INDIAN PIPES

by Cynthia Riggs

  Victoria checked each of the four doors that led outside. None of them could be locked. She didn’t have keys. Rain fell steadily. She moved back to the kitchen and placed eggs into the egg cooker to hard-boil. Soon she forgot about the killer. She brought two pillows and two down comforters from the upstairs bedroom, and set them by the kitchen door, in case she and Casey had to spend the night. She buttered bread for egg sandwiches, made a pot of coffee, and was reaching into the refrigerator for ginger marmalade when she heard a loud snap that startled her. She slammed the refrigerator door and heard something fall inside. Then she realized the snap was the egg cooker turning itself off. She laughed and patted her chest, where her heart seemed to be pounding loud enough to hear.

  She looked in the refrigerator to see what had fallen and found that it was the bowl of fish chowder left over from several nights ago. She had been meaning to throw it into the compost bucket, but although the chowder was not quite fresh enough to eat, it hadn’t spoiled yet. Now the lower shelves of the refrigerator were coated with fishy-smelling goo.

  She cleaned it up and went back to making sandwiches. Ginger marmalade and cream cheese would serve for dessert. Apples and a handful of hard candies.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move to the east of the house, behind the fishpond. She stopped what she was doing to see what it was. While she watched, she saw the tall irises in back of the pond part, and the neighbor’s black dog trotted out. He put both front legs into the pond and lapped up water. Then he looked up, pink tongue hanging out, a dog-smile on his face, and shook himself. Water drops flew around in a swirl. Victoria put both hands on the kitchen counter to steady her nerves, and laughed to herself.

  She finished packing sandwiches, napkins, apples in the picnic basket, closed the lid, slid the bits of bamboo into the loops that held it closed, and set the basket inside the west door where it wouldn’t get wet.

  As she straightened up, she thought she saw a figure flit from behind the Norway maple tree into the shadows. It was only chance that she’d seen it at all.

  She said, in her mind, that if a stranger should dare come into her house, she could easily evade him. A stranger wouldn’t know the nooks and crannies of the house, the secret hiding places, the multitude of doors.

  She decided to go upstairs to the second-floor attic, the room above the kitchen, where she could look out the window without being seen. She crept quietly up the steep back staircase. Perhaps her imagination was getting the better of her. Perhaps nobody was there behind the maple tree. Perhaps she was being overly dramatic.

  She looked at her watch. Casey should be here in another five minutes. If someone was out there, Victoria thought, she could elude them for that five minutes, at least, until Casey showed up. If someone should come into the house and come upstairs, she could go down either the front stairs or the back stairs, make her way out of the house through the front door, and flag down a passing car. She found herself breathing heavily and perspiring.

  The phone in the upstairs study rang.

  At first, she couldn’t decide whether to answer it or not. Surely it would be something innocent, like the League of Women Voters telling her about a meeting. Or the Garden Club asking her to bake cookies. After three rings, she snatched up the receiver.

  “Victoria? This is Casey. I’ve been delayed another ten minutes. Are you okay?”

  “Of course.” Victoria’s voice sounded thick to her.

  She hung up the phone and went back to the window. Might someone have crept across the yard while she was on the phone? Had she imagined that figure by the maple tree? She checked her watch. Now it would be twelve minutes.

  She’d be foolish to escape by going up to the big attic on the third floor, she thought. It had only one stairway and she would be trapped. The closet in the west room had a back that led into another, smaller, bedroom. When she was a child, she pretended it was a secret passage. She could hide in the closet and escape through one door or the other.

  She told herself she was being ridiculous. She looked at her watch. Only three minutes had passed since Casey had called. Nine more minutes. If only Dojan and Casey hadn’t made her feel so vulnerable. She saw a movement near the maple again. Was it a shadow from wind-blown branches? Or the black dog marking territory on its way home? Certainly it couldn’t be a person. No one would hide like that.

