‘So who is she, then?’
He leaned forward, locked his bright green eyes onto mine and said in a low conspiratorial voice, ‘She’s Elizabeth Dashwood.’
‘The Elizabeth Dashwood?’
‘Yup, back from the dead.’
Beau settled back in his chair, staring at me intently, an expression of triumph on his face.
I’ve never been a violent man and I’d had no cause to dislike Beau over the thirty-five years I had known him, but at that moment, I wanted to slap that look off his face. Unease and annoyance abruptly broke through the relaxed attitude that I was struggling to maintain and yet thankfully it quickly passed, the emotion having no chance to take hold. Amusement held greater power. His expression reminded me of a spoilt, petulant child that thinks he or she has scored a major victory over an adult. To me it looked so comically repugnant, I wanted to take a photograph and post it on Facebook. I tilted my head back and laughed, the sound coming out in high loud bursts as tears filled my eyes and then slowly fell down my cheeks. Beau stared at me, first in surprise, then in irritation. Not the response he had expected.
‘Oh come on!’ I said.
He frowned. ‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Are you fucking nuts?!’
Beau winced at that.
‘Hell no! For Christ’s sake, Beau, she’s dead. Been dead for over sixty-five years!’
‘Bull-shit.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Oh good grief.’
He glared at me defiantly. ‘I’ve seen her.’
During Beau’s first visit, I had wondered if he had seen Lizzy. His reaction to my question about the authorities’ chances of locating her body had convinced me that he had. At the time, I wasn’t concerned because I didn’t know how Lizzy felt about him and I had yet to realize how obsessed he was with her. Now I knew better. The sense of unease returned, rising within my chest like a cold thick liquid that first encircled and then filled my lungs, making it harder to breathe, my heartbeat, now seeming unnaturally loud, pulsing in my ears. It must have shown in my face because I noticed suspicion flare in Beau’s eyes.
‘Oh really?’ I said, intoning the words with such contempt I immediately realized that I had over done it.
The look in Beau’s eyes hardened. He wasn’t buying it.
Well done, Kain, I thought. Good fucking job.
He held up two fingers. ‘Yeah. Twice.’
‘Are you on drugs, Beau?’
‘What?’
‘Taking any meds for your knees perhaps? I’ve read that painkillers can have one very interesting side effect: they sometimes cause hallucinations. Have you been seeing any weird shit, Beau? Apart from dead actresses …’
‘No! My meds don’t cause fuckin’ hallucinations!’
‘Uh-huh.’ I pointed at his bottle of Millers. ‘How much alcohol do you drink?’
‘What the fuck’s that got to do with anything?’
‘If you’re mixing your meds with alcohol, then maybe you are seeing things. Or perhaps you’re an alcoholic.’
‘What?! No! You-’
‘Have you tried to quit recently? When withdrawing from alcohol, a person typically goes through four phases: the shakes, seizures, hallucinations and delirium.’
‘I’m not a fucking alcoholic!’
I was beginning to enjoy myself. Putting on my best concerned friend expression, I said, ‘You really need to cut down on that stuff, Beau. You’re obviously seeing things and you’re not a young man any more. It could kill you.’
‘I tell you I saw her goddamnit!’ Beau yelled.
Resisting the temptation to yell back, I adopted a low soothing voice. ‘She’s dead, Beau. Dead. You need to accept that. Let her go, man.’
‘No she isn’t! I’ve seen her! Twice!’
‘You’re mistaken. You must have seen Maddie. It’s perfectly understandable, she looks just like her.’
‘Maddie? Who the fuck’s Maddie?
‘My girlfriend. Elisabeth Dashwood’s great-niece, remember?’
‘Ha!’
‘Let me help you, Beau. I could call some peop-’
‘No! I’m not fucking lying!’
‘Look Beau, stop getting pissed at me.’
‘Where is she anyway?’
‘Maddie?’
‘Yeah.’
‘She’s in Wickham. Won’t be back for hours. Why?’
Beau glared at me. His left eye twitched and a large bluish-purple vein throbbed in his temple. He looked seconds away from having a stroke.
