“Riley?” David called from the kitchen. “You still there?”
“I’m here.” She let the others leave and went back. “You need something?”
“I need you not to worry,” he said, as though sensing her turmoil. He squinted at the kitchen wall, trying to bring the clock there into focus. “Three hours… It’s done, Riley. He’s gone.”
“You think so?”
He nodded. “How cold is it out there? Can’t be more than twenty degrees. I don’t think he lasted half that long.” David pointed a finger at her. “Let it go, Riley. Stop thinking negative thoughts. You’re a hero, not a murderer. You saved a woman and her child tonight. It was a rescue mission. I’m glad to have been part of it.” He gave her a thumbs-up, and then his hand dropped into his lap.
Riley managed a weak smile. “Thank you, brother. Thanks for saving my ass…considering your ass took a bullet for mine.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The plows and the sun were out the next day. So were the police.
The coyotes, who had been cooped up too long, were nowhere in sight. They had probably fled for the hills to play in the snow, and Riley took the opportunity to strip the couch, throw their blankets into the washer, and air out the place. Sometimes, the best way to still your mind was to busy your hands, and she’d kept at it all morning, unstuffing the pelts, bagging the Poly-fil, and hiding all of it in the furnace room behind the staircase.
Chief Foster must have seen the windows and basement door open a few inches, because instead of driving up to the front of the house, he pulled up to the garage door.
Heart pounding, Riley quickly sprayed the room with pumpkin-spice air freshener to cover any lingering doggy smell and calmly waited to greet him.
“Ah, Paul. It’s you. I was expecting Santa Claus,” she said, humoring the Christmas-like scene and gesturing to the winter wonderland with a sweep of her hand.
A smile broke his serious countenance. “Crazy weather, huh? Tomorrow it’s expected to reach forty.”
“Good. Maybe this will all melt, and we can enjoy Thanksgiving before it starts feeling like Christmas again.”
He stood there in his bomber jacket, flexing his gloved hands as he looked up at the sky, then at her. “You have a minute?”
“Sure. Come on in. Have coffee.”
“I can’t stay.” He tapped the toes of his boots against the door saddle, knocking the snow off before stepping inside. Riley closed the door behind him.
“Nice pool table,” he said.
“Thanks.”
He glanced around the room, twisting his nose and sniffling the way he did when he had something on his mind.
“What’s up?”
“Well, Jim Barrett got himself in some trouble last night.”
“Trouble?” Riley’s heart sank. If Jim was still alive, she was in even bigger trouble. “What’d he do?”
“Set some illegal traps. Looks like he was trying to catch coyotes…maybe a bear.”
“On my property?” Riley shook a finger at him for dramatic effect. “I want that bastard arrested for trespassing.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. He’s dead.”
With quiet relief, Riley exchanged her angry theatrics for a display of worry. “Where are Fiona and Edy? Please don’t tell me he hurt—”
Paul held up a hand. “Calm down. They’re fine. It wasn’t a domestic dispute. We got a call from Mrs. Barrett last night. She’d taken her daughter to a Halloween party at the school. When she got home Jim’s car and truck were there, but he wasn’t in the house. She said he’d been spending time up on state land, monitoring his trail camera, so she didn’t think anything of it. She and the kid fell asleep watching television. It was after midnight when she woke up, and he still wasn’t back. That’s when she knew something was wrong.”
Riley doubted she’d fallen asleep. Fiona must have known something was awry the moment she got home and found Jim gone. But she’d purposely waited hours before reporting him missing.
“We found him up on state land between your property and his.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry, Paul. One less wifebeater in the world, you know? What’d he do, anyway? Fall and hit his head?”
“Nope. Got caught in his own traps. Coroner says he froze to death.”
“How could he get himself caught in a cage trap?”
“No cage. Legholds.”
“They’re prohibited here.”
“I don’t think a man who beats his wife cares much about the law. He had a whole bunch of ‘em set close together like he had a bone to pick with some animal. Strange…like someone setting fifty traps in a kitchen to catch one mouse who keeps outsmarting them.”
