by Love, Aimee
“Can I have my arm back now?” Joe asked.
“Promise not to go look?”
“Sure, why?”
“How many dead bodies have you seen, Joe? Not like funeral home, prettied up dead, but really, recently, messily dead?”
“None.”
“Well I’ve seen lots, way more than my fair share, and I’m telling you that that is not the one you want to be your first.”
“Okay,” Joe agreed.
Aubrey released his arm.
Bo stepped away from them and got on his radio to call for reinforcements.
It was evening before anyone could be spared to drive them down off the mountain and take them home. By then, Aubrey and Joe were both too hungry and tired to talk. The deputy let her off at the cabin but instead of going in she walked over to the carriage house and pulled open the double doors.
Joe waved the driver to stop and cranked down the window. “Where you goin’?”
“If Vina hears we found a body before we tell her ourselves there’ll be hell to pay,” Aubrey called back. “Besides, I want to let everyone know to lock their doors tonight.”
Joe nodded.
“You need company?”
“I’ll call you when I get back,” she promised and hopped into the Mini.
She passed the sheriff’s car on its way back from dropping Joe and didn’t acknowledge the deputies half-hearted wave. Wayne Mosley, she noted, was watching TV with his garage door wide open. She thought about stopping to warn him but decided it wasn’t worth the effort since he was more likely to hit her than to listen to a word she said.
She pulled into Vina’s and walked up to the door feeling empty and cold in spite of the hot summer night.
Vina answered almost as soon as she knocked and looked at her with relief.
“Thank God,” she said.
Aubrey stared at her.
“I been callin’ the cabin all day. I wasn’t sure you were coming.”
“Coming?”
“You here for card night?” She tried again.
“It’s card night?”
“Come on in,” Vina ushered her into the house and closed the door behind her. “So if you’re not here to sub for Erma, what’s up?”
“What’s wrong with Erma?” Aubrey asked, alarmed.
“Nothin’. She doesn’t wanna leave Rose tonight on account of she’s going through the change and completely freaked out.”
“What?!?”
“You know, hot flashes, emotional shit. Apparently Rose has been on a crying jag for days.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“So can you play?”
“Joe and I… Can I have a drink?”
“Sure. You sleep with him yet?”
“That’s really none of your business, Vina.”
“Yes!” Vina looked around for someone to high five, but they were the only people present. “I need details.” She led Aubrey into the kitchen and poured her a bourbon.
“You look exhausted,” Vina said triumphantly.
Aubrey finished her drink in one long pull and held out her glass for another. After Vina filled it again, she held the icy glass to her forehead, went out onto the back porch and sat down.
Vina came out and took a seat beside her.
“Maybe he was nervous,” she told her helpfully.
“He was great! It was awesome! Now can I tell you what I came here for?”
Vina nodded.
“We found a dead body in the woods today.”
“You want a sandwich?” Vina asked her after a moment.
Aubrey nodded and Vina vanished into the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later with a plate containing a tuna salad sandwich and a little mountain of potato chips, and the bottle of bourbon. She placed them down in front of Aubrey and sat back down.
“You and Joe found it?”
She nodded.
“Where?”
“Three caves, it’s a…”
“I know what it is,” Vina cut her off. She was scowling. “Any idea who it was?”
“Fuck, what now?” Aubrey was looking out across the lake, the tuna sandwich half way to her mouth. The little inlet she shared with Joe was brightly lit and a loud clacking siren could be heard across the water.
“What’s in the hell is that?” Vina asked.
“My alarm,” Aubrey sighed and put down the sandwich.
The phone rang and Vina went inside to answer it. Aubrey followed with her keys in her hand, heading for her car to go see who had broken into the cabin.
“It’s Joe,” Vina handed Aubrey the receiver. “He wants to know how to turn it off.”
Aubrey took the phone. The noise on the other end was everything the salesman had promised and more. She told Joe where the keypad was in the closet and the code to turn it off. A moment later he came back on the line.
“Sorry,” he told her bashfully.
“What are you doing in my house Joe?”
“I forgot all my beer was here. You didn’t tell me you’d gotten an alarm. You want me to lock up on my way out? Or reset it?”
Aubrey closed her eyes and counted to ten.
“No. You can just wait there for me if that’s okay. I’m on my way back anyway.” She hung up without waiting for a reply.
“Was he really great?” Vina asked.
Aubrey nodded and headed for the door.
“Tell everyone to keep their doors locked,” she cautioned Vina.
“Wait. You didn’t tell me who it was.”
“It was Noah Mosley,” Aubrey told her.
“I don’t think I know that one,” Vina said with a shrug.
“The kid who worked at Burnett’s,” Aubrey said, her voice dull and flat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Aubrey sleepwalked through the next four days. She worked. She ate. She made love. She ran around Red Bank Road so many times people stopped coming ou
t to talk to her. She drank and drank and drank. But nothing banished the image of Noah smiling at her in Burnett’s parking lot and nothing could blot out the sight of his body lying broken in the mouth of the cave. Aubrey had always been good at remaining calm when it mattered, but getting to sleep at night afterward was something else entirely. Aubrey did all the things people might have expected under the circumstances, but she didn’t sleep and she didn’t cry and she couldn’t forget.
