by Jean Andrews
“So you’re seeing someone, obviously.”
“I’m seeing everyone. In fact, I’m seeing myself for who I am. I’m the woman who put up with your insecure, vicious, abusive, sorry, sack-of-shit behavior.” I was aware I was repeating words I’d shouted at Frank, and somehow it felt appropriate. I turned suddenly and took a step forward, invading his personal space. “And just so you know, Ben, the last man who tried to destroy me was found dead in a lake with a knife in his chest.”
I walked past him and heard him say, “Medication, seriously!” His nervous tone made me smile.
Ramona appeared, gave me a hug, and offered to buy me a drink next door, at a quaint little pub, rescuing me from further conversation with Ben.
The pub was so dark it acted as sunglasses, so I took mine off and hooked them in my shirtfront.
“Seems like it went well. Big crowd. Lots of good comments.” She spotted a private corner and headed in that direction. “Wish you were as bright-eyed as the color of that suit. What is that color?” She feigned ignorance.
“Gold is the new black,” I said.
“Only if you’re Aretha Franklin.”
We slung our bodies into the lounge chairs and ordered a drink. “Good coverage in the Times. Great anticipation for your upcoming lesbian mystery-romance.” Ramona rolled her eyes. “A genre I had to create since I’d pitched a hard-core murder-mystery. Anyway, they think it will be an interesting departure from your past work, greatly anticipated, yada-yada. Did you read the article?”
“I don’t read the press comments. Even when you think the review is nice, I always consider it marginal.”
“Listen to this.” She pulled two clippings out of her bag. “‘Mystery writer bringing home a real-life murder mystery.’” And “‘Taylor James back in our lives—’”
“Levade isn’t talking to me anymore. The landline reception sucks, and now she’s not answering it anyway. I don’t understand why she won’t talk to me.”
“I bust my balls to get you great press, and you are incredibly ungrateful.” Ramona’s outburst was unlike her. It was clear I was trying her patience.
“I’m sorry. Thank you, for everything you do.” I felt tears gathering. All I fucking do is cry! “I sent you a sneak peek of the new manuscript. It’s in your email. You should read your email occasionally.”
Her eyes widened in apparent surprise. I took the cabin key out of my pocket and pushed it across the table in her direction. “You see, it wasn’t all for nothing. Thank you.”
There was silence between us, during which I sipped my wine, and Ramona belted down a vodka martini. I panned the room, checking out the pretty women and important-looking men, all of whom were meeting and greeting and socializing, and I felt completely disconnected—as if I were an extra in a big motion picture and had been told to appear to be interested, but not too interested.
I snapped back when Ramona moaned, “Go there when the tour is over, in the spring when it starts to get warmer. You can’t use the cabin now anyway. It’s not winterized.”
“I have never felt this way about anyone. What’s wrong with me. I can’t stand it!” My voice was shaky.
Ramona let out a long sigh, “You’re in love for the first time in your life.”
I stared at her. “Is this how bad being in love feels?”
“In your case, apparently. It might have a late-in-life intensity.”
“What if she finds someone else?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Ramona seemed to fret about what to say next and finally uttered, “Marney’s red cabin is winterized. Just do the five book signings, the press interview, and then go.”
“You’ll call Marney?”
“She’s got Sam on standby. She thinks it’s ‘Oh, for sweet’ that you’re in love.”
I grabbed her and hugged her close.
“Easy,” she said. “Marney tells me this lesbian thing can ‘rub off’ on people.”
“You should be so lucky.” I winked at her.
I was happy again, with renewed purpose—seeing Levade. I continued to call her cell and the cabin, but she didn’t answer. I got phone numbers for Sam at the sheriff’s office, and Gladys at the hardware store, and anyone else I could think of to ask about her. No matter who I talked to, I felt they knew more than they were saying, and they were basically saying nothing. Levade might be odd, but she was theirs, and I was just another summer tourist. When it came down to it, the town might gossip about one another, but they never gave up one of their own.
