She smelled like a child’s blanket.
“I figure you’ll be able to get back to the world in two or three days. How about you dumped the bike and bounced your head off a rock, the wound would look like that.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “A bullet hole is a bullet hole is a bullet hole.”
“Not yours. The entrance hole is maybe two inches from the exit hole and velocity made them one. Nobody will ever think you got shot.”
The boat was toasty warm. I had half a buzz from the wine, and the wind and rain were thrashing against the hull. It was the kind of night I love. I laid my head against the back of the settee and sighed. “It’s Thanksgiving day, they’ll find her in a few hours.”
“Yeah, and she’s all they’ll find, I went over that place good. Nobody will know anyone was there.”
“Ham sandwiches.”
She laughed. “Get a grip. Nobody knows how much ham was in that refrigerator, I really think we’re okay.”
I went “Ummm,” drained my glass, lurched to my feet, and took an umbrella from behind my bookcase. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and climbed out of the boat and retrieved the money, keys, and deeds from Cat’s trailer. I climbed back into the boat, refilled my mug, then laid the items on the table and sat back down.
Priscilla looked at the money, stared at me, drank some wine, then picked up a stack of bills and fanned them. “How much?”
“Two thousand two hundred and thirty dollars.”
“You a safe cracker?”
“No, I just hunted around until I found the combination. Everyone stashes the combination somewhere near their safe and if you look long enough you’re going to find it. Now the question is, who knows about the money? If that Timothy does, then obviously he’ll know something isn’t kosher and he’ll probably figure it out. I’m sure Dorthea told him about our visit.”
Priscilla nodded. “Conrad too.” She fanned the bills again, shook her head and said, “Well shit, Harry, maybe you should have thought of all that before you grabbed this stuff.” She gave me a twisted smile. “And you were giving me a hard time about ham sandwiches?”
I shrugged and stared at my wine. It didn’t offer any inspiration so I shrugged again and said, “A stupid move, I know, but at the time I rationalized it as partial payment for another stupid move, going there and getting shot. As to the ethics of it, let’s not go there.”
We sat in silence. I listened to the rain hammer the boat and tried to dull the pain above my eyes with alcohol. Priscilla got up, uncorked my last bottle of Zinfandel and topped off our mugs. “Okay,” she said. “They were bad guys and it’s an even bet they did Frank and Watson and maybe others. But I’ll bet that Timothy, whoever the hell he is, was the gopher, the low man on the pole, and that’s how The Chapman’s used him. Shared the loot and all that, but look at Dorthea, you really think she would be open and fair with anyone? I got a nickel that says he doesn’t know the combination to that safe and hasn’t a clue what’s in it.”
I thought about it and said, “Maybe, but then that’s what I want to think. I don’t want to think about anyone coming after me.”
Priscilla’s eyes glistened like wet marbles. “We’re probably going to have to deal with him sometime soon whatever he thinks or knows, now it’s like we get paid for doing it.”
I reached out and patted the stack of papers and said, “There are three deeds here. One of them might be the location of the special place.”
She flipped through the deeds and threw them back on the table. “I can’t read that crap tonight. Eight hours sleep and a couple cups of coffee and we can give it a shot.” She yawned and stretched, then stood up and slowly bent over until her chest was flat against the front of her legs and her arms wrapped around her knees. When she straightened she touched my bandage and my cheek and said, “I’m going to play the game.”
When I burrowed down in my bed she was hunched over the Xbox, focused on the game. I pressed my throbbing head into the pillow and tried to think, to make sense of what happened to me. But all I could hold in my mind was Dorthea Chapman standing sideways, arm extended, her pistol aimed at my head.
“Silly Fool.”
… . .
THE BEAST ABOVE MY EYE WAS a malignant thing that prized needles. Hot pain would jerk me out of a fitful doze and I’d stagger around, choke down an aspirin, and go back to bed and wait for sleep. Cat, for reasons of her own, had elected to sleep with me this night. Each time I laid back down, she fussed and dithered, mewing anxiously until I massaged her neck and muttered reassuring words. Then she would settle down on the pillow, put a paw against my head and purr in my ear.
