by Madelyn Alt
I thought of all that Liss had packed up for me, and nodded. “I brought enough.”
She walked me around the complex, pointing out each building as we passed and describing its function or place within the feed mill structure. As we approached the biggest silo—Big Ben, Libby had called it—it occurred to me suddenly what a ghastly mission we were on, and how terrible it must be for Libby to have to face coming to the feed mill when her dead husband, who had passed from this world into the next so suddenly, hadn’t even been buried yet.
I reached out and stopped her forward march toward the silo area with a touch on the arm. “Why don’t you go back. There’s no need for you to show me—”
“Where Joel died?” she asked baldly. “It is what it is, you know. No amount of wailing or crying or tearing my hair out is going to bring him back.”
“That’s very strong and courageous of you.”
She waved her hand to dismiss the comment. “It’s practical of me. There is too much to do to collapse now. I need to keep moving ahead, because as we all know, life goes on. In a different way, maybe, than it did before, but it won’t cease until it’s my turn to go.”
We had stopped thirty feet away from the accident scene. Without the forward motion to propel her onward, Libby seemed more than happy to delay the rest of the tour. To give her a mental and emotional time-out, I kept up with the small talk. “If you don’t mind my asking,” I began tentatively, “how long were the two of you together?”
“Seven good years,” Libby said, a pensive gleam in her eye that might have been the beginning of tears. “Oh, we had our differences—every couple out there will tell you the same. He was a good man, though, very supportive. He gave me everything I wanted. Sometimes even before I asked for it. Sometimes,” she said, frowning slightly, “I think he knew me even better than I know myself. I’d catch him looking at me, and I could always tell what he was thinking, even when I didn’t want to know. I think he was the same way.”
“Some people have that gift,” I murmured, “that synchronicity of thought and time and feeling.”
“Love.”
“Yeah. Love.”
“He really was a good man. Getting older, sure. He didn’t like that much. Time and time again he’d tell me that one day I would leave him for a younger model, someone who could keep up with me in the bedroom. I always told him I would never, ever divorce him like that. I’m not sure he believed me, though.”
I nodded sympathetically, even though discussing someone else’s sex life, someone I barely knew, left me with a prickly, heebie-jeebie feeling. But obviously she needed to talk to someone. If this was helping her to process through the difficult emotions she must be feeling right now, then I was happy to help. It wasn’t anything new, really. Throughout my life, I had found myself being momentarily befriended at odd times by people who needed to talk, to work through something, to get something off their chest. Suddenly, in the middle of an otherwise innocuous conversation, they would slip into confidence mode, with them later seeming almost as surprised by their own admissions as I was. It was almost as though I was wearing a flashing sign that said GET YOUR EMOTIONAL RELIEF HERE. I understood now that this was an experience often shared by those sensitives with empathic abilities, but I never had gotten used to it . . . especially when the confidees tended to forget the conversation had ever taken place after the fact. Weird, I know, but true.
“How did the two of you meet?” I asked, curious.
“Honestly?” She laughed self-consciously. “We hooked up over the Internet. Oh, it wasn’t like one of those dating sites or anything like that. Actually,” she said, glancing at me, “I went to college with Noah, if you can believe that. We even knew each other a little bit, Noah and I. Hung out with the same people. Casual, you know. One day Joel came down to the campus to visit and hung out at the dorm with us all. Bought everyone beer and pizza and talked about football with the jocks and dancing with the girls and . . . I don’t know. He just had this air about him that made me want to sit up and listen.”
“Confidence,” I suggested.
She nodded, thoughtful. “That sounds about right. And he had just lost his dad, and I guess that sadness spoke to me, too. Well, he’d given all of us his business card and told us to look him up if we ever needed anything. I sent him an e-mail a few weeks later, just to thank him for showing everyone a good time, you know, and for being so cool. He e-mailed back . . . and . . . I don’t know. We got married the Saturday after graduation.”
“Wow. That’s quite amazing, really.”
