Sunshine Walkingstick Omnibus

by Celia Roman

  “Oh, my word,” she said, and her voice was so faint, I scarce heard it.

  Took a few minutes to calm her down, and why not? No shame in being skeered of the unknown. Probably wise, as a matter of fact, and Miss Jenny weren’t nothing if not wise. She recited directions to her house on a shaky promise to meet me there in an hour or so, and I hung up speculating on whether my kin was causing trouble among ordinary citizens now or if something more sinister was after Henry’s almost teacher.

  Miss Jenny lived on the Warwoman side of Clayton, just inside the city limits not twenty minutes from Jazz and BobbiJean, nor ol’ Aunt Sadie, neither. I got distracted by Old Mother’s seeing and neglected my active cases, but no more. Riley weren’t here to stop me, and since the doc cleared me, even if he tried, I could argue him down.

  A pang seized my heart swift like and my breath hitched. Riley filled a mite too much of me, here of late. It was natural, sure. We was spending a lotta time together, but this worry was new, consuming. It et at me, nibble, nibble, nibble, like an ant gnawing away at a dead mouse one tiny bite at a time. Pretty soon, weren’t nothing gonna be left of me, I didn’t watch out.

  Couldn’t help the worry, though.

  I shoved it down, hiding it deep, and checked the knife strapped to my ankle. To be on the safe side, I tucked the 1911 into its holster and brung it along. Couldn’t fire it inside the city limits. Dang ordinances forbade it, but if a monster come leaping at me or Miss Jenny, I’d shoot first and pay the fines later.

  Miss Jenny’s rental was nestled into a nook off Polly Gap Road, surrounded by woods on three sides. Like her, it was neat as a pin and pretty as a button, and that weren’t no lie. The concrete driveway shone bright under the morning sun and was a ruler’s edge alongside the green, green yard. Her house was stout and white, and capped by gray shingles. Red shutters bracketed the windows and a covered porch jutted away from the matching front door.

  It was exactly the sort of domicile I expected a single teacher to live in.

  Her car, a white Prius, was sitting in the driveway in front of the open garage door. I pulled in and parked the IROC behind it, and got a good gander at the garage. Nothing outta place. Nothing tore to pieces. Fact was, weren’t much of nothing in there nohow. A bicycle hung on the far wall on padded metal hooks. A shiny black tool chest hunkered down on a bare wood table in one corner and a large plastic trash can occupied the space behind the two concrete stairs leading from the garage into the house.

  That was it. I sworn, it was the most Spartan garage I ever seen. Weren’t even an oil stain on the concrete floor.

  I got outta the IROC the same time as Miss Jenny slid outta her car and met her halfway. She was wearing an old college sweatshirt over jeans what looked to be about the same age, and her blonde hair was pulled into a jaunty ponytail. It was the most casual I ever seen her. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was still in college ‘stead of a full growed woman in charge of herding a passel of young’uns through their ABCs.

  She rubbed her hands down the outside of her thighs and gifted me a sheepish smile. “Thanks for coming over.”

  “It’s what I do.” ‘Sides which, only a heartless, no account loser left a woman sweet as Miss Jenny in the lurch. “You wanna show me where you seen what?”

  “Sure. Let me get my keys.”

  She retraced her steps to her car, leaned inside, and come out holding a small ring of keys. Her hands shook ever so slightly, clanking the keys against themselves as she led me into the garage and unlocked the door.

  The inside of her house was just like the outside, tidy and neat and not a thing where it ortn’t be. I scraped my boots along the doormat, hoping against hope nothing was on the soles what’d stain the white linoleum in the kitchen and the beige carpet springing up beyond.

  Where I usually wandered, clean soles was probably too much to ask for.

  “You don’t got no school today?” I asked.

  She shook her head, bobbing her ponytail. “I took a personal day.”

  “Hunh.” Me, I woulda placed money on them personal days being few and far between where Miss Jenny was concerned, but what did I know? On the other hand, weren’t ever day a monster come creeping through your yard, neither. “You remember anything else since you called me?”

