by Vicki Lane
“Maybe the father snatched her…that happens—”
“No, when we knew Maythorn, her father was already dead—some kind of accident, if I remember right. Most people, including the sheriff, decided she’d been kidnapped—since the Mullins were so wealthy, that seemed a likely motive. But there was never any contact…no demand for money. And as the months went on with no clue…it just got harder and harder to believe that she might still be alive. The assumption was that the kidnapping had gone wrong and the child had died.”
She paused, then went on. “You know, eventually, I think, horrible as it sounds, the family would have been relieved if her body had been found…just so they wouldn’t be trapped in that horrible limbo of not knowing.”
“Did you see much of the family during that time…after the disappearance? I wonder—”
“No.” Her reply was curt. “The two girls had been big friends but Sam and I really didn’t have much in common with the parents…with Moon and Patricia. They never socialized with us back-to-the-land types much. I think our big free-for-all potlucks were not exactly Patricia’s cup of tea—or Moon’s martini, for that matter.”
The harsh tones gave way at once. “Oh, Phillip, I sound like such a bitch. As you can tell, I didn’t like the parents much. But truly, when it happened the Mullins didn’t seem to want a lot of people clustering round and offering condolences—particularly at first, when we all kept thinking that Maythorn was going to come back.”
They had talked on and on, neither wanting to end the call. Elizabeth had told him more about the Mullins but always with a curious hesitancy. There’s something else going on here, something she’s not ready to talk about, he had thought as they had finally, reluctantly, said good night. His years as a police detective made him fairly astute in reading people. And I’ve sure as hell made a close study of Elizabeth…as close as she’d let me, anyway. I know there’s something.
Hawkins stood, stretched, then picked up his briefcase, full of papers to be graded. He turned off the lights in the living room and headed down the narrow hall to the small room that he now called his study, by virtue of having replaced the sagging double bed and rickety night table there with a foldout sleeper sofa and a small desk. Clicking on the lamp, he set his briefcase on the desk. Might as well get through these…
Three hours later he was finished. He padded down the hall, pulling off his shirt and T-shirt as he went and dropping them on top of the washer that lurked in the shuttered alcove just outside his bedroom door. The slacks and boxer shorts were next and finally the socks. Now, that’s handy. Hell, if we’d had a setup like this, Sandy wouldn’t have had to bitch so much about the laundry.
In the bathroom, he shuddered as he always did at the flamingo pink of the tiles and fixtures, wondering as he had before if the color might have had something to do with the house’s comparatively low rent. He hadn’t needed three bedrooms and two baths, but the thought that there would be room for both kids, should they, through some miracle, decide to visit him at the same time, had been reassuring and had allowed him to feel like a good dad for once.
Nice little house but you got to wonder about the woman—it had to be a woman—who picked out this crap.
The house was furnished and the price was right. And he hadn’t expected to be here more than a year. So he had hidden away some of the more offensive items of décor: the teddy bears, the fussy pink and blue ruffled pillows, the framed prints depicting improbable cottages, lighthouses, and villages with light pouring from every window and flowers blooming profusely regardless of season. There was nothing he could do about the bed—a monstrosity of brass curlicues that seemed to have escaped from a Victorian bordello. He had replaced the deep rose velvet and satin coverlet with a no-nonsense navy blue bedspread—but the price of king-sized sheets had shocked him deeply and he continued to use the pink linens that had come with the house.
“It’s a wonder my balls don’t fall off,” he muttered as he slid into bed. Hastily he clicked off the bedside light, to avoid the sight of the lace-edged top sheet across his hairy chest.
I bet she’d laugh her head off. I got a real feeling the sheets on her bed aren’t all frilly. The ones in her guest room were just white—kind of a creamy white.
The thought crossed his mind—not for the first time—that maybe it was time to spring for some plainer sheets. Old Sam’s wife…he always said she was a special lady. And here I come just to check up on her and then it hits me…kinda like it did Sam, I guess.
