“I thought we couldn’t wear makeup?” My normally gentle voice, currently powered with equal parts adrenaline and irritation, projected a little louder than I had expected. The blonde swiveled in my direction, and I saw Eli’s mouth twitch.
“That’s Tirza,” Rachel said, giving me a look. “She’s an out-worker. A real estate agent. Father has given her permission to wear makeup when she’s working.”
“She’s not working now,” Cozbi observed.
“Oh, she’s working.” Beth said. “Just not at selling homes.”
Nothing unites a group of women more than bitching about the one who steps out of rank and looks good doing it. We had a fine time.
At least, I did until I caught Cozbi watching me watch Eli. Luckily, a diversion occurred that cornered everyone’s attention.
Maliah, still dressed in head-to-toe black, swept into the dining hall like an evil breeze. She must have known how good she looked in black, especially since her outfit more closely fit the description of sexy little black dress rather than widow’s weeds. She moved with the confidence of a panther until she caught sight of Eli sitting with Tirza.
Tirza met Maliah’s narrow-eyed glare with a smug smile that just begged to be slapped off. Silence descended over the hall as the drama unfolded.
The difficulty for me lay in trying to figure out who to hate more, but there wasn’t much time to choose. With a flair for grandiosity, Maliah transformed herself from bitch-in-black to wounded widow. Placing a hand over her supposedly grieving heart, she covered her face with the other. Probably hiding the fact that she wasn’t crying. Then she turned and stumbled out the door. The pathos generated by her departure was the cue for her knight in shining armor to run to her rescue.
Eli must not have read the script because, although he did follow, his exit had more in common with Al Capone on his way to an IRS audit than a white knight.
Tirza’s reaction was fun, though. While the room looked on with the bloodlust of Romans in the Colosseum, Tirza fought with her face. Cracks in her plastered-on expression of indifference revealed equal parts humiliation and fury.
She settled on fury when Beth and Cozbi gave the scene a standing O, clapping and shouting “Brava! Brava!” She stomped out the door with more flounce than a bridesmaid’s dress.
“That’s enough.” Distracted by the performance, we hadn’t noticed Moses entering through the kitchen. “A godly woman carries herself with dignity. ‘A foolish woman is clamorous; she is simple, and knows nothing.’”
Women scattered in the face of Moses’s anger, abandoning Cozbi to her husband. I hesitated, not wanting to stay, but also concerned at the level of anger in Moses’s eyes. Cozbi peered at me through lowered eyes, giving an infinitesimal nod of assurance. As I left, I overheard them talking, and felt even more reassured. His anger seemed more directed at the situation than at his wife.
“I’ll have to talk to that boy,” Moses said. “‘The lips of an immoral woman drip with honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, her steps lay hold of hell.’”
I would just love to hear Moses lecture the “boy.”
The day was too nice to return to the office. Not wanting to run into Eli or any of his immoral honey-drippers, I set off in the opposite direction, heading past Father’s house and the barn to Philadelphia House. In the light of the day, I was better able to examine the few small cabins flanking the farmhouse, but wasn’t sure which was Eli’s. As I neared the temple, I briefly debated going inside. It probably wasn’t locked and I might find a quiet space. The problem was, there was no guarantee someone else wouldn’t have the same idea or even that Baara wouldn’t use the time for cleaning.
I was discovering one of the hardest parts of this venture wasn’t the possibility of danger, but the complete lack of privacy in communal living. The cabins assigned to the higher-ranked males and their wives took on a deeper significance in that respect. Eli had more than his fair share of sexual allure, but when his status and the accompanying privileges were tossed into the mix, he was irresistible. More irresistible.
Unfortunately, insight doesn’t necessarily bring peaceful acceptance, and I was sick of watching him consort with painted hussies.
I kept walking, following a path around the temple. Two small sheds had been erected behind Philly House. Padlocks dangled from the doors. I figured they were for storage and passed them by.