Perhaps I should stop, I thought. Tell him to fuck off. Any more of this and he’ll keel over right here.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Beau said.
I suddenly lost it, all concern for his health evaporating. ‘I don’t give a fuck what you believe, Beau!’ I pointed at his truck, vaguely aware of a low guttural rattle from deep within the pups’ throats, a sign that they understood my anger and considered Beau a threat. ‘Now get off my fucking property and don’t come back!’
I have rarely seen so much rage in a man’s eyes. His face grew dark, a deep red under the leathery brown skin. He stood up, the pups now growling, their eyes locked onto his.
‘Fuck you, Kain.’
Beau turned and I expected him to get into his tatty Plymouth, floor the gas pedal and drive away, laying a long line of rubber down my blacktop. Instead, he moved towards the door with an agility that was the antithesis of his usual shuffling gait. Caught off guard, I stared at him in wide-eyed surprise, Mick and Keith, far more alert than I’ll ever be, now on their feet, barking.
‘Lizzy!’ Beau shouted. ‘Lizzy! It’s me, Beau! I know you’re in there. I’ve seen you in-’
I moved in front of him and put a hand on Beau’s chest. ‘Beau-’
‘Lizzy! Come on out, damnit!’
‘Beau!’
His head whipped around. ‘Fuck off, Kain, just fuck off! She’s in there an’ I wanna see her!’
‘Get off my property NOW!’
He ignored me, turning back to the house. ‘LIZZY!’
I grabbed his forearm, expecting it to feel boney and fragile and was surprised when I felt hard, ropey muscles that seemed to throb under my fingers. ‘Now, you old cunt!’
Beau tried shaking me off, his voice now a plaintive whine. ‘Lizzy! LIZZY! I know you’re here! Lizzy!’
Jesus Christ he’s strong, I thought, struggling to keep my grip and apply one of the arrest and control techniques – a reverse arm bar and wrist lock – that I’d learned from a cop friend in Fresno.
Beau yelped in pain. ‘Shit, lemme go!’
I’m restraining an eighty-four year old man. This is ridiculous.
I marched him down the porch steps and over to his truck, Mick and Keith bouncing around Beau and barking angrily, their lips curled back, showing their teeth.
‘Keep ‘em away from me, Kain! If one of those mother fuckers so much as-’
‘Shut up, Beau.’
‘Don’t-!’
‘SHUT UP!’
Beau jumped and snapped his mouth shut.
‘Now listen close,’ I said. ‘I’m gonna let you go and you’re gonna get into your truck and get off my property and you will never, I repeat, never, ever come back, d’ya hear? If you do, I’ll set my dogs on you. They may only be five months old but they can be vicious little bastards when they want to be. Trust me, I’ve seen ‘em in action.’
He tried looking at me, which wasn’t easy considering the position I’d put him in. Even after turning his head all the way to his left, Beau could barely see my face.
‘You wouldn’t fuckin’ dare you fuckin’ piece of shit,’ Beau said. ‘I could ruin your life just by making one phone call.’
‘Try me.’
Beau shifted his gaze to the pups and stared at them balefully for a moment. ‘Okay.’
I let him go, ready to take Beau down in case he was humoring me
and was in fact intent on doing something stupid, like producing a gun. For all I knew he could have a small caliber pistol stashed in an ankle holster.
Beau opened the Plymouth’s door, paused and looked at me. ‘I know what I saw. She’s here. I can feel it. You won’t get in my way again, Kain. I always get what I want.’
I frowned, struggling to keep my anger in check. ‘Fuck off.’
Beau grunted, smiled derisively and then climbed behind the wheel. He started the truck and drove away, laying down a long line of rubber exactly as I had expected.
I watched him go, hoping I’d never see the old bastard again.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t finished with us yet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lizzy came downstairs, shaken and pale, and hugged me, resting her head on my chest.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘What is it with that man?’ Lizzy looked at me. ‘I was in one of the front bedrooms listening. Then I saw you frog march him to his truck.’
‘He’s obsessed with you.’
As was Gary, I thought. And me.
