Coyote Blues

by Karen F. Williams

  The microwave beeped, and she listened to Barbara and Peggy busying themselves in the kitchen and speaking in low voices. Next thing Barbara was carrying two dinner plates out to the dining-room table, and Peggy was calling the dogs into the kitchen. “Jack? Peanut? Dinner. You too, Riley!”

  Riley obediently slid off the couch and followed the others into the kitchen. Peggy placed two paper plates on the floor for the chihuahuas—small portions of finely cut steak, peas, and carrots, all blended with a dollop of mashed potatoes—then dropped a plate with a larger portion on the floor and pushed it with her foot toward Riley’s face. “Eat,” was all she said, then left the kitchen to join Barbara in the dining room.

  Being unable to shift at will and join them at the table like a respectable human being was humiliating, to say the least, but she thought it best to show her appreciation and dug in. Not that she had much of an appetite. It was more emotional eating. But she didn’t get to finish.

  Before she could take her last bite, her spine contracted, her front legs collapsed, and she fell over with a thud. The dogs startled, and she heard Peggy jump up from the table.

  “Oh, goodie. It’s about time,” Peggy said, her chipper tone laced with sarcasm. She flung Riley’s shorts over the kitchen chair and dropped her shoes onto the floor. “When you’re back to normal and dressed, put on a pot of coffee while we finish dinner in here. Then we can talk. I can’t wait to hear this story.”

  Chapter Ten

  “And that’s when I took off and ran here,” Riley said, her hands wrapped around her coffee cup as she sat at the dining-room table. “I didn’t know how long it would be before I changed back, and I couldn’t chance leaving my car there overnight.”

  Peggy wanted to be furious, but after hearing the whole story, the only anger she felt was toward Jim Barrett. On top of hearing about the abusive treatment of his wife and daughter, she was infuriated to learn of his animal cruelty. “I can’t believe he actually put the turtle in the pot.”

  Barbara shook her head, clearly appalled. “You think he really would have cooked it?”

  “He was cooking it.” Riley drank the last of her coffee. “I didn’t know how else to stop him. I figured if I broke the window he’d run outside, which he did, and Fiona could get Gomez out of the pot.”

  “I’m livid.” Barbara went into the kitchen and came back with the coffee pot and a box of doughnuts, which she dropped onto the table. “I could take a two-by-four and whack that motherfucker in the head,” she said as she poured the three of them a second cup.

  “You and me both,” Peggy mumbled. She felt bad for Riley. She looked so disheveled, emotionally wrought. With the streak of dirt across her cheek and debris in her hair, she looked the way she had that first time Peggy saw her in the cabin Riley rented off campus. “You think Paul might have arrested Jim?”

  “No, I don’t. But I can guess what happened,” Riley said. “Jim most likely acted like a victim, saying he’d been away, on the road for days, and that they were just starting to cook dinner when a rock came flying through the window and almost hit his precious daughter in the head. I bet he told Paul that the screams any passersby might have heard were those of his wife and child frightened by the intruder and breaking glass. He probably had Paul believing that he ran out with his rifle and fired a warning shot to protect his family.”

  “You think he’s that good of a smooth talker?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sure of it.”

  “And you don’t think Fiona would have told Paul the truth?”

  “Absolutely not. She knows better than to speak against her husband.”

  “The caseworker needs to hear about this. Fiona needs to get an order of protection, and we’ll have to come up with a plan to get her and Edy to a safe house.”

  “No! Please, Peg, you can’t do that. First of all, if word gets back to Jim that someone saw him throw Gomez in the pot, he’ll know Fiona had someone at the house with her. And second, there is no safe place for them. Trust me. Jim will hunt them down. If Fiona leaves him…if anything happens to disgrace him, to threaten his masculinity…if he loses control over Fiona and Edy…he’ll kill them.”

  “A family annihilator?” Peggy was taken aback. “You really think he’s that disturbed?”

  “Yes.” Riley went on to describe Fiona’s previous attempt to leave him and how he’d stalked and forced her home at gunpoint.

