Mallard craned his neck upwards. “What’s everybody looking at?”
“Nonexistent snow clouds,” I said.
“Huh?” Mallard said.
“What’s a ski resort without snow?” I asked Mallard.
He stared at me.
“A ghost town,” I answered.
“Stupid drought,” Maddie muttered. She threatened the sky with her gun. “Snow.”
“Snow,” I added my voice. “Put the fire out.”
“The fire’s miles away,” Mallard said.
“The smoke and threat is right here,” I explained while Maddie muttered “newcomer” under her breath. The cold helped slow the progress of any forest fire, still, in the drought, fire could spread so fast…well, like wildfire.
“No snow. Only fire. No tourists,” Henry said. His shoulders slumped and added several new folds in his expensive suit. “I need you to pay the back rent, Miss Maddie. If I don’t get it, I’ll—” he stopped and shook his head.
My aunt plonked the gun into her lap. I hoped it didn’t go off and shoot her in the leg. “Oh, Henry—”
“Or else I’ll have to evict you,” Henry said and then clamped his mouth shut. He always said a little too much.
“Henry Cameron, are you threatening me?” My aunt stood up. The gun fell out of her lap.
I snatched at the gun. My feet lost their purchase. Both the gun and I skittered down the shingles.
The gun slid off the roof and shot off.
FIVE
I caught my feet in the gutter and my hands on a loose shingle. The velvet bag tumbled out of my pocket. It slithered off the roof.
“Nobody move,” Mallard said in a deep strong baritone that I could hear over the ringing of my ears. “Anybody hurt?”
The gutter groaned under my feet. I scrambled for purchase. More shingles came away. Argh.
“Dora.” Mallard ran to stand underneath me.
“Dora.” Henry did the same.
“Dora—” Aunt Maddie scrabbled down the roof toward me.
I slipped off. I grabbed the gutter and broke my fall.
Mallard grabbed my legs. “I’ve got you,” he said.
He did. He eased me down as if I weighed less than my five-extra-pounds. Okay, Right Speech, ten. I stood on the grass and gasped, somewhat sweaty from Mallard transfer. Or maybe my own. Or both.
I glanced where the bag lay on the grass. One gleaming ruby winked at me from the not-quite-closed mouth of the bag, a defiant tongue. Ohm.
“Let me get that for ya,” Mallard said.
“No, that’s okay.”
He scooped up the bag. He snucked it shut. He handed it to me. Thank the Buddha Mallard was a newcomer to Starke. Any Starker would have opened it, pulled out the necklace, and demanded to know everything. In detail.
“What’s in the sack?” Aunt Maddie had climbed back up to her perch.
“What have you got there?” Henry reached for the bag.
I stuffed it into my pocket. “Jewelry, some old jewelry.” That must be worth millions, I didn’t add.
“About the money—” Henry never knew when to quit.
“Dora, get the gun and shoot Henry,” my aunt ordered. “Lester taught you to not miss.”
Mallard snatched it from where it lay on the grass.
“I’ve got the money,” I heard myself say. Oh boy, not Right Speech as I had at most some small change. Lying always led to suffering.
“Really?” Aunt Maddie said.
“Really?” Henry said.
“Where from?” Mallard asked.
I sensed that us Starkers might be underestimating Mallard.
“Yeah, Dora,” Henry said. “It’s a big chunk.”
“How—” I stopped myself at the word “much.” I didn’t want to know. I cleared my throat. “Or, rather,” I amended, “I’ll have the money in the next couple of days.” By then maybe manna would tumble from the sky, along with snowflakes.
Aunt Maddie glared at me from her perch. “Dor-r-a-a,” my aunt put a parental threat into my name, “you look awfully guilty.”
Desperation created inspiration. “I had a customer for Rupert’s jewelry today,” I said, surprised at my own words. “Nance will want some more of his ‘outsider art.’”
“Who’s Nance?” Mallard asked.
“Humph,” Aunt Maddie voiced her regular opinion of my father. “That won’t get you much.”
