World Tree Girl

by Kerry Schafer

  Kate’s face darkens with anger. “I had no idea he’d been doing it so long.”

  “You recognize some of these, then?”

  “Yes. Go back. One more. That one. That boy died last year. I should have had Dason arrested. My reputation, the reputation of my morgue has been compromised!”

  “Are you sure you didn’t know?” Jake says, conversationally. “Maybe you found out. You fired him, and he refused to promise to keep the pictures to himself, so you killed him.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous. I quite understand what you’re insinuating, and why. If you care to tell me when he was murdered, then I will see if I have an alibi. Push this further and I will find an attorney.”

  “You see why it’s not appropriate that we send him to you.”

  “Of course. I’ll ask Trevor in Coeur d’Alene to take a look at the body. Do you have reason to think it’s murder and not suicide? No, wait. Don’t answer that. Don’t answer anything. We’re through here.”

  Her hand reaches for the DISCONNECT button on her unit.

  Jake’s voice stops her. “Please. One more question.”

  “One, Sheriff, but no guarantee that I will answer.”

  “I was wondering if you had seen this girl at all in your morgue.” He nods at me, and I bring up a photo of the World Tree Girl.

  Kate’s face changes, hardens. Her pupils dilate. Color washes out of her cheeks.

  She’s good, though; it’s only a second before she waves away the picture as though it is nothing more than an annoying fly.

  “Really, showing me pictures of cases outside your purview crosses the boundary. I am not at liberty to discuss any of the deceased who are outside of your jurisdiction and unrelated to this case. And you have made me very late with my schedule. I must go now. I will have Trevor call you for arrangements about the post mortem.”

  A click of a button, and her half of the split screen goes dark.

  “What the hell was that?” Mac glares at me, then Jake.

  “She didn’t like it much,” Jake says.

  “But she’s definitely seen it.” We all stare at the photo still up on the screen.

  “The tattoo work is amazing,” Mac says. “Beautiful.”

  “It scared her,” I say. “That’s why she was angry.”

  “Maybe she knew what Dason was up to all along. Huge problem for her if that gets out.”

  “Kate doesn’t scare easy,” Jake says. “I’ve known her for years. And she’s totally by the book.”

  Jake shifts his gaze from me to Mac and back again, brows raised in a question. I shake my head. Mac seems like a good guy and a solid and intelligent man. But where this story is going to lead, he doesn’t need to go. There are already enough people involved, and the less he knows, the more likely he is to be alive in the end. We’ve already said too much.

  I yawn, deliberately, and stretch, or try to. There’s a stitch in my belly that is perpetually tight these days and refuses to give. Maybe I should do the physical therapy the doctor prescribed, after all, only I have no faith it will help.

  “Well, this has been interesting, but it’s been a long day at the Manor. I have work to do before I go to bed. And I’m starving.”

  “I’ll take you home,” Jake says.

  I half expect Lysander to be waiting right outside the door, ready to barge back in shouting and throwing a fit, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Craig doesn’t make an appearance, either. There is only Grace, standing guard.

  Jake says nothing until we’ve exited the building and are all the way to his car. “What do you think?”

  “If Kate hadn’t seen the body, she would have said so. Lies are not in her vocabulary. She’s scared.”

  “Should she be?”

  “Damn straight. She’s been warned to keep it quiet. We should all be watching our backs right now.”

  “You realize our whole theory is built on speculation.” He opens the car door for me and refrains from offering a hand as I bend my complaining body and climb in.

  “Speculation is where it all starts. At least it’s something.”

  “You have a point.” Jake slams the door and walks around the back of the car to climb in on his side. “I’ll do a search of murders in Spokane within the last few months and see what comes up.”

  “My bet is you’ll get nothing. The autopsy report, the investigation report will all have vanished just like the blog post.”

  “Do you think her body is still at the morgue in Spokane?”

  I shake my head. “Too risky. Either they’ve cremated it, or taken it to their own laboratory for further analysis.”