  “We can’t know that he would have followed through.”

  “Fiona said he was about to shoot them right there in the car.”

  “It doesn’t mean he would have. He obviously does a good job of manipulating and bullying her into obeying him…and I certainly understand her being too frightened to call his bluff, but…”

  “She said he’s capable of killing her…and then himself. That’s good enough for me. I believe her. Because of you, I believe her.”

  “Me?”

  Riley poured milk into her second cup of coffee. “Do you remember Jody Green? She was one of my first private clients when you were supervising me.”

  “I don’t recall offhand.” It was long ago, and the two of them had worked with so many clients over the years.

  “She was passively suicidal. Never had a plan, but was always making comments like, ‘I’m tired of living,’ or ‘I wish I’d never been born,’ or ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this.’ I diagnosed her with a histrionic personality disorder. She had all the trimmings—labile affect, that staged and theatrical flair, her life an endless series of exaggerated dramas—but I missed the depression because I didn’t hear what she was saying. I assumed that when she made those comments, they were just part of her dramatic style and attention-getting behavior. But during our case conference, right before my next session with her, you became concerned when I told you about the things she’d said. And when she didn’t show up for her session that evening and wouldn’t answer the phone, you called Paul to have him send a car over to check on her. You made me meet him at her apartment.”

  “Ah. I remember now. She’d swallowed an entire bottle of something, aspirin or Motrin, and they took her to the hospital. You saved her life.”

  “No, you saved her life. Because you heard what she was saying when I didn’t.”

  “How does this relate to Fiona’s situation?”

  “It relates because you taught me that the worst thing to do when someone expresses their feelings is to say, ‘Oh, you don’t really mean that.’ You told me to take everything a person says at face value, whether it turns out to be true or not. Better safe than sorry. Isn’t that what you always say?” Riley paused to sip her coffee and looked at her. “Fiona knows Jim. She and Edy are the only ones who know who he is behind closed doors. And now I know, too. He’s a monster, Peg. So when Fiona tells me he’s capable of murder…I believe her.”

  “Jesus,” Barbara said, biting into a doughnut with a distressed grunt. “I don’t even know that man, but I hate his guts.”

  “What do you propose we do?” Peggy asked.

  “I don’t want you to do anything. Just see Fiona and Edy. And please don’t mention a word of this to the caseworker. It’ll only make things worse for them. Give me time to come up with something.”

  “Something like what?” Peggy rubbed her brow. “If Jim Barrett is as dangerous as you think he is—and, yes, okay, if Fiona says he is, then I believe it—the last thing you need to do is get personally involved. Imagine how he’d react if he thought you were orchestrating his wife and child’s escape. If he’s capable of killing his family, he’d kill you, too.”

  “I’m not orchestrating an escape. That’s the whole point. There is no escape for them.”

  Peggy reached for a doughnut but stopped halfway. She was too upset for dessert. Right now, her stomach was wanting a Pepcid more than a doughnut. This conversation was giving her indigestion and would give her nightmares later on. She hated the thought of Riley trespassing on the Barrett property. Peggy never bro
ke the law. She came to a complete halt at every stop sign even when no other car was in sight. And she was just as law-abiding in her professional life. Being a mandated reporter and deliberately withholding information about the abuses taking place at the Barrett residence went against her grain. But the fear of violence made her stomach turn more than that. When it came right down to it, her sense of loyalty and protectiveness toward her loved ones would outweigh her code of ethics.

  “I’m not afraid of Jim Barrett,” Riley said, a residual growl rumbling in her throat.

  “From what you’ve just described, you should be afraid.”

  “I could have ripped his throat out today if I wanted to.”

  “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. You said you’d never attack anyone ever again while in fur.”