Some people are like incandescent beacons in the grayness that many call life, drawing others to them, a power that remains long after death, undiminished by time. Some may consider it a blessing. For Lizzy, it had helped her to become the highest paid actress in Hollywood and one of the most famous women in the world. Yet now her charisma probably felt like a curse.
‘And he knows I’m alive,’ Lizzy said. ‘He’s seen me.’
I sighed. ‘Yeah. You heard everything?’
‘Uh-huh. Every word. The bedroom windows are open, remember? Then when he started calling my name, I thought he’d burst into the house and find me. I was so scared. What are we going to do?’
‘We continue to deny it,’ I said, ‘and you stay away from town. In the unlikely event that you see him, give the old fart a blank look and claim you don’t know who the hell he is. And if he does comes back here, I’ll call my attorney and take legal action.’
‘What about the sheriff’s office?’
‘If you’re here alone, sure, call ‘em. Or if I’m here and he starts getting violent – and I think, despite his age, he’s perfectly capable of it – then yeah, same thing. He’s surprisingly strong. I had difficulty restraining him.’
Now Lizzy sighed. ‘Yeah ... I guess that’s the only thing we can do.’
‘We could always kill him.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What?’
I grinned. ‘I was kidding.’
She smiled and shook her head, the tension in her face and body falling away. ‘Bruce ... ’
‘Elizabeth ... ’
‘What if he tells someone?’
‘Who’s going to believe him?’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Probably realizes that himself and won’t bother.’
I was wrong.
~
Tony phoned at eleven-thirty the next morning. He sounded amused.
‘Beau has been wandering around town telling everyone that Maddie isn’t Elizabeth Dashwood’s great-niece and is in fact Lizzy: back from the dead and living at your place.’
I raised my eyes to Heaven and shook my head, a mixture of anger, frustration and anxiety blooming inside me like noxious weeds.
‘Oh good grief.’
Tony had finally met Lizzy a few days after Gary’s visit and it was obvious from his tone that he was grinning, the whole thing a huge joke.
‘After I’d met Maddie, I went home and Googled Dashwood. I know Maddie looks just like her, but man, that’s some crazy shit Beau’s saying. The old boy has finally gone senile. If he carries on like this then large dudes wearing white coats are gonna haul his scrawny white ass away.’
‘Yeah. He came over and started yelling Lizzy’s name and demanding that she come outside.’
Tony laughed. ‘Shit, really?’
‘Yep. Scared the crap out of Maddie.’
I hated lying to him, in some ways more than I hated lying to Jack and Heather. Tony was a broadminded and spiritual man with whom one could discuss just about anything. He talked occasionally about Hoopa folklore and some of the stories he told certainly stretched a non-Native’s beliefs. When Tony called, I had wondered if I should tell him what had happened over the last six months, then changed my mind when he derided Beau’s story. It was possible that he may believe me if I showed him Gary’s journal and then sat him down with Lizzy, but it was asking a lot, even for Tony.
‘I bet,’ he said. ‘Jeez … What are you gonna do if he comes back?’
‘Call my attorney, take legal action. If he comes here when I’m out, Maddie will call the sheriff’s office.’
‘Shit, man, call ‘em anyway, even if you are there. Let them sort it out. That’s what they’re paid for.’
‘Yeah, fair point. I had to restrain him. It was crazy.’
‘Oh man really? An old guy like that? You’re kidding?’
‘Nope. He’s a strong sonofabitch too. He was getting so mad I had to put him in an arm bar and shove him over to his truck.’
‘Jeez.’
‘Anyway, enough of that shit. Maddie and I feel like having a cookout. We were thinking tomorrow lunchtime, around noon. Wanna join us? Bring the kids too if you want.’
‘We’d love to. Thanks, bro.’
We chatted for a few minutes and then I called Jack.
‘Took you long enough,’ Jack said.
‘What, to have a cookout?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Been kind of busy.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You free?’
‘Of course. And I’ll be first in line at the barbeque.’
~
Tony and family arrived first, followed by Heather and Jack and Don and the guys about twenty-five minutes later.