He rolled over, punching his pillow into a more com fortable shape. It was hard to articulate what it was about this woman that attracted him so—there were no words that really fit. Instead images flowed through his mind: homemade bread, warm and honest; a tall poplar tree, straight and green against the clear sky; the scent of rain falling on parched earth.
His thoughts wandered. She was so…wounded there at first. Defensive and determined to be independent. I think she’d made her mind up not to trust anyone. But now… He drifted into sleep, seeing a pair of deep blue eyes staring up at him, looking into his very soul.
The cell phone at his bedside beeped and, without turning on the light, Phillip reached for it.
“What?…Yeah, I have…. No, nothing on that front…What the hell time is it, anyway?…Oh, yeah, I know you boys work 24/7…. This is the country, man, we go to bed with the chickens…. Well, your sense of humor hasn’t improved…. The voice murmured on: instructions, queries, hypotheses. Phillip was wide-awake now and he broke in. “There was one thing, though. It’s probably nothing, but maybe I’d better get Blaine to check it out.”
He explained his concern to the voice on the other end and, after a few more minutes, ended the call. Immediately, he keyed in another number.
“Hawkins here. Sorry to call so late, but I was talking to my friend and there could be a problem.”
The cell phone beeped again as he was shaving the next morning. Hastily wiping away lather, he hurried to the bedside table. It was Blaine, who announced without preamble that he was on his way over with a bag of sausage biscuits, some good news…and some bad. He’d be there in ten minutes and he took his coffee black.
It was eight minutes and Blaine was at the door with a white paper bag in one hand. He wore jeans and a light windbreaker and it was his personal car rather than a cruiser parked in the driveway.
“Didn’t want to give your neighbors too much to talk about,” he drawled as he followed Phillip to the kitchen, where the coffeemaker was signaling, with a series of asthmatic gurgles, that the brew was ready.
They sat at the round table. Phillip chose two mugs from the house’s collection: one with big-eyed kittens on it for Blaine; and another, adorned with sunflowers, for himself. Blaine eyed his mug balefully, but accepted it and tossed two paper-wrapped biscuits in front of Phillip.
“These aren’t any fast-food sausage biscuits; these are from Sadie’s Place—best in three counties.”
The biscuits were tender and flaky, the sausage patty thick and spicy. Phillip smiled happily as he finished the first one and began to unwrap the second.
“You’re a real pal, Mac. This makes a nice change from cold cereal.” He bit into the second biscuit. “So, what’s the story? You send some boys out to take a look?”
Mackenzie Blaine, sheriff of Marshall County, swallowed his coffee before replying. His shrewd brown eyes surveyed the kitchen. “Nice place you got here, Hawk. I wouldn’t of figured you for a pink and baby blue type but—”
“Yeah, yeah, beneath this rough exterior…Come on, Mac, do we have a problem? You said good news and bad news.”
Blaine took a paper napkin from the stack in the center of the table and fastidiously wiped the greasy crumbs from his fingers. His folksy, down-home accent disappeared. “I’m reasonably sure it’s not what you were worried about. My deputies and I searched the premises and found evidence that two people have been camping out in the basement. We set a watch but no one h
as showed as of yet. And I talked to the Roberts—the neighbors just below the Mullins place. They confirm seeing a man on an ATV up that way a couple of times in the last week. And they came pretty close to giving us a positive ID.”
Phillip refilled their mugs from the glass carafe. “So, you don’t think it’s…”
The sheriff leaned back in his chair, “No, I’m pretty sure this is a local bad boy—no connection to the folks your ‘friend’ is so worried about.”
A frown creased Phillip’s brow as he brushed the crumbs on the table in front of him into a tidy line then bisected the line with one finger. “How worried should I be about this local fella? I told you her older daughter’s coming back, wants to—”
“Yeah, and undoubtedly your Miz Goodweather was over there playing Nancy Drew. Hawk, that little girl’s disappearance was thoroughly investigated by my predecessors. I spent a little time this morning going through the files to make sure. I don’t think there’s going to be anything new turning up at this point in time…or at any other point in time either.” Blaine scrutinized Phillip with knowing eyes. “How are you getting along with this so-called assignment, anyway? From what I hear, you’re not finding it too unpleasant.”
