Deputy Bybee stood up and said, "Mrs. Buler here was working on her quilt. The other woman--Lena--went into the kitchen to get something. From the window by the sink, she saw a bear digging at the ground. She had a rifle in her pickup and went and got it. She came back through the house, past Mrs. Buler here, opened the back door and shot that bear dead. Before they realized what the bear had been digging up, Mrs. Buler called 911.
"Good thing, too, as it had been digging at the body of her husband. They both were screaming by the time we got here."
"Her husband? The bear killed him?"
"No. The bear was digging up Mr. Buler. He's been dead for some time."
"In the backyard?" To Magda I said, "I thought your husband was away. Fishing? Somewhere on a boat?"
She sat up straighter and set the cup down. "I thought so, too. But I was wrong. And they think I killed him. Buried him here."
Tears streamed down her face. Deputy Bybee went to the bathroom and brought back a wet washcloth. Magda wiped her face with it, and her ragged breath calmed.
She worried at the cloth, said clearly, "I don't know how Tom got there, but I didn't do anything to him. Do you think that I'd have come here every day if I knew he was...out there?" She ran her hand over her head, pulling at her hair--easy to see how she got her scattered look. "Lord a'mighty." She sank back onto the couch, wiping at new tears.
"Where is Lena?" I said.
"Oh, that damn woman got hysterical when they took her gun away from her. So they carted her off. Yah, where's Lena? What did you do with her?"
"Your friend..." The Deputy pulled out a notebook.
"...was taken to the hospital first to be checked out, make sure she wasn't about to have a heart attack. I think they gave her a mild sedative to calm her down. She didn't have to be so hysterical. Not her husband. Then to the jail in McMinnville, where she is now."
"The jail?" Magda started up from the couch. The full import was penetrating her shock.
"Oh, she's all right." said Deputy Bybee. When I opened my mouth to protest her tone, she said, "Sorry. It's just that she caused a lot of trouble, shooting that bear. It's against the law to shoot inside city limits. Hope she's got a license to hunt bear. Out of season, anyway." An unexpected grin took the edge off her words. She flipped the notebook shut.
"You'd'a shot him, too! Did you see what he was into?" Magda's hand went to her mouth and the tears started again. She dabbed at them with the washcloth.
"Sure, I saw. What do you think we're doing here? We've taken a zillion pictures, lots of notes. Making a record. Called the Tribe at Grande Ronde to come salvage the remains of the bear." She turned back to questioning Magda. "I do wonder why your friend was so hysterical. Most likely they'll just book and release her. I'll see." She flipped her cell open and walked out the front door to the little porch.
While she was gone Magda put her hands on mine. "Do you think you could call Sam? Could he come? I don't know where my cell is."
He must not have been able to get through. "Sure, I'll call him in a few minutes. I suppose I could go get him if you want him here." No need to tell her I'm ahead of her on this. The look of relief on her face told me what I needed to know.
Almost.
I, too, wondered at Lena's hysteria.
I took the washcloth from Magda into the bathroom, refreshed it and myself, and took it back to her. She was slumped, alone, except for Deputy Bybee. She sat up and her eyes asked a question.
"I'll go call him now. And then take you home?"
Deputy Bybee said, "I don't think Mrs. Buler will be going anywhere right soon."
Oh.
Magda flashed me the first smile I'd seen from her. Not a real smile, closer to a grimace, but she was at least trying to surface from this nightmare. I bet she just wanted to go get a needle and stick it in some cloth, for the relief.
I arranged with Sam to pick him up the next morning, and then went back into the studio. "Any coffee around this place?" Magda started to get up but I put my hand out. "That's all right. I'll go make some in a while. First, we must figure out what's going on here."
"It's a mess, Annie. A real mess."
She had that right. I left her with Deputy Bybee, and went outside to call Len.
Chapter 19
Moving Tom
After I left Len a message to call me back, the sheriff suggested I take Magda home.
