They all froze, looking back at the investigator. No hope of Enid appearing nonthreatening here. Best she could do was smile and hope they didn’t freeze up.
“Investigator Enid. There’s nothing else come up. I don’t know how else we can help,” Mart said cautiously. He seemed to roll his shoulders and straighten his back. Preparing. The others watched him for cues. Mart, the protector of strays.
“My partner was out of line earlier,” Enid said. “I’m sorry for that. But I think he’s right, that there’s a lot around here that isn’t being said. You want to help me out with that?”
The group stared back, seeming particularly guilty. Neeve had knitting in her lap, paused between stitches. Like Kellan’s, her eyes were red from crying. The scene stuttered like that, just for a moment, as everyone waited for someone else to speak first.
Hawk ran, straight for the trees. Predictably, Enid reflected. She thought about chasing after him yet again, but only for a moment. Three pursuits in one afternoon were just too much, and she suspected she was already looking foolish.
She turned back to the folk of Last House and crossed her arms. “Well? What did our friend here have to say?”
The expected silent conference ensued, the four of them trying to nominate with glances and earnest looks who would speak and what they would say. Neeve turned back to her knitting, hunched over it as if the stitches were the most important thing in the world.
Mart said softly to Enid, “You mind walking with me a bit?”
She had a sudden thought: that Mart was the killer, and he was now trying to get her alone to finish her off next. But no, he was smart enough to realize the kind of trouble the murdered body of an investigator would bring down on him. Besides, he wasn’t wearing any kind of knife or other weapon. He’d left his pocketknife behind.
With a nod, Enid let him lead her off, away from Last House.
“I know everyone’s gone all quiet,” he said, when they’d walked a dozen or so yards, out of earshot. The others lingered, watching. “But all this—it’s got them rattled. Ever since Ella turned up like she did. And, well. Folk don’t end up at Last House because they’re good with a crisis, you know?”
Enid smiled with sympathy. “So how did you end up here?”
“Came to the Estuary when I was young ’cause I liked the salvage. The ruins spoke to me. Thought I’d be the one to make some great discovery. Bring back something lost. A working engine, a radio. Something like that.” He shrugged, a fatalistic gesture. “I did all right. Found a bicycle once, the whole thing. Got it working again, and traded it down at Everlast. Mostly it’s just parts, though. We store them up, waiting till we can put a whole one together. Anyway, I came up here to get away from the heat. And, well. I like the quiet. Quiet’s what folk like Kellan and Neeve need, really.”
A local murder wasn’t likely to grant anyone peace and quiet. Especially when they seemed to keep ending up at the center of so many questions.
“Hawk seems very interested,” she said, hoping to lead Mart to reveal some useful bit of information.
“He’s distraught. He wants someone to blame. To punish. Anyone’ll do, I think. He . . . he thought she had come to stay, was coming to talk her into going back with him. Then he found out she was dead. He’d just found out.”
“Can you tell me—did Ella really seem like she wanted to stay, or was that Neeve’s wishful thinking?”
He chuckled. “Neeve liked the girl, I won’t argue that. I think she wanted a friend. As for the girl . . . I don’t know what she was thinking. Can’t even guess.”
“Could Hawk have done this to her? Or one of the other outsiders?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t think so. She’d just show up sometimes, along with a couple of others, when they had hides to trade. Ella liked the clothes Neeve made. Didn’t talk much about where they came from, but they seemed normal enough, even if they were wild. It’s . . . it’s hard to think of them doing something like what was done to that girl. Didn’t think they had it in them.”
“Even though they’re hunters? They hunt to get the hides they bring you, yeah? Whoever made that wound knew how to use a blade.”
“I guess I never thought of that.”
“When they came, did they bring weapons with them? Did you ever notice?” Enid tried to keep her voice from sounding so eager, but wasn’t sure she was succeeding.
“Hawk was asking about a knife, you said.”
She nodded. “Yeah, same one Kellan was looking for.”
“They all have knives,” Mart added. “Mostly salvaged metal, I think. Old signs make good spear tips and arrowheads, if you can cut the shapes and grind the edges.”
She imagined the vicious wound a length of ground-down steel could make. This was frustrating—the more questions she asked, the more possibilities presented themselves. Possible weapons were ample, common. Everyone had access to blades, salvaged or otherwise. She couldn’t figure out what motive might drive someone to use such a weapon, and on someone like Ella. Jealousy was a possibility—her last investigation, the one Teeg was so proud of on her behalf, had been about jealousy. Hawk loved Ella, though Enid was unclear as to whether or not they were a couple. But Ella kept coming here, and he didn’t like it. Had she been visiting someone in particular?
Enid said, “You traded with them, the folk from upriver—you have any way to get a message to them? Anything like a regular line of communication?”
“No,” he said. “They always come down here.”
“Neeve used to go up to their settlement, years ago. Does she travel there anymore? Ever disappear for days at a time?”
“That all ended with the last investigation. She’s stayed here ever since.”
“Right.” Enid squinted uphill, to the woods, and all the answers that seemed to lie in that direction. “Thanks again for putting the pyre together for Ella. If I have any more questions I’ll let you know. Have a better afternoon.”
