Northern Light

by Deb Davies

  I want backup, he thought.

  ELAINE SANTANA GINGERLY lowered her naked self into the pink-enameled bathtub full of ice. No one but a masochist could like this process, but it would keep bruising and inflammation down. As it was, she took the offered codeine tablets with gratitude.

  Dannie lit a sandalwood candle, leaned over the tub, and crooned an off-key version of “Dink’s Song.”

  “I got a woman not so tall/Moves her body like a cannonball.”

  “Not funny.” Elaine groaned. “I need more ice.”

  CLAIRE AND CHARLES had slept in the next morning and for brunch, eaten cream cheese on graham crackers. “Staples,” Charles had explained. “I don’t want you driving and drowsing.” After they’d given each other an awkward, coffee-flavored kiss, she drove home.

  By the time she got back, Laurel and Jen had showered and eaten. Jen was upstairs texting, and Laurel was curled up on the couch, waiting for her. Claire looked for Bloody Mary mix, couldn’t find it, and poured a scotch. They sat at the kitchen table, with Black Pearl curled on Claire’s feet. Laurel told her about Whit’s thunderous run and subsequent salvation.

  “My trip was quieter.” Claire looked at the ice in her glass, not at Laurel. “I learned that alders have cork in their stems, so they’re buoyant during spring flooding and hold stream banks in place. Would you have guessed Charles thinks of himself as a bittern?”

  Laurel looked at Claire as though expecting a scarlet letter to bloom on her friend’s chest.

  “Poor Arnie,” Laurel said.

  When Arnie arrived that evening, he studied Claire for a long minute, tightening his lips as though he didn’t like what he saw. He pulled out a chair and joined them at the kitchen table, sitting at an angle so he could read Claire’s face.

  “Is Jen asleep?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Laurel answered. She was wearing an old pair of George’s flannel pajamas, which were too big for her. She looked like a kid wearing her father’s clothes, but she also looked thin-lipped and mulish, prepared to defend Claire if she saw the need.

  “Good. Get her down here.”

  Jen arrived wearing shorts and an old white T-shirt that hung down to her knees. “I wasn’t asleep,” she said. “I was texting, but I want to know what happened to Elaine.”

  “Would you please make coffee?” It was not a request. This was official Arnie—a harder, colder version of the man Claire had met before.

  “Elaine got shaken up and bruised.” His tone was brusque and emotionless. “Deep muscle bruising that’ll take time to heal. But she would have been killed if that horse had hit her square on. And no friggin’ doubt somebody messed with that horse. We found bug-sized drones where Whit was pastured. He broke his tether—pulled it out from a stable wall. Lucky part of the wall didn’t swing at the end of the tether, or we’d have had a ton of stallion pulling a death flail. As it was, Whit could have killed whoever was out there. And if Murphy had shot at Whit and missed, which I don’t think would have happened, God knows who could have been hurt. So now we sit down and start figuring out this mess.”

  Claire sat with her feet tucked under the hem of a green caftan and her hands, which no longer sported jewelry, clasped in her lap.

  “We assumed, Claire, that you have been the target of a malicious prank. Now, we have a new, much more significant assumption. Someone wants to scare you or hurt you. You’re in danger, and by extension, so are your friends. They could be targeted simply to hurt you. You’re grounded—as in, you don’t leave these grounds without permission. Laurel and Jennifer stay here with you. You’re not safe outside your home. For example, it’s easy for someone to cause a car wreck by shooting out a windshield. You can’t leave until we’re done with this investigation.”

  Laurel looked over her glasses at him.

  “I wouldn’t leave, but I don’t like having Jen here.”

  “I’m an adult, Mom. Plane flights? Backpacking? I’m probably more at risk riding in a car than I am sitting here.”

