by Nancy Mehl
“Sam said something about burn barrels?”
She nodded. “Yep, we got ‘em all over the orchards, but with all this snow keepin’ the ground even colder… I just don’t know, Gracie girl. It ain’t lookin’ good. If the clouds come back in, things will warm up a bit. If not, there’s no tellin’ what will happen.”
I told her about praying for God’s protection and quoted the scripture in Psalm 91 that I’d mentioned to Sam.
“My, that’s a good one,” Sweetie said. “It brings peace to my soul.” She stirred the pot a couple of times. Then she took it off the burner. “You know, my papa believed everything that happened in this world was God’s will. That we just take whatever comes and thank Him for it.” She shook her head. “Wished I knowed God then the way I know Him now. I woulda showed my papa that we gotta have faith in God’s Word to chase the devil away. That we ain’t supposed to be ignorant of his devices. Maybe my papa and I coulda fought that ole snaggletoothed liar, and Daddy woulda been here today.” Her eyes met mine. “Can you imagine thinkin’ the devil’s dirty deeds are God’s will?” She dabbed at her eyes with her apron. “My daddy jes’ didn’t know no better. I think about that quite a bit, you know. Wonderin’ if I coulda made things turn out different.”
I reached for her hand. “Sweetie, I’m sure God doesn’t want you blaming yourself or your father for his death. I’m not a Bible scholar or anything, but I’ve figured out one thing. Even if the devil gets one over on us in this life, he still loses. Your father is living in God’s glorious heaven, waiting for his beautiful daughter to join him. No regrets. Just joyous anticipation.”
Sweetie threw her head back and laughed. “My goodness, girl. Your middle name Pollyanna or somethin’?”
“No, but isn’t it cool that no matter what happens, when we know God, we always have hope?”
She ambled back to the stove to check on her oatmeal. “I guess it is. Like the Good Book says, nothin’ is impossible with Him.” She tended to the stove a minute then said something I didn’t hear at first.
“What? Did you say something?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said a little louder. “I sure was worried you and Sam weren’t going to work things out, but God made a way.” She turned around and stared at me as if she wanted to say something. I waited, but she didn’t open her mouth. Just kept watching me.
“I believe He did. Don’t you?”
She folded her arms across her chest and rocked back and forth on her heels a few times. “I don’t want to cause you no undo concern, Gracie girl. I hope everything is fine and dandy. It’s just that I know my nephew pretty well. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think he’s settled in his mind about his mama yet.” She rubbed her arms as if she felt cold. “I mean, think about it. The way he reacted to that story about the baby. Well, it showed he still had lotsa bad feelin’s about the past. I mean, to treat you the way he did. Then suddenly everything’s all right? Like nothin’ ever happened?” She shook her head. “It just don’t make sense to me. Through all these years, I’ve watched Sam stuff his real feelin’s in a place down deep inside himself. In fact, he’s spent a lot of his life doin’ that.” She stared at me, her expression guarded. “Just be careful, Gracie,” she cautioned. “Make sure he’s got all that sad stuff out and dealt with. If you don’t, it could hurt you and him both.” With that she turned her attention back to her oatmeal.
Her warning struck deep. The same thought had crossed my mind more than once. That Sam had changed too quickly after my emotional upheaval. Maybe Sweetie was right. Maybe it was a bad sign. My mother had the same kind of personality. She would always pick herself up after an emotional hurt and act like everything was okay. She’d done that after she was diagnosed with cancer, but one day her fear and anger boiled over, taking all of us by surprise. She began acting like a different person, yelling at my father and me, treating us as if everything we did irritated her. The change was so abrupt and so obvious that we knew immediately something was wrong. After some tears, venting, and counseling, she finally started to express her fear and frustration.
I learned a huge lesson from her. That to exercise our faith and walk in it, we must first deal honestly with our emotions. God can only help us when we admit we need it. Once my mom got hold of this important truth, she began to trust God for her complete healing. And she received it. She finished chemo with a positive attitude. I was thinking about her when a knock on the door almost made me spill my coffee.