A tangled mass of vegetation and trees rose behind the last of the cabins and ran down to where the ground grew boggy next to the lake. This close to November, there weren’t any mosquitoes to worry about, but this area was sure to be a breeding ground for the little bloodsuckers come summer.
As I was turning back, Thunder ran past, ears all aflop. She dove into a crease in the wall of foliage.
“Thunder!”
I ran after her. The crease turned out to be the faint outlines of a path. About a hundred yards in, the path widened and looked better tended. Not wide enough for a truck, it would allow an ATV or snowmobile to run along smoothly. Maybe the trail’s end marked the dividing line for the property since it broke off so abruptly.
The silence and isolation soothed my jagged nerves like nothing else could. Walking along the path, my ever-present anxiety slipped away, and a sense of comfort, of God even, rose in the vacuum created by my fear’s retreat. For me, a connection to the Creator as I walked among the greenery, hearing birds chirp and the breeze high in the trees, came easier. More natural. Why didn’t I take more time for this? Immersion in untouched nature freed my soul, opened my relationship with the Higher Power to greater heights.
I kept walking until the path opened to a clearing. A small hillock rose up at its edge, an inverted dimple of grass. Along its base ran a dried creek bed with bare rocks studded along its course like teeth. Random puddles of stagnant water were all that remained until the wet spring months cycled back around.
Other than where I had come in, I didn’t see any opening where the path led away from the clearing. I briefly debated climbing the hillock to explore the far side but changed my mind at the sight of burrs and prickers I would have to slog through. The bottom of my skirt and socks were already dotted with little stabby-pointed U-shaped prickers. My legs and ankles stung where they had gotten scratched pushing through the thicket.
The sound of something crashing its way through the underbrush sent my heart thudding. Suddenly, taking a walk through virgin forest in bear country didn’t seem like such a grand idea.
The only trees growing in the clearing were ratty scrubs. If I tried to climb one, it would bow under my weight, offering the bear some tasty girl-ka-bob.
The crashing got closer, and a black furry mass shot through thicket. My heart leapt from dull thumping to a wild percussive rhythm before my brain registered “not bear.”
Gunner, the lab mix, would’ve made a small bear, anyway. He was carrying something in his jaws and was overjoyed to have company to show it off to. He bounced nearer, dropping the object about five feet away. Crouching over his treasure, head low, butt high, and tail wagging in wild abandon, he barked a playful doggie challenge.
“Whatcha got there, boy?”
He barked in steady, loud yips, bouncing from side to side, always returning to hover over the object and bark some more. When I crept to within three feet, I saw his prize was a gruesome Halloween prop. One of those bloody hands that you leave sticking out of the bowl of candy to freak out the neighborhood kids. I never liked those things. In fact, I have never really outgrown my fear of clowns. Body parts ran a close second.
Besides, the thing was covered in dog drool, so my attempts to play the game were only halfhearted. Until I caught the smell.
Bad smell. Rotten. Meat. Smell.
As my stomach threatened to mutiny, I looked closer at Gunner’s treat. It had a silver and gold braided wedding band on it, which upon reflection, seemed an odd adornment for a Halloween toy. Warts, maybe, or cracked, b
roken fingernails.
Forgetting the nature of our game I forced myself closer, only to realize my mistake after Gunner swooped down, grabbed the hand, and bounced off.
“Gunner! Stop!”
Gunner didn’t stop. Gunner was happy that his new friend was finally getting in the spirit of the game. Much doggie joy. Much human hysterics.
He gamboled and frolicked all around the clearing with the grisly trophy dangling from his mouth. He dropped it once and I almost had it. Right at the crucial moment of capture, my brain said “grab it,” my hand said “eww,” and my tummy said “barf.” Gunner took advantage of my body’s mixed signals, darted in, and snatched it out from under me.
Either my near success in capturing his treasure was too close for comfort, or for some other canine-related reason Gunner took off through the woods.
Gone.
