Bad Moon Rising

by Helen Haught Fanick

  Eunice is in jail, awaiting trial. The judge set a high bond, fearing she would run to Texas first chance she got.

  Jack filed for divorce right away, and he and Alice Marie have been together ever since. It looks like there won’t be any problem with sharing the decision on the timber, and I think that’s nice.

  “Do you suppose they really were ‘going over papers’ that day?” I asked Andrea as we sat on her deck one evening.

  Being a bit straight-laced, Andrea didn’t comment, but only smiled.

  “At least, the time of the half-moon’s over. We have a full moon tonight, and as grandmother used to say, it’s a time of romance and good fortune. Alice Marie said she’d be over tomorrow to deliver the jewelry Aunt Libby left us.”

  Andrea smiled again, and she looked like she was beginning to believe in the influence of the moon.

  HALF-MOON was previously published in Vermont Ink and Mysterical-E

  DARK OF THE MOON

  By

  Helen Haught Fanick

  If I hadn’t talked my sister Andrea into going to Alaska with me next year, none of this would have happened. Her retirement wasn’t enough to cover the trip, and she didn’t want to use any of her hard-earned savings, so she made the fateful decision to rent out her garage apartment.

  I thought it was a good idea, but then Andrea always was the smart one in our family. She studied math at the university, then taught for forty years at our local Pine Summit High School. I barely got through high school, and then I married John Simmons. That was my thing, as they say these days, being a housewife. Now John’s gone, and I decided I must see Alaska before I die. As I said before, my decision is what brought all this on.

  Andrea went straight to Martindale and put an ad in The Independent. Martindale is our county seat, and we take care of all our business and shopping there, since Pine Summit is just a village. We have a lot of good folks here, though, and that’s what made it all the worse. People here aren’t used to having shocking things going on.

  Andrea’s ad came out on a Wednesday, and by that weekend she had only one prospect. Not much call for rental property here; the apartment was built years ago by the previous owner for his mother. Andrea figured she’d set the rent low at three hundred and attract a renter that way. It would be almost a year till our trip, and that would give her enough for the Inside Passage cruise and the land tour, as they called it.

  I went to Andrea’s house—she lives just up the hill from me—on the day the young couple came to look at the place, since you don’t know what to expect from strangers these days. It turned out these people weren’t strangers, though; at least he wasn’t.

  “My word,” Andrea said when we saw them getting out of the car. “I believe that’s Willard Bland.”

  “I thought he was in the service.”

  “Maybe he got out.” She opened the storm door. “Willard! I didn’t recognize your voice when you called.”

  He shook her hand, and then mine. “This is my wife, Kari.”

  Anybody besides Willard Bland would have identified himself when he called, I thought, especially since he had studied math with Andrea.

  Willard and Kari didn’t want to sit down for coffee, and as soon as they saw the apartment, they said they wanted it. They would be back the next day with their things.

  “Well, that’s that,” Andrea said, as they drove away. She was smiling, and I was beginning to believe she actually wanted to go to Alaska, rather than just feeling she had to go along to look after me.

  “What did he say, that he met his wife in the service?” I asked.

  “In South Carolina. She’s from South Carolina.”

  Just like a Bland to marry a stranger and bring her back here, I thought. I didn’t say anything, because Andrea didn’t like it when I criticized the folks around our area, but the Blands were a strange bunch. There was no other way to describe them. They lived in a hollow, up Four Mile Road. They were respected in town, but they kept to themselves. Willard probably married this girl because someone local would have learned the family business and then spread it around.

  “She’s a pretty little thing,” I said. “”Do you suppose that blond hair is real, or is it out of a bottle?”

  “No telling. She is cute. And so young.”

  #

  My sister and I have a habit of sitting on her deck of an evening in nice weather. She’s one of the few people in town with a deck. Most of us have old-fashioned porches. It was fall, and we were having unusually hot weather for that time of year. It was a real heat wave, you might say, and for that reason I had been walking up the hill to Andrea’s every evening to sit on the deck and catch the cool breeze that was always blowing up there.

