Conard County Witness

by Rachel Lee

  “Oh, wow,” she breathed. She couldn’t even see the porch railing, except for an occasional glimpse as a swirl of snow moved past and revealed it. The world outside had turned totally white, the snow erasing everything beyond a few feet. She would have expected the day to be dark, but all that snow caught every shard of light and while it wasn’t bright, it certainly wasn’t dark, either. It was like being inside an extreme snow globe.

  “And that,” he said, “is why every living creature is staying safely at home today. Beautiful but deadly.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be out there,” she agreed.

  “If you were, it likely wouldn’t be a problem for long. Not at these temps.”

  Bending, he opened the stove door and stirred around the fire a bit, then he twisted and put another log on. “I’m starting to feel drafts wend their way in. Are you?”

  She hadn’t been paying attention but nodded anyway. Branded in her mind’s eye was his tight backside as he bent. She hoped she didn’t sound breathless and tried to distract herself. “Can you cook on that stove?”

  “Absolutely. It won’t be haute cuisine, but it’ll be tasty. And I even have a percolator to make coffee.”

  Very self-reliant, she thought. Far different from what she was used to. Her world had consisted of things that turned on when you needed them and stores right around the corner. She’d grown up in Florida with Sara next door, but when hurricanes were on the way, both families evacuated to relative comfort. There’d been tornadoes in Texas, but none had affected her directly. As for Portland, it had a benign climate for the most part, and she had given scant thought to the volcano that loomed over the town in the distance.

  She glanced toward the window again as she heard the glass shudder. The wind evidently was still howling, and sometimes she heard a faint rattle against the glass. Snow? The curtains muffled the sound as much as they muffled the light and cold.

  “Are you okay?” All of a sudden, Jess bent in front of her. He didn’t squat and she wondered how much that added to his back’s discomfort.

  “I’m fine,” she answered, summoning a smile.

  “You looked awfully far away.” Straightening, he returned to the rocker and sat.

  “I was thinking about how I never had to deal with anything like this.”

  He arched a brow. “Tornadoes?”

  “Not directly. Although when the sky changed a certain way, turning a kind of inky black, and the pillow clouds seemed to touch the tops of buildings, I got edgy. Once I even watched as a tornado tried to form. It was fantastic. Amazing. But they don’t last long, Jess. Not usually. A few minutes and they’ve moved on. Not like this.”

  “This certainly won’t blow the house away. We’re safe as long as we stay inside.”

  “I believe you.” She offered another smile. “Some friends drove me down to see where a tornado had nearly wiped a small town from the map. I’ve never forgotten the way it ripped a path across fields, leaving only bare dirt. And one house was shifted half off its foundation and still stood. After that I never ignored a warning.”

  “I wouldn’t, either.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “You’re still not relaxing.”

  She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But we’re making conversation like two people who hardly know each other. You can talk about Sara, if you want. She’s not off-limits, and we both loved her. The point is, nothing’s off-limits, okay?”

  If she hadn’t been unwittingly tense before, she became so now. “Am I doing something wrong?”

  “No.” He shook his head, looking faintly rueful. “It’s just that I keep feeling there’s this big wall between us, and both of us are afraid of taking it down. And I don’t know why. Strangers, but not strangers. I get it. But we still know each other better than to be discussing the weather all the time.”

  She couldn’t deny that. “We both have pasts we don’t seem to want to talk about.”

  “You’re right. But maybe that’s exactly what we need to talk about.” He pointed. “Why don’t you get the photo album from under the TV? Sara put plenty of pictures of the two of you in there from before I came along. There’s a lot more, as well. You can fill in gaps for me and I can fill in gaps for you.”

  Part of her wanted to pull back, to avoid opening those doors, but another part of her yearned to swing them wide to fresh air and sunlight. Sara was the link between them, the tie that had held them together all these years. Ignoring her might not be saving them a bit of trouble or pain.

  At last she rose and went to get the thick, heavy album. “I thought everything was on computers these days,” she remarked.

  “Sara said a photo album wouldn’t crash.”

  Despite her trepidation, a small laugh escaped Lacy. “That’s Sara, all right.”

  Jess rose and limped over to sit by her on the couch. “She was right in another way. I love the heft of that album. I love knowing it’s packed with good memories. I love being able to touch the pages and the pictures, if I’m careful. Anyway, be prepared. It starts when you were both toddlers in Jacksonville.”

  “No, really?”

  “Yeah, and diaperless, too.”

  “Oh, Sara,” she said wistfully. “You would do that to me, wouldn’t you?”

  “She did,” Jess agreed. “I don’t know how many photos you might have, but she seemed to keep them all.”

  Sara hoarded things. No question. But only some items. “She told me once that photos were like our footprints in life. She was always taking them.”

  “More than I wanted to be in, that’s for sure,” he said wryly. “Cell phones only made my life more miserable. In the early days I could see her get out the camera and prepare myself. Later I never knew when that omnipresent phone was going to click.”

  That drew a deep laugh from her. “Camera shy?”

