Butter Off Dead

by Leslie Budewitz

  Kim extended her hand toward me. “Recognize this?”

  In her palm lay a small plastic bag, a tiny silver horseshoe shape inside. I squinted. “No.”

  Zayda’s fingers flew to her left eyebrow. The silver ring she always wore was gone.

  “Is it yours?” Mimi asked her daughter.

  “Where did you find it?” Tony asked Kim.

  “You’re over sixteen,” Kim told Zayda. “You can choose whether you want to have a parent present during your interview. Or whether you want to call a lawyer.”

  “I don’t want to be interviewed,” Zayda said, her voice high and thin.

  “That’s your right,” Detective Kim Caldwell replied, “but you might want to think it over.”

  “She’ll tell you anything she knows,” Mimi said as Tony repeated, “Where did you find it?”

  “Under the body.”

  Had it not been for the noisy wall heater, for the drip drip drip of the faucet onto the stainless steel sink, for the sighs and moans of the coffeemaker, you could have heard a pin drop. Or an eyebrow stud.

  “I went in, but I didn’t see her,” Zayda said, “so I decided to wait outside.” She wiped the back of her hand across her nose.

  “Did you argue? Did you shoot her?”

  At Nick’s demands, Tony rose and took a step forward, chin high, nostrils flaring. “My daughter wouldn’t hurt a flea. She doesn’t even know how to shoot,” Tony said. Mimi tugged at his sleeve, but she was clearly as upset as he.

  Nick’s brow furrowed and he glanced from father to daughter. I put a hand on his arm.

  “How did you get in?” I asked the girl. “The back doors were locked. And there’s a security system.”

  Her ponytail flapped. “No, it was off. And they were open. One of them, anyway. It must have locked automatically behind me.”

  “They don’t lock automatically,” Nick said. “You need to turn the bolt.”

  “We were supposed to meet Christine. That’s why the alarm was off,” I told Kim, then turned to Zayda. “But if the doors were open, why wait for me outside? Was someone else here? Did you hear a shot?”

  Zayda sank into herself.

  “Hey, that’s enough.” Kim held out her hands.

  Tony George wrapped an arm protectively around his daughter. I could not imagine that anything in his years as a restaurateur or, before that, his career as a baseball player had prepared him for this.

  “Deputy Oakland will keep you company while I speak with the Murphys,” she told the Georges. “Please don’t talk.”

  We followed her into the fire chief’s office. Kim works out of a satellite office the sheriff’s department keeps at the fire hall in town, four or five miles away. Both that office and this one had been furnished from the same industrial supply room: a black vinyl chair behind a gray metal desk, two hard plastic chairs, a gray three-drawer file cabinet. Barely room for a wastebasket. More maps covered the walls.

  “What the heck happened?” Nick barked the second Kim closed the door.

  “I am so sorry.” She sat behind the desk and gestured for us to sit. “How much do you know?”

  Nick wriggled out of his coat, sweat beading behind his ear, above his navy wool turtleneck. “Nothing. I was up Noisy Creek when Erin called. I told her where to find the spare key and rushed here.”

  “All the doors were locked, but Christine’s car was covered in snow, and it was obvious she hadn’t gone anywhere,” I said.

  Kim held up a hand. “One at a time. Last night, we all left Red’s about ten. You went to your cabin.” She pointed at me. “With Adam, or alone?”

  My blush was answer enough. She turned to Nick.

  “I’ve been working early and late, checking my wolf packs. The rest of you were already at Red’s when I came in.”

  She nodded. “And after?”

  “I went back to the Orchard and Christine went home. Like I said, early call.”

  “Anybody see you?”

  “I doubt it. No lights on at Mom’s, so I didn’t stop.” Nick kept base camp, as he called it, in a haphazard cabin at the top of the Orchard, the homestead where we were raised. Where Fresca reigned. The precise history lost to time, we speculated that farmhands built the cabin during my great-grandparents’ early years on the land. Wood heat, no insulation, but Nick always said he didn’t mind, that it was a palace compared to field conditions.