  Or could it be? She thought again of the trap she’d set. One of the people in that circle around her this afternoon, she was sure, had killed three people. If that person thought she, Victoria Trumbull, had found evidence, what would stop that killer from coming after her? Someone must be feeling panicky now and might take risks in order to stop Victoria Trumbull from telling what she knew. She had assumed the killer would go directly to Burkhardt’s place to get rid of the evidence she had said was in the barn, but now that she thought about it, it made sense for the killer to come after her first. Why had she so lightly dismissed Casey? Pride, she told herself. I really should start acting my age. Six minutes until Casey got here. Perhaps she would be early.

  Victoria saw the movement again, too large for a dog, too solid for a shadow. If she stayed here at the window, she would have enough warning if the person—if that’s what it was—crossed the yard. And if Casey showed up in the police Bronco, the person would never dare appear.

  But if it was the killer, wouldn’t Casey’s Bronco be a warning that Jube’s place was being watched?

  Victoria shook her head to clear it, and stood by the side of the window, out of sight, where she could watch for movement near the Norway maple.

  The Bronco pulled into the drive. Victoria dabbed the perspiration off her forehead and eased her way down the back stairs. The steps were steep and slippery and there was no railing, so she braced herself with a hand on either side of the narrow walled-in stairwell.

  Casey was already in the kitchen. “Sorry for the delay, Victoria. Was everything okay?”

  Victoria told her about her small frights, and laughed.

  Casey looked somber. “I should have thought about that myself, that you might be in danger. I’ll check behind the maple tree and see if there’s a trace of anyone.”

  Victoria was gathering up her cloth bag and the picnic basket when she heard Casey shout. Then she heard Casey’s voice, louder and louder, higher and higher. It sounded as if she were angry. Victoria went to the entry and looked out. Dojan, head hanging down, was following Casey, whose face was thunderous.

  “You’re supposed to guard her, not scare her to death,” Casey was saying. “What were you thinking of?”

  Before Casey could say more, Victoria put down her basket and her cloth bag and held out her hands to Dojan.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad it was you, Dojan. I was afraid that if the killer had seen the police vehicle, we would never have been able to spring our trap.”

  Casey, standing with her fists on her hips, turned on Dojan. “I want you down at Burkhardt’s, right now. Watch for anyone walking or driving, probably down the road next to the lily pond. Don’t let anyone see you, you understand? We don’t want the killer alerted too soon. Don’t leap out and capture someone who is innocently walking along the road. You understand me, Dojan?”

  He looked at his bare feet and traced circles in the sand of the driveway with his toes. He nodded, his feather bobbing in his hair, turned, and disappeared down the path that cut across Victoria’s property to the Tiah’s Cove Road. The viburnum and raspberry canes that almost blocked the way closed in behind him.

  “Goddamn!” said Casey, kicking a stone out of the driveway onto the grass. “What goes on in his mind?”

  “He was guarding me.”

  “Guarding? He’s like a kid playing cops and robbers.”

  “Cowboys and Indians,” said Victoria.

  “Get in. We’ve got to set your trap.”

  As they approached the turnoff to Burkhardt’s place, Casey said, “How do you get onto that
middle road?”

  “As I recall, there’s a big rock on the left, which is unusual because there aren’t many rocks on this part of the Island. It’s mostly sand. And there was a bent sapling.”

  Casey turned at a fork Victoria indicated, and the Bronco moved slowly along the brushy road.

  “A vehicle has come through here recently.” Casey pointed to broken branches and broken sticks in the track.

  “This leads to the lily pond,” Victoria said. “Fishermen use this road sometimes.”

  “Not often, from the looks of it,” Casey said. “Here’s a rock. And there’s your bent sapling.” She pointed to an oak tree, its trunk a foot-and-a-half in diameter. The trunk bent sharply, three feet off the ground, then grew straight up to a leafy crown.

  Victoria leaned out to look up at the tree. “I’d never have guessed a tree would grow up so quickly.”

  “Quickly?” said Casey. She shifted into four-wheel drive, and they plowed over bushes and small trees.

  “I’ll park a bit farther on, out of sight. We can go the rest of the way on foot.” Casey inched along another hundred feet, and pulled the Bronco off to one side, the thick undergrowth snapped back to conceal it.