She started to walk off, when Mart called after her. “You really think you can find out what happened to her?”
Enid said, “We’ll try.”
And Mart nodded with such confidence, such assurance that she could really do this thing, that Enid was sure she’d undermine the uniform, damage the entire authority of investigators if she failed to catch Ella’s killer.
The thought made her weary.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
The trek back down the hill to the marsh and the bridge seemed to get longer every time she made it.
They’d taken care of the body as respectfully as was possible. Enid had spoken to someone who’d known Ella, who knew where she came from, however unsatisfying the talk was. The questions she’d been asking locally hadn’t led to any real answers. How much more time was reasonable to spend on this before it made sense to give up?
When she arrived at Semperfi, Teeg was waiting for her, leaning on his staff, scowling.
“What is it?” she asked.
“They tell you anything new? Did Kellan confess? In a way you’ll listen to?” He spoke lightly, like he was trying to make it sound like a joke, but he bit the words off.
“If Kellan had done it, he never would have told anyone about her body.”
“Then who do you think did it? Erik?”
“Possible.” Or it was someone they hadn’t talked to yet. Someone they wouldn’t expect. “I’m most interested in talking to Hawk, I think.”
“He didn’t even know she was dead.”
“True. But maybe it’s someone like Hawk. Someone from upriver.”
“Would they kill one of their own?”
“People do it all the time; that’s what murder is,” Enid said. She glanced around at the windblown slope where the hill had started climbing from the marsh. The ruined house was just visible. She imagined she could hear the boards creaking ominously. “Why’d you stop here?”
“Anna was waiting for us. Wants to talk to us.”
“They’re up this way.” He set off for the ruin. Enid had hoped she wouldn’t need to look at it ever again.
They met Anna, who stood off a bit from the front door, wringing her hands, brow creased with worry.
“Anna, hola,” Enid said. “What is it?”
“Can you talk to him? I can’t get him to leave it alone. Please, talk to him.”
Then she noticed Erik seated on the ground, slumped against the wall, almost to the edge overlooking the river. If the building collapsed now, it’d pull him down along with it. He was staring out, like he wanted to make sure he saw the moment the whole thing tumbled down the ravine. He held that ax across his lap, gripping it with both hands.
“He’s just been sitting there?” Enid asked. “How long?”
“All day. He won’t let it go,” Anna said. “When he asked for the investigation, I couldn’t sleep; I thought you’d take one look at the place and break up the whole household for letting it get so bad. For trying to keep that thing going. When all you did was tell him to let it go . . . I was so relieved. I just kept thinking, we won’t have to fix it anymore. We won’t have to think about it. But I think you’ve made it worse.”
And this was supposed to be a simple case. “I’m not sure I can say anything to help. I’m the bad guy here.”
“Well, he hasn’t listened to me,” Anna said, glaring out at the man.
Enid looked at Teeg. “Have you tried?”
“Not me,” he said. “What am I supposed to say?” He had a look on his face, the one most people around here were wearing, that said they thought Erik must be crazy.
She walked over, stood between Erik and the sun, catching his attention by putting him in her shade. “Erik. Anna’s worried about you.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
“You want to maybe go home so she can look after you?”
“This is home.”
“A household’s generally made up of people, not buildings. You’ve got a good household here, Erik. Don’t blow it.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head. “My father kept this place up. Decades, he kept it up. Then he dies, and . . . it falls apart. Why can’t I keep the place up like he did? What’s wrong with me?”
“I think we’ve had this conversation already,” she said. “You know this place is no reflection on you? If it had been wiped away all at once by a massive typhoon, would you be so torn up?”
“It would have been like someone dying—that’s what you don’t understand.”
She did understand. But he wasn’t going to listen to her. “Erik—”
“It’s not that. It’s not just that. You know I’ve seen them. I’ve sat right here and watched them come down the river, doing who-knows-what.”
She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“Wild folk. Like that girl.” His hands closed on the ax handle.
Her name was Ella, Enid almost murmured at him. “Oh?”
“You can tell they’re not like us because they keep to the river, not the road. Normal folk would come down the road.”
Outsiders were perfectly normal, of course; they just weren’t from the Coast Road. “Erik, out with it.”
He looked hard at her. “One of them could be hiding in this house, just waiting for their chance. I won’t let that happen. I’m standing guard.”
Enid said, “You know, I got a good look at that wound. It’s a good sharp blade that made it. Mart tells me the folk upriver don’t have very good knives, that they do what they can with scrap metal. To get good forged blades they come down to the Estuary to trade for them. I’m sure it’s a Coast Road blade that killed Ella. Maybe something like that ax. Are you sure you didn’t see anyone around here, five or six days ago? Someone who you decided didn’t belong? What were you doing, right after that storm? If I asked Anna, would she say you were here the whole time?”
Enid expected denials, assurances that he could never do such a thing. They didn’t come. His expression didn’t change. He said, “One of them could have stolen a blade. That’s why we have to keep watch. There’s no one else looking out for us.”