  Watching him alternately shiver and sweat worried me. “Kim, Nick’s been out in the cold, sweating, then freezing. He needs to go home and warm up. Get into dry clothes.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, though he did not sound fine.

  “Why start so early? Jewel Basin’s only ten miles from town.”

  His expression darkened. “I had a report of a wolf sighting to check. And I need to get into place before daybreak.”

  Wolf biologists walk a fine line in these politically charged times. They love and respect the animals, understand their ways and their need for habitat. For fresh food. They understand the conflicts that arise when wolves choose a young calf or lamb to sacrifice. But some folks harbor genuine hatred for wolves, shining it like they might polish their rifles or the family silver. Wolves didn’t die out naturally in the 1930s; they were hunted to near extinction, bounties on their hides. Reintroduction came not from bleeding-heart tree huggers, but from wildlife managers who knew gray wolves were migrating into northwest Montana from Alberta and British Columbia. Controlled reintroduction in Yellowstone and in the central Idaho wilderness offered scientists an opportunity to study the carnivores’ behavior more closely.

  Nick was an unaffiliated scientist, not part of state or federal management teams, and no longer attached to a university. Grants and contracts funded his studies. His results were reported widely and debated heavily, but ultimately garnered respect. At least in the scientific community and among politicians and individuals genuinely interested in understanding our lupine neighbors.

  But nothing can sway a dyed-in-the-sheep’s-wool wolf hater.

  “You carry a gun in the field?” Kim asked.

  “Colt .45 semiauto. It’s underneath the seat in my Jeep. Locked and loaded.”

  “When did you last carry it? When did you last fire it?”

  “I always carry it in the woods. Haven’t fired it since I last went to the range months ago.”

  “We’ll need to see it.”

  They stared at each other. A moment later, Nick fished his keys out of his coat pocket and handed them to her. She opened the door and spoke to one of the deputies. “Bag it for ballistics.”

  Silent, Nick studied the corner of the desk. Reached out and probed a scratch.

  “Did you talk to Christine after you left Red’s?” Kim returned to the swivel chair. It squeaked.

  “She called to let me know she was home, and say good night.” His voice was soft, and sad.

  “Did you call her this morning?”

  He caught his bottom lip between his teeth and shook his head, eyes blank.

  “Somebody must have been here, besides Zayda and me,” I interjected. “Did you find tire tracks? Footprints?”

  Kim ignored my interruption, her piercing blue eyes trained on Nick. “Anything bugging her lately?” Her eye flicked my way, including me in the question.

  After a long moment, he raised his head and met her gaze. “Nothing you don’t know about.”

  “She was focused on the Film Festival,” I said. “Lots of details to manage, but no real problems.”

  “What time was your meeting?” she asked me. “Why didn’t you and Zayda drive out together?”

  “Never thought about it,” I said. “The Georges live just up the hill. Straight shot from their house.” No one seemed to notice my stupid choice of words. I didn’t know whether Zayda had come from home or the In
n. “You know me. I run a shop, but I end up running all over.”

  Shop, Christine had said. Why had she asked about my shop? Shock, I decided.

  Kim took me through my arrival, my conversation with Zayda, and my movements. Nick blanched when I described finding Christine.

  Finally, Kim stood. “My sympathies to you both. She had no family, right?”

  “A cousin in Vermont,” Nick said. He sat, not moving, then rubbed one hand across his eyebrow. “I—I can’t believe any of this.”

  Before I could reach out, before I could touch him, he rose and left the office. I trailed behind in time to see him stride across the big room, not giving the Georges a glance. I stretched out a hand to Mimi and Zayda. I wanted to say, It’ll be all right. Detective Caldwell and Undersheriff Hoover will do everything. It will be all right.

  Ike had been a new detective when my father was killed. He had done everything he could. But he hadn’t found the killer, and it hadn’t been all right.

  But even I can keep my mouth shut sometimes.

  The wind was still swirling, the clouds still hovering, still spitting icy BBs at us. Across the highway, deputies had commandeered the snowy grounds of the former church. Industrial work lights on wheels illuminated the rapidly darkening scene. Light shone from the church windows.

