by J. L. Salter
“I know how they fit and what I had in there. I just don’t know how many I have. Give me a day and I’ll figure it out.” Beth’s brain had already started cranking the data.
Connie changed the subject as she rubbed the bump on her head. “So how come I’ve never seen your bird collection?” She looked around the living space as though some might be in flight.
“Never felt like putting them out after I moved.”
“Are they worth anything?”
“Sentimental value only.” Beth plopped down to the couch and closed her eyes briefly. “Porcelain hand-painted birds. My grandmother started giving them to me... some were hers when she was a girl. Shane saw how much I liked them, so he bought me a few newer ones. But no money value to speak of.”
“And none missing.”
Beth shook her head. “Nope. Like I say, they never even got unpacked.”
After a long silence, Connie discreetly checked her watch. She’d already been here too long. Even on a rainy day, the dealership would have some business for her to handle. But she didn’t leave. “So what brings Mister Hoody to your house? What was he looking for?”
Beth silently hunched her shoulders. And did he find it?
Connie returned to the couch. “Is something else bothering you?”
“No. Well, yeah... I guess.”
“What?” Connie scooted over and sat rather close.
“Do you ever—I mean, sometimes do you sense somebody’s... following you?”
“Guys follow me all the time.” Connie started to chuckle. “Oh, you’re serious. Sorry.” She laid a hand on Beth’s knee. “When? Where?”
“Yesterday evening. After I’d been to the library.”
“Here? At your house?” Connie looked around.
“No. Outside the Verde Grocery. It was dark early because of the heavy clouds.”
“Did you actually see anybody?”
Beth shuddered slightly. “No. Just had that creepy feeling.”
“You need to start carrying a gun, girl.” Connie jutted out her chin. “Nobody follows you after you whip out a pistol.”
Actually nobody bothers you when your biker boyfriend is right by your side and watching your back.
Apparently perplexed at hearing no reply, Connie picked up her purse.
“You leaving?”
“Got to work, sweetie. Even though I have a bit of pull around that place, I still have to show up.” A coy smile formed on her lips. “Speaking of which—did I hear you say you’re off tomorrow too?”
“Yeah, Steve said to also take Tuesday. The workload is slack anyhow, but he said it’s for me to get through my trauma.”
“That was his word?”
Beth nodded.
“Well, give him more credit than I’d figured. He’s right, you know. When you’re robbed—‘specially when a weapon’s involved—it is traumatic. There’s a lot of vulnerability issues and recognition of helplessness... deep dark stuff that other people don’t know about. I needed therapy to get through my thing.”
Beth remembered hearing about some of those sessions. The doctor was cute and had to stop seeing Connie because he’d figured out she was continuing for the wrong reasons. “Oh, speaking of therapy. You still going to that self defense class with me Friday evening?”
“Uh... forgot. What time?”
“Six o’clock.”
Connie began to frown.
“I’ll pick you up and buy you ice cream afterwards.” Beth smiled crookedly.
“Whatever. But make it a burger instead. I’ll be hungry after defending myself for ninety minutes.”
Beth turned to look at her bookcase again. “I’ll call you when I finish sorting these books and figure out why there’s a space on that shelf.” She sighed heavily.
No reply. Connie was already gone.
Chapter Six
October 4 (Tuesday)
In Kaser’s modest Nashville hotel room, he looked over his notes, which filled a large briefcase. The local paper had a picture of his employer, State Senate Candidate Nancy Vernon Durocher, but she’d probably never even heard Kaser’s name. His actual boss was Durocher’s campaign manager, Edward Dillon. So far, they’d just spoken on the phone, and Kaser preferred it that way. There would be a time to meet, but not now.
Kaser kept things extremely close to his vest. Nobody knew his full name, his age—though he figured he looked about forty—or where he was from. All they knew were his results, which were top notch. Kaser was confident and proud. One source of both was his thoroughness. Brutally thorough.
Kaser’s singular assignment was to locate Durocher’s family skeletons before her incumbent opponent could get a whiff of them.
At present, he was interviewing some of Durocher’s Vernon relatives and other ancestral lines to see what they remembered of their preceding generations. He’d been on the phone for hours. He rubbed a cramp out of his muscular shoulders and checked his watch. He’d need time for a workout before supper. Kaser was strong and sturdy, but keeping in shape was as important as being thorough. Slightly below average height, he could take on men who were taller, heavier, younger, whatever. Sometimes, in his line of work, he needed those skills.
But for now, he focused on research.
How many days of this? You can do only so much on the Internet, and then you have to make contact.
He’d begun his search in the Nashville area weeks before, in late July, and followed this assigned ancestral trail back to Shelby County surrounding Memphis. Then, farther back to the client’s relatives in Fulton County, Kentucky—the westernmost tip, just north of the Tennessee border.
For this assignment, Kaser needed mainly to pick the brains of older individuals. If any of the targeted relatives sounded under age fifty, he just asked one question: “The census bureau has a follow-up from last year: How much family history have you done... or are you aware of?” Most knew little or nothing; a portion recalled only back as far as their own grandparents. Kaser just thanked them for cooperating with the census bureau and ended the call.
