Evening in the Yellow Wood

by Laura Kemp

YOU’LL SEE

  I turned to see Adam smiling.

  Was I imagining this, too, or was it time to let go and surrender?

  STAY OUT OF MY HEAD, LITTLE BROTHER

  MAKE ME.

  Chapter Eight

  “Hey!” I tried to sound chipper when Mom answered the phone. It had been just over a week and a half since we had talked, the new pattern establishing itself in our lives as other patterns had before.

  “Justine?”

  “Yep.”

  “I was out in my garden.”

  I felt the familiar sinking in my chest, an excuse she’d used a hundred times for a million things she didn’t want to say to me. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

  “You’re not interrupting. I’m glad to hear from you.”

  I bit my lip and said, “Phone works both ways.”

  Silence—extended and anything but golden—followed my remark.

  “I have a question.”

  “Of course you do,” she began, and I heard her draw up a chair and sit down in it. I imagined she was in the dining room, looking out at the backyard I used to play alone in.

  “Tell me what happened to Dad. And I don’t want the story you’ve reheated since I was old enough to understand.”

  The air seemed static between us and I imagined her putting a hand to her face as she often did.

  “And the necklace,” I continued, unwilling to stop now that I’d unearthed some courage. “Does it mean something?”

  “Is this a joke?”

  When I didn’t respond, she sighed, obviously annoyed at having to abandon her hobby for such nonsense. “You read the note yourself, Justine. I haven’t been hiding anything from you. The painting paid for your college like Robert wanted—”

  “Like Robert wanted,” I echoed.

  She sighed again, and I could sense her growing irritation “What are you getting at?”

  “He was my Dad, not just some guy named Robert.”

  “And he was my husband, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Neither have I,” she said, her voice cool and I realized the conversation might be over before it had begun.

  “Tell me about the necklace. People up here keep looking at it like…I don’t know…like it has some kind of special meaning.”

  “Robert bought it at the jewelry store downtown. He gave it to me the first year we were married.”

  I wished I could see her face, to look for the tell-tale signs that she was lying or just making something up because she didn’t have the answer and was too tired to go looking for it. Like she’d been too tired to look for him, the husband she raved about.

  “If you don’t believe me, feel free to ask your Dad if you find him.”

  “If I find him?”

  “Yes.”

  I pushed to my feet and walked to the kitchen window. Iris was outside, dog leash in hand, a tiny mutt of the terrier persuasion at the other end of it.

  “At least I’m looking.”

  Her laughter was light. “At the very least.”

  I bit my lip, realizing seconds later that calling her had been a very bad decision. One I would not repeat.

  “I’ll let you get back to your work.”

  “That would be nice.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her I loved her but couldn’t. Instead, I muttered something about needing to take a shower and hung up quickly. A few shuffling steps carried me to my bedroom where I shut the door and sank to the floor. A low purr to my left and I scooped up Joey and nuzzled his soft, orange fur as tears began to squeeze out of the corner of my eyelids.

  Wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand, I went to the closet and shoved the shoes I kept on my high shelf aside. Beside my black flats, I spied the purple package that had yellowed with time, thinking again of that stupid card and how it had made me feel like less than nothing.

  If you find him…

  He’d done a damn good job making me believe he never wanted to see me again.

  I pushed the present back further and grabbed a pair of blue jeans. Paired with a tight black shirt, I was sure to get plenty of tips.

  Might as well start saving for my new life now.

  I was never going back to Webber again.

  Chapter Nine

  I walked into Huff and Puff’s, the tavern that supplemented Adam and Pam through the winter months on a gorgeous evening in mid-June, having driven around the block three times before I decided it was safe to stop. The structure looked condemned, but the tiny “Open” sign placed beside a swinging placard featuring the Big Bad Wolf blowing down a straw house as a curly-tailed pig ran for the hills finally convinced me I’d found the right place.