"We'll call when we need you," he said to her. "You are what we call, 'a person of interest'. I could detain you, but no need. I know where you live."
That was where I learned about Tom.
We sat at the table in the dining nook, to a dinner of canned soup and sandwiches I'd made with what I found in her cupboards and fridge. She was in mental shock.
"Tommy's drinking just turned everything to mush between us. Once he hurt me and I called Wish. Well, I called the sheriff and Wish came. After that, Tommy and I didn't trust each other. His words smashed all my feelings for him. He beat me down until I got to a point where I hoped he would die. Finally, it became unbearable."
Magda had been eating automatically, but with those words she put down her spoon. "His drinking dominated our lives. He became someone I didn't know and didn't want to have around. He was always into some scheme or other to make money, and he decided he wanted to be a commercial fisherman. I liked the idea. Maybe he would die at sea, or even better, make some money.
"He needed a boat to go fishing when and where and for as long as he wanted. And I wanted that too, for me. It was freedom, of a sort.
"We saved and borrowed, put every bit of cash into getting him a boat. Meantime he worked on other boats, to make money towards buying his own, learning what he needed to make a living at it."
"It?"
"Being a commercial fisherman. What to fish for, when, and where. How to store fish on the boat, what prices to expect for what fish. All the basics of taking care of a boat. It always needs work. That part was good for him. With his temper he had a hard time keeping a crew. Had to do most of the work himself."
"So, he makes a living fishing, now?"
She looked at me. "Not now."
Embarrassed, I took a look around. The house didn't feel like a fisherman's. There wasn't an old rowboat in the side yard or fishing gear lying around. Quilts and surfing equipment decorated her walls. In a corner was a large shelf with old lady stuff, knick knacks, little china chicks, a couple cows.
The surfboards intrigued me. Three of them hung from large hooks on the wall.
She smiled when I asked if Tom surfed. "Sure, he taught me how. We spent a lot of time at the beach. One of those boards is his. Two are mine. I was pretty good on a board. That was some years, and several pounds, ago. We loved doing that together, looking for that gift from the ocean, the curling roll of the perfect wave."
That set me to thinking about Roger and I, and Len and how I always seemed to be putting off our reunion. Was I waiting for a different wave?
I brought us back to now. "I wonder if they've taken him out of the back yard yet."
"Oh, God. Tommy's body. The sheriff said he needed to take photos of it in place and lift it carefully so's not to disturb any evidence that might show how it got there." Her lips turned down in despair. "I've been thinking and thinking. When was it I last heard from him? What'd he say? He was coming home, I know.
"Then he didn't." She lifted her tea mug, and then set it down without taking a drink. Distracted.
She rose from the chair so rapidly that it teetered.
I grabbed it, set it right.
"I gotta go back there!" Her eyes were wild again. "Will you go with me? Take me?"
"Sure. But calm down. Why do we need to go back there?"
"He's my husband. I want to know what happened. And if they took him to Treeline yet." Treeline was the local mortuary. "There are things to do."
My cell rang. The ID told me it was Sam. "Yo," I greeted him. "I'm here with Magda. We're going back to the studio
. Here, you talk to her."
She took the phone with a huge sigh. "Oh, Sammy. I can't wait 'til you get here." She listened. "You can stay at my place. Not a motel." She gulped and I feared she was going to start wailing again, but no. She pulled herself together and said, calmly, "I need you here."
So easy for her to say. Did I feel that way about Len? Roger had been the right guy but he hadn't stuck around.
Magda had had the opposite problem. She couldn't get hers to stay away. Until now. I remembered seeing that in a poem once:
Why do the ones we want
to go,
stay?
And the ones we want
to stay,
go?
A good question.
We arrived just as they were lifting the body from the ground. Deputy Bybee led us through the house to the small cement patio. "Don't go any farther, you understand? Are you sure you want to be here?"
I wasn't, but Magda held her hand to her mouth and nodded. I'd hoped he would be gone to the morgue. An old quilt was wrapped around the body. It was tattered and torn. By the bear? Or time? Ironic, I thought, as even I recognized the pattern. Wedding Ring.