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You said you were hungry. I could buy you dinner.” His eyes are on the road, his voice carefully bland.

  “I really need to check in on Jill. And I’ve got boxes to move before I can sleep tonight. Matt will find me some leftovers.”

  Before I can get out of the car at the Manor, Jake stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “Look, I know you’re indestructible, but be careful, will you?”

  I grin at him. “Life’s so much more interesting when there’s risk. You know what would be awesome about now?”

  “A smoke?”

  “That, too. I was thinking about access to Phil’s weapons.”

  “Maureen—”

  “Yeah, yeah. They’re evidence and his murder isn’t truly solved until we catch Charlene. Rules. Protocols. All wonderful things until they kill you.” I pull out my pack of cigarettes and offer him one.

  He shakes his head. “I’m quitting.”

  “Me, too.” I grin at him. “Not tonight, though. Life’s short. Might be the last one I get. Would be a sad, sad, thing if one of Phil’s contraptions could have saved me.”

  Jake is a good man, but he’s a cop, first and last. His face falls into the lines of his reserved, professional persona. “Good night, Maureen.”

  “Good night, Jake. Let me know what you don’t find.”

  I watch him drive away, unlit cigarette in hand, still feeling, for no good reason, the warmth of his hand on my shoulder.

  Chapter Seven

  I’ve been expecting the phone call. From the minute Sophie told me Ed was in town, I knew it was coming. What surprises me is that I answer.

  “We need to talk.”

  Four simple words, but they erase the cushion of time between us as if we’d spoken yesterday. The sharp twist of his betrayal stabs my heart as if the wound is new and fresh. Apparently a couple of months of time apart can’t uproot the emotions engendered by twenty-five years of marriage.

  “Maureen?”

  “We’re talking,” I say.

  “In person. Can we meet somewhere?”

  I look at the wilderness of stuff clamoring to be unpacked and organized, and a wave of exhaustion rolls over me. There are things I wouldn’t mind saying to Ed, but not now. Not tonight.

  “I suppose I could meet you for breakfast. How did you manage to get a hotel, anyway? I hear they’re all booked up.”

  “About that,” he says, and I drop down onto a packing box, knowing what’s coming.

  “We reserved a room a month ago. Tried to check in and a rather rude young man at the service desk informed us our room had been given to somebody else.”

  A mushroom cloud of silence hovers over my head. Ed keeps talking.

  “We’ve tried every hotel in town. There are no rooms to be had for love nor money.”

  “Pity. Well, Spokane’s not that far. Better get headed back. Watch out for deer.”

  He clears his throat. “Glenda’s dead set on staying here tonight. She’s asking for a tour of the Manor.”

  In the background a female voice chimes in. “Just ask her, Ed. I’m sure it will be fine.”

  In the silence that follows, I know he’s put his hand over the receiver and is mouthing something at her. Amusement at his predicament revives me better than a tonic. />
  “Ask me what, Ed?”

  “We were wondering if we might stay there. At the Manor. Just for tonight.” His voice is heavy with reluctance, and I can picture the hand signals and whispered instructions he’s receiving. I almost feel sorry for him.

  Almost.

  “A sleepover?” I ask. “Or a threesome maybe? Hey, maybe I could scare up a partner and we could have a swinger party. That’s a swell idea.”

  “Maureen—”

  His voice is overridden by a woman’s in the background. “Let me talk to her.” A sound of scuffling follows, and then Glenda comes on the line.

  “Men are so bad at explaining things, don’t you find? We were going to drive up to Canada tomorrow. Can you believe that I’ve never been there? Crazy, right? So it would be terribly disappointing to drive back now, when we’re so close. Besides, just between you and me, Ed’s eyes are not so good for night driving anymore, but you know how he is.”

  I ignore this invitation for us to bond over the peccadilloes of my husband, letting the silence do my work for me.