  A wiry fellow with tanned skin and cut-off jean shorts was sitting on a bench near the front door. He waved cheerfully as I parked next to what had once been an attached garage but was now nothing more than a ramshackle lean-to.

  I locked my car and pulled the handle just to be sure.

  The friendly guy on the bench smiled widely as I approached. His large, white teeth were a stark contrast to his dark face and the wrinkles that lined it told me he might be older than he looked.

  “Hello,” I ventured while climbing the steps to the porch.

  “Hey,” he stuck his hand out. “You the new barmaid?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m Mallard Brauski.”

  I looked him up and down, wondering if I’d caught the right name, realizing I had and that this guy was calling the shots.

  “Nice to meet you…Mallard.”

  He nodded, showing his pearly whites, then turned so I could follow him inside.

  The interior of Huff and Puff’s was a lot better looking that the outside and featured a pool table, jukebox, and smattering of tables. Multi-colored Christmas lights were strung over the doorway I’d just walked through, and a worn-out woman I could only assume was the town drunk sat hunched at the far end of the bar, a cigarette dangling loosely from her lips.

  “How’d Pam talk you into it?”

  I turned to find Mallard standing with his hands on his hips. The jean shorts gave him the appearance of Jane Fonda on steroids, and I had to cover my mouth to stifle the laughter I felt sure would infuriate him.

  “She told me the tips were good.”

  Mallard looked me up and down. Shaking his shaggy head once the inspection was over, he nodded. “You’ll get tips all right, but I’m gonna have to keep my fuckin’ eye on you. Pam may own the joint, but I call the shots.”

  “Be nice,” I heard the woman say from her barstool. “Don’t scare her off like ya did the last barmaid.”

  I felt myself stiffen. “What’d you do?”

  Mallard shook his head, then stepped forward, smiled widely and became a dead-ringer for the Cheshire Cat.

  “I waylaid her. And now she’s my old lady.”

  I didn’t have to time reflect on that disturbing thought because he was moving through the alcove, waving his arms while explaining the finer points of northern bartending.

  “Up here we ain’t got no blenders, so if they want one o’ those froufrou drinks they can take themselves to the Red Lobster in Alpena. Got it?”

  I nodded, watching intently as he ran the tip of his index finger along a row of glistening liquor bottles. “Up here all you gotta do is know how to count a shot and pop the top off a beer. Can ya do that, Flatlander?”

  I nodded. “The beer I can do.”

  He grabbed a shot glass out of the sink and set it up on the bar, then turned and selected a bottle of Ol’ Granddad Whiskey.

  “All these bottles has got a stopper, see? All you do is count down one…two…three—and then lift it up again. See? Then you put it back down and count to six… Nine altogether.

  Ten minutes later I was pouring a drink to my first customer, still knowing next-to-nothing about tending bar, hoping that my sparkling personality and tight black shirt would make up for it.

&n
bsp; More than once I checked my cell phone, hoping Dylan had called, realizing later that I’d never given him my number and that if I wanted to hear his voice I was going to have to make the first move.

  I thought about how close we had come to kissing, thought about him kissing me in other places and realized I stunk at being aloof because what I wanted was to call him up for a good old-fashioned make-out session.

  I bit the inside of my lip, wondering what he would think if he accepted my invitation and came back to my place. Had I scooped the litter? Picked up my dirty laundry? “Listen up, Flats!”

  I turned to find Mallard pouring a draft with the dexterity of Da Vinci. “This here’s Shaw an’ he’ll shoot you if you don’t pull a good head.”

  Shaw, a fat fellow with and handlebar mustache that had whitened with age, shifted his weight on a barstool that had no choice but to protest.

  By eight o’clock the regulars had started to filter in, and by ten I had fried my first burger and kept a steady eight customers satisfied. Pam’s busy night was starting to pan out for me when Mallard called for everyone to shut the fuck up. l glanced up as he adjusted the volume on the television—an exhausted device that teetered on a metal stand someone had duct taped to the wall.