  “Wait until you see some of them. Who wants to be recorded for posterity in the midst of a pratfall?”

  She giggled again. “No video, though?”

  He shook his head. “She said that recording things on video would mean she was watching life through a lens, not living it.”

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Are you a picture taker?”

  She shook her head. “Never felt the urge.”

  He waved to the album. “Then Sara did it for you.”

  The amount of trepidation that filled her as she reached to flip the cover open surprised her. Sara. A great gaping hole in her life, her mementos tucked in these pages. The girl she had grown up with, the woman who had remained her best friend, was gone. Living with that hadn’t been easy. How many times over the last few years had she just wanted to hear Sara’s voice on the phone one more time? How many times had she started to dial her out of a need for that friendly, understanding voice?

  With her fingertips just touching the corner of the album cover, she realized that her grief over Sara had never really eased or gone away. It had become familiar, and with the passage of time she had papered over the hole in her life, like putting wallpaper over a damaged wall. The hole was still there, but hidden.

  “Lacy? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  “I know.” Of course she knew. Jess wasn’t trying to make her miserable; he was trying to bring something into the open, something they shared, something that had hurt them both. So they could talk about it, about Sara. “Do you look at it?”

  “All the time. It’s what I have left, memories. They were good memories. I don’t want to forget them.”

  He was right about that, too. Steadying herself, she flipped open the cover. The first picture to greet her eyes was of herself and Sara, completely nude, all of two, standing beside a colorful kiddie pool in the backyard. She couldn’t tell for s
ure whose backyard it was, but she remembered the photo. “I have a copy of this one, too,” she murmured.

  “The start of a lifelong friendship.”

  “Yes.” She flipped a page and there were more pictures of them sitting in the pool, playing with little toys, laughing. Another page of the two of them in cheery sunsuits walking down a sidewalk with their hands entwined. With each page turn, they grew a little older until she reached pictures of moments she dimly remembered. The two of them sitting on the grass, playing with dolls, an experience that had ended up with Lacy in tears.

  She pointed. “Right after that, a bee stung me. I remember shrieking, and Sara calling for her mom, and getting mad at the stupid bees.” She gave a small broken laugh. “Stupid bees. Her mom explained the bee wasn’t being stupid, but Sara insisted on it.”

  “She was always opinionated. And she never told me that story. Thank you.”

  Feeling overwhelmed, Lacy leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes for a few minutes. “Life was so simple then. Dolls and stupid bees. Tea parties on the screened lanai. The boy down the block who bullied us until she and I ganged up on him.”

  “Did you really?”

  She opened her eyes and saw his dancing gaze. “Yeah, we really did. I got put in time-out for endless hours for hitting him, but he never bothered us again.”

  He laughed. “Tough stuff, lady.”

  “Sometimes.” But the memory had brought the smile back to her face. “We were like the Two Musketeers. There was never a third one. At least, not until you came along.”

  “Not even boyfriends?”

  She waved a hand. “In high school they didn’t last long. Like trying on clothes only to find out they didn’t fit.”

  He seemed to be waiting, so she sat up and flipped a few more pages. The awkward stage of teeth falling out and growing in bigger. Braces. School events. Sunday-best dresses, and muddy shorts and tops. Finally she closed the album. “I can’t do more right now.”

  “Sara said you were a badminton champ.”

  The tightness inside Lacy eased again. “I’ll have you know I beat every single person in my sixth-grade class at our class picnic. My moment of glory.”

  “You must have left some bruised egos.” A laugh trembled in his voice.

  “I don’t know. I was just having fun.” She twisted her head to look at him. “I didn’t want to go to the picnic. Sara was my only friend. Did she tell you I was painfully shy?”

  He shook his head. “I never would have guessed.”

  “Well, I was, and maybe still am. Totally introverted.”

  “Hence the CPA?”

  She gave it a moment’s thought. “Maybe so. Numbers are very predictable, and most of the time no one bothers you when you’re working with them. I love numbers. There’s always a correct answer.”

  “I never thought of them that way.”

  “Oh, I do. They’re not like people. I think of them as solid and enduring and always behaving in the same ways.”

  Now it was his turn to look pensive. She rose and carried the album back to its place on the shelf beneath the TV. The screen was still on, the sound muted, weather warnings traipsing across the bottom in endless cycles.

  “Numbers,” she said, “don’t lie. When they do, it’s because some person did something wrong. Sometimes they can be inexact for lack of information, but they never lie.”

  She turned and saw that he was watching her. What was he thinking? That she sounded like some kind of nut? Maybe she did.

  “And numbers provided you with a glowing trail leading to wrongdoing,” he said after a moment.

  “Yes, they did.”

  “Amazing.” Then he stood up, smiling slightly. “I’ll bet that lasagna is ready to eat. Still hungry?”

  Her stomach rumbled an answer. His smile widened and he held out his hand. Stepping forward, she took it and went to the kitchen to eat with him.

  Outside the weather continued to rage, like an omen.

  Chapter 5

  Lacy retired early again. Jess wondered if he’d pushed her too far with that photo album, but he was glad he had. He’d learned more about Lacy in a short hour than he’d learned about her in all the time he’d known her.

