“What is that thing?” I asked, politely not mentioning his fall.
“A three-toed sloth.” Graham brushed at a twig sticking out of the loops of his navy sweater. The twig left a snagging hole, which would surely have upset the knitter if it had been seen. I had to conclude Graham had not knitted it himself nor had he ever disrespected a hand knit in front of the knitter. A grandmother, perhaps who was only too happy to tell him how many hours were involved in creating something to supply his comfort. No one made that mistake with my grandmother’s hand knits. I still had pristine sweaters, mittens, and hats from childhood in my closet because of just the same sort of behavior when I was still a preschooler.
“Three toes, huh. Per foot or all together?”
“According to the Internet, they’ve got three per foot.” I looked up and tried to do a count of my own. You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. The creature looked like it had gotten its neck tangled up in a taffy-pulling machine. The reason for the sloth’s tree selection became clear as it reached its neck slowly toward a withered apple barely clinging to the far end of the branch. I held my breath, hoping it wouldn’t end up like Graham, flat on its back, a dazed look in its eyes.
“Well, no matter how many toes it has, it seems to have beaten you hands down.”
“Apparently, I am too heavy for that tree.”
“It looked like that tree actually bucked you off like you were in a bronco-riding contest.”
“I don’t think of tree farmers as the sort of people who attribute animation to their crops.”
“You have a lot of experience with sugar makers?”
“I’ve known a few.”
“It doesn’t look like you’ve had much experience with trees, though. And yes, I am certain there is a lot more going on in the natural world than human beings like to believe. It would make it harder for us to make the choices we do if we gave trees and plants credit for having some sort of consciousness.” I felt my collar getting hot. I didn’t usually spout off my convictions to others. I preferred to offer information in a way that was palatable to the average modern person. I darted a look up at Graham, checking to see if he was likely to call in the guys with the white coats. Instead, he just nodded and looked thoughtful.
“You’ll have to tell me more about how you reconcile your beliefs with a willingness to puncture trees and draw off their vital fluids for your own profit when I’m not up to my gun holster in runaway critters.” He sounded a little snarky. I wondered if he was just embarrassed I’d seen him fall or if I had been too combative in all our previous encounters. Maybe it was just because he hadn’t gotten enough sleep and still had too many animals to round up and not enough help in doing so.
“At the rate you’re going, that’s a conversation you’ll have to anticipate for a long time to come.”
“Not if you do your part and help out an officer in distress.”
“Help out how?” My eyes were drawn to the claws at the ends of each of the three toes. Any desire I’d ever possessed to be a good citizen abandoned me as fast as it did whenever the church nursery was looking for volunteers.
“You are a lot lighter than I am. You could follow this guy up into that tree a lot further than I can without falling.”
“You want me to shimmy up the tree and pry a sloth out of it?”
“That’s right. Nothing to it.”
“Is it even legal for you to ask me to risk my life in the line of your duties?”
“There’s no risk. Look, I’ll stand right below the tree and catch you if you fall.” He stretched out two long arms that looked capable of wrapping tightly around just about anything he’d like. Except a sloth.
“I live on a tree farm. I haven’t fallen out of a tree since I was knee-high.”
“So, last year?”
“Is this really how you ask for a favor?”
“Sorry. Point taken.”
“It’s more the claws that worry me. They look pretty big. As big as maybe . . .”
“A mountain lion’s?”
“I never said I saw its claws. I was too busy noticing its teeth.”
“And its swishy tail.”
“You remember that?’
“I remember that call quite distinctly. Most often our damsels in distress are nowhere near as cute as you.” I felt myself turning hot and simultaneously pleased and nauseated. Most of the time when a guy around here gives me a compliment, he isn’t the one I wish was delivering it. As a matter of fact, all the time. The dating pool has a crack in it the size of the Grand Canyon, and all the juices leaked out about three weeks after high school graduation. Given my track record with men, scampering up the tree seemed a lot less dangerous than standing on the ground making small talk.
“Have you got something to put him in once I fetch him down?” I changed the subject with all the smoothness of a country road at the end of March.
“I’ve got a whole assortment of pet carriers, trash cans, and plastic storage tubs with holes punched in the top to allow for breathing. Does this mean you’ll help?” Instead of answering, I grabbed a low-hanging limb and began pulling myself toward the shaggy, drooping creature. It had finished the first apple and had moved on to a second, which dangled even farther out on the narrow branch.
Sooner than I wanted to, I reached the limb it was on. I sat, my legs dangling to either side of the branch, observing the creature, paying the most attention to its claws. I was surprised to see the way its fur parted along its belly like another animal’s would along its back. I guess that said something about its time spent hanging upside down compared with upright on its feet. Although, strictly speaking, I guessed it couldn’t be considered upside down if that was the way it preferred being most of the time.
“I think it’s still hungry. Have you got any sloth treats in your weapons arsenal?” Graham’s truck looked like it could hold a zoo’s worth of food with room left over for take-out Chinese.
