2 Death at Crooked Creek

by Mary Ann Cherry

  Tate pulled a face, waving his gloved hands in the air as though flicking feline germs off right and left.

  “What you’re saying,” he said with a grimace, “is that I was holding a nasty litter box against my best down jacket. I didn’t realize what it was. Blech.” Tate brushed off his jacket with an exaggerated sweep of his hands, held her make-up bag out to her, and crossed his arms over his chest. “In that case,” he said, in a dramatic, haughty tone, “You, Snow maiden of the Crooked Creek Court, are granted the privilege of toting the royal potty pan.”

  Jessie couldn’t help it. She took the bag, slung it over her shoulder and burst out laughing. Soon his baritone joined her. Then he swept the door open and waved her in with a flourish.

  “After you, m’Lady.” He looked at her, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

  He looked appealing. Beguiling. Overconfident.

  Oh well, Jessie thought. She held the litter pan, which was actually brand new, with elaborate majesty as she walked—chin up, head held high—through the door. She opened her mouth to say she’d take a rain check. Instead, she heard herself say, “Cocoa it is.”

  But what she thought was ‘splat’!’.

  Chapter Six

  Up in the hotel bathroom, Jessie pulled the brush through her hair in swift, angry strokes, addressing her own reflection in the mirror.

  Idiot! Where's your common sense? With your stellar bad luck with men you had the stupidity to say yes to hot chocolate with a total stranger? A totally arrogant, much too appealing stranger?

  She yanked harder.

  "Oh, yes, I'd love a hot chocolate, Tate," she mimicked to her reflection. Jack wound around her ankles and she looked down to tell the cat, "I'm a glutton for punishment, Butter Tub. That man just oozes trouble." She turned again to the looking glass and mouthed "Stupid, stupid."

  She yanked off wet jeans for the second time that day, inspected them and draped them over the towel rod. They'd be dry by morning, but at this rate, if there wasn’t a laundry service at the lodge she was going to have to find a laundromat. Pulling the last blingy pair from her suitcase, she finished dressing by slipping her feet into her sexy black leather boots, the pair with the uncomfortably high heels, slipping into a black cashmere pullover sweater, and spritzing herself with her favorite perfume. She drew a tube of lip gloss across her bottom lip and smacked her lips together.

  "I know, I know," she told Jack. "I'm such a hypocrite. But if I'm going to dive back into the pool I might as well make a splash."

  He looked up at her with slanted eyes. She leaned over to gently run her hand from the top of his head to his haunches, repeating the motion several times.

  "Don't worry, Jack. If he doesn't like cats, we don't like him." Her eye fell on the open suitcase. She crossed to it, took out her Nikon camera and 9mm pistol, and locked both in the small hotel room safe before she picked up her purse.

  But, of course the man does offer chocolate. A man who bribes you with chocolate is either very bad or very good. She suspected the man she was going down to meet was a bit of both. She lifted her foot and flexed the leather boot. The cocoa and company had better be worth wearing these killers.

  *.*.*

  Ten minutes later, Jessie sighed as she took her second sip of the Crooked Creek Lodge special dark cocoa. The decadent brew, heaped with whipped cream, appeared at the table in tall mugs with the lodge emblem embossed on the side. It was served with a plate of honey and maple flavored "Dutch stroopwafels", a round cookie baked with an embossed waffle pattern and filled with a gooey thick caramel.

  Total heaven. In fact, she expected an angelic chorus to sing “Hallelujah” any minute. Definitely worth wearing the killer boots.

  Tate gestured toward a glossy catalog he’d placed on the table by his plate. "I was looking through the auction listings and artist biographies while I waited. Your studio is in Santa Fe, it says, but you’re originally from Montana?" Tate picked up a cookie, took a healthy bite, and chewed while he looked expectantly at Jessie.

  "Yeah. I'm ninety-nine percent redneck Montanan. I was raised in Sage Bluff and went to art school in France, but Santa Fe seems to be a good market for my work. I'm not even sure how I wound up there, to tell the truth. It just happened." Jessie looked at the dark windows of the restaurant. She knew why she moved to Santa Fe. It was because she hadn't felt anyone wanted her to come home. She hadn't realized that it was because her family wanted her to succeed and they thought that wouldn't happen if she came back to Sage Bluff. The rural area didn’t offer enough opportunity in the art world.

