I reached out and took her wrist as she turned. “Please don’t. It was Calla, wasn’t it? Calla told you that I was an indexer, didn’t she?” I wondered what else Calla had told this woman, how well she had known her.
The woman stopped and froze, uncomfortable with my physical intrusion, but she didn’t try to pull away from me. She just stood there like a helpless child, caught by an adult who refused to let her go. “Yes,” she whispered. “It was Calla. Dear, sweet, Calla.”
The dry, red rage that I initially saw in her eyes suddenly turned moist. Tears escaped the corner of each eye, and she just stared at me without apology or effort to wipe them away. I knew the look. She was as broken up and confused by Calla’s death as I was.
“She didn’t do it,” the woman said angrily, her lip twisted upward in a fit. “I know it as certain as the moon is rising as we speak. Calla Eltmore didn’t kill herself. I know it; I just know it to be true.” Then her lip broke and quivered, an initial shock that trailed down her throat and grew in intensity as it did. I was certain that she was going to collapse, to shatter into a million pieces. I let go of her wrist and reached out to her, to catch her in case she fell—but the woman stood fast, her mood changing completely and assuredly in the blink of an eye. She suddenly looked afraid, like she had spoken out loud when she shouldn’t have, like she had let out a deep, dark, secret, or, even worse, that I was going to judge her as some crazy loon who should be feared.
“I know,” I offered her. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t think Calla killed herself, either, and the sheriff needs to know what I think, what I saw when I looked at Calla.”
“They won’t listen,” the woman said, as a relieved look fell across her face—I’m not the only one. “They will just send you on your way like you don’t know a thing.”
“Calla was right-handed,” I said.
The woman nodded. “And the wound was on her left temple. I told him that. I told him, and he stared at me with a blank face and pursed lips. I’m not even sure he really heard me.” She stopped, caught her breath, and pulled a handkerchief out of her clutch and wiped her eyes. “I really must get home. Claude will be worried about me.”
“There must be a way we can convince them that they’re overlooking something. If Calla didn’t kill herself, then someone . . .”
“. . . Killed her,” the woman said. “I told him that, too, and I was hustled out the door. ‘A murderer is free,’ I yelled like a mad harpy sent over the cliffs to meet my fate.”
“By the sheriff?”
“No, he wasn’t in. It was some deputy.”
I glanced down the hall and imagined Guy standing there, waiting to tell me the same thing he had told this woman. He already had once, and I was sure he would send me packing again, too. But today wasn’t the day. I’d have to come back when Duke was in.
“I’ll talk to them,” I said.
The woman dropped her handkerchief into her clutch and snapped it shut. “It won’t do you a bit of good. We’re just two nosy women who shouldn’t leave the kitchen. We should just shut up and mind our own goddamned business.”
The swear word resounded sharply in the empty hallway. She spun and departed without saying another word, exiting toward the entrance of the courthouse without so much as a goodbye or good day.
I watched her hurry off for a long second and considered what she had said, until I realized that I didn’t even know her name.
We had both come to the same conclusion, had come to the same place to restore Calla’s reputation, if that were possible, and had shared a fear and knowledge that needed to be spread to the rest of the world, and yet, I didn’t know who she was. Plain and simple, I had never seen her before, not until she’d fallen down the stairs of the library, fleeing it like she was fleeing the courthouse—in a fit of emotion that suggested she was capable of saying or doing anything.
CHAPTER 26
Darkness had not drained the wind of any of its power. Just the opposite, it seemed, as I made my way out of the building. There was a brutal force to the heavy gusts, along with a cold undercurrent, a familiar gift from the upper reaches of Alberta. Winter’s blunt calling card made me shiver, and I was forced to acknowledge the changing season.
A pair of headlights swept across my waist at the same time as I pinned down my dress so it wouldn’t blow up to my neck. One of these days I was going to set aside my pride and expectations and wear my worn Levi’s and muck boots into town instead of my handmade dress and best shoes. To heck with expectations and social demands.
The car edged alongside me almost close enough that I could touch it, close enough that I could see it clearly in all of its glory in the parking lot lights. The engine purred like a kitten sated on fresh milk. The car looked like a brand new Cadillac, a 1965 model, a two-door coupe, beige, but most likely called something fancy like champagne. Hank would have known for sure. He knew all of the cars and models, which by default, sitting next to him in the truck as he drove and identified them, so did I.
The woman with the broken glasses was behind the steering wheel. She was alone, sobbing, her face aglow from the instrument panel, lost in a world of her own. I wondered how she could see to drive.
I put my hand out like I was hailing a cab to stop her, but she ignored me, pressed on the accelerator, and sped out of the parking lot. As she passed, I saw the flaw in the beautiful, expensive Cadillac: The windshield had been shattered, although not broken completely through, and there was a basketball-sized dent in the front driver’s-side fender. The damage seemed out of place, but not surprising for some reason. The woman had looked broken the first time we’d met, and this time had been no different.
I stood and watched as the red taillights disappeared into the night. The wind buffeted me, all the while my ears were cocked for any sign of danger. A sad feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. There was more to this woman than met the eye. I was sure of it, and I had to consider what she really knew about Calla’s life and, ultimately, her death.
