Judas Goat

by Greg F. Gifune

  She pointed to a long table against the back wall outfitted with a pot of coffee, Styrofoam cups, paper napkins and a box of donuts. “Help yourself.”

  Lenny poured himself a cup of coffee and had just zeroed in on a chocolate donut when a man of perhaps sixty, meticulously groomed and dressed in an expensively tailored pinstripe suit, emerged from his office. “Mr. Cates?” The man closed the gap between them in two quick strides and offered his hand. “Alec Kinney.”

  Lenny shook the man’s hand, which tightened on his own like a vise. “Nice to meet you,” he winced.

  He released him and motioned to his office. “Come in.”

  Kinney’s office was large and as nicely outfitted as any big city lawyer’s suite, complete with an enormous mahogany desk, a couch, matching chairs and a fully stocked bar. Various framed degrees and awards adorned the walls, and two large windows faced Main Street, the vertical blinds drawn but not entirely blocking out the morning sun.

  As Kinney slid into a plush leather swivel and spun around to a file cabinet, Lenny sat in one of the matching chairs in front of the desk, his cup of coffee held in both hands. His hand still ached from the ridiculously firm handshake, and the warmth bleeding through the cup felt good.

  Kinney removed a file folder from the cabinet then spun back around to his desk and wheeled closer. The lawyer looked nothing like Lenny had pictured in his mind when they’d spoken on the phone. He’d expected a country bumpkin type, but Kinney was nothing at all like that. Tall, lean and handsome, he sported expensive jewelry, a professional manicure, neatly styled silver hair and a matching pencil-thin mustache. “I know this isn’t a pleasant situation,” he said, “but it’s a quick and clean transaction. Now that the property’s cleared probate everything transfers to you automatically. I just need your signature on a couple standard forms and you’ll be good to go. I’ve got all the town paperwork—tax info and whatnot—here in your file. You’ll be taking that along with you so you can look it over at your leisure. Have you decided what you’re doing with the property?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If you need a realtor let me know, I’ll put you in touch with a good one.” He opened the folder and spread it flat across his desk. “The house itself is about ten minutes from here. There’s no central heat but there’s a woodstove.”

  “Is there electricity?”

  “Of course, but along with the phone, it was disconnected shortly after Ms. McElroy’s death. If you’re planning to stay a while a call to the power and phone companies should remedy that easily enough. Otherwise, you ought to get yourself some candles or a nice oil lamp. Harry’s Hardware, just a couple doors down. They’ll take good care of you.”

  Lenny couldn’t decide if he liked Alec Kinney or not.

  He returned his attention to the paperwork. “At any rate, it’s a two-story, one bedroom with a full bath and an unfinished cellar. Sits on three acres.”

  Compared to the broom closets posing as apartments he’d lived in over the years, the property sounded positively palatial. “I have some questions about Sheena I was hoping you could shed some light on.”

  “I’m happy to try, but I didn’t know her well. In fact, we only met twice.”

  “How long did she live in Trapper Woods?”

  “A little under a year, moved here from Massachusetts. She bought the property from the estate of the original owner, an older town resident who passed away a few months before she got here. Ms. McElroy paid cash, which is why at the time of her death there was no mortgage to settle. From managing her estate, I can tell you she’d received a rather large insurance settlement after her husband’s death.”

  Husband, Lenny thought. He assumed she’d probably gotten married and had children at some point but he’d never really considered it in any depth. For the first time it became more than a concept, it was real. A stream of visuals flooded his mind. Who was her husband? What was he like? Were they happy? Though he knew it was absurd to allow such feelings, he felt oddly jealous.

  “Apparently he was killed in an industrial accident,” Kinney continued, “and she was awarded a sizeable sum of money from a life insurance policy he had. She and her husband had accumulated a considerable amount of debt and much of the monies were spent to settle their affairs. She also spent a good deal of it on the cottage. The rest she lived on. She didn’t work, to my knowledge. At the time of her death the balance remaining was just shy of forty thousand dollars. After what few bills and expenses she had were paid—including my fees and those involving having the body shipped back to Massachusetts—per her will, twenty thousand dollars was donated to an animal shelter in Manchester, and her car was donated to a veteran’s group in Concord. The remaining balance, nearly fifteen thousand dollars, was left to you along with the cottage and its contents.”

  Even though Lenny had lived most of his life paycheck to paycheck, and had never had more than a few hundred dollars in his checking account at any one time, he tried not to think about the money or the monetary value of the cottage. “Do you know why she came here?”

  “Maybe she wanted a place where no one knew her and she could mourn the loss of her husband privately. She seemed like a nice woman, but she was understandably troubled, a very sad sort.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out why she left everything to me. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in twenty years.”

  “You mentioned that on the phone.”

  “She and her husband never had a family?”

  “She told me there were no children.”

  “Doesn’t seem like her. She always wanted kids.”

  Kinney remained silent.

  “But why me? There must’ve been someone else in her life, a friend or someone she was close to.”

  “I’ve seen a lot stranger things.” He chuckled, shook his head. “I had one client who tried to leave her house to the birds in her yard. People are strange, Mr. Cates. All I can tell you is there was no family or next of kin.”

