Watkins - 01 - Blood Country

by Mary Logue

  Claire knew she was not on this man’s side and decided there was not much to be gained by talking to him. Then she saw Mr. Brown step out of the building and went over to talk to him.

  She introduced herself, but didn’t mention that she worked for the sheriff’s office. “I heard you’re interested in buying some land.”

  He smiled at her. “Land’s a great commodity. Always interested. You have some land for sale down here?”

  “Well, my neighbor, Landers Anderson, had a gentleman call him about buying his property. Offered some good money. I wondered if that was you?”

  Brown shifted onto the front of his toes and rocked forward. His face shut down, and then he said, “Might’ve been me. He certainly has a nice piece of property.”

  “I live across the street from him. Could I take your number?” He handed her a card, and she thanked him. She would do some checking on Mr. Brown. She walked around him and started up the hill. Appalled at the anger expressed at the meeting, she felt the sense of security she had acquired in this town being undermined. What would people do to acquire land? Kill someone?

  No moon, just a shroud of stars in the sky. Not many people from her former life even knew where she lived. She had changed her last name back to her maiden name, Watkins, and left no forwarding address.

  She knew she had to go get Meg from Ramah’s, but she sat down in the grass in front of her house to calm down. Things set her off, like the meeting tonight. She could feel the anger in the room, and it brought it out in herself. Her anger scared her sometimes. It made her mind shut down. She felt scared now. The dew soaked into her pants, but she pulled in her knees and huddled in a ball. She looked up at the sky, but the stars seemed to have moved farther away.

  9

  Darla and Fred Anderson lived in the newest house in Fort St. Antoine. They were right on the outskirts of the small village, and the first thing you saw when you drove up to their house was their three-car garage. Wooden butterflies stuck off the side of the garage. Claire stared at them and decided they were brightly painted monarch butterflies with the wingspan of a hawk. The orange of the butterflies’ wings matched the orange of the front door.

  Claire knocked on the door and waited. She could hear some noise inside. Maybe they were watching TV. She hadn’t called ahead, because she wanted the modicum of surprise an unexpected visit would lend her and because one didn’t need to in a small town. She knocked again. She heard a clanging and banging as someone approached the door. The noise stopped, then the door swung open.

  “I’m mopping the floor,” Darla said. Her white-blond hair was tied back in a pink bandanna. She was pushing a bucket and carrying a mop. Wearing little makeup, she looked like a charwoman, old and tired. The only accessory that was missing from her outfit was a cigarette dangling from the lower lip. But she mustered up a crooked smile and said, “Didn’t expect any company.”

  Claire didn’t quite consider herself company. After all, she was in uniform and had come out on official business, but if it made Darla feel better to think of her as company, so be it. “Sorry to catch you in the middle of cleaning. May I come in?”

  “Of course you may. Let me finish up this floor, and I’ll be right with you. Sit down on the sofa there. Oh, don’t mind those hats. Push them to the side.”

  Claire didn’t see any hats. All she could see were beer cans, so she picked them up and put them on the coffee table. Then she saw what Darla was talking about. Someone was making hats out of the beer cans, cutting them up and using yarn to stitch them back together. Talk about recycling. Claire wondered who had consumed all the liquid contents of the cans—Darla or Fred?

  Darla came back out into the living room, fluffing her hair up as she walked. “I don’t even have any lipstick on. What can I do for you, Claire? My manners. Would you like a cup of coffee? I’m going to have one.”

  “Sure, that’d be nice.” Claire never said no to a cup of coffee. “Is Fred around?”

  “Yes, the poor guy is still sleeping.” Darla stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. “I think his brother’s death has really upset him. He didn’t sleep at all well last night.”

  Claire sat by herself in the living room and looked around. Lovely old antiques surfaced around the room, surrounded by gewgaws and cheap furniture. What she wouldn’t give for that old dresser with spoon carving on the front! Since moving to the country, she was slowly acquiring some older pieces, but they were expensive.

  Darla came back in, carrying a tray. Two porcelain cups rimmed with gold sat on matching saucers. A plate with Oreo cookies on it accompanied the coffee. Darla poured them each a cup and sat down.

  Claire made an appreciative noise as she sipped her coffee and then surprised herself by reaching for an Oreo. She didn’t usually buy them, but they looked rather good. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you some questions about the night that Landers died.”

  “I wondered if that’s what brought you over here. I really don’t have much to tell. You were there when I found out that Landers had died.”

  “What did you do the night before?” Claire pulled out a small notebook but didn’t draw attention to it by writing anything down yet.

  “Why, I was here. Sitting in front of the TV set, making my hats. I’m trying to get a whole bunch of them ready for the Ladies’ Bazaar at church. People really like them. I sold quite a few last year. Everyone seems to want their favorite beer, so I try to have an assortment. You know—Miller, Budweiser, Leinenkugel.”

  “What time did Fred leave to go to his pinochle game?”

  Darla started to stiffen. She patted her hair before answering. “Same as always. Right about six-thirty. He’s not a fast driver, and that road to Plum City is winding.”

