by Gayle Roper
“Probably on purpose,” William Poole said as the police swarmed over my car. “Probably the same killer, same gun, same warped reasoning.”
“But why my car?” I wailed. As I heard myself, I thought wryly how much I sounded like Randy.
William shrugged, then smiled at me slyly. “You know you’re going to lose your car for a while, don’t you?”
I nodded in resignation. I’d been down this road before with other cars. “Scene of the crime. But you don’t have to enjoy it so much.”
I wandered back to my apartment and called Mr. Hamish, the car rental man. In the short time I had lived in Amhearst, he and I had become good friends.
“What is it this time? A murder? An accident? A deer?” He said the latter like he still didn’t believe that story no matter how many times I tried to convince him.
I sighed. He’d read about it in the News anyway.
“There was a body sitting in the passenger seat of my car this morning.”
“How awful,” he said in a thoroughly delighted voice. “I’ll get a car to you within fifteen minutes. Is that soon enough?”
By which he meant, will the cops still be there in fifteen minutes?
“That should be fine,” I assured him.
When he arrived, I grabbed the keys and left while he settled down to watch the excitement.
As I drove, I called Edie.
“Everyone’s fine here,” she said. “In other words, they’re all still asleep, including Randy.”
“You would have been proud of him last night, Edie. He was wonderful with those children.”
“Sort of scares you, doesn’t it? You wonder when he’s going to revert.” I could hear the combination of hope and fear in her comment.
“Edie, bring him to church Sunday morning. He’ll find a stability there that he can’t find anywhere else.”
Edie made a noncommittal noise.
“Come on,” I coaxed. “It’s Easter. And Sherrie’s singing with the bell choir. He’ll like that.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
God, please help her do more than think!
I took a deep breath. “I’ve got some hard news for you. Bill Bond, Tina’s husband, was found dead in my car this morning.”
There was a moment of startled silence. Then, “Dead? In your car? Bill Bond?”
“He was shot.”
“Like the guy in Randy’s car? Oh, my!”
“Tell me about it.”
“Do I have to tell her when she wakes up?” Edie was fading in and out by now, but I could hear the distress in her voice. I made a mental note to recharge my phone as soon as I got to work.
“No, don’t you say anything. You’ve got enough to deal with without having to handle announcing to someone that she’s a widow. The police will come out soon to tell her.”
We disconnected to static.
I called Curt as soon as I reached the newsroom and listened to his wonderfully soothing comfort. Then I brought Mac up to date on the latest death and began writing about Bill Bond. I had to stop and hit delete a number of times because I found my adjectives and adverbs were noticeably negative and entirely prejudicial.
Partway through the article I called Hamblin Motors. I didn’t know if they’d be in yet, or if they were, whether they’d heard about Bill, but I needed a quote from Mike Hamblin.
“What?” he shouted in my ear when I finally reached him. “Bill Bond is dead? How can that be? He was fine yesterday!”
“I’m sure the police will have more information than I do,” I said primly.
“The police! Why the police? Don’t tell me his crackpot wife finally did something to him!”
I thought of Tina, barely able to move last night because of what Bill had done to her, and wondered cynically what Bill had said at work about his wife. “I was wondering if you had any thoughts on Bill that I could include in my article on him.”
“Like a tribute or a eulogy, you mean? Well, he was a genuinely nice guy.”
Sure, I thought. That’s why he used Tina as a punching bag.
“And a wonderful sales manager. The customers liked him a lot. They trusted him, you know. We will miss him terribly!” I heard a grunt, a noise of disbelief. “I still can’t take in that he’s dead!”
If you’re surprised, I thought, imagine how I felt when I found him in my car!
“Can I come see you, Mr. Hamblin? I’d like to ask you some detailed questions about Mr. Bond, see where he worked, that kind of thing.”
“Well…” I could hear reticence in Mike’s voice.
