In Sheep's Clothing

by Rett MacPherson

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, but she pulled her robe closer to her chest.

  “You own over two hundred acres right now, isn’t that right?” Roberta’s gaze shifted from mine to somewhere in the front yard. “But you didn’t figure anybody would ever catch on to that, did you?”

  She said nothing. Anger seethed from every pore, but she said nothing to me.

  “And nobody would have, if my aunt hadn’t found that diary and started snooping around,” I said. “Now everybody knows everything.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean, I’ve told the sheriff everything I know and all of my suspicions,” I said.

  She laughed then, relief washing over her. “Oh, is that all? Ooooh, I’m shivering here. Go home, Mrs. O’Shea.”

  I stopped her from turning to go inside by grabbing her arm, and she looked down at my hand as if it were diseased. “Get your hand off of me,” she said. “You’re not in your hometown, dearest. You’re in Olin. My town. They can’t arrest me on your suspicions. I don’t know how they do things in Missouri, but in Minnesota we have to have a little thing called physical evidence.”

  I leaned in close to her then. “Oh, I’m not saying you’re going to be brought up on charges. I’m just here to let you know that I know, Roberta. I know what you are and I know what you did. Whether I can prove it or not.”

  Still Roberta said nothing. A flicker of something danced through her eyes. Fear. Guilt. And then justification. She felt justified in what she had done.

  “And that’s what I came here for,” I said.

  “What?”

  “That look you just gave me. My proof,” I said and let go of her arm.

  I turned and walked down her steps, turning back to add one last thing. “Good day, Mrs. Flagg. You better hope you didn’t leave any of that ‘physical evidence’ behind.”

  With that I got in my husband’s truck and headed back to my aunt’s farm. I was satisfied now. I knew by the look on her face she was guilty. Oh, and the fact that less than thirty seconds after I pulled out of her driveway she threw her kids in her car and took off like a bat out of hell. Still in her pajamas.

  Twenty-seven

  I went back to Aunt Sissy’s, and after having one of her fabulous breakfasts of all breakfasts—reheated—Rudy and I started to pack the truck. A call came from the sheriff’s office for Colin. I stood in the kitchen and watched my stepfather almost melt into a puddle of relief as he listened to Sheriff Aberg on the other end. He hung up the phone and then gave a gleeful shout.

  “I get to go home with you guys. All charges dropped. I can leave the state. I can go home to my wife and … and … I get to ride in a car with you for twelve hours,” he said.

  I smiled.

  “I didn’t think I would ever be so happy to be stuck in a truck with you for twelve hours, but, by golly, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing,” he said.

  “Not even fishing?” I said.

  “Okay, well, no point in going to extremes.”

  Aunt Sissy had been standing at the doorway. “I’m glad you get to go home with Rudy and Torie. Did they happen to say why they were letting you go?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “They made another arrest.”

  Aunt Sissy and I looked at each other.

  “Roberta Flagg.”

  “I knew it,” Aunt Sissy said.

  I sighed to myself, content. You know, it’s just a lake. It’s just land. It’s not worth killing somebody over. How do people get so far gone in their dementia that they lose sight of that?

  “Evidently, after you guys talked to him yesterday he was watching Roberta’s house,” he said. “And some forensics just came back from the lab.”

  “How do you know he was watching her house?” I asked.

  “He said they arrested her as she was trying to flee town,” he said. “This morning.”

  “That had to be hard for Sheriff Aberg,” I said. “Considering he’s such good friends with her husband and all.”

  “Yeah,” Colin nodded. “It’s always harder when there’s a personal connection.”

  I just stared at him.

  “Sometimes that personal connection actually makes it easier to arrest them,” he said and smiled.

  “Yeah, I was waiting for that,” I said.

  Suddenly an expression akin to that worn by a child on Christmas morning spread across his face. “Oh, I have to go pack!” And off he went.

  Aunt Sissy disappeared for a second, holding up her finger. She returned with my quilt all folded neatly. “Here,” she said. “I finished it for you.”

  “When did you find time to do that?”

  “Last night after you went to bed,” she said.

  “Oh, I want to see it. Let’s lay it out on the floor in the living room.”

  Once the quilt was spread out perfectly on the living room floor, without a single wrinkle, I just stood in awe. I hugged Aunt Sissy with everything I had. “Thank you so much,” I whispered.

  “It’s personalized,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look,” she said and held up a corner. There she had quilted in the words: For Torie. Thanks for our adventure and for solving my mystery. Aunt Sissy. “So that you’ll never forget Anna Bloomquist,” she said.

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” I said. I swiped at another blasted tear. “I will never forget her.”

  I folded the quilt and ran my fingers across the stitches. “You have the package ready for Kimberly Canton?”

  “Yes,” she said. “All I have to do is take it to the post office.”

  “Great.”

  Rudy came in then. “We’re all set. We just have to wait for Colin to get his things in the truck.”

  I went outside on the porch to soak in my aunt’s farm one last time before heading home to Missouri, keenly aware that if Aunt Sissy was dying this might be the last time I ever saw it. And her. Though I would have opportunities to see her at reunions and weddings. But I might not make another trip up here before she actually …

  I saw Uncle Joe come around the corner. He waved to me. I took the steps down and then walked around the corner of the house. “Uncle Joe. Thanks for putting us up for the week.”

