The Sisters of Blue Mountain

by Karen Katchur

  Charlie slapped the tops of his knees before standing. “How long are you folks in town?” he asked the Rapps and the young couple. “I’m going to need some information from you in case I have any further questions down the road. I’ll need to know how to contact you.”

  They gave Charlie the information he needed. “Well, then,” he said. “Stay out of the backyard until my men finish up.”

  The Rapps stood. Mr. Rapp mentioned going into town and seeing the cherry blossoms since they couldn’t enjoy the ones on the B&B’s property. The great trees lined the streets of Mountain Springs, sharing their pretty pink flowers for all to see. As much as the town was known for its birds, it was also known for its majestic flowering trees. There were four cherry blossoms on the B&B property, their flowers giving off the mildest of fragrances every spring. Although Linnet hadn’t noticed any scent at all, not from the fruitless trees nor from the rose bushes planted on the side of the house. Nothing had smelled right since the aroma of decaying geese had taken hold.

  The newlyweds retreated back to their room. Surprise, surprise. Charlie followed Linnet and the rest of the family to the kitchen. Myna slipped her arm through Pop’s and walked with him. She rested her head on his shoulder. She looked so young to Linnet, so vulnerable.

  Linnet handed Charlie a cup of coffee. Ian took Hank upstairs to get ready for his baseball game. She had all but forgotten he had a game that afternoon.

  Cora opened the refrigerator and pulled out onions and tomatoes, vinegar and oil. She went to work preparing a light lunch. Myna and Pop sat at the table.

  “Is there anybody else who might’ve been on the property in the last twenty-four hours? Any other guests?” Charlie asked, sipping from the mug.

  “No,” Linnet said. “This is it.” Then she added, “Well, there’s Al. He was trimming the rose bushes yesterday afternoon. I did see him at the town hall meeting last night.”

  “Did he come back here with you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” Charlie motioned to the backyard. “I don’t want this to turn into a damn media circus. My suggestion to all of you is to act as if nothing happened here. Go about your day as usual as best you can. At least until I have some answers.” He set his mug in the sink. “Thanks for the coffee. I better get back.” He paused. “If you think of anybody else who might’ve been on the property, you let me know.”

  He was almost out the door when Linnet stopped him. “There was a journalist here late yesterday afternoon. He tried to give me his card. He wanted to ask me questions about the geese. I chased him away.”

  “Do you remember his name?” Charlie asked.

  “Jack or John Mann or something. I would recognize him if I saw him again.”

  “Well, if you can find out his name, that would help.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I know you said you have to treat this like it’s a crime scene at this point, but you don’t really believe this was something more than an accident, do you? I mean, what happened to Professor Coyle was just an awful, horrible accident, right?”

  “I won’t know for sure until I get the medical examiner’s report,” Charlie said. He pulled her aside. Linnet could feel her sister’s eyes on them.

  “Do me a favor,” he said in a low voice so that only she could hear. “Try to get your dad to remember the last time he saw the professor.”

  * * *

  No one moved after Charlie left. The idea that Professor Coyle’s death was something other than an accident had them shaken. No one was hungry for the onion and tomato salad Cora prepared, all of which was covered with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator.

  “It’s time I go to the university,” Pop said, breaking the silence. “I have to bring them the samples. It has to be today. It can’t wait.” He was still sitting at the kitchen table next to Myna.

  “It will have to wait a few more hours until I get back from Hank’s baseball game, Pop.” Linnet knew he was right, they needed to get the birds to the lab, but Charlie had said they should go about their day as planned. And under the circumstances, she strongly believed that Hank needed to be on the field with his teammates, behaving like a kid. And she’d never missed one of his games. She wasn’t about to start now.

  “I’ll take Pop to the lab,” Myna said. “I’m assuming I can catch another one of Hank’s games while I’m here?”

  “That depends. How long are you staying?” Linnet asked, hating the way it sounded as though she wanted her sister gone. It wasn’t what she’d meant. Myna could stay forever if she wanted. “You never said,” she added.

  “A week if that’s okay. I’m on spring break.”

  Linnet shrugged as though she were saying, sure, whatever. “Hank’s got a couple more games in the next few days, so maybe it’s best you take Pop and the geese to the university now.” It was important not only to her and Pop to know what had killed the geese, but it was also important to the town. “Just be careful on the mountain road,” she added, meeting her sister’s gaze.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jake opened the hood of the car. White clouds of steam poured from the engine. He waved his hand in front of his face and took a step back. When some of the smoke cleared, he reached for the radiator cap, yanking his hand away instantly, nearly burning his fingers. The last hill up the mountain had been too much for the little four-cylinder engine. The car had one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it and was due for a tune-up. He’d scheduled an appointment at the repair shop for the week after next, but it hadn’t been soon enough. He’d put one too many miles on the old girl, driving her all over the Lehigh Valley and beyond, chasing the news.

  He leaned against the rear bumper. He’d let his AAA membership lapse, of all the stupid things to do. He didn’t have a friend close by that he could call for help. Besides, he could barely get a signal on his cell phone if he did. There was nothing he could do but wait.