“I’ve always thought so.”
I was about to suggest—gently—that we begin. It was getting later by the minute, and Minnie was becoming rascally inside the carrier, reaching her paws through the corded venting and curling them around to try to reach Libby’s hand. Instead I was distracted from my mission by the arrival of a low-riding, tricked-out motorcycle purring into the complex. The rider cast a wave in our general direction as he rolled on by, his bike soon joining the other, larger vehicles in front of the office. He parked her, swung one long leg over the seat, and disembarked with the kind of grace most men didn’t have . . . and most women dreamed of.
Chapter 15
Beside me, Libby stood up a little straighter. I knew the feeling. Marcus had that kind of effect.
He slipped the helmet from his dark head and set it on his seat. Within moments he’d crossed the cement lot and joined us. “Sorry I’m late, Maggie-girl. I got here as fast as I could. Figured you might be able to use some help.”
I told myself the rush of pleasure I was feeling was mostly—mostly—due to gratitude for his thoughtfulness . . . but deep down, I knew the truth. I just didn’t want to think about it. Dating one man was hard enough. Keeping track of two would be out of the question. No, it was easier to let the quasi-kinda-sorta relationship I had with Tom run its course. See whether there was a future for us. Explore the possibilities. Casually throwing them away for something that might or might not be better, something that might or might not have a future, something that . . . well, you get the picture. There were too many uncertainties in life, in my humble opinion. How was a girl supposed to decide with any kind of confidence?
“Libby, do you know Marcus? Marcus Quinn, this is Libby Turner.”
He offered her his hand. “I heard about what happened to your husband, Mrs. Turner. I’m very sorry.”
She accepted his condolences with a quiet nod. “So you’re here to help Maggie with the clearing. Are you well versed in such things?” she asked, peering askance at him.
“As much as anyone can be. These things aren’t exactly a science.”
He could say that again. In fact, science postulated that such things were an improbability, if not an impossibility. What you can’t measurably see, hear, touch, smell, or taste must not exist. Once upon a time I’d believed that, too. That was the way of madness . . . or at the very least, an overwhelming fear of an unknown that wasn’t supposed to exist. You can see where that gets you.
“Well, then. I’m glad Maggie has backup. I’ll let you two get to it. The AC beckons,” she said, smoothing a hand over the sheath of dark hair that was now showing the tiniest bits of frowziness around the edges. She looked . . . charmingly disheveled. I, on the other hand, could feel my wavy hair bristling free of the clips and clamps holding it under control. Stupid humidity anyway. It was like breathing through a damp towel.
She handed the cat carrier over to me. To placate Minnie, I laced my fingertips through the corded vents and wiggled them around like worms on a fishing line. She pounced, and like magic, after a few playful nibbles, she settled herself down again and sat quietly surveying surroundings that must once have been her playground. Thank goodness for small favors. I couldn’t risk taking her out and losing her in one of the many outbuildings or, even worse, the fields beyond.
I showed Marcus the notes Liss had written for me, as well as the supplies she had packed. Before
we could even get started, however, voices behind us drew our attention away from the task at hand.
Libby had been sidetracked from her return to the office yet again. Catching a glimpse of Frank exiting the hog barn, his hand gentle on Eddie’s back, she’d made a beeline straight toward them. Her voice, strong and officious, rang out across the complex.
“Oh good, you found him. You’ll be taking him away, then?”
Eddie was staring at her, mouth gaping amid several days’ worth of graying stubble on his chin and cheeks. Even from where I stood, I could see great smears of dirt on his clothes and face. Since he’d just emerged from the hog barn, I had a pretty good idea of what it was and where it had come from. No wonder he had smelled so . . . interesting . . . the other day at the PD.
I was still kind of glad we were downwind; it made eavesdropping easier.
Frank’s response was much more modulated in pitch, which made eavesdropping harder. But Libby, bless her, made up the difference.
