Who Loves Ya, Baby?

by Gemma Bruce

  Julie blinked. Did she say sex and chickens?

  “Oh, don’t look like that. It’s easy. Wes left you detailed instructions in the ledger. I’m not leaving until Monday and I’ll be back by Thursday. If you run into something you can’t handle, ask Dan Pliney down at the Hardware and Feed Store.” Maude leaned over and disappeared head first into a deep cabinet. She came up a second later, wielding a heavy cast iron frying pan.

  “What are you doing?” asked Julie.

  “Showing you the right way to fry farm eggs.”

  Julie grimaced. “I’m not much of a breakfast person.”

  “You will be. Just takes some gumption. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Especially when you have chores to do.” Maude reached in the bag and pulled out a cube of butter.

  “Chores?” squawked Julie. “I’m not doing any chores. I’m only staying long enough to clean out the house and put it up for sale.”

  Maude dropped a cholesterol-packed slice of butter into the frying pan and turned on the burner. Then she turned on Julie. “What’s your hurry? Take some time. Don’t you have things to do here?”

  Julie thought about the riddle and her hopes that it would actually turn out to be something that she could use—like money—but was afraid it was only chickens.

  Maude did a one-handed egg crack and opened the shell over the pan. The egg sizzled as it oozed into the butter. She cracked another egg and dropped its contents into the pan. “Well? Don’t you?”

  Julie, who had been distracted by the efficiency with which Maude was dealing with the eggs, started. “What?”

  “Don’t you have things to do?”

  “No,” said Julie automatically. “Just dispose of Wes’s effects.”

  Maude whirled around. “What the hell kind of attitude is that? He loved you all his life and he left everything he held dear to you. Dispose of his effects. Of all the—”

  “Sorry,” said Julie. “It’s just a phrase. All of his possessions, his ... whatever.”

  Maude took the end of a bag of bread in her teeth and tore it open, while she wrestled with the cord of the toaster that seemed to be stuck under something on the shelf.

  The toaster came free and Maude dropped the bread next to it.

  “Not whatever. Or maybe whatever. Because you, girl, are going to do whatever it takes. Wes was counting on you and you’re not going to let him down.”

  “Counting on me for what? What does he want me to do?”

  Maude shrugged and dropped two pieces of bread in the toaster slots. She pressed the lever down hard enough to send the toaster sliding across the counter. “How should I know? That’s for you to figure out.”

  She stretched up on tiptoe and pulled two plates down from a cabinet and slid eggs and toast onto them.

  Julie watched in amazement. Not one broken yolk. “How did you do that?”

  “Practice. Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it in no time. Wes said you were bright.” She opened a drawer and took out silverware and paper napkins and began to set the table.

  It was obvious that she knew her way around Wes’s kitchen. What else did she know?

  “Sit down and eat. Even I don’t like cold fried eggs.”

  Julie sat down and looked at the two yellow yolks that stared back at her. She swallowed, took a sip of coffee.

  Maude placed the second plate and a mug of coffee across from her and pulled out a chair. She did a little jump and plop to get her butt on the chair seat, then picked up her fork and pointed it at Julie. “Eat.”

  Julie gingerly cut into her eggs and watched the yellow run across the flowered plate. She lifted the fork to her mouth, knowing Smitty was under the table, if she could just figure out a way to slip it to him. She realized Maude was watching her, so she pushed the egg into her mouth. Waited for the gag reflex to kick in and was surprised when it actually tasted good.

  Maude nodded, smiled, and dug into her breakfast. “Told you they were good. No immunized, hormone-pumped, antibiotic-riddled store-boughts here. Just good old natural fertilized eggs.”

  “They are good,” said Julie, surprised. She tore off a corner of toast and dipped it into the yolk. Even better on the second bite.

  “Well, enjoy them ’cause there won’t be many more this season.”

  “Why? Is something wrong with the chickens?”

  “Nope. But when the days get short, the hens stop laying, unless you set up an artificial light source. You want to do that?”