Riley stood there, her back to the open doorway of the deeper basement. The lights were on over the workbench in there, and Paul’s eyes kept shifting, as though he was looking at something over her shoulder.
“Did he catch any coyotes?”
“Just himself. Found an empty bottle of booze in the snow. Looks like he might have been sitting up there for a while, drinking himself silly. Might have lost his bearings and stumbled into his own traps. Mrs. Barrett said he’d set them before he left town.” Paul shook his head. “Decent men don’t leave animals to suffer. Did I ever tell you about the time I got my finger caught in one?”
“You did.”
“Yow!” He shook a gloved hand.
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“I guess the word humane wasn’t in Mr. Barrett’s vocabulary. Look how he treated his family. And he tried to boil a pet turtle. Isn’t that what you said? Unless he was bluffing…”
“The turtle was in the pot, Paul.”
“Whew! They say being boiled alive is the most excruciating way to die. People were executed that way centuries ago. Not a quick way to go. Takes a long time. Heck, I couldn’t even boil a lobster without killing it first, let alone my own turtle.” He blew out a breath, as if he couldn’t bear the thought. Neither could Riley. “Anyway, his wife says he’d stopped drinking years ago, but that lately he’d been off kilter, paranoid about the open case they had on him, and about her discussing the family’s business in therapy. She showed me bruises on her arms and legs…even on her stomach.” Normally, hearing this would have sent Riley over the edge, but it didn’t. Fiona would have no more bruises.
Paul bit down hard on his lip, as if seeing the marks on Fiona had enraged him. “Mrs. Barrett said he’d threatened to kill the three of them—her, their daughter, and himself—if she reported him. At least we only needed one body bag. Better this happened before a worse tragedy did. We’re guessing the traps were covered with snow, and he misjudged his steps, got a boot caught in a bear trap, and—”
“A bear trap?”
“Yep. Old steel jaws. Grisly looking things. Probably belonged to his Uncle Dennis. We’re guessing he must have fallen forward when it grabbed him and got his hand caught in a coyote trap. Nothing much he could do at that point except pull out a gun.”
“He had a gun?”
“Fired it, too. Looks like some hungry coyotes came around, deciding to turn the tables and make a meal of him. Hard to tell if he hit one, with the snow and all. “That’s why I stopped by. To ask if you heard a gun fired.” His eyes shifted to the back room again.
What the heck was he looking at? “No, Paul. Nothing.”
“You were probably out. Miriam mentioned you all getting ready for a costume party.”
“I ended up not going because of the storm.”
“Ah, so you were home?”
“Actually, I spent the early evening having coffee with Reverend Cortez.”
“The reverend? You?” His beady blue eyes focused on her again, and he gave something of a smirk. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in church, Riley.”
“You haven’t, but David and I have gotten friendly because of the kittens. He’s been over to see Luna, and I got to visit her two sisters last night. I didn�
�t leave until after Tony plowed the parking lot,” she added, thinking that would satisfy him.
His eyes moved to the back room again. All evidence was hidden away, but still, she didn’t want him back there. It wasn’t exactly the scene of a crime, but the workshop was where she’d masterminded and prepped for it, and the thought of the chief of police nosing around that private space made her nervous.
Paul finally gestured with his chin to whatever had his attention. “I think you got a leak coming from somewhere.”
“Huh?”
He pointed, and Riley turned around to see a little puddle of water shining on the floor.
“Hmm…I didn’t notice that. I’ll check it out, call Scott if I have to,” she said, attempting to dismiss the leak and hoping to escort him out the door.
“Well, now, just hang on a second. Don’t go calling Scott yet. Those plumbers charge an arm and a leg. Might just be a valve that needs tightening.” Paul sidestepped her and headed toward the back. “Scott took Miriam on a date, you know.”
“I know,” Riley said, walking close behind him.
“He picked her up, looking all spiffy. Took her to a nice place, too. The Cork and Hearth, that restaurant on the lake up in Lee—even brought Doris flowers. We like the guy.”