  There is success…and then there is happiness. As always, she wondered if she'd made good choices. She’d missed her family. And she’d missed the last two years of her mother’s life. She lifted the mug and sipped without tasting.

  Tate looked at her with a quizzical expression. "You ever think of moving back to Montana?"

  "Yeah. At least once a day." Jessie wasn't going to elaborate, but then said. "It's a long story." She gave him a pinched look. "More like a soap opera," she muttered glumly. "I have a talented nephew in Sage Bluff. His name is K.D. I'd love to stay more involved with him. He's my brother Kevin's son, but Kevin died before the little boy was born. And his mother died soon after."

  Tate's deep brown eyes again stared into hers, and he said nothing. Then he seemed to come to a decision. “If you’d like to talk about it, I don’t mind soap operas. We knights of the Crooked Creek Court make good listeners. Must be from all the suffering we endure wearing that heavy armor.” He waited for her to continue.

  She gave him a grin. "Russell, my brother's best friend, knew Kevin's fiancé, Trish, was expecting. When Kevin died, Russell married her immediately after the funeral. Then Trish passed away, too, and Russell has been raising K. D.” She bit into a stroopwafel and chewed, thinking she shouldn’t have burdened Tate with the story. “I warned you it was like a soap opera."

  She didn’t tell Tate that Russell was an old flame—or how devastated she’d been when he married—or that her mother passed away two weeks after Kevin and Trish. Her father had been a mess for more than a year. Now, he was happily remarried.

  "It wasn't until last year that Dad and I knew for certain that the little boy was Kevin’s." She took a sip of rich cocoa and put down her mug. "Dad suspected. Now, he looks so much like my brother did at that age, there was no way Russell could hide it any longer. Like I said, it's a long story." She gestured toward her drink. "Too long for hot chocolate. It would be nice to be able to teach K.D. good drawing and painting basics. He's remarkable. So much talent, and he eats and breathes sketching and painting."

  Tate made a sympathetic sound. Then his face brightened. “Maybe the long story can wait until we go to dinner during the Expo.”

  Russell’s face came unbidden into Jessie’s thoughts. He had proposed. But he only wanted to marry her if she'd give up painting and come home to stay. Not travel or take her work to art shows and galleries. Her answer had been no. Sighing deeply, she bit into a cookie and gave a slight sound of appreciation. "We’ll see. Anyway, that little nephew of mine is the only reason I'd consider moving back to rural Montana. I love it here, but it's too far from the galleries and shows I need to deliver work to. Shipping prices are unreasonable. Plus, there's a lot to be said for flying the flag, making the effort to talk to gallery owners and customers in person."

  "Yes, I agree." He gave her a serious look. "And I won't ask any more personal questions tonight, either."

  "I will," Jessie deadpanned, "It’s my turn."

  Tate laughed and made a gun with his thumb and index finger. "Shoot."

  She rubbed her palms together as though in anticipation. "Let the inquisition begin. First, what do you paint?"

  "I don't. I draw. I'm a pencil artist. Graphite drawings and sketches." He broke the last cookie in two and put half on her saucer by her mug.

  She grinned. "I spend time sketching as well. I keep a journal with a bit of writing, but
mostly drawings of people done from memory."

  "I’d like to see it sometime."

  Jessie smiled, but knew that wouldn’t happen. The journal was too personal. If he asked more pointedly in future, she’d make an excuse. Besides, when she went back to her room, she would add his portrait to the pages.

  "Sometimes I like to work in pen and ink. And I love the looseness of a good charcoal portrait," Tate said. "Color stumps me. I'm a bit color blind."

  "Ah." She nodded. "But how can person be ‘a bit’ color blind? Isn't it either-or?" She stirred the remaining whipped cream topping into the dark brown liquid. "Do you have red-green issues? I know that's the most common type for men."

