Sunshine Walkingstick Omnibus

by Celia Roman

  My curiosity got the better of me right about the time he wound down on Paris. “You never told me what you do for a living.”

  He brushed his hands off and leaned against the counter. “I don’t, not much. I have investments and a trust fund. The interest off those covers my basic living expenses.”

  I pressed my lips together over a snide remark about his idea of basic. He might not be sensitive about money, but I sure was. It weren’t the lack so much as the privacy of the matter. Haves or have nots made no difference to me. “So you don’t work?”

  “Nothing you’d consider work. Once or twice a month, I cater private dinners for people who can afford my asking price.”

  “That’s how you got so good with your hands, as a chef?”

  He smiled, slow and easy. “I got so good with my hands, as you put it, by using them. Practice makes perfect.”

  “Then you must be near sainthood.”

  “Believe that all you want, darling.” He scooted around the island and took my hand, pulling me along behind him toward the entertainment center taking up a large chunk of one wall near the sitting area. “I need help choosing music.”

  “Rock,” I said, and he laughed. “Seriously. Can’t go wrong there.”

  “Most of the guests will be a bit more pretentious than you, Sunny, though I’m with you. Rock would be a helluva lot more fun.” He stopped dead in his tracks. “There’s an idea. Let’s have a party at the end of fall. I could make a good old-fashioned gumbo. We’ll have beer and all the rock you can handle and not a single fancy do-dad.”

  “Maybe you should run that by Gregory.”

  “He’ll go along with it. He always does. Besides, if I didn’t drag him out, he’d never socialize.”

  “He struck me as the shy type. Not much on partying.”

  “I make up for it.” He snagged a remote from the coffee table, pressed a button, and something slow and jazzy filled the room. “There. What do you think?”

  I tilted my head and absorbed the mellow saxophone, the shush of a cymbal. “Sounds kinda like rain.”

  David grinned and tugged on my hand, and I went flying into him. Our bodies bumped together and I nearly smooshed his toes trying not to bowl him over. He slid a bare arm around my waist and placed my hand over his heart, holding it there with his other hand. His cheek brushed across my temple and settled there. “That’s better.”

  I eased away, and he pulled me right back where he wanted me, about half a foot too close. I held my hands still on his skin, one on his shoulder, the other over the steady thump of his heartbeat. “I don’t let nobody hold me this tight.”

  “Not even Ranger Rick?”

  I hid a snicker in the side of David’s neck. “We’re still kinda new at the whole guy-girl thing.”

  “Not at the friendship thing, though.”

  “We been friends since we was young’uns.” More or less, depending on who was talking. “Why?”

  “You’ve got that way together.”

  He whirled me in a small circle, and danged if I didn’t go right along with him. This dancing gig was getting easier ever single time, and was pretty fun to boot.

  “What kinda way?” I asked.

  “Easy, familiar.” His shoulder lifted under my hand, then dropped. “He’s infatuated with you.”

  I sputtered out a laugh. “He ain’t neither.”

  “Trust me, Sunny.” David buried his face in my hair and sniffed. “This shampoo is absolutely enchanting.”

  “It’s lemon verbena something or other. I got a year’s supply of shampoo for, ah.” I clapped my jaws together. Reckon David didn’t need to hear as how I sliced and diced a nest of gnomes about as easy as he did them veggies he worked over. “A client. You know, in trade. I get a new one ever month. July’s was this.”

  He sniffed again, and danged if he didn’t sniff his way down to my throat. “What happened to August and September?”

  “Don’t use ‘em up that quick.” I leaned my head away. “What’re you doin’?”

  “Checking to see if you smell good all over, and you do.”

  “You want, I can probably get you some.”

  “I think I like it better on you.” He sighed and left my neck alone, resting his cheek against my head again. “I thought you’d probably shoot me by now.”

  I reared back and met his gaze. “What for?”

  “For taking liberties. For holding you so close and sniffing you.” His hand drifted up my back and tugged on the ends of my hair. “You don’t seem like the type to let a man do that.”

