No Ordinary Hero

by Rachel Lee

  “I don’t know about talking to the sheriff,” she said. Behind her, the coffeepot popped and released a blast of steam, letting her know it had finished brewing. She pulled some mugs from the cupboard then carried them and the pot of coffee to the table.

  Mike sat facing her as she poured coffee. “Why not go to the sheriff? Something’s not right.”

  “Obviously. But what have I got? The sound of a slamming door? And maybe some forgetfulness about where I put things? What could the sheriff possibly do about any of that?”

  “I guess you’re right.” But he didn’t look happy about agreeing. “And Colleen?”

  She looked up from the piece of Danish she was cutting with her fork. “I agree. She’s not coming back into this house until I get to the bottom of this. She’s been through enough. But how do I get to the bottom? What if it’s just somebody playing a practical joke?”

  “I doubt a practical joker would be running around at this hour of the morning.”

  “Me, too.” And that sense of creepiness started to return.

  “But that leaves us with the huge problem of why someone would be trying to scare you or your daughter.”

  She put her fork down, facing the horrible sense that reality was spinning out of her control and that for once she couldn’t grab the reins and bring it back in line. “I don’t think I’ve done anything to make anyone that mad. And I seriously doubt Colleen has either.”

  “I’d be shocked if either of you had. So it’s got to be something about this house.”

  Back to the house again. But she was out of arguments. She couldn’t put this down to forgetfulness, early onset senility, distraction or mice in the walls. It had gone well past that. Especially since Mike had heard the sound both times.

  So she wasn’t going crazy, Colleen wasn’t going crazy, and the likelihood that someone was pulling a prank was minimal at best. Heck, it wasn’t as if Colleen had even reached the age where she might have friends who wanted to wrap toilet paper on the trees out front. And making strange noises in a house in the predawn hours went well past that.

  “Man,” she whispered.

  “Eat,” Mike finally said. “The calories will help. When do you have to get Colleen?”

  “I need to pick her up around six-thirty so I can bring her back here to shower and change before school.”

  “Okay. I have surgeries starting at seven, but I’ll do what I can to finish out early today. Maybe cancel some appointments.”

  She lifted her eyes to him again. “Then what?” she asked. “Then what?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we’ve got to figure out something. And soon.”

  Chapter 8

  C olleen was happy to see her, even though it meant another day of struggling through school. And Colleen did struggle. She didn’t complain about it, but Del had heard from teachers how the other kids bumped her around because her wheelchair got in the way. The only thing that seemed to have improved over the past couple of years was that no one picked on her anymore for it. They just got impatient, and going down a crowded hallway could be a problem. When the school had decided that Colleen should change classes just before or after the other kids, she had objected, claiming that everyone would be mad at her for getting special privileges. So she struggled through crowded hallways surrounded by kids who sometimes seemed blind to the fact that there was a girl in a wheelchair among them.

  Del didn’t understand it, but since Colleen’s accident she had noticed how often people treated the disabled poorly, getting impatient with their slowness or the obstruction they seemed to cause. And maybe worst of all, how the disabled became invisible to those rushing around them.

  Unfortunately, she had to take Colleen home before school. Much as she didn’t want her daughter in that house right now, she had to. Colleen needed a shower, and there was only one place she could get one, and only one person who could help her with it. She wouldn’t embarrass Colleen any further by asking anyone else to help with dressing and undressing, maneuvering into the chair in the shower, or washing her.

  Colleen had already suffered enough indignities for a lifetime, and to some extent had to suffer them each and every day at the hands of her own mother.

  “You moved my room!”

  No way to hide that.

  “Only until we get rid of whatever’s making the noises. You can tell me later where you want your posters and things.”

  “It’s farther from the bathroom.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Colleen was frowning, clearly unhappy that she hadn’t been consulted, but when Del accompanied her through her torn-up room, the frown faded to be replaced by a giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” Del asked.

  “You sure made a mess for one mouse.”

  If only it were just a mouse, Del thought, but she managed a passable laugh in return. “It was going to happen sooner or later. You’ve been through this enough times to know.”

  Colleen sighed. “Yeah. Someday maybe we can live in just one house for a long time?”

  Del felt her heart squeeze. “All this moving bothers you?”

  “A little.” Then, as if catching herself, Colleen looked up at her. “It’s okay. It’s what we have to do, right?”

  “Right.” But was it? It had initially been necessary because she couldn’t afford two mortgages, but now she was paying two anyway. And then she was always afraid to leave a house unoccupied for long while she was working on it because there were so many useful things to steal.

  And maybe that was too paranoid?

  Or maybe not. Hell. She could hear that slamming door echo in her mind as she helped Colleen bathe and dress for school.

  And she decided not to tell Colleen that there was going to be another change that very afternoon. She’d do it later, when she picked her daughter up from school.

  As she did every morning, she lifted Colleen into the passenger seat of her truck and put the wheelchair in back in the bed. As she did every morning, she reversed the process at school, then stood and watched as Colleen wheeled herself along the sidewalk, up the ramp and through a door that a teacher opened for her.

