Coyote Blues

by Karen F. Williams

  Another screech came from behind, the high-pitched voice of a surprised and happy child calling out to Peggy. The three of them turned to see Edy a few yards away, walking beside a man. Jim Barrett. Riley recognized him right away.

  “Hi, Dr. Spencer!” Edy rushed ahead of her father. Her face was painted red and white, but somehow the red stripe across her cheek made her crystal blue eyes appear bloodshot. Unless she’d been crying earlier. “My mom’s in the bathroom,” she said in a hushed voice, staring at Peggy but apparently intending the message for Riley.

  And here came Jim with his slim and still-boyish figure, strutting over with a phony smile that was more cocky than charming. He swiped his fingers across his forehead, pushing away the overgrown sandy hair from his eyes. They were either hazel or light brown, devoid of any emotion except maybe a glint of arrogance and calculating suspicion. “So this is Dr. Spencer. I’ve been hoping we’d meet. My wife says wonderful things about you.”

  He was full of shit. Riley glanced at Peggy, who didn’t miss a beat. She gave his hand a quick shake, but as she pulled away, he squeezed a little harder, keeping her in his grip and exerting just enough pressure to let her know who was in charge. Then he let go. “Are you enjoying the powwow with your…what, friends? colleagues?” He glanced at Barbara and then at Riley’s painted face with a sneer that made her feel self-conscious. He was waiting for introductions, fishing for information, but Riley wasn’t about to give him any. Neither was Barbara. And Edy, sensing this, broke the silence. “I like your face paint, miss,” she said to Riley.

  Miss. Smart kid. Riley laughed and touched her fingers to her cheeks. “Gee, thanks. I forgot I was wearing it. I like yours, too.” She felt Jim staring at her and couldn’t look him in the eye without wanting to tear his throat out. The hawk screeched again, and Riley looked up, closing her eyes for a second and seeing only red behind her eyelids. “It’s on,” she heard herself whisper, although she hadn’t meant to say the words aloud.

  Jim tilted his head and leaned toward Riley in what felt like a threatening gesture. “What was that?” he said, as though wanting to make sure he’d heard her correctly.

  “I said come on. The guys are waiting for us,” she told Peg and Barb, thinking it might be good to let him know they were here with men, possibly their husbands, for all Jim knew. “I’ll tell them you’re coming.”

  Riley turned abruptly, disappearing into the crowd, and as soon as she was out of sight, she raced to find the restrooms. It was the only place Jim couldn’t catch them together. She got there just in time to see Fiona walking out. She wasn’t sporting her usual ponytail. Her hair was down, and she had on big sunglasses and a long-sleeve shirt. Whether it was the face paint or that she wasn’t paying attention, Fiona blew by her.

  “Hey!” With an outstretched arm, Riley caught Fiona’s waist as she passed and spun her around in the other direction.

  Fiona froze like a stunned rabbit. “Riley!”

  “Go back in,” she said, stepping behind Fiona and ushering her into the bathroom. “We have a few minutes. Your husband’s talking with Peggy.”

  One woman was washing her hands, two coming out of the stalls. Riley quickly steered her down the aisle to the last stall, but when she grasped Fiona’s upper arm to pull her in, Fiona flinched, and Riley realized she had hurt her.

  “What’s wrong with your arm? And why are you wearing sunglasses?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “No one has glasses on today. It’s getting ready to rain.” Riley locked the stall door, gently pushing Fiona up against the wall. One look at the side of Fiona’s face and her questions were answered. The cheek bone just below her eye was tinted a yellowish green—the color of a healing bruise.

  “Let me see your eye,” Riley said, attempting to remove her sunglasses.

  Fiona turned her head away. “Don’t.”

  “Fiona?” She took her chin firmly between her fingers, making Fiona look at her. “When did he do this to you?”