  "Color blindness varies dramatically from case to case. I can see, for instance, that your hair is a fascinating shade of red." He reached toward a long curl dangling over her shoulder. "They say that sometimes you can ‘feel’ color," he teased. "I think I’d be able to see the exact shade if I could just touch—"

  Before his hand could reach Jessie's lock of hair, a fragile-appearing elderly gentleman in a red and black-checked wool jacket interrupted Tate's sentence. A compact medical oxygen canister was attached to a belt around his waist, and a thin air hose wound a figure eight from the canister to the man's nostrils. He leaned precariously on a cane and listed toward their table. "Are you from Crooked Creek, young man? You a veteran? You look military."

  A fleeting look of surprise passed over Tate's face as he drew his hand back from Jessie's hair and gazed at the elderly man. "Hello, sir. I'm….”

  The old gent spoke over Tate's words. Jessie suspected that he was hard of hearing. She wondered what Tate had been about to say.

  "You just got that look about you. That look of the military man. Now, I'm a Korean War veteran. Not many of us left. Lot more of us than there are of World War II vets, but we're getting thinned out like old pine trees in a forest fire. I gotta drag my oxygen pack with me everywhere I go. But by damn, I get the word out about the wars, so the young people of today don't forget. They should know about the sacrifices we old codgers made. I give out pamphlets about the wars." He gazed unseeingly out the window. "There've been too many wars, and there'll be others, human nature being the beast it is. You been to the Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C.? Best memorial there."

  "Yes," Tate said. "I agree. It is the best memorial there." He looked at Jessie, who gave a slight shake of her head to indicate she had not seen it. "It’s made of sculpted figures who represent a platoon on patrol moving through Korean terrain. You feel as if you are among them. It’s very moving." He looked up at the old fellow and cleared his throat. "I’ve never been in the service myself."

  The old man watched Tate’s lips moving but gave no sign he’d heard what was said.

  "I call this oxy pack ‘Jim’, after a friend of mine. When the Red Chinese attacked at Chosin Reservoir, he saved my life. Then he was wounded. I carried him for hours. But I didn't mind. Jim was my friend, you see. We went to school together in Crooked Creek. James Jefferson Montgomery, his name was." Again, his rheumy eyes took on a far-away look. "Most folks don’t know that over fifty thousand Americans were killed over there. And nearly eight thousand American military men are still missing just from the Korean War. Lost souls." He shook his head. "It’s hard for those families to wonder—to never know—where their loved one wound up—how he died. The older you get, the more you think about the past. Friends and family—dead or alive—they all help make you who you are."

  Jessie made a murmuring sound of assent. Tate nodded respectfully.

  The old man leaned heavily on his cane with his left hand, and waved his leathery, heavily-veined right hand toward Jessie. "What's your name, gal?" She started to speak, but he talked over her reply, making her even more certain of his lack of hearing. "When I came home, I married Jim's girl. She was a beauty like you. Not a carrot top like yourself. Brunette, she was. Hair almost black. I felt guilty for years that I wound up with Shanna."

  He shook his head. "And when I wasn't feeling guilty, I sure wished he'd been the one to come home and marry that ornery woman." He cackled at the look of surprise on Tate and Jessie's faces. "Well, we had a good long life together. She's probably up there with Jim now, complaining about how I was always late to dinner. Always smoked my smelly pipe." He cleared his throat. "Here's one of my pamphlets." He pulled out a thin folded brochure from his jacket pocket and laid it on the table. "Korea's often called 'the forgotten war'. Remember how important the military men were. Will be again, too, you know. Like I said, human nature's a beast. A ravening beast." He looked at Tate. "We need military men like yourself. Keep our country safe. You young people enjoy the cocoa and conversation."

  He turned and began a slow shuffle toward the door. Jessie rose and caught up with him, and to the old man’s surprise, she gave him a quick hug and a swift kiss on the cheek. The man's eyes filled and his face split into a huge smile. "Bye, girl." He looked back at Tate and gave a short salute. "Sure glad she ain't a brunette. Dark-haired gals are trouble."

  The cafe hostess smiled at Jessie as the old man left the restaurant. "That’s the Gingerbread Man. Thanks for making his day."

  "The Gingerbread Man?" Jessie asked quizzically.