  Shy? Sara her only real friend? Strange that Sara had never mentioned that. Sara had been naturally outgoing, building a circle wherever they went. But no one, he realized in retrospect, had ever been as close to her as Lacy. The two of them had been as thick as thieves and on the phone constantly.

  Then there was that thing about numbers. Lacy liked numbers because they were reliable and didn’t lie? It was possible that was just a natural inclination, but it was equally possible that it had grown out of something deeper. Something that was a really important key to who she was.

  It spoke of an inherent distrust of people, so totally out of tune with her relationship with Sara. The past few years could have hardly added to her trust.

  He sighed, then remembered the envelope he’d found earlier. He’d pushed it out of his mind because he hadn’t wanted to frighten Lacy any more than she already was. Nor was it something he could take to the sheriff. Just a statement that might be a threat, or could even be a prank. It wasn’t as if none of his younger neighbors ever got up to any hijinks. Sometimes he even saw the results in his little minor emergency center.

  It was little enough to go on, but enough to concern him. He found it difficult to believe that the people Lacy continued to fear could have found her so rapidly, unless they had ridden the bus with her, and that seemed totally unrealistic. If so, they could have removed her from the picture at any stop along the route from Dallas. Why wait for her to disembark here, then leave that stupid note like a red flag only a few hours later?

  Inevitably he thought of a cat toying with a mouse. Except a cat wasn’t playing, merely tiring its prey until it was safe to eat. This was uglier, whether someone’s lousy idea of a joke or for real.

  Of only one thing was he fairly certain: anyone would stay inside during weather like this. When he peeked out from time to time, it was clear they were still in a state of whiteout. The wind hadn’t quit, much to his surprise, and a couple of inches of snow couldn’t seem to settle anywhere, but blew endlessly, blindingly. People around here who needed to get out to barns to tend livestock were probably moving with ropes wrapped around them, or sticking to rope lines they’d put up earlier to guide them.

  Yeah, there was GPS these days, but it didn’t always work well during a storm, and besides, with this wind and these temperatures, any exposed skin would freeze fast. Way fast.

  Even a man with a deadly mission would have hunkered down somewhere safe.

  He could reasonably assume nothing would happen until the weather changed, but it wouldn’t do to let his guard down too far. He spread the folded paper, which had been tucked in his jeans pocket and burning at the back of his mind all day, and read those block-printed words again. “I found you. The game begins.”

  What the hell did that mean? It wasn’t a direct threat, unless someone didn’t want to be found. Indirectly, it threatened nothing at all. He could just imagine the sheriff looking at it and feeling pretty much as Jess did. Was this a stalking? One note wasn’t a crime of any kind. Who was being stalked? Had this even come to the right house?

  After all, sometimes the college and high school kids staged treasure hunts based on following GPS coordinates. The game is on? It might be as simple as that, although there were no coordinates on the note. Just a message that might have blown onto his porch.

  Remembering that a small stone had been lying on top of it, it would seem deliberate. But that might even have been an accident. As hard as the wind was blowing, the envelope could have been pushed under a stone that was already there. His front porch wasn’t exactly the cleanest pla
ce in the world. All summer and fall he’d been using it to store tools and supplies overnight, then he’d had that truckload of gravel spread on the drive and graded out and...

  Yeah, there were lots of small stones on his porch. He could rationalize it as much as he wanted. What he couldn’t safely do was ignore it.

  Lacy felt afraid. Maybe she had good reason. He was the last person to deny that you could sense it if you were being watched. Some atavistic instinct that remained in human beings. Eyes were on you.

  Sighing, he shoved it into his pocket. At least he’d had to take combat training with the Marines when he was attached as a medic. Not even a Red Cross was barred against that, not with the Marines. He could handle himself, even with an artificial leg.

  What might have gotten soft over the years was his alertness to threats. Rising, ignoring the way his nonexistent leg had decided to hurt as if it were full of knives, he got himself some more coffee. Too early to sleep. Only that storm outside would make it possible for him to sleep at all. He could also still set his internal alarm clock to wake him every hour to check on things.

  He thought about sleeping on the couch, then wondered if Lacy would be disturbed by it. It wasn’t as if his bedroom wasn’t on this floor. If she found him there, he could just blame it on the phantom pain...a phantom that felt real enough right now.

  He popped three ibuprofens with scant hope they’d help much. Any nerves they could work on weren’t the nonexistent ones in his leg. Pain was a perception. How many times had that been drilled into him? It was the brain’s interpretation of a signal. Or, in his case, remembered signals. Anxiety increased the perception of pain. He’d long ago conquered the anxiety, but the likelihood that his phantom pain would eventually vanish was disappearing with the passage of time. The longer he continued to experience it, the more likely it was to become permanent.

  Going to his bedroom, he pulled off his jeans and removed his leg. Enough. He didn’t need it tonight, not remotely, given how bad the weather was. After pulling on sweatpants and pinning up the empty leg portion, he reached for his crutch and swung his way out to the living room couch.