Willa pulled bottles and jars out of a cupboard at the back, squinting at the labels stuck on the front. “Probably over visiting Iris, so who knows?”
“She’s spending a lot of time over there? That’s good. Poor Iris. This has been a hell of a year for her. I should stop by and see if there’s anything I can do to help.”
Willa looked over her shoulder. “You know her?”
“Only from the artists’ co-op.”
“Well, I’m sure she’d appreciate a visit. Their son is in the military overseas. He’ll be home in another day or so, but until then Iris is staying in that house all by herself. I think she needs as much company as she can get.” Willa seemed to find what she was looking for and carried the gallon jar over to the bench. “How much do you need?”
“I think a couple of ounces will be enough for now.”
She measured out the herbal mixture into a bag on the scale. “Be sure to put this in a glass jar when you get home so the volatile oils don’t evaporate.”
“Don’t worry. It’s the same drill for the herbs I use in soap making.” I paid Willa and we moved to the door.
“Willa! Line’s down!” Dorothy barked from less than ten feet away.
Hand over my chest, I stopped dead in my tracks and tried to inhale. Who needed exotic herbs to induce a heart attack when Dorothy Swenson could do it by yelling out of the blue?
Cabot loomed over the wheelchair like a sullen vulture. Her jet eyes flashed recognition when she saw me. I tried a smile.
Scooting past me on her crutches, Willa asked, “What’s wrong?”
“The bottle conveyor appears to be jammed,” Cabot said in that melodious voice so at odds with her severe appearance.
“Damn,” Willa said, and headed toward the interior door. Cabot moved to open it for her. “Thanks.”
Dorothy glared up at me. “What are you doing here?”
I held up the bag. “Getting tea.”
“Hmmph. Cabot!”
Her nurse attendant returned and began pushing the chair. This time I hurried ahead to open it.
Once inside, I said, “Um, can you tell me where Iris lives? I want to stop by.”
Dorothy waved at Cabot. “Tell her. Then come.” And she pushed a button on her wheelchair. She jerked back as the chair took off toward the lobby.
I turned back to her nurse in amazement. “That thing’s motorized?”
A wry smile quirked up one side of her mouth.
“Then why do you push it?”
“Because she tells me to.”
“Because … but …” I trailed off.
Nurse Cabot’s eyes glittered down at me. “Mrs. Swenson dislikes the motor. She also wants me to be nearby as much as possible, in case I’m needed. She pays me well to push that wheelchair around.”
I could see deep lines around her eyes and mouth, and realized I’d never been this close to Dorothy’s nurse. “Do you live with her?”
“For many years now. So you want to go to Quentin’s house.”
“Right. It’s near here, isn’t it? I thought I’d offer my condolences to his wife.”
She gestured toward the hill that rose behind the meadery. “Take a right out of the parking lot and then the next right off the main road. Then a third right, and her house is on the left.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Task accomplished, she walked away without another word.
No questions, no personal comments, just pure professionalism. It seemed a lonely life, but what did I know? Perhaps Ms. Cabot had a riotous alter ego. And, as she pointed out, Dorothy paid her well.
_____
The road twisted and turned through the hemlock trees. I took right turn after right turn, but no house appeared. Cabot hadn’t told me how far the house was from the main road. Tall trees grew right up to the shoulder of the narrow strip of pockmarked pavement. Overhead the sky had darkened again. I turned on the Rover’s headlights.
Not that I needed to. There wasn’t any other traffic.
My poor sense of direction had struck again; it was amazing how easily I could get lost. At a slightly wider stretch of shoulder, I pulled over as far as I could and dug out my cell phone. Only one bar out of five meant poor reception at best. All the stupid hills and trees didn’t help. I didn’t have Iris’ number, so I dialed 411.
No Service popped up on the screen.
Great.
Okay. Her house might be farther down. I’d drive another quarter of a mile, and if I didn’t find it I’d turn around, go home, and call Iris. I pulled back onto the road, accelerating a little faster than usual.