  “Monday. When he got home. He put a tracking device on my phone. I don’t know how or when, but he knew I’d been somewhere on Tyringham Road.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That I’d met someone by the lake who lives on that road and was invited to help myself to peaches. I thought he’d believe me because I’d baked an extra pie for the house. He seemed okay with that, but later, when I was getting ready for bed, he…” Fiona’s bottom lip began to tremble. “He came up behind me…slapped a piece of duct tape on my mouth so Edy wouldn’t hear me and wake up and…beat the crap out of…” Fiona covered her mouth and heaved a sob.

  Riley couldn’t bear hearing any more. Her pressure shot up, her pulse thrumming in her ears like the beating of the drums coming from outside. She rested her hands on the wall, on either side of Fiona, angrily chewing the corner of her mouth and wishing it was Jim’s flesh between her teeth. She wanted to strip naked, let the change come, right there in the ladies’ room. She imagined chasing him down, dragging him by the throat straight into the sacred circle of dancers, where she’d tear him to pieces to the beat of the tom-toms while the indigenous people bowed in worship of the coyote shape-shifter—the skinwalker of ancient legend. The white men might not hold her in reverence, though. They’d call animal control to come fetch her with a catchpole. “Do you need to see a doctor?”

  Fiona shook her head, barely able to speak. She was sniffling now, wiping at the tears rolling down past her sunglasses.

  Riley unrolled a wad of toilet paper and handed it to her. “He needs to be arrested.”

  “Please, Riley, don’t do this to me. You’ll make things worse. You still don’t get it. No one does. He’ll kill me. He wanted to kill me. I gotta go,” she said, trying to duck under Riley’s arm and slide open the lock on the stall door.

  “Just wait a second. Listen to me.”

  “I can’t,” Fiona said, starting to panic. “He’ll come in here looking for me. If he catches us together he’ll—”

  “Okay, okay.” Riley took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Just listen to me. This is important. September’s coming,” she said. “You said he’s getting ready for trapping season. I need for you to watch what he’s doing…where in the woods he goes…where he’s putting cameras.”

  “He put one outside the house. After the day you broke the window.”

  “I’m talking about trail cameras. He’ll be mounting at least one to monitor animal activity. I need to know exactly where he’s going.”

  “I can’t follow him, Riley. And I don’t know the land around here that well yet.”

  “Just tell me what direction he goes from your house.”

  “Riley, don’t do anything stupid. My life is already ruined. Don’t ruin yours.”

  “If anyone does something stupid, it’s going to be him.”

  The outside door opened just then, and Riley heard the sound of familiar voices whispering her name. “Riley?” Peggy called. “Are you in here?”

  “Yeah,” she answered, and then to Fiona she said, “Go. Just sit tight. Do whatever you have to do to keep the peace. And keep me posted.”

  “I can’t call you. I’m too afraid.”

  “Don’t. I’ll catch up with you at the office. In the parking lot. Before or after your sessions. If anything, leave a note on my windshield,” she said, moving back so Fiona could get the stall door open.

  Peggy and Barbara were there, pointing to the outside door and motioning for Fiona to hurry up. “Go on out,” Peggy said to her. “He’s headed this way to find you.”

  Fiona nodded, nervously wetting a paper towel in the sink to blot her face and wipe her nose, and quickly left. Barbara put a hand on Riley’s chest. “You stay right here with us until the coast is clear.”

  Two women with kids came in then, and Riley went to the sink while Peggy and Barbara used the bathroom. She tried washing the paint off her face but only managed to smudge it.

  Peggy looked at Riley in the mirror wh
en she came out of the stall and just shook her head. “Tom’s holding us a picnic table over by the food. Let’s get something to eat,” she said and gave her a pointed stare. “And we need to talk. I just got another call from Miriam.”

  Riley nodded. She didn’t care if the pipes in the office had burst.

  Barbara went out first to make sure the Barretts were gone, but as they started to walk Peggy came to a halt. “Jesus, Riley. Look at your legs.”

  She glanced down to see a layer of golden fur glistening on her shins. Now it was Riley’s turn to panic. “Oh, no…I gotta get out of here. Fast.”

  “No, you don’t,” Barbara said. “Calm down and get a grip. Learn to control it like you have for the past twenty years. Think pretty thoughts.”