  “Yeah, you caused quite a stir in town.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So, you think Sissy’s going to go back to normal now? You think you got to the bottom of whatever was bothering her?” he asked.

  I glanced back at the house. “Yeah, I think so.” The birds chirped in the distance, their music so soothing and so comforting. “Uncle Joe.”

  “Yes?”

  “Just … be nice to her every now and then. For no reason,” I said. What else was I supposed to say? It wasn’t my place to tell him that she was dying. If she wanted him to know, she’d tell him. If I told him without her permission, she might not ever speak to me again. And she meant far too much to me to jeopardize our relationship.

  “All right,” he said and nodded.

  I was going to reinforce how important it was not to kill the wolf, but decided not to. It wouldn’t do any good. If he was going to kill her, he’d kill her. Nothing I would say would matter. People don’t change their minds about things overnight or because some nosy whippersnapper from out of town made them “see the light.” That just didn’t happen.

  Colin came out of the front door with a burst of energy, threw his suitcase in the back of the truck, and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Bye, Uncle Joe.” I gave him a firm hug.

  “Ya’ll drive careful.”

  “We will.”

  Colin held up a hand to Uncle Joe. “Thanks for having us.”

  Uncle Joe nodded.

  I got in the cab of the truck and sandwiched myself in between Rudy and Colin, just like when we were driving up here. Only this time I had a full-sized quilt on my lap. And a cooler full of dead fish in the back. We waved at Aunt Sissy standi
ng on the porch, and Rudy gave a tap on the horn just as we pulled out of her driveway.

  “We taking Iowa or Wisconsin home?” Colin asked.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “For God’s sake, take Wisconsin so he’ll have plenty of places to eat.”

  “All right,” Rudy said.

  Within a split second, Colin gasped and Rudy slammed on the brakes. “Is that…?”

  When my head had recovered from whiplash, I looked in the bush on the side of the road. A head popped up and the golden eyes caught the sun. Then the wolf stood and looked into the woods. Then back at us and then across the road.

  Nobody in the cab of the truck said a word. We all held our breath. Suddenly two little furry fat wolves crossed the road as the female wolf sort of jaunted back across the road to try and help her cubs scurry across. I knew that a wolf this close to civilization was facing an uncertain future at best. If hunters, poachers, or farmers didn’t kill them, a car would. It was sort of inevitable. The problem with wild animals was once they became used to humans, then they were more likely to be killed. The passing cars no longer seemed all that dangerous, and they stopped to linger on the road.

  Rudy, Colin, and I all seemed to let out a collective breath. Rudy gave the truck gas and started to go. I reached for the camera in the glove box, twisted around in the seat, and got a picture out the back window. The mother wolf just stood there for a second. As if trying to convey something to me. She seemed to be as enthralled with me as I was with her.

  I kept staring out that rearview side mirror until I could no longer see her. I knew that I would never forget her. Just as I would never forget Anna Bloomquist. How could I? The two were so intertwined that I would never think of one without thinking of the other.

  I turned around finally. Rudy put his hand on my knee. “She’ll be all right,” he said. “She’s survived this long.”

  “Yeah, maybe she’ll head back north. Or just become invisible again,” Colin said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Or maybe your uncle will come around,” Colin said.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Look, I’m trying to help,” he said.

  “I know.”

  The annoying electronic notes of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” played from Rudy’s belt clip. He reached for his cell phone and glanced at the window. “It’s your mother,” he said.

  “Hmm,” I said and glanced at Colin as if to indicate that he was in trouble of some sort.

  “Hello?” Rudy said. He came to an intersection and looked confused. Colin and I both pointed in the direction to go. The only problem was we pointed in different directions.

  “No, it’s left,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” Colin argued. “He needs to make a right out of here.”

  “If he made a right he’d end up in Duluth. He needs to go left.”

  “No, Torie. Look, I am a man. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s directions.”

  “Look, Bozo—”

  “Torie,” Rudy said.

  “What!”

  “That was … your mom.”

  “Yes, I know, you said that already. What did she want?” A sinking sensation settled in my chest and stomach. My breath caught in my throat. “What is it?” I persisted.

  “It’s your boss. Sylvia,” he said.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “That’s not possible. Sylvia is immortal,” I said.

  Rudy looked over my head at Colin and I could tell by the seriousness of his brown eyes that he wasn’t joking.

  “No, Torie. She’s dead. Elmer’s got the morgue holding off until you can get there,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re waiting for you to decide on the funeral arrangements.”

  “Why?” I asked, tears rolling down my cheeks for the third time in two days. “Why me?”

  “Because she left you everything,” he said. “Her money, her possessions, the Gaheimer House. All of it.”

  ALSO BY RETT MACPHERSON

  Blood Relations

  Killing Cousins

  A Misty Mourning

  A Comedy of Heirs

  A Veiled Antiquity

  Family Skeletons

  IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING. Copyright © 2004 by Rett MacPherson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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  First Edition: February 2004

  eISBN 9781466888821

  First eBook edition: November 2014