Designer Detective (A Fiona Marlowe Mystery)

by Thelen, Marjorie

  “You don’t want to mess with that fellow. He’s a smooth talker and mean. I wouldn’t trust him.”

  “His wives shouldn’t have either.”

  Jake stopped and turned to her. “Stay away from him, okay? If he crosses your path, run the other way.”

  He looked so serious that she had to agree. “Sure, I’ll stay away from him.”

  “Good. Anyway, how’ve you been?”

  “Decent. I’ve been decent. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

  “Too long. Why didn’t you come when you said you were going to?”

  She lifted one shoulder. “Things got busy. I went out to Australia for vacation like I said I would.”

  “You didn’t take me.”

  “No. I needed time to think after the fiasco back in Virginia. You made your feelings clear. I wasn’t sure about mine.”

  “But you came. I’m glad you did. It’s good to see you.”

  She studied his face. The planes of it were stark and strong. It wasn’t that she didn’t find Jake attractive, it was more she didn’t know what she wanted. “It’s good to see you, too. I wasn’t sure I’d come. But work slowed down so I thought now was the time to get the job done for Opal. I’ll admit I was curious about life here. It’s different.”

  He nodded. “It sure is.”

  “You look like you belong here.”

  “I do. You might come to like it.”

  She looked up at the sorry looking bunk house. “I don’t know. My new home is not what I had envisioned.”

  “Opal embellishes things sometimes. She wanted you out here bad. Keeps talking about how nice the house will look after you get it fancied up.”

  She put her arm through his, and they resumed their walk.

  “I’ll give this a try. It is 180 degrees from what I’m used to. I’ve been a city dweller most of my life.”

  They reached the sagging front porch of her new home that looked like a cigar box that’d been in the sun too long.

  “Going to invite me in for coffee?” Jake asked.

  She smiled. “Sure, if you sing me that song. There’s no place to sit outside of two straight back chairs that might give you splinters.”

  Jake followed her in. “I can handle that.”

  She’d hired Opal’s girl, Queenie, to clean the place since cleaning was not Fiona’s strong suit. Cobwebs and dirty windows disappeared with a little scrubbing but the windows remained cloudy and pitted from the endless grit the wind brought along. The board walls were gray with age. No amount of scrubbing was going to change that. She could see daylight through the cracks in the boards. How did cowboys live here with ghosts to boot? She was still worried about those ghosts.

  Jake carried the two chairs out to the porch. She poured water from a pitcher into a pan and turned on the gas burner to heat the water. There was no inside running water. She got water from an outside pump. This was way beyond rustic. Why hadn’t she quizzed Opal on the amenities of the old bunk house? She should have asked more questions before accepting the bribe in return for an alibi. But then things were moving pretty fast at the time with the police asking questions, and there was little time to think.

  She joined Jake on the porch. A line of vehicle lights winked off and on along the dusty road leaving Opal’s house. The party had finally broken up.

  Jake broke the still of the evening first. “I’m glad the Lodge family disaster is over.”

  “Let’s not think about it. I want to think about designing my new home and Opal’s. That’s all I want to think about.”

  “Right. Though, you know, I heard they found a guy in the desert to the east of here in an old rusted car, nothing but bones. The police don’t know if it was murder or suicide.”

  “Really?” she said, trying to keep the excitement from her voice.

  Jake started laughing.

  She recovered her senses. “I’m not interested in the least.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “You are not going to tempt me. This is a spooky place. I’ve heard more about murders, ghosts and dead bodies in one day than I have heard my whole life.”

  “You’re getting it all in one dose.”

  “What happened to the skeleton in the desert?”

  “The investigation continues.” He laughed. “See, you can’t help yourself. Detective Marlowe rides again. Do you want to take a drive tomorrow to see where they found the skeleton? I’ll take time off and show you some of the country.”

  “How long will it take?” She had already learned this was an important question in a county of ten thousand square miles and less than seven thousand people.