“Let’s hope Miriam likes him,” Riley said, and suddenly jolted at the sight of Van Gogh’s pelt dangling above her workbench. Paul didn’t notice, though. He was busy squinting at the floor, following the trickle of water toward the pump way in back and talking as he walked.
“Eh, Miriam doesn’t like his ears. Says they’re too big. But I got a feeling she might be falling for the rest of him.” He chuckled to himself. “I mean, if the only thing you can find wrong with a guy are his ears…” He stopped and looked up. “You got another light in here?”
“Sure.” Riley rushed ahead of him, pulling the string on a bright bulb that lit up the back area.
Joining the water pipes above the pump and along the ceiling was a small condensation tank, no bigger than a football. “Here’s your problem,” he said, pulling off one glove and reaching up. Six feet tall, he didn’t even have to stretch to touch the nut on the bottom of the tank. “This is your problem. “I could tighten this, but…see, it’s not the nut. The metal around it is rusted out. Looks like you’ll need Scott after all. You got a pail or something to catch the drip?”
“I do.” Riley went and got a pail by the slop sink, glancing up at the fox pelt as she passed. And then she saw it—a trap attached to a rusted chain in the corner of the workbench. She hadn’t bothered to clean it. It was too tiny for anything larger than a fox, and she’d pushed it out of the way between some bottles and a couple of small cans of paint. Riley thought to grab and hide it, but Paul was looking in her direction now.
She brought the pail to him and he set it on the floor, positioning it under the pipe and waiting a minute until he heard the drip hit the bottom. “Always something, owning a house.”
“I know, right? Always something.” Riley pulled the string on the light overhead and tried to keep the conversation going long enough to distract and get him out of there. “But just think, if Scott becomes your son-in-law, you’ll never have to pay for a plumber. Maybe we’ll all get a discount.”
“True that.” He laughed, looking around as cops do as they walk, convinced that something of interest might be hiding in plain sight. “But the wedding will cost me,” he said. “It’ll take years to make back my money in free plumb—” He stopped short, and Riley almost bumped into him.
Paul knew she didn’t hunt or trap. His brow furrowed. “What’da ya got here, a fox?”
Riley kept quiet while he went over and took the tail in his gloveless hand. It was stiff as cardboard, the fur brittle and not properly preserved. He rubbed it between his fingers, concentrating the way psychics do when trying to get a message from an object belonging to a missing person. And apparently a message came through, because he suddenly scanned the surface of the workbench, quickly zeroing in on the rusted trap and chain between the cans.
Riley started to bolt, but her feet felt cemented to the floor. The silence felt unbearably heavy, broken only by drips from the condensation tank hitting the bottom of the plastic pail. They sounded magnified, like drops of water in an underground cave. Everything seemed to move in slow motion—Paul letting go of the tail, his head swiveling, his sharp and beady blue eyes locking on hers.
The blood left Riley’s head, guilt and fear must have filled her eyes, and she began to ramble. “Oh, that’s Van Gogh hanging there. A little fox I used to feed. I know because he has a torn ear. See it? I loved that little thing. Would you believe his pelt was in a pile of junk behind the Barretts’ house…you know, that day I called 911? It was tangled in the chain of that trap there. I grabbed the whole thing…couldn’t bear to see his remains thrown out with the garbage.”
Paul wasn’t saying a word. He just listened and stared with that I know that you know that I know look. Five minutes ago, it had bothered Riley that he kept looking past her. Now she wished he would look away.
It was hard to tell exactly what he was thinking, but he was thinking, his cop mind sorting through pieces of a puzzle in record time. Wasn’t that why he was chief of police? It’s what he got paid for—solving crimes, picking up on clues, knowing when someone was lying. He studied her, his pupils constricting to little dots of black, as though he didn’t want to grasp what he saw.
Riley’s mouth felt dry. He’d probably make a call any minute, take her down to the station, get a search warrant. She had no other traps in the house, but they’d find the bagged coyote pelts and Poly-fil, still wet from the snow, and the bear urine in one of her coat pockets.
