She Stopped for Death

by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

  “She would have called to let me know.” Emily waved a hand, dismissing Zoe.

  “Maybe in the hospital. An accident.”

  “Althea would be so angry if I set someone on her. I’m sure she’s just gone away or has company.”

  “And didn’t call to tell you?”

  Emily blinked her large eyes. There was a stupefied look to her, like someone startled awake.

  “I don’t have a car,” she finally said to the others. “That’s why I need help. Getting groceries, you see. As I said before, it’s come down to food.”

  “I think we should go looking for your cousin . . .” Zoe pushed herself closer to the table and bent in Emily’s direction. Dora stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “I don’t drive. Lorna did, but as I said, she’s gone now.”

  “That’s all right,” Dora said. “I can do your shopping.”

  “Nope. I’ll do it,” Zoe spoke up. She was tired, felt slightly drunk, and wanted to go home. When she got out of her chair, Fida, at her feet, looked around bleary eyed and gave a single woof.

  “I couldn’t ask.” Emily raised a hand as if to ward off a threat, though she didn’t look at Zoe.

  Dora saw and sat back, folding her arms across her chest.

  Jenny didn’t offer.

  Emily looked from face to set face then finally turned directly to Zoe. “Well, if you don’t mind. I hope it won’t prove to be too much for you.”

  Zoe, puffing up in a way Jenny recognized, said, “Oh, I think I can handle it. As long as you don’t throw big parties.”

  Emily didn’t seem to get the joke and hurried on to say she didn’t see people and wouldn’t be throwing parties.

  She turned to Dora with something like relief. “And may I visit you from time to time, Dora Weston?”

  One of her hands fluttered up like a wounded bird. The hand lighted in her lap, then flew to cover her mouth, then pulled at a long curl of red hair before dropping to grasp her other hand, holding on as if fearing it might run off on its own.

  “I’ve never known such kindness. Not even when I was out in the world, reading my work to crowds of people. That took so much out of me. I would feel empty after my poems went sailing off, never to sound the same to me again. It was so much better when I came back home and rested.”

  She turned her needy eyes to the women then stopped to catch her breath, as if so many words at once had worn her out.

  “I used to have a dog, you know,” she said after a long pause, looking sideways over at Fida, who sat up, her one good eye pinned on Emily. “He was a very large Newfoundland. His name was Carlo. Things seemed better when I had Carlo. When he died I couldn’t replace him. How could I? You don’t replace people you love . . . but now Mother and Lorna and Althea are gone.”

  Zoe set her cup aside and slid off her chair. “You should really go to the police,” she said again.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have come . . .”

  “Now, Zoe, Emily said the police would be of no use. Her sister went off of her own accord. And her cousin simply stopped coming.” Dora frowned.

  Zoe shrugged her shoulders. “But ‘a person gone missing cries for the discovering voice.’”

  “Lovely,” Emily said without looking at Zoe. Her hands came together at her chest. Her face was transformed by a large smile that faded fast. She stood. “But I have to get home. I get nervous when I stay out too long.”

  “How can we get in touch with you?” Jenny asked.

  “I don’t answer the phone—hardly at all. Lorna used to do that, too. You know, answer the phone for all of us. But you can come to the door.” She slid a look toward Zoe. “You know where I live. Knock and call my name. The bell’s broken.”

  She was almost out of the kitchen when she stopped to turn. “Have you heard anything about a woman in town who wants to present a reading of my work? Althea mentioned something about such a thing before she left.”

  The women frowned at each other. Jenny shrugged.

  “Abigail Cane,” Dora said. “I think she’s got something like that in mind”

  “Oh, but I would love to attend.” Emily nervously knotted one hand in her skirt. “Imagine being a fly on the wall.”

  She turned to leave, then stopped again to ask, “So you will come for my list in the morning?”

  Zoe sighed. “If that’s what you want. Then yes, leave your list stuck in your door and I’ll pick it up sometime tomorrow.”

  “And an envelope with money. Don’t forget I want to pay you.” Emily turned to smile sweetly at the ceiling.