  Easy for them to say. They didn’t know that Jim had beaten the shit out of Fiona. And she wasn’t about to let Peggy know for fear she’d sneak off and call the caseworker, get the police involved. If Fiona ended up dead, she’d never forgive herself. Riley looked down at her legs again. “I can’t let people see me like this.”

  “It’s not that bad yet. With your face full of paint, no one’s looking at your legs. If they do, they’ll just think you’re a hairy lesbian.” Barbara hooked her arm around Riley’s and pointed to a gravel path that led into the woods. “Come on. Let’s walk it off.” She gestured at Peggy. “Go meet Tom. Get us all some lunch. We’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

  Peggy raised a cautious eyebrow, reluctantly nodding. “All right, but call my cell if things get worse and we need to get her into the car.”

  Riley seethed as they walked along the wooded path. “I want to kill that fucker so badly.”

  “So do I.”

  Riley glanced at her sideways as they walked. “How would you do it?”

  “Me?” Barbara laughed. “I’m a pharmacist. I’d poison him.”

  “With what?”

  “Hmm…hypothetically speaking? Strictly hypothetically?”

  “Of course, hypothetically,” Riley said, although she was open to suggestions.

  “Gee, let’s see…” Barbara pondered the question as they walked. “I think I’d go with thallium.”

  “Valium?”

  “Thallium. It used to be a popular rat poison. Tasteless, odorless, nearly impossible to detect unless you’re really looking for it. Victims fail to thrive and painfully waste away. They lose their hair, though. That would be a giveaway, but only if a doctor knew what to look for.”

  “Is there an antidote?”

  “There is, actually. Prussian blue. It’s used as a pigment in paint, in miniscule amounts. That’s how Van Gogh got the blue he was known for. But Prussian blue is extremely hard to come by. It happens also to be the antidote for radiation poisoning, so the government keeps it under lock and key.” Barbara shot her a sideways glance. “Don’t get any murderous ideas, dude!”

  Riley faked a laugh, trying to steady her breathing and calm herself.

  Barbara smiled over at her. “How you doing?”

  The hair on her legs had thinned. “Better. Thanks,” she said, focusing on the soothing percussion of drums and the cool rain breeze blowing through the trees.

  The path soon wound them back out into the field, and they found their way over to Tom and Peggy on a picnic bench, an assortment of Native American food waiting. Suddenly she realized how hungry she was.

  Tom gave Riley’s legs an assessing glance. “Everything back in place?”

  “Back in place. I’m good,” she said, sitting down and reaching for corn wrapped in brown, butter-stained paper. “What happened at the office, Peg? You said Miriam called back. Did Scott run into problems?”

  “Nope. Nothing with the plumbing, but…” Peggy stared at her, as though inspecting her face for any signs of sprouting fur before deciding to upset her again. “We might have had a break-in last night.”

  “What?”

  Peggy held up a hand. “Nothing taken, nothing damaged. Do you remember leaving your office window open yesterday?”

  Riley tried to think. Granted, she’d been absentminded lately. “No. I might have forgotten to lock it, but I’m positive it was shut.”

  “Well, Miriam said it was cold when she walked in. She walked around and found your window wide open. Nothing was disturbed, but when she went into my office, she found the lock on my file cabinet broken and the top drawer not closed all the way. Those are my A to D files…which would contain my B clients,” she said with emphasis. “She called her dad. Paul’s headed over there now to take a report.”

  B for Barrett… “You think it could have been Jim?”

  “That was my first thought. There was something disturbing about the way he looked at me today…like he was letting me know something. It gave me the creeps.”

  “I saw the way he hung on to your hand,” Riley said.

  “You picked up on that, too, huh? It’s like he was trying to intimidate, dominate me.”

  Barbara nudged Peg with an elbow as they passed around food and ate. “Tell her what else.”

  Peggy put her food down. “Well, we had a little disturbance at the house last night,” she said, grabbing a napkin and wiping her fingers. “Someone in a loud car revving the engine in front of our driveway.”