This was it, her moment of reckoning. It was time to get to her rifle. Fuck. Double fuck. She’d almost pulled it off. What a crappy conclusion to an otherwise perfect crime, cleverly carried out. Too bad her brother had shown up. It would have been easier to have Jim shoot her in the back than have to pull the trigger herself.
David…it would have been nice getting to know him, spending more time—introducing him to her pack and running in fur when his wound was healed. She’d waited half her life to find him, to discover who she was, where she came from. Now it was time to go.
Fiona would be devastated. Barbara would be, too, but she’d come to terms with her grief, knowing that Riley had made a conscious choice to sacrifice her life. Peggy would take the news of her death the hardest. Hopefully Barbara would still have drugs in that basket of hers, because Peggy would need to be heavily sedated.
Riley only wished she could see Fiona one last time—hug her, hold her tight, advise her to move on and be happy. She wanted to tell her that she loved her, with all her heart. Edy, too. She was a great kid with a wonderful spirit, certain to grow up and help make the world a kinder place…like Riley hoped she’d done by setting them free. Now, if only Paul would let her go upstairs to set herself free before he took her into custody. She eyed the cuffs hanging on his belt, not sure how it all worked and what would come next.
“Paul? I’m sorry, but could you please give me just one minute? I really need to use the bathroom. Badly.” Riley grimaced and squeezed her thighs together for emphasis.
“Um…sure,” he said, finally breaking his stare, then wandered ahead of her, back into the rec room, and started that sniffling of his.
“Thanks,” Riley said. “I’ll be right back.” She started up the stairs. The story of her life had come to an end. Considering it hadn’t had a happy beginning, she’d never expected it to have a better ending. It would for Fiona, though. Maybe not now, but in the long run.
Riley had made it up only five steps when Paul said, “You know what, Riley? Don’t bother coming back down. I’ll see myself out.”
Stunned, she turned around on the stairs. “You’re leaving?”
Paul didn’t answer. He seemed engaged in some kind of internal dialogue, wrestling with his own thoughts. His h
and was in his pocket now, jingling the coins in his pants, his nose twisting this way and that way as he walked around, glancing at the pool table. “Yep,” he finally said, as if he’d come to an agreement with himself. He took his hand out of his pocket, wiggling it back into his tight leather glove. “I guess the bastard got what was coming to him, huh? What the heck was he thinking out there anyway, drunk as a skunk, illegally trapping in the middle of a snowstorm? Seems like an open-and-shut case, if you ask me.” Paul nodded and went to the door. Speechless, Riley came down the stairs and followed him out.
The sky was cloudless, bluer than blue, snow-covered evergreens sparkling in the sun. “All Saint’s Day,” he said. “Looks more like Christmas morning, doesn’t it?” He stood there, gazing at nature’s splendor, his eyes never meeting hers again.
“It does.”
“Funny, but I see pretty sights like this and think, it’s good to be alive. I didn’t always think that way, you know.” He walked halfway to the silver patrol car, then stopped with his back to her and stared up at the sky. “Once, not too long ago, I was a dead man walking. You brought me back to life, Riley…brought my family back…saved my little girl. We’ll never get our son back, but what’s done is done, what’s gone is gone, right?”
“Right…” Riley watched him continue on.
He opened the car door, reached his fingers underneath his bomber jacket and hoisted up the waist of his pants. “Yep,” he said again, scanning the trees one more time. “Maybe we’ll all be going to a wedding one day soon.”
“Miriam and Scott?”
“If she plays her cards right.” He smiled to himself and got in. “I’m glad I have a daughter to walk down the aisle. If not for you, Doris and I would have buried her, too. That would have killed us for sure.” He puffed his cheeks and shook his head. “You’re a good person, Riley. A good therapist. I guess you know what you’re doing.”
“Thank you, Paul.”
“He started the car, and before he shut the door said, “If I don’t see you, have a good Thanksgiving.”
Coyote Blues Page 37