“I was thinking I could do something more in-depth if I could talk with you. A genuine profile rather than a standard obituary. Don’t worry. It won’t put Hamblin Motors in a bad light. Not at all.”
“Oh.” Relief. “Well, why don’t you come at about six-thirty tonight? I have appointments all day that I cannot get out of, even for something this important.”
The trouble was Curt’s opening was at seven. “Can you make it a bit earlier?” I asked.
“I’m sorry—I can’t. I would if I could.” I heard the flutter of pages like he was checking his Day-Timer. “Six-thirty’s the best I can do.”
It wouldn’t take long to ask my questions. I could be at Intimations well before seven-thirty. That wouldn’t be too bad. “All right. I’ll see you at six-thirty.”
Shortly before noon I grabbed my notebook, preparing to leave a morose Mac and the oppressive atmosphere of the newsroom to spend my lunch hour at Hibernia Park.
“If Mr. Montgomery doesn’t do something soon,” fumed Jolene as she yanked a dead leaf from the jade plant, “I’m going to march right up to his mansion and demand he rescue poor Mac—and all the rest of us—from rampant despair.” She glared at Mac like his job instability and resultant melancholy were by his choice.
“Will you do me a favor?” I asked as I slid into my blue tweed blazer.
She looked at me suspiciously. Most people who asked her for favors these days wanted money. Well, so did I in a roundabout manner.
“You remember Sherrie Bauer?” I pulled my purse from my bottom drawer.
“The kid who had hysterics?”
I nodded. “I’ve been interviewing her and her mom and learning all about Freedom House for an article. I’m very impressed with them and what they do. Could you make Stephanie one of those wonderful baskets of flowers like you made for Mac?”
“Sure.” She waved her hand like it was no great matter. “I’m going to the garden shop over lunch. I’ll get the stuff then.”
“Could you do me an even bigger favor and drop it off at Freedom House? I don’t know when I’ll see Stephanie again, and I’d like her to have the flowers before Easter, sort of a holiday gift, you know?”
Did that sound as much like an imposition to her as it did to me? Surely if I wanted to give someone a gift, I should take it myself.
Oh, Lord, please let her bite! And please move her heart when she sees the place and meets Stephanie!
“Sure. Why not?” She grinned. “I’m trying to learn to be nice.”
I left before she could change her mind and stopped at Ferretti’s for a BLT, a bag of chips and a Diet Coke, all to go. Then I drove to Hibernia Park, passing between the black lion heads set in their white pillars, and down the dirt road toward the picnic grove.
I noticed that three out of the four little whitewashed cottages along the road were occupied. Why was the fourth boarded shut? I wondered. Was it just too small for any modern family to live there, or was there some structural damage? But the sight of the mansion made the little white houses fall from my mind. The warm coppery-orange building was, quite simply, beautiful.
I found a picnic table sitting in a stream of sunlight. I tore my paper bag open and spread it on top of the table. I stood on the bench, turned and sat on my bag. I ate slowly and thought as I chewed. Then I just sat in the sun and thought some more.
Eventually I forced mys
elf to climb out of my sunbeam. I walked slowly across the lawn to the ranger station.
“Hi,” I said to the woman named Lori who sat at a desk behind the counter.
“Can I help you?” She rose and came to stand opposite me.
“I was here the other day looking for information about the mansion.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, quick to smile and reach across the counter to the brochure that I had gotten on Sunday. “This tells you all about it.”
I took the brochure and thanked her. “When I was here over the weekend, the ranger and another man were talking about the fact that someone was staying in the park in an unauthorized manner.”
She looked at me curiously.
“I’m Merry Kramer from the News, and I was just wondering if this person was still around. It might make a good story, you know? A homeless person staying in the park or a runaway trying to hide here.”
Lori’s face cleared. “It would make a good story, but I haven’t heard anyone talk about seeing anyone who shouldn’t be here.”
“No more blood in the bathroom? No more stolen lunches?”