  Glenda emits a small, ladylike cough. “Anyway. I’d also just love to spend some time with you. We haven’t had a chance to get to know each other at all. I think—”

  Her voice breaks off on a sharply drawn breath and Ed comes back on. “Maureen—”

  “It’s a wonderful idea. I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it myself. As it happens, we do have a vacant room right now. You two kids make yourselves right at home. I’ll let the night staff know.”

  He starts to protest, but I hang up on him, and when the phone rings again, I don’t answer.

  Sleep is now out of the question. I buzz Darcy, the night shift aide, to let her know about Ed and Glenda, and then set to work on unpacking. It’s midnight when I finally fall into bed, exhausted, and it seems my head has barely hit the pillow when a knock at my door jolts me awake. The room is pitch dark and I’m disoriented and confused. New suite, the floor plan a reverse from the old one. Furniture scattered in random positions. Packing boxes all over the floor. I map it all out in my head, waiting for the knock to come again and fumbling for my gun.

  This all takes longer than it should. I’m slipping. Twenty years ago, even ten, it would only have taken about two seconds, now it takes more like ten. I’m going to have to start doing memory games or something to keep my brain sharp. Living in the Manor with a bunch of zebras is softening me.

  Anubis hisses when I shift him so I can move my legs. Without turning on any lights, I limp along the path I’ve made through the boxes and peer out through my security peephole.

  Jill.

  She knocks again. Her hands are empty. No purse, no obvious bulges indicating a weapon. Of course, a weapon can be disguised as anything.

  I open the door, but don’t invite her in.

  “Did you need something?”

  “Is that necessary?” She stares pointedly at the gun in my hand.

  I just raise my eyebrows.

  “Maureen. I’m not a child anymore. I’m not going to stab you.”

  “Adults are generally considered more dangerous than children, not less. What time is it, anyway?”

  She brushes past me. “Two? Three? I lost track. Can’t sleep.” Light floods the room as she locates a switch and flicks it on. I blink, temporarily blinded, bringing up the gun in reflex and aiming it where I last heard her voice. She’s moved on, though, and doesn’t even notice, her back to me as if it’s never even occurred to her that I might really pull the trigger.

  The clock confirms her time estimate. Ten past three.

  “I was sleeping just fine,” I tell her. “Can you go and not sleep in your own space?”

  She starts opening cupboards in the kitchenette. “You’ve got to have something to drink. Ah, here we are.”

  She plunks a bottle of scotch down on the counter. I sigh. “Glasses are in the cupboard above the sink. Pour me one while you’re at it.”

  I watch her pour, but there are no sleight-of-hand maneuvers or sly attempts to slip something into my drink. She sets them both down on the counter, side by side, with no attempt to steer me toward one or the other.

  Standing there in my kitchenette, without makeup, wearing a pair of cotton lounge pants and a tank top, her hair loose around her shoulders, she looks vulnerable and a little lost. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy, as if she’s been weeping, mascara smeared into raccoon eyes.

  Exhaustion, I tell myself. Jetlag. Not tears.

  I select a glass and she picks up the other, crossing over to the French doors leading out to the balcony.

  “Mind if I open the blinds? I need to see the sky.” Without waiting for my consent, she pulls the cord, and then stands there, staring out into the night. A full moon pours light across the floor, bright enough to turn the world outside into light and shadow.

  “Tell me about my father,” she says.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Her shoulders lift in a shrug. “Anything. Everything. I hardly knew him.”

  If she’d opened fire with a handgun or come at me with a knife, I’d have been prepared and would have an answer. I don’t know what to say to this.

  “Nobody knew him well.”

  She turns then, and there are tears on her cheeks. Oh, hell.

  “He sent me cards. He took me on vacations to resorts in out-of-the way places. When I was young, he called to ask me about school, or if I was dating boys. As I got older, he asked fewer questions. He never talked about himself. And I never asked him. And then, after…” She swallows what’s in her glass and goes to the counter for a refill.

