Watkins - 01 - Blood Country

by Mary Logue

  “So, maybe not an accident?”

  “Maybe. I’ve never gotten a word out of Claire. When she chooses not to speak, she can remain very silent.”

  Rich thought of Claire seeing that, running out to find her husband dead in the street. He didn’t blame her for not talking. “Yeah, I know. Or change the subject.”

  “But I approve.” Stuart cut the dough into hunks.

  “You approve. What does that mean?”

  “Claire’s certainly your equal.” A timer went off, and Stuart pulled a tray out of the oven.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “It’s a scone you were waiting for, wasn’t it?” Stuart handed him an absolutely warm blueberry scone right off the cookie sheet. “I’m just trying to say that it’s about time you had a little something sweet with your coffee. All work and no play. And I think Claire’s a good choice.”

  “Well, I’m delighted you think so. I’m still not sure what you think I’ve chosen her for.”

  “Right. But let me give you a bit of advice.”

  Rich took a bite of his scone, actually enjoying himself. “This should be good. The master of relationships is about to give me advice.”

  “Don’t put the make on her.”

  “What code are you talking this morning?”

  “Don’t give her the big rush. I’d give her a lot of room to move. She’s probably not ready for a relationship, and she certainly thinks she’s not ready. So easy does it.”

  Rich pushed the last bit of scone into his mouth and chewed. When he had swallowed, he smiled at Stuart and said, “Good scone.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  “Different subject. If Landers Anderson was killed by someone, and Claire says he was, who would you suspect of killing him?”

  “Besides you?” Stuart said jokingly.

  “Why would I kill him?” Rich asked, half serious.

  “Same reason as anybody else. For his land.”

  AFTER PUTTING BRIDGET to bed and getting Meg off to school, Claire climbed into her uniform and walked across the street to Landers’ house.

  As she pushed shut the gate, she slowed down. Green shoots spotted the garden. Tulips and daffodils were popping up. Landers had been waiting for this so hard all winter long. He had marked each plant carefully, and she walked down the garden path and read the names: Tulipa darwiniana, Alcea rosea, etc. Bending down, she pulled a matting of dead oak leaves off a part of the bed to give the new sprouts a better chance at the sun. This weekend, she would come over and take the mulch off all of the garden. If anyone questioned her, she could claim it was part of her police work, just say she was looking for more evidence.

  Claire walked around the house and stepped into the two-car garage. Landers’ brand-new car, a Toyota Célica, sat in the middle of the floor. His garden tools and a potting stand were all on the side toward the house. She turned on the overhead light and walked to the potting stand. One leather glove was crammed into a basket. The other one was missing. She put the one into an evidence bag and sealed it.

  Then she got into her squad car and drove up to Bay City. The view of the lake in the morning mist—like a Swedish fjord, she imagined, the finger of the lake probing in deep through the limestone bluffs—lifted her spirits. The trees on the bluff sides were silver gray in this eastern light. She felt, as she often did, that this was a magical place, this lake, the land. This was a place where a person could start over again, have a new, happier life; one that included sunset walks, ripening tomatoes, good neighborly gossip. If she could just clear up this murder, she could get back to working on this new life. She thought of Rich, and for a moment a bird fluttered in her chest, a whisper of a hope.

  When she arrived at the VFW, she saw with relief that the door was propped open. She wouldn’t have to track anyone down to open it up for her. She peered into the gloom and saw a heavyset older woman sweeping in the far corner of the room.

  “Hello!” she hollered.

  The woman kept at her work, didn’t even look up. Claire walked closer. The woman looked to be in her late sixties, with a broad face, braids set on top of her head. She seemed about as Scandinavian as you could get. “Hi,” Claire yelled again.

  This time the woman looked up and stared at Claire. “Are you a cop?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am. Claire Watkins.” The uniform seemed to raise questions in some people’s minds, rather than answer them.

  “Helma Lundquist. What can I help you with?”

  “I was at a meeting here last night They had a fire, and I wanted to retrieve something.”

  “What is it with those people? They’re always burning the strangest things in the fireplace. What were they burning?”

  “Some kind of straw dummy.”

  “What a mess. I already cleaned it out.”

  Claire turned and saw the emptied fireplace. “What did you do with the ashes?”

  “They’re over there in that bucket. I was going to put them on my compost pile. Ashes are good for it, you know.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told.”

  Claire walked over to the bucket and squatted down. She stared at the ashen mess and poked at it with her finger. Was anything left in there? She took out her Swiss Army knife and carefully started sifting through the bucket, emptying out the contents bit by bit onto a piece of newspaper. Few remnants were left in the ashes.

  “What’re you looking for?” Helma leaned on her broom.

  “A piece of a glove.”

  “With red trim?”

  “Yes.” Claire stood up. “Do you have it?”

