Wear Something Red

by K.G. Lawrence

  Chapter 32

  Craig was supposed to keep Shana occupied until five. She would then take about an hour to get home on her bike. It was, therefore, a day to get things done. The furnace, central air and hot water tank were taken care of, as was the kitchen redo. Janine recommended Atlas Windows to replace their old ones.

  What also needed to get done was laundry. There were all their clothes that had been unpacked. Those green drapes that she’d used to wrap her crystal in weren’t attractive, but they were blackouts and would fit the window of the middle bedroom upstairs. With a southern exposure, it let the sun beat in all day long. In this recent hot spell, the drapes would slow down the heat buildup that put the upstairs in the low nineties by mid-afternoon.

  Most of the dishes and the dinnerware, and all the pots and pans, would stay in the boxes she and Shana had stashed in the nook. There was no point unpacking them if a new kitchen was going to be installed within a week. She was going to have to buy healthier meals until the new kitchen was ready.

  She got three loads of their clothing done and put away by lunch. The dryer took longer than expected and the washer wanted to get jiggy with every load that went into it. She had to push in a wedge under the front of it to keep it in place. They were both on their way out next week.

  She made a tuna sandwich for lunch, spilling the chives from the bottle into the dish and then having to scoop the excess out with a teaspoon, which meant one more thing they had to wash by hand because the dishwasher had quietly passed away during the night. She drank a beer with the sandwich; a bad choice to go with tuna.

  The fourth load of clothes finished with a loud clunk. She had to empty it and push the washer back six inches. She slipped the wedge under it again but still hesitated putting in the heavy drapes. The ringing phone brought her back upstairs.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, ma’am,” Kelly said.

  “Joan, Kelly, I’m Joan off duty.”

  “But I’m on duty, ma’am.”

  “You were supposed to take today off.”

  “I know, I just thought I’d check in to see what was happening, especially after I caught the noon news.”

  They still hadn’t hooked up their television, mostly because she had no clue how to get their home theater system back up and running. Shana had connected the smaller, surround speakers to the receiver and performed whatever other magic was required so they could at least get music.

  “I missed it.”

  “There’s been a train derailment outside of Chicago. Four crewmen and a man in his truck at a crossing were killed. There was an explosion at the docks in Houston. Five were killed in that one, too. Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound glib.”

  “I know.”

  “Los Angeles has had a power outage in over one third of the city, but everything is fine in Dominion . . . so far.”

  “We’ll go over Dominion’s disaster preparedness tomorrow. Then we’ll arrange a meeting with Mayor Jones, firefighters and emergency responders to clarify all the protocols.”

  “We’ve received a request to investigate the rail lines coming into town. I’ll call Horace at the station to do that, though he’s probably been notified already.”

  “I also need the safety protocols for the fair.”

  “We’ve never had anything happen there.”

  “Then we’re overdue.”

  “I’ll put the stuff together and try to arrange it into some kind of sense for tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I’ve done my laundry.”

  “I still have some.”

  “I’ve worked out.”

  She cleared her throat. “Maybe later.”

  “And there’s no man in sight for miles.”

  “Remember to submit your OTR-three-twelve for approval.”

  Her vacuum cleaner was new. She had no choice but to buy a new one just before moving when the other one died of asphyxiation. It was just as well. She’d often had to hand feed the dirt to it to get it to swallow anything. However strong the new one was, it still couldn’t make the old carpets look any better. Only a match would do that.

  “Why did I think a nice fixer-upper would help us set down roots in Dominion? I could have bought a new house. There are some newer ones in Fleetwood Grove, some really nice ones in Quarrelle Heights. They’re near the lake with easy access to some good cycling routes. Some come with acreage. Instead, I’m using Shana as child slave labor, talking to myself and anthropomorphizing my appliances.”

  The place was exactly what Shana said it was: a total-nuclear-meltdown-redo. Just accept that and everything would go much easier.

  “Damn.”

  She got out her cell phone to call the Harding farm but hesitated. How would Shana feel about mom checking up on her? She could text Craig, ask him how it was going and request that he keep the report just between them.