“Now who in tarnation could that be?” Sweetie declared. “Shouldn’t be nobody out ‘cept our men, and they’re gone.” She frowned at me. “Can you get that? I gotta stir this oatmeal.”
I hopped up from the table and hurried to the door. When I saw who waited on the porch, my mouth dropped open in surprise. Standing there as if there weren’t six-foot snowdrifts surrounding us stood Sheriff Pat Taylor, his arms crossed, his feet spread apart, and his face screwed up into a fierce scowl.
“I hear you got another dead body to contend with, young lady. You wanna show me just where you stored this one?”
Chapter Ten
After changing my clothes and checking on Sarah, I led Sheriff Taylor to the barn, where Rand McAllister was laid out on a large wooden table used to hold feed for Ranger and Tonto, Sam’s horses. The feed had been moved to accommodate the very deceased Mr. McAllister.
Thankfully he was covered with a blanket. I turned my head as the sheriff pulled up one edge to get a look at the dead man.
“Still pretty frozen,” he grumbled. “Dang fool thing to do—wanderin’ around outside in this weather.” He paused a moment. “Any idea what he was doin’ out there?”
I quickly looked his way and saw that he’d re-covered Rand’s face. “I have no idea, Sheriff. I didn’t really know him. Sam and a couple other men found him in the snow not far from here.”
“Near here, huh? Figures.”
“What does that mean?” I asked hotly. “Look, the last couple of days have been very stressful for everyone. Now a cold front is moving in, and I’m worried about Sam’s trees. He could lose them. I don’t feel like sparring with you about Rand McAllister.”
The surprised sheriff rocked back on his heels, his eyes wide.
“Now just a minute, young lady. It might do you some good to speak a little more respectfully to me. After all, I am the sheriff in these parts.”
“Yes, you are. And you certainly let everyone know it. You’ve been throwing your weight around ever since I got to Harmony. Even before that, now that I think about it. Why did you stop me on the highway the other day? There’s nothing wrong with my taillight. Surely you have something better to do than detain innocent people and make up stories. Now we have this body. I mean, a man has died, and all you can do is attempt to blame me somehow.”
I felt like a balloon that suddenly ran out of air. Deflated, dejected, and dumb. Of course, I’m pretty sure a balloon can’t feel dumb—or anything else for that matter. I would have slapped my hand over my mouth if it wouldn’t have looked too dramatic. We stood there and glared at each other for a while. To my chagrin, Taylor began to look somewhat amused. I, on the other hand, was not. Finally I decided to break our stalemate while trying to retain a shred of my shattered dignity. “I’m sorry. I’ve been under a lot of stress. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
He kept staring at me strangely. Then he reached for his handcuffs.
“Whoa! I don’t think you can arrest someone for losing their temper,” I sputtered. “This is America.”
“I’m not arresting you, Miss Temple. I’m getting my handkerchief.” With that he put his hand in his pocket, ignoring the nearby handcuffs hooked on his belt.
“I—I don’t need a handkerchief. I…” With a start I realized that tears were dripping down my face. Oh brother. Another emotional meltdown. This was getting ridiculous. Taylor walked over and held out his handkerchief. I took it and wiped my face. The thought crossed my mind of blowing my nose and handi
ng i back, but I’d already given the grouchy lawman more than enough reason to shoot me and call it self-defense. Putting a snotty hankie in his hand might be the last straw. With my face dry and my leaky eyes under control, I gave him back his only slightly used handkerchief. “Sorry,” I said again.
He grunted.
I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, not being fluent in grunts, so I just nodded. “So what now? Are you going to, uh…”
“Take Rand off your hands?”
I nodded again. At that moment nonverbal responses seemed safer. I couldn’t risk going off again. Next he might actually pull out those handcuffs on purpose.
“So you’re sure McAllister got caught out in the snow,” he said. “No foul play or anything?”