  "Uh huh. When I was a little girl, his wife used to make gingerbread cookies to hand out each Halloween. Then she got cancer, God bless her. Every year since she died, Mr. Helland has carved small wooden gingerbread men—dozens of them—to pass out to every kid who stops at their farmhouse to trick or treat." She tore a customer’s bill from a pad on the counter. "My kids hang ours on the Christmas tree. They don’t even know Mr. Helland has a name other than ‘the Gingerbread Man’."

  "What a neat story," Jessie said. "I’ll bet they’re real keepsakes. Something they’ll pass to their own kids someday." Kids, she thought. The ticking of Old Ben, as Jessie called her biological clock, thudded in her chest. She waved her hand as though to shoo a bluebottle fly.

  "The poor soul was hale and hearty just a few months ago,” the hostess said. “Sure is sad to see how fast an older guy like that can go downhill. I hate to see him so frail. Reminds me to go see my dad, I guess. It’s high time." She gave Jessie a wistful smile and nod as she passed, walking to a nearby booth crammed full of twenty-somethings dressed to kill and laughing uproariously. The hostess placed the bill on the table and every young man in the booth suddenly noticed something interesting through the window, their glances sliding surreptitiously back at the bill, hoping someone else would pick it up.

  "Let’s all chip in," a female voice suggested. Her idea was greeted with the enthusiasm Jack gave a newly opened can of salmon.

  Jessie had just reseated herself across from Tate when Max came strolling to their table. "Hey there." He turned a glum face toward Jessie. "Enjoying the signature cocoa, I see. I could eat a million of those maple cookies." His mouth turned down. "Say, did Benny ever track you down, Jessie? I called his cell half a dozen times. It went right to voicemail, so I tried his land-line and he still never picked up. I'm worried he never made it home with the roads so terrible. I was hoping he'd finally connected with you. His dogs are out there by themselves and if he thought there was even a slim chance he could make it home to take care of them, he’d try the bad roads."

  "No, sorry. I haven't seen him. Well, like I said before, I have no idea what he looks like. But he hasn't come and introduced himself."

  "Hmmm. Well, if he does, please tell him to call me, will you?"

  "I'll do that, Max. But I'd sure like to know who used my name on that text."

  "You and me both." He looked at Tate and held out his hand. His expression had a look of intensity as he glanced at Max. "Tate, isn't it?”

  Tate nodded unenthusiastically.

  “One of our new artists this year. You do western themed graphite drawings, don't you? A lot of rodeo pieces?"

  To Jessie’s surprise, Tate gave him a look of dislike and hesitated a few seconds before grasp
ing Max's hand to shake. And he was squeezing hard. Really hard, Jessie thought, as she noticed Max’s wince. Interesting. Wonder what that’s about.

  Max let go and cautiously wiggled his fingers.

  "Yes, that's right," Tate told him. "Western themed, but not rodeo. Mostly just running horses and ranch scenes. Cattle dogs, cattle and sheep drives, that kind of thing."

  "Well, I'll be down to your display room tomorrow to check out your work. Welcome to the Art Expo. We're glad to add a good pencil artist to the roster. We try to keep variety in the show. There seem to be oil painters around every corner,” He looked at Jessie in horror. “Oh, sorry. What I meant to say is that we have quite a few oil painters, but not as many sculptors or good pencil artists." He nodded to Tate dismissively and then told Jessie. "Don't forget to ask Benny to call if he shows up, Jessie." He gave her a little salute. "Thanks." Max turned and walked toward the door.

  "What's this about a fake text?" Tate asked, then held his palm up in a stop gesture. "Just a sec." Before Jessie could answer, he waved to their waitress as she was hurrying past. "Hit us again, will you? Another round of cocoa."

  Jessie squirmed a little, picturing an army of calories with miniscule faces and crablike pincers, all laughing in crablike giggles about the snug waistband on her blingy wranglers. Inwardly, she rolled her eyes and scheduled some time on the treadmill. She explained about the text Max received—a text supposedly from Jessie—that asked him to come out to her motor home and help her with a large painting. And how Evan had passed the chore on to Benny.

  "That's odd," Tate mused. "Wonder who benefitted from that?” His face was serious. “Something had to be gained.”