  Zoe watched Emily scurry from the kitchen then bent to pick up Fida, holding her tightly.

  After a silent time, Zoe shivered and headed toward the back door. “Anybody but me feel like somebody’s stepping on your grave?” she said over her shoulder. “And by the way, that line of poetry I quoted? It was from one of her own poems. Strange she didn’t recognize her work.”

  “She said it was lovely, Zoe. I wouldn’t look for trouble,” Dora said.

  When she was gone, Dora and Jenny exchanged an exasperated look.

  “I wish Zoe hadn’t offered,” Jenny complained, leaning back to yawn. “Could be the slightest bit of jealousy there. After all, Zoe’s been the closest thing to a famous writer we’ve had recently.”

  Dora pushed herself up from her chair. “Then there will be Abigail Cane to deal with. Wait until she hears Emily’s visited here. I wish I could hide for a while.” She sighed as she gathered the dirty cups. “Or . . . maybe this is the beginning of a grand event in American literature. We’ll be a part of it. I suppose I should be excited. But I’m not.”

  Jenny yawned, too tired to work up enthusiasm for anything but her bed.

  “I feel sorry for her.” Dora ran hot water in the sink. She’d used her best cups and wouldn’t trust them to the dishwasher.

  “Emily? I get the feeling she’ll be just fine.”

  “No. Zoe. She’s busy. I wish she wouldn’t have offered to do the woman’s errands.” Dora rubbed her arms.

  She turned to lean against the sink. “Remember what Minnie Moon was talking about a few days ago?”

  Jenny waited, not sure what Dora was getting at. She shook her head.

  “She said something about the fire at the Suttons’ house.”

  “I know. Terrible thing.”

  Jenny waited for a point to be made.

  “Emily’s mother didn’t just ‘go away’ as Emily said.” Dora bit at her bottom lip. “The woman died in that fire. All they ever found were her bones. Doesn’t it strike you as odd she didn’t mention it?”

  Chapter 6

  Minnie Moon, in a peasant blouse and purple stretch pants, hurried into Myrtle’s Restaurant just after nine o’clock the next morning. She peered hard around the large, open room with tables at the center and booths around the walls, hunting for Dora and Jenny.

  She spotted them in a corner booth and headed straight over, sat across from the women, pinched her lips tight, and squeaked out, “I am truly, truly mad.”

  Dora put a calming hand on the woman’s arm. “What happened, Minnie? Can we help?”

  “Doubt it.” She shook her head. “Still, I’ve got to tell somebody or I’ll bust wide open. I went to your house. Your neighbor told me you were here.”

  Jenny, never as patient as Dora, only wondered how long she planned to stay. There was something about Minnie that looked ready to explode, and that kind of mess could take a long time to clean up. She planned to drop Dora off at home and go to Tony’s, have a talk with him and find out what the devil was going on. Then she’d promised Zoe she’d drop over to take a look at something new she was writing. “Just another pair of eyes and ears,” Zoe’d said when she’d asked if Jenny would mind.

  “It’s those girls.” Minnie picked at a thread sticking from a seam in her purple stretch pants. “It’s Deanna, and Candace, too. The both of them. I had to get out of my own house and run to get away from th
ose alley cats this morning.”

  “Oh dear, what happened?” Dora patted her friend’s very worn hand.

  “Can you imagine? All over Candace’s birthday party. I planned it for tonight. A couple of weeks late already because Candace wanted this boy she likes to be there and he went to the Upper Peninsula with his family, but now he won’t be back until next Saturday. I’ve got everything ordered. Got the cake from Suzy Q. Daisies all over the cake because daisies are Candace’s favorite flower. Then ham and cheese sandwiches. Myrtle here is doing them for tonight. I even got the pants Candace wanted from Sears—too tight for a fourteen year old but still better than some of the things Deanna wore at that age.”

  She pulled in a long breath.

  “So then, wouldn’t you know it, Deanna starts kicking and screaming that she’s eighteen years old and not a baby. She says she’s got a date that night and wasn’t going to hang around to help with, what she calls, ‘some crappy kid’s party.’ That set Candace off hollering that she didn’t want Deanna there anyway because she always went after boys who liked Candace and started trouble because she couldn’t keep a boyfriend herself. That she’s so nasty to people.”