  “Not much,” I admitted. “Ain’t like you’re gonna get outta hand or nothing. I mean, I don’t gotta worry about my womanly virtue, and you ain’t exactly scary.”

  His head dipped closer to mine, and he murmured, “You think I’m safe.”

  “If I didn’t, sure as tootin’ you woulda done lost some blood.”

  “Fame Carson’s niece. At least you came by that honestly.”

  His arm tightened around my back and he pressed his lips to mine, soft and easy. His tongue flicked out, tasting me, and I stiffened. He pulled back and rested his forehead against mine. “You taste like him. Riley.”

  “’Course, I do.” I blew out a shaky breath. “What is it with you and kisses?”

  “I like kissing. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but I… No.” I put a finger over his mouth, just in case he took me liking kisses the wrong way. “I ain’t kissing you again, I don’t care how friendly we get.”

  His slow smile stretched across his mouth. “Darling girl, we’re just getting started.”

  “You’re the biggest flirt I ever met.” I shook my head and scratched his chest lightly. “We gonna get on with the dancing thing or what? I figure with the amount of veggies you chopped up, we need to work up an appetite, and we got things to discuss, too, like who’s wandering around the lake at what hours and whatnot.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He eased away, his smile never fading, and grabbed the remote. “How about a little rock and roll?”

  “Now you’re talking, city boy,” I said, and for the rest of the afternoon, we danced our little hearts out and talked up a storm, and when supper time rolled around, he didn’t serve a single fancy do-dad.

  That week passed quicker’n chicken spit in the wind. I canvassed east and west for Missy’s ring and had not a dram of luck. If somebody took it, they was holding on to it mighty tight. We kept a sharp eye out in case it simply fell out while Missy was walking somewhere, but that didn’t help neither. Poor thing, she weren’t taking it well a’tall, and I didn’t blame her none.

  I had a couple of other cases come in, little piddling ones, and I dealt with ‘em just as quick. An earth gnome was making mischief in old Aunt Sadie’s fall garden. I give it a stern talking to and it settled down right good, though I weren’t fool enough to believe that was the last I’d hear on it. Aunt Sadie promised me a rasher of bacon from the hogs she and her kin was planning on slaughtering in late fall, and I considered it a favorable trade.

  The lady dog Billy Kildare’s Blue Tick sniffed out dug under a fence and made a beeline for the Kildare’s. I brung her back and advised the owners to find peace in knowing the two dogs was sticking close to home.

  There was one case I couldn’t dismiss right off, and it raised my hackles somewhat. Preacher Dryman’s grandmother’s pearls went missing outta the safe where he kept ‘em.

  He weren’t my preacher. I went to the Baptist church, and he was with the Church of God. Different denominations, same holy spirit, I figured. He was a good man, though, respectful of the community, even if he weren’t born into it, and far as I could tell, he never hurt a fly. His kids all lived in Atlanta’s suburbs, making a better living for their own kids than what the mountains provided, and his wife died some years past. Ovarian cancer. She went quick, which was more’n could be said about most.

  I nosed around the neighbors some. Not a one of ‘em seen nor heard a blesse
d thing. That weren’t unusual, seeing as how they lived more’n a quarter mile from the preacher’s tidy home. I promised to dig around for him, though it made me mad having to do it. What kinda sick weirdo stole an heirloom from a preacher anyhow?

  Riley had a day off on Wednesday, and somehow or other, he talked me into letting him cook supper for me. We took advantage of the late summer sun and grilled out, him searing the meat, me propped against his sliding glass door. When he moved back home, he rented an apartment in Clayton. Weren’t much of a yard to speak on, but the inside was nice for all that it was as Spartan as they come. He painted the walls a warm eggshell beige and decorated the interior with a leather sofa and recliner in the living room, a four-seater wooden table in the dining room, and a massive king-sized sleigh bed in his bedroom.

  I didn’t look too hard on that, just in case my pea brain started getting ideas it orta not.