So I counted the days between book signings, and the hours between press interviews, and I was once again the bubbly, cooperative author Ramona had hoped “summer at the cabin” would resurrect.
* * *
When the last PR event was over in November, I headed for the airport. As I was waiting to board, I glanced over at the gift shop and spotted a ceramic salt-and-pepper shaker of a giant ape kissing the Empire State Building. Marney, I thought. I ran over and told the clerk I would take it. She raised an eyebrow, and I knew she was questioning my taste.
“It’s a gift,” I said, then realized that explanation made it sound worse.
“Forty-five dollars,” she said.
“For this cheesy little tchotchke?”
She turned the Empire State Building upside down, and salt poured out. She tilted the gorilla, and pepper came out of his penis. “And a lovely gift for that special someone.” She smirked.
I love New Yorkers, I thought, and forked over the forty-five bucks. Then I dashed to catch my plane to Minneapolis, all bundled up and flying in bumpy weather to the Northwoods, with King Kong and his pepper dong in my pocket.
Normally, flying anywhere in bad weather, I would fear for my life, but having Frank nearly kill me, and then knowing Levade could be waiting for me, I was unafraid, even when I had to take a puddle jumper the last two hundred miles because the roads were bad.
I landed at the tiny airport outside Muskie and rented one of two sedans available, not the best vehicle for snowy roads, but it was all they had. I found Ramona’s lip liner in the seat. This was the car she’d driven to come to the cabin, and no one had used it since. I tucked her makeup into my jacket pocket to take to her.
My drive to the woods was cold, twenty-four degrees, with six inches of snow on the ground. Winter had just begun. I skipped cabin #1 and went to #3, the red cabin. The lake was gray and foreboding, the cabins like a ghost town. I lifted the frozen-stiff doormat as Marney had instructed and found the key underneath it, along with a note from Sam, who was caretaking.
Welcome! Heat and electric are on. Dock’s been pulled for winter, so don’t use the lake.
I’d forgotten that the long boat docks are put in the lake each summer by men in waders wielding sledgehammers, who pound the posts into the clay and sand, and then nail the dock on top. Winter ice would push the posts over, so docks are removed in late fall. The shoreline looked nude without them.
No one was around, which was a bit frightening for a city person. No light on at the Point or any sign of inhabitants. Even Marney and Ralph had taken a few months off.
I tossed my luggage onto the bed, selecting the larger bedroom in order to forget the tryst with Judith in the smaller one. I turned on the lights and the heat, which was more modern than in Ramona’s cabin, boasting an electric thermostat on the wall. If they could modernize the heating, why couldn’t someone tackle the hideous decor? Then I set the pair of gorilla salt-and-pepper shakers in the center of the dining-room table. Probably the most interesting item this cabin has ever seen, with the exception of the flying dildo.
I’d brought a few essentials to get me through until stores were open, so I brewed a pot of coffee, sat down in a rocker, and stared at the bleak landscape—all the golden colors gone, the crystal-clear lake now gray, reflecting the sky, and ice coating the limbs of every tree where leaves used to be.
Ramona rang the cabin phone to make sure I’d arrived and that Marney had ar
ranged for a key. The sound told me the phone lines were working, so clearly Levade had ignored my calls.
“Is she there?”
“The place looks boarded up,” I said.
“So what’s your plan?”
“I just have to find her.”
“You can’t sit there like a mother bird on a dead egg. She might not be coming back. You need a better plan than sit and wait.”
“You’re just making me crazier. Do you mind? Give me a day or two to figure this out.”
“Taylor, did you ever consider that this might have been a summer fling for her? After all, she’s not the crazy psychic with the white horse everybody thought she was. She obviously has a life beyond the lake. And how would it work for the two of you, I mean, after you find her? Do you live up there in the woods and write? It sounds wonderful, the idea of having a dog, feeding the chipmunks, watching the fish jump—but look out the window, sweetie. It’s Fargo. It’s Frozen. ‘Winter is coming!’ It’s so cold your tits fall off!”