  “I wouldn’t. Are you kidding? A coyote uncharacteristically attacking and killing a man? They’d have Wildlife Services setting traps, thinking there was a rabies outbreak. It would be a repeat of what happened in Central Park.” Riley looked between Peggy and Barbara, a vicious shine in those amber-whiskey eyes that would have made Peggy recoil and back away if she didn’t know her. “Far too many coyotes have already been senselessly killed around here.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I found them nailed to the walls when I was snooping in the barn,” Riley confessed. “Their pelts, that is. You know all those transient coyotes that came and went over the years? It seems most met an agonizing death over there.”

  “Oh, no.” Barbara held her ears as if finding it hard to hear this. “But how could it be Fiona’s husband? Didn’t they just move here recently?”

  “It was Dennis Barrett, the uncle who left Jim the property. Seems he had a penchant for killing all God’s creatures. And so does Jim, judging from the new trap sets I found there.”

  Peggy was not happy to hear this. “You’ve been in their barn?”

  Riley gave her a sideways glance. “The pelts were nailed to the walls like souvenirs…I found Van Gogh hanging in there, too.”

  Barbara gasped and put her hands to her mouth. “Our old-man fox?” she said through her fingers. “He was so sweet. Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure. I saw the torn ear.”

  “And here we thought the poor little thing had just aged out and crawled away to die.” Barbara patted her chest as if she were having heart palpitations. “I can’t believe that bastard,” she said and grabbed another jelly doughnut.

  Unlike Peggy, Barbara could eat up a storm when she was angry. Not that she got angry often. Along with her straight hair and those almond-shaped eyes, her persona definitely fit the Asian stereotype—intelligent, calm and collected, disciplined, and graciously polite. But in matters of the heart, the passionate Italian emerged with force. One look at her wife, and Peggy could tell she was itching to rip Jim Barrett a new asshole.

  “Riley, I’m going to say it again. I don’t want you over there spying. Please promise me you’ll stay away. For Fiona’s sake. I mean, look what happened today. Your selfish determination to steal time with her didn’t end well for any of you. Except the turtle, maybe, although it wouldn’t have ended up in a pot if you—”

  “Maybe not now,” Riley said. “But if he’s sick enough to cook his wife’s beloved turtle, a turtle he’s lived with for ten years, then if not tonight, another time would come when he was angry enough to do it.”

  “My point, Riley, is that if you hadn’t gone off kayaking, thinking it would be like old times, Fiona wouldn’t have missed Jim’s call, dinner would have been waiting for him, there wouldn’t have been a fight, and the police wouldn’t have—”

  “I get it.” Riley frowned and lowered her head.

  “I don’t think you do. You’re so worried about me saying anything and making things worse for Fiona, but it seems you managed to do that all by yourself today.”

  Riley’s mouth opened to speak, but it seemed she couldn’t think of a retort. Speechless, she stared at Peggy with a mixture of remorse and defiance, then blinked and shut her eyes for a moment, the way a cat does when it’s grown tired of looking at you.

  “And making out with her in your office like that?” Peggy added.

  “What?” Barbara’s eyes shot open in surprise “When did that happen?”

  “Yesterday. In Riley’s office. When she was supposed to be providing therapy. Very unprofessional,” Peggy muttered. “I was too angry to mention it last night.”

  Riley looked at the clock on the wall and then at Peggy. “Well, you can fill Barb in on all the juicy details after I leave.”

  “Aww…I think that’s so sweet, though.” Barbara gave Riley a commiserating wink as she bit into her doughnut. “Maybe kissing was the kind of therapy they both needed, Peg.”

  Peggy shot her a look of warning. “Don’t encourage her.”

  “I don’t think either of them needs encouragement.” Barbara reached and patted Peggy’s hand resting on the table.

  Peggy looked down at the powdered sugar Barbara’s fingers left behind and shook her head at both of them.

  “Sorry.” Barbara brushed the white stuff off her hand. “Don’t be so hard on them, sweetheart. They can’t help it if they still love each other.”

  “I do love her,” Riley said. “I always have. I’ve never stopped.”