  After supper, Riley put in a movie and we sat side by side on that leather couch of his. His arm snuck around my shoulders about half an hour in, and it felt so good, I leaned my head on that solid chest of his. It was nice to be around him again, nice to be building the friendship we growed out of in high school, and it was extra special nice kissing him goodnight when it was time to go home.

  Bright and early Thursday morning, I drove into town and visited the library, and spent the whole morning digging through back issues of the Tribune. I found the notice of Thaddeus Oliver’s death and the article describing his boating accident, and I read ‘em both real careful. His death appeared to’ve happened exactly like Teus said. Mr. Oliver was out boating one day, slipped and hit his head on the side of the boat, and fell into the water, where he drowned. Least, that’s the story the Tribune’s writer put forth, though I weren’t betting on it being entirely correct.

  I dug back a couple more years just to see what was what, and stumbled on a coupla other odd incidents. Another young girl disappeared a coupla summers back and reappeared a month later. No new tattoos was mentioned, but that didn’t mean nothing. Maybe it was important and maybe it didn’t have nothing to do with a thing. Only time would tell that tale.

  After restacking the back issues, I borrowed a computer and hammered out something close to a résumé describing some of the tamer jobs I done here of late, along with a list of references. If that didn’t do Faith Renault good, I didn’t know what would. When I was done, I made a handful of copies, paid for ‘em at the desk, and headed over to Injun Bob’s for a nice, long chat with BobbiJean. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Preacher Dryman’s grandma’s pearls, but she promised to watch what come in and out real close.

  She and me eat a late lunch together, and then, since I had a coupla hours to kill, I went back to the library and pulled down old issues of Foxfire Magazine. They done a ton of interviews on the elder members of my family back in the magazine’s heyday, and I liked reading ‘em. As I was thumbing through the older issues, my eye caught on one containing a wishing well full of local legends. I pulled it down and settled into a chair, and read it straight through from cover to cover in one go, paying particular attention to the ones surrounding the lakes. Nothing really jumped out at me, not nothing probable nohow, so when it was time to go, I reshelved the magazine and walked across the street to the courthouse for the County Commissioners’ meeting.

  The meeting room was plumb full by the time I arrived and the commissioners was already ranged out at a table near the back, talking amongst themselves under the rumble of the crowd. I spotted Riley standing to one side and squeezed through acquaintances and strangers alike to get to him.

  He saw me coming and them hazel eyes of his lit with a soft glow. Soon as I reached him, he tucked me against his side, holding me there with an arm around my back and a hand on my waist. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I reckoned I orta come since water issues is on the agenda.”

  “Me and you both. You eat yet?”

  “Was planning on eating a sandwich at home after.”

  “We can do better than that.”

  I cut a side-eyed glance at him. “Who said anything about we?”

  “I did. Let’s go to Dairy Queen. We can get burgers and ice cream cones, and sit in the pine tree. It’ll be just like old times.”

  I snickered. “That tree’s done growed up on us, Riley. Limb’s too high for sitting on now.”

  “Then we’ll sit on a picnic bench. Come on, Sunny. It’ll be fun.”

  “Ain’t you tired of eating with me yet?”

  “Nope.” He settled against the wall, one ankle crossed over the other, and his thumb rubbed up and down my ribs through my t-shirt. “So it’s settled. We’ll go to Dairy Queen and have ice cream.”

  I opened my mouth on a retort and didn’t even get a peep out. The chairman called the meeting to order, overriding any protest I mighta made, and the crowd settled into silence. Old business was taken care of in a grinding drone of monotony. I yawned and slumped into the cradle of Riley’s arm. Lordy, next time I couldn’t sleep, I was gonna replay this meeting in my head. Orta put me right out.

  They finally dragged around to the reason me and Riley was there. An out-of-town company recently bought one of the old industrial sites what’d gone outta business in the ‘90s. The building was falling down and beyond repair, but that weren’t the problem. The new company, represented by one Phillip Oliver, wanted to let the waste water in the site’s reservoir out into the local water system so they could fill in the hole what’d held it and build something new on top.