  “Sometime around midnight?”

  “Yes…why?”

  “I might have heard it, too. Did you get a look at the car?”

  “It was way too dark,” said Barbara. “Except for one door. It was lighter than the rest of the car.”

  Riley’s stomach sank, and she laid down her corn. That old Dodge Charger parked on Jim’s property, the one she’d peed on—one door had been replaced and primed for painting. It hadn’t occurred to her last night that Jim might be out there nosing around.

  She barely heard what Peggy said after that. Her pressure was rising again, her pulse thrumming so loudly in her ears she felt like her head was under water. Jim beating Fiona was bad enough. That in itself had the coywolf inside her clawing to get out. But that he’d have the audacity to break into their office—hoping to what? Examine Peggy’s case files, read the confidential progress notes she kept on his wife and daughter?—left her rapt with rage.

  She wouldn’t have it. Peg and Barb were her family, her world, and the thought of any harm coming to them elevated her fury to a level she’d never felt before. She picked up her corn and began gnawing on the cob like it was a rawhide bone; a temporary stress relief.

  Jim had to go. Simple as that. She needed to get rid of the man. Even if it meant killing him. It would be her small contribution to making the world a better and safer place for those she loved.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Riley found the reverend in back of the rectory, shirtless and chopping wood, his dark skin soaking up the last rays of September’s summer sun, although it didn’t feel like summer anymore. Technically it would be for ten more days, but the seasons had already changed. White clouds appeared to hover just above an arm’s reach in the crisp blue sky, vibrant blotches of orange, red, and yellow leaves dotting the hills, and roadside farm stands now offered up a colorful harvest of pumpkins and squash, apples and pears. Nighttime temperatures were dipping into the 40s, and the days hadn’t climbed above the 70s all week. Riley suspected that David had his shirt off only because he’d worked up a sweat splitting logs. She tapped the horn as she pulled around. Looking like Tarzan wearing jeans, he stopped in mid-swing and waved to her.

  On the passenger seat lay a manila envelope, containing another long, glossy one. Last Will and Testament it read, the flowery calligraphy giving it a formal flare that suggested the finality of its contents. It looked like an oversized invitation to an important affair, one at which the hostess, most regrettably, would not be in attendance. She’d be there in spirit, though, controlling the distribution of her wealth from the ether. Ideally, her posthumous party wouldn’t take place for years to come, but if something went wrong, if her plan backfired, she needed things i
n order.

  If Riley did die, she was going out with a bang, literally. The story would hit the news for sure, and she didn’t want her parents, wherever they were, stepping in as next of kin to claim their old money. Invested, Riley’s payoff, as she always thought of it, had quadrupled over the years, and so to avoid problems and probate, she’d established trusts. Fiona would get her house with the understanding that she would be keeper of the coyotes. All Riley asked in return was that Fiona maintain the no-trespassing signs along the perimeter of the land and provide them with food and continued access to the garage—at least during the harsh New England winters.

  Peggy, by right of joint tenancy, would inherit the building in Great Barrington, but there’d be plenty of money for her and Barbara should they wish to retire sooner than later. There was enough to put Edy through college, enough for Tom to buy that Tesla he’d been talking about, and more than enough for Fiona to pay the bills while she started making furniture again and pursued her dreams of turning the homestead into an animal sanctuary. Also included in her will were coyote and wolf protection groups, and at the last minute she’d decided to leave something to David’s church. She might not have believed in a higher power, but she did like the idea of Christians behaving as Christians should—welcoming minorities, refugees, and the LGBTQ community.

  The decisions she’d made over the past few weeks were tough ones. She was resolute now, and something about being resolved made her feel light on her feet, almost giddy. She got out of the car with the envelope and gestured at the pile of wood. “Getting ready for winter?”

  David smiled. “It comes quickly here, you know—fast and furious this year, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. He shielded his eyes from the sun’s halo, panning the sky and outline of distant hills, as if he could actually see winter approaching.

  Riley was well aware of the weather predictions and counting on them to be accurate. “Remember our blizzard last November?”