked at Eva’s feet. She wore slippers.
Lane bent to untie his shoes. He turned to Harper who looked at Lane, uncertain what to do next. They looked up the stairs. Eva was watching.
Harper took his shoes off.
Eva smiled. “Just cleaned the floor yesterday.”
Lane looked at the green linoleum. It shone despite the patches where traffic had worn it down to the black. He stepped inside the kitchen and noticed the pot of coffee on the stove. There was the scent of something else too. Baking in the oven, Lane thought.
“Coffee?” Eva asked.
“Sure,” Lane said.
“Cream? Sugar?” Eva opened the cupboard.
“Please,” Harper said.
“Sit.” Eva cocked her head to the right.
Lane and Harper sat down at the kitchen table in one of the eight assorted wooden chairs surrounding it. The pictures of hummingbirds, Aidan and Alex, Norm on a brand new all-terrain vehicle and a dancing Alex hung on the wall behind Harper.
Harper watched Lane, who looked back with a blank expression. Just be patient, Lane thought and hoped Harper got the message.
Eva brought sugar and a jug of milk to the table along with three coffee cups of assorted colours and designs. She poured coffee before returning to the stove. Fresh-baked muffins and butter appeared. “Been expecting you.”
“What kind of muffins? They smell great,” Harper said.
“Saskatoon.” Eva sat across from them.
Lane’s mouth watered.
Eva lifted her black coffee and sipped. She closed her eyes.
Lane buttered a muffin. “You were expecting us?”
“Yep.” Eva ey
ed him impassively as she took another sip.
Harper devoured his saskatoon muffin and reached for a second.
Lane waited.
Eva waited.
Harper ate a third muffin. “Okay if I get more coffee?”
Eva nodded.
“How long are we going to sit like this?” Lane asked.
“My house.” Eva intended the two words to carry a wide range of meanings, the most obvious of which was, “Until I’m good and ready.”
Harper ate a fourth muffin. “These are amazing.” A piece of muffin popped out of his mouth onto the table. He grabbed it and put it in his mouth, then looked to see if Eva had noticed. His lips were stained purple.
Eva smiled. She looked in Harper’s direction. “He’s okay. Talks too much, but he’s okay.”
Lane nodded in agreement.
“You’re here because someone shot at that Blake Rogers’ house,” Eva said.
“How did you know?” Harper asked.
“Somebody always sees what’s going on out here even when there’s nobody around.” Eva got up to pour herself some more coffee. “More?”
“Please,” Lane said.
“Me too.” Harper spit bits of muffin and raised his cup. “You hear the shots?”
“Nope.” Eva warmed their cups, then refilled her own.
“How did you know, then?” Lane asked.
“Same as most people. Phone call.”
Lane laughed. “From who?”
“A friend.”
Lane said, “Rogers thinks you did it.”
“Course he does.” Eva smirked.
Lane held his hands with the palms up to indicate he was trying to understand.
“Don’t own a gun. Won’t have one in the house or on my land. Go and take a look if you like.” She said this as if they’d be wasting their time.
“If there’s no gun, then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Harper said.
“Home alone last night.” Eva waited as they chewed that piece of news over.
“Nobody came around?” Harper wiped his mouth with his hand.
“Nope. Not even Norm. He was home watching TV.”
“Bad blood between you and Blake Rogers?” Lane asked.
“Might say that.” Eva put her coffee cup down and wrapped her fingers around it, keeping them warm.
“Do you want to tell us why?” Lane watched Eva’s eyes. They were beginning to fill with tears.
Eva took a long breath. “Do you want to tell us about the vision you had at the sweat lodge?”
Lane sat back. He thought, That question caught me completely by surprise. He looked closer at Eva. “How did you know?”
“You had that look when you left the sweat. Real thoughtful, like you’d seen something you’d never seen before. Seen that look a time or two. Even seen it in the mirror a time or two. It’s the way people look after a vision.” Eva waited for Lane’s reaction.
“You’re right. Something happened. I can’t explain it.” The room got warmer. Lane felt sweat gathering along his hairline. And more dripping down his ribs.
“Try.” Eva leaned closer.
“It felt like my grandfather was there next to me. But he’s been dead for more than twenty-five years,” Lane said. “He taught me that looking out for kids was the most important thing an adult can do. He always watched out for me.”
“You know Alex, my grandson, was killed by a pickup truck. Some boys drove onto the side of the road and opened their door. Ran him down like a dog. Killed him. He couldn’t hear them comin’. Alex was deaf.” Tears ran down Eva’s cheeks. She wiped them away. “I wasn’t watching close enough.”
“I read the reports,” Harper said.
“Blake Rogers was behind it all,” Eva said.
“How do you know?” Lane asked.
“Same way you know your grandfather was with you at the sweat. Sometimes my grandson, my Alex, comes to the sweat just to comfort me. I invite him, just like you invited your grandfather.” Eva wiped at her nose with a Kleenex pulled from her sleeve. “I can feel it the way I can feel a hummingbird when it passes close by. Like the wind of its wings washing against my face.”
“Did anyone else know Blake killed your grandson?” Harper asked.