  I zeroed in on Mr. Oliver. He was a tall, handsome man in spite of his sharp features and cold eyes, and was polished to a shine in a navy blue suit what fit him like he was born in it. I nudged Riley in the stomach and leaned in close. “That Thaddeus Oliver’s git?”

  Riley’s mouth brushed my cheek. “Yeah, I think it is.”

  I nodded and swallowed, wetting my parched throat. It’d gone desert dry the minute Riley’s breath touched my skin. My mind leapt to the night ahead. If I played my cards right, I bet he’d kiss me after we et them ice cream cones.

  I thinned my lips, hiding a grin, and concentrated on Oliver Junior’s flat voice. He had reports and charts and test results what didn’t mean spit to me, but all of it pointed to the water being safe enough to release, according to him. I weren’t the only one with doubts. Skeptical murmurs sprung up amongst the crowd, one or two loud enough for ever body to hear.

  Seemed nobody but Mr. Oliver wanted that waste dumped into the local water supply. He didn’t live here and wouldn’t have to face the consequences, but we did.

  The commissioners debated the matter back and forth, weighing the promise of new industry against the harm that water might do to the local environment. The crowd grew restless, but there weren’t nothing we could do. The chairman refused to open discussion to the public, more fool him. I reckoned he musta wanted folks showing up on his doorstep at all hours over the next few weeks, complaining about the meeting. After more’n half an hour mulling it over, the commissioners tabled the matter and promised to have an open period for local input before a decision was made.

  They said something else about hiring an independent water testing company and consulting the EPD, but it was nearly lost under the angry rumbles of people leaving the meeting. I didn’t bother hiding my disgust neither. Local input only meant the commissioners was gonna do what they wanted, locals be damned. Weren’t the first time they acted on the side of prospective jobs and industry to the harm of residents. It weren’t like I blamed ‘em or nothing. They wanted to attract honest businesses into the county same as ever body else, but was tainting our groundwater really the way to go about it?

  Once outside, Riley led me through the milling crowd and introduced me to Phillip Oliver. I shook his hand, real polite like, and stuck his business card in the front pocket of my jeans. “You know anything about what’s tearing up docks and such around the cove?”

  His cold eyes fixed on me from
a foot above my head. “I’m not around often enough to notice such activities, Ms. Walkingstick, although I appreciate your looking into it. The lake meant a lot to my father. I’d like to find out what’s going on and deal with it before any further damage is done.”

  I walked away from that conversation with a funny tingle running down my spine. Maybe I was being paranoid or cynical or something, but it felt like Phillip Oliver knowed more’n he was letting on. Riley slid his hand into mine, distracting me from Oliver Junior. We drove to Dairy Queen in his work truck, and danged if I didn’t let him talk me into climbing that tree, just like we done when we was kids.

  Chapter Twelve

  I checked my mailbox on the way back home that night and discovered that week’s Tribune folded around a handful of bills and junk mail.

  Teus. Lordy. Somebody needed to catch ahold of that man and rein him in some.

  Since I had it out, I read through it anyhow. Weren’t nothing in it I wanted to see, about like I figured, but at least I only found one close kinfolk in the police blotter. Musta been a record.

  Next day, I hightailed it out to the cove and caught Tom Arrowood’s daughters hooking school. Mercedes, the eldest, answered the door. She was my height maybe and woulda been pretty ‘cept for the sullen twist to her mouth. “We’re not interested.”

  “Good thing I ain’t selling nothing, then.” I dug a business card outta my pocket and handed it to her. “Sunshine Walkingstick. Your step-mom hired me to figure out what was messing with your dock.”

  Her deep blue eyes hardened. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “You sure? Way I hear tell, you and your sister spend a lotta time out here when nobody else is home. Seems like if something’s going on, the two of you woulda heard it.”

  A soft voice hissed something sharp from behind the door and Mercedes half-turned toward it.