“Again, thank you, Clyde, for that stirring narrative. Now, how about we let the young lady tell it?” Merv was a little over fifty and, while not exactly in fighting trim, had a comfortable beefy look that said he could toss a few drunks or small cows around without any problems. He was looking at Nikki with a set of hard, dark brown eyes, from under a set of bushy eyebrows, and Nikki wasn’t sure that he was at all pleased with her.
“They wouldn’t let the girl they were with leave, so I said they should let her go and one of them took a swing at me, so I defended myself,” said Nikki. “The one in the Carhartts,” she added, since the sheriff seemed to want specifics.
“Milt,” said the sheriff, shaking his head.
“And the other one tried to jump her from behind,” said Clyde.
The sheriff raised an eyebrow at Clyde, who smiled awkwardly and looked at Nikki.
“The other one attacked me while I was dealing with Milt,” said Nikki, confirming Clyde’s story.
“That sounds like our Pedro, tsk. And where is the other young lady now?” The sheriff looked around the room, as if she might suddenly appear.
“She took off,” said Nikki.
“To be honest,” said Clyde, “I think she might have stolen their car.”
“We don’t know that,” said Nikki. “It might have been her car.”
“The keys were in his pocket,” argued Clyde.
“Well, considering how abusive he was, that would be in keeping with his personality.” Clyde shrugged as if to say he did not agree, but wasn’t planning on arguing further. “Anyway,” she said turning back to the sheriff, “they attacked me. I defended myself.”
Merv collected a handful of bar peanuts from the dish on the bar and thoughtfully chewed a few. “You paint a moving picture of fear. I feel that you were indeed threatened and acting in defense of your person. But just so the paperwork is tidy can I have your name and where you can be reached?” Merv pulled a pen and small notebook out of his breast pocket and clicked the pen at Nikki expectantly.
“Nicole Lanier,” she said. “L-A-N-I-E-R.”
“Ah,” said Merv, flipping his notebook closed, without writing anything. “I should have recognized the hair. Just like your father’s. Up visiting, are you? I had heard that you were living down in Los Angeles these days.”
“Uh, yes,” said Nikki. She’d forgotten how much people knew about each other in small towns.
“Good, I’m sure Peg will be happy to have you around.” Nikki couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she said nothing. “Staying very long?”
“Just a week or so,” said Nikki, frowning.
“Mm-hmm. Good. Thanks, Clyde,” said Merv, taking another handful of peanuts. Clyde waved his dish-towel in Merv’s general direction as acknowledgement. “Jackson, I can assume you’ll make sure the young lady gets home without further incident?” Jackson nodded and Nikki fumed.
“Without further incident?” repeated Nikki, when Merv had ambled out the door. “What did he mean by that?”
“I think he meant that he didn’t want to arrest anyone else tonight and I should keep you out of trouble.”
“I can keep myself out of trouble,” snapped Nikki.
“Really?” asked Jackson.
“This wasn’t trouble,” she said firmly.
Jackson shrugged. She could see he was trying not to smile.
“It wasn’t!” she protested, trying not to laugh herself. “OK, it was a little trouble, but not a lot of trouble.”
“Well, maybe your definition of trouble and mine are different,” he allowed and Nikki did laugh.
“Was it worth it?” she asked, turning the subject back to where it had been.
“Was what worth it?” he asked, returning her smile easily.
“Leaving us. Donny, your family, everyone. Leaving me. Was the pain you caused worth it?”
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he said.
“I believe that, but knowing that you did, and knowing how much—because believe me, it was no small amount—would you do it again?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I had to. I couldn’t continue pretending to be what I wasn’t.”
Nikki hesitated and then nodded. “Yeah, I figured.”
Jackson was staring at her, a bemused expression on his face. Nikki stared back, waiting for him to speak.
“Hi,” he said at last, putting out his hand as if to shake, “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Jackson Tyrell.”
“New and improved?” asked Nikki with a laugh.
“Old enough to know what can’t be improved. Now who the hell are you?”