“I’ll call you later,” I said and hung up. The sound of my own voice had been oddly comforting, and now I was alone in the silence.
Chapter Twenty-five
At dawn, I dressed in ski pants and a parka, then drove out to the Point. From the road, the property gates were locked, a clear sign she was gone. I couldn’t drive my car any farther, so I got out and walked to the cabin, peering in windows and then banging on the door. I don’t know what I was looking for, but it was clear Levade wasn’t there. I even looked around for recent dog manure, thinking if she’d been here a couple of days ago, maybe Charlie and Duke would have left a sign, but then I quickly reminded myself the dogs would be back home with Sam, and he could have brought them out here with him to check on the property. Either way, it didn’t matter. The snow-covered ground was pristine.
In town at Muskie Market, Helen and Thor greeted me warmly. I no longer made a secret of the fact that I desperately wanted to find Levade, and I was pretty sure they understood that we were more than friends, but I no longer cared.
“Well, ya, she left about two weeks ago or more. She waited longer than normal, but weather coming up, she had to go,” Helen said. “How’re you feeling after…what happened.”
“Better every day,” I said. Then I stopped myself. “Actually, I’d be doing a lot better if I could find Levade. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“Not my business,” Thor said jovially, as if suggesting it shouldn’t be mine.
“I called, but she never answered.”
“Ya, phone lines went down for, what, Helen, a week or ten days, and, a course, cell-phone service isn’t working much.” Helen confirmed his reporting.
I felt better that maybe Levade wasn’t avoiding me but just didn’t get my calls. But then why didn’t she drive into Pine City, where they have better service? And why would she knock herself out to call me? I’m the one who walked off and told her to sit like a house plant till spring.
I bought a few groceries and loaded them in the car, which was as cold as a refrigerator. Then I walked into Gus’s tavern, glad he’d taken a break and Kay was there alone, taking care of two or three patrons. I was the only person seated at the bar.
“You’ll find her,” she said without me even asking the question. “How you doing?”
“Better physically. Miserable mentally.”
“Well, when you find what you need, don’t give up on it.”
I thanked her, fighting back tears.
“Hey, Tony, the bald guy, he pulled up stake and left town. Wanted to let you know in case you were thinking of using him for odd jobs.” But I knew she was telling me about Tony simply to say he’d been swept out of my life after setting me up to be killed.
She shifted gears. “I got your book, Twelve O’clock. I’ll read it, you betcha. Hey, you missed my birthday.”
“No kidding. Well, happy birthday!”
“I’m a Virgo. Things have to be buttoned up. I got some really nice gifts. Snowshoes, your mystery novel for when I’m socked in this winter, and a friend gave me a really neat knife.” Her eyes locked with mine. “Best gift I ever got.”
I stared at her for a long moment.
“Well, gotta get to work.” She ignored me after that, hailing a couple she knew who came through the door. I tossed money onto the counter for my Coke and left.
I wondered how many people in town knew that Kay had an affair with Frank’s wife, and that Kay was probably the last person to see Frank alive. If they all knew it, I doubted it would become her descriptor. And who’s the friend who gave her the knife? Did Little Man talk to Gladys, and she slipped it to him, and he gave it to Kay? Or did Casey open the locked display case in her parents’ hardware store and remove the knife, giving it to Kay to repay her for having hauled Frank off her?
The place where Frank washed up on shore was closest to Kay’s cabin, and she’s a good-sized woman who did a stint in the navy, but if she did kill him, how would she know exactly when he was out there in the lake, either swimming for his life or dead off her shoreline. Only Sam in his sheriff’s boat, with the searchlights and sonar, could have spotted Frank’s body in the water in time to let anyone know. I paused to think about that. Did Sam radio Kay to be on the lookout for Frank? Would Sam do anything to keep his promise to Angelique and protect Levade?