  “That would make you fit right in with this town.”

  Rather than calling or texting, she ran a bath, scrunched herself into the tub and tried to turn a good hour of opportunity for housework into one of self-indulgence, except the hot water ran out before the tub was full, leaving the bathwater only tepid for the first ten minutes before she had to constantly replenish it.

  With two tall women in the house, and neither of them liking cold, they needed a larger tub at least vertically if not horizontally, and maybe two hot water tanks instead of just one.

  She tried thinking of Shana, poachers, Madsen’s lack of updates on his investigations of Nguyen and Wiley, but that only made her feel like she had fallen into a centrifuge. Every fragment of thought that slammed into the top of her head as she spun around, set off sparks and made her head hot while the rest of her cooled in the water.

  When she closed her eyes against the pain and brightness, she saw Michael’s face while he was in the coma. Every time she had looked at him in that condition she had been sure he was already gone. Shana had only been able to visit him once because his stillness disturbed her too much.

  No matter how hard she tried, she could never bring herself to hope for the hopeless: that he would open his eyes, gasp, moan, just wake-up. She looked at that point of departure that he silently presented to the world and wished for it all to be over. Of course, the worst thought had occurred to her with every visit: that he was inside that placid mask screaming out at her, trying to be heard, calling out his apology, his recriminations, his plea for her to take care of herself and Shana after. . . .

  Relief and guilt was an inadequate description of how she had felt when he just slipped away that day. She hadn’t shed a tear. She had got up from her chair, kissed him, gone home and told Shana, who had then folded herself into her mother’s arms and cried for all three of them. She hadn’t worn her wedding ring since that day.

  Pink and wrinkled, she dried herself off, put on clean underwear, but put her work clothes back on. She went down to the basement, loaded the drapes into the washer and started it up after first checking the wedge and taking a deep breath.

  Back on the main floor, she called Kelly at the office for an update. Horace Rothman had seen the news and was already inspecting the rails when Kelly called him. Kelly also advised her that Rob and Jacob had returned from a very successful fishing trip and would bring in some Chinook salmon for her when they came in Monday to introduce themselves. They had checked with Kelly to make sure they still had a reason to come in.

  She started on the venetian blinds next. Every window in the house had them. They were on their way out, too, but they had to stay in place until the renovations were complete, and they were too disgusting to ignore for that long. She hauled around a bucket of soapy water, towels and a sponge to each window. After six refills, she had another load for the washer and every set of blinds was as close to their original white color as they were going to get: light-light-light taupe.

  At four o’clock, Craig parked his Ford 250 in front of her house.

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sp; She wiped her palms on her jeans as she watched Craig get Shana’s bike out of the box. Shana took it to the back, returned and came in with him. She’d been crying.

  Shana came in first, went straight into her arms and sobbed, “They killed him.”

  She hugged Shana back and looked at Craig.

  “The elk, someone shot it last night. Then they skinned it and took the head.”

  “How could someone get away with that?”

  “We do have cameras, but the ones at the farm are focused on the enclosures, not the paddocks. They used silencers.”

  “Silencers?”

  “Someone would have heard them otherwise.”

  Shana released her mother. “You have to do something.”

  Craig said, “We talked about this, Shana.”

  “I know about evidence, but we know who did it.”

  “No, we don’t,” she said. “We may suspect who is behind it, but we don’t know who the specific people involved are. Without evidence, there’s little we can do.”

  Craig said, “They removed the bullets again.”

  “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “I called Kelly. She’s probably there by now. She’ll call if she finds anything you need to look at. I doubt she will.”

  “I should be there.”

  “Joan, it’s all right. I’m not trying to exclude you. I don’t make the same stupid mistakes twice . . . usually. Kelly’s good, and so are my people. If they find any trail that leads us to whom and how, they will let us know.”

  Shana said, “It was one of Colter’s men, you know that.”

  She again looked at Craig.

  “People were upset. They said a lot of things.”