  “Just a scream and a shadow, really, and the feel of evil.” She pressed a palm to her heart and shuddered. “I know how crazy that must sound.”

  “Not so much,” I murmured. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “This way.”

  She pivoted on a sneakered foot and strode outta the kitchen through the dining room into the living room, and turned left into a short hallway. Framed pictures lined the walls, splashing color along the plain white. Miss Jenny graduating from college, surrounded by the proud smiles of her family. A younger Miss Jenny sitting astride a great beast of a horse, jumping over a fence.

  But most was of her young’uns, the kids what was hers five days a week between school bus rides. My eyes lit on one in particular, a framed snapshot of a young boy what’d never made it into her classroom ‘cept to meet her.

  Henry.

  Miss Jenny’s quiet footsteps stopped beside me. “He was a lovely boy.”

  I sucked grief in on a deep breath, storing it inside where it wouldn’t hurt nobody. “He was.”

  “I was so looking forward to teaching him.” Miss Jenny slid a pale pink fingertip along the edge of the frame and a sad smile trembled across her mouth. “So bright. So much potential.”

  The injustice of it all, of losing the pure love of my only child, swelled up in my throat, choking out the words like a weed clogging the end of a water pipe.

  “You were a good mother,” she murmured, and tears sprang into my eyes, uncalled. “If he hadn’t wandered into the woods that day. If he’d stayed on the trail.”

  “He didn’t wander.” The words popped outta my mouth before I could stop ‘em. “I sent him, Miss Jenny, sent him up to Fame’s to borrow some sugar.”

  Her arm dropped to her side and her gray eyes fixed on me, calm as the sky before a storm. “Fame?”

  “My uncle.” I shook my head. Who he was weren’t no part of the tale, were it? “A monster got my boy, took him right off the path and dragged him into the deep wood.”

  “Sunny,” she breathed out and her fingers clutched my elbow, digging deep into skin and bone through my jacket. “I didn’t know.”

  “Not many do.” I swallowed down the tears, pushed ‘em away. I didn’t deserve tears. I lost the right to cry over my baby the day I killed him. “Was my fault he died, Miss Jenny. I shoulda never trusted the deep wood.”

  “Sunshine, no. It wasn’t your fault.” She tugged on my arm and stepped closer, and in the unlit hallway, her eyes took on the luminous glow of a believer. “Things happen, things beyond our control. We all find a way to death in the end.”

  “His coulda come a little later.”

  “Much later,” she agreed, and her hand fell away.

  My elbow ached where she’d gripped me. I rotated the pain away and nodded toward her bedroom. “Show me where you seen your monster.”

  “In here.” She turned and walked away, and entered the room at the end of the hallway. Soon as I slid in behind her, she pointed toward the two windows placed side by side on one wall. “These overlook the front yard. That’s where I saw the shadow.”

  I stepped closer and lifted the sage green curtains away. Blinds was under ‘em, turned down to block the light coming in or to keep somebody from peeping into the bedroom, one or t’other. I flicked one slat up and peered into the front yard. Sunshine streamed down, casting a short shadow of the treetops against the grass.

  “You hear it on the porch before or after you seen the shadow?” I asked.

  “Before.” She sank onto the end of her bed, denting the eggplant colored duvet. “It was a weird sound, like scraping and thudding at the same time.”

  “Then the shadow?”
<
br />   Her ruler straight posture stiffened. “Leaves crunching.”

  Good. She’d remembered a little more. “How big was the shadow?”

  She stood and walked over, and slashed a hand across the windows just below her boobs. “About there, but it didn’t look like it was cast.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It looked like it was right against the window.” Miss Jenny shuddered and backed away from the windows. “Whatever it was.”

  “You recall the shape?”

  “Hunched over, like an animal’s…” She crooked her arm and slapped her upper back, below her neck. “Haunches? Like a large wolf.”

  “Best take a gander at the porch.”

  We tromped out the front door, and there they was, faint divets in the concrete, like somebody punched nails into it. Which they mighta done. But what kinda critter was heavy enough to dig holes in concrete just from walking? ‘Less maybe it stopped long enough to flex its paws or whatever it walked on, breaking the concrete

  I followed the marks across the porch through the flattened grass where it drug its feet, and at the windows happened to look up. A coupla hairs was stuck in the edge of one screen, right about where Miss Jenny thought the shadow fell.