August VI
Wait a Minute
“Funny,” said Nikki, around her last mouthful of burger, ignoring his outstretched hand. “Anyway, I’m glad you turned out OK and didn’t go weirdly axe-murderer or something.”
“Me too,” said Jackson. “Are you heading up to your grandmother’s?”
“Yeah. Let’s hope I can find it in the dark. I don’t think I’ve actually driven up to the farm myself in about a decade, so hopefully the Pederson’s haven’t changed their mailbox.”
“They did actually.”
“What? No more creepy folk-art kid staring at me through binoculars? Now what am I supposed to use to navigate?”
“Giant shark eating a mailbox boat. Mr. Pederson got a new skill saw for Christmas and Mrs. Pederson found Pinterest.”
“Do you even know what Pinterest is?” asked Nikki, her eyebrows going up.
“I’ve had the concept explained to me,” he retorted. Clyde came out of the kitchen carrying Jackson’s plate. “Can you put it in a to-go box, Clyde? I’m going to caravan up to the Connelly’s with Nikki.”
“Sure,” said Clyde with a shrug.
“You don’t have to do that,” said Nikki. “Stay here and enjoy your dinner. I’ve got a phone; it can give me directions.”
“Reception’s not so good up there. It’s no trouble.” Jackson stood up, pulling out his wallet to pay Clyde. “Peg’s place is on my way home. You can follow me.”
Nikki looked at his dinner, already in a to-go box, and Clyde already tucking Jackson’s cash into the register. “OK, thanks.”
She paused out in the parking lot. The air smelled of wood smoke. A rather homey scent in the winter, but during late summer and the height of the fire season, it made her nervous.
“Colville Complex is kicking up,” said Jackson, sniffing the air as he stepped outside. “The wind has shifted.”
“How big is that fire now?” She hadn’t been following the news, but the Colville Forest Fire Complex had been on the front of every newspaper in every small town she’d driven through.
“Over a hundred acres to the west and another fifty to the east.”
“I don’t understand; I thought it was one fire?”
“It’s all the Colville Forest,” he said shaking his head. “So instead of calling out the West Colville fire and the East Colville fire they call it a Complex. Of course, we’re all worried that it’ll jump the river and the two will merge—then it really will all be one fire.”
“The river’s pretty wide. It can’t really do that, can it?”
“If the wind is strong enough,” said Jackson with a shrug. “All it takes is one little spark. Everyone with half a brain has been clearing brush, but if it jumps the river, it could sweep through all the dry grass and hit the town. We’re all on high fire alert. Anyway, just follow me up to Peg’s place.”
She was unsurprised to see that Jackson was driving a black F-150, covered in mud, with a gun rack in the back window.
“What? No rope on the gun rack?” she asked, pointing at his truck.
“Rope on the gun rack is for posers,” he said. “You can’t leave a good rope up there. It would get sun damaged and brittle. Plus, I actually like to use my gun rack to hold my gun periodically.”
Nikki laughed. “This is one of those, ‘you know you�
��re a cowboy when…’ things, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, and what about the pimp mobile you’re driving?” he demanded, pointing to the sky-blue ’53 Impala.
“You mean, what about it could be more awesome? The answer is nothing.”
He shook his head. “Follow me, and stick to the speed limit. Merv and his deputies take speed limits seriously here.”
“You mean they take their source of income seriously?” retorted Nikki, who had a dim view of things impeding the max velocity of any of her vehicles.
“Whatever. Just keep it at twenty-five, OK?” Jackson climbed into his truck and Nikki dropped down into the Impala.
Kaniksu Falls was in the northeastern most part of Washington State, nestled in one of the bends of the Columbia River and flanked on two sides by the Colville National Forest and the Colville Indian Reservation to the south. When it came to bigger towns to go to, Canada was closer than the nearest American neighbor. It was therefore not entirely surprising that Nikki’s father had been Canadian. Nell, Nikki’s mother, hadn’t been the only Kaniksu Falls teenager to venture across the border, where the drinking age was still nineteen, and come home with a Canadian boyfriend.