  A hush fell over the patrons as a local reporter appeared on screen in front of flashing police lights. Obviously, a crime scene had been established and I immediately thought about Dylan, wondering if he was working, if he was safe and knew this guy was getting to be a major distraction.

  I was staring into space when the reporter finally spoke.

  The body of a Lantern Creek girl reported missing last night was found on County Road 449 at about seven o’clock a.m. local time. Cause of death is still undetermined. Homicide detectives and police have sealed off the area…

  “Fuck me!” Mallard cried. “That’s just up the road.”

  Authorities have identified the body as that of Suzy Marsh, a young Onaway woman who was last seen leaving a friend’s house in the early morning hours.

  “Think she was on drugs?” Shaw asked. “Kids go out there to get high.”

  “How would you know, you old fucker?” Mallard asked while popping the top off a Busch Light.

  I barely heard their banter because as I looked closer at the reporter and the trees behind her I remembered the lonely stretch of gravel I’d seen a black Jetta spin out on, a blonde girl bleeding to death inside of it while Jamie looked on.

  I saw his face plainly now, his eyes wide with the same relief I’d seen while jumping from his truck.

  “Flats!” Mallard grabbed my wrist. “Answer your goddamn phone!”

  “Oh…” I managed, hearing the familiar ringtone, finding it just before voicemail kicked in.

  “Justine?”

  I smiled into the phone, suddenly giddy. “Dylan?”

  “Turn on the news.”

  Boy, was he bossy for a first phone call. “Already did.”

  “You bartending at Huff’s?”

  “Yeah, but how did you—”

  “Can you sit tight for a while?”

  “Sure,” I answered. “My shift ends at two.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll be out then. I just need to ask you a few questions.”

  A few questions?

  My heart did a nosedive into my black flats.

  “Keep someone with you until I get there.”

  I thought about telling him I could take care of myself but answered with a lukewarm version of, “Sure thing.”

  Once I hung up I couldn’t shake my disappointment. Mallard, on the other hand, just wanted the scoop.

  “Who the fuck was that?”

  “A friend.”

  “Why’d you tell him when you get off work?”

  “He’s a cop. I had to tell him.”

  Mallard chuckled, took a drag off the cigarette that had been burning in the trough. “A cop, eh?” He turned to Shaw. “Same one what flunked outta that big college and had to ask his Daddy for more money so he could go to the dickhead academy?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I knew next to nothing about Dylan besides the fact that he was hot.

  “Same one what every female over fourteen and under fifty wants to fuck?”

  “Leave her alone,” Shaw grunted.

  “I’ll leave her alone when she grows a brain,” he came closer, shaking one finger so close to my nose that he actually touched it. “Don’t you ever tell no one when your shift ends. I gotta lot of money in that till and it needs to stay right where I put it.”

  I stood and stewed and thought about the choice words I was going to have with Pam—like why she thought learning the ropes under this guy came anywhere close to a good idea.

  “Lots of pricks with one thing on their mind hang around after hours an’ I won’t always be here to save your ass.”

  I thought about telling him I didn’t need anyone named Mallard saving anything remotely close to my ass but realized it wasn’t worth it and grabbed a rag to wash down the bar.

  The time seemed to creep by as my steady eight turned to six, then five, then two when Shaw finally paid his tab and called it a night. Mallard kept to himself while washing the bar glasses, breaking his silence only when I started sweeping the floor.

  “Didn’t mean to rattle your chain.”

  “You didn’t,” I lied.

  He leaned against the bar, one hand resting at the nape of his neck, the other reaching for a fresh cigarette from his already-exhausted pack. “Where that girl was found tonight—I may joke about it when Ol’ Fat Ass is around but it ain’t no laughin’ matter.”

  I sensed a story and took a seat on the nearest stool.

  Finally, someone was talking.

