The Sisters of Blue Mountain

by Karen Katchur

  Jake had done his research late last night after returning to the bar after his conversation with Myna. He’d needed a drink. The crowd had loosened up after a few beers. A couple fishermen had even talked with him about their concerns, about what the dredging would cost them. But it hadn’t been until the mayor showed up that Jake had gotten his break. The mayor had loosened his collar, had talked to the men and women as though they were pals. Yes, he’d told them, paying to have the dam dredged was going to set the town’s finances back. But he’d had no other choice but to contract an outside source to handle the matter. The town’s survival had depended on it. How else were they supposed to compete with the other tourist towns if their main attraction—the birds and the fishing—had all gone belly-up?

  The taxpayers had voiced their complaints late into the night. By the time the bar closed at 2 A.M., however, most of them had come around to the side of the mayor’s decision. It had been damn good politicking on the mayor’s part.

  Jake gathered enough material to write a decent article, and he’d sent it to Dennis two minutes before deadline. Dennis had texted him immediately afterward. Okay. But keep in contact. It had been Dennis’s way of saying Jake could stay in Mountain Springs on assignment for at least another day.

  Jake wove his way through the crowd of picketers. This time the doomsayers were joined by environmental activists. One of the women holding a sign grabbed his arm as he walked by. He shook her off. “Member of the press,” he said, his mood sour.

  He passed a carton of masks on the ground and bent down to pick one up. The smell was bad, and he put the mask to his mouth and nose as he made his way over to the men on the dock. When he got closer, he recognized the placard on one man’s jacket: EPA, Emergency Management Personnel.

  They were discussing the best method to remove the aquatic life, to dispose of the dead fish, safely. The contractor hired by the town—or, rather, by the mayor—assured the EPA he would not be using any chemicals to kill the weeds. He motioned to the dredging equipment, which he argued was an acceptable, environmentally safe option. He also pointed to several men in waders. “These men will remove the weeds by hand in the areas around overhanging trees, where harvesting is difficult.”

  Papers were exchanged—permits and licenses, perhaps. Jake wasn’t close enough to get a good look. But from where he stood, he could see into the crowd. He searched for the doc and his two daughters. Specifically, Myna. He was certain she wasn’t telling him everything she knew. She’d been shocked at seeing the old cell phone. He’d go as far as to say she’d been frightened.

  But why?

  He scanned the crowd again. One of the other journalists waved a friendly hello. She wrote for the paper that covered Monroe County exclusively. He’d shared a drink or two with her on occasion when he’d been on assignment during the winter ski season. What was her name? He couldn’t remember. She made her way over to him.

  “What do you make of all this the last few days?” she asked.

  “It’s quite a busy little town.”

  “Yes,” she said, eying a shot of the newest picketers. She was wearing jeans and a windbreaker. Rain splattered her head and shoulders. She pulled up her hood. “Where did you get the mask?” she asked. “It certainly does stink, doesn’t it?”

  Jake happened to peer across the dam. Emerging from a path in the woods was Myna and the doc. “I gotta go,” he said to the woman with the forgotten name, and he took off running for his car.

  “Hey,” she called after him. “Where are you going? What about the mask?”

  Once in his car, he dropped the mask on the passenger seat and started the engine. He beeped his horn several times to get the picketers to move out of his way. He remembered the road around the dam was windy and narrow. He’d have to be careful, but his adrenalin had kicked in. If he could get to the other side in time, he could confront them together. But even as his blood rushed to his head and he pressed on the gas, somewhere in the back of his mind a voice was telling him to go easy on the old doc—and his pretty younger daughter.

  Jake prided himself on being a good judge of character, and they didn’t seem as though they were bad people. But they were hiding something.

  Sometimes the people you least suspected harbored the darkest secrets.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Linnet was standing in front of the kitchen sink with a cup of coffee, thinking about what Myna had said to her the night before about losing a sister. How dare she feel as though she’d lost her after everything Linnet had done for her, after everything she’d done to keep their family together? And now, even after sleeping on it, Linnet couldn’t shake the indignation of it. Resentment wriggled its way around her heart. It was a terrible feeling, but it was there nonetheless.

  She watched the spring shower become nothing more than a drizzle. The gray day was getting brighter as the sun worked to break through the cloudy haze. She sipped from the cup. How did she and Myna get to this place where she was unable to share even the simplest of thoughts, let alone the ones that needed to be said the most?