  He wondered how long it would take for another vehicle to pass by. The road was deserted, isolated. He looked over his shoulder. The mountains loomed large. Maybe he should start walking back toward town. The thought of trekking up the steep incline wasn’t the least bit appealing. Besides, maybe the whole thing was fate. He was here for a reason, and if he was going to break down somewhere, it might as well be in the exact spot he was searching for to begin with, the exact location on the stretch of mountain road between two steep hills and one wickedly sharp right turn.

  He reached in his back pocket and pulled out the police report he’d requested from the Mountain Springs Police Department.

  He climbed onto the trunk, resting his feet on the bumper, and reread the accident report from beginning to end. The sun warmed his back although there was a nip in the air as if winter refused to leave without clinging to one last breath. The trees were thick with leaves, the branches arching over the road in a kind of tunnel, cradling him in the safety of their arms, nestling him inside the vertical, rocky hills. He pulled at his collar, feeling a little claustrophobic, and took a deep breath of fresh air, tasting the scent of the great outdoors.

  But what should’ve been a pleasant view had the opposite effect. This very spot was where his father had crashed his car. The police report confirmed the location. Single vehicle accident. Driver DOA. Based on the skid marks on the pavement, the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed when it flipped onto its roof.

  Jake looked at the impossible bend in the road. Did his father miss the sharp turn? Where was he going in such a hurry? Why didn’t anyone find him before it was too late? He wanted the answers to the questions his mother had refused to discuss, the details that had been too painful for her to talk about.

  All that remained of Jake’s memories of his father were snapshots. He wasn’t sure if they were real memories or ones he’d fabricated in his nine-year-old mind. What he remembered most was his father coming home after his lengthy travels and the entire family celebrating his return. His mother would fix her hair and paint her li
ps. She’d put on one of her flower-print dresses. “So he sees me at my best,” she’d said.

  When it had been just the two of them, her wardrobe had consisted of pants and blouses and ankle-long skirts, her hair pulled into a bun, a hint of mascara on her eyelashes. She had been a librarian, and for better or worse, she’d dressed the part.

  But it was the last time his father had come home from a business trip, the last time Jake had seen him, that had remained sharpest in his mind.

  * * *

  “He’ll be here any minute,” his mother said, and untied the apron from around her waist. She’d made pot roast. His father had been gone a long two weeks, and Jake had the nervous, excited feeling in his stomach he’d get whenever he was expected home.

  “Go on.” She shooed Jake from the kitchen. “Wash up,” she said, giddy with anticipation.

  The front door swung open. “Hello!” his father called.

  His mother rushed to the small foyer and fell into his father’s arms. He spun her around as though it had been years since he’d last seen her rather than a few days. He’d brought gifts—flowers and jewelry, candy and toys.

  He handed his mother a pink-and-white-striped bag and whispered, “You might want to wait and open this one later.” He turned to Jake. “And this is for you.” He handed Jake a new Nerf football since Jake had left his old one out in the yard and the neighbor’s dog had chewed it to pieces.

  They sat around the dining room table. Jake watched his dad cut his meat into small pieces and then stuff each one into his mouth, chewing his food thoroughly without looking up. Every now and again he’d say, “Mmm. Mmm,” making a big show out of Jake’s mother’s cooking. At one point he stabbed a chunk of roast with the knife and held it in the air as though he had some great revelation, but instead of sharing his thoughts, he ate the piece of meat off the tip of the blade and grinned. “Mmm.”

  Jake’s mother beamed.

  After dinner he and Jake went outside and played a game of catch with his new ball until the sun went down, and it became too dark to see. And later that night, his father tucked him into bed, kissing his forehead before saying good night. Jake lay awake, thinking he was the luckiest boy alive with the best dad ever. He listened to his mother giggling, the creaking of their bed, his parents playing the tickling game they always played whenever his father was home.

  Jake rolled to his side, happy and secure, unaware of what lie ahead.

  * * *

  Jake tucked the police report back inside his pocket. He rubbed the crick in his neck. The bed in the room he’d rented above the bar sucked. It was hard as shit. The fact he’d stayed up late hunched over his laptop typing up his article for the paper hadn’t helped. At least he’d made the front page with the headline Snow Geese Fall From Blue Mountain Skies. From what he’d gathered at the town hall meeting, the experts were baffled. The hundreds of dead geese remained a mystery.

  Other headlines had gone national. CNN ran a special report: Birds Fall From Sky, The Third Apocalyptic Sign.

  The only good news to come from the tragedy as far as Jake was concerned was Dennis insisting he stay and see the story through. What Dennis didn’t know was that Jake had no intention of leaving, not while he had so many unanswered questions about this place, this town.

  His phone started ringing. He reached in his front pocket and fished it out. The signal was weak, with only a single bar showing.

  “So is it the end of the world or what?” Kim asked.

  Jake smiled. “Not from where I’m sitting.”

  “Good. I wasn’t finished with this life yet,” she said. “I read your article in the paper this morning.”