I forced my face into a semblance of a smile. “I’ll sell my designs to Nance.” I couldn’t help myself, my smile drooped at the corners.
“Who’s Nance?”
“Dora, don’t sell Nance your designs.” Aunt Maddie knew how much I wanted to sell my designs under my own imprint of “Dora’s Dreams.”
“You’d get enough from this Nance person to pay the back rent?” Mallard asked.
I wanted to smack the snoopy cop. Not Right Action. Besides, he might arrest me.
“I’m just asking,” Mallard said at my look. “I’m a cop. I’m supposed to ask questions.”
“About crimes,” I said. I swallowed, hard. What would Lester say if he found out I’d been withholding information? Withholding the necklace buried in my pocket with my jeweler’s loupe? Withholding my trust?
“Hey,” Henry said. “I don’t care how you get the money—”
“I’ll get it,” I said.
“—as long as you get it by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I said.
What was it with this town and deadlines? Granted, Starke opened as a ski resort in a couple of weeks. Maybe everybody figured everything had to happen beforehand. Everything being renovation of the old buildings, finishing the new buildings and stocking up for the season.
Henry lifted his chin. “Yes, no eviction if—”
“Henry…” my aunt warned.
“Yeah, Henry, I’m a Buddhist.” I made a gun with one hand. “I don’t want to have to shoot you.” I lowered and raised my thumb in the classic shooting motion. “Bad Karma.”
Henry took one look at the storm clouds on my aunt’s ferocious brow and took my advice. He turned crinkled tail and ran, trotting over our rickety bridge that spanned Looney Jump Creek.
“Come into my office when you’ve got the money, Dora,” he called back over his shoulder. When he reached his car parked on the other side, he added, “By tomorrow.” He must have figured he was out of range of Great-grandpa’s gun.
“Don’t push it, Henry. I’m a semi-Buddhist, but I’m still a better shot than my aunt.”
The only answer I got was the slamming of Henry’s car door.
I turned to Mallard. “Give me the gun back.”
He clutched it tight. “I can’t, it’s evidence of a crime.”
“What crime?” I asked.
Mallard’s brow wrinkled and a couple of sweat drops dropped. “Uh, discharging a firearm within the city limits?”
“Don’t got that law,” Aunt Maddie said.
Mallard shook his head. “City council just passed it.”
“Dang fool meddling dog developers,” Aunt Maddie grumbled.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said to forestall the inevitable argument, “our homestead is past the city limits.”
“It is?” Mallard looked at me as if he didn’t believe me.
I flipped up a hand. “Past history. Camerons threw us out.”
“Of the town you Starkes started?”
Maddie growled a loud affirmative.
“But, still, I mean Lester would—” Mallard tried again.
“Give the gun back,” I said.
Mallard transferred the gun from one hand to another. He rubbed his sweat from the stock.
“You want to explain to Lester why you’ve commandeered the Starke family’s prize antique gun while my aunt stands there hollering about police brutality?” I asked.
“Police brutality? What? I didn’t—she wouldn’t—” He looked up at my aunt who grinned back.
“You sure haven’t be
en in Starke long,” I said.
“Why does everybody keep saying that?”
“Go ahead and steal our gun, see what happens,” Aunt Maddie said.
“So,” I said, “you want to give it to Aunt Maddie or me?” I held out my hand.
Mallard handed me the gun.
I unloaded it and stuffed it in another apron pocket.
Mallard muttered something like, “I need to get back to my CPU.”
“I heard that. Don’t you use that language with me, young man,” my aunt yelled.
Mallard ran. “Computer programs,” he called over his shoulder, “I meant computer programs, the sanest things in this town.”
He ran. Every man I’d talked to today ran away. I hoped that didn’t signal the beginning of a lifelong trend.
SIX
“Give me my gun back,” my aunt said.
I jumped. She stood next to me. She held out her hand.
“How’d you get down so fast?” I asked.
“Practice. Give me the gun.”
“No way.”