“I haven’t brought anything specifically for sloths. What do you think it will eat?”
“It seems to like fruit. Where’s it from?”
“Central and South America. Maybe it would like a cup of coffee.”
“How about something leafy?” Graham nodded and hurried to the truck. He came back with a bag filled with produce. I flipped around and hung upside down to grab a head of romaine and a sleeve of celery from the bag. Without loosening my grip on the groceries, I righted myself on the branch once more, broke off a stalk of celery, and crushed the leaves just a bit. I hoped the scent would appeal to the poor hungry creeper. With excruciating slowness, the sloth turned its face toward the celery. I wasn’t sure if it was trying to make up its mind about how appealing it was or if it just required that long to get going in a new direction.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Graham asked.
“Do what?” The sloth began making its move. Inch by inch it oozed its way along the branch toward me.
“That crazy bat-swooping thing.” The look of awe on his face was priceless. It probably mirrored the one I had been wearing when I spotted the mountain lion peering in the sugarhouse window. Maybe I should tell him he was the one who was now imagining things. I resisted my childish side.
“I told you I knew how to climb trees.” I hadn’t told him about the years of gymnastics.
“Climb, yes, turn them into apparatus for an Olympic event, you did not.” He looked cute when he was startled, like a small child awakened from a dead sleep.
“He seems to like the celery.” I held the stalk out tentatively and scootched closer. The sloth was doing his part, but I figured the whole rescue operation would take a lot less time if I met him more than halfway. What I was planning to do once I got him within arm’s reach, I had no idea, but his interest in the celery felt like progress. “I think you ought to get a container. I’ve got a good feeling about this.” Graham hustled off again, this time returning with a pink plastic box with a matching lid. Just as
advertised, it had jagged holes the size of half-dollars punched into the lid, making a grid of breathable space.
As the sloth came closer and took a first tentative nibble of the leafy end of the celery, I assessed my options. While his claws were intimidatingly long, he looked too complacent to pose a real threat to my safety. My jeans were thick enough to protect me and so was my jacket. As to size, he looked like a medium-sized dog. I never had problems picking up the family dogs even when I was much smaller than I was now. I bent my arm and pulled the celery closer to myself as the sloth reached for a second bite. He followed, and little by little I coaxed him right into my lap. He clung to my arm as if it were a tree branch. I tried to keep my attention on his flat, appealing face instead of his claws.
The stalk of celery was diminishing in my hand, an inch at a time. I felt panic start to rise. What would happen when it got right down to the end near my fingers? Should I have laid it flat in my hand like I was feeding a horse? I shifted the celery and felt it begin to fall. Without thinking, I lunged for it. I lost my grip on the tree, but the sloth never lost its grip on me. It clung like a baby monkey to its mother as I fell ass over teakettle from the branch into Graham’s outstretched arms with a thump.
“Now I know where I had heard your name before,” Graham said, staring at me with wide-open eyes. “Knowlton mentioned you at the USM.” I began to struggle, realizing I’d survived my fall. I’d never been too interested in being swept off my feet, and certainly any notions of that kind I may have briefly entertained never included a sloth, three-toed or otherwise.
“What do you mean, Knowlton mentioned me?” I asked as Graham stood me on my feet in one swift motion.
“At the Underground Swap Meat, he mentioned your talents.” Amazingly, the sloth still clung to me and was attempting to pull itself higher by grabbing fistfuls of my hair. “Here, let’s get him into this before he creates a bald spot.” Graham pried the lid off the container and began gently tugging on the sloth.
“The what?” I asked.
“The Underground Swap Meat. It’s a semiannual event where taxidermy enthusiasts get together and swap supplies.”
“And by supplies, you mean carcasses?”
“Basically, although sometimes tools and even business supplies get exchanged. I think someone even traded vehicles once.”
“How do you know about this?”
“The state used to hold a roadkill auction before rabies became such a worry and we had to shut it down. When the USM sprang up after the closure, we decided to investigate as a matter of public safety.”
“And everything was aboveboard?”
“It was all very clean. As a matter of fact, after the first time we showed up, the organizers sent us an invitation every year. Taxidermists aren’t fans of disease any more than the rest of us.” Graham held out another stalk of celery toward the sloth.
“That still doesn’t clear things up for me. Why was Knowlton talking about me?”
“Oh, it wasn’t just me he was talking to. He bragged about you to anyone standing still. None of us understood how a guy like that ended up engaged to a woman like he described.”
“Engaged?” I felt my voice climbing the scales more than I heard it. Maybe because it had gone up into dog whistle range.
“Right. He would go on and on about his fiancée’s acrobatic talents and how entertaining that could be under certain circumstances.”
“What sort of circumstances are you talking about?” I was starting to feel a boil in my stomach that spread up into my chest and threatened to pop my eyes straight out of my head.
“I don’t think I know you well enough to go into the details. It might embarrass you to no end. I know it would make me uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t know me well enough to listen either.” Graham kept tugging on the sloth, attempting to pry it off me. I was beginning to think the thing was part octopus the way it stuck to my torso.