  Arnie made a noncommittal noise. “I am sorry, Laurel. Even if the person or persons who panicked Whit wasn’t aiming to harm a human being, the behavior has escalated. I’ll be here as often as I can, but I’ve also called for backup until Elaine is better. Bertram Allarbee doesn’t say much, but he’s quick on his feet and can stay awake for thirty-six hours—not reading, not doing crossword puzzles, just sitting there.”

  “How is Whit?” Jen asked.

  “You helped get him cooled down until Sanjay could start an IV. If Whit wasn’t still improving, I’d have heard from Zoe by now, loud and clear.”

  “Murphy helped too,” Jen said. “Can we thank him?”

  “Thank him, hell. Can we hire him?” Claire tossed her hair back over her shoulders.

  Laurel put both hands on the table, as though she was at a teaching conference and trying to keep her temper in check.

  “Take this seriously,” Arnie warned.

  “I don’t want to take it seriously,” Claire said, her voice uneven. Her brain had stopped working when Arnie had said her friends were at risk. The only thought trickling through her mental block was that Bertram Allarbee was an odd, Charlie Brown kind of name. Who would want to be babysat by a Bertram, anyway?

  “Claire,” Arnie said. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Hardly at all,” she said.

  Laurel shook her head and said, “Claire, you’ve had most of a bottle of wine.”

  “Claire doesn’t drink wine,” Jen said.

  “The hard stuff was in the basement,” Claire explained, and looked away.

  “Fuck this,” Arnie said. He reached inside his shirt, where he had squirreled away the laminated message. He gently took Claire’s chin with his right hand, so she couldn’t move her head away, then used his left to bring the threat in front of her face.

  Laurel and Jen had seen it before, but the plastic edges looked more yellowed, the whole of the threat more murderous.

  Still holding the message by one corner, he dropped his right hand to her shoulder. She paled under her sunburn and slowly turned to face him. He rotated with her, so she still faced the block letters:

  Widow Woman

  Witch

  Cunt

  GET OUT

  “David found this in the driveway,” Arnie said. “He was here when you were with Charles.”

  “Charles and Oscar,” Claire said.

  Laurel put her hand to her forehead and groaned.

  “I don’t care if you were with the Pope and he appointed you honorary virgin.” Arnie shoved the laminated message under her nose.

  “Who is this, Claire? What widow?”

  “Stop bullying me, Arnie! All right, it’s for me. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

  “Things have been a little busy.”

  “Can I have a drink?” she asked.

  “Get her something, would you Jen? Pour her a short, straight one.”

  Jen retrieved a bottle from the basement. She put Maker’s Mark in a coffee cup, which meant Arnie couldn’t see how much she had poured. He uncurled Claire’s fingers, took the cup from her hand, and grunted approval.

  Laurel expected Claire to knock it back, but she took a small sip through pursed lips and reached her hand to the message, now flat on the table between them.

  “May I touch it? What’s happening would seem more real, if I could touch it.”

  He pushed it toward her, and she held it in a slightly shaking hand.

  “We drove this to the state police post, and they found the same things we did—smeared prints of a glove, big prints. Doesn’t prove anything. They made computer duplicates, but we need to keep it.”

  She ran her fingers lightly over the laminate. It felt crackly and slick, like the surface of an old bus seat.

  “I’m certainly a widow.” She sipped the whiskey again. “I’m not a witch, though. It’s a brainless insult, witch history aside.”

  “If you had occu
lt powers,” Jen said, “you could tell who sent this.”

  Arnie looked at Jen thoughtfully. Jen took a pull at the bottle of bourbon.

  “If we don’t get anywhere,” he said, “we could try a psychic.”

  Jen, her mouth full of bourbon, spat some out on the table while tilting the bottle so it puddled on the floor. She wiped the table clean with the hem of her shirt.

  “Tell me you don’t believe in poltergeists,” she said.

  “Jen,” Laurel said, knowing she sounded like her own mother. “Change your T-shirt, please. There’s one on the piano. You reek.”

  Jen ignored her and took another swallow of bourbon, staring at Arnie as though he had sprouted a second head.