"It's him, all right," Magda whispered to herself.
The deputy looked at her curiously, because Magda had been so matter of fact.
"It's my husband and my house, I don't think it can get any worse, do you?"
Deputy Bybee rolled her eyes. "That remains to be seen."
"Frankly, I've seen about all the remains I can handle." I pushed down nausea as I made my way back into the kitchen. With a thump I sat onto a chair at the table where we'd all had pie just a few days ago. My cell rang just as I was digging it out to call Len. It was him.
"Sweetheart, how goes it?" His voice was full of concern.
I relaxed into the warmth of him, that side that was gentle, caring, and knew what to do. Forgetting my doubts I poured my troubles into his listening ear.
He cut to the chase. "I guess this means that tomorrow is off?" His tone was neutral.
"You don't mind?"
"Au contraire, my little chickadee, I mind a lot." His voice purred into my ear, which tingled as if his fingers had traced the rims, lightly, but with just that little bit of pressure that made me want more.
My mind raced, feeling for loopholes. "I am going to be busy tomorrow, going down to fetch Sam and bring him back. Say! Do you want to go with me? You know, I could really use your help in this."
"Sure, if you want me to. I've already cleared the decks for the day, so I'm free. How about I pick you up around... Wait, where should I pick you up? You staying with Magda tonight? In Willamina?"
Magda and I had talked it over and she had a friend who could come and stay with her tomorrow. Now that I thought of it, why shouldn't I take her along with Len and me to pick up Sam? That way, nobody could get in trouble.
It might help take her mind off the immediate work that would have to take place in the backyard. It was all quickly arranged.
Deputy Bybee said Magda could go with us to pick up Sam, but she made it clear to me that she didn't want Magda left alone. "I'm just worried about her state of mind. I know how I'd feel if we found my husband buried in my backyard."
"She's not a suspect?"
"Not on the face of it, no. I was there when she first saw him, and I don't believe she suspected in any of this." She shrugged. "I could be wrong, but I'm good at what I do, and one of the things I do is trust my experience. Besides, I talked to my mom, who's known Mrs. Buler all her life and she says to look in a different direction. We have other clues." She put her hand on my shoulder, "Just watch her. She's highly thought of in this town, and that ain't no small potatoes."
Magda was ready to leave. She handed me a large cloth bag, homemade of course. "Here. Your quilt. We're gonna have some time on our hands. Let's be productive."
I was hoping she'd forgotten the quilt. The closer we got to doing it, the bigger the knot in my stomach became. Oddly, I took the bag with a feeling of serenity. "You have what we need at your house?"
"You betcha. I don't know much about murdering bears but I do know quilting. Ain't nothing like it to calm you down. You'll see."
I wondered if she was talking to me, or herself. No matter.
We left the people in the backyard to gathering clues and moving the body on out of there. Deputy Bybee watched us leave, with a last caution. "You leave your cells on. We'll be calling you when you can return here. Meanwhile, go on down to Cannon Beach. But, come right on back, okay. No time for funning around down there."
As we climbed into my car the officers were loading Tom's bagged body into the back of a van. Magda took one long look, gave a small nod, and moved on into the passenger seat. We were buckling up when she said, "I guess that's that, huh. I never thought it'd come to this."
"Did you ever think about how it might end?" Neither one of us questioned what "it" meant.
"I'm not surprised somebody offed him and buried him in the backyard. Just never imagined it would be my backyard."
We waited while the morgue people finished up with locking the double doors of the van. They backed out slowly, turned down the hill and moved on down the road. Taking the body to autopsy, not to Treeline Mortuary.
I gave the van some distance before I followed it down the road. Neither of us said a word..
It was barely dusk when we got back to her house, a cottage with a large trellis arched over the walkway to the front door, overgrown with a rose bush coming from each side and meeting in a tangle overhead. Thorns snagged my blouse and caught in my hair as we walked under it. The whole front looked shaggy, like no one was much paying attention to it.