But nearly every family line had a few individuals with genealogy as their hobby... and those were the ones Kaser needed to talk with. He called them Genies. Kaser explained they’d been selected to participate in a special survey. “It’s for a documentary on public TV.”
For the few who wondered about the connection between census and public television, Kaser replied: “Without federal money, our favorite network would shut their doors.” Most of his contacts readily accepted that premise and many offered additional encouragement to get more federal money so the network could cut back from their frequent on-air fund raising cycles.
Kaser’s next line was, “So they want to know everything you remember.”
Depending on where he was in Durocher’s genealogical charts, Kaser modified his spiel. Over the previous weeks, he’d worked his way back through surviving family of the World War Two generation and those alive during the Great Depression. To learn anything about the ancestors from the Roaring Twenties and before the Turn of the Century, he had to ask for recollections and oral family history... along with any correspondence, diaries or albums they might possess.
It was tedious to walk these scores of phone contacts back through the years to Aunt This and Uncle That... or Grandma Who’s-it. But Kaser’s ambitious political client was paying particularly well and this level of compensation required a considerable degree of precision and thoroughness. Plus, it demanded Kaser’s obsessively meticulous dedication.
So far, rather few of his Genie contacts had possessed much more than scattered letters, post cards, or snapshots. But Kaser had to steer the phone conversations to sift through all that potential memorabilia to get at the heart of his assignment. He’d found that most people’s tongues loosened in direct proportion to how far back the gossip was. So Kaser pretended to be doing research on the westward movement of families in the decades after the Civil War.
Checking back
over this complicated contract’s research was Kaser’s second nature. The particular notes in his hand were from a phone call two weeks before—his earliest significant breakthrough. Something to sink his hooks into: the first point at which he knew he’d found something Dillon would truly want. Oh, it couldn’t be taken at face value, of course, but it was enough for Kaser to be certain there was an element of truth behind it. A story.
He re-read his notes.
Tuesday, Sept. 20—Mr. Barkley [related to the Vernons through his mother Faustine]
The voice on the other end sounded feeble and distraught, as though this story had been a burden all his life... A terrible rift had developed between the Vernons and that Slate family. The Slates had become so preoccupied with those ”ugly lies”. The Slates would tell anybody who’d listen or practically anybody who passed through town. They’d even tell gypsies if gypsies could understand English. They’d even told a traveling actress who later went to Hollywood and made it big in silent movies. Those awful Slates would tell everyone they knew—spreading that “terrible gossip”. It was slander, but Mamma’s father [Matthew] never challenged them. He’d tried to quiet them, and even threatened suit, but nothing ever came of it.
This old guy was glad to get out his version to clear the Vernon family name of that terrible slander.
Yeah, that was the story Kaser was hired to find. A terrible, juicy secret about the Vernons. A skeleton that Durocher wanted erased from her ancestral closet.
He placed those old notes back in his special folder... the good stuff. Kaser scraped the knuckle of one thumb with the thumbnail of his other. “Oh, no, my dear old Barkley,” he verbalized to the motel walls, “this tale won’t get out. It will be buried. Along with anybody who knows about it.” The more elderly the contact, the easier it was to arrange for their sudden natural death.
The following morning—September twenty-first—Kaser had scheduled a meeting with Barkley in a gated development of retirement condos outside Memphis.
Barkley’s obituary had appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal two days later. Natural causes—he fell and hit his head
Chapter Seven
Tuesday evening
Beth had remained home most of her second day off work. It was nice to have unexpected free time during the week, but under those circumstances, she actually preferred to be busy with something structured. Being inside her cottage alone was still uncomfortable.
She kept on the television just for noise and checked the door locks every couple of hours. Stir crazy—she had to get out. With nowhere else to go, she drove to the mall. Halloween stuff was displayed, of course, but also Thanksgiving merchandise. In scarcely two more weeks, the Christmas decor would be in full swing.
Those upcoming holidays were depressing. She had other friends besides Connie and Jeff, but none as close as them. During the holiday season, Connie was often at parties to which Beth was not invited. Jeff and Tanya had been married not quite two years, so they huddled together more than they circulated.
Beth’s parents were too little comfort: entrenched as they were in their own miseries, they exhibited little meaningful interaction. This season would be their first without Robert, though he’d hardly been there for the previous one. Beth dreaded the holidays.
Finding the mall nearly as depressing as her cottage, Beth returned home and tried to focus on her bookcase. Surely she could figure out which book was missing. Should be easy. One set was here, another set was there, the groups by a single author were in the order they were published, those by various authors were grouped by genre. Text books together, day planners grouped, and the like.
She gave up. After checking her doors again and pulling the curtains tightly, Beth took a long nap. She rose in time for supper and, after staring out the rear window for nearly fifteen minutes to wake up, she heated a chicken pot pie. Carrots were crunchy. No more of the store brand.