  Behind the cottage, near the wild horse sculpture, another work light blazed and two deputies consulted, heads together, one pointing at the ground.

  Beyond them, a four-strand fence marked the property line. On the other side stood Jack Frost. Too far away, and the sky too dark and grim, to make out his expression, but his crossed arms and the body half-turned toward the deputies spoke a wary contempt. It did not speak grief for his departed neighbor.

  We were nearly at our cars when Nick spoke. “Her cat.”

  “They’ll find it.” The cottage lights were on. Still searching? I’d lost all track of time.

  “I’m not leaving it. Her.” Nick strode toward the cottage, and I trotted behind. His foot hit the first step to the porch and a deputy appeared out of nowhere.

  “If you can catch the thing, you’re welcome to take her.” The deputy grimaced and pushed back his sleeve. Three long red scratches.

  Twenty minutes later, I drove away, the orange tabby yowling in a cardboard box in my backseat. I’d missed my chance to pick up fresh eggs and cheese, but there was no avoiding a stop for Band-Aids.

  • Five •

  My mother punched off her phone and placed it carefully on her living room coffee table. “Bill says put calendula gel on the scratch, and take homeopathic ledum if it swells or starts to weep.”

  “I can’t believe you took that devil cat home,” Chiara said.

  “I couldn’t leave her. And Nick can’t keep her.” Wolf Man insisted on the rescue, but is conveniently allergic to all variety of cats, including DSH—domestic short hair. Although this one was clearly not domesticated.

  “That’s why they have shelters.” My sister had tolerated Sparky the Border collie, our childhood family pet, much like she tolerated Mr. Sandburg, my cat, and Pepé, Mom’s Scottie dog. My love of horses and Nick’s career as a wildlife biologist baffle her. Pepé stared at the plate of truffles in her hand, pleading. “No. Chocolate’s bad for dogs.”

  Chiara’s husband, Jason, had taken Landon into Pondera for an early movie and pizza, leaving the Murphy girls to a long-planned evening of dinner and huckleberry martini and margarita tasting with a few girlfriends.

  But with one of those friends dead, the others had stayed home. Heidi Hunter, the queen of Kitchenalia, and Kathy Jensen, owner of Dragonfly Dry Goods yarn and fabric shop and president of the Village Merchants’ Association, had been as shocked as we were.

  “How can you think about chocolate?” Fresca cast a disapproving eye at the plate and settled onto the couch, snugging her vintage silk kimono around her. This one featured Japanese fans scattered on a pale green background.

  Unusual—and refreshing—to hear Fresca direct one of her food barbs at my sister instead of me.

  After leaving Christine’s, I’d stopped for Band-Aids and more cat litter. In my cabin, I tucked Pumpkin—aptly named—into my bedroom, then dug out Mr. Sandburg’s carrying crate and left it open in the corner, in case she needed its security. Sandburg I left in charge of the main room. They could yell at each other—battle cries had begun the moment I hauled in the thumping cardboard box—through closed doors.

  I’d showered, changed into black yoga pants and a long-sleeved purple fleece sweatshirt, and driven up to the Orchard. Though I haven’t lived here in years, it will always be home.

  Fresca had already taken refuge in her kimono, the minestrone she’d made earlier in the day giving the house a rich tomato-oregano aroma. Nick had stopped long enough to share the bad news, then retreated to his place.

  “He shouldn’t be up there alone,” Fresca said now, reaching for one of the truffles she’d spurned.

  “He’s a grown man, Mom. Let him mourn in his own way.” My sister’s words seemed to take the bone out of Fresca’s spine, and she sank into the upholstery, deflated. Pepé hopped up next to her, so attuned to changing moods that she ignored the truffle and rested her snout on my mother’s thigh. Like any good dog or cat, she knows that to an animal lover, petting is as comforting to petter as to pettee.