I reminded myself to tell Sam to bring his garden tools. We had work for him to do. He was going to be one busy guy.
Chapter 20
A Hard Night
From my bed in the guest room I heard Magda cry out. Nightmares?
I turned on lights on the way to the kitchen where I drew a glass of water. Remembering Deputy Bybee's earlier kindness, I found washcloths in the bathroom cupboard, and soaked one with warm water. When I entered her room, she was sitting on the side of her bed, shaking. I turned on her bedside lamp and handed her the water.
She took a deep drink before handing it back to me. "Thank you." She buried her face in the comfort of the warm cloth while I sat beside her and put my arm around her shoulders.
"Annie, This is the most awful thing that has ever happened to me." She tossed her head. "Oh, listen to me. It's not about me. It happened to Tommy. And here I am, looking forward to a trip to the beach tomorrow to get Sammy. I'm a real piece of work, that's what I am."
She breathed a deep sigh. "I know what happened to Tommy is real, but in my dream it was just so sad, him sitting under the apple tree, saying, 'Are you happy? I'm gone for good, now.'" She took another drink.
"God forgive me, I'm not sorry he won't show up on my doorstep again. Drunk. Crazy. Whoever killed him did me a favor.
"Oh! I don't really mean that. It's just that it's been such a long time I've been afraid that he'd come back home. Never knowing. Looking over my shoulder, wondering if he was going to show up and wreck something."
She set the glass down and tugged at the bedding. I lifted the covers, and she pulled her legs and body back onto the bed. I plumped up her pillows and with a little groan she lay back down.
"Do you think you can go back to sleep now? If you don't sleep I wonder about you coming with me tomorrow. With Len and me," I amended, "to pick up Sam. We could always bring him to you."
"No. I'll be okay. I need the trip."
As I leaned to turn the bedside lamp off, I saw a twinkle, dim but lighting the corners of her eyes.
"Besides, someone has to chaperone you two. That boy is up to no good. You mark my words." The twinkle faded and I clicked off the light. "Thank you for helping me. Lena's a basket case and most of my friends are on a quilt retreat. I felt so alone."
> "Glad to help," I whispered but I don't think she heard me, because the next noise from her bed was a light snore.
Chapter 21
Magda's Morning After
When I woke the morning after the bear found Tommy, I felt drugged. I lay there gathering my bearings until my body propelled me to the bathroom. I needed to scrub off everything that had happened yesterday. As I stood under the shower nozzle with the hottest water I could handle pouring over me, my head began to clear. The nightmare was over. Soaping up a washcloth, I washed Tommy's touch, from my face to my toes, down the drain. Yesterday had been the final straw in a lifetime of nightmares with him.
The Quilt Show was coming up and I had responsibilities.
Annie was moving around in the kitchen. I heard cupboards being opened and shut, then the smell of coffee. I prefer tea in the early morning but I was relieved to not have to make any decisions. Coffee would do fine. Annie's quilt needed finishing, and I needed to teach her how to do that. While I dressed I mentally put fabric together, laid out batting and put a backing on it. I imagined it about ready for CanDoIt, the name I'd given my quilting machine.
I pulled on tan pants and a pink sweater, the brown walking shoes I always take to the beach, and accessorized with shell earrings and a heart necklace.
Annie was buttering toast. "Coffee there for you, Magda, if you want it." She pointed to the cup at my place, with bowl and spoon. The tablecloth was one of my flowered pieces of fabric, a large square of thin cotton printed with roses of pink and red.
Tommy had sneered as he was readying to leave this last time. "I'll be glad to be rid of all this girlie cloth with little flowers."
I'd looked around after he left, and dang it, I did have lots of flowered fabric. I bought more but he never got to see it. I suppose that's for the best.
"I'll be glad," I'd snapped back, "when I don't have to listen to you sneering at me, either."
He'd been surprised when I said that. I usually just go quiet when he attacks my quilting.
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