The town itself was a typical small town layout—main street, with a grid system branching out on either side. The high school lay on the edge of town with tiny little suburbs even further out and then, like electrons circling the nucleus of an atom, the farms and ranches were the last sign of humans before the expanse of forest took over.
Nikki stared at the shops as she drove by, all closed by 8:00 p.m. Only bars and restaurants stayed open later than that, and most of the restaurants were closed by ten. There wasn’t even a McDonalds in town. The burger joint was literally called “Fast Food” and it wasn’t being ironically Americana in style, it had just existed in the same beat-up drive-in location since 1963.
Nothing seemed to have changed since Nell had packed them up and left for Seattle—since Nikki’s father had abandoned them. The grocery store, the hair salon, the Beauty Belle (where all the girls got their prom dresses), the bookstore (with new and used books!)—it all looked the same. Maybe slightly smaller and dirtier. Jackson stopped at a stoplight, and they waited on the empty streets for the light to change. Nikki could hear the whisper of music from Jackson’s stereo over the sound of their motors. She stared around the intersection at the Antique Mall (commonly referred to as “the garage sale place”), the Mexican restaurant— previously a Shari’s, Nikki guessed by the octagonal shape—the gas station, and the auto-body shop, trying to drum up some feeling of nostalgia. When she had visited during college there had always been the twinge of what might have been, the life she might have lived if her father and Jackson hadn’t left. Now she found herself pondering how anyone lived without a twenty-four hour grocery store and Chinese delivery on speed dial. Did no one ever need to eat at 2:00 a.m.? Did they just cook their own food? No one should cook at 2:00 a.m. You were either drunk, sleep deprived, or getting off work at that hour. None of those were fit states to be operating an appliance.
As Nikki contemplated the problems of late night noshing, a figure turned the corner down the street and walked along the sidewalk. Nikki squinted in disbelief. He wore the same filthy Carhartt’s, the same disgusting ball cap. It really was Milt from the bar. But the sheriff had taken him to jail, hadn’t he? As she watched, Milt opened the door to the darkened auto-body shop and went inside.
The light turned green and Jackson’s truck was already trundling across the intersection. Nikki hesitated, uncertain. Should she honk? Let Jackson go while she… She did what? Went and beat up Milt again? Nikki bit her lip and pushed the gas pedal, following Jackson. It wasn’t any of her business if the sheriff didn’t want to arrest people. She should let it go.
But she found herself stewing on it as she followed Jackson’s truck up into the foothills, past the shark eating a mailbox boat, and onto the Connelly farm.
Jackson turned the truck around in the circular driveway and waved, but didn’t stop, as he headed back down to the road. Nikki turned off the Impala and sat frowning for a long moment in the car. Then she shook her head, grabbed her bag and headed to the front door. Her grandmother’s Ford SUV was still warm to the touch, which meant she hadn’t been home for very long. Nikki rang the door bell and waited.
“Who is it?” asked her grandmother, from the other side of the door.
“It’s Nikki, Grandma,” said Nikki, not quite yelling to project through the door.
“Oh, good,” said Peg, and Nikki heard the clunk of the deadbolt and a rattle of a chain latch being undone. Nikki didn’t remember there having been a chain latch previously.
“Sweetie!” exclaimed Peg throwing open the door. “You’re here!” Nikki was promptly smothered in a hug, but was dimly aware that Peg was holding something heavy in one hand as it clunked against her back during the hug. “I didn’t think you were flying in until tomorrow. How did you get here?” She peered out into the driveway.
“I drove a little faster than I thought I would,” said Nikki. “Grandma, why do you have a gun?”
“Oh, this?” Peg looked in surprise at the .357 revolver in her hand. “Well, I’m old, dear, and I live all by myself. It pays to be on the safe side. You see all those crazies on the news these days. I’ll take you down to the quarry tomorrow and teach you how to shoot it. I’m a firm believer that if there’s a gun in the house, everyone should know how to use it. But you said you were flying! You didn’t really drive all the way, did you?”