On the fifth day she read about herself and how she had found the body in the local paper and thirty eight minutes later she and Joe were being led into the sheriff’s office.
Mitchell Dunn looked like a big man who had eaten a couple of bigger men for lunch and had a medium-sized one for desert. He was over six and a half feet tall and couldn’t have weighed less than three hundred pounds. When he rose to shake their hands Aubrey found herself looking him straight in the gut.
“What can I do for you folks?” He asked, as if he had no idea who they were or why they might be there, and waved them into chairs across from his desk.
“I’d like to know why you assume Noah was the man I saw on the dock, what you think he was doing out at the caves afterward, and how it is your office is ruling it an accidental death,” Aubrey told him calmly.
“We’re talking about Noah Mosley I assume. I didn’t realize you and the young man were on a first name basis,” the sheriff said with a smile.
“Yes,” she said, her voice still calm and even. “Noah Mosley. Unless you have some other cousin I found dead recently and I’ve forgotten.”
He smiled and Aubrey wanted very much to hurt him.
“He was my second cousin, along with most of the people in this county, and I’m not sure why you’re taking such an antagonistic tone with me, young lady
. I don’t know how things work where you’re from, but down here, the sheriff’s office doesn’t have to answer questions from the witness, it works the other way around.”
“My name is Aubrey Guinn and, as a property owner in this county, I think I’m entitled to a certain amount of respect from elected officials. In the future, I’d appreciate it if you’d address me as ma’am or Ms. Guinn, not young lady. Understood? ”
“No disrespect intended, Ms. Guinn,” the sheriff answered smoothly, but his eyes narrowed and his expression went from dismissive to alert.
Aubrey plowed ahead before he could think of a reason to get them out of his office. “The paper said he slipped and fell on his way home from peeking in my windows,” she said, paraphrasing the article. “I saw the body. I also saw the person who was looking in my window and it wasn’t Noah Mosley.”
“The body or the peeping tom? What exactly are you implying, ma’am?”
“The person I saw was wearing a bright yellow slicker, but there wasn’t one on the body. I also think it’s highly unlikely that he slipped on the wet ground and hit his head on a rock. I’ve seen a lot of people fall, but rarely do their heads pop off and roll ten feet away and even more rarely do their intestines fall out and wrap around the bloody nub that was their neck.”
Beside her, Joe blanched. “Thank you for not letting me look,” he mumbled.
“You’re welcome,” she said, wanting to give his hand a squeeze but refusing to do so in front of the sheriff. She wished he hadn’t insisted on coming with her.
Sheriff Dunn leaned back in his chair and rested his laced his fingers against his impressive gut. “First, I’d like to reiterate that I’m not required to answer any of your questions. Having said that, and understanding that you are a voter and as an elected official it is my duty to serve you, let me say that I have men searching for the slicker you described and we fully expect to find he shed it after he realized you had seen him. The boy had a history of anti-social behavior, and evidence of his stalking of you was found on his home PC, along with an extensive collection of immoral material. As to the wounds, I can’t speak for the coroner, but from reading the file I understand them to be all the result of postmortem predation. That means the critters got to him after he was dead,” he added, helpfully.
“And left the best parts to rot?”
“This boy, as you pointed out, was a member of my family. If I thought there was any foul play, why wouldn’t I investigate it?”
“That’s an excellent question, Sheriff. I’ll get back to you with an answer as soon as I find out.” She stood and headed to the door. Joe hurried ahead and opened it for her. “Do give my best to Celestine when you see her,” she said as she left, and though she sorely wanted to, she didn’t look back to see his face.
The entire sheriff’s department stopped what they were doing to watch them leave. In the parking lot, Joe handed Aubrey up into his truck and got in.
“Thank you for driving me.”
“Hell, you ain’t in any shape to drive,” Joe looked over at her tenderly.
“So what do you really think happened?” He asked as he started the car and pulled out onto Court Street.
“Probably just what he said,” Aubrey admitted reluctantly. “I just needed someone to yell at and didn’t want it to be you.”
He smiled.
“That’s kinda sweet,” he told her. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me… With your clothes on,” he added after a moment’s thought. “But we gotta get you some sleep, because if you believed a word that man said you are clearly off your nut.”
Aubrey looked at him carefully.
“You didn’t believe him?”
“Hell no,” Joe assured her. “That was just so much smoke and bullshit to get rid of us. You know, I’ve been thinkin’.”
“That can’t be good,” Aubrey muttered, prompting Joe to reach over and poke her before continuing.
“The body was found in the forest. Seems like that shouldn’t be sheriff’s jurisdiction. Maybe we can call the parks department or state police or somebody.”