  “That road runs right through what used to be Back Forty Farm,” he paused, waiting for the name to register and when it didn’t he seemed irritated. “Forgot you don’t know your head from your asshole.”

  “I was just going to say the same about you.”

  He chuckled, then took a long drag. “A married couple what went by the name of Ebersole was murdered out there back in the 1880s. Never found the killer but he must not have liked the husband none because he stripped him naked an’ threw his drawers on an ol’ manure pile in the barn. Took the best fuckin’ horse and split. Hired girl was sleepin’ upstairs and didn’t hear a thing.”

  I looked down, tracing a groove in the bar with my fingernail. “Sounds suspicious.”

  “And that ain’t even the fucked-up part. Seems after the Mrs. was buried a few of her folks went back to the graveyard and found her body had been disturbed.”

  I scrunched up my nose, disgusted. “As in ‘I’m Igor and I’m looking for body parts’ disturbed?”

  Mallard shrugged. “Sheriff must’ve wondered the same thing because when all the fuckin’ leads ran dry he started workin’ with a gal what everyone thought had the Sight.”

  “The Sight?”

  “Holy Hell, Flats! Ain’t ya ever seen ‘The Sixth Sense?’”

  I smiled at him and asked, “Did she find the killer?”

  My companion took another long drag, trying to draw out the suspense. “She coughed up a name all right.”

  “And?” I was finding it hard to hide my impatience.

  “They lynched him on it.”

  My finger stopped mid-stroke as his voice became muffled in the familiar envelope of white noise. Looking up, I saw him talking and knew he didn’t realize what was happening. I took a steadying breath and stared at the groove in the wooden bar, continuing to trace as images flashed before my eyes—pictures I was beginning to accept as part of my new reality.

  A woman lay dead in her bed, her black hair plaited into two braids that hung below her waist. Her chest was a blossom of red and I realized I’d seen her before, on the waterfront as I stood watching the lighthouse. Turning from her I noticed the man, naked from the waist down and lying on top of her while the hired girl shivered in her bed upstairs, hoping no
one would search the house because it was obvious the killer was just after the Mrs. and it served her right for being such a hussy.

  Moments later I fled the bedroom and ran down the porch steps, saw the killer standing in the open yard, his riding coat unbuttoned, his hat low on his head.

  Does he scare you, Muffet?

  “Very much,” I heard myself say, thinking of my father and his coffee, the red birds watching as snow electrified the air.

  I turned from the scene, listened as the wind held its breath and then heard the jukebox, recognized Reba McEntire and turned my head just in time to catch Mallard’s second-hand smoke.

  “You gonna wipe that ashtray or just stare at it?”

  I looked up, saw his face and knew mine must have given me away.

  “My story scare you some?”

  I nodded, then carefully set the ashtray down. “What was the killer’s name?”

  Mallard smiled, pleased that his story had hooked me. “Jonas Younts.”

  I set the ashtray aside. “And the woman with the Sight?”

  He took another long drag. Let the smoke out slowly.

  “Went by Odessa Cook.”

  * * *

  I was sitting on the front steps, feeling as though I’d fallen in with Alice’s rabbit again when Dylan pulled up. Waving once, I stood and waited while he exited his truck.

  “You alone?”

  I shook my head. “Mallard’s inside counting down the till.”

  “Free to leave?”

  I nodded, thinking Mr. Locke looked mighty fine in a white T-shirt that accentuated his chest and khaki cargo shorts that just reached his tanned kneecaps. I’d always imagined cops to be pasty and pudgy from spending so much time indoors eating donuts, but Dylan ran for Marine Patrol, which meant he spent plenty of time soaking up the sun.

  I was trying to decide if I should tell him about Mallard’s story when he reminded me of why he’d come.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Sure.”

  “Off the record?”

  I shoved my hands into the front pocket of my hoodie, thinking that gesture would be enough to let him know he’d hurt my feelings. “I guess…but I really don’t know what this is about.”