It was a good day, exactly what Lizzy and I needed to ease the tension that Beau’s visit had created. It also gave us the opportunity to introduce her to the rest of my friends. Jack spent most of the evening listening, rather than talking, and even though he’d spent a few evenings with us, he watched Lizzy speculatively as if he had yet to make up his mind about her. Lizzy, now with an audience, was in her element. I had never seen her so animated.
‘Interesting girl,’ Jack said to me while Lizzy was in the kitchen.
‘Yeah, she is.’
Jack was studying my face, as was his habit, looking for additional information that I hadn’t put into words. I smiled and asked him how the business empire was doing. He said the business empire was doing just fine and in return asked how the burns were healing.
‘Slowly,’ I said.
‘Still sore, huh.’
‘Yeah.’
Heather sat down beside us and said, ‘What are you two talking about?’
‘My burns,’ I said.
She gave me a sympathetic smile, took a bite out of her burger and chewed for a moment. ‘How much longer before you’re fully healed?’
‘The doc said about another two weeks. They aren’t healing as quickly as he thought they would.’
‘Must be driving you nuts.’
‘I’ll live.’
Heather grinned. ‘Maddie turned up at just the right time, huh.’
I nodded. ‘Tony said the same thing.’
‘She’s sweet.’
‘That she is.’
‘Dad and I watched one of Lizzy Dashwood’s old movies last night. Uncanny. Maddie’s the spitting image.’
I put on what I hoped was a calm, vaguely interested expression, trying to ignore the twinge of guilt that appeared whenever I discussed ‘Maddie’ with them or my friends. ‘Yeah?’
Heather nodded. ‘Uh-huh. That one she did with Bob Hope. She was great in it. Just as funny as he was.’
The woman herself reappeared with more beer, which brought cheers and a round of applause from the guys hovering near the barbecue.
>
‘They’re fun,’ Heather said, looking over.
‘Try hanging out with them at Tony’s store,’ I said as Lizzy sat down beside me. I patted her thigh and we smiled at each other. ‘They have me in stitches half the time.’
‘I bet.’
The guys wandered back to their seats, grinning at me. Don raised a beer in my direction and nodded. I winked and nodded back.
‘Got a call from Beau this morning,’ Jack said.
There was a chorus of groans.
‘Crazy old fart,’ Don said.
I frowned. ‘Yeah?’
‘Told me what he’d been telling the town.’ He gave Lizzy one of his steady unblinking looks. ‘That Maddie here is actually Elizabeth Dashwood.’
She raised her hands, palms out. ‘Okay, I admit it, he’s right. I really am Elizabeth Dashwood.’
Everyone, except for Jack and me, grinned at her. I looked at Lizzy in alarm, wondering what she was doing. I glanced at Jack. His face was impossible to read.
‘By the way,’ Lizzy said, ‘they’re digging up Clark Gable and giving him a zap with a car battery so we can do a sequel to our romantic comedy, Vermont Vacation. It’s going to be called Night of the Bonking Dead.’
We all roared with laughter, my alarm immediately fading away.
‘Let me know when it’s out,’ Jack said when he had stopped laughing. ‘I’d like to see that.’
‘Will do.’
‘Can I get Gable’s autograph?’ Don said, which got us all going again.
Later, when we were alone, standing in the driveway and watching Jack’s taillights fade into the darkness, I said, ‘You’ve been re-accepted into Harkinen society.’
‘Hurrah,’ Lizzy said and wrapped an arm around my waist.
I grinned at her.
‘Seriously though, it’s nice. I feel fully alive again. I feel … real. Does that make sense?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Good.’ Lizzy put her hand on my ass. ‘Now let’s go to bed.’
~
Ten days later the burn unit pronounced my arms healed, although the skin would be sensitive to sunlight for up to one year and I’d have to slap on the SPF 100 when venturing outside.
On the drive home, I got a call from Jeff Arnold who owned and ran Harkinen Pharmacy.
‘Sorry to bother you, Bruce, but can I come over this evening, straight after I’ve closed the store?’
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