“Lots of people. No one could prove it, but they knew all the same.” After that, Eva said very little.
Lane and Harper got up to leave after fifteen minutes of uncomfortable silence.
Eva came outside. Lane motioned for Eva to go first as they stepped through the gate. Harper pointed at the evergreens planted in a line. “I wanted to ask you about those trees.”
Eva stepped outside the gate. “Ask.”
The first bullet slapped into the Chev’s gas tank.
Eva dodged to her right.
Harper tackled Lane.
Lane felt the blow just below his ribs. The air was forced from his lungs. His face was shoved into the gravel.
For several moments, Lane struggled to get his breath back. He spit gravel and dirt. Lane sat up and leaned his back against the front tire where they were protected by the car’s engine.
Harper crouched next to him with his Glock drawn. He looked for Eva but couldn’t spot her. The next bullet took out the rear tire on the far side of the car. The air filled with gasoline fumes.
“Where is he?” Harper asked.
“Thought I heard the shot. It sounded a long way off. And it sounds like a small calibre. Maybe a twenty-two.” Lane pulled his Glock out of its holster with one hand and his cellphone out with the other.
A minute later the gas tank was punctured again. Lane heard the bullet hum as it ricocheted off a rock and smacked into something nearby. The spark of the ricochet ignited the fumes from the leaking tank. Flames spilled around the back of the car and cooked the rear of the Chev’s underbelly.
Harper grabbed Lane by the arm. They crouched and ran back though the gate and around the side of the house, where Eva found them.
“Have another coffee.” She handed each of them a mug. “He’s gone.”
“You sure?” Harper asked.
“Yep.” Eva waited with them and watched the flames boil around the rear of the car. “You’re hurt.” She looked at Lane and the blood on the ground.
He felt his ribs. By the time he got around to feeling his backside, his hand came away bloody. “Great.”
Eva went back in the house and came back with a tea towel. Lane used it to apply pressure to the wound.
Lane leaned the back of his head against the side of the house. Motion at the south side of Eva’s yard attracted his attention. A blur of wings hovered near purple honeysuckle. Lane thought, What is that? “Over there; it’s a hummingbird.”
Harper turned when Lane pointed.
The bird stuck its beak deep into the flower.
Lane watched, fascinated, realizing he’d never actually seen a hummingbird before.
The black column of smoke guided the emergency vehicles to the scene. Within thirty minutes the yard was was filled with an ambulance, two fire engines, assorted police vehicles, and Dr. Fibre’s forensic unit.
“You should learn to let it go.” Alex was using his most annoying holier-than-thou voice. “I can’t even remember any pain. One minute I’m looking at you, I feel a vibration; there wasn’t even time to turn before the door hit me. That was it. Pretty painless, really.”
Aidan crouched atop the catwalk. She wore red for this scene. A blood-red satin blouse, red jeans, socks, and shoes. Even a red ball cap.
Aidan’s marionette was dressed the same way. She said, “But I still feel guilty. If I hadn’t distracted you …”
“See, that’s what I mean! You blame yourself. This guilt eats away at you from the inside. The guys in the truck meant for it to happen, not you!” Alex raised his arms in exasperation. “The only thing you should feel guilty about is this damned outfit you put me in!” He used his hands to point at the rainbow of colours. “I never wore anything like
this in my life!”
“It’s symbolic!” Aidan the marionette pointed at the sky for effect.
“And she chooses the wardrobes! She wears those amazing outfits and I’m stuck with this!” Alex put his hands on his hips and looked up at Aidan the puppeteer.
She looked down and smiled. “I want the audience to really see me. You know, so they can’t miss me. Then when the transformation comes, if it comes, when the audience forgets I’m here, that’s what I’ll be waiting for.”
“Transformation?” Alex looked out where the audience would be.
“When you become real. When the audience sees each marionette as a real person. Someone who lives and breathes. That’s what needs to happen.”
Alex looked back at Aidan the marionette. “So what difference will that make? How will that change what happened, what’s still happening? Everyone knew whose truck it was, even though you didn’t see the rear plate. The problem was the police couldn’t prove it, that’s all! By the time the RCMP got around to checking the pickup, both doors were replaced with new ones.” Alex smiled and looked at the audience. “They had a body and a witness but no conclusive evidence. Four guys living together in one house. All four knew what they did to me. Not one of them talked. All they were worried about was saving their skins. And I was called the ‘victim of the week’!”
“I’m almost there.” Lane had his cellphone wedged between his shoulder and his left ear. One hand lifted him up to keep his right cheek off the car seat. The other leaned against the back of the seat. He winced as he used his left hand to reach around and shut the phone off.
“Hurtin’?” Harper asked.
Lane inhaled. “Yes.”
“You didn’t tell him.” Harper turned off Deerfoot Trail where the uneven surface of the roadway created a choppy, tortuous ride.
“Arthur’s had enough trouble this year. He doesn’t need another phone call like that. He still jumps every time the phone rings. For a long time after his sister and after the fire, he couldn’t sleep. Kept wandering around the house at night. He needs to see me face to face.” Lane shifted his backside. The pain came in a series of crescendos swelling to a climax with the pumping of his heart.