  It was the dark of the moon when the renters came, and everyone knows that’s bad luck. Everyone but Andrea, that is. And on top of that, Andrea and I heard a screech owl that night. I reminded her of what people used to say, that the screech owl was a predictor of misery, death, or severe misfortune, and Andrea laughed, as usual. She didn’t believe in such things. She didn’t then, but I’m not so sure—maybe she does now.

  We had been sitting outside for about an hour when finally the owl went on his way and things got real quiet. I went in for a second cup of coffee, and when I came back out, the new renters were arguing. At least, Kari was. I could hear Willard’s voice murmuring along, sounding just like the strange person he is, and then Kari’s voice would rise and carry right out the open windows. Not many in Pine Summit have air conditioning, so of course the windows were open because of the heat. Andrea coughed to let them know we were outside and couldn’t help hearing, and things got real quiet again.

  “I hope they aren’t going to be a problem for you,” I murmured.

  She patted my hand. “Don’t worry. They won’t be.” Andrea always could handle things.

  Next evening, the big car Willard had driven when they arrived wasn’t there, but Kari’s little car was in front of the garage. “Where’s your renter?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s been gone all day. He’s probably job hunting.”

  “This time of evening?”

  We heard a sound on the stairs and turned to see Kari coming down. She was wearing a tight-fitting pair of jeans and a sleeveless blouse, and she certainly did look pretty – that is until she came up close. It was getting dark, but we could see the bruises under her left eye.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Andrea asked.

  “No thanks. I don’t drink it.”

  “What happened to your eye?” Leave it to Andrea to get to the bottom of things.

  Kari looked as if she wanted to sink through the deck, and she didn’t say anything for a minute. “I ran into the door,” she answered. Her voice was a little shaky and unsure, and I knew just as sure as shootin’ Willard had hit her. He was just as big a creep as I always suspected.

  Well, things went along like this for a week or so. The moon was waxing, and we kept hearing more arguing as we sat on the deck and Kari kept showing up occasionally with a bruise on her face or arms. Then I went up to Andrea’s in the afternoon one day, and she wasn’t in the house. I went to the garage, and she was there going through a bag of trash.

  “What in the world are you doing?” I asked.

  Andrea just looked mysterious. “I guess you might say I’m playing Sherlock Holmes,” was all she would say.

  After that, Willard wasn’t home at all, and Kari joined us on the deck one evening and explained that he had taken a job that involved some traveling. She went on to town, had to get some groceries, she said, and we sat there hoping for a breath of cool air.

  Then we heard a voice in the apartment, and I looked at Andrea. “Who in the world is that?” I asked. A little shiver ran up my spine.

  “Shhh!” Andrea said. “It’s her answering machine.” She raced over to the garage, just below the window, and I followed her.

  I heard Willard’s voice saying “leave a mess
age after the beep,” and then a strange man’s voice came on. “Are you there?” he asked. Then, “I need to talk to you in the worst way,” he said, and I heard a click.

  “My, my,” I said. “Somebody must want to talk to Willard and didn’t realize he’s out of town.”

  Andrea nodded and didn’t say anything, and it occurred to me that it wasn’t like her to be snooping under someone’s window like that.

  The heat wave finally ended and the night of the full moon rolled around. I got a late start to Martindale that afternoon, and the big honey-colored moon was well above the horizon when I came out of the supermarket. I was putting my groceries in the car when lo and behold, who came out of the store but Kari.

  I wanted to stop and talk a minute, but she seemed like she was in an awful hurry. She was talking on her phone, and buzzed off in that little car of hers. But what struck me was the way she was dressed. She had on a black dress that would knock your eyes out—low cut in front, and hugging every curve. It was Friday night, and I couldn’t help thinking she and Willard had patched things up and were going out for a night on the town. It was such a romantic notion, with the big moon in the sky, that I kept thinking about them on the way home.