Phillip stared into the murky depths of his coffee mug. “Oh, hell, Mac, it’s getting complicated. She’s…I don’t know…she’s not what I expected.”
The sheriff let out a weary sigh. “No doubt. But what about your friend in DC and his concerns? How much do you think she knows?”
Phillip was silent as he tried to consider the questions thoroughly. Had his growing feelings for Elizabeth distracted him from the job at hand? Had he overlooked some vital—
No. He met Blaine’s gaze and held it. “I’d swear she has no idea…. Sam said he’d never tell her any of it. She has no clue about what went down in Nam.”
“Then that’s good. As long as she’s clueless—and as long as the other side doesn’t come looking for her—she can go on with her flowers and herbs and you can go on playing teacher at AB Tech.”
5.
THE SKUNK APE
Thursday, October 6 and Friday, October 7
“I sure as hell hope so.” Hawkins gathered up the mugs. “I wouldn’t mind making it a permanent thing—the teaching, I mean—once this thing gets resolved. You know what, Mac: I really like this part of the world.” He pulled open the dishwasher and added the mugs to an already crowded rack. “Living in a quiet little mountain town, teaching at a community college…it has its appeal.”
Blaine chuckled. “And, no doubt, the widow Goodweather has her appeal. She’s not bad, Hawk, for a woman her age. Maybe a little too much of an inquiring mind to suit me, but—”
Hawkins interrupted. “You want to tell me about this local bad old boy you think is hanging out at Mullmore?”
Blaine smiled at the abrupt change of subject. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s a fellow called Bib Maitland. And there’s a kind of a tie-in with the whole Mullins case your Miz Goodweather is so interested in.”
“It’s her daughter who’s got the bug up her—” Phillip broke in.
“Yeah, whatever.” The sheriff waved aside the objection. “Bib’s been away for the past seventeen years—doing hard time for attempted murder. He got out a few months back and it looks like he might be up to his old tricks. See, nineteen, twenty years ago, he had a real war going on against all the transplants, all the new people moving into the area. Especially the Mullins. Of course, that was before I came here, but I talked to one of the boys who was around at the time and got the straight skinny. Seems Bib had married into the Ridder family that used to own the holler where the Mullins lived.
“Turns out, there’s this old family cemetery up there and the law says the Mullins have to allow reasonable access. They fought it—didn’t want the Ridders traipsing through their place. But they had to put up with it, at least now and then. So Bib takes his wife up there just before Decoration Day, and while she’s cleaning off the graves, he’s sitting there with a six-pack or so, looking around at all this fine property and getting drunker and madder every minute. He ends up by working himself into some kind of twisted fantasy that the Mullins have stolen the place from the Ridders.
“Then here comes Mr. Mullins, out with one of those long nets to skim leaves and stuff off the swimming pool down below the little knoll where the Ridder burying place is. Evidently the sight of this fella in his little short pants just sets Bib off and he starts pitching his beer cans down into the pool. He and Mullins get into a yelling match, but when Bib starts down the hill, Mullins runs for the house, threatening to call the law. Bib and the little lady take themselves off, no harm done, and Mullins thinks that’s the end of it. Probably even feels pretty good about how he handled it.
“Then, a week later, the Mullins find their fancy pedigreed cat floating in the swimming pool. They pull it out and see someone’s put a bullet in it. So the wife calls the sheriff’s office, blubbering like her mama’s died, and says someone’s shot Miss Fancy. Well, Sheriff Holcombe—he was before Frisby, who was the one just before me—Holcombe doesn’t wait to hear any more and he and two deputies take off for Ridley Branch, sirens howling and lights flashing. They’ve called EMS too, because all the information they have is that Miss Fancy’s been shot.” Blaine was grinning widely now. “See, they don’t know Miss Fancy’s a cat.”