  “Several hours round trip. We could take a picnic lunch and make a day of it.”

  She went inside to finish making coffee while she thought it over. She was anxious to start work on the bunk house. Contractors were coming Monday to work on the plumbing and wiring for electricity. A carpenter was to start work on shoring up the walls, installing insulation, and transforming the interior with dry wall. Was she crazy to try to save this old place? But tomorrow she had nothing planned, and it would be fun to see some of the country, which was beautiful if you liked sagebrush and red brown rim rock.

  She put coffee singles in two mugs with hot water and carried the mugs outside. They sat in the still night under starry skies.

  “This is pretty country,” she said.

  “The best,” said Jake.

  “Okay, I’ll go. Now how about that song?”

  * * * * *

  A loose shutter banged against the bunk house. For an hour Fiona had been listening to that banging shutter and something else. She tried to distinguish between the sound of the wind, and the sound that woke her up. Sleep was impossible. What was that sound? All she could think of were ghosts. There were no shadows in the room. Only blackness. She was having trouble getting used to the blackness of the night here. No horns honked, no lights glared outside, no hum of the city. Nothing but black. And the wind. Maybe she should go back to her nice, safe condominium in Northern Virginia.

  There it was. A low moan. Her eyes searched each of the east facing windows that looked out over hay fields, herds of cattle, and rim rock. She saw only stars. A strange sight. Stars. In her warm bedroom back home, she saw the lights of the nation’s capital reflected on the walls. She wasn’t used to cold summer nights, the wind, the stars, the dust. She wasn’t used to any of this.

  She eased up on one elbow and listened. Something was moaning. Did ghosts moan? They did in Walt Disney movies. Was it a wolf? No, Jake said there weren’t any wolves in this part of the country. Maybe they had moved in unannounced. Coyotes yipped and barked, day or night. But this didn’t sound like a healthy coyote. This sounded like something in distress, hopefully not a ghost in distress.

  She was reluctant to leave the relative security and warmth of the cot Opal had lent her. It was a hard bed but she preferred it to a softer one in Opal’s house because she wanted to be in her own place. She needed furniture in this hollow, empty space, which would make the place much more inviting.

  The moaning took on a deeper timbre. Maybe it was a hurt varmint. She considered telephoning for help. Jake would come. She held up her watch. The digital glow read 3:30 A.M. She hated to wake up anyone after that party. Maybe the sound would go away. She lay back and pulled the down comforter over her head, hoping sleep would come. It didn’t. The moaning continued. She turned on the flashlight Jake had given her, the only light near the bed. Maybe the light would make the moaning stop. It didn’t. She wondered if light went straight through ghosts.

  What finally motivated her to rise and pull on the sweater she’d thrown on the bed for warmth was insatiable curiosity and, some would say, lack of common sense. The bare wood floor was cold, and she slid her feet into the sandals by the bed. The moaning seemed to be coming from the other side of the front door. Some animal must be injured and had crawled up on the porch to get out of the wind. Or maybe it was a per
son. She hoped it wasn’t Hank Little come to murder another woman. Maybe he only murdered wives. In that case she should be okay.

  If she opened the door the culprit might be right there. What if it were something dangerous? She didn’t know all of the animals that lived here, but she was sure they were dangerous. Probably more dangerous if wounded. Jake said there were badgers. She didn’t know what a badger looked like or how big it was but it sounded ugly and dangerous.

  Undecided, she watched the door, listening. The moan had a whine to it. Maybe it was a dog. There were dogs over at the main house. If it were a hurt dog, should she let it in out of the wind and cold?

  She trained the flash light on the door and tip-toed across the floor, stopping at the window by the door. In a flash of courage she trained the flashlight on the porch floor outside the door. She saw nothing but black, but the moaning stopped and didn’t start again. That was a relief.