It’s nice to be wanted.
It was three in the afternoon when I dragged myself out of bed. My head throbbed relentlessly, the pain was intense and constant, and the sad, beat up face in the mirror brought on depression and anxiety. Priscilla was gone, but a note stuck to my coffee mug said: Coffee in the thermos, aspirin by the sink. Back soon.
I poured coffee, took two aspirin with the first swallow and slumped in the settee. It was a clear day, with no hint of last night’s storm. Priscilla had filled the feeders and the grove was alive with fluttering, chirping birds. Cat took up station by the window and growled and yowled and smacked the cold glass with her paw. She doesn’t slack off when it comes to the serious stuff.
I was working a second cup of coffee when Priscilla entered the clearing with a bulging shopping bag hanging from her hand. Walking a wide circle around the birds, she clomped up the ladder, opened the hatch and dropped down.
The cabin immediately filled with the smell of roast turkey and hot apple pie. She pulled a two liter bottle of wine from the bag, gave me a smile and said, “Happy Thanksgiving, Harry. As soon as I change your bandage we’ll stuff ourselves with turkey and pie and bad wine. I told Annie about your bike accident, she says Happy Thanksgiving and hopes you feel better. If you want, she’ll take a look at it. And, I can go back for seconds.”
This time I was content to let Priscilla poke and prod without having to check the results. After a lot of futzing around she stuck a final piece of tape to my forehead, tapped me on the nose and said, “A lot of swelling but no sign of infection. Hell, you’re coming along good, let’s eat.”
For the third time in less than a week I dumped a lot of meat into me. It was superb, and the dressing, undoubtedly the end result of hundreds of combined years of experimentation and refinement by the blue haired women in the barn, was heaven with oysters. I gave Cat a spoonful and she carefully picked out the oyster, batted the rest off the table, and sat by the window with it hanging out of her mouth.
Priscilla informed her she was a nasty hairball.
We made a lot of small talk and had a burping contest which Priscilla won hands down, but only because she was able to smack her sternum harder than me. After all, I am a wounded man.
After dinner we strolled through the grove to the high end of the pasture. Dolly and company were headed toward the shed when Dolly spotted us, did a slow one eighty degree turn and led her troops to where we stood. Tail swishing back and forth, she lumbered up to us, lowered her head and butted Priscilla back several feet. Pricilla laughed and dug her hands into the cow’s neck. “I think what you have there is a fourteen hundred pound kitten,” I said.
“I think I’ll keep her. When our thing is over I’ll buy a leash and a big rhinestone collar for her. “I’ll walk her twice a day and she can sleep beside my bed.”
I smiled at the picture. “Eva will love it, especially when she sees her yard after a week or so.”
“I’ll win her over with all the free milk.”
The other cows, clearly anxious to get to the shed, started mooing and stomping their feet, so Priscilla slapped Dolly on the flank, pushed her toward the shed with both hands and said, “Get going, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We walked back to the boat. Priscilla fired up the Xbox and I sat in front of the open stove with
a pile of magazines. Around eight I poured a mug of wine and nipped at it while reading and took two aspirin with the last nip. Sometime in the last few hours I’d become used to having a throbbing headache, mainly because whenever Priscilla changed the bandage she kept telling me how good it looked. If alone, I’d be laying in my bed, making pathetic noises and waiting for death.
During the night, pain woke me twice, but aspirin and water were now at bedside, and I had a pretty good night. When pain woke me up the second time Cat was gone, so I assumed I was getting better and not worth any more fuss or the feline equivalent of worry.
… . .
WITH CAT HANGING IN THE CROOK of her arm, Priscilla shook me awake around seven. She was dressed in a purple running suit and a purple sweatband held her mangy flattop in check. She dropped Cat on the bed and said, “I’m gonna change your bandage and then go to town. If I don’t put in an appearance at Eva’s and let her know everything’s all right, she’ll start obsessing and drive Ona nuts and Sarah wackier than she already is. And listen, tonight Hairball sleeps with you. I mean it. I really don’t need a cold nose blowing cat snot in my ear all night long.”