“We could try,” Aubrey agreed hesitantly. “But they’d probably just call the sheriff and ask to see the file. If it’s been doctored… Why don’t you believe him?”
“I heard somethin’ real strange at Broad’s the other day.”
“When were you at Broad’s?”
“Yesterday, when you were on your fiftieth lap around the lake. It was go somewhere and get a drink, or take one of Charlie’s guns and shoot you with a tranquilizer dart. And I was pretty sure if I did that you’d stop puttin’ out.”
“Good call,” Aubrey smiled for the first time in days.
“Hell,” Joe told her. “I ain’t dumb. Anyhow, one of the girls was talkin’ about how she knew somethin’ was up when Noah didn’t come in for a few days. Seems he was a real regular customer of hers.”
“I guess they don’t card you for hookers.”
“Hell, they don’t card for anything at Broad’s,” Joe said. “So the other girl tells her that she heard at church the last Sunday as how Noah’s Mom found his porn stash and was real ill at him, and Noah ran off and left a note sayin’ he’d gone to Los Angeles.”
“But that makes more sense than what the sheriff told us. If he’d moved out of his house, then that explains why he was in the hills north of the hollow when his house is south. Maybe he was staying with his Mosley relatives and the sheriff just didn’t want the whole porn thing to come out and make the family look bad. He does have to get reelected.”
“Then why let ‘em put in the paper that he was a peeping tom and why tell us about the immoral material?”
Aubrey shrugged.
“Maybe he wasn’t staying with the Mosleys. Maybe he was camping out in the caves.”
“Sure,” Joe agreed. “But where was his gear? And why stick around here anyway? He had a partial scholarship at UT in the fall, and his brother already moved into a two bedroom apartment so Noah could stay with him in the city. He even had a job lined up.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I had to special order most of the stuff for the cabin. I got to know Noah pretty good. He was a nice kid.”
“Yeah,” Aubrey agreed. “He was.”
“So why run to Los Angeles or stay with distant relations when he has a place waiting for him an hour away? And why do any of those things without his car? It’s still parked at his mama’s house,” Joe informed her.
“Maybe his mother was so mad about the porn that she took the keys and told his brother not to let him stay there,” Aubrey suggested.
Joe scoffed. “No older brother is siding with his mother in a porn argument,” he assured her. “He might say he won’t let the kid stay, but he would.”
“So what do you think happened?”
“You ever been to Mammoth Cave?” Joe asked out of nowhere.
“No,” Aubrey told him, perplexed.
“I been twice, and lemme tell you, you get to the entrance and the temperature drops thirty degrees. It’s like going into a movie theater in July. You just hit a wall of cold.”
“And?”
“And what if Noah was killed when he went missing? He could a been dead in there for days and nobody would have found him. The cave would have kept him cool enough to pass for only havin’ been dead a few hours, as long as the coroner was in on it.”
“Wouldn’t the animals have really been on him then?”
“That I don’t know,” Joe admitted. “They don’t cover that on Shark Week.”
Joe turned at Broad’s and drove into the hollow.
“Even if you’re right, that doesn’t help us figure out who killed him or why.”
“Maybe he really had taken a shine to you
and the old lady wouldn’t stand for her kin mixing with the people of the hollow. The feud goes back a long time,” Joe informed her.
Joe pulled up to the cabin, helped Aubrey out of the truck and followed her inside without being asked. He sat down on one of the sofas heavily and watched her go to the kitchen and get him a beer and herself a bourbon.
“You and me need to have a talk,” he told her reluctantly.
She looked over at him, suddenly wary.
“About?”
“About you and me.”
Aubrey sat down beside him and handed him the beer. He set it down on the edge of the fire pit without so much as a sip.
“Are you leaving me?” She asked, utterly ashamed at the way the words caught in her throat.
Joe smiled.
“Kinda,” he admitted. He got up, shoved his hands deep in his pockets and paced.
“I gotta get back to the city. I been puttin’ it off, but I got work pilin’ up there and… I want you to come with me,” he blurted. “I been over all the reasons why you’ll say no, but the fact is somebody, maybe the person who was watching us the other night, killed a boy in these woods and…” He threw his hands up in the air. “Hell, I can’t just leave you here.”
It was not at all the conversation Aubrey had expected. She stared at him and realized that she needed a good night’s sleep before she was even marginally capable of having this discussion.
He took her silence as a sign that she was at least thinking about it and, taking her drink and putting it beside his, he sat beside her and took her hands.
“I got plenty of space. Vina can come too, so you don’t have to worry about her bein’ put in The Home. And as soon as this passes you can come back.”
There were a thousand reasons why she couldn’t, and looking in his eyes she knew he knew them all. He didn’t expect her to say yes. He didn’t even hold out much hope. So she didn’t bother saying anything, she just kissed him.
“I won’t run in the woods anymore,” she promised and he nodded, aware that that was as much of a concession as he was likely to get.