“No, no, no. For the last time, for the love of God, no. I’m not going to reconsider, Frank. I mean, just look at him. He can’t stay here. He’s been . . . oh . . . sleeping with the pigs, for God’s sake!”
Eddie stooped down and began rocking up and down and back and forth on his haunches. He stretched out a hand in our direction and beckoned with all his fingers, the way a child might ask for a bottle. “Heeeeeere, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty . . .”
He’d seen Minnie? Wow, he had good eyes. I looked down at my little girl. She was standing up in the carrier again, her eyes and ears perked at full mast.
Off to our left came the low crunch of gravel against concrete as a vehicle pulled into the complex from the county road beyond. Libby didn’t seem to notice.
“He has to go, Frank. I’m sorry, but he has to go.”
“I like kitties,” Eddie said to anyone who would listen. Or maybe it was just for his own benefit; he didn’t seem to be looking for input from anyone else. “Kitty, kitty, pretty kitty. Kitties here, kitties there, little kitties everywhere.” He giggled to himself.
Libby’s back was to us, but even so I could sense the disgust she held for the unfortunate man who was more of a child. She was young, though, and unmoved by Eddie’s lot in life. Perhaps a little too self-involved, but then, most of the women who ran in Mel’s circles were. A side effect, perhaps, of the affluent lifestyle she’d forged for herself as the wife of a small business owner—a “notable” in Stony Mill society. Something my mom had always wanted for me. But being a person of a certain social status didn’t guarantee happiness. I might not be the wise woman that Liss was, but I had been around the block enough to understand the truth in that little Nugget o’ Wisdom. Just look at Libby right now, as prickly as a porcupine over someone who couldn’t help what he was any more than he could help what he wasn’t, and look at the way Joel’s life had ended. Accident or no accident.
Frank said something else that was too quiet to register on our radar. Marcus was watching the proceedings with curiosity, though perhaps a little less intently as he hadn’t been here earlier to witness Libby’s previous snit. The car that had just entered the place idled slowly forward. Distracted, I turned my head to see who had chosen this particular moment to interrupt, and nearly lost my lunch as I saw Tom leaning down to eye me over the passenger seat of his cruiser with the window down as he passed us by.
“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be. Maybe one of the homeless shelters in Fort Wayne has space if you don’t have a place ready-made.”
Now Frank’s defensive stance was back, his shoulders tense and hunched, as tight as a linebacker.
“He is homeless by definition. He doesn’t have a home. He doesn’t have a place to stay. He has no way to pay for a place. Home. Less. I don’t care what the state says. I’m sure all of that will get straightened out just fine eventually.”
Tom pulled his cruiser up behind the Turners and poor, hapless Eddie, and slowly got out. He nodded at them. “Ma’am. Turner. Afternoon.” He glanced out at the sky, where the sun was sinking fast on the western horizon. “Well, I suppose it’s evening, isn’t it. I was hoping to catch you all here before you went home.”
Frank nodded back. Libby spoke first. “Officer . . . Fielding, is it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How can we help you today, Officer Fielding?”
Grateful that the breezes were working in our favor, I pretended to be absorbed in Liss’s witchy bag of tricks while I focused all my attention on sharpening my hearing to the utmost degree, on catching every word they were saying. Yes, it was still eavesdropping, which ethically speaking was, well, wrong . . . but I was beyond feeling shame for it. The way things had been in Stony Mill, it behooved a girl to stay on her toes, by whatever means necessary.
“It’s special investigator in this case, ma’am. I’m the officer in charge of investigating your husband’s unfortunate death. Just a formality. I thought you all should be the first to know that a preliminary decision has come in from the Medical Examiner’s Office with regard to your husband’s death, Mrs. Turner. It won’t be made final until all of the test results are back from the State Crime Lab.”
“And that preliminary decision is?” Frank prompted.
Tom hesitated a moment, letting the tension of the moment build. “At the moment, the findings are . . . inconclusive.” He paused. “But . . . there are some things that have cropped up that are troubling me. We’re really struggling to come up with an explanation for them. I was hoping one of you might be able to offer us some help.”