  Her throat tightened. She squeezed her eyes shut and sent a message winging heavenward, about how unfair life had been to this little girl.

  As soon as she did, she felt guilty for it. She’d seen kids in the hospital and in therapy who had it far worse. But sometimes trying to feel grateful that it wasn’t worse felt damn near impossible.

  Finally, as she heard the bell ring inside the building, she climbed back into her truck and pulled out her cell phone. In just a short time, she heard Nate Tate’s gravelly voice answer.

  “Hi, Sheriff, it’s Del Carmody.”

  “Del! Hot damn. You work so hard I never get to see you around. And what’s with the sheriff thing? It’s Nate to you now.”

  She felt a smile crease her face, and so many memories came flooding back. Just the sound of Nate’s voice was comforting. She had a string of memories of all the times he came into her classroom, before he had retired and she had moved away, to talk about the law, about not being stupid behind the wheel, or just to give students a glimpse of how the sheriff’s office worked, and what it was like to be a deputy.

  And then there were the other times, good times. Nate had six daughters, and Del had gone through school with some of them. And that had meant pajama parties, and barbecues, and birthday bashes. There was a time when it hadn’t been unusual to see twenty or even thirty girls crammed into the Tate house, all giggling and laughing. There had even been one memorable time when they’d camped in the backyard, trying without much success to keep the volume down so the neighbors wouldn’t complain, only to be sent inside in a rush by an unexpected thunderstorm.

  “How are you holding up?” Nate asked her now. “You ought to come by some time for coffee.”

  “Well, I was going to ask if I could do that sometime today. I’d like to pick your brain.�
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  “Brain’s always open for picking. If you’re not busy right now, come on over. The coffee is fresh.”

  “Thank you. I’m on my way.”

  The Tates still lived on the edge of town, their ranch-style house set on a large lot surrounded by similar houses from the same era. Every so often, the town grew in a spurt. Del didn’t know what spurt had caused this particular subdivision, as it had been here as long as she could remember. At the other end of town, the relatively new semiconductor plant had caused another spurt of growth: houses and apartments both.

  Nate hadn’t changed much in the course of the past twenty years or so, at least not to Del’s eye. The man had always seemed ageless. And Marge, his wife, while a little plumper around the middle, showed her years only in the gray hair that had replaced her once-fiery mane. Both of them welcomed Del warmly, and soon she was on the sofa, holding a mug of coffee, with a plate of small pastries on the table at her elbow.

  “How’s Colleen doing?” Marge asked immediately.

  “Surprisingly well,” Del admitted. “I keep waiting for her to erupt one way or another, but she doesn’t.”

  “Some people,” Nate remarked, “roll more easily with the punches than most. Maybe she’s been blessed that way.”

  “I hope so.” And indeed Del did. Not a thing could be done about her daughter’s paralysis, so the best she could hope for was that Colleen could remain upbeat and happy.

  “So you wanted to pick my brain,” Nate said presently, when the social niceties were out of the way. “What about?”

  Del looked down into her mug, uncertain how to even begin. Sitting here in the Tate house, the whole thing sounded ridiculous even as she tried out words in her mind.

  Finally Nate spoke again. “There isn’t much I haven’t heard, Del. Some of it far stranger than you could even imagine.”

  At that she looked at him and smiled. “I believe you. It’s just… Oh, I don’t know. I was going to ask you if anything had ever happened in that house I’m working on over on Jackson. Anything bad.”

  His face didn’t reflect even a smidgen of surprise. Instead he asked, “What’s going on?”

  She sighed. “Nate, it sounds insane.”

  “A lot of things do. So just tell me what’s going on. The best place to start is usually the beginning.”

  “Well, it started with Colleen hearing noises in her room. I thought we had mice or something, and for a week or so I tried to ignore it, thinking they’d go away as I continued pulling down walls. I looked around, of course, but couldn’t even find any sign that something had been in the attic. And Colleen was getting frightened.”

  Nate nodded encouragingly and Marge left her bentwood rocker to come sit beside her and pat her hand comfortingly.

  “Anyway,” Del continued, “Colleen went to spend the night with a friend on Saturday, so I decided to sleep in her room and see if I could identify the noises. I heard it. And I don’t mind telling you, it scared me, too. So much so I ran out of the house and didn’t want to go back in. Mike Windwalker saw me outside on the porch and came over to see what was wrong. He sat in Colleen’s room, too, and heard the same thing. Crazy as it may be, it absolutely did not sound like animal scratching. It sounds…well, it sounds almost like human fingers. Soft, not like claws.”

  “Okay,” Nate said. “I don’t think you’re crazy. What happened next?”

  “Mike and I spent all Saturday ripping out the plaster in Colleen’s room until I could pull enough lath loose to look in the walls. I couldn’t find any sign that animals had ever been in there. And by then we’d heard some other noises, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Doors slamming. Heavy doors. Except none of the doors in the house had slammed. And when we made them slam, we realized it shook the house. We could feel the vibrations when we did it, but none when we just heard it.”

  Marge squeezed her hand, and Nate frowned faintly.

  “That’s strange all right. Anything else?”

