“It’s just you,” she said to her own reflection. No use calling Dot or Kate, alarming them for nothing. Kate would just say, see, I told you it was time to leave that big old drafty farmhouse.
She changed her clothes and thought about those words, Just me. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Rusty would never let someone sneak onto her property, come into her house, find her in her bed, slash her throat. Rusty, I miss you, dear old dog.
Tonight, she took the time to fix herself a decent supper. She washed up and went into the den and turned on the television. She had missed the local news, but a warning flashed in the corner of the screen. Their county was included in a tornado watch. They didn’t usually get severe weather in July. Please don’t make me go to the storm cellar tonight, she prayed. Even in the daylight, taking freshly-canned peaches down into the cellar, she found the Cooper sisters’ primitive old shelter creepy. Which was worse? Making her way across the backyard in the middle of an Oklahoma thunderstorm, or staying in bed and watching the roof come off?
*****
Buck Weathers stumbled out of bed—literally—having forgotten that he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, the only furnishings left in the house he had once shared with Judith.
“Sorry, hon,” he whispered to the dark bundle beside him on the mattress.
He groped his way through a complex of closets, cursing, trying to remember the sequence of right and left turns to get to the urinal in the master bathroom. A flash of lightning blinded him. “Quite a storm,” he muttered, listening to a volley of hail smash into the window over the garden tub. Thunder must have awakened him. Judith has come back, he thought, transformed into an avenging fury to hurl thunderbolts and hailstones at the house he had just joyously profaned with another woman. He could still smell Judith’s potions in this room.
“Hell hath no fury… ” he intoned, hoping the roof held.
They weren’t supposed to be there, of course, but technically half the house was still his. And Betty Blanton had the key. She had never seen the inside and this might be her only chance, since an offer had come through that morning. The Magnolia Café had packed up a nice little supper for them and Buck had added a bottle of expensive champagne to toast his freedom and the woman who had obtained it for him. They got a little silly and, just because they could, took off their clothes and went skinny-dipping in the crystal pool, something he had never done with Judith. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever seeing Judith in that pool. She didn’t like to get her hair wet. Betty Blanton cavorted and splashed like a kid.
Later, tired and a little drunk, they piled up what bedding they could find and fell asleep on the mattress. Finishing at the urinal, Buck reversed the lefts and the rights to get back to the master bedroom, guided by near-constant flashes of lightning. What he had thought was Betty on the mattress was just bedding.
“Hon? Where are you?”
Did she leave? He went to the wall and flipped the switch. The power was off. “Betty?” He left the bedroom and tried to remember how to get back to the kitchen. Maybe she had gotten up to get some water. But the kitchen was empty. Calling her name, Buck went toward the front of the house to look out the door to see if both cars were still there. As he crossed the vast living area, a brilliant skein of lightning illuminated a figure beyond the sliding glass panels leading to the patio and pool. The glass slid open and Betty, fully dressed but soaked to the skin, fell into his arms.
“Sweetheart! What the hell are you doing out there?”
“Trying to secure the pool area,” she said.
“You could’ve been struck by lightning, honey. I’d never forgive myself if you died trying to keep Judith’s patio furniture from getting wet. Come on, let’s go get you dried off. There’s probably something around here you can put on.”
*****
The first crack of thunder brought Elinor alert and upright. Her eyes sought the digital numerals on the bedside clock. Nearly two A.M. Lightning flickered in the room like a bad fluorescent tube, animating every object in herky-jerky motion. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she reached for the lamp, but no light came on. The power was off. But the clock works, she thought, then remembered that the clock had a battery backup.
She opened the drawer in the bedside table and felt for the flashlight. The batteries in it were weak, but offered a dim beam to guide her down the hall to the kitchen where she kept candles. Why was it so hot in the house? Ah, the power failure had shut down the air conditioning. Yet, that knowledge did not stop her from feeling for the light switch inside the kitchen and being surprised when the light didn’t come on.
Brilliant flashes of lightning coming through the row of windows over the sink blinded her. She raised a hand to shield her eyes, and in that moment realized that a figure stood in the middle of her kitchen, a figure holding a light-reflective object in its hand. Crying out in terror, she stepped backward and tripped, cracking her head against the door frame and dropping the flashlight. She cowered there in the dark, waiting to be struck. And suddenly the lights came on. Rexie Roberts was standing in the middle of the kitchen holding a breadknife out in front of her. She looked terrified.
“Oh, my gosh, Mrs. Woodward! Are you alright?” Rexie rushed toward her, but apparently not to plunge the knife into her throat. She helped Elinor into a chair. “Did you bump your head? I’ll get some ice.” She threw the long serrated blade onto the counter and reached for a dish towel to wrap up a few cubes of ice from the freezer.
“Rexie, what are you doing here?”
“Your door was standing open!”
“My door?”
“Your front door. The one you never use.”
“But how did you know to look?”
“The thunder woke me. I went over to my place to throw a tarp over my supplies so they wouldn’t get wet. I know people think I’m crazy, but I get these feelings about people I care about. I thought you were in some kind of trouble, Mrs. Woodward. Coming down your driveway, I could see the front door standing open. I didn’t have any means of protection, so I came in here to get a knife. Did something happen?”