  I called Andrea and reported what I had seen, and Andrea questioned me thoroughly about what Kari had been wearing. When I asked why she wanted all that detail, Andrea said she was just curious, which I knew she wasn’t. She could be so mysterious, she nearly drove me crazy at times.

  When our heat wave ended it turned cool, too cool to sit out on the deck at night, and I got busy with helping to plan a quilting bee at the church, so I didn’t hear too much of Kari and Willard for a couple of weeks. Then Andrea called and asked if I wanted to ride to Martindale with her. As I was walking up to her house, I saw Willard drive in, back from one of his stints on the road.

  We went to the dime store first, but Andrea didn’t buy anything. She just went up to the checkout girl and talked to her for a while about a little slip of paper Andrea had in her hand.

  “What in heaven’s name are you doing?” I asked, as we walked back to the car.

  “One more stop and I’ll explain everything.”

  Andrea pulled up in front of John Wallbeck’s office. John was our insurance man—he’s been with our family for years. Andrea got out and went in, and I sat there and waited for the longest time.

  It was after closing when Andrea came out, and if I hadn’t been so curious I’d have been downright irritable. Andrea jumped in, slammed the door, and started the engine.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  We’re going home,” she said. “I’m beginning to think Willard Bland’s life is in danger.”

  I threw back my head and laughed. “I think you’re taking the Sherlock Holmes bit too seriously. You know Willard is a no-good wife beater and God knows what else, being one of the weird Bland bunch. If anybody’s life is in danger, it’s Kari’s.”

  Andrea didn’t say anything more till we got out of the traffic and hit the road to Pine Summit. Then she gave it the gas and began to explain.

  “I kept wondering about Kari’s bruises, because she was the one doing all the yelling when we heard those arguments. I looked in their trash because I thought I knew what made those marks, but it wasn’t till today . . .”

  “She was doing the yelling, yes,” I protested, “but that doesn’t mean he never hit her.”

  “He just didn’t sound violent. Then that phone call we heard on the answering machine. That was a call from a man to a woman, if I ever heard one.”

  I doubted Andrea ever had heard one, being the old maid that she is, but I didn’t say so. “So what does that prove?”

  We were in the curviest part of the road, going over a hill, but Andrea didn’t slow down. “That and the black dress told me Kari has a boy friend. When she left the house that night, she told me she had to go to the drug store. She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Then you called me later with a description of the dress . . .”

  I was beginning to waver, and I butted in with, “She did look nervous that night. Didn’t seem at all happy that she had run into me, dressed up like that.”

  “I kept going through the trash every time they put a new bag in the garage, and today I hit the jackpot – a slip from the dime store. The price seemed right, but I couldn’t read the product code. The girl at the store told me what I knew already. The slip was for Halloween makeup. That’s what Kari used to make those bruises.”

  “Why would she want us to think . . .”

  “So she’d have an alibi. Self defense. That’s the only possible reason.”

  I pondered this for a minute. “If she has a boy friend, why wouldn’t she just divorce Willard?”

  “For the oldest reason in the world—money. His life insurance.”

  “Then John Wallbeck told you . . . how did you get that information out of him . . . isn’t it confidential?”

  Andrea was grinning now, and I could see she was enjoying the Sherlock Holmes bit. “A lot can be done with threats.”

  “What threats?”

  “That Willard’s death would be on John’s head if he didn’t help me.”

  I sighed. “So John sold Willard some life insurance?”

  “No, but I persuaded him to call Kilgore Industries, where Willard works, on the pretext of helping Willard round out his insurance package. We found out that he has a fifty thousand dollar policy there.”

  It was getting dark by this time, and wouldn’t you know it, it was the dark of the moon again. We were almost home, when out of the darkness Kari came whizzing past us, around a curve, and out of sight.