When the bandage was off I asked for the mirror. To me my forehead was a dreadful looking, multihued, scabbed up mess. But after her usual fussing around, Priscilla said, “You’re getting there Harry, in fact I’ll think I’ll leave the bandage off. Don’t pick at the scabs and don’t mess with it.”
Like an obedient dog I nodded, went, “Uh huh,” and came close to licking her neck. As she pulled on her sweat jacket I said, “Stay the hell away from the funeral home.”
“That won’t be a problem, but I am going to buy a paper, yesterday was the big day.” She leaned down, kissed me on the good side of my face and said, “And I’ll pick up a couple of bottles of wine, the stuff you drink is pretty bad, but that stuff Annie buys ranks right down there with camel piss.”
As I poured another cup of coffee, she pushed her bike out of the grove and was gone. I watched her go and wondered for probably the hundredth time how close it had been… Priscilla rushing at Dorthea, and Dorthea turning, firing twice.
Reading, puttering, napping, and playing with Cat brought me to five o’clock. Worry became constant at six. Every sort of scenario cruised through my mind but I usually managed to choke them off, as it was obvious which one of us engaging in Stupid Stuff. I was in the bathroom staring at my face when she dropped into the cabin. She pulled three bottles of wine and a paper out of a cloth shopping bag and said, “Worry about me, Old Man?”
“A little, you were gone forever and being young and impetuous there’s no telling what you might have been up to.”
She snorted and threw the bag at me. “You are a piece of work, Old Man, you know that? I mean, who the hell went trotting off like Ranger Rick to do battle with the bad guys, or in this case the bad little old lady, and got blasted? Who’s the one who bled all over the bad little old lady’s floor? Who’s head looks like a rotting cantaloupe? Who… ?”
“May an ethically suspect duck do a Mambo on your pillow.”
She grinned, gave me the finger, and threw the paper at me. “Page two.”
The local paper devoted about a fourth of page two to Dorthea Chapman. Page one was saved for news about the townspeople voting down a new school, the garden club’s 74th annual art show, and the rise in property taxes. Page two said that Dorthea Chapman had been a loved and respected pillar of the community and that she was found dead of a stroke on Thanksgiving Day by her brother, Doctor Amos Conrad. She hadn’t been well, having had a stroke thirteen months ago, and had suffered from hypertension and congestive heart failure for several years.
Yes indeed, a wonderful woman, just had this little habit of stealing rings off of her dead clients. Killed a couple of people too, but what the hell, as Priscilla says, we’re all dysfunctional in some manner. I put the paper down and looked at Priscilla. She held up a plastic bag full of veggies and said, “How about stir fries and leftover turkey?”
“And any of the dressing that’s left.” I tapped the paper. “That nurse we saw must have taken Conrad to the funeral home for Thanksgiving. He’s probably the reason for the electric stair lift. I wonder what he thought when he found her? And there’s no mention of T. William or the mysterious Timothy.”
Priscilla made a rude noise and said, “Mysterious Timothy is probably wondering what the hell to do with T. William. I just hope he hasn’t the combo to that safe.”
“If the Gods are smiling on us, your hopes were answered. If not? well, we have a problem.” After a time I sighed and said, “And we’re just about out of options. This might be the end of it, no confrontations or solutions, just a fading away with one bad guy drifting into oblivion and another dead of a stroke.” I finished my wine, refilled the mug and continued. “Obviously diabetes will claim the good doctor. He’ll go blind and other doctors will keep chopping pieces of his legs off until he dies of renal failure or some such thing, all in all not a bad ending.”
Priscilla shook her head and ran a hand through her flattop. “We still have stuff to check out. There’s Timothy and the deeds you cobbed from the safe, that’s two things that can keep us going.”
“We’ll check them out, but I don’t think we’re going to find the special place on a piece of property they have a deed for. People like the Chapmans put their money in investments, one of which is real estate. As for Timothy, he might well turn out to be a family friend and totally clueless about what the Chapmans and Conrad have been up to.”