My first inclination had been to drive straight back to St. Joseph’s and tell Hank about my conversation with the woman. Afterward, I imagined, I would climb into a spot in his bed and be lulled to sleep by the constant beep of the monitors that gave proof that my one true love in this life still breathed, still lived. But I knew he would send me off, certain that I needed to walk and sleep in the purified air of our home. Shep would dance and rest at my feet, and the call of an open book lying on my desk would be too strong to resist. Hank was right. I did need to be home, to feel safe inside my house, restoring as much of my energy as I could, even though leaving him pained me more than I could say.
The coming day demanded my attendance at a funeral I did not want to attend, or even believe was occurring, but I had no choice. I hoped to see Calla one more time. I hoped to wish her a good journey and promise her that I would find her killer—especially since no one else seemed interested in doing such a thing except for me and a harried, unnamed women. Once there, I hoped to look a little closer at Calla’s temple, just to make sure I saw what I had the first time. I honestly needed to reinforce my thinking, convince myself that I wasn’t crazy as an exhausted loon mistaking the shimmering wet road for a lake after a long flight to nowhere. It would be a hard landing.
I climbed into the Studebaker reluctantly. In the blink of an eye, I was free of the confines of town. The headlights cut into the darkness and led me home like a leash, lighting just enough of the way and its landmarks for me to know that I was on the right path. I smoked one cigarette after another, lighting the tip of a new one with the dying cinder of the old one. I felt like I had to keep the flame going, like I couldn’t let the hot orange tip die out, even though the dashboard lighter offered an unlimited amount of fire.
I had the window cracked to vent the smoke and the heater on to keep my feet warm in my dress shoes. The radio sang distantly, turned down low just so I wouldn’t feel like I was the only human being in the world. E
ven in space, in that odd-looking, claustrophobic capsule, John Glenn had had radio contact with another human, at least until he burned through the atmosphere. I had read that everyone in Houston held their breath during that period of silence, fearing the worst, that he had been burned alive. I felt like that, like I was holding my breath until I arrived home, on my land, where I could be human, myself.
Shep, of course, was happy to see me again. I thought he was going to knock me down as I dug into my purse for the house key. Jaeger had left on the stoop light and a lamp burning inside the house so it appeared as if someone was home while I was away. I rarely used the key, since the front door was hardly ever locked, so it wasn’t in a handy or specific place in my purse. I noticed immediately that the woman’s glasses were gone, and for a brief second I regretted returning them to her. They were my only link to finding out who she was.
I stepped into the house, and Shep pushed past me, barking and circling in the front room, his bushy black and white tail wagging a million miles an hour. You would have thought I’d been gone a month. But I understood. It felt like that to me, too.
The house was just like I’d left it, a museum dedicated to my life and Hank’s, the warmth of our family memorabilia all in its place. It was easy to tell that the house had been closed up longer than it normally was. The air was still, and the smell of it was thick with the frass of the box-elder bugs, who’d most likely had a heyday in my absence, burrowing into places I could only imagine to survive the winter. But there was a smell that was missing, one that I noticed right away. It was the antiseptic, medical smell that came with Hank’s condition. It was gone when he was, which was something I didn’t think I could get used to, now or ever.
CHAPTER 27
Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. I could have sworn I’d heard a coyote, that a nearby yip had roused me from my fitful attempt to rest, but Shep still lay at my feet with his ears relaxed, his sleepy eyes searching mine for the reason that I had stirred awake. If trouble lurked nearby, Shep would be the first to know it.
The bedroom was dark, along with the rest of the house, and there was no moon to offer a glow of light beyond the windows. I was covered in the black, confining shroud of night. Out of habit, I reached over to touch Hank’s chest, but my hand sank to the down filled mattress. There was nothing to comfort me other than Shep’s watchful presence and the Remington .22 stuffed behind the kitchen door. I needed more than that . . . I needed more.
I put my head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the world around me. My ears were met with dead silence. The wind had retreated, as it often did at that time of the night, and no other creature stirred. Even the box-elder bugs and mice rested. It felt like I was the only person in the world, stranded and alone on a planet of my own making. I knew I was feeling guilty for leaving Hank at the hospital, but it was more than that. I missed knowing that Calla Eltmore waited for my queries at the other end of the phone line. I was surrounded by death, loss, and sickness, and they ate at me in a way I didn’t know how to deal with.
Going back to sleep in such a state was impossible, so I got up, put my housecoat on, and made my way to my desk, my island of salvation. There was order there, or at least order waiting to be made. I could cultivate an index, put words where they needed to go so ideas and thoughts could be found by someone with a question. I could give someone else what I needed. That was a small comfort, but the harder questions that life served up were beyond my reach.
My shoebox full of index cards for Common Plants sat on the desk next to my Underwood typewriter, along with my red pen and reading glasses. Everything waited on me, and for that I was glad. I needed a bit of normalcy.