  “I know her father wasn’t in the picture,” Lenny said. “She lived with her mother, though, and she also had an older sister.”

  “They’re both deceased. At the time her will was prepared she told me her mother had died from a heart attack a few years prior and that cancer had taken her sister more than a decade before. She also stressed there were no other living relatives she was aware of. It’s my understanding she was very much alone. There had evidently been a dark cloud following the poor woman for some time. And then for her to die as she did—such a senseless and tragic thing—well, it just brought it all to a very sad end.”

  A vague memory of Sheena’s mother drifted past Lenny’s mind’s eye, followed by one of her sister. He’d only met them once. “You said on the phone Sheena died in a fall?”

  “Apparently she lost her balance and fell, yes. She was found in the kitchen, at the base of the stairs.”

  A rush of heat spread through Lenny’s face. “She died in the house?”

  “The stairs in the cottage aren’t that big or long but they’re rather steep, so it’s still a nasty fall. Ms. McElroy broke her neck rather severely. The coroner said she died quickly.”

  “I didn’t realize she died in the house.”

  “Are you a superstitious man, Mr. Cates?”

  “Not particularly. It’s just kind of creepy knowing she died there.”

  “Local fella by the name of Gus Gauvin found her. He’s an odd duck, a bit touched.” Kinney pointed to his temple. “He suffered a head injury when he was a kid, so he’s slow. He makes his living doing small jobs around town. Ms. McElroy hired him to do some minor work around the property and to cut wood for her. Gus went to the house one morning and saw the body through a window. Tragically, she’d been dead a few days by the time Gus found her.”

  “Did she have any friends locally?”

  “She was quite friendly with Meredith Kemp. Her property’s the closest to the cottage, but that’s the only other person I’m aware
of that she interacted with on a regular basis. She kept to herself, mostly stayed out at the cottage.”

  “You mentioned the body was returned to Massachusetts.”

  “Per her will, it was shipped back where she was buried in a family plot purchased some years before. The particulars are here in your file, the cemetery and plot information, etc.” He organized the paperwork then pushed a few forms across the desk. “I have a meeting out of town later, but I’d be happy to drive you to the cottage if you’d like. You can follow me out there. It’d be a lot easier than trying to give you directions as it’s a rather secluded area.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have a few things to take care of before we go.” Kinney slid an expensive gold pen from a holder on the desk and handed it to him. “In the interim, if you want to cash the check or transfer the funds elsewhere, the bank it’s drawn on is just down the street. And don’t forget to stop in at Harry’s for candles and lamps.”

  “Harry’s,” Lenny mumbled, “right.” He took the pen.

  Not so very long ago, Sheena had been in this very office, probably sitting in this same chair, talking to Kinney about drawing up her will. And all the while she’d been thinking of him, planning to leave virtually everything she had to him if something happened to her.

  And then something had happened to her. Not years, but months later.

  It seemed too strange to be coincidence.

  Lenny looked down at the paperwork and all that was left of her, there before him now in a neat little pile. “Did Sheena ever say anything to you about me?” he asked quietly.

  “She said you were an old friend.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No Mr. Cates, nothing else.”

  Silence fell over the office. Lenny sat staring at the line where he was supposed to sign, the pen frozen just above it.

  “I know this is difficult,” Kinney finally said, “and you’re probably feeling guilty about the inheritance. But remember, Ms. McElroy wanted you to have these things. She wouldn’t have seen to it otherwise.”

  True, Lenny thought, putting ink to paper.

  The question was why.

  * * * *

  With a small package that included the paperwork and a check just shy of fifteen thousand dollars, Lenny left the lawyer’s office and went directly to the bank. After having the teller cash out two thousand in small bills, he had her wire a deposit for the balance into his checking account in New York. Next stop was the hardware store, where he purchased some candles, a box of stick matches, two hurricane lamps, a cooler, and a battery-operated AM/FM radio. From there he shopped at the General Store, bought some cold cuts, a loaf of bread, a big bag of potato chips, mustard, a case of bottled water, and a couple bags of ice.

  Lenny loaded everything into the trunk of the Impala then made his way to the liquor store. He grabbed a bottle of Jack, a six of Bud, a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, a carton of Camel Lights, a handful of candy bars, some chewing gum and a Slim Jim roughly the size of a yardstick.

  As he made his way down the sidewalk and back to his car, a man leaning against the side of the insurance building said, “Can I bum a light?”

  Lenny glanced at him and nodded, reaching into his coat for his lighter. He handed it to him, and as he looked into the dark lenses of the man’s sunglasses, he realized he’d seen this person somewhere before.

  Early 20s…tall and thin…dark hair…goatee… dressed entirely in black…

  The man lit his cigarette and handed the lighter back. “Thanks.”

  And then it clicked. The night before he’d been at the diner playing pinball, Lenny was certain of it.

  Once back at the car, he added the bag from the liquor store to the others in the trunk then looked over to the man in black. He was still leaned against the building, smoking his cigarette and staring down the street as if captivated by something in the distance. Lenny followed his gaze but there was nothing out of the ordinary or of any particular interest he could see. An uneasy feeling slithered through him. Something about this guy…

  “All set?”