“I don’t know,” Elinor said. Either Rexie Roberts had saved her from becoming a third victim, or had stopped short of fulfilling Dot’s dire prediction of doing her in with the breadknife.
*****
The three women convened in the living room with their cups of tea. Dot had dressed so hastily she had her shirt buttoned wrong.
“Sorry to make you come out on a night like this,” Elinor said.
“I was awake anyway,” Dot said. “How’s your head? Are you sure we shouldn’t go have it seen about?”
“Just a goose egg. My ribs will be sore tomorrow. I wrenched myself.”
“Why was the door standing open?”
“I’ve no idea. I think I would’ve noticed when I came home, but maybe it didn’t blow open until the wind came up. Rexie, did you see any cars on the road on your way over here?”
“Not on the road, but I guess the storm woke up somebody at Thunderbird Ranch. I saw lights on back there. One of my students said that Mrs. Weathers had moved to Dallas.”
Dot looked at Rexie. “Now, tell me again how you happened to arrive in the middle of the night to find Elinor’s door open?”
Elinor, who had said nothing about the breadknife, smoothly intervened. “Rexie was worried about me because of the storm. Unfortunately, in the dark we managed to scare each other half to death.”
Dot did not look completely satisfied with this answer. “Well, I’m glad you called, Elinor. I don’t think you’re supposed to fall asleep if you’ve had a concussion.”
“I don’t have a concussion. In fact, the ice has already taken the swelling down. I can barely feel it.”
“I’ll stay the night anyway,” Dot said firmly. “I’ll take it from here,” she said to Rexie, dismissing her.
Rexie looked at Elinor. “I’ll be fine, dear. You need your sleep.”
“All right, then. I’ll check on you tomorrow, Mrs. Woodward.”
“Good night, Rexie. And… thanks.”
“I’m usually not wrong,” she said.
“I believe you.”
“Not wrong about what?” Dot asked when she was gone.
“She had a sense of foreboding, I guess you could call it. I had the feeling myself, Dot, so I can hardly deny her the feeling.”
“You think someone got into the house?”
“I really don’t know what to think.”
“You’re addled, Elinor. Let me do the thinking. You never use that door. You always come through the carport straight into the kitchen. But you did have company lately, Rexie. If she opened that door, she might not have closed it all the way, and like you say, maybe it blew open in the storm. Is anything missing?”
“Get my purse, Dot.”
“Where is it?”
“In the kitchen on that little table next to the back door.”
Dot came back holding the bag open, studying its contents. “Your wallet’s here.”
“What about my phone?”
“Right here. And looks like your cord is here, too.”
“Is there another cell phone in that bag?”
“Another? Oh, you mean Patrick Allen Childers’.” Dot dumped the contents of the bag onto the sofa and bent down to sort everything out. “It’s not here, Elinor. Did you put it somewhere else?”
“That’s what they were after, Dot. His phone. They killed him to get it, and then they came after me. That’s his cord, too. I took it from his home office this afternoon.”
“This is beginning to seriously weird me out, Elinor. I think we should call the police.”
“I’ll have to face DeWayne soon enough and tell him I lost a key piece of evidence. Don’t worry. I’m not a target now. The killer got what he came for.”
“Who knew you had Patrick’s phone?”
“I mentioned to Claire and to Patrick’s daughter Bethany, who helped me look for the password. That Calender kid was in the Sooner. Could he have overheard our conversation?”
“Not unless he has ears like a bat. What do we do now?”
“Let’s try to get some rest. We’ll think better in the morning. You take the guest room. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I remember a road back behind your property that went over to Thunderbird Ranch.”
“You couldn’t drive it, not after the downpour we just had. It would be a muddy mess.”
*****
Ahead of Dot’s Datsun, the early morning sun baked spirals of steam out of the driveway, a quarter mile of concrete running between white-painted drill-stem fencing, leading inexorably to a rise that afforded the best view in the county of Big Bear Mountain. The brief hard rain the night before had scoured the sky, giving it a clean bright appearance and inspiring hope that the worst of summer was over, though that was probably deceptive. A gray SUV sat in the circle driveway.
“Okay, now, this is a fancy house,” Dot said, peering up through the windshield at the massive home, staked with the same JV Properties For Sale sign that Kate had planted on the sod of her Fourth of July parade float as well as Eula Wyckham’s modest abode.
“You’ve never seen this house?” Elinor asked. “I bought a ticket for an open house once, but there were so many cars I didn’t stay. No wonder Judith Weathers fought this divorce. Can you imagine having to move out of such a place?”
“Has Betty Blanton already moved in?” Dot said, indicating the car.
“Mrs. Weathers is probably still her client.”
Betty Blanton had heard them coming and flung the front door open. “You’re out and about early, ladies.”
“Is everything all right?” Elinor asked.
“Appears to be. Mrs. Weathers wanted me to come check on the place. You look a little peaky, Mrs. Woodward.”
“The storm woke me early. Have you been here long?”
“Long enough to see nothing’s torn up. She’ll have to get that pool cleaned, though. Couple of chaise lounges blew in, not to mention the leaves. Was there something you wanted?”