  I faced the woods, hooked my hands on my hips, and mulled it over. Something big and hairy walking on all fours, something what give off the stench of evil so strong, a normal human could feel it.

  It weren’t much to go on. Fact was, it weren’t enough for me to begin to narrow down the possibilities.

  I trudged back to where Miss Jenny stood with her arms wrapped around her waist and her shoulders hunched. “You got another place to stay for a while? Just ‘til I can figure out what’s doing here.”

  “The hotel.” She shrugged and them gray eyes of hers slid to the side. “I’ll be fine there.”

  Like as not, that was a whopper. I narrowed my eyes on her as a crafty idea popped into my head, and shoved down the guilt accompanying it. Introducing two lovers of all things Greek weren’t throwing Miss Jenny under the bus, ‘specially now when she needed protection of the supernatural kind.

  “I got a friend,” I said, careful to keep my voice casual and innocent. “He won’t mind having company for a few days.”

  One hand crept to her throat and her fingers toyed with the ragged edge of her sweatshirt, like it was pearls instead of fabric. “Oh, I couldn’t impose.”

  “No imposition,” I said right off. “Besides. I need to camp out here for a while and see if I can catch another glimpse of that critter. Won’t rightly know what it is ‘til I do.”

  “You won’t know,” she said faintly, and I grinned, not even bothering to hide the triumph shining through. I hooked her good with that’un, and hooking her was the hard part. Once Teus got a gander at Miss Jenny Brookshire, he’d forget all about pursuing scrawny ol’ me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I promised Miss Jenny I’d meet her later on that night at her house so I could get a key to the door and she could grab some clothes. Didn’t tell her about Teus. Forewarned was forearmed, and the less prepared she was to meet a guy looking like him, the more susceptible she’d be to his charm.

  That was my theory, anyhow, and it seemed as good a one as any.

  Soon as I saw her off, I headed toward Jazz and BobbiJean’s. If I remembered correct, they was on their honeymoon still, but the least I could do was check in on their laying hens.

  I stopped by Aunt Sadie’s on the way and found her cabin empty as a plate licked clean. Thin smoke drifted outta the chimney and spiraled toward the ground on a light breeze. Rain later, maybe. She’d probably had a neighbor cart her to the grocery store to fill her cupboard before the weather set in.

  We sure did need it.

  I ambled along to my original destination, and sure enough, Jazz and BobbiJean was nowhere to be seen. A note was tacked to the front door, addressed to me. I tore it loose and skimmed the nigh on illegible scrawl.

  Sunshine of my heart.

  I snickered. That Jazz. Poor BobbiJean had her hands full there.

  Gave the chickens to a neighbor to care for while we’re gone. Whatever was getting ‘em moved on, or left the biddies alone one. See you soon, darling. All our love.

  I folded the note and stuffed it into a back pocket as I strode around the side of the house into the back yard. Wouldn’t hurt to take one last look at the scene of the crime, so to speak, even if whatever’d et them chickens skeedaddled.

  The coop was empty and clean, though a faint aroma of chicken poop and corn feed lingered. I picked my way around it, setting my feet careful like in the dry as bone dirt surrounding it. A faint impression of a pawprint caught my eye. I knelt beside it and traced a fingertip around its edges. The metacarpal pad, the equivalent of the ball of a human’s foot, was bigger’n my palm.

  The critter what set his paws down musta been Mastiff huge, easy, maybe bigger.

  Weren’t no painter done that, nor Ol’ Blue and Lady.

  I sighed and brushed my palms off on my thighs, stood and scouted around for another print or sign of some sort. A few feet toward the woods, beyond the protective fence out in the grassy verge separating the garden from the yard proper, the yellowing grass bent, forming a swooshed vee. Something’d walked along here, likely the critter, but the vegetation was too thick, the ground too packed for it to’ve left much of an impression.