  “I don’t believe in ectoplasm and séances,” he said. “But there have been cases where a psychic brought closure to an inquest.”

  “An inquest! Oh great!” Laurel said. “This isn’t a murder.”

  “It isn’t now,” Arnie responded. “I don’t believe in forensic psychics. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try one. No one believed in fingerprints at first.”

  “You’d have to get Oscar back,” Jen said. “For the psychic.”

  “If he hasn’t flown the coop,” Laurel said, then looked ashamed of herself.

  “I’m not a cunt,” Claire said. “That’s just a cheap insult people use when they don’t like a woman. Or, occasionally, a man.”

  Laurel looked at Arnie. “I think a man would use that word to hurt someone. That’s what linguists would say. Maybe, a man who hates women would use that.”

  “Could be.” Arnie scribbled in his notebook. “We’re going to have to rethink everything, from the idea that the raven was a prank to what kind of person would write this and would hide behind the way it’s written.”

  Jen got up and moved to the refrigerator. “We might as well finish up some of the food.” She got out hummus, pita, slightly dry cheddar, and the last dark cherries. The few cherries left had dark spots on them.

  “Thanks,” Arnie said, making a sandwich by folding pita around a hunk of cheese. “I haven’t eaten in a while. Elaine keeps me on track.”

  Claire picked through the cherries, discarding most of them. She was facing Arnie, and her caftan fell forward, revealing the tops of her sunburned breasts.

  “Pull your dress up, Claire.” His voice was flat. “You’re distracting.”

  “It’s a caftan,” she said as she rose halfway and pulled up the green silk.

  “And?” Laurel asked.

  Arnie ignored them both.

  “Who hates you?” he asked Claire.

  She startled and sat up straight.

  “No one?” she said. “Or someone does. But no one I can think of.”

  “We checked with everyone who has employed you. You have a checkered past, but we only found one woman who strongly dislikes you. Called you thoughtless and selfish.”

  “Mrs. Pilcher, I bet,” Claire said. “I thought I’d love working in that kids’ store. She sold gorgeous puppets! But after five o’clock, the kids’ parents were usually yuppies waiting for restaurants to open. Mom and Dad would hang around an hour, then go off and spend $200 getting smashed over sushi, without buying so much as a wooden puzzle toy for their whiney, hungry kids.”

  “She said you were abrupt with customers. Coffee was also mentioned. She said you never made a new pot.”

  “Oh darn.” Claire took a slow, large sip from her cup.

  “No spurned lovers?” Arnie asked, looking straight at her.

  “No, Arnie. I was married.”

  “You were,” he said. “That doesn’t stop lovers, or spurning.”

  “You can fend off propositions. You just keep mentioning your spouse. I would say, ‘George likes sunsets. George likes golf. George likes bowling.’”

  “Bowling? George bowled?” Laurel said.

  “It’s the technique,” Claire said.

  Arnie awarded her a grudging smile. “It’s a good technique. It says, ‘I love my husband,’ instead of ‘You repulsive scumbag.’ Actually, you’re adroit at staying on people’s good side. Let’s leave the hate list for now. Anyone who would want this house? This property?”

  “I can’t think why,” Claire said. “George wanted this house, in part, for the memories it held. I’d guess his grandparents grew vegetables here once, so there might be some decent soil. Way in the back to the south there are buildings that have collapsed or are collapsing. Tool shed with the roof gone. Thingy to catch rainwater for use in the barn,” she said.

  “Cistern,” Laurel said.

  “What?”

  “The thing to catch water. A cistern.”

  “It’s broken in on one side,” Claire said. “But Arnie, you know this.”

  “This house has a great location on the river,” Arnie said. “Quiet. Peaceful. But you must have put more money into adding the door wall and new bathroom plumbing than you could get out of this place. Did you get an appraisal before and after you tackled the money pit?”