  Lenny turned and saw Kinney standing over by the curb next to an enormous SUV, his breath swirling about in tumbling clouds.

  “Everything all right, Mr. Cates?”

  “Yeah, I…” Lenny looked back at the building. The man was gone.

  4

  As they left the state road pavement turned to dirt and the terrain became badly rutted. Kinney’s SUV led the way, effortlessly bounding over each bump and furrow. Lenny gripped the steering wheel tight as the Impala bucked and bounced along the narrow passageway through the forest, jostling him about as if he were on horseback. He slowed the rental car to a crawl for fear he might otherwise do damage to it, and looked up at the enormous bare trees towering overhead and looming on either side of him. It felt like he’d entered a tunnel.

  He could just imagine how dark this road was once the sun set.

  The drive there had not taken long, but the farther they drove from Main Street, the decidedly more desolate Trapper Woods became. The houses dotting the forest landscape and sprinkled throughout town were mostly older, modest, well kept homes situated on fairly large lots, but by the time Lenny turned onto the unmarked dirt road, they’d all but disappeared. He hadn’t seen a house or even another car in two or three minutes, just mile upon mile of dense, rolling forest.

  About sixty yards in, Lenny got his first glimpse of the house.

  The dirt road emptied into a clearing in the woods and became an acre-size lot. In the center stood a small two-story house, and at the far end of the property was a freestanding outbuilding roughly the size of a one-stall garage. The yard and land was dirt and pine needles—basic forest floor—as it had apparently never been seeded and there had been only minor professional landscaping beyond its initial clearing. Along the side of the house was a narrow gravel driveway which led directly to the padlocked door on the outbuilding. A simple black mailbox was mounted at the end of a paved walkway leading to the front door of the house, and an old flagpole (sans flag) stood in the front yard area. The house was old, weathered and looked like it could use a good power-washing, but appeared quite sound structurally, as did the foundation. The shingles were a dull gray color, stained and worn with time, the elements and neglect. The windows and black shutters were relatively new and in good shape, and there were two doors—a front and a side—both basic models with glass panes at the top divided into four small squares.

  The outbuilding, a cement block structure that looked even older than the house, was something of an eyesore but appeared to be tightly constructed. The roof and wood door were both severely weathered, but from all indications still sturdy, and the two small windows along the side wall facing the road were filthy but intact. A massive pile of expertly chopped and neatly stacked wood reached a quarter of the way up the right outer wall of the building. Alongside it sat a thick stump with an ax protruding from it, the blade buried deep in the wood.

  Lenny pulled into the driveway. Gravel crunched beneath his tires.

  Kinney stopped in front of the house as Lenny dropped the Impala into park and sat watching the property a moment. The area was quiet, beautiful and about as far from the cement and noise of New York as one could get. There was stillness here, a quiet he hadn’t experienced in some time. The property possessed an intrinsic charm in winter, but Lenny imagined it was probably far more beautiful in summer. He took it all in, pictured Sheena walking across the yard from the house to the outbuilding—so young, as he remembered her—not looking at him but striding gracefully by, the same expression of distracted deep thought he’d seen on her face so many times in the past. Had he been pressed to express his feelings just then, Lenny would’ve been unable to do so, as there were too many conflicting emotions firing through him at once. There was something unsettling about this place where Sheena had spent her final days, something ominous, and yet, there was also something serene and otherworldly ab
out it, like he’d stepped back in time to revisit a reality lost so very long ago to the ghostly empire of dreams and distant memory.

  Lenny stepped out of the car and crossed to Kinney’s SUV, eyes still drawn to the house.

  The buzz of a power window snapped him out of his trance.

  “Not exactly Manhattan,” Kinney said, “but not a bad little property.”

  “What do you think I could get for this place?”

  “I wouldn’t think all that much. The market’s the worst it’s been in years, and a property like this has its limitations. Trapper Woods isn’t for everyone. It’d be a guess, but I’d say maybe one-twenty.”

  Apparently Alec Kinney’s idea of a lot of money was quite different than Lenny’s. One hundred thousand dollars could change his life.

  “Then again,” the lawyer said, “not to be crude, but where there’s no mortgage you’re looking at pure profit.”

  “Profit, yes. Not so sure about the pure part.”

  Kinney offered an understanding nod. “I’ve got to get to a meeting,” he said, holding out a small metal ring that held three keys. “This opens both house doors.” He fingered a shiny silver key. “The other is for the padlock on the garage.”

  Lenny took the keys. They felt strange in his hand. They didn’t belong there. “I want to give you a contact name and number. If anything happens to me—”

  “Why would anything happen to you?”

  “Just in case.” From his wallet he produced one of Walter’s business cards. “You never know, right?”

  “That is true.” He took the card.

  “Anyway, that’s the guy to contact should I have any difficulties out here.”

  “Are you in poor health?”

  “No, just taking precautions being out here alone is all.” He smiled but couldn’t read Kinney’s expression.

  “If I can be of further assistance let me know.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate all your help.”

  “Good luck to you, Mr. Cates.”