  “I haven’t seen your father in thirty years. People change in that much time. You probably knew him better than I did.”

  “You’re just as evasive as he was,” she says. “What would it hurt you to talk about him?”

  It’s a loaded question. Anything I tell her about Phil is also giving her a piece of me. My heart aches with memories, all of which culminate with me standing in the funeral home holding a cardboard box of still-warm ashes.

  “I could have come home,” she says, after a long silence. “Right after he died. I wasn’t really tied up with anything, just loitering in Paris. I was angry at him, I think, for dying before I had a chance to know him. And then I found out he’d been murdered, and that he’d left you the Manor…” She drains half the glass in one long swallow. “Maybe you can tell me that. Explain to me why a man who hasn’t seen a woman in thirty years would leave her an entire business property?”

  I can’t tell her, much as she maybe deserves to know. So I just shrug. “Maybe he thought I’d be a better manager.”

  Jill snorts. “If you’re not going to answer that one, try this one. What kind of man gets a woman pregnant and then abandons her and the baby? My mother thought he loved her.”

  “Every woman thought he loved her.”

  “And that’s supposed to make it okay? He loved her and left her, and she killed herself over him.”

  “And you blame me for that?”

  “You’re the one he left her for.”

  “If you really believe that, you’re right. You didn’t know him at all.”

  “I know that after you were done with him, he never settled down.”

  “Good Lord, are you still sixteen? He was always like that. Before your mother, after your mother, and certainly before and after me. There were always women. He loved and left them. You don’t see me cutting my wrists in the bathtub, do you?”

  “You’re a bitch.” She crosses to the kitchenette to pour herself more booze, her steps wandering a little.

  “Never pretended to be otherwise. Nobody invited you here. Feel free to leave.”

  “I never said being a bitch was a bad thing.” Her face breaks into an unexpected smile—Phil’s smile. She raises her glass to me. “I’m one myself. Now, tell me something else about him. I’ve already been enlightened.”

  “Jill. I don’t owe you a
nswers or anything else. Go back to bed.”

  And then a thought occurs to me, something I can’t believe I’ve overlooked already. “I have a question for you.”

  “What?”

  I take a sip of my drink. It goes down warm and smooth. “You were sixteen when I met you. People change a lot in thirty years. What if you’re not really Jill?”

  “Oh, come on. You said you saw my picture on his nightstand.”

  “I saw a picture on his nightstand. I assumed it was you. It matches you. Which is really meaningless.”

  “Want to see my passport?”

  I dismiss this with a wave of my hand. Passports can be faked. “No. Tell me about the last—and only—time we met.”

  “Surely that’s not the only time in your life somebody has tried to stab you.”

  She’s right. I tend to bring out that quality in people somehow. “That’s beside the point. Talk to me. Tell me about that stabbing, something nobody else would know, or I say not another word about your father.”

  Jill sits down in the chair and thumps her glass down on my only end table, hard enough that a wave of amber liquid washes over the edge. It will leave a ring, but I let it be.

  “It was a week after my mother’s death. I tracked down your apartment. You opened your door when I rang, and I stabbed you without saying a word. Went for the heart and missed. You did some ninja thing and flipped me onto my back on the floor before I could try again. And then you zip-tied me to a chair. There was blood on your hands, blood all over me by the time you were done. And then you called Dad. He left me there in the chair, tied up, while he stitched you up without an anesthetic and made me watch.”

  “Tell me about the knife.”

  “That’s not enough? Nobody could know what I’ve just told you. You both said you’d never tell anybody—”

  “Doesn’t mean you didn’t.”

  “Fine. The knife was a gift from Phil. Other girls got jewelry and clothes. He sent me knives and weird-ass gizmos I couldn’t understand the use of. Obviously I wasn’t very good with the knife. The handle was carved out of some sort of bone, I think.”

  Bending down, I draw the knife in question out of my ankle sheath. “This look familiar?”