  “And?” He liked that she read his work. “What did you think?” But he hated that he sounded needy, maybe even a little sensitive. It was a part of his personality he wished he could change. If only he could be more confident like his peers. But he didn’t have the ego for it. Then again, it was his lack of ego which helped people open up and tell him their stories.

  “It’s good,” she said about his article. “It’s interesting, and you can empathize with the town and what happened to those poor snow geese without scaring the bejesus out of people. That’s what I like about your style of reporting.”

  His heart fluttered, and he felt a little weak in his legs. Good thing he was sitting down. “Thanks,” was all he could muster. For a moment he heard nothing but static. The connection was poor. It had to be from the fact he was sitting at the bottom of a narrow gap between two enormous hills.

  “Listen, about the phone number you wanted me to research,” Kim said. “I got tied up at work yesterday. And the usual tinkering around didn’t turn up anything, but I’ll keep working on it.”

  “I appreciate it,” he said, trying to think of how to keep her on the phone. More static crackled in his ear.

  “Where are you? I can hardly hear you,” she said.

  “I think I’m losing you.” He wasn’t ready to hang up, but he wasn’t about to tell her he was stranded on the mountain road, and it was starting to freak him out a little. His phone crackled some more as the connection faded in and out. He looked at the mountains as if they were trying to tell him something. “Call me as soon as you find out anything.”

  “I will,” she said, and then she was gone.

  He stuffed the phone back into his pocket and bowed his head. He should’ve brought something with him, flowers or one of those crosses you see on the side of the road where someone else’s loved one had lost their life. But he was here, wasn’t he? It should count for something. Better late than never. I miss you, Dad. Mom, too. He didn’t know if he believed in Heaven or even Hell for that matter, but wherever his parents were, he liked to think they were together.

  He looked up when he heard the sound of another car approaching, a neon-blue rinky-dink thing. He jumped off the trunk and stepped into the road, waving his arms in the air.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Myna stood on the bank of the dam, the sight more horrifying than she’d ever imagined. She brought her hand to the hollow of her throat. “There are so many,” she said to Pop about the dead snow geese. It had been one thing to hear it on the news and quite another to see it.

  He was kneeling in the mud, filling test tubes with water. He wanted to take extra samples to the lab. After Charlie had completed his investigation, he’d allowed them to take an inventory of Professor Coyle’s boxes, the items the young professor had amassed yesterday that had never made it over the mountain to the university. They’d packed her rental car with the coolers containing the iced birds, but they had to collect more water and plant samples.

  Pop worked methodically, recording the date, time, and location of the samples. He looked like the father Myna had remembered from childhood, focused and thorough, a man in control of his faculties, unlike the man she’d witnessed earlier when he’d struggled to answer Charlie’s questions about events the night before.

  So much had happened since she’d been away. She placed her hand on his back, feeling the soft cotton from the well-worn cardigan. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked up at her through his spectacles, his eyes gentle and kind. “Yes,” he said. “But there’s an explanation for it. We just have to figure out what it is.” He was talking about the birds, of course. He had no way of knowing she was apologizing for so much more.

  “Are we ready to go?” she asked, and helped him stand. She’d called the university earlier to let them know to expect them.

  They walked the path through the woods, having to duck under the yellow crime scene tape that was left hanging in the yard. When they reached the driveway and her rental car, she put the new samples in the trunk with the coolers.

  Linnet’s minivan was gone. They’d left for Hank’s baseball game an hour ago. The police had towed the young professor’s vehicle away.

  Myna got in on the driver’s side of the rental car, and then she helped Pop with his seat belt. She took the mountain
road slowly. The tiny engine sputtered and groaned up the steep hills and coasted like a sigh of relief on the downward slopes. They were halfway over the mountain coming up on a sharp right turn. As she rounded the corner, a man stepped out in front of her, waving his arms. She slammed her foot on the brake. The car skidded, swerving left and then right, before stopping on the shoulder of the road. Her heart hammered against her rib cage. She was panting, gripping the steering wheel so hard that her fingers ached. It took her a moment to calm down, to focus, before throwing the car in park.

  “Are you all right?” she asked Pop.

  “Fine,” he said, fixing his spectacles that had been knocked askew.

  They both turned and peered over their shoulders at the man who had jumped out in front of them. He was slowly walking toward the car, trying to look into the windows.

  “Wait here,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt and getting out, not thinking it through, reacting on adrenalin. “Are you crazy?” she shouted at the guy. He looked to be close to her age, maybe a few years younger, and handsome. “I almost hit you!” She was shaking.

  “I was just trying to flag you down.” He pointed to his car, the one she just now noticed parked on the shoulder of the road with the hood up. “I broke down, and I could use a ride back to town.”

  She opened her mouth to say no, but nothing came out. He was going to get himself killed if he continued jumping out in front of traffic the way he had.

  “Please,” he said. “You’re the first car I’ve seen all day.”

  “What seems to be the problem?”

  “The engine overheated,” he said.

  “All right,” she said, and took out her phone. “I can call someone in town to give you a tow.” She knew of only one shop in Mountain Springs, Chicky’s Auto Repairs. Chicky serviced everyone’s car in the area unless you drove over the mountain to one of the dealerships. She held her phone up, trying to get a signal.