  She turned to go back to bed. The moan started again. Sound reverberated in odd ways here. The source could be out in the cow pasture or half-way across the valley. If she didn’t check this out, she’d never get any sleep. Garnering her scanty courage, she cracked the door enough to shine the light through. The wind blasted into the narrow opening. She squinted into darkness.

  Nothing. There was nothing. She opened the door a hair further, enough to flash the light around on the porch. Nothing. The sound had stopped. She was not about to search outside on a night like this. The wind honed a cold edge to the night. She closed the door. There was no lock. She propped one of chairs under the door knob, a trick she’d learned from TV. They did not teach that maneuver in design school. Under the circumstances that was the best she could do.

  Crawling under the warm down quilt, she pulled it over her head. She’d never thought to make a fire in the rusty woodstove. The evening had been pleasant. But the wind had come up, and now it was cold enough to see her breath. She checked her watch again. 4:00 A.M. The sky in the east had a light tinge to it. She curled up in a ball and wished for sleep.

  An unholy pounding woke her. Given the paucity of sleep she had gotten, she was in a wicked mood, and worse, it was freezing in the bunk house. She wrapped the comforter around her unhappy body and padded to the door. Of course, she had to struggle to get the chair out of the way.

  She yanked open the door and squinted into bright light. “What?”

  Jake stood in full buckaroo regalia. “You aren’t ready. We’re going sightseeing today. Did you forget?”

  “I had a rough night.” She related the story. “It must have been a ghost. There was nothing, and then it stopped.”

  “You should have taken me up on my offer of sharing my warm bed in the big house,” he said with a grin.

  She ignored him. She wasn’t in the mood. “It’s freezing in here.”

  “You should have started a fire.”

  “There’s no wood, and I don’t know how anyway. Are you being annoying because it’s in your DNA or because you enjoy making my life a misery?”

  “You’re in a temper. Get your stuff. I’ll take you down to the big house for a shower and a decent breakfast. Then we’ll get on the road. You don’t have to be some kind of heroine, staying up here at night. Opal has plenty of extra beds.” He paused then said softly. “And there’s always mine.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’m trying to get the feel for the house so I can make a proper living space out of it.”

  “Right.”

  Chapter 2

  Everywhere a body went in this country the preferable means of transportation was by truck or rig, as the locals called a truck or other motorized conveyance. If it wasn’t four wheel drive, you were asking for trouble. If snow didn’t end you up in a ditch, the grease they called roads in wet weather would put you there. That’s what Jake told her as they drove along the improved gravel road that stretched forever into the distance. Not another vehicle was on the road. They could have been driving into a black hole.

  Fiona wore jeans, a long sleeve white shirt with paisley neck scarf, and her new flat brimmed hat that was starting to grow on her.

  “You look the buckaroo,” Jake said.

  She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. I don’t understand why I have to wear long sleeves on a hot day.”

  “Because it will keep you from getting sun burn and eaten alive by mosquitoes. They’re bad this time of year.”

  “I have a few choice welts to testify to that. Do you always drive this fast?”

  “What? Eighty? How else you going to get anywhere?”

  Around noon they stopped for lunch at Mann Lake. Jake spread an old blanket on the ground, and Fiona laid out the food Queenie had packed. It was leftovers from the party and smelled more delicious today than yesterday.

  “Oh, no,” she said as Jake sat down on the blanket.

  “What?”

  “I think she put goat in the sandwiches by mistake.”

  “No mistake about it. I asked for it.”

  “You like goat?”

  “You don’t?”

  Her tummy rumbled. She sniffed the sandwiches. “I guess I do now.” She took a careful bite, like the goat might still be alive and snuffling around in the bread. She was prepared to hate it, but after a few careful chews realized the tangy marinade sauce made it palatable, maybe even delicious.

  Jake pulled his vest collar up around his neck and slapped down his hat. “Wind’s coming up. Eat up and we’ll high tail it down the road. We got a ways to go.”