The lawyer’s characteristic brusqueness had softened, Elinor thought. Rather than her usual attire, jeans and boots, Betty Blanton was dressed in a soft pink hoodie that made her cheeks bloom. She’s come from nearby, Elinor thought. Buck Weathers’ old homeplace?
“Do you mind if I take a look at the view?” Elinor asked.
“The view? Well, sure. Be my guest.” Betty turned to lead the way toward the north side with its view of the mountain, but Elinor crossed a vast empty living area to a glass wall with a view to the west. “The only thing you’ll see out that way is an ugly swimming pool,” Betty said, giving Dot a look of inquiry. Dot shrugged bafflement.
A wall of sliding glass panels allowed indoor and outdoor areas to merge. Elinor stepped out to a stone terrace that formed the setting to a jewel-like pool, now clogged with leaves. Beyond the pool, steps led to a raised seating area, then to another level, another seating area, and finally to a small landscaped pavilion on the highest elevation of the terrace. Elinor oriented herself and looked for her own roofline through the trees. A gust of wind ruffled the leaves, giving her a glimpse of her own bedroom windows.
*****
Heading north, the Datsun crossed and recrossed the Kiamichi River. Elinor looked down and saw angry red water churning and boiling as rain, dumped in western Pushmataha the night before, drained from the land and was carried northeast.
“I was going to fill up the car today,” Dot said. “Hope I’ve got enough to get us back to town.”
“Maybe it was about here that Eula Wyckham noticed the ‘check engine’ light,” Elinor mused.
“Too far to turn around,” Dot agreed. “By the way, I finally had some luck tracking down the Wickhams, spelled with an ‘i’ not a ‘y.’ An Ada Eileen Wickham was born near Kansas City. She would be in her early fifties now.”
“Oh, that’s very interesting. Eula and Ada. They sound like sisters, don’t they?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Is that why Eula Wyckham left her property to Janie?”
“That would certainly explain it. I gave the ancestral home to my niece.”
“I know you did, and Kate is very grateful you didn’t want it back after Bill died. So, why would Janie Calender and Eula Wyckham keep that a secret? And why change the spelling of the name?”
“Clerks have been known to get birth records wrong.”
“The error may have complicated my search, but I still say there are no fabulous genealogy finds in the Wyckham family tree. Not like finding out you’re kin to the Queen of Sheba, for instance. I don’t see why she found it so fascinating.”
“Ada was once a fairly common name for young women, in fact, three-letter names ending with “a” were all the rage—Ada, Ida, Ina, Ola.”
“There was an Ima Hogg,” Dot said.
“But not a Ura.”
“Are you sura?”
“Tuh, Dot.”
“Why are we going back to the Deaver’s, Elinor? The old man’s not going to remember any more this time than he did before. Probably won’t even remember we’re the ones who brought him grapes.”
“We didn’t get a chance to talk to Mrs. Deaver, and we didn’t know about Eula Wyckham’s car trouble. I’m hoping Mrs. Deaver was nosy enough to listen in when Eula Wyckham phoned Guy Pettibone. Maybe she heard something that he missed because of the noise in his shop. We’ve got to find out how the killer knew she would be in the library.”
“Maybe the killer didn’t know. Maybe he stumbled across her. Coincidences do happen.”
“Yes, and people get killed by total strangers. But this isn’t one of those times. Eula Wyckham and Patrick Allen Childers knew their killer. It was the same person who got into my house last night looking for that phone.”
“Betty Blanton was awfully handy.”
“Her tires weren’t muddy.”
“She could’ve walked over. That outfit she was wearing looks like something she pulled from Judith Weathers’ closet. Maybe there was a reason she changed clothes.”
“I don’t think it had anything to do with my breakin.”
Twenty minutes later they exited the state highway and took a secondary road that brought them around to the north side of Big Bear Mountain. A few miles later pavement gave way to gravel, then to a pair of red dirt ruts. No one had traveled this way since the rain. Dot was reluctant to risk her beloved and well-maintained Datsun to tackle the final ascent.
“Don’t try it if you’re afraid you’ll get stuck,” Elinor said.
That was all the discouragement Dot needed. Gunning the engine, she took dead aim at the first red wallow and they slithered through. Red mud splashed the windshield and blurred their view.
“I’ll buy you a carwash,” Elinor said.
The road climbed, circled and climbed some more, finally petering out in a green glade that sheltered a ramshackle abode, ever so humble, roofed with rusting corrugated steel and never having known paint. A pack of mismatched dogs heralded their arrival. A frail-looking elderly woman pushed open a screened door and stepped out on the porch, drying her hands on an apron. She wore a housedress made of flour sacking, below which, lisle stockings drooped around her ankles.
“Well, I’ll be,” she sang out. “How’d ye know?”
“Know what?” Elinor said, shoving a dog away from her legs.
“That he passed during the night,” the woman said.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Elinor said. “Mr. Deaver is gone?”
“Went during the storm. It was a blessing, but I’ll miss him.”
Death In The Stacks: An Elinor & Dot library mystery Page 18