  I followed the trail anyhow, trying to gauge the size of its stride, its weight, anything what might shed some light on its nature. The trail ended inches from the creek bank. I squatted there and studied another pawprint, this’un a hair deeper’n the one left at the coop. It’d stopped here, that critter, and balled its muscles up for a jump, ‘less I missed my guess. I glanced across the narrow creek, judging the distance, and shook my head. Surely it hadn’t made the leap in a single bound.

  And I weren’t wading the creek in fifty degree weather in my favorite boots to find out.

  I heaved myself upright into a long stretch, scrubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Reckon I told BobbiJean a whopper when I promised to catch the critter what’d et her and Jazz’s chickens. I’d keep after it, for a while anyhow. A promise was a promise, and I done my best to keep what few I made.

  I tromped back to my car and pulled out my cellphone, thumbed into my contacts and dialed David’s number. He answered on the third ring, just as I was settling behind the IROC’s steering wheel.

  “Hello, darling girl.”

  I twisted the key in the ignition and waited for the engine to roar to life. “David, honey pie, sweetie.”

  “You want something.” Humor lifted his voice into a near laugh. “It must be dire for you to flatter me with sweet nothings.”

  “Close enough. You got Teus’s number?”

  “You’re calling me for another man’s phone number? I’m wounded, darling, positively cut to the quick.”

  “Oh, lay off,” I said, but laughter underscored the words. I manhandled the seatbelt across my scrawny torso one-handed and locked it in place, then shifted into reverse. “I got somebody I want him to meet.”

  “Do tell.”

  In the back of my mind, I could just about see David leaning his elbows on his kitchen counter, preparing to indulge in a good spate of gossip. Just like old times, it was, before I busted up the Greenwood Five’s little side business and singlehandedly ruined David’s relationship with a good man.

  Well, not singlehandedly, but near enough.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror and steered the IROC around ‘til it pointed in the right direction, and away I went as a better idea formulated itself. “You busy tonight?”

  “Terribly. There’s the laundry and the mopping and the—“”

  “Oh, now, I ain’t got time for your shenanigans, David Eckstrom. You want in on the action or not?”

  “A case?”

  “Yup. Got a critter scaring a local schoolmarm.”

  “Dangerous?”
<
br />   I mulled that over as I turned onto Warwoman Road. Seeing Teus’s pet catfish swimming around ‘neath the surface of Lake Burton scared a coupla years off poor ol’ David. Maybe taking him on a stakeout weren’t such a grand idea, ‘specially when I was clueless as to what shape and form the critter took.

  “I’m in,” he said before I could take it back. “Anything to get out of laundry duty.”

  “Dress warm. Bring a gun.”

  Static stretched between us for a minute, then he said, real quiet like, “You really are in it this time, aren’t you, Sunny?”

  “Could be. I reckon we’ll find out. Meet me at my house around four, wouldja?”

  “Of course, darling. Anything for my sunshine.”

  I shook my head again and hung up, and tapped the gas pedal for good measure. The IROC lurched forward on a surge of power, slicing through the wind like a stallion charging into battle.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At four sharp, David rapped on the trailer’s door, then stuck his head inside. “Hello, hello.”

  I turned away from the kitchen counter and the mess of pre-packaged snacks strewn across it, and waved him in. “Ready for your big adventure?”

  “I was born ready, darling.” He shut the door behind him and jerked his chin at the critter sitting quiet and calm in its cage. “Should I even ask?”

  I grinned. “You could, but I ain’t got no answers for you. A client caught it in her garden. Give it to me to identify.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll do your best.” He shrugged a compact, black backpack off his shoulder and dropped it onto the couch. “Please tell me you’re not planning on bringing that junk food along on the stakeout.”

  “We gotta eat.”

  “Which is why I whipped up a healthy meal for us.”

  I eyed his bag like it was a snake coiled to strike. “Not them fancy do-dads.”

  “Would I do that to you?”

  “Depends on whether I done something to you first.” I shifted back toward the mess of snacks and began shoving bags back into their original packages. I’d never admit it ‘less I had to, but even David’s fancy do-dads was better’n most of this junk. “You took the part serious.”