  It took only twenty minutes to drive to Plum City, and that was staying slightly under the speed limit. Claire had clocked herself when she came back from there. Fred was late getting to the game. So where had Fred been? Had he stopped on his way?

  “Did you talk to anyone that night?”

  Darla laughed. “Do you mean, is there anyone who can give me an alibi for my whereabouts? Jeez, I don’t think so. Nobody called as far as I can remember. Are you going to write this down?”

  “If I need to. It’s routine to check these things out.”

  “Check what things out?” Darla fluffed at her hair with anger. “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought this might be a sympathy visit. Can you seriously be asking me these questions? You live here not even a year. You’re nothing but an outsider. Fred didn’t kill Landers. Fred couldn’t wring a chicken’s neck.” After the words came out of her mouth, Darla looked horrified at what she had said.

  At that moment they both heard a noise in the hallway, and then Fred appeared. “What’d you want, Darla?” He looked like he had been through a wringer, literally. His sparse fine white hair was screwed up on top of his head, and his pajamas were wound around his body. Claire was surprised he could even walk in them. His eyes had a red gleam to them—too little sleep, or too much drink.

  “Whyn’t you go get a bathrobe on, Fred? Claire’s here, and she thinks she needs to ask you some questions. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

  Fred backed up and went into his room, and Darla returned to the kitchen to get him coffee. Once again, Claire was left alone in the living room. This time, her eyes found the pictures lining the mantel. One was a wedding picture of Fred and Darla. She must have been around thirty. He looked to be a teenager, but he must have been in his twenties; Claire knew he was at least five years younger than Darla. Darla looked clear-eyed and handsome. She was more filled out than she was now, and the extra weight looked good on her. She wasn’t wearing a wedding dress, just a nice suit. Fred wasn’t looking straight ahead. It seemed like someone or something was distracting him. His gaze went off the side of the picture. He had on a suit also, and the sleeves were too short. He looked as gangly and awkward as ever.

  Right next to their wedding pi
cture was a photograph of a young man, circa 1975. He had slightly long hair in the style of the Beatles. Claire was shocked at the family resemblance—he looked so much like an Anderson, she would have thought he was Landers’ and Fred’s brother, rather than their nephew and son. She had known that Darla and Fred had a son, but had never met him. She wondered where he lived.

  Fred flopped into the room. He wore slippers with the backs pushed down onto the soles. He had a blue terrycloth robe belted around him, and his hair had been slicked down with water. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly ten.”

  “What do you want?” he asked, not very pleasantly.

  Darla came bustling in with more coffee. Claire noticed that Fred received it in a sturdy pottery mug, probably the mug he always drank out of. “Claire’s just checking on our whereabouts when Landers was killed,” Darla said with a sneer.

  “I already told you that I went to pinochle.”

  “Yes, you did, and I did talk to one of the men you play with, Thor.” Claire pulled out her notebook to quote him. “He said you were there, but you came late. He said you never come late. What happened to you?”

  Fred stared deep into his coffee cup, then he looked at Darla with pleading in his eyes. But Darla wasn’t looking at him. She had picked up one of her hats and was fussing with it. Finally Fred said, “I must have stopped for gas.”

  “Oh, you stopped for gas? Where?”

  “Well, I must have stopped at that gas station in Plum City.”

  “But it’s on the other side of town from where you came from.”

  “Yes, but it’s the only one there is.”

  “So you stopped there before you went to pinochle?”

  “I think so.” Fred set his coffee mug down hard. “You know, I didn’t know I was going to have to remember this.”

  Claire jotted something down in her notebook. Then she said, “This is only two nights ago. It shouldn’t be that hard to remember.”

  Darla reached over and snatched the top page out of Claire’s notebook. She tore it up. “What we say shouldn’t be that hard for you to remember either.” She spoke calmly and smiled. She handed the shredded page back to Claire. Claire noticed that Darla’s pupils were quite large, turning the eyes into dark holes in her head.

  Claire decided she had as much information from these two as she would get right now. Shoving the torn page into her pocket, she stood up and thanked Darla for the coffee. Then she turned to Fred. “In answer to your question from yesterday, you should probably be getting Landers’ body back in the next day or two. Have you talked to the coroner?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he’ll call you, and you should just tell him what funeral home you want him taken to.”

  “Who’s going to pay for it?”

  “Pay for what?”

  “The autopsy.”

  “The state pays for the autopsy.”

  “Okay, then, that’s fine.”

  Claire walked toward the door and then turned again as she remembered one more question. “Where’s your son these days?”

  Darla dropped the hat she was working on and raised her eyes as if Claire had uttered something blasphemous. Fred stared down at the floor. Neither of them said anything for a moment, then Darla asked, “Why do you want to know about him? He’s not involved in this.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so abrupt. I was just admiring your pictures and wondered where he was.”

  “We don’t see him too often.” Darla explained.

  Fred said bluntly, “We don’t see him at all.”