“Would someone like Ella really be a threat to you?”
Erik pursed his lips, shook his head. But it didn’t seem like a denial so much as a refusal to think of it at all. The man wasn’t any easier to talk to than Kellan. “Erik, go back home so Anna can stop worrying about you.”
Enid turned and marched back downhill.
Chapter Fourteen • the estuary
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Small Debates
A flat sandy spot behind the shed offered as good a place as any to practice, later that afternoon.
Enid rushed Teeg like someone in a rage would do, unthinking and without tactics. He stepped out of the way, pivoting, and brought his staff down on her back. Feigning a stumble, she went to one knee and imagined sprawling. The staff pressed down on her back; in a real attack, it would come down with force, and it would stay there, confounding an assailant.
Tom came out to feed Bonavista’s handful of hens, and stopped to stare open-mouthed at the two investigators, his basket wrapped in his arms. Enid didn’t mind the audience. News of their sparring certainly couldn’t hurt their reputation.
“Again,” Teeg said, and Enid straightened and prepared to rush him again.
Lunge, pivot, smack, fall.
And again, he wasn’t hitting hard—he knew how to pull punches—but she was going to have a bruise on the small of her back. A hard thwack in the kidneys would floor someone in a real fight.
He expected her attacks, but the idea was that the repetition, driving the pattern into his body’s memory, would make the movements come instantly when they were needed. Tomas could make these moves look like dancing, with a twist of an arm and a right turn of his body redirecting the force of his assailants’ attack and sending them to the ground. Tomas didn’t need to practice often, but Enid always appreciated observing. She never worried with him watching her back.
Teeg still needed some practice. This wasn’t natural for him yet. Enid attributed the problem to a lack of confidence rather than skill. If he was like her, then in the back of his mind he was imagining a knife or machete in his opponent’s hands, wondering what he would do if an enemy were armed.
“Again,” she ordered.
She got back to her feet, and this time lunged at him before he was quite ready, his staff still loose at his side and out of position. He stumbled back, swung the staff up, and she went low to avoid the coming strike. Fell forward, grabbed his calf, and pulled, throwing him off balance. With a shout of surprise, Teeg toppled, and Enid tumbled to the ground after him.
They both lay sprawled, breathing hard. He’d dropped his staff, and he groaned as he pushed himself up on his side. For a moment she worried that he might have gotten hurt in the fall, but then he said, “Not fair.”
Chuckling, she sat up. “I know! But you’re awake now.”
“I was awake before!” He glared at her, planting the staff to help him stand. “You trying to teach me some kind of lesson? Put me in my place?”
“And what place is that?”
“You think I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Not that, precisely. But she had to consider how to explain what she really thought. “I think you’re not thinking things through. You’re too worried about winning, and this isn’t a game.”
Enid sat, legs out, taking the moment to rest. She was tired and she had to acknowledge how long the past couple of days had been and how much they’d taken out of her. If not for Ella’s body and its wound, they wouldn’t be here practicing at all.
Their uniforms were grubby, stained with dried mud and sweat. They’d each brought only one change of clothes; they weren’t supposed to be here this long. They could wash, but nothing ever seemed to dry out in this humidity. Well, maybe she could scrub out some of the stains and hang
the clothes to let the wrinkles fall out overnight.
“I think I’m done,” she said, sighing.
“No. One more. I want to end with a win. You can’t quit after shoving me over like that.” He stood and held the staff in both hands like he was going to charge her with it. Strike her in the gut and shove her over, just like he’d been trained.
She could have told him that this was exactly his problem: he wanted to win, no matter what. But he had a point; if this was training, might as well let him feel good about himself. A boost of confidence. Or he’d pout the rest of the evening.
In the end, the fact remained that someone out there in the world had killed a woman with a blade. Maybe the killer had fled. Maybe had run for a hundred miles and would never be found, and would never do another horrible thing again.
Or maybe the person was nearby and ready to strike at any moment, should anyone discover the truth.
No, they had to be on guard.
“Right,” she said, heaving herself to her feet, brushing off the dirt she’d collected on her tunic. “Again.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
Enid and Teeg accepted yet another supper from the folk at Bonavista—clam chowder again. Enid would be sure to send back a large stash of supplies in repayment. But they’d already settled the case they’d come here to investigate. So what were they still doing here?
They weren’t solving a murder; they were smashing pottery.
“Kellan confessed!” Teeg declared, yet again. He was sure they’d solved both cases. Again they’d taken their supper and retreated to the work house, eating on the front porch to take in what fresh air there was. Enid couldn’t get him to see that what Kellan had said wasn’t a confession, but blind panic. She’d stopped trying, so they ate the rest of their meal sullenly, in silence.
It was Enid’s turn to deliver their dishes back to the main cottage. Doors and windows were open to let in air, screened over to keep out bugs, and after dark things turned pleasant. A cool breeze came in from the ocean, and the front room was comfortable. The household gathered here, under solar lighting, to work on projects, mending and knitting and the like. The kind of pleasant domestic scene Enid always appreciated, which meant everything was working the way it should.
The Wild Dead Page 14