I sighed with exasperation. “Look, Sheriff. Just because I used to have a dead body on my property, and just because I figured out who killed him… Well, that doesn’t make me Jessica Fletcher. I assume Rand McAllister got caught out in the snowstorm and died of exposure. The same thing almost happened to my friend Sarah.”
He frowned at me. “Who’s Jessica Fletcher?”
I opened my mouth to respond but closed it before actual words came out. There wasn’t anything I could say that wouldn’t sound condescending and make the sheriff grab his handcuffs—or his gun.
He crossed his arms and examined me much the way a hawk might look at a field mouse running for its life. “Did you look at the body?”
I shook my head. “As much fun as that sounds, I’m not big on viewing corpses. But John Keystone helped bring him in here. I’m sure he checked him over.”
The lawman’s eyes widened. “So you think the butcher’s opinion of the deceased’s condition oughta be good enough to determine COD?”
I flashed him a grin. “I do watch CSI, Sheriff. John Keystone used to be a doctor. I’m sure if he’d seen anything that made him suspicious in terms of cause of death, he would have said something.”
“Good show. Wait a minute. The butcher used to be a doctor? Now that’s just plumb funny.”
“Not really. And how is it you’ve watched CSI but you have no idea what Murder, She Wrote is?”
His bemused expression switched to one of confusion. “Someone wrote you about a murder? Who was it?”
By this point my limbs were beginning to freeze, and I was becoming convinced the sheriff was playing mind games with me. Besides, I’d begun to feel rather outmatched. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” I asked, hoping the answer would be “no.”
He shuffled back and forth on his feet. “Yep, little lady. You can tell your doctor/butcher friend to give me a call. And you can help me move Mr. McAllister to my truck.”
Wow, this really wasn’t CSI. Those guys would have crime scene technicians all over this place before the coroner moved the body. But I was standing in the middle of Harmony, Kansas. I guess here we just throw ‘em in a truck and forget it.
“In case you’re wondering,” he said, as if reading my mind, “I can’t get anyone out here. Not the coroner’s office or an ambulance. I’d just leave him where he is until the roads clear up, but since the butcher thinks this death is natural, I might as well take him off your hands.” He took a deep breath like he was getting ready to jump in a lake for a swim. “Now if you’ll just grab his feet…”
I held up both hands. “Hold on there. I have no intention of starting my day by grabbing a dead body and flinging it around. Call me a wimp, but there are just some things that will now an forever stay out of my repertoire of life experiences.”
“I could force you to help me at gunpoint.”
“Funny. But I have another idea.” I pointed to a wheelbarrow behind us. “Let’s try that first.”
“Hard to get a wheelbarrow through all the snow.”
“Good point. But if you’ll drive your truck up to the barn door, we won’t have to worry about it.”
He considered my idea for a moment. Thankfully the scenario seemed to work for him. “Bring the wheelbarrow. I’ll slide him in and then get my truck. You think you can at least roll him up to the door?”
Although I couldn’t think of anything else I would rather not do, I was smart enough to realize I was getting off easy. So I just nodded, since the words “I’d love to push a frozen dead body in a wheelbarrow like some kind of macabre game at a church picnic” didn’t seem appropriate.
Taylor got the wheelbarrow and brought it over to the table. I turned my head as he put the body in it, but the thump I heard as the transfer was made would probably stay lodged in my memory for the rest of my life.
“Okay,” he said in his deep, raspy voice. “I’ll get the truck, and I’ll honk when I’m ready.”
“Fine.”
There was a prolonged silence. Then I heard, “Miss Temple?”
“Yes?”
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Do you have some kind of plan to push the wheelbarrow without looking at it?”
“No.”
“Okay. So…”
I reluctantly swung my head around. Great. Frozen bodies don’t fit perfectly in a wheelbarrow. This was going to be a delicate balancing act. “Hey, maybe you could…” But I was talking to Taylor’s backside. He left through the barn door without looking back. Obviously I was alone. Well, not completely alone. But alone enough.