“You’ve got me there. It was disrespectful and it was none of my business. For the record, he made it sound very flattering.”
“He made it all up.”
“It did sound like he was exaggerating a bit. After all, how could anyone really manage to . . .” Graham tapered off, turning red and staring at the ground instead of meeting my eyes.
“He wasn’t exaggerating, he was lying.”
“I don’t see how you can be so sure if you weren’t ever there.”
“That’s what I’m saying to you, I wasn’t ever there. And neither was he. Knowlton and I have never been more intimately enmeshed than sharing a seat on the school bus.”
“So you’re one of those old-fashioned girls who’s saving herself for the wedding night?”
“We aren’t engaged either. We never have been.”
“Well, that’s disappointing.”
“What?”
“Knowlton was describing every man’s dream girl, and now you burst my bubble and tell me he made it all up?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t a dream girl. I just said he had no way of knowing if I was or if I wasn’t.”
“There are going to be a lot of disappointed guys when I tell them Dani Greene isn’t as advertised.”
“What do you mean by a lot?”
“I mean all across the state. Guys came from everywhere to attend the USM. By about the third year I started wondering how many of the men showing up were more interested in hearing the next installment of the Dani escapades than swapping critters.”
“That doesn’t seem flattering.”
“They do love their carcasses, so it might be saying more than you think.”
“Too much has already been said. This has been one of the worst days of my life.”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad.” Graham wrapped one hand around the sloth’s arm right where its wrist would be and managed to detach it from me. For a moment the animal dangled between us like a child swinging from its two parents’ hands while out on a walk.
“It is that bad. My business is headed for ruin and now I find out my reputation has been destroyed for years and I never even knew it.”
“Then that’s not so bad, now is it? If you didn’t know, it didn’t affect you.” Graham tossed the rest of the celery into the box then gently dangled the sloth in after it and snapped on the lid. He hoisted the box into the back of his truck, all set to go.
“You must be an optimist.”
“I guess maybe I am. I’m the guy who always stops people thinking their bags are too full, not that they’ve been taking fish that are too small.”
“So what’s the silver lining to finding out my syrup is responsible for a death and that my business needs shutting down?”
“Did you like the person who died?”
“No. I definitely did not.”
“There you go, a very shiny silver lining if you ask me.”
“My business is in the tank, my reputation’s shot both professionally and personally.”
“At least you’ve got someone who wants to marry you.”
“And that’s a good thing in your opinion?”
“Sure. I’ve always wanted a family of my own. Haven’t you?”
“I’ve got more than enough family already, and they do enough worrying about my marriage prospects so I don’t have to do it myself.”
“You come from a family of incurable romantics?”
“Consummate meddlers.”
“You’re lucky they care enough to butt in.”
“You’d be singing a different tune if they kept trying to set you up every time you turn around.”
“Maybe I could use the help.” I had noticed Graham didn’t wear a wedding band, but he didn’t look like someone who would need help finding a date. He had excellent posture, a decent job, and all of his teeth. That was a whole lot more than I could say for most of the guys Celadon tried setting me up with.
“I’ll let them know. I’m sure they’d love to expand their hunting grounds.”
>
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Although you’ll be too busy for a while chasing all those exotics to spend time running around after any women.”
“For the right woman, I’d find the time.” Graham leaned a bit closer and looked me directly in the eyes. I felt flustered and broke off eye contact. Just through the trees an equine shape slipped through the woods. “Did you see that?” he asked and dashed off in pursuit. I guess I must not have been the right woman.
Eleven
After that, there was nothing for it but to keep heading over to the Stack and drown my sorrows in a flood of some nontoxic maple syrup and whatever fatty carbohydrate Piper was serving to go with it. Piper gave me a hurried smile over a plume of steam rising from a row of freshly filled coffee mugs. I couldn’t find it in myself to smile back so I just nodded and slid into a booth near the back. If I sit in them just right, my size allows me to be completely hidden in a booth. Not a bad thing when what you want is food, not company.
Before long, Piper arrived carrying a plate piled high. She slid into the seat across from me and plunked the plate down in front of me.
“What’s that?” I asked, eyeing the plate.
“The special. It’s called the Who’d a Thunk It. With a side of sweet potato fries, so crispy they’re almost burnt. Just the way you like them.”
“I don’t know if I’m up for anything new.”
“You’ll be up for this. It’s really just a gussied-up toasted cheese sandwich.”
“It looks like waffles.”
“I sandwiched maple cheddar cheese, caramelized apples, and crispy bacon strips between two whole-grain waffles then toasted the whole thing on the griddle. It’s best drizzled with syrup so eat it with a fork.” Piper plucked the syrup pitcher from its spot snuggled against the wall and sozzled my sandwich with a heavy hand.
“I think you mean drizzled with death.”
“Myra stopped by earlier. She blabbed about the lab results.”
“I just hope I haven’t poisoned anyone else.”
Drizzled with Death (A Sugar Grove Mystery) Page 12