“Shit, I suppose your right. Ona said we should quit. I didn’t tell her or Eva about you getting shot or any of the stuff in the funeral home, they would’ve stroked out themselves. But I did feed them a bullshit version of what we’ve been doing. Eva’s disappointed, but says we’re pissing up a rope and oughta hang it up.” She turned and pointed the wood spoon she was holding at me and said, “But I think we’re getting close, and I don’t think we should quit or hang it up. At least not until we check out the deeds and find out who the hell Timothy is.”
She put stir fries, turkey and coffee on the table and sat across from me. We ate with our fingers, dipping the stir fries into honey mustard sauce and dropping them in our mouths. I slathered slabs of cold turkey with the sauce and ate the meat like I would a popsicle. Lusting after the turkey, Cat paced the table, using her entire repertoire of tricks to beg meat from Priscilla and I, and succeeded in filling her belly.
We took our coffee on deck and sat on the rail. The cockpit was littered with leaves and other debris that had either fallen in or been dragged into the boat by critters. It was a cold evening but the breeze felt good, and the sound of it whispering through the trees was soothing. After several minutes of silence, Priscilla rapped me on the shoulder with the back of her hand and said, “Listen, we check out the deeds, try to find out who Timothy is, and if we turn up nada we’ll call it a day.”
“We know,” I said. “Or at least we’re pretty sure that it was the Chapman’s who killed your Grandfather and perhaps Watson, and Dorthea’s brother helped with the cover up, probably for a cup full of Maple Leafs. As I said earlier, the Chapman’s are down and out, and I think that’s going to have to be enough. I don’t see us doing too much with Timothy even if we do find out who he is. As I said he may well be clueless, just a friend of the family or something, bad guys do lead fairly normal lives most of the time. We’ll split the money I took from the safe, tell Eva a shortened version of what happened, and feed Mrs. Watson some flapdoodle, and that’ll be it.”
Priscilla looked at me and smiled. “Flapdoodle? You really said flapdoodle? Dude, you do come up with the words.” She sighed and ran a hand through her flattop. “Hell, I guess that’s not to thin, at least we’re pretty sure what happened and who did it. Eva will feel a little better knowing Frank’s killers, or most of them anyway, are in one sort of hell or another.”
We tapped mugs and drank to it.
… . .
>
ANOTHER COLD, SUNLESS NOVEMBER DAY. GRAY clouds hung like soiled blankets over our heads as we pedaled through town. Priscilla had poked me awake at six, fed me hot oatmeal and vitamins with my coffee, and nagged me into action. I was looking spiffy in a blue running suit and well used hitops. As usual it was too little starting out and too much a few miles into the ride. Sweat ran down my back and legs as I pedaled along several feet behind Priscilla, my eyes focused on her undulating rump.
My wound throbbed and itched under the bandage I insisted on wearing, because without it I looked like something out of a cheap horror movie. Over coffee at Gretchen’s we had a small argument. I wanted to do the machines and then check out the deeds. As usual Priscilla wanted to get right in it. I plied her with logic and a huge coffee roll slathered with frosting and won, but had to endure a certain amount of gritty talk.
Gretchen ambled over, refilled our mugs and sat down, pulled a piece of chicken out of her pocket and laid it at Cat’s feet. While Priscilla tormented Cat by pretending to take the meat away from her, Gretchen gave my face a long inspection. “Harry, your forehead is kinda lumpy under all that tape, and it’s two, no three, different colors. What happened? You been whacking yourself with a hammer?”
I threw out my best shot at a rueful smile, fingered the bandage and said, “I was going pretty good along a trail south of the farm, misjudged, and nailed a rock.”
She raised a hand and gently touched my bandage. “You damn sure did. Maybe you ought to take up walking, because another fall like that and we might have to ship you out like old Willy Chapman, a head can’t take to many hits with rocks you know.”
Bentley Dadmun - Harry Neal and Cat 09 - Dead Dead Dead, the Little Girl Said Page 18