There was nothing left to do but compile the index, type up the first draft, and see what it was that I had made. Most of the time, I saw the index forming in my mind, neat rows of words, garden plots that needed to be fertilized and weeded. But I couldn’t edit anything until I had all of the entries on the page.
A
amorpha canescens (leadplant), 2
arctostaphylos (kinnikinnik), 50
K
kinnikinnik (arctostaphylos), 50
L
leadplant (amorpha canescens), 2
G
shrubs, 2, 23, 50, 76, 191
leadplant (amorpha canescens), 2
kinnikinnik (arctostaphylos), 50
I worked my way through the As—arctostaphylos (kinnikinnik), amorpha canescens (leadplant)—leading with the scientific names for the plants, as well as double posting them by their common name under their appropriate letter. Leadplant and kinnikinnik were shrubs, so they were also posted under the shrubs main entry. The more access points the reader had into the text, the better. Questions were as variable as the reader.
Of course, I still had to get through all of the grasses, flowering perennials, perennial ferns, shrubs, trees, and vines, and enter the elusive musk thistle were it belonged. But as I typed the entries onto the page from each index card in the A section, I had to try harder than I usually did to focus my mind on the task.
Compiling the index was the end game in the indexing process, nearly the last task before I sent the document off to New York, never to be seen or thought of again—at least until Calla proudly showed me one of my indexes in the book she’d purchased for the library. And that was where I wavered, of course. I seriously doubted that Delia Finch would be as interested as Calla had been in stocking the library with the books that held my indexes.
I stopped typing once I could get no more entries on the page, stood up from my desk, grabbed my cigarettes, and made my way outside. Shep padded after me with curiosity and confusion in his amber eyes. It was too early to feed the chickens.
The predawn air was cold; the temperature had dipped down into the mid-thirties. A heat wave in winter, but nothing more than a tease in October. The air was dry, which made it seem warmer. After living all of my life in North Dakota, I was hardened, accustomed to the cold. I hadn’t thought to grab my robe or a jacket to keep myself warm.
I lit a Salem, drew in the cool menthol, and held it for a second longer than I normally would have. No matter what I did, I couldn’t tamp down my agitation.
I exhaled the smoke, and it obscured the black, cloud-free sky, smudged the stars so they looked even more distant and unreachable. That was how I felt about the truth, about what had happened to Calla. My mind was cluttered, and I knew right then what I had to do to calm myself down. I took a couple more quick puffs off the Salem, scanned the dark horizon for anything out of place, then nickered Shep along with a click of the tongue so he would follow me back inside the house. Not that he needed goading; it was just habit. Shep had been happy to be invited to live in the house. I hurried to my desk, slid in a fresh piece of paper, and started typing again. Only this time I was indexing my mind, not the shoebox full of Common Plants cards. B was the most obvious section to start at:
B
Browning, Robert
Browning, Elizabeth B.
D
death, surprise of
depression, no sign of
E
Eltmore, Calla
murder not suicide
no known enemies
no note left
F
Frakes, Herbert
found Calla
no violent history
G
gun, what kind?
M
Men and Women
by favorite poet—Calla
woman dropped
motive?
What don’t I know?
What to gain?
S
Suspects
Herbert, found Calla
woman at library
W
woman at library
doesn’t believe suicide
dropped Men and Women
need to find
I exhaled deeply and sat back in my chair. I
was grasping at straws. A good index was meant to answer questions, but also raise some. Any kind of research typically prompted the researcher into uncharted territory with the information they stumbled across. But I had found no answers. I had only managed to raise more questions.
I had no idea who had killed Calla or why. For the life of me, I couldn’t begin to wrap my mind around the fact that that was the truth—that Calla had been murdered. But murder was far more believable than her having killed herself, especially now that someone else had validated my opinion.
I only had two suspects, and they weren’t really suspects. I only included Herbert because he’d found Calla, but honestly I couldn’t imagine that Herbert Frakes would hurt a fly, much less shoot Calla in the head to make the murder look like suicide. He had no violent history that I was aware of. And the woman with the broken glasses? I didn’t even know her name. All I knew was that she believed what I believed, that Calla had been killed. That certainly didn’t point toward a cold-blooded killer—she walked into the police department, for heaven’s sake. I knew she drove a brand new Cadillac with a broken windshield and a dented fender—a car like that shouldn’t be too hard to find in Dickinson—and that she was leaving the library with a book of poetry that was by Calla’s favorite poet. That could have been coincidence and nothing more. I really needed to find the woman and find out what she knew about Calla. But that seemed unlikely. I had too much to do.
I kept thinking that Hank and Guy Reinhardt were right, that I should just leave things to the police, tell Duke what I’d seen when I saw him and leave it at that. It was obvious that I wasn’t very good at playing Sherlock Holmes—but I owed it to Calla to find out the truth. I know she would have done the same thing for me.
CHAPTER 28
As the sun leapt up from the horizon, I started to feel a little more hopeful. I had been able to type up half of the compiled index for the Common Plants book once I’d set aside my own personal index. My lack of information about Calla, her death, and the women with the broken glasses had ended in frustration and sadness.
See Also Deception Page 12