  “Just that I seem to keep misplacing things. I’m probably just not being as attentive as usual what with Colleen being scared.”

  “Could be.” Nate’s eyes remained both kind and thoughtful as he looked at her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Del almost jerked backward in surprise. No wonder this man had been such a good sheriff. How could he guess there was more? She hesitated, because she didn’t know how Mike would feel about her spreading this.

  “You can’t tell anyone else,” she said finally.

  “I won’t.” Nate smiled. “I’ve been keeping this county’s secrets most of my adult life. So has Marge.”

  “I’ll leave if you want,” Marge said gently.

  “No, no, it’s just that I don’t think this is the type of thing Mike would want getting around.”

  “It won’t,” Nate promised.

  “He says the house feels sad.” She felt her own jaw thrust forward, almost belligerently, because if he said one thing critical about Mike she was going to…going to what? Nate wouldn’t do that. He’d been the man to hire the county’s first two Native American deputies.

  He asked, “And that’s why you wanted to know if something bad had happened in the house?”

  “Basically. Or anything else. I mean, right now we’re both pretty convinced that someone is trying to scare me, but we can’t figure out why. And we thought maybe if we looked into the house’s history, we might get a clue. Obviously the place was built by someone with money. Could someone think there’s some kind of treasure in there?”

  “I’ve never heard even a rumor like that.” He sat back and rubbed his chin, obviously ruminating. “Something in the house that someone wants to find first? Possible. Some reason someone wants to scare you out? Equally possible. Or some just plain mean person wants to make your life more difficult? Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve known people like that. Somebody might have taken some wild notion about you or even your daughter. Some folks are that low. Someone might even object to the noise of your renovations and be too mealymouthed to just come out and tell you.”

  Del nodded slowly. “I hadn’t even thought about that. I asked my neighbors to let me know if I disturb them, but so far no one’s said anything.”

  “Hmm.” Nate fell silent for a few minutes. “Well, that’s one hell of a hodgepodge of things. Can’t even be sure all of them are related.”

  “I know. I feel silly for even troubling you with it.”

  At that Nate smiled. “If I didn’t like folks troubling me with things, I wouldn’t have stayed sheriff for so long. Marge’ll tell you.”

  “I certainly will.” Marge smiled warmly. “And lately, he’s been getting a bit cranky because he misses the action. So you see? Coming here was a good thing to do.”

  “I’m not getting cranky,” Nate protested mildly, but he winked at Marge as he said it. “I’m going to need to think this over, Del. Something’s obviously going on. These occurrences happen at any particular time?”

  “Mostly in the evening or during the night, but we did hear a door slam in the afternoon. And we couldn’t find a thing.”

  Nate nodded. “As for Mike saying the house is sad…well, he may be right. I’m the last one to question that kind of intuition. But what would leave that impression?”

  Marge shook her head. “I don’t remember anything unusual connected to the house. I seem to remember Barb Barrow died there, but she was old and that was nearly forty years ago, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. They found her in bed. Looked like a peaceful passing and she was ninety-five. Hardly enough to make a house sad.”

  Del was surprised that Nate didn’t seem to have a problem with the idea that Mike thought the house was sad. Quite the contrary, he seemed to consider it an important clue. She had expected skepticism, although no bigoted comments, not from Nate Tate.

  “I’ve got to give this some thought,” Nate said after a moment. “As far as I know, nothing unusu
al has ever happened there.”

  Marge spoke. “Barb Barrow was fairly well-to-do. Didn’t she and her husband build the place?”

  “I think so.” Nate’s gaze grew distant with thought. “But she wasn’t batty. I vaguely remember the probate proceedings. There was enough money in her bank account that I doubt she left any in the walls or under floorboards. It wasn’t like any of her heirs claimed there was missing jewelry or something. Besides, this is an awfully late date for someone to want to hunt for valuables like that.”

  “Maybe,” Del said, “I should check the newspaper morgue.”

  “Easier to go to the library,” Nate said. “Miss Emma will have everything at her fingertips. Meantime I’ll talk to a few people, put the old ear to the ground.”

  When she left a half hour later, Del felt considerably better. Why? She didn’t know, except Nate Tate had a way of making people feel more relaxed, as if he’d somehow take care of things. And maybe he would. If one of her neighbors was mad about noise or something, Nate would surely be able to find out.

  Although the idea of any of her neighbors running around in the middle of the night trying to scare her seemed ridiculous beyond belief.

  In fact, the whole situation seemed ridiculous. Standing in the bright morning sunlight outside the library, in a world washed clean by the heavy rains, she would have found it easy to believe she had imagined everything. All of it. Except Mike had heard it, too. And Colleen.

  And Colleen was scared.

  The house was sad.

  If she allowed even the possibility that the animism with which Mike had been raised had even one iota of reality to it, then the house could be sad. And if the house was sad…

  Squaring her shoulders, she marched into the library. Miss Emma, as she was known to everyone, sat at her small desk behind the circular wooden counter. She looked up and greeted Del with a smile. “Well, it’s been a while,” she commented as she rose to greet Del. “I thought you were too busy to read.”