“What?” She obviously had no idea what I was talking about. I felt disappointed. I handed her my card. “If you hear anything from anyone, will you call me? I still think it would make a great story.”
Lori nodded and I let myself out, careful to take my brochure with me. I sighed. There was no story here, just some tramp who’d been and gone.
I was driving through the exit at the far side of the park when a lightning bolt hit me. Of course! Of course!
I drove around the perimeter of the park to get back to the entrance, muttering to myself about the curse of one-way roads. After driving between the twin lions again, I slowed at the little boarded-up cottage, edged my car off the road and parked.
I looked around at the peaceful scene, the towering poplars and beeches with their branches still leafless against the blue sky, the creek tumbling and creaming over rocks behind the cottage.
You’re crazy, Merry, crazy!
But I walked around the cottage anyway, listening, looking, trying to think like a man who needed to disappear for some reason I didn’t yet comprehend. Even so, I almost missed what I was looking for. If I hadn’t tripped over a stone hidden under the leaves and put out my hand to steady myself against the cottage, I wouldn’t have seen the small smear of dried blood. Rusty red against snowy white.
My heart began to pound. I looked carefully at the side of the house and saw another smear. Now that I knew what I was looking for, the trail of blood smears stood out against the pristine whitewash like flares against a night sky. I followed them to the back of the cottage. There I found a window with the shutter torn free and a large rusty stain defacing the sill.
With the hairs on the back of my neck prickling in anticipation, I made my way to the window. There was no glass, and I looked directly into darkness.
Well, I shouldn’t say directly, because the ground fell away behind the cottage, and the window was higher than I.
“Tom?” I called. “Tom, are you in there?”
There was no answer, but somehow I was aware that the silence had suddenly developed a listening quality. I was also aware that I had decided the man within was Tom Whatley. It fit somehow. That is, if there was a man within.
“Tom, it’s me, Merry Kramer from the News. I’m Edie’s coworker. You remember me, don’t you?”
No one answered, but I thought I heard a slight noise coming from that stygian interior.
It could be a mouse, I told myself. Or worse yet, a rat. Or a snake. There were copperheads in the park. I shuddered at the thought of tangling with one of them.
But none of those critters would make that smear of blood on the windowsill or the smears on the whitewash.
I raced around the cottage to the front door. There the padlock mocked me, but I grabbed the latch and tried anyway. The door didn’t even rattle under my assault, let alone open. I ran around back again.
“Tom! Can you hear me? Tom!”
I was feeling unhappy about the lack of response from inside when, very distinctly, I heard a weak moan. Then a hand appeared, gripping the windowsill. Dried blood stained the fingernails and light denim shirt cuff.
“Tom!”
As quickly as it had appeared, the hand disappeared, followed by a groan. Then nothing.
Heart pounding, I reached in my bag and pulled out my cell phone. I jabbed 911 but nothing happened. Then I saw the flashing notice: low battery. I felt like screaming in frustration when I realized that with the confusion over Bill Bond this morning, I’d forgotten to recharge.
Muttering all kinds of invectives at myself, I searched madly for some way to raise myself to window height. Tom, if that was Tom, needed help and immediately.
I started for the road. I’d drive my car back, park it under the window and stand on the trunk. That’d give me plenty of height. I’d only taken a few steps when I dodged a poplar and realized with keen disappointment that the trees were too close to allow for the passage of the car.
The shutter! I swung around hopefully. It wasn’t a shutter like I usually thought of them, two pieces that met over a window. This shutter was one large piece of wood painted green, boards nailed across it in a Z pattern to make it sturdy. It lay on the ground, flat as the proverbial pancake. It would raise me all of two or three inches.
But, I thought, becoming twitchy with excitement, I could turn it on its edge and rest it against the house. I grabbed it and pulled, all set to drag the thing to the cottage and prop it against the wall. Surprise sped through me as my hands slipped. I staggered backwards and fell right on my rump, overset by the unexpected weight.