  “But you can’t just pick up where you left off as teenagers twenty years ago,” Peggy said. But when she saw Riley’s eyes filling with tears, she felt bad for being so stern. Really bad. And terribly conflicted. “You’re focused on Fiona’s predicament but not your own, Riley. Let’s say Fiona was a single mother, openly gay, unattached, and living alone with Edy. What would you hope to do? Break the news to them that you’re a werewolf or werecoyote—whatever it is you are—and run off into the sunset to live happily ever after?”

  “Whatever I am? Ouch…” Riley grumbled.

  “Oh!” Barbara cut in. “Speaking of werewolves, with all the excitement I forgot to say Tom called me at work today. He has your DNA results.”

  For the first time all evening Peggy smiled momentarily. “Really? That’s exciting news.”

  “As if I need more excitement in my life right now.” Riley halfheartedly bit into a doughnut. “So, I finally get to find out if I’m a wolf or coyote…or just a ‘whatever,’” she said and frowned at Peggy.

  “I’m sorry.” Peggy softened her tone. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Barbara rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Tom said to tell you he’ll stop over after he delivers kittens to the church.”

  “The reverend’s adopting kittens?” Riley asked.

  “Yep,” Peggy said. “That was Miriam’s good news today. She had us ask around at church, and when the reverend heard, he offered to adopt two. He came by the office this afternoon to pick them out, but he needs a couple of days to buy stuff and get ready. I told him I’d drop them off on my way home from work this week.” She looked over at Barbara. “How did your brother get involved in transporting kittens?”

  “Well, you know, Tom’s been putting feelers out for the kittens, too,” Barbara said. “So when I mentioned David adopting two, he asked if he could be the one to take them over there. You know Tom. He’s always looking for a legitimate reason to pay the reverend a visit outside of church.”

  “I hope the reverend didn’t pick Luna,” Riley said.

  Peggy shook her head. “No, not Luna. Miriam’s convinced you’re going to take her. David picked out the solid black and the black-and-white ones.”

  “That’s great.”

  “So…getting back to the situation,” Peggy said, knowing her words had hurt Riley, “forgive me for sounding so angry. My fears are getting the best of me. I can’t imagine what Jim might do if he ever discovered the connection between you and his wife—that you were lovers. My God…” she shuddered at the thought. “You can’t assume the role of rescuer, Riley. You just can’t.”

  “Why not? You rescued me, didn’t
you?”

  “That was different. This is not a safe situation.”

  “You didn’t know how safe my situation was. We were all alone, you and I, sitting on a log on the Appalachian Trail, when I told you I was a werewolf. Who’s to say that scenario couldn’t have turned into a grisly retelling of ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ You took a big risk that day.”

  Peggy snorted a laugh. “I took a risk only because I didn’t believe you.”

  “Well, believe me when I say my goal is not to rescue Fiona and make her my own. I only want to set her free. I can never reveal to her all that I am. That’s a given. I’m well aware that I could never be in a relationship and keep my secret hidden. I’m not looking to expose myself, Peg. Really, I’m not.”

  Riley took a moment to swallow the last bite of her doughnut and wiped her hands on a napkin. “All I want is for Fiona to breathe again…to see her and Edy happy and living on their own terms. You know what’s funny?” Riley took a deep breath and her lips tightened, as though what she was about to say wasn’t funny at all. “The first time I laid eyes on Fiona she was by the lake with those tiny turtles in her hand. I asked if she had caught them, and—oh, my God—was she offended! She said she’d never take a wild animal from its home, that it would be like kidnapping a person, forcing them to live as a captive.

  “The irony, of course, is that Fiona herself ended up being captured. The woman you met in your office is nothing but a shadow of the real Fiona. When she was young, she had this…this infectious exuberance and passion for life. You could feel her energy, look into those vibrant blue eyes and see this intense spark of wonderment. When I first saw her last week, it was gone. Her eyes were dull, sullen…like those of a wild animal who has been captured and chained and given up all hope of escape. It’s like her spirit was dead. But today…on the lake…I felt it stir to life. It was nice to see her smile, hear her laugh again.” Riley nodded and looked at them both as if she’d already made her decision. “That’s all I want for her. That, and to be in her life from a distance…to be her friend.”