  Tears crawled down her cheeks. Jenny thought how awful it must be to be Minnie Moon: a husband in prison up at Marquette and two ungrateful girls at home.

  “I’m telling you, Dora. If I don’t find something for me to do to get out of that house soon, I’m going to go crazy.” She gave Dora a pleading look. “I heard Emily Sutton was over to your place last night.”

  Jungle drums, Jenny thought and felt her mother’s body stiffen next to her.

  “I was thinking, what if I go see Abigail Cane and offer to help her with this Emily Sutton business? You know, I could talk to Emily for her, see if we couldn’t set up a time for that reading Abigail wants. I’ve been hearing she wants it either here—in town, when they pull old Joshua Cane down—or maybe at the opera house in Traverse City. Personally I’m thinking that’s the right place. Big city and all.” The look she gave Dora was sad and pleading. “Then I was wondering if maybe you could talk to Abigail for me. I don’t think she likes me much.”

  “Why, Minnie, I’m sure Abigail Cane likes you as much as she likes any human being. That father of hers kind of ruined her capacity to love. Maybe even to be nice, sometimes.”

  Minnie nodded. “I know. Funny, don’t you think? That in some ways she’s just like the old man. Mean, miserable old bastard—excuse my language, but that’s what he was. Used to chase me and my brothers off his place on Halloween. Can you imagine? Called us thugs.”

  Dora’s face didn’t move. “I wouldn’t hold anything her father did against her, Minnie. She’s trying so hard to be good to the town now. Really a different woman from what she used to be.”

  Minnie leaned closer over the table. She checked the booths around them, seeing who could be listening other than Dora and Jenny. “To tell you the truth, I already went over there to that Sutton house. I was just so frustrated with everything at home. Not just the girls, but James, up there at Marquette. If I don’t send him money he won’t write to me, and I don’t have a lot, and he likes to gamble with the other men.”

  “You went to the Sutton house?” Dora shook her head. “Did you speak to Emily?”

  “This morning. Right after Judith Small told me Emily came to your house.” Minnie stared at her hands laid flat on the table. “I shouldn’t’ve done it, I suppose. It’s just that I need . . . Oh, I don’t know for sure.” She searched Dora’s face. “Being poor’s no sin, you know.”

  “Of course not, Minnie. Whoever said such a thing?”

  “I can feel it. People talk to me different than they talk to somebody like you.”

  Dora found nothing to say. She glanced over at Jenny to see if she could jump in here, but Jenny’s blank face only said she had nothing to offer.

  Minnie sniffed and looked away. Her plain, round face was sad. “I thought I’d help out by getting things set up and then going to Abigail and showing her how I could handle just about anything.”

  “And?” Dora prompted when the woman stopped talking, taking a long time to think of what to say next.

  “I’ll tell you. It was odd.”

  “What was odd?”

  “The whole thing. I went right up on her porch and rang the bell but the bell’s broke.”

  Dora waited, open mouthed. Jenny nodded, trying to hurry her along.

  “I knocked. Nobody came, though I could swear I heard somebody talking in the house. I waited on the porch a while and then thought I might as well take a look around since I was out there. I figured she’d come out eventually. You know, now that she’s wanting to see people again.

  “So what I did was go around the house to the back. You know, where that fire was. Back of the house still not fixed. Nobody there, but I saw a path leading down toward the swamp and figured maybe Emily goes out there from time to time. I don’t know . . . I mean . . . how would I know where she likes to hide?”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Followed that path into the swamp a ways.” Her chin went up like a kid caught doing something she shouldn’t have done.

  “You didn’t!” Jenny thought about her own abrupt run from the house. “That was probably a mistake. If she saw you . . .”

  Minnie nodded. “Seemed all right to me. The path was pretty worn down. Looked like people used it.”

  “Did you find her?”

  Minnie looked directly at Dora. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know?” Jenny was back to being impatient.