There. Up higher: a flash of sky reflected in a window. Finally.
The Land Rover ground up the steep driveway. At the top, more trees crowded up to a large manufactured home covered with dark green siding. No lawn. No yard, really, only the small circular driveway. Ivy crawled across the ground under the front windows and wound up the nearby tree trunks. It choked a rhododendron which stubbornly offered a few ragged red blooms anyway. The window blinds were closed. At the side of the house a boat trailer peeked out from beneath a blue tarp held down by dirty, five-gallon buckets filled with God knew what.
My encounters with Iris had been brief, but enough to get a clear impression of a put-together, creative woman with a distinct sense of style. She made contemporary quilts from hand-dyed silk, intended to hang on a wall, not cover a bed.
This was not the kind of place I’d ever have imagined her in. Quentin, either. The closed window blinds gave me pause, too. But Victoria’s white VW Passat was parked on the gravel in front of the garage. Maybe the Leed’s lawsuit had affected their finances to the degree that they couldn’t keep up their house and yard. Or perhaps Iris’ health wasn’t as good as I’d been led to believe.
I parked in the circular drive and walked through the gloom to the door. Nothing seemed to happen when I pushed the button for the bell. I raised my hand to knock, then lowered it.
Something’s wrong. Turn around. Go home. Call Iris on the phone.
I started to turn when I heard footsteps inside. The door opened.
Jakie looked almost as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
Suspicion and anger flared in his eyes before they narrowed to slits. His pockmarked face reddened. “You’re the lady from the meadery. The one who can’t find herself a restroom and ends up in the private offices instead.”
Fear stabbed through me. “I, uh—”
Desperate, I tried to see into the interior gloom behind him. Where were Iris and Victoria?
He reached out a massive paw toward me. I ducked and stumbled backwards, heart hammering against my ribs. When I reached the gravel drive, my ankle twisted beneath me. The sudden shooting pain made me cry out. Arms pinwheeling, I almost went down.
Jakie lumbered across the threshold. I turned and half-ran, half-limped to my car, ankle screaming with every lurching step. Panic coursed through my veins. A primitive gibbering rose in my throat.
The afternoon had somehow taken a terrible, sickening turn. To what or where I didn’t even know, but I didn’t want to go there.
Move. Run. Faster.
I could feel him behind me, silent and enormous.
My hand was on the Land Rover’s door handle when Jakie’s thick fingers gripped my shoulder. I shrieked and pulled the door open. He spun me around, and my hand tore away from the car.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
My attempt to pull free was useless. “L … looking for Iris,” I stammered, craning my head back to look up at his face.
Jakie towered a good two feet over my five-six. Dark circles surrounded his blank, blue eyes under the shock of greasy black hair. His nostrils were so big I could practically see into his sinuses, and rank halitosis floated down to my level.
His slack face showed no reaction to my words.
I was shaking so badly I could barely stand. My throbbing ankle didn’t help matters. The
re was no way I could use either strength or speed to get away. Slowing my breath, I tried to get a grip on my voice.
“I came by to offer my condolences to Iris.” There: I didn’t exactly sound casual, but at least the words sounded relatively even.
Still no response from Gigantor. My neck was starting to hurt, all bent back like that.
I tried again. “Iris Swenson? Quentin’s wife? You know who Quentin was, right?”
He shook my shoulder. My teeth clattered together. “I’m not stupid, Miss Nosy Pants.”
Miss Nosy Pants? Really?
I started to relax, but thought better of it when he grabbed the collar of my jacket and started pulling me toward the house.
Huh-uh. No way.
I dug my heels in, wincing at the fresh pain. “No, no, no. I know Victoria’s here. That’s her car. Call her out here. She knows me.” Trying to sound reasonable, maybe make a bargain. Instead my voice was whiny and scared.
I didn’t care. I was whiny and scared.
My tone didn’t matter. Jakie was determined to take me inside. He yanked me along, yard by yard.
I twisted and thrashed the whole way.
“No. I. Won’t. Go. In.” Each word another step on the way to disaster.