Hawkins made a show of looking at his watch. “Is this going anywhere, Mac? If Bib, or whatever his name is, isn’t one of the people my friend is worried about—”
Blaine stood and stretched. “What I’m trying to tell you, Hawk, is maybe you do need to worry about this bad boy. He’s just out of jail and, from what I hear, he’s pissed at the world. His wife ran off and took their daughter with her, right about the time he got sent away, and he hasn’t been able to find out anything about them. I don’t know what Bib’s up to at Mullmore, but if I catch him there, I’ll notify his parole officer, for a start.”
The sheriff moved toward the living room and the front door, then paused. “Hawk, I know this isn’t what you and your boss—excuse me, your friend—are worried about, but if I were you, I wouldn’t just ignore Bib Maitland. That whole Ridder clan he’s married into is a shady bunch. They don’t give a damn for the law; they’ve always lived outside it. It’s a family tradition: the first Ridders to come into these mountains made liquor from the corn they grew in that big cove next to your lady friend. And what’s left of the family today, living over there in a bunch of ratty trailers on Hog Run, that crew has been into everything from marijuana to methamphetamines, and we suspect they’re behind a string of burglaries at some of the summer homes in the county. The decent folks won’t have anything to do with them, but the Ridders stick together, marry cousins, and don’t talk to strangers.”
Blaine’s eyes narrowed and he pointed an admonitory finger at Phillip. “I know that the folks you’re watching for make one tough redneck seem like chicken shit. But if it was my lady friend and Bib was hanging around just over the hill, I believe I’d worry.”
Elizabeth held the pillow to her face and breathed in deeply. It was still there—that smell of Old Spice and something else, something indefinable, that she associated with Phillip Hawkins. Only a week ago he had spent the night in this guest room. And she had lain in her bed just across the hall, sleepless for much of the time. What if I’d just come in here and said, “Move over”? What if he’d come to my room? She closed her eyes, imagining a quiet tap on her door, a gentle—But he didn’t, did he?
“You fool,” she muttered, and shook the pillows out of their cases. She stripped the bed and left it to air while she wiped the wood of the bed frame with fragrant lemon oil. Friday had come at last and the room was ready for Rosemary, except for clean sheets. A thought struck her and she sniffed at the bare pillow. Yes, that enticing smell was still there, even without the case. She carried the pillows into her own room, hugging them to her, and tossed them onto her bed. Next, mar
veling at her own silliness—Like a bloody teenager, Elizabeth—she removed the cases from her pillows and fitted them over the pillows Phillip had slept on, noting that maybe it was time to get some nicer sheets for her bed.
A frenzied barking from the direction of Ben’s cabin caught her attention and she went to the window. Ursa was standing at the foot of the cabin steps, staring fixedly at the door. The burly black dog continued to bark, occasionally breaking into a high-pitched howl.
“Ursa!” Elizabeth shouted from the window. “Ursa! Ben’s gone to Asheville. All gone!”
Ursa looked briefly in Elizabeth’s direction, then resolutely resumed her barking. A squirrel skittered across the rusted metal roof and leapt for the Cherokee peach tree that grew nearby. Landing safely, it clung to a slender branch, flirting its tail and raising a mocking chatter that could be heard in the intervals of Ursa’s persistent alarm. Idiot dog, Elizabeth thought, taking her pillows into the guest room to replace the ones she had appropriated.
Almost home at last! But as she neared the Marshall County Consolidated High School, Rosemary Good-weather was seized by a sudden impulse. She pulled into the right-hand lane and turned up the familiar road leading to the high school.
The parking lot was all but deserted and she quickly made a U-turn and came to a stop at the top of the drive. Yes, just as she had seen it for her four years here: first from the windows of a lurching, rowdy, yellow school bus, later from her very own car—an aging, déclassé little Honda—Full Circle Farm lay in the hazy distance. Rosemary breathed deeply as she gazed at the beloved pattern of dark woods and lighter pastures on the slopes of Pinnacle Mountain, and at the silver speck that was the metal roof of her childhood home, shining in the center. Like a lodestone.