Beth had just tossed the silvery cardboard bowl when her phone rang. Shane. Her heart flipped. Just seeing his number gave her an unsettled feeling. In a good way or bad? She couldn’t tell. But Shane’s recent contacts had definitely touched a nerve. It may take a while to figure out which nerve was involved. “Hello?”
“Bethany? Shane.”
“Why all these phone calls? What’s going on?”
Shane made an effort to explain. Said he missed her, been thinking about her, and was reminded of her figurines. Plus, the knot on his head still hurt.
She believed the first two, but doubted the bit about figurines. “So what’s the deal with a knot on your head?”
He muttered and stuttered and tried to blow it off.
“What happened to your head, Shane?”
“Nothing. Bumped it a week ago. Wednesday night.”
“Another fight at the biker bar?”
“I hardly go to bars anymore, Bethany. And it wasn’t a fight.”
Beth didn’t want to go there. With Shane around, it always seemed like somebody was getting hurt. Never Beth... but somebody. Too much aggression.
After a lengthy silence, Shane continued, “So, now that I’ve called—even though you seem to wish I hadn’t—can you tell me what’s going on with you?”
“Been off for two days. Going back to work tomorrow.”
“Have the cops found your limping perp?”
“I don’t think they’re looking too hard. Maybe not all. The guy working my case said he had the word out, whatever that means.”
“Sometimes the word is pretty effective. Depends on where it goes and how well they’re rewarded for feedback.”
Whatever.
“You ever figure out what the creep ripped off?”
“All he stole was a book, as far as I can tell.”
“It’s not one of mine, is it?”
“No! For your information, the ones I kept were the ones I bought.”
“Okay, okay.” Shane paused. “Why would somebody break in for a book?”
“That’s what my friends and I have been trying to figure out.”
Shane probably wondered who Beth’s friends were, but he didn’t ask... yet. “Is everything else okay, Bethany?”
“What have you heard?”
“Nothing. I just wondered. You know... crazy times.”
“Well, now that you mention crazy, I think somebody’s been following me.” Oops. That slipped out.
Beth could hear anguish in Shane’s voice as he squeezed the information out of her. She told him everything she’d explained to Connie on Monday.
“I haven’t told anybody about it. Well, one person, because I thought it sounded paranoid.”
“Any idea who it was?”
“No clue. Look, I’m not even positive that I’ve been followed. I heard sounds behind me and got that creepy feeling.” Beth groaned and stared at the door locks again. “It could’ve been just some other shopper who parked near my car. Maybe it was nobody at all. My imagination’s been pretty haywire these last three days.”
“Bethany, I’m coming to Tennessee.”
“I don’t need your protection!” It probably sounded stronger than she’d intended. “I mean... I appreciate your concern, Shane. But I’m okay.”
“Your place is robbed, and now you’re being followed.”
“Look, I’m not a high school girl anymore. And I don’t need someone around me who makes up reasons to be jealous just so he can kick somebody’s keester.”
“You make it sound like I go looking for a fight.”
“Don’t you, Shane? That’s the way it always seemed to me.”
There was a long pause from the California end. “Maybe when I was younger. Maybe once or twice. But, no, it was never about fighting just to fight. I wanted to protect you. If I knock around some of those punks, they get the message and leave you alone.”
“Most of those guys never even bothered me, Shane. It was only in your head.”
“I saw some of them looking at your legs or checking out you
r rack. That’s not my imagination.”
“I don’t know what they were looking at. You always assumed it was me and then immediately jumped to fight mode.”
“Because I loved you, Bethany. Still do.”
Beth was silent for a moment. “I loved you too, Shane... back then. I don’t know anymore. You were so angry when I left. But I had to leave. There wasn’t anybody else to—”
“I know, I know, Bethany. I understand that now. But then, it was just you leaving me. And it hurt.” He swallowed so hard, it was audible in Tennessee. “And I said stuff I shouldn’t have.”
“It hurt me too! I didn’t want to leave. When I first got to Verdeville, I thought I’d died and ended up in purgatory.”
“Are you thinking about coming back?” Shane’s voice sounded hopeful.
Beth had considered that... a lot. Especially in those first few months of constant care. “No, not after Robert died. By then, I realized my parents need me fairly close. Besides, I’ve made some friends here... found a decent job. I actually like Greene County now. This area’s really pretty nice.”
Again, Shane mentioned coming in Beth’s direction.
She considered trying to talk him out of it, but realized he was too stubborn and he’d just do what he wanted, whatever that was. Plus, part of her hoped he would come to Verdeville. She needed somebody in her corner besides a brassy divorcee and a brainy librarian. Would Shane come?
He didn’t say for certain.
Beth’s pride insisted she should discourage him, but her feelings were considerably less adamant. If Shane was coming to Tennessee, when?
How soon can he get here?
Chapter Eight
October 5 (Wednesday)
Beth was back at her desk in the rather tight confines of Packard’s CPA office, about ten minutes before eight.
It was a pretty good location, actually. The old commercial area spanned two major arteries which intersected on the east side of old downtown Verdeville and exited to the southeast, though along slightly different tangents.