“Things?” Libby’s voice sounded brittle and harsh, which matched the set of her slender shoulders. “What things?”
“Would anyone have any explanation as to how some of the blood that was found on Joel’s clothes and body might not have belonged to Joel himself?” he asked. The gentle tone of his voice belied the serious nature of the question.
Frank spoke up. “Well, we do have a slaughterhouse for the hogs here on-site as part of the services we provide. I’m in charge of that department, actually. I suppose he could have gone in there at some point during the day, though I don’t remember it, and I certainly don’t remember seeing any blood on him. I’m not always the most observant of old dogs, though.”
Tom took the flip-style notebook out of his breast pocket and jotted down a few things. “I’d like to take a look at that area before I leave here today.”
“Sure,” Libby said. She reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone. “I’ll just text Noah and have him bring the keys.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Tom said. “That’s very accommodating of you.” He paused again. I had noticed before that he did this quite often while investigating, allowing the moments of silence to work for him to inspire confidence and loosen tongues. “You know, curious enough . . . there were also a few small spots of what we believe to be Mr. Turner’s blood on the concrete outside of the projected impact area of his fall.”
I grimaced as an image of the impact of two hundred twenty-five pounds of male muck and muscle arose unbidden in my mind. The damage to a body from a height of six to eight stories must be fairly graphic. I’d read somewhere that falling from a seven-story building would equate to being in a car accident while traveling at a rate of around fifty miles per hour—except, in a collision, one is protected at least in part by the outer shell of the car. What that meant to the soft tissues and fragile bones of the human body was unimaginable. At least, I didn’t relish imagining it. I pushed the thought right out of my head, hoping against hope that the spirit of Joel Turner wasn’t the one inserting it there.
White light of protection . . . I closed my eyes and surrounded myself with it, summoning my guides nearer to keep me safe.
By the time I opened my eyes, Noah had joined the group and handed the keys over to Libby.
Frank had put his hands on his hips. “Wait. What do you mean, there were spots of his blood outside of the area of i
mpact? How far outside?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say, Frank. Sorry.”
Frank exchanged a pained glance with Noah, who had frozen as the realization of what Frank had just said came crashing down on him. Frank’s shoulders lifted and fell. “Could it . . . could it have been—” His voice cut off suddenly. He cast a sidelong glance at his sister-in-law and said, “Libby, maybe it would be better for you not to hear this, girl.”
Libby stood her ground, lifting her chin stubbornly. “He was my husband, Frank. I have a right to hear it, too. I’m not some fragile flower, you know. I can take it. I may be small, but I’m strong-willed . . . and I can be hard as nails when I need to be, and you know it.”
He nodded, but from the way he shifted his weight back and forth from foot to foot, it was obvious he was uncomfortable with her decision. “Could it have been blood spatter?” he asked Tom. “From the impact itself?”
Noah was looking decidedly green at the gills. He ran his fingers back through his neatly styled hair, then stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his khakis.
“If it was, I’m damned if I can see a way how.” Tom turned, apologetically, toward Libby. “I’d like your permission, Mrs. Turner, to take a few more measurements while I’m here. Maybe poke around a bit. See if there’s anything else I might be able to turn up. I have a feeling we’re missing something. I’m sure you’d like to know what that is as much as I would, if not more.”
Libby nodded immediately, her neutral expression shuttering any pain she might be experiencing over the revelation. “Of course. Look around as much as you like. Whatever it takes to get to the bottom of my husband’s death. That’s all that matters.” She hesitated, her brow furrowed and troubled. “You’re quite sure that his death was not an accident after all?”
Tom also hesitated, then shook his head. “I can’t say for sure, ma’am, not one way or the other. Not without the M.E.’s verdict. But I don’t mind telling you that I’m baffled over a couple of these points. I’d feel better if I could make it all fit together in one neat little package.”