  Minnie shook her head. “I was at this place—like a wide place in the path. Some kind of flower lying around in the weeds, and all of a sudden somebody screamed. I almost jumped out of my skin, I’ll tell you. The thing was, I did actually jump off the ground, and when I landed my foot slid back into the water, and I had to grab a tree branch to keep from going straight down. I was scared; I don’t need to tell you. Scared the living crap out of me. Since someone was back there, and I didn’t think it was an animal screaming, I called Emily to come help me, thinking it had to be her. There I was, half in that awful swamp water and calling her name and nobody came. Not a soul.”

  “Probably an animal. You shouldn’t have gone . . .”

  “I’ll tell you what I did. I laid down on the ground and crawled, dragging my foot out of the water, then crawled all the way back up that path until I could get off my hands and knees and run to my car. Shoes are still wet. I don’t care. All I wanted was to be away from that place.”

  “Are you certain it was Emily out there?” Dora asked, her face deeply worried. “Maybe she was screaming for help.”

  Minnie thought hard. “I’m not sure now. Didn’t sound like somebody in trouble. That was me. More likely it was an animal, I suppose. You know how they can sound like people. Even some of those herons. Maybe she was nowhere nearby, and I got myself all worked up for nothing.”

  Dora looked around at Jenny. “You think we should call the police chief and ask him to go take a look? In case it was Emily, and she’s hurt or something?”

  “I don’t think Emily would like it.”

  Dora nodded. “We’ll call Zoe. She’s going there for the grocery list.”

  Minnie shook her head. “All I wanted was to be of help to Abigail, not throw a wrench in the works. I hope I didn’t ruin things.”

  Dora patted Minnie’s nervous hand again, reassuring her. “Let me talk to Abigail for you. I won’t tell her what happened at Emily’s. We’ll just see if she can use your help to get this big event going. I’ll get back to you.”

  Minnie stood, smoothing the creases across the front of her pants and beaming down at Dora and Jenny. “I would appreciate it. Can’t tell you how much, Dora. I need something to make me feel like a . . . well, somebody that other people like to have around.” She turned back to smile. “I’ve got to go talk to Myrtle, out in the kitchen. Hope she didn’t start those sandwiches
already. Party will be next week, like Candace wants it. Cancelled the daisies. Cancelled the cake.”

  Minnie straightened her back and walked off toward the kitchen, leaving Dora and Jenny to exchange open-mouthed stares.

  “She went into the swamp?” Jenny leaned toward Dora. “Is she crazy?”

  “Into the swamp and out again. Something screaming at her.” Dora shook her head. “You have to admit it, Jenny. Minnie Moon’s a lot of things. A coward isn’t one of them.”

  * * *

  It was midafternoon before Zoe got to the Sutton house for the grocery list and money. It wasn’t something she looked forward to, climbing the rickety steps again, but she had agreed to help the woman—at least for a while, until Emily found her bearings and learned to take care of herself. If there was something Zoe took pride in, it was keeping her word. At least most of the time, unless people annoyed her too much.

  Actually she was ashamed of the way she and Jenny ran that last time, like ten-year-olds. She imagined they’d looked like cowards to Emily. That was another thing she prided herself on—not being a coward. Well, most of the time.

  She stepped right up to the porch to retrieve the list.

  The screen door hung as it did the last time, the screen in the wooden frame loose and flapping. She pulled the door open and searched around the inner door for a list. Nothing. No envelope.

  Thinking maybe the envelope had blown out on to the porch, she looked behind her but there wasn’t a piece of paper anywhere. No grocery list and no money.

  Crap. Zoe frowned as hard as she could frown. Now she’d have to knock on the door again. She stepped up, lifted her hand, and knocked as high on the glass as she could reach. If that curtain twitched and Emily didn’t open the door, Zoe told herself she was out of there and never coming back. And it wasn’t out of fear. She’d just be too damned mad to ever speak to this person again.

  She knocked. The window rattled. She knocked harder, leaning in and watching the curtain for movement.

  The curtain twitched back and a huge eye stared out at her.

  Zoe took a step away. And then another. Thirty seconds, she promised herself. Maybe I’m short and slightly off-kilter, but I can run when I have to.