  “That’s because they know who did it.” Shana looked at her and said, “All right, they suspect who’s behind it.”

  “Colter has his explanation for anything like this.”

  “Poachers.”

  “How many more animals are going to die before someone stops them?” Shana ran upstairs.

  “I’ve considered the poacher angle. What if only some of Colter’s men are doing it?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “Colter admitted that some of his men are damaged goods. What if they’re traipsing off into the mountains when something sets them off?”

  “You think some PTSD reaction puts them back in Afghanistan? They’d be trying to survive until rescued. They’d be setting the traps. But some of those traps have been pits. It would take either a long time for one man to complete or a lot of men to complete quickly.”

  “What if the slickers he’s bringing in for survival training are setting all the traps, even the pits, as part of their training?”

  “Possible, but either way, Colter’s responsible.”

  “He isn’t going to want to give them up any more than he would his own men.”

  “His people would still be the ones who finished off the elk. Slickers wouldn’t be doing that. And someone is destroying or stealing our cameras.”

  “Why?”

  “To flaunt their power over us, maybe; I don’t really know. They have some motivation that’s important to them.”

  “Unless it’s Harry’s poachers.”

  “Now I really don’t follow you.”

  “I don’t follow me, either. Maybe he thinks Nguyen is the poacher.”

  “He wouldn’t fit the time frame.”

  “Unless Nguyen is using the existing problem to cover his own.” She shrugged.

  “What or who is he hiding from?”

  “If we knew that, we might know where to find him. I’ll talk to Colter again.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. I want to stop him, but he’s smart. If we try rattling his cage, he just might—”

  A racket started downstairs.

  “Dammit.”

  She ran to the basement with Craig right behind her. The washer was doing a drunken jig. One of the hoses had come off and water was pouring out all over the floor.

  “I’ll handle the drunk,” Craig shouted over the noise. “You shut off the water.”

  He had to jig his way up to the washer to push the dial in. She turned off the faucet. The washer surrendered peacefully. The water slowed to an annoying drip that wouldn’t stop.

  Craig inspected the end of the hose. “It popped off, but I think I can get it back on. Got a wrench handy?”

  They pushed the washer back but left enough room to reattach the hose, which screwed on easily enough once Craig got the threads properly aligned.

  “Why didn’t you bring her home sooner or call me?”

  “She didn’t want to come home. I should have insisted, but it’s easy to forget she’s only fourteen.”

  “That it is. Unfortunately, sometimes she forgets, too.”

  “She did a great job her first day.” He handed back the wrench. “But I think it all caught up to her in the afternoon. I found her resting under a tree with Caesar. She was fine until she saw me, then the tears started.”

  She looked up. “I should see how she’s doing.”

  “I better go. You have a fantastic, not-so-little girl, but tell her she can come in Tuesday if she needs a day.”

  “What do you think she’ll say to that?”

  He smiled and started up the stairs.

  “Don’t go, please. After handling a crying daughter and a drunken washing machine, I should at least give you a supper, as long as burgers and fries are okay.” She had just validated Shana’s fifth point from yesterday. She blushed. Dammit.

  “Burt’s?”

  “Burt’s.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “I’d offer to cook you something, but I’m not a great cook and all we have is beer and a stale pizza box.”

  “Truth be told, I do prefer my pizza boxes fresh.” He came back down and went over to the washer. “Should we risk the rest of the spin cycle or just take them out now?”

  She opened the lid. The drapes were soaking wet. “Let’s risk it.” She rearranged the drapes to redistribute the load. They both checked the re-inserted wedge and the stability of the machine’s footing. “Here goes.”

  She pulled out the dial to get the machine going. Craig had picked up the wrench and was prepared to use it.

  “One quick blow,” he said, “and it’s all over.”

  The washer behaved itself, though it made as much racket as it had while dancing.

  He looked down at the wet floor. “Got a mop and bucket? I’ll take care of this while you get the burgers.”

  “My house, my mess, you go get the burgers.”

  “Trust me, I know exactly what to get.”