  Julie shook her head. “No,” she said vehemently just in case Maude had mistaken the head shake as a nod.

  “So enjoy them now.” Maude pushed her plate away. It looked like it had just come out of the dishwasher. Julie looked down at her own plate. Pretty close. She threw a sympathetic look toward Smitty, who had quietly crept closer to her feet. He knew better than to beg, but that didn’t stop him from keeping an eager eye out for any accidental falling breakfast parts.

  Maude leaned back in her chair and placed her hands over her middle. “Well?”

  Julie suddenly had so many questions, she didn’t know where to begin. Mostly she wanted to know why Wes had left her everything, but had never tried to contact her while he was alive. But she wasn’t ready to open up to Maude. She didn’t remember her from before. And even though she appeared to be a good friend to her uncle, maybe more than a good friend, Julie knew better than to trust anyone in this town.

  “Why did Wes start raising chickens?”

  “Cause he liked them. They’re good company. You’ll find that out.”

  Julie didn’t bother to repeat that she wouldn’t be staying long enough to bond with any chickens.

  “Was he lonely? Did he suffer? Was he happy?” Julie heard herself asking the questions and couldn’t seem to stop them once they started.

  Maude let her carry on for a while, then sighed. “I told him he should just bring you home, but he was a stubborn cuss. Thought you were better off without him and without this town.”

  “He didn’t know where I was,” said Julie, then remembered the envelope addressed to her.

  “Of course he did, he knew everything about you. Went to the library every week and looked you up on the internet. And he was as proud of you as your no-good father should have been. And he stuck by you, while your father just drank himself to death.”

  Julie’s throat tightened and without warning her eyes began to sting. “My father never got over my mother’s death.”

  “I know. And nobody blames him.”

  I did, thought Julie. And then a more frightening thought occurred to her. “Wes followed my career?”

  Maude nodded.

  “He knew I was a ... a ...”

  “New York detective.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Maude narrowed her eyes at Julie. “When he got too sick to go to the library, I went for him. He didn’t know about the internal investigation. I didn’t want him getting upset.” Maude looked away, then said in a shaky voice, “I thought maybe he’d pull through.”

  “I’m sorry.” Julie sniffed and swallowed hard. “I wasn’t guilty.”

  “I know. I kept reading about you even after he died. It just got to be a habit. Kept him closer.”

  Smitty heaved himself off the floor and put his head in Maude’s lap.

  “My partner was taking drug money,” said Julie. “I blew the whistle on him.”

  “Good for you.”

  “It didn’t make me very popular with some of the movers and shakers in the department. They should have given me a medal, instead I got desk duty. Shit.” She brushed her sleeve across her eyes. “Sorry. I can’t believe I just dumped all this on you.”

  “Well, hell. Why not. We’re just a couple of watering pots,” said Maude, absently stroking Smitty’s head. “And Wes would give us both a swift kick if he were here.”

  “Yeah,” said Julie. “Well, he’s dead now, so where does that leave me?”

  “That, girl, is up t
o you.”

  “Someone tried to break into the chicken coop last night.”

  “Did they?”

  “I called the sheriff.” She watched to see what Maude’s reaction would be. Got nothing. “Why is Cas Reynolds sheriff?”

  “Hank Jessop had a heart attack. They needed someone to fill in for him. Cas was available.”

  “Why is he even here?”

  Maude shrugged. “Better ask Cas about that.” She pushed Smitty away and slid off her chair.

  Julie stood up, too. “Maude.”

  Maude lifted both eyebrows at her.

  “Did—did anybody else know? About me?”

  “Well, I didn’t tell.” She picked up the bread and butter, put it in the fridge, and slammed the door. “It’s about time you stopped worrying about what everybody thinks. You’re the last of the Excelsiors. Start living up to it. I gotta get going. I’ll be back in the morning. In the meantime, you start learning about chickens.” She headed for the door. “I left an egg in the basket for the dog. If you crack it over his kibble, you’re on your way to having the glossiest coated mutt in the county.”