I headed down Main Street to the café and the hardware store, asking about Levade in each place, but the answer was the same. By nightfall they’ll all have talked to one another about my searching for Levade.
Last stop was the drugstore for aspirin. Casey was working the place alone, since all the tourists were now gone. Only the hard-core hunters and ice fishermen were in town, dead and bloodied deer strapped to the roof racks of their cars, as if to let the carcasses speak for their manliness.
Casey seemed glad to see me and shouted, “Hey, Ms. James. You’re looking for Levade, aren’t you?”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No. But I’m glad you’re here, because something’s been bothering me. I wanted to tell you that I lied to you that time about going out to the Point to get a reading from her. It was me you saw.”
I nodded and waited for her to get the courage to tell me why she lied. “Frank’s wife used to come in for ice cream, and we’d talk a little. After she and Kay stopped Frank from, you know, hurting me, I guess he took it out on her and she got scared, and she told me that if she was ever found dead, I should know Frank did it. She gave me a tape, but I never let the sheriff know, and I’m so sorry I didn’t. I wished I could go back and do it over again. I went to Levade, hoping she could tell that to Dolores, you know, on the other side. Tell her I was sorry.”
“I’m sure she got the message to her,” I said.
“She did. Made me feel better.”
“So when they found Frank, he had a knife in his chest,” I said casually.
“Yeah. No one can figure how that knife got out of the case over at the hardware store. No prints or nothin’. Maybe Dolores did it,” she gave me a quirky grin, “you know, to make him pay for what he did.” And I remembered Levade saying that’s what Kay wanted, for Frank to ‘pay for what he did.’ Casey rang up my purchases, telling me to watch the fog that moves in off the lakes. “It can blind you, and you can end up in a quicksand bog.”
She was right. The drive to the cabin was nerve-wrecking, the headlights unable to penetrate the curtain of white mist that billowed off the lakes and across the forest ground, and shifted into images that disintegrated and then re-formed right before my eyes. It was both dangerous and spooky, and I thought I saw Angelique walking ahead of me down the road. Even though I felt I knew Angelique, seeing a slightly disembodied ectoplasmic version of her walking ahead of my moving vehicle was enough to creep me out, so I shouted at her to regain some sense of control. “Angelique, help me find her, damn it!” It was crazy, my shouting into the fog, but it seemed to help me shake the fear. “And,
if you held my head above water during the storm, then you saved me, and thank you, and I hope you saved me for Levade.” The billowing image faded into the mist.
I was grateful to reach the cabin, where I unloaded my groceries and built a fire in the fireplace. Actually, I just set a match to the wood and kindling already there, prepared by Sam for people like me who failed to earn their Fire Builder Girl Scout badge.
Then, I sat in a chair that let me see Levade’s cabin from mine, wishing with all my heart that a light would suddenly come on and I could run to meet her, and crawl into bed with her, and hold her close to me.
I waited, comforted by being where Levade once was. Suddenly Ben crossed my mind. My God, what in the world made me stay with him? Maybe it was the feeling that I didn’t deserve better, or maybe I felt I’d gotten exactly what I deserved. What I want is Levade, I thought. I deserve that kind of happiness. I thought about her touch, her laugh, her beauty, her kind heart, and how I wanted her…only her, forever, and how I’d rejected her when she told me she wanted that for us…and I broke down and sobbed.
I fell asleep in the chair and dreamed that a dark-haired woman rose out of the lake and told me to follow the white horse. I awoke abruptly, startled, and said out loud, “Where is the white horse? Where is her white horse? She had to send him somewhere, and not every place takes horses.”
* * *
At daybreak, I phoned Sam, and he met me at the sheriff’s office, where he had his feet up on the desk reading a newspaper.
“What’s got you up at dawn? Things are just so exciting here that you missed us all?”
“I did miss you! Sam, where did she take her horse? How do you contact her?”
“She’s a private person, Taylor. She wouldn’t like me sharing any information with anyone.” He knows. He knows!