  . “That was Kari,” I said. My voice was a little shaky

  “I know. I don’t think she even noticed who we were.” Andrea speeded up a little more, and within minutes we were in Pine Summit.

  She parked in the garage, and we heard the shot as we opened the car doors. My heart was thumping, but Andrea didn’t hesitate. She rushed up the stairs and opened the door. I raced after her, wondering whether I should have talked her into waiting for the sheriff.

  I could hear a lot of thumping and bumping, and Willard was yelling. I was huffing and puffing when I got to the top, and I peeped into the apartment, my legs shaking so they would hardly hold me up. Kari and Willard were struggling. He was trying to get the gun away from her, and it fell to the floor. Kari’s foot hit the gun, and it slid to where Andrea was standing.

  She snatched it up and pointed it toward them. “Sit on the bed, both of you, before this thing goes off again.”

  Andrea has that authority in her voice that math teachers have, and they both sat down and looked like a couple of scared pups. It was then that we noticed a hole in Willard’s shoulder, which was bleeding on his shirt. I called the sheriff and the emergency medical people while Andrea stood there holding the gun, and Willard was taken to the hospital in Martindale and Kari to the sheriff’s office.

  She insisted Willard had been trying to kill her and that the gun went off accidentally when she struggled with him for it. The sheriff soon hit her with Andrea’s information on the Halloween makeup, though, and things went downhill for her from then on. She’s in jail right now, waiting for a trial by her peers, which in this case will be twelve Baxter County residents who probably will think like I do that Willard is weird, but he is one of our own.

  As for the boyfriend, he was some poor slob who followed her from South Carolina and got involved with helping her plot against Willard. He’s in jail, too, in just as much trouble as she is.

  After getting out of the hospital, Willard went home to his folks, which is where he really belongs. It would have been a good joke on Kari, if she had managed to do him in, that Willard’s life insurance wasn’t made out to her after all. His mom and pop are the beneficiaries, which goes a long way in showing how weird those Blands really are.

  I bet you’re wondering about the Alaska trip. Andrea swore she’ll never rent the apa
rtment out again, so I gave up on the trip and decided I’d never make it to Alaska.

  We had a couple more warm evenings before fall really set in, and we were sitting on the deck one last time. “Life can be precarious,” Andrea said, and I had to agree. “I have some government bonds that matured years ago. I don’t know what I’m saving them for. I’m going to cash them in for the trip.”

  It was then that I was sure she really wanted to go, and wasn’t doing it just for me. “That’ll be great, Andrea. It’ll be something we’ll always remember. And you know what? I looked up the sailing date on the calendar. There’s a full moon that night.”

  She laughed. “That’s bound to be lucky,” she said, and I think she meant it.

  DARK OF THE MOON was previously published in Vermont Ink.

  MOON SIGNS EXCERPT

  By

  Helen Haught Fanick

  CHAPTER ONE

  My sister Andrea thought mingling with a bunch of foreigners would be an enlightening experience for both of us. It would broaden our horizons, she said. Andrea always has been the one in favor of broadening our horizons, while I’m the one who’s content to stay home with my plants and needlework.

  Mingling with foreigners wasn’t what persuaded me to leave home in the dead of winter, however. A much more intriguing idea for me was searching for two lost Monets in the old hotel once owned by our grandparents. Andrea, skeptical as usual, couldn’t believe we were going to find paintings worth millions. So for different reasons we loaded our suitcases into Andrea’s car and left for a long weekend in the Potomac Highlands.

  The roads and sky were clear; otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to go into the West Virginia mountains in winter. I was eager to find the paintings, but not at the risk of my life. It was mid-morning when we started. Our town, Pine Summit, is in the hills, and we began to see deeper snow in the woods beside the highway as we approached the mountains. Pine branches sagged almost to the ground under the accumulated load. We hoped to make it to the Canaan Valley by mid-afternoon, before snowmelt that had run onto the highway had a chance to freeze into icy patches.