  Smitty sat up and lifted a paw.

  “Damn, is that dog smiling at me?”

  Chapter 5

  Cas didn’t believe in fate, usually. But Wes’s illness, his strong-arming Cas to take over for Hank Jessop, the riddle, Julie’s return, the sailboat he was working on, the furniture Wes had bought for him, were all floating around in his mind, trying to fit into a pattern. He could almost believe that Wes had set this in motion to bring him and Julie together, except for the riddle. That was what had him stumped. And if he admitted it, afraid.

  He sat in his police cruiser in front of the station, staring out the front window, gritty-eyed and achy and in no hurry to go inside. It was Saturday and if he had been the real sheriff, he would have the day off. But he wasn’t. He was a banker turned boat builder. A boat builder who was pretending to be a sheriff. One who’d overslept and was now late for work.

  Well, it was his own fault. If he hadn’t stayed awake half the night, thinking about the return of Julie Excelsior, why she was here and how she looked in that slippery night thing. If the other half of the night hadn’t been spent in erotic dreams of what would happen if she weren’t wearing that slinky night thing. If he wasn’t just sitting here in the car, thinking about Julie and getting hot all over again, he wouldn’t be late.

  He should go inside. Instead, he closed his eyes, humming Randy Newman’s Sail Away under his breath, and imagined Julie with the sea wind blowing her seductive hair, whipping her windbreaker against her shapely body, the pitch of the sailboat. . .

  He jumped when someone tapped on his window, then groaned inwardly when Emily Patterson’s face appeared on the other side. She squinted at him and smiled, while she made roll-down-your-window motions at him.

  Reluctantly he did.

  “Morning, Cas,” said Emily. “You’re working on a Saturday?” She leaned into the window, emitting a cloud of sweet cologne and displaying an impressive cleavage that threatened to spill out of her tight, pink cardigan, much too skimpy for the chilly fall morning. Cas couldn’t help but be mesmerized by two thrusting, hard nipples that had found their way past the glass. But they didn’t turn him on.

  “No rest for the wic—weary,” he quickly amended, not wanting to encourage false hopes. Emily was the town librarian for the three half days the library was open each week. A nice woman, with two ex-husbands and looking for number three. One of several women that Edith informed him, “had their snares out for him.”

  The single women in town had great hopes for him. His mother had great hopes for him. Christine had great hopes for him. The whole town had been planning his wedding since the day he drove down Main Street last July. All they were waiting for was for him to choose a wife. But after one disastrous, short-lived marriage while he was in college, he hadn’t considered repeating the ordeal.

  And then Julie Excelsior had come home.

  “You’re in a brown study this morning,” said Emily, blinking several times. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Uh, no thanks, Emily. I’m afraid I’m late for work.”

  “You work too hard.”

  Cas smiled. The truth was, he hardly worked at all and it was beginning to really bother him. He banged on the side of the car door. It popped open and Emily hopped out of the way.

  “Gotta go. Have a nice day, Emily.” He tipped his head at her and left her standing in the street while he made his way across the sidewalk to the entrance of the station.

  The Excelsior Falls Police Station was an old brick storefront. Somewhere in the distant past, bars had been cemented across the wide plate glass windows as if daring the occupants, including the sheriff, to attempt an escape. Cas always felt like he should be wearing a couple of six shooters every time he stepped inside.

  The front door opened into a room large enough for two desks, one for the sheriff and one for his secretary-operator-dispatcher, a job that had been shared by the Turnbull twins, Edith and Lou, since the beginning of time. A second narrow room ran along the back of the building and contained two old-fashioned cells that were rarely occupied.

  “Good morning, Lou,” said Cas as he unbuttoned his jacket.

  Lou lowered her copy of Cosmopolitan and looked at him over her wing-tipped glasses. She shook her head, her blue tinted perm moving in one piece.