I’m lost if he gets me on the other side of that door.
I raised my right foot, sagging against his grip on my jacket to take the pressure off my bad left ankle, and kicked at his knee as hard as I could. He sidestepped me and held me at the end of his considerable reach. Gave me another teeth-rattling shake. I squirmed and fought, tried to slip out of my jacket, swung at his crotch with my fists. Effortlessly, he avoided my attempts to escape.
“Victoria!” I screamed. “Ir—”
He clamped his hand over my mouth. His enormous paw covered my whole face. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.
We were at the door.
Jakie pushed me inside.
He slammed the door closed behind me.
Pinpricks of light floated across my vision, and my legs were growing weak as I fought for breath. Jakie didn’t seem to notice, but his hand shifted the slightest amount.
Just enough: I bit him. Hard. His skin tasted metallic and bitter.
With an animal grunt, he pushed me away. My back hit the wall with a hollow thunk, knocking any remaining wind right out of me. The look he gave me before turning away held the promise of more pain.
I wheezed in a sip of air. Not enough. Steadying myself against the wall with my palms, I drew a long, shuddering inhalation. The overwhelming scent of cat pee almost brought me to my knees. My eyes started watering, tears streaming down my face.
Coughing and choking, now I didn’t even want to breathe, but I still had to. God, how could anyone live in here?
“Don’t yell,” Jakie said. “Don’t scream. Don’t even talk. If you make a sound, I’ll hit you.”
A simple enough statement. I tipped my head forward in understanding, if not acceptance. A blow from Jakie would be like a wallop from the Incredible Hulk.
Reaching out that baseball mitt of a hand, he locked the door from the inside. New alarm bells started clanging, silent klaxons in my mind. Terror fractured my reason, made it hard to think.
He pointed at me. “Don’t move.”
Between the spasms of fear and the incredible stink, I realized I was very, very close to passing out.
No, no. Unacceptable. Bad thing to be unconscious now, here. Very bad.
Must breathe.
Yes. Good. Breathe again.
Ick.
My vision was blurry, but I could still see Jakie move to the other end of the room and take a cell phone out of his pants pocket. It looked like a toy in his hand. How he was able to punch the tiny keys, I didn’t know. He managed somehow and brought it to his ear.
Waited. Watching me.
I remained by the wall in the living room. My watering eyes began to adjust to the darkness. Outside, it was gray and cloudy. Inside, the covered windows created an artificial night, with a tiny sliver of illumination provided by a broken slat in the blinds. A torn recliner hunched in the middle of the room, facing a humongous flat screen television in the corner. I could see an empty dining room through an arched opening, and a hallway leading to what in a normal house would be bedrooms.
This was not a normal house. I had a pretty good suspicion, though, that it was Normal’s house. Or one of them.
A sliding glass door on the far side of the dining room beckoned. It was hard to estimate how far I’d have to sprint on my bad ankle to get there, partly because I couldn’t see very well to gauge distance. Then there was the heavy brocade curtain that blocked any view of the outdoors, so I didn’t know what lay on the other side.
For a house without any furniture, this one sure had the window coverings handled.
Through the dining room, I could also see part of another door that must have led to the kitchen. It was closed, but a thin band of yellow light shone from underneath the door.
What on earth had I stumbled into? I wouldn’t have even stopped if Victoria’s car hadn’t been outside. But I had an awful feeling Victoria wouldn’t be any help to me.
I coughed, the smell burning my throat now. There was no evidence of cats. Maybe this was a house Normal had repossessed, despite Felix’s belief that he’d given up the real estate scam. Maybe the former owners had owned cats. Like eighty or ninety of them. And never let them outside. And didn’t provide a litter box.
Right.
Ten feet away, the knob on the front door rattled.
I glanced up at Jakie. He frowned down at the floor. The phone was gone.
No Service …
He didn’t hear the soft metallic sound as a key slid home. The snick of the lock disengaging. The muscles in my thighs bunched, ready. To hell with my ankle; this was my chance, and I’d run as hard as I could even if I broke it.