I stood in the clearing for a long time, calling for him to come, half hoping he wouldn’t. I made the mistake of yelling “Treat!” before realizing as far as Gunner was concerned, he already had one. I threw up my apple juice. Found myself thinking it was a good thing I hadn’t drunk tomato juice. Threw up some more.
Stop thinking.
Chapter Sixteen
By the time I made it back to the lodge, I had almost succeeded in convincing myself I had imagined the whole thing. I tried really hard. Novelty toys could be very realistic. That fake puke fooled me every time, as did the dog turd. Every time.
Except for the smell. Ever since I quit smoking, my sense of smell had improved. Sense of taste too, which explained my advancement from size six to size ten. But up until now, the olfactory improvement had been a good thing. Right up to the gross dead-hand moment.
Dead. Now there was a clue. I knew one possibly dead married guy, but that meant the hand should be in Las Vegas. Unless there were two dead guys. Or the hand was a traveling hand. The image of the dead hand thumbing a ride north made me laugh until I threw up some more.
As soon as I had myself under control, I realized I had to stop trying to fool myself and call the cops.
The first person I encountered in the office was Maliah, so it was a shame I had stopped projectile vomiting. As I reached for the phone, she grabbed my wrist. Our eyes locked.
“What are you doing? Phone calls aren’t allowed.”
“It’s an emergency,” I said. “I have to call the police.”
Shock flashing across their faces, Rachel and Abigail stopped what they were doing to listen. I wrenched my hand away, but not before I got a look at Maliah’s wedding band: gold and silver braid, a perfect match to the dead hand’s.
What the hell? I looked at the ring again. A perfect match. Enoch hadn’t run away.
“What emergency?” Maliah said, looking more irritated than worried.
I wanted to smack her until I remembered she was now a widow, even if she didn’t know it yet. The news that pieces of her husband were being consumed in the woods would be devastating. Unless, of course, she had killed him. In which case, she deserved a smack.
I took a deep, steadying breath.
“I was taking a walk in the woods behind the temple and I found… uh…” I swallowed hard.
Maliah stood so fast that her chair banged over.
“Found what? That area is strictly off limits.”
“Well, no one told me. And that’s not the hot issue here. I found a…”
“Just say it.”
“A hand. Okay? I found a hand out there.”
A shriek slipped passed the fingers Abigail had clamped over her mouth. Rachel paled and dropped into a chair. Maliah, however, was made of sterner—or more heartless—stuff; her eyes never left mine.
“Don’t be ridiculous. How could there be a hand back there?”
“Well, there is.” Like this was something a person would make up. I decided someone else could break the news about whose hand it probably was. “I’m calling the police.”
“No, you’re not. We’re calling our own security. If the police are called, that’s Father’s decision.”
“But Maliah, what if someone is hurt out there?” Abigail’s voice rose tremulously. “One of our men, or a hunter, or something?”
“I don’t think it was… fresh,” I said reluctantly.
I hated to give Maliah more reason for avoiding the call to authorities, but whoever had been attached to that hand hadn’t been separated from it recently. And calling security meant calling Eli.
Maliah, true to form, ignored us both and dialed an inside line.
Minutes later, I was perched once again in the Goldilocks chair struggling to appear humbled under the burden of manly disapproval. Father stared down through bunched eyebrows from his raised dais, Eli and Moses at parade rest beside him.
Maliah had the pleasure of escorting me over, tickled to death to be the messenger bearing bad news. The sulky look on her face when Father abruptly dismissed her was satisfying, forcing me to squash a laugh. I caught a twinkle in Eli’s eyes too before he suddenly found something of interest on the floor.
“What were you doing in the woods?”
Father’s voice was icy cold, completely lacking the warmth of his usual address. And why was he berating me about my choice of where to walk? I had heard Maliah report that I had discovered a hand. Wasn’t that the hot issue here?
“What were you doing in the woods?”
“I just went for a walk.”
“During bow season?” Eli interrupted, earning a scowl from Father.
In northern Wisconsin, admitting I had forgotten it was hunting season was nearly as treasonous as not knowing how the Packers fared on Sunday afternoon.