She reached for my pocket, the wrong pocket. I jerked back. Should I tell my aunt about the necklace? Did Aunt Maddie know about the necklace? In the dying of the sunset, I studied my aunt’s always-angry face.
“Then no dinner for you, young lady. That’ll give you that much more time to pack.”
“What’s for dinner?” My empty stomach said give up the gun and get dinner.
My aunt stomped toward the baby cabin in the back, her studio, once Charles’ studio. I trotted along behind. After I ate, I’d head up to Rupert’s cabin and get some answers.
“Slumgullion,” Aunt Maddie answered my question.
My stomach reconsidered. Slumgullion meant leftovers mixed together. It all depended on the leftovers.
My father had turned me away last time I visited his cabin, years ago. “There’s nothing you can do, for me,” Rupert had said behind his locked door. Now he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. My questions weighed so heavy, I feared I’d drop to my knees any second. Or maybe hunger made me weak.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“Spaghetti.” My aunt’s old gardening coat billowed about her. She looked thinner, diminished beneath it. Stress from re-opening Mad Maddie’s Marvels? Money worries? Or something about a valuable necklace?
My stomach said it could deal with spaghetti. “Okay, what else?” I asked.
In the back yard, Maddie’s miter box sat outside the baby cabin on a table made of sawhorses with a plywood top. Charles’ large paintings lay stacked against the cabin wall, face down. With Charles’ pieces, best if they always remained face down.
“And that loaf,” my aunt said.
“What loaf?”
Aunt Maddie scanned the frame lengths that rested next to the paintings. “That meatloaf from the back of the freezer.”
Oh no. The Freezer of Death. Where food went in and came out—unrecognizable as edible, unrecognizable as organic matter, unrecognizable.
I gave my automatic reply, “I don’t eat meat anymore.” Thank the Buddha.
“You can’t be vegan here, it’s Idaho,” Aunt Maddie said. Her automatic reply.
I never knew how to respond to that statement. My distracted platinum-and-ruby-filled mind caught up with my stomach. “What do you mean packing?”
“Since you’re leaving.” My aunt picked a garish, elaborate gilded length of frame.
I agreed with her choice, the gaudier the frame the better to detract from Charles’ paintings. My aunt enjoyed a perfect artistic touch with framing.
“I’m not leaving,” I said. Well, only to drive to Rupert’s cabin. Though a bit remote, it didn’t require I pack.
The last sliver of the sun set and the light deepened to a heavy purple. Punctuated by a glow in the direction of Canine Creek. The fire still burned.
Aunt Maddie flicked on the powerful outside security light. She picked up a painting and placed it on the plywood table with infinite care as if she put a beloved baby into bed.
The last of my appetite fled as I contemplated the abstract mess splattered across the front of Charles’ canvas. A mixture of bilious yellow, dank green and cramped brown, it reminded me of the aftermath of a bad bout of stomach flu.
Aunt Maddie’s look softened as she scrutinized Charles’ art catastrophe. She gazed at the horrid artwork as if she saw her long lost lover’s face. “He’ll be so pleased when he returns.”
“When the store opens and his pieces sell,” I said. Who to? I wondered. But I hoped somebody besides my aunt might find Charles’ artwork attractive. Maybe. I looked at one of his “Yellow Ice” series and shuddered. Maybe not.
“This one will hang in the front window,” my aunt continued.
Ugh. I imagined our customers looking in the front window and then running away, screaming.
“It’ll be right where Charles can see it when he returns.” She smiled.
I smiled too.
Aunt Maddie’s face flowed into a deep frown. She huffed. “I suppose you can’t drive down this late.”
“What?” I asked.
Aunt Maddie raised her finger and shook it at me.
I hated when she did that, it always made me feel ten years old again, instead of almost thirty-five.
“You left a great job,” she said, and wagged. “It paid great.”
I sighed. “Aunt Maddie, I’m so sorry. I spent all your money. I’ll pay you back. I promise.” How? What with? I didn’t say and hoped she didn’t ask.