  BRIDGET HAD THE whole afternoon off. It was her favorite day of the week. Chuck had explained that he’d been at his brother’s and she had believed him. She needed to believe him. She was puttering around the house, cleaning and straightening, with no one asking her what she was doing. She loved the quiet. Then she’d go for a long afternoon ride. That’s what she usually did. However, today she was feeling rather sleepy.

  First, she had to eat lunch. A roast beef sandwich sat on her plate. A smell wafted up from it like steam rising. Bridget lifted it up and sniffed it. It smelled funny. She took a bite and chewed. The whole sandwich tasted slightly off. The mustard was bitter. She made herself take another bite. She knew the meat was good. She had just bought it yesterday. After the third bite, she wrapped it in tinfoil and put it in the refrigerator. Maybe Chuck would eat it.

  She was going to make herself go riding. Her arm, wrapped in an Ace bandage, felt much better. If she didn’t ride today, it would be two more days before she could ride again. Such a pleasant time of day, the sun warming the fields. But she felt so tired. She had on her riding clothes, so she walked out to the barn.

  Jester was waiting in his stall. She knew he didn’t know what day it was, but she could swear by the look on his face that he was ready for a ride. She dug in the oat bag with her hands and brought him a scoop full of oats. She loved feeling him snuffle through her fingers for the feed. His velvet-soft muzzle clumped down on the oats, and his back teeth ground them down. He had a good appetite. Jester was all ready to go, but she wasn’t. She felt exhausted.

  If only what she was feeling was caused by the changing seasons, and she was experiencing spring fever. In Minnesota, it could hit like a disease. The symptoms were often a kind of enervation. After the long winter, spring could feel like too much of a good thing. Bridget fed Jester another handful of oats and then sank down in a pile of hay.

  The roof of the barn swam above her, nests of swallows tucked into the beams. If she closed her eyes, she knew she would sleep. She kept them open and stared about her. Forms moved in and out of her vision.

  She knew what was wrong with her. An alien had invaded her body. It wasn’t making any major changes yet, but it would soon be apparent The world she existed in was not her own anymore. Every little detail was skewed. Nothing looked like itself or tasted right or smelled good. Slowly, this new life would begin to devour her from within. It would feed off her until she was hardly able to move. And then, when she was wasted to nothing, it would come shooting out of her body, demanding even more from her.

  Bridget knew there was only one thing to do. She knew she had to take a test. But she was afraid of the results, afraid the piece of paper would turn blue or pink or a stripe would appear, and her fear would be confirmed. She was afraid she was pregnant.

  10

  After the school bus dropped her off at the corner, Meg walked up the hill to Ramah’s house. Ramah watched her until her mom came home from work. The hill changed from day to day. Some days it was very steep, and some days it wasn’t hard to climb at all. Or else her legs were stronger and then weaker again. Today, it was medium. Climbing the hill felt like work, but she did it confidently.

  It had been fun having Bridget at their house the other night. Nice to have someone for Mom to talk to. Meg liked sitting upstairs in her room and hearing the two women laugh downstairs. Their laughter sounded like birds’ wings to her, rising in the air. She remembered when her mom and dad would laugh downstairs when she was already tucked into bed. It made her feel so comfortable, like nothing could go wrong.

  She reached the top of the hill and looked into the woods to see if any of the flowers were peeking up from the dead leaves yet. She didn’t see any, and she knew she shouldn’t dillydally. Ramah was a nice old lady, but she was a fussbudget. She worried about Meg if she was even a minute or two late.

  Often she’d been standing outside her door, watching for her. Meg had to walk by Landers’ house, and she kept herself from looking at the place where she had found him. Never again would she cut through his yard. When a bad thing like that happens in a spot, you never go there again.

  That’s what she had learned when her dad died.

  It had been a completely normal day. Her mom was in the kitchen, cooking beef stew. She was watching TV in the living room. She heard her dad’s car door slam. She ran to the window to see him come up the walk, but
when she looked out, he wasn’t there. He was walking out into the street. He looked mad. He was waving his arm at a truck. It was coming toward him. Meg thought he wanted to talk to the man in the truck, so he was trying to get him to stop. But instead of stopping, he went faster. The truck—it was black, she remembered, or maybe she had turned it black in her mind—came right at him. Meg grabbed the curtain in front of the window. The truck hit him, and he went flying over the top of the cab. He slid right up on it and then over and through the air until he hit the ground.

  Then Meg ran outside. She shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong. Her mother would be mad. She ran back into the house and hid in the curtains.

  MEG WAS CLOSE to Ramah’s house now. Ramah was standing outside, shaking out a rug. Ramah was old, twice as old as her mom. She had white, fluffy hair, and her hands shook when she tried to pour a glass of milk, but she was pretty strong. They played cards together; Ramah had taught her Five Hundred. She waved at Meg, and Meg waved back. Ramah would have a treat ready for her, often fresh-baked oatmeal cookies. But Meg’s favorite treat was graham crackers with butter spread on them. She loved the way they tasted with a big glass of cold milk. They just went together.