  Victoria reached into the back of the Bronco for her stick. “I’ll be in the barn.”

  “No you don’t, Victoria. Let’s think this through.”

  “I have thought it through. You stay close enough so you can hear me when I call. If I’m right, the killer will come down the back road by the lily pond, will park in the same place as before, and will enter the barn. That’s where I’ll be, lying in wait.”

  As they walked along the track, wet branches slapped against them, sprinkling them with rainwater.

  “Victoria, this is a bad idea. As soon as I see someone, I’ll move in and make an arrest. We can wait in the Bronco and eat our picnic supper until they show.”

  “What could you arrest them for? No, that’s not the way to do it.” Victoria shook her head. “After what I said at the gathering this afternoon, almost anyone might come here out of curiosity, someone entirely innocent. We have to wait before we can spring the trap.”

  “With you as bait? No way. If we need someone to wait in the barn, I’ll do it.”

  The rain had let up briefly, but the trees overhead dripped water as if it were still raining. With every slight breeze, it pattered down on the huckleberry leaves below.

  “Don’t you see,” Victoria said, a trifle impatiently, “an innocent person seeing me there will be surprised, but will say something like, ‘Just came by to have a look.’ On the other hand, if the killer believes I’ve come by myself, that person will try to get me out of the way, and we can catch them red-handed.”

  “Yeah, after they’ve garroted you, Victoria.”

  “I wore my turtleneck,” Victoria said.

  “Not funny, Victoria. We’re not playing games. There’s a killer loose.”

  Victoria held her hands in gnarled fists by her side. They had stopped briefly so Victoria could catch her breath. The trees shook raindrops onto them. “I planned this trap and I intend to set it. The only way we can catch the murderer is in the act. If they see you, a police officer, the killer will be all innocence. We have to take a chance.”

  “Victoria…” Casey started to say.

  “Your responsibility is to capture the killer, it’s not mine. I’m simply bait.” Victoria started walking again toward the clearing and Burkhardt’s place.

  “Suppose I’m a half second too late, Victoria?” Casey strode along next to her.

  “You won’t be. Dojan will be on watch, so will Junior.”

  Casey threw up her hands. “Look at it from my viewpoint, Victoria. I’m a trained cop. You’re not. I’ve gone to school for this stuff. You haven’t. Suppose something happens to you? I’ll never be able to live with it, never.”

  “It’s time you learned to listen to your elders.” Victoria set her mouth stubbornly, reached into her cloth bag, took out her blue baseball cap, and set it on her head.

  “Okay, okay, you win. If anything happens…” Casey didn’t finish.

  “If anything happens to me, there’ll be no doubt about the killer’s identity, will there?”

  The track ended at the back of the barn. The road had once been used to haul hay. A long beam protruded from the roof peak above a wide window. At one time there was a pulley to lift the hay up to the window.

  “I can always get out through the window,” Victoria said. “It’s not a long drop to the ground, and there’s still a mound of old hay as a cushion.”

  Casey stood for a few moments, still doubtful.

  “You’d better hide in case someone shows up,” Victoria said. “Otherwise, all this will have been in vain.”

  Casey shook Victoria’s hand gravely and moved out of sight into the wet woods.

  Victoria walked around to the front of the barn, where the wide door faced the charred ruin of the old house. She had to tug hard on the wooden handle to open the door. The wood had swollen with moisture. The hinges squealed. A barn swallow flew out.

  She carefully put one foot after another on the dusty floor inside the barn, and looked behind her to make sure the footprints showed clearly. As she moved toward the back, where a ladder led up to the hayloft, she heard a rap on the back boards.

  “Can you hear me?” It was a loud whisper. “It’s Casey.”

  “Yes. I’m climbing up to the loft.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “No,” Victoria hissed.

  “Be careful.”

  Victoria had never liked heights, even when she was a girl, and the loft looked high above the barn floor. She studied it for a few minutes. The ladder seemed sturdy. She debated whether to take her stick up with her, and decided it would be worth it. But how would she get it up there?