“You said I was flying,” said Nikki, stepping inside and shutting the front door. Peg locked the deadbolt, the door handle, and slid the chain into place. “I said I was driving.”
“I don’t think that’s safe.”
“And yet, here I am, safe and sound,” said Nikki. “Now where’s the pie?”
Peg laughed. “It’s in the kitchen. How did you know there would be pie?”
“It’s peach season,” said Nikki, with a shrug. “Of course there’s pie.”
“Well, come into the kitchen,” said Peg. “And I’ll cut you a slice, while I confess a little something.”
“Grandma, you didn’t shoot someone, did you? Because I’m not burying any bodies until after pie.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t shot anyone in years.”
Peg led the way into the kitchen. The yellow and red tile counter and backsplash hadn’t been changed since her grandfather built it, but the floor was new.
“You took out the linoleum!” exclaimed Nikki.
“Yeah, I had a raccoon under the house and when Jorge went to get it out, the little bugger knocked one of the water pipes loose and flooded the whole kitchen. I had to replace it. I like this floor,” she tapped the new wooden boards with her house slipper, “but I kind of miss the linoleum. It was a lot warmer on the toes.”
“So what did you need to confess?” asked Nikki as she pulled down two plates from the cupboard.
“Well,” said Peg, tucking her gun into the kitchen junk drawer, and picking up a knife from the wooden block. “I didn’t really think you were arriving until tomorrow afternoon. There’s ice cream in the freezer or whip cream in the fridge, hon. Your pick.” Peg deftly sliced the pie and levered it onto the plates. “So I didn’t really get a chance to clean out your room.”
“What, you didn’t get a chance to dust?” asked Nikki, covering her pie with whip cream.
“It’s a little bit more than dusty,” said Peg, wiping peach off the knife and looking extremely guilty.
“How much is a little bit?” asked Nikki.
“Well…” said Peg.
Nikki grabbed a fork and her plate and marched up the stairs to the second door on the left and swung it open.
“Grandma! What is all this stuff?”
“It’s the attic,” said Peg. “When the pipe burst, we didn’t know originally where it was coming from so I had to pull everything out of the attic for the plumber to c
rawl around in. And once I had all the boxes and trunks down I started going through everything. That rack on the left is my mother’s clothes. There are also some of mine from when I was a girl and I cared about such things. The ones in the middle are your mother’s. She always was a clothes horse. There’s a few of your baby things in the back. And the ones on the right are my grandmother’s. I’ve been cleaning them up and pressing them. Once I know what I’ve got, I plan to sell them on the internet.”
Nikki blinked at the treasure trove of vintage clothing. She could barely see the bed, its crisp sheets and comfy quilt beckoning through the racks and boxes of clothes.
“It’s probably a good thing you came alone,” said Peg, looking into the room. “I don’t think we could wedge anyone else in there with you. That boyfriend of yours isn’t coming, is he?”
“No,” said Nikki. “He’s on an assignment for work. I’m on my own for awhile.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess.”
Nikki couldn’t tell if she was pleased or disappointed.
August VII
Quarry
Wednesday
Nikki bounced down the stairs wearing tennis shoes, khaki shorts, and a short-sleeve, lightweight button-up that hid her gun nicely. She’d been tempted to try out a few of the vintage looks hanging around the room, but had realized they probably wouldn’t conceal any firearms. She sat down at the breakfast table, making sure not to catch her holster on the chair. The first few months she’d worn a gun, she’d felt like it had knocked into everything and she’d had to severely adjust her wardrobe to shirts that would drape nicely. These days she barely noticed she had it on.
Her grandmother set a bowl of oatmeal down in front of her and pushed a Tupperware container of cut peaches at her. Nikki took both without a word, respecting her grandmother’s preferred morning mode. After Jane’s Czechoslovakian Incident, she had finally learned that nothing good ever came of speaking to a non-morning person before ten. Nikki finished her breakfast, washed her bowl and then went out on the porch to wait for Peg’s brain to switch back on.
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