  “I brought all the ingredients—we might as well try the recipes.” In the kitchen, I got out the blender and mixed a batch of huckleberry margaritas while my sister put together huckleberry martinis. People often mistake us for each other—we’ve got the same fair skin, dark eyes, and straight dark bobs, though mine’s a little longer, and at five-five, I’m an inch taller. She’s two years older and by far the freer spirit.

  “Shaken or stirred?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Either way, we’ve put fruit in a martini. James Bond just had a heart attack and died. We’ve managed what Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Oddjob combined couldn’t do.”

  Giggling, we carried the cocktail tray out to the living room. Pepé raised her head, saw that it was us, and went back to her nap.

  “I can’t imagine what you girls can find to laugh about at a time like this,” Fresca said.

  “Mom, it stinks. It really stinks.” My voice got tight, my eyes watered, and my throat swelled—and not from the cat scratch on my neck. “But save it for the killer. Not us.”

  Chiara poured margaritas into thick glasses rimmed in cobalt blue, souvenirs from a trip to Puerto Vallarta. “Hard to believe Zayda George would kill anybody.”

  “At first, she said she waited outside for me, then she had to admit she’d gone inside. She swears nothing happened—the brow ring just fell out.” I took a glass. “Doesn’t make sense. Why go back outside? If she knew Christine was hurt, why not call for help? If she shot her, why stick around?”

  Fresca accepted a margarita. “Doesn’t seem like the girl we know.”

  The village merchants all see one another’s children regularly. Older kids like Zayda, her brother, T.J., and Dylan Washington work for their parents, the way we’d helped our grandfather when he ran the Merc. Landon and the other youngsters cut a wide swath, leaving smiles in their wake.

  None of that means we really know any of the kids. But as president of the Film Club, Zayda had approached Christine and me about including the students’ documentary in the Festival. She’d served as liaison between us—the food and organizational side—and her club and its advisor, Larry, on the technical side. She’d been capable and responsible.

  Or so it seemed. But something had gone wrong today. And yesterday she’d been pestering Larry about some problem, though he’d waved off her worries.

  “Good job, little sis,” Chiara said, raising her margarita glass. “You make the huckleberry tequila?”

  “Yep. Thanks. So why did Kim take Nick
’s gun? He was crawling around the woods, spying on wolves, when—well, when it happened.” It. Murder.

  “She’s got to check everything, I guess. Did she ask you and Zayda about guns?”

  “I don’t own one. If she asked Zayda, it wasn’t in front of us.”

  Fresca held her glass in one graceful hand. “She’s always had her eye on your brother.”

  “Kim?” I dismissed it. “When we were kids, maybe. All my friends did.”

  “Mine, too. Ready for the next contestant?” Chiara positioned three martini glasses on the tray and raised the stainless steel shaker.

  I nodded. “She’s over it.”

  Fresca tilted her head. “I’m not so sure about that. Might have been hard for her, seeing him and Christine get back together.”

  I tried to picture Kim Friday night at Red’s. Any jealous looks had escaped me. Since my return last May, she hadn’t been involved with anyone, far as I knew. Last fall, on one of our semiregular Friday afternoon rides, I’d asked her about dating. “The gun gets in the way,” was all she’d said. Her cousin Kyle was single, too, so it had been natural for them to pair up for pool league.

  If they kept on beating the potato chips out of us, we might have to break them up.

  “But you know who I wonder about. That Jack Frost character. He gives me the creeps.” I took the handblown martini glass Chiara handed me, deep red swirls draped around the V-shaped bowl and down the stem. “And the other night—”

  The glass shattered in my hand. “Criminy.”

  “What happened? Are you okay? I’ll get a towel.” Chiara jumped up and sprinted for the kitchen. Stunned, I stared at my hand, still holding part of the glass, the rest in pieces on my lap and on my mother’s Persian rug. No blood—just wet, sticky, purple vodka.

  “I can’t believe it. Can’t you kids leave one single pretty thing unbroken? One plate unchipped, one surface unscratched?” Fresca gathered her kimono around her and swept past my sister, standing in the doorway, kitchen towel in hand.

  And as she left, even Pepé’s mouth fell open in astonishment.