  “I pulled it out and threw it in the garbage. Didn’t know if it would break down in the compost.” She pointed to the metal garbage can.

  Claire walked over and immediately saw the bit that remained of the glove, a charred piece of leather and part of the wrist. The red trim still showed on the edge. She pulled another evidence bag out of her pocket and picked it up with the edge of her knife.

  “Thanks.” She nodded at the woman.

  “What’re those folks up to?” Helma asked.

  “Possibly no good,” Claire couldn’t resist telling her.

  “I don’t like them. They always leave this place in such a mess. Like a bunch of teenagers, if you ask me.” Helma shook her head and then spit out a judgment as if it were the worst of curses: “They have no manners.”

  13

  On the way to the office, Claire got called to a car accident in Frankfort, just southwest of Durand. When she got to the scene, an ‘83 Dodge Dart was sitting with its nose up a tree. The middle-aged owner, a tall, lanky man name of Stan Jenkins, complained about his back, but other than that seemed to be all right. He had swerved to miss a skunk and lost control of his car. Claire took down all the information and offered to give Jenkins a lift into Arkansaw, a town on the Chippewa River, only a couple miles from Durand.

  He climbed into the car, and they started off. After a bit, he leaned over and said, “Since when’ve they got women on the police force? Hell, I’da joined.”

  Claire said nothing. She just kept her eyes on the road. But she was not sure of this character.

  “So if I asked you out, would you get me for sexual harassment?”

  “No, I’d just say no.”

  “You’re not married, are you?”

  “Sir, that’s none of your business.”

  “I suppose you know karate or something. One of those martial arts to take care of the tough guys.”

  “I received the same training as my fellow officers.”

  Jenkins reached out and touched her arm. “Can I feel your muscle?”

  Claire pulled over to the side of the road. They were a mile or so from Frankfort, but she wanted him out of the car. “Get out.”

  “But you said you’d take me to town.” “I lied.”

  When Jenkins turned toward her, she moved on him.

  For a moment, she flashed back to sixth grade. A small, serious g
irl, she had gotten into a fight with one of the boys in her class, Scott Tarnowski, when he had taken the book she was reading. She won the fight. In order to do it, she had scratched his face, bit his hand, and pulled his hair. After the fight was over, he stood a fair distance from her and yelled at her, saying that she cheated, that she had fought like a girl.

  His criticism of her fighting style had stung, and she asked her mother about it when she got home.

  “I don’t like you fighting. But let me tell you that boys don’t make the rules. You should fight like a girl—use what you’re good at.” Then she had showed Claire the underarm twist.

  Claire grabbed the flesh on the bottom of Jenkins’ upper arm and pinched and twisted it as hard as she could. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead his mouth contracted into a grimace that showed his crooked teeth and coated tongue. She should have given him a Breathalyzer test. But now she just wanted him out of her car.

  When Claire pushed, he moved. She let go of his arm, and Jenkins scampered out of the car as fast as he could. He ran down into the ditch and up the other side, smack into a barbed-wire fence. She drove off, watching him in the rearview mirror as he tried to extricate himself from the barbs.

  CHUCK TRIED TO call Bridget at home one more time, but the answering machine picked up again. He heard Bridget’s voice explaining carefully how they weren’t there but they’d like to know who called. He slammed the phone down.

  Where the hell was that woman? He had been trying her all morning. He thought maybe she had gone riding. He knew she didn’t have work. He was starting to get worried. Maybe she had gone to Claire’s. She hadn’t mentioned they had any plans, but she didn’t always tell him everything she did. It was one of the things he liked about her, how independent she was.

  Some guys teased him ‘cuz his wife made more money than he did. He just laughed in their faces. He’d tell them, “And she’s smarter than me too.” He and Bridget laughed about their jobs, saying he fixed cars and she fixed people, same diff. He guessed true equality came when it didn’t matter who made more money. Why should it be seen as so unusual when the woman did? And for that matter, he guessed that those guys who teased him were just envious. As they should be.

  He did wish that she wanted to have a kid. He wanted to teach someone the things he knew. It didn’t matter to him if it was a boy or a girl. They would know how to change the oil in their car, they would go fishing with him, they would play catch in the yard, he would poke his head into their bedroom to make sure they were sleeping and probably poke his nose into their business too much for his own good. He just thought having a kid or two would add a lot to his life, to Bridget’s and his lives. And he knew the two of them would make a beautiful child—strong and smart and full of good honest energy. He figured the world needed a few more people like that.

  He was going to try Bridget again when he saw his boss looking over at him. He had a damn timing belt to put into an Isuzu. Stupid job. Had to practically disassemble the engine to get to the belt. Took five minutes to change the belt and an hour to get to it and an hour to put the whole thing back together again.