  “We wanted the house. What we did with it was for us. Neither of us cooked much, so we didn’t redo the kitchen then, though the logical time would have been when we put new plumbing in. We hadn’t decided whether or not we wanted to add an addition. That would have meant the kitchen would be the center of the house, and we’d have another bath and bedroom, and big closets, on the first floor. Which might have made sense, if George had lived twenty more years.”

  “Appraisal?” Arnie plowed on.

  “George got two appraisals,” Claire said. “We paid $146,000. Based on selling prices for properties comparable to what we have now, both came in between $166,000 and $186,000. That is, if I’m willing to wait for a buyer.”

  “That seems low,” Laurel said.

  “Sandstone and cement basement. The sandstone is installed the right way, stacked horizontally, so rain doesn’t get in cracks and cause it to split, but some people expect so much from basements. Pool tables, built-in bars, humungous hot tubs. The attic ceiling is so low, there’s no storage. From the first floor—from the road, for that matter—you can’t see the bend in the river, where it deepens and could be a swimming hole. Besides, a lot of kids want to be on a lake, where they can Jet-Ski. And George and I didn’t add a garage or workshop where a family could store ‘toys.’

  “Not everyone is going to want to live in or near Grayling. There is not much night life here for young adults. Generally speaking, there is a hiatus between high school kids, itchy to move on, and those now grown people nostalgic for a quieter way of life and wanting to move back.”

  “That’s true of most small communities in Michigan, isn’t it?” Laurel asked. “We drove by new houses when we were riding around that first day.” The day she’d arrived seemed like a long time ago.

  Claire continued, “There are other reasons some buyers wouldn’t want this house. You can’t have a washing machine this close to the river. Everyone does a little lingerie, but you could get in trouble running family-sized loads of wash. To find a dry cleaner, you have to go into Grayling. For first-run movies, into Gaylord. There used to be a hotel in Lovells that had dining and dancing, but it’s been closed and gone through an estate sale. There are two museums in a groomed little park—one historical and one that’s the founding site of Trout Unlimited, but no one’s going to want this house because of them.

  “Insurance is expensive. Lightening starts wildfires. We’ve had two tornadoes. In winter, it’s easy to be snowed in, or snowed out.”

  “You and George wanted it,” Laurel said. “Someone would want it. Someone would want it if they were like you and George.”

  Claire, Jen, and Arnie looked at her somberly.

  “Someone’s going to fall in love with this bit of river the way we did,” Claire agreed. “But no one would want to scare me out for a profit.”

  “Anyone else bid on the house when you bought it?”

  “Nope. Nada. Not one other bid.”

  �
�Mineral rights?” Arnie asked.

  “No oil, no copper, no silver.”

  “What about a real estate development?” Jen asked. She tipped back the bottle again and passed it to Laurel, who absentmindedly swigged from it and passed it to Claire.

  “I doubt it,” Arnie said. “The riverbank is protected. All of it. That means you can’t make changes within two hundred feet from the water. There are some other properties on the river that would cost more to buy, but less to develop.

  “The other problem with that theory is there are two developments on rivers near here. The best locations sold early, and there are still waterfront lots, but neither development is full. That’s one of the problems we have when kids trash houses. There may not be a house built on either side of their target, so there are no neighbors looking out. Or, with summer people, who knows who’s home?”

  “Couldn’t a developer hire someone to check out property?” Jen asked. “Give some buyer a price break to wave a flashlight around?”

  “Hard to find anyone reliable to do it. The economy isn’t exactly booming here, but anyone who is willing to work hard and in good health has found a job. Even if the job takes a commute. Would you want to insure an over-the-hill construction worker to climb around snow-covered swamp lots in winter time?”

  “A woman might be better,” Jen said.

  “Some are,” Arnie agreed with her.

  “A dog,” Laurel said. “Those people ought to get a dog.”

  “That,” Arnie agreed, “is a good idea. But you’d have to think things out. Electric fence? Not with a river. Fenced yard? Limits the protection you get. And don’t forget, perpetrators can put a dog down.”