  In minutes a fine layer of grit drifted over the blanket and settled in everything that wasn’t covered. They passed on the pie, packed up, and climbed into the truck to continue the southward journey. Her teeth felt like she had consumed goat and grit sandwich. She wondered if they’d have that on the menu at one of the fancy restaurants back home.

  The sun held, the sky went total blue, and they continued south, along Steens Mountain looming 9,500 feet to the west. To the east appeared an expanse of sand covered desert that looked for all the world like the Sahara. It stretched to the southern horizon. Fiona couldn’t see a stitch of vegetation. Nothing but white sand in a shallow bowl that stretched to a ridge in the east.

  “What is that?” asked Fiona.

  “It is stark, raving desert. This country was an old lake bed,” said Jake. “But now there are no rivers that flow from the basin. Hence, you get some places that are so alkaline, nothing but nothing grows there.”

  Further south, the sky darkened with heavy gray clouds tinged with black that rolled and tumbled off the Steens. The temperature dropped thirty degrees in a matter of minutes. Jake turned on the heat.

  “That can’t be snow,” she said. “This is June.”

  “Yep, it’s snow. This isn’t unusual. It’s the elevation. We’re over four thousand feet,” Jake said.

  The snow turned out to be a rogue squall and was over as fast as it came on. Sudden bright sunshine forced Fiona to put on sunglasses. This was a country of weather extremes. Harsh was the word that came to mind.

  Jake started singing On the Road Again, and Fiona kept time by tapping her fingers on her knee.

  “I like the one you sang last night,” Fiona said. “What was the name again?”

  “Cowboy Lullaby.”

  “That was nice. It went with the evening. Do you know anything besides cowboy songs? Like opera? You’re a great baritone.”

  “No. I never cared for that caterwauling they call opera. I just sing country and western, some bluegrass, a little gospel. I guess you like opera.”

  “Of course. I’ve been to the Met to hear James Levine conduct Rigoletto, my very favorite opera. I sometimes get season tickets for the Washington Opera Company.”

  He wagged his head. “You and I are very different.”

  “I thought you’d never notice.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Oh, I notice all right. Maybe I could learn to appreciate opera.”

  “You cou
ld teach me cowboy songs.”

  “You bet. Do you know Home on the Range?”

  Fiona sang a few bars, and Jake laughed. “You call that singing?” he said.

  Fiona laughed with him. “I forgot to tune my voice this morning.”

  “It doesn’t matter how you sound. What matters is that you’re making music with your friends and enjoying it. Let’s try Home on the Range together.”

  They sang as they rode along, Jake helping her with the words, Fiona enjoying herself immensely. She hadn’t sung in years. There was something about the combination of singing, the endless distance before them, not another person in sight, and Jake’s company on a road trip that made her happy. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this light and free from the cares of the world.

  Jake pointed to what looked like mist rising from the grass that bordered the east side of the road up ahead. “There’s a roadside hot spring. We’ll stop, and I’ll give you a tour. We could even take a dip if you want.”

  “Swim on the same day we drive through a snow squall?”

  He shrugged. “Why not? There’s a little cement pool at the far end, and the water isn’t as hot there. It’d be perfect. You’ll love it.”

  He glanced in the rear view mirror. “That’s odd. Someone’s coming up mighty fast behind us.”

  “You mean faster than we’re travelling?” she asked.

  “I’m not kidding. Maybe he’s going to Fields store for a milkshake and burger and is afraid they’ll sell out before he arrives.”

  Fiona turned around in time to see the driver swing out and around to pass, take the swing too wide, and plane off the gravel by the side of the road. Stones shot everywhere. The small car lurched side to side, did an impressive three sixty, then skidded sideways some distance before it bounced down an embankment to the left and crashed through a barbed wire fence. Jake swerved to miss the careening vehicle, forcing them into an upward sloping embankment on the right side of the road. They slammed to a stop, but not before digging up a nose full of rabbit brush.

  “Are you okay?” Jake asked, leaning toward her and putting a hand on her shoulder.