I took a deep breath and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow, trying to completely avoid Rand’s boots that stuck out from under the blanket. I noticed his blue socks showing through the holes in the bottom of his boots. Odd that he would wear lightweight boots like these outside—especially in the snow. It seemed to line up with John’s assessment that Rand had gotten smashed and accidentally ended up outside. As I carefully navigated the barrow toward the barn door, trying desperately to keep the body balanced so it wouldn’t slide off, the thought occurred to me that Rand might not be wearing socks after all. The idea made me a little nauseated. I could have checked out my theory, but let’s just say that being right isn’t always the most important thing.
We finally made it to the door. I waited while the sheriff backed his truck up next to us. I’d begun to notice that everyone and their brother owned trucks in Harmony. At first I wondered if it was just a country thing, but now I realized that trucks could make it through snow, high water, and the kind of rough terrain that cars like my Slug Bug couldn’t. Although I had no intention of getting a truck, the idea of trading in my beloved Volkswagen for something more appropriate was noodling around in my head. What good is having a car you can’t drive?
I turned my head once again as the sheriff loaded poor Rand up into the back of his truck. Kind of an undignified way to be transported to wherever he was going.
I heard the door on the truck bed slam shut. “Guess that’s it,” Taylor said. “You folks gonna be all right here?”
Did this tough character care about us or was he just being nosy? “Um, we’ll be fine. Sure would like to get our phone service back, though.”
The sheriff rubbed his stubbly chin. “Anyone I can call for you?” I thought about my parents, but they were used to big snows since they lived in Nebraska. Not hearing from me for a couple of days wouldn’t worry them. “Sam and the other guys should be contacting everyone I’m concerned about. But thanks anyway.”
“And who are these folks?”
“My friend Ida Turnbauer and of course Thelma and Jessica McAllister.”
He nodded. “I ran into your boyfriend on my way here. He and his friends had already been to Mrs. Turnbauer’s and were on their way to the McAllisters’. I guess you can quit worryin’ about them.”
“So that’s how you found out about Rand.”
He nodded.
“Then you were already on your way to Harmony? With the roads in such awful condition?” I shook my head. “Why? Surely you had enough going on in your own town.”
He shrugged. “Had my reasons.” He left me standing there as he got in his truck and slowly began driving back t
o the road. Even though his vehicle was heavy, it slipped on the ice several times.
I stood there and watched him go. Why would he come to Harmony if he didn’t know about Rand? What was it here that interested him so much? I remembered Sam’s stories about Taylor hanging around and asking questions not long after he took office. Between his bad attitude toward Harmony, his unusual interest in its citizens, his stopping me on the highway into town for no reason, and the fact that right after a major blizzard his first action was to head here—something wasn’t right. A blast of bitter wind convinced me I needed to get indoors. Sweetie was waiting for me. She’d probably been keeping watch over the entire procedure.
“That old sheriff take Rand with him?” she asked as I came up the stairs.
“Yeah. He’s gone.”
She held the door open. I gladly left the cold behind and entered the house. It felt like walking into a warm hug.
“Goodness, honey. You go sit by the fire. I’ll bring you a nice cup of hot cocoa.”
At that moment a cup of hot chocolate sounded like the most fantastic thing in the world. I headed for the living room, ready to curl up in front of the fire and let the warmth seep into my chilled bones. When I got there, I was pleasantly surprised to find Sarah on the couch, a comforter tucked around her.
“Hey, you’re downstairs. I take it you’re feeling better?”
“Yes, I am, thanks to you and Sweetie. I know I’m supposed to take it easy, but I just couldn’t stay upstairs anymore. I’m lonely.”
“Boredom. A sure sign of recovery. I remember when I was sick as a child and had to stay home from school. As soon as I told my mother I was bored, she knew the worst was over.”
Sarah giggled. “I guess that’s exactly where I am. So I must be getting better.”
“I’m glad.”
She pulled her legs up and pointed to the other end of the couch. “Sit with me for a while, will you? I want to talk to you.”