  While she was thinking, the barn swallow swooped back into the barn through the partly opened door, and flitted high up into the rafters in a flash of forked tail and pointed wings.

  She decided the best way to get her stick up into the loft was to tie it with the belt from her raincoat, and then tie the belt around her waist. Awkward, but she could climb with both hands free. She held the sides of the ladder, her right foot on the bottom rung. Was the ladder fastened securely? she wondered. It seemed to be. She was glad she was wearing tough walking shoes. Elizabeth had cut a hole in the uppers for her arched-up toe. The soles had a sort of pattern that would keep her feet from slipping. She brought up her left foot. She paused a moment, then moved her hands up a bit, one at a time. Then her right foot on the next rung, her left beside it.

  Another swallow darted through the door and landed with a chirp near a nest she could see in the rafters.

  She looked down. She wasn’t far off the ground, only about as high as a chair seat. She looked up. The loft still seemed awfully far above her. She moved her hands. Right foot. Left foot. She wouldn’t think about anything but how she would get herself over the edge of the loft floor. She wondered if the floor would hold her weight, after all these years.

  She used to play in this loft with the Mitchell children, Jube’s mother and uncle and aunts. The rain had started again, and she heard it patter down steadily on the roof. Somewhere she heard the sound of running water, a leak in the roof, probably, that was letting in rain.

  One foot, another foot. She remembered the sweet fresh smell of hay when she had gone haying with the Mitchells. In the hay field, long windrows of hay would dry in the sun. Mr. Mitchell and Asa Bodman’s father would pitch the hay from the windrows into the wagon with long two-tined pitchforks, and the children would stamp it into the corners of the wagon. The horse would move on. Finally the hay would be high above the wagon bed, higher, even, than Mr. Mitchell’s hat, and he would turn the horse toward home. The horse would walk, she remembered, between the bent sapling and the rock, and would trudge along the middle road, which had open pastures on both sides. The grown-ups, with much shouting, w
ould haul the hay up into the barn with ropes and the pulley on the beam.

  As children, they had jumped out of the window onto the hay. She supposed she still could, if she had to.

  Only two more rungs to go. Victoria wondered where she would put her hands when she got to the top. Were there handholds nailed into the floor? She was tired. She knew how the conquerors of Pike’s Peak must have felt. Her hands trembled from holding the ladder so tightly. When she reached the top, she found the sides of the ladder extended several feet above the last rung. She had forgotten that. She held on tightly, hands aching, until she could step onto the loft floor, which she did gingerly, feeling for soft spots in the flooring. The floor seemed solid.

  The loft was dark except for a spill of light that seeped around the edges of the big hay-loading window. Perhaps she could push the window open a bit for more light. She felt her way across the floor, poking her stick ahead of her as if she were blind. A large mound of hay, dry and still sweet scented was heaped at the back of the loft. She reached the board-covered window, and pushed hard against it. The window didn’t budge. Then she recalled that the window opened inward, so she tugged it toward her. She was exhausted from the climb and was breathing heavily. She was afraid she might not have enough strength left, but the window swung in easily, letting in light and a gust of damp air. She closed it again, partway, and then looked around.

  What would the killer do? Was the barn door through which she’d come the entrance he’d use? She remembered there was another door. She scolded herself for not thinking of it sooner and making sure it was locked before she made that climb up into the loft. She could never, possibly, get down to lock it and then get all the way back up again. She could only wait and see what happened. Casey and Dojan and Junior were all watching. At least, she was out of the rain; all three of them must be soaking wet by now. She scooped out a hollow in the sweet hay, a hollow with arms and back like a low easy chair. She spread her coat over it, and, using her stick as a prop, lowered herself into her nest. She tried to imagine how she would get up in a hurry if she needed to, and realized it would not be easy. She decided to rest for a bit, then she would think of a better place than this low cozy spot to wait for who knew what. Someplace where she wouldn’t be at such a disadvantage. She took her notebook and pen out of her coat pocket and started to write in the dim light from the partly opened window, a few lines of the sestina she had been mulling over. The rain drummed rhythmically on the roof over her head.