I grabbed my briefcase and headed back toward the dining hall. A line had formed and I joined it obediently, pulling out my lecture notes to review while I waited. I was pondering whether or not my little joke about antimacassars having nothing to do with being anti-massacre was worth keeping when I heard my name called by a masculine voice. I looked up to see Todd coming toward me. I wondered if the fluttery feeling that came whenever I saw him would go away after a while. It had been two months since we’d become a couple, and so far the flutters hadn’t diminished at all.
“Hi!” I said as he came up to me. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood for lunch and thought I’d see if you were around. Have you given your talk yet?”
“No, it’s right after lunch.”
“Well, I hope it goes well. What time are you going to be finished with everything today?”
“The last session ends at four. I’m free after that.”
“You want to go up to the forest then? I’m off duty at three. I’ll bring a picnic dinner and we can eat it on our rock. Weather like this is too good to waste.”
“That sounds great! I’ll meet you at my place at about four-thirty, ok?”
“Perfect!” The smile that had charmed me from the beginning appeared again, and with a cheery, “See you then!” he walked back the way he had come.
“Is that your boyfriend?” said the lady who was standing next to me in line and had evidently heard everything.
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes.” Boyfriend didn’t seem the right word for Todd and I never thought of him as my boyfriend. For me the term conjures up the image of teenagers and I always think there should be another label for those over forty. Suitor would be my choice, but I doubt I could get the modern world to go along with it. Lover has changed meanings in the past hundred years and beau only sounds right if you have a Southern accent.
The lady looked at me as if I were completely air-headed. How could I not know if I was dating someone or not?
“We haven’t been dating long,” I offered feebly.
“Oh!” she said. “Well, if I were you, I’d hang on to that one pretty tightly. He’s quite a catch!”
“He is, indeed.” I wondered how often he had to fend off the advances of women who would have liked to catch him for themselves.
The line started moving then, and we eventually got our meal of white soup, beef cutlets, peas, potatoes and peach sorbet. The food was authentic enough, but it rather spoils the effect to eat it at a modern cafeteria table with your plate sitting on an orange plastic tray.
My talk went well if I do say so myself. My audience was mostly made up of literary scholars, but there was a handful of writers, most of whom had vague ideas about writing spinoffs of Maria Edgeworth’s novels or Ann Radcliffe’s or even Fanny Burney’s. I mentioned during my lecture that my other professional hat was that of editor, so several of the writers came up afterwards and wanted to talk to me about book ideas.
When that was finished I wandered over to the gymnasium to watch the English Country Dancing lesson. For a minute I wished I could attend the ball the next evening. I watched the dancers prancing in time to the music and wondered if Todd liked to dance and if he’d be willing to try English country dancing. I was doubtful: there’s rather a lot of skipping involved which most men find undignified. It was probably better not to ask at this point in the relationship. What if he felt pressured to try it and then didn’t like it? I didn’t want him stuck in an activity he didn’t enjoy.
I sighed. So much of dating seems to be wondering—wondering what the other person likes and dislikes, wondering what you’re doing or not doing that might be bothering them, wondering how deeply you ought to let yourself care for the person when they might end the relationship…
“I hate dating,” I said aloud under the cover of “The Redesdale Hornpipe” blaring from the giant speakers set up on the bleachers.
Nonetheless I was looking forward to my evening out with Todd, and I wasn’t disappointed. July is a great time to be in the Mr. Rainier National Forest. The drive up the mountain and the hike through the trees were idyllic. We had our own path to what we called “our rock”—a giant boulder that sits on the side of the mountain a little off the main trail. From its top you can see across a valley.
Todd had packed an insulated picnic bag with store-bought hoagie sandwiches, a bag of potato chips, and two bottles of water, and we sat on top of our rock and ate. The bag had an attractive blue and green chevron pattern and all kinds of pockets inside for the different items you might need if you had a very elaborate picnic.
“That’s a nifty bag,” I said. “Useful and attractive all in one.”
“Yeah, it comes in handy.”
I opened my mouth to ask where he’d bought it, but I was arrested by the thought that it might have been something left behind by his ex-wife. If it was, I’d rather not know.
“Oh!” I said suddenly. “I meant to tell you. Becky says she will probably get her first foster child in a couple days.”
“Really? That seems awfully quick. I thought she just started the process a couple months ago.”
“She was fast-tracked because she already had a lot of police clearances and training done for her job as a teacher. She thinks she’s going to have a little girl placed with her—she doesn’t know how old.”
“She’s probably pretty excited, huh?”
“Yeah, and nervous, too. ‘Half agony, half hope’—but not for the same reason, of course.”
Todd looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Persuasion,” I murmured and cleared my throat. “What time is it?”
“Getting near seven.”
“I know there’s still a couple hours left before sunset, but I probably should be getting back home,” I said. “I want to look over my notes for tomorrow’s lecture.”
We gathered what little trash we had and put it back in the bag. Todd went first down the rock and then turned to help me jump down the last few feet.
We’d only gone a couple yards back toward the car when I heard Todd say, “Hey, what’s this?”
He picked up something off the ground and held it so I could see it. It was a little silver box with filigree on the sides and inlayed ivory in a flower pattern on the top.
“It looks like a mini-jewelry box,” he said, “or maybe something for holding pills.”
“No, it’s a snuff box,” I said. “What in the world would it be doing here? It’s not like people carry them around anymore.”
“So it’s an antique?”
“That’s the only kind there is. The only person I know of who has any is Susan—Dr Langton. She has a collection of about five in her office. She uses them for holding paper clips and thumbtacks and things.”
“You don’t suppose she dropped one here, do you?”
I laughed. “She’s a little scatter-brained—the absent-minded professor, you know—but definitely not to the extent that she would be strewing snuff boxes on mountainsides.”
“I think we ought to take this with us,” said Todd. “If it’s valuable, the owner might have alerted the police that it was lost or stolen.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“I wonder…” said Todd. He had begun walking but stopped again.
“What?”
“Well, if this was dropped, other things might have been dropped, too. It wouldn’t be a bad place to dump something, actually.”
“You mean like stolen goods?” I asked.
“Yeah. This is the kind of place where someone might temporarily stash something. It’s off the regular trail and most people wouldn’t go to the back side of the big rock—they’d perch on top of it, like we did. Putting something around the other side would be a good way to hide it.”
We walked down the hill alongside the base of the big rock with Todd scanning the ground for any other items. When the hill got steeper he went on alone and I looked around th
e rocks and shrubs where I was.
“There’s nothing that I can see down here,” Todd called after a few minutes.
“I don’t see anything, either,” I said. “A few old empty cans and bottles—someone should really clean this up. There’s an old shoe.” I looked again. “Hey Todd, it looks like there’s a bundle of something here. It’s near a bush but there’s rocks kind of piled around it, too.”
Todd hurried up to where I was.
“See?” I said pointing. “There’s the bottom of a shoe. With the way it’s positioned I thought for a minute that it was a person lying there.”
Todd went over to the bundle and bent over it.
“What is it? A stash of something?” I said coming over to him.
“Stay back, Katrina,” Todd said in a different voice, holding up a hand.
“What is it?” I said again.
“It’s a body.”
If you enjoyed this excerpt, you may purchase the Snuffed Out HERE.
Books by Barbara Cornthwaite
The Wilkester Mysteries
Brought to Book (Book 1)
Snuffed Out (Book 2)
Book 3
George Knightley Esquire:
Charity Envieth Not
Lend Me Leave
A Very Austen:
Christmas
Valentine
Romance
A Fine Young Lady
Brought to Book Page 22