  He’d try Claire’s in a while. He hoped Bridget would call and tell him something insignificant, like where she wanted to go for dinner, since she wasn’t much of a cook. He stared at the phone and put a spell on it: “Ring, ring.” Then he went back to work on the car.

  HE TUCKED HIS hair under a baseball cap and tied it back so none of it showed. Red hair was too distinctive. But his hair was his badge. Women loved it. When they’d come close to him at bars, he could tell they just wanted to touch it. They wanted to touch him. He was like fire, his hair his flames.

  But he didn’t want anyone in this podunk town to remember him. He had borrowed a friend’s old beater pickup truck and rubbed mud on the license plates. Tucked into the shade across from the elementary school, he was waiting for the school buses to load up and head out.

  He had done this before. Come down and parked near her school and watched her board the bus. But this time he was going to follow her home and see if he couldn’t snatch her.

  The bus pulled out, and he followed it. He couldn’t be stopping behind the bus as it traveled down 35. The driver would notice him.

  He sped around the bus and drove an easy sixty miles an hour down the road. Didn’t need no speeding ticket. That’s for sure.

  Didn’t need anything to jeopardize the deal that was just about to happen. Hawk might not like it that he was down here, but it wasn’t his head on the line. The little girl had seen him. The woman cop might decide to circulate that information at any moment. She had already fucked up his life big-time.

  But this would teach her a permanent lesson. People will do anything for their kids. Especially women. He remembered one tasty number he had coerced into doing all sorts of fun stuff for him. He had merely suggested if she didn’t comply, he would go make her ten-year-old daughter, who was sleeping in the next room, do it. She couldn’t get to work fast enough. That was one night he would never forget.

  He couldn’t believe people would choose to live down here. Sleepy beyond words. Nothing going on. Big excitement would be fishing on the lake. Not his style. It made him nervous just sitting in the shade. Pretty hard to be anonymous here. He pulled up to the bus stop and got out a map. He could both hide behind it and pretend he was checking it. In the rearview mirror, he could see the bus was still down the road a ways.

  What the hell was he going to do with this kid? He didn’t even know where to take her. He actually didn’t much fancy little girls, though he knew some guys got off on them. But who knows. Maybe she’d be really cute, have some little titties coming in. He’d have to wait and see. He wasn’t even sure he would keep her for long.

  A young woman was coming down the hill toward the road. He sneaked a good look at her from behind the map. Man, was she stacked. He’d like a piece of that action. Long blond curly hair. He could go for that. He loved long hair. Long hair so you could get a real good grip on the bitch, and a nice firm butt to pump into. That’s what got him revved up. She looked his way, and he ducked behind the map.

  After a moment, he dropped the map again. She was much closer. She looked all warm and sleepy. Like she had just rolled out of bed. He’d like to roll her right back in. Too bad he had work to do. Too bad he couldn’t be seen here. Maybe some other time. After the deal went down. Who knows, he might just have to get a fishing rod and start trolling in the lake. Catch himself a big one.

  The bus pulled up, and it blocked his view so he couldn’t see anything. When it pulled away, the little girl was standing right where it had dropped her off. Skinny little thing. Meg Watkins. He knew he didn’t have long to nab her. Be a cinch just to hoist her up and lift her into the car.

  But he couldn’t make a move until that woman left. Maybe she was heading down to the post office. The little girl started to run. Shit, she ran straight into the bitch’s arms. Who the hell was this woman? Was she the baby-sitter? He thought the baby-sitter was some old broad that couldn’t hardly walk and that she never came down to meet the bus.

  He knew it wasn’t Claire. He hadn’t seen her in a long time, but the last time, she had short black hair. That couldn’t have changed. Plus, he had called her office and found out she was still at work, and Durand was a good half-hour drive away from Fort St. Antoine.

  Well, that did it. He slammed his hand into the steering wheel. No way he could pull this snatch off. He wasn’t prepared to grab two people. It would have to be another day. In the meantime, he’d have to find out who the broad was. Maybe he’d have to pick her up too. At that thought he smiled, his lips like two rubber bands stretched, then smacked back together.

  He stretched and watched the two walk back up the hill. They were holding hands and swinging them back and forth.

  Meg was chattering away. Even from behind, the long-haired woman looked good. Nice back action. Now, she was more his style. He wouldn’
t mind spending some time alone with her. Get rid of the girl. That’s what he would do if he grabbed the two of them, just get rid of the little girl.

  14

  The church ceiling soared into dark rafters, with old golden candle-like lamps hanging down on chains. The walls were a soft cream white and the altar cloth a deep rich red. It was a beautiful country church, with all the pews filled to mourn the passing of one of their own. Claire had come alone but nodded to many people who passed her. She had chosen to sit in one of the last pews, close to the door, so if the service proved too hard on her, she could make a quick exit.