“It’s okay, Tom,” I called like he knew or cared about what was happening. “I’m coming. It’ll just be a minute.”
I pulled myself to my feet and eyed the shutter with a new respect. I took a deep breath and tried again. No matter how hard I gripped, my hands slid.
I stepped back and studied the shutter again. I reached my arms as wide as I could, stepped close, bent way over and gripped the far edges. I could just grasp them. I lifted.
Again all I could manage was a couple of inches, and my back was not happy about either the weight or the awkward angle. I took a baby step backwards and dragged. The shutter followed. I would have cheered if I weren’t panting from the exertion. Step. Drag. Step. Drag. The blood rushed to my head from leaning over so far, and my hands ached. My back kept complaining with unkind little jabs like electrical shocks, and my calves threatened spasms. I gritted my teeth and reminded myself of the absurd folk truth no pain, no gain.
After forever, my backside finally bumped into the cottage. I stood, each vertebrae creaking.
“I’m here, Tom. I’m here.”
Not that it did Tom much good. The shutter was still flat on the ground, only now it was flat next to the cottage instead of halfway across the yard. How was I to get it against the cottage? Inch by inch, I thought sadly. There was no other way.
So I moved it inch by inch. Lift it a bit on one side and prop it against the house, run around to the other side, lift it a bit, prop, run back to the first side. Lift. Prop. Lift. Prop. All the while, between the oofs and the out-of-breath puffs, I kept up a commentary for the sake of the wounded man inside.
“Hang on, Tom. I’m moving the shutter into place. Edie’s been mad with worry. You should have called her, you know. But she never lost faith in you. Even Randy has confidence in you. Can you believe it? Oh, Tom, I’m almost there!”
Finally the shutter rested against the side of the house at an angle that wasn’t too steep for me to run up, yet should be high enough to let me at least see into the cottage. That is, if the shutter didn’t slip and collapse onto the ground as soon as I tried to mount it.
I ran to the creek and looked for a couple of rocks that were both good sized and carryable, not an easy combination. After trying several that were simply too heavy, I manage
d to carry three back to the shutter and space them against the edge digging into the ground. I tried to make them wedge tightly, like putting something in front of a car’s tires to prevent the car from rolling.
I put a foot on the shutter and waited to see what happened. Nothing moved. I slowly put my full weight on that foot. Still nothing moved. I started to walk up the incline and felt the shutter slip. My stomach flipped and I screamed, “Please, God!”
The sliding shutter hit a bump in the stones beneath the whitewash and stopped its downward movement. I stood still, arms outstretched like that would hold the shutter steady. When there appeared to be no further slippage, I took another step and another. Soon I was at the window, and it was waist high.
“Yes, Lord!”
I grabbed the windowsill and peered into the room. Everything was so dark after the light of the wonderful spring day that I could see nothing. I threw a leg over the sill and waited an agonizing couple of minutes until I could distinguish shadows. It was a good thing I waited that long because Tom was huddled at the bottom of the window. If I had climbed in immediately, I would have fallen or stepped on him. As it was, I had to push myself off to the side to avoid him.
As soon as I was inside, I fell to my knees beside him. He hadn’t reacted in any way when I had jumped down, and that fact frightened me not a little. I reached out and touched him. No response, not even a moan.
He couldn’t be dead! Not in the last ten minutes! Please, God!
I felt carefully until I found his face. Immediately my hand stilled as I caught my breath in dismay. He was burning with fever. But that was a good sign, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t still be hot if he were dead.
I slid my hand to his neck and felt for his pulse. Beneath the hot flesh I felt the shallow but steady beating of his heart.
Tom moved his head and groaned softly. “Edie.”
“No, Merry.”
“Edie, don’t leave me.”
“Just for a couple of minutes to get help.”
“Edie!” He became agitated and began clutching at me.
“Don’t leave!” He could barely speak, but the anguish in his voice broke my heart.
“It’s Merry and I won’t.” Though how I’d get help and keep that promise I didn’t know.