She shook her head and still wagged her finger. She reminded me of a bobble-head doll. “No, no, no, you needed to spend that money for your business.”
“Our business in your store,” I said.
She stopped wagging and shaking. “My store…” She hunched her shoulders in her coat. She looked far older than her 58 years. With a start I realized she’d been younger than I was now when I came to live with her, all those years ago.
I touched one of the ragged sleeves of her old gardening coat. “Why do you want me to leave? Why now?”
She stared at Charles’ painting. She swallowed hard. “The rent—” she began and then stopped. She rubbed her mouth.
I realized she didn’t want me to see her fail. She never failed, never faltered, not when my mom, her only sister, took off, not when Rupert ran off to find my mom, not when Charles left. Then there were just the two of us, me and my aunt.
She straightened up and shrugged my hand off. “So you made a mistake—”
“I what?”
“Easily corrected.” She scrubbed her hands, case closed. “I’m sure Nance will give you your old job back.”
I gulped and choked. Oh Buddha no. My worst nightmare. “Aunt Maddie, working for Nance made me crazy,” I managed to say.
“You’re a Starke, born and bred, you were already crazy.” Aunt Maddie shrugged. “Though I do wonder about that whole Buddha bit you picked up.”
“Nance introduced me to Buddhism.” I hoped that would make Aunt Maddie pause.
“Nance, who always let you use her equipment to cast your designs,” she shot back.
“Yes, but—”
“Nance who sold those designs in her store.”
“After she ‘tweaked’ them,” I said. I could hear my bitterness in my voice.
“Maybe they needed tweak—” my aunt stopped when she saw my face. “Never mind.” She looked down at the frame piece in her hands. “You better get packing—”
“I’m not leaving my home.”
My aunt’s glare made me glad I hadn’t given her the gun back.
“I’m staying right here—well, after I return from selling my designs.” And after I figure out what to do about my father’s death threat.
My aunt sighed. “Dora, you don’t have enough to sell to pay that rent.” The frame dropped from her hand. “Maybe you can ask your old boss—” She stopped and swallowed hard.
“Aunt Maddie?”
“I mean, I kn
ow that Nance has a great deal of money…and she’s always been generous.” My aunt swallowed again.
I stood stunned. “You mean you want me to ask Nance for a loan?”
Aunt Maddie ducked her head down. “No, no, forget it.” She bent and picked up the frame.
Now I gulped. My proud, determined aunt had been about to ask me to ask Nance for a loan. I’d never seen her so desperate.
I didn’t mind asking Nance, but I knew what she would reply… “What do you have to secure the loan?” Nance stayed wealthy by smart business practice. The answer: an old car, old store stock and an even older homestead heavily mortgaged.
Maybe I could offer Charles’ paintings as collateral? I winced. In my mind, I could hear Nance’s high class nasal twang, “Charles who? I’ve never heard the name. I’ll look him up on the ’Net and get back with you.”
“You don’t know what all I’ve got to sell,” I said to my aunt to reassure her. The necklace in my pocket shifted with my words. I grimaced. “I will get the money.”
My aunt kept her head down.
“Mad Maddie’s Marvels will open on time,” I put every ounce of conviction I could muster into every word.
“But Dora—” Aunt Maddie spoke to the wood.
“No buts.” I pulled out my set of keys to our old cranky station wagon.
My aunt’s head came up. “Now where are you headed?”
“I’ve got to get up to Rupert’s cabin before it’s too cold.” The old station wagon, a match to my father’s, hated to be driven in the cold and often complained by stalling out.
“What? Whyever for?”
“I need to ask about the neck—to get more of his jewelry to sell to Nance.”
Aunt Maddie put her free hand on her hip. “Dora, don’t you dare go up to that man’s cabin.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Aunt Maddie echoed me, “you stay away from Rupert.”
“He’s my father.”
“He never was a father to you. He’s nothing but trouble. We’d all be better off if he’d freeze to death in that horrid cabin some winter.” Her face twisted as if she contemplated helping the process.
Starke Naked Dead Page 3