  “Not a good morning?”

  Lou shook her head again. “Another robbery last night.”

  “Yeah, I know, Edith called. Excelsior House. It was thwarted.”

  Lou shook her head, and Cas’s stomach went south. Having been chased away, they must have gone on to their second choice, while he sat drinking coffee and ogling Julie. God, he hated chickens.

  “At Henry Goethe’s,” said Lou.

  “Henry’s? He doesn’t keep chickens.”

  “His stereo, television and his wife’s jewelry.”

  Cas braced his hand on her desk while his world started to spin. Now, what was he supposed to do?

  “They just called it in this morning. They spent the night over in Glen Falls and came back to find the place cleaned out.” Lou shook her head. “Sure seems like we’re having a lot of thefts lately.”

  “Tell me about it.” Cas put his jacket back on. “I guess I’d better drive over there.” So much for spending his morning at Excelsior House. “I’ll be gone for a while. If you need me and the radio isn’t working, call my cell.”

  “Will do and don’t be surprised if an acquaintance offers you a big surprise.”

  Cas slipped a citation pad into his pocket. “What?”

  Lou held up her magazine. “Says so right here. This is a good month for Leos. And you’ll be glad to know that your jacket is just the right color for an afternoon stroll through the park.”

  “We don’t have a park,” said Cas.

  “Just thought you’d want to know,” said Lou and went back to her magazine.

  Julie watched Maude drive away, the red hen logo on the side of her white paneled truck bouncing down the drive like an arcade target. When the truck disappeared around the edge of the pond, Julie went back into the house.

  I’m an Excelsior, she thought as she fixed Smitty’s egg and kibble. An Excelsior, she repeated as she washed the dishes. An Excelsior. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. But she was an Excelsior, and it was time to put it to the test.

  She showered and changed into clean clothes and headed for town.

  Excelsior Falls had been a prosperous manufacturing town until the fifties, when the falls dried up, the mill closed and everyone who could moved away and those who couldn’t or wouldn’t, began calling the town Ex Falls.

  Julie slowed down at the yield sign where the road forked around the town’s only bar and grill, The Roadhouse, an old stone building dating back to the Civil War with a red clapboard addition and a neon sign perched crookedly on the flat roo
f.

  To its left, the road became Main Street. To the right, Old Mill Road followed the river to a bridge which led to the “other” side of town, a jumble of deserted cottages, a trailer park, and the abandoned mill. The side where Julie had lived for the first thirteen years of her life. She wasn’t going there today or ever again.

  That Julie Excelsior, of the “other” Excelsiors, would now be living on The Hill. Not living, she quickly reminded herself. But she’d let everybody in town know who owned it, before she dumped it.

  She sucked in her breath, lifted her chin and took the left fork downtown.

  Her first stop was Pliney’s Hardware and Feed.

  “Yep. I can get you a handyman,” said Dan Pliney. “Plumber, too.”

  “Great,” said Julie, pulling unconsciously on her denim jacket and wishing she’d worn a longer shirt. The three old guys sitting around the wood-burning stove had nearly fallen out of their chairs when she walked in.

  “Do you think they could come by today?”

  “Today?” Dan frowned. “Not today.”

  “Tomorrow.” Julie was conscious of the attentive ears behind her. She tried to lower her shoulders so that her jacket would cover some of her butt. She could practically hear the drool hitting the wooden floor.

  “Not tomorrow, either.”

  There was a snicker from the three men, whom she’d dubbed Winkin’, Blinkin’, and Nod when she first arrived. Now they were wide awake and obnoxious and she was about to name them something else.

  “Then when?”

  “Oh, ’bout six weeks, I’d say.”

  “Six weeks? You’ve got to be kidding. They can’t all be that busy.”

  “No, you’re right about that, but it’s deer season. They’ll be back to work when the hunting’s over.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “I ’spect all it needs is to flush the system and replace the washers. I can sell you what you need.”

  More snickers from the chair-warmers in the corner.