I shrugged.
Father regained control of the interrogation. “That area is off limits, even to hunters. It’s posted.”
“I’m sorry; I didn’t know. My orientation with Maliah was cut short when the police came to talk to her. That was about Enoch, right? Did she report him missing?”
Father’s face reddened.
“Of course not. We do not have any dealings with infidels, and that includes the police. Ever. Which is why we will not—”
“But I found a hand. Of course we have to report it to the police. Besides, I’m pretty sure it was—”
Father slammed his hand down on the desk. Scared the crap out of me. Moses jumped, too. Father stood and turned to face the window.
“I have said all I am going to say on the subject of the deserter. As far as your discovery… If there even was such a thing out there, it obviously would have come from an outsider. A trespasser. We are under no obligation to subject ourselves to more police scrutiny simply because some unbeliever got himself killed on our land. If that even happened, which I doubt.”
“How do we know it was an unbeliever?” I said. “There’s no telling what his religious beliefs were by just a hand.”
“Of course, it was an unbeliever!” He glared at me over his shoulder. “Do you see any of us missing a hand?”
Obviously, the argument that a person could be a believer and not be a member of the Elect was not under consideration. Nor was Father willing to consider my implication that Enoch’s going AWOL and the appearance of a mutilated appendage might be connected.
“But maybe—”
Eli shook his head at me, warning me off. I stuttered into silence.
“But what?” Father turned, the proof that I was pushing him nearly to the edge written all over his face.
I shivered. I had gotten so wrapped up in refuting Father’s absurd reasoning that I had forgotten the only “reality” that counted in this place was the leader’s own. That might be a very dangerous thing, now that I thought about it. After all, the last person known to do that…
I needed to backtrack. Fast.
“I, um, I guess, coming so soon after hearing about Enoch’s… betrayal, I kind of connected the two together. In my mind.” Which made no sense. I looked up at Father, eyes big and wide. “But that’s silly, i
sn’t it?”
Both Eli and Moses stiffened and I held my breath, waiting for his response. Emotions darted across Father’s face: anger or maybe fear, at first, then a sly wariness. All immediately covered by that fake benevolence. Father’s smile was a marvel of paternalistic kindness—from the eyes down.
“Yes, that is silly. How could there be a connection?” Father’s dark eyes tracked my face, watching for me to give myself away. “I doubt if it was even human. It was probably a deer leg some poacher left behind.”
As far as I knew, deer didn’t accessorize. An image of the hand, lightly dusted with dark hair, torn cuticles, gleaming braided ring and all, flashed through my brain. I swallowed the rising bile, and took a deep breath.
“My first thought was that it was a Halloween trick,” I said. “You know? Like you buy in stores?”
“There you go.” Father said, eyes all atwinkle. “I’m sure that’s exactly what it was.”
I smiled, aiming for sheepish. From Eli’s expression, I may have just looked gassy. “I’m sorry I caused all this trouble. I just got so scared. And, uh, I knew I should come to you.”
“That’s all right, child. I want you to come to me when you are frightened. That’s why I’m here.”
I rose to my feet and struggled mightily against the urge to drop a curtsy. I settled for a continuing stream of obsequious apologies. I nearly made it to the door when Father spoke again.
“You are, of course, forbidden to speak of this to anyone.” His words dropped like rocks into the room. “Absolutely forbidden.
I wanted to get hold of Eli or Beth before leaving for work, but Martha stopped by my room to drop my waitress uniform off and I ran out of time. The uniform was a typical waitress getup in contrasting, and not very complimentary, shades of blue and apparently had been designed by a drunken, horny Smurf. The top, with puffed sleeves that were stylish two decades ago, had a neckline that dipped sinfully low and was a size too small. My boobs runneth over. The skirt, a wraparound with a string threaded through the side to hold it together, was too big. Still battling a queasy stomach, I kept my eyes shut as I dressed and vowed to avoid mirrors.
The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (A Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mystery Book 4) Page 13