The door slammed open, and Normal stepped in. Our eyes locked, and his widened as his mouth opened in surprise.
“What the …? Jakie!” he bellowed. “What is this woman doing in here?”
Jakie was across the room in two strides. “I tried to call. She just showed up out of the blue. I didn’t know what she wanted. Didn’t know what to do.” Now Gigantor was the one who sounded whiny.
Normal, even shorter than me, glared up at him. “Did you bother asking her what she wanted, you big oaf ? Go watch television.”
They locked eyes for a long moment, something passing
between them. Finally, they reached a silent agreement. Jakie shambled to the corner and folded himself into the recliner. The television clicked onto an infomercial for face cream and stayed there. He watched us.
I sidled toward the door, which Normal still blocked. He was wiry and looked strong in the way monkeys are strong. No doubt a chimpanzee, though smaller than me, could kick my butt. But a bald, eighty-something chimp? Given the circumstances, I was ready to take my chances.
“Good grief. You can’t treat guests like that just because they come unannounced.” Normal turned to me and stuck out his hand.
I looked at it as if it held rat turds. How did he know how Jakie had treated me? Had he been watching? Did his lackey abduct visitors on a regular basis?
“Now c’mon, Miss. I’m sorry about my boy here.” He dropped his voice. “He’s a little paranoid.”
Glancing up, I saw Jakie had heard. His eyes, so dead before, skittered to the left.
I suppressed a shudder. “I came to the wrong house. Got turned around and thought this was Quentin’s place. Wanted to offer my condolences to his wife.”
Normal’s face lit up. “Well, that’s awful nice of you. But you’re right, little lady—this is the wrong address. Ha! Can you imagine Iris living in a dump like this?”
Silent, I shook my head. Eyed the doorway. My heart rate had slowed a bit, but I didn’t trust either one of these yahoos any further than I could toss a Mack truck.
“What a mess!” he sa
id. “See, the former renters were hard on the place. Me ‘n’ Jakie here are fixin’ it back up for the next ones to come in. Sorry ’bout the confusion. Jakie don’t mean no harm.”
I made a noncommittal noise.
“So anyways, to get to Quentin’s place, you go down that road out front there to the left. And then take another left. It’s a neat, blue-and-brick two-story with a nice big flower garden in front.” His expression was condescending, implying I was an idiot for even stopping at this house.
But I was too scared to feel insulted. I fingered the Land Rover keys in my pocket, allowing a flicker of hope to surface that I’d actually be able to use them, and pasted a big smile on my face.
“Well, I did kind of wonder. But then I saw Victoria’s car out front there, and Willa said she was with Iris, so I just kind of assumed …”
Something flickered in Normal’s eyes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jakie’s head turn toward me.
I forced perkiness into my voice. “But I’ve got a ton of work to get back to, so I’ll give Iris a call from home. Such a shame what happened to Quentin.”
“Yes, it surely is,” Normal said, offering no explanation of where Victoria might be or why her car was parked in front of the garage.
And I wasn’t about to ask. All I wanted was to get out of there.
He rubbed the rough stubble on his chin, the sandpapery noise audible above the prattling saleswoman on the television. “Quentin was way too young to go and die from a heart attack like that. And here I am, old as the hills and plugging right along. Must be all the clean livin’.”
Jakie made an unpleasant noise.
Normal’s knowing grin revealed yellowed dentures.
I smiled through gritted teeth. “Must be. I really do have to be going now, though.”
He turned and held the door open for me. Quick as a bunny, I tried to slip by him, but his gnarled fingers gripped my elbow. “No harm, no foul, then. Right, little lady?”
Twisting my arm against his thumb, I broke his grip. We were eye to eye in the doorway for a long moment.
I looked away. “Right.”
He didn’t try to stop me as I limped past and out to the Land Rover, almost hyperventilating as I quietly sucked in the cool, clean air.
Wined and Died: A Home Crafting Mystery Page 13