  The back door swung open, and Cora stepped inside. She slipped off her raincoat, hanging it on the hook in the small mudroom. “I saw the local news.” She crossed the kitchen and grabbed an apron from the drawer. “I don’t believe a word of it. I told my husband it’s all a big mistake. I’ve known your dad for how many years?” She tied the apron behind her back.

  Linnet put the coffee cup in the sink and touched her brow. She thought she’d called Cora and told her not to come to work. “It’s nonsense,” she said.

  The little voice in the back of her mind asked, But what if it isn’t? What if Pop really did have something to do with the young professor’s death?

  Stop it, she scolded herself. Greg Lyons had said Pop hadn’t been charged with anything, that they needed to take things one step at a time and not get ahead of themselves.

  “I have some more bad news,” she said to Cora. “More guests have canceled. In fact, all of the guests for the next two months have canceled.” Saying it out loud sounded so much worse than keeping inside.

  Cora wasn’t moving. A look of confusion crossed her face and then one of understanding. She started to untie the apron.

  “Once all this is behind us, I will get people back here and into the rooms,” Linnet said. “And I will need you again. Please say you’ll come back.”

  Cora retied the apron again. “Let me fix you a couple of meals while I’m here. Don’t worry about paying me.” She waved her hand. “You and your family are going through hard times. It’s the least I can do.” She put her hand on Linnet’s arm. “Let me do this little thing for you. And when this all blows over, you call me.”

  Linnet closed her hand around Cora’s. “Thank you,” she said.

  They both turned to look out the garden window when they heard voices. Al was in the yard with Pop.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Cora, and raced outside. “Hey,” she called as she approached them.

  Al turned around. He twisted the work gloves he was carrying in his hands.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I was trying to talk your dad out of going to the dam. They’re going to start dredging, and there are all kinds of reporters around.”

  “Al has a point, Pop,” she said. “Why don’t you come up to the house? Cora’s fixing some breakfast.”

  “Would you two stop treating me like a child?” Pop said, and started walking toward the path through the woods.

  “Pop!” she called, and rushed to catch up to him. She grabbed his arm so he had no choice but to stop. This time more firmly, she said, “This is not a good idea.”

  Myna walked outside. Her hair was curlier than usual in the damp air. The rain had stopped finally, but the moisture hung on. She was wearing the same ripped jeans. She leaned in and kissed Pop on the cheek. “Morning,” she said, and waved to Al, who stood a few feet away.

  Linnet didn’t like
the tiny seed of jealousy that had sprouted in her stomach watching her sister and father interact so casually in the midst of their troubles. She stood a little taller and touched the side of her head where the hair was pulled tight into a ponytail. “They’re dredging the dam this morning, and I was trying to convince Pop not to go,” she said.

  “Your sister and her lawyer want to keep me locked up in the house.”

  “He’s your lawyer, Pop,” Linnet said.

  “Mine? What do I need a lawyer for?” he asked.

  “Come on, Pop,” Myna said. “I’ll go with you. I’ll keep an eye on him,” she promised Linnet, and took his arm.

  It was a bad idea. And still Linnet let them walk away, watching the two of them take the path until they disappeared from view. Al came up and stood next to her.

  “There’s no rush on the trees, Al,” she said. “There won’t be anyone staying in The Snow Goose for a while to pay for the view.” She turned and headed back toward the main house. Flashing red-and-blue lights cut across the white siding of the B&B and the cherry blossom trees. The panic she’d been pushing down since the first bird dropped from the sky began to rise inside her chest. She imagined herself walking to the front of the house, screaming, sending the police car away with the sheer volume of her voice. But there she stood, silent, unable to move.

  And she waited.

  * * *

  Charlie turned the flashing lights off and got out of the cruiser. He spotted Linnet in the yard on his way to the side door.

  “Maybe I should go,” Al said in a low voice from behind her.

  “Wait,” she said. She needed someone by her side. Ian was still in the house getting ready for work. Hank, my god, Hank was still home. He was in his room getting dressed for school.

  Charlie approached, taking his time making his way over to them, or it felt that way to Linnet, as though time moved in slow motion. He nodded to Al, who dropped one of the work gloves he’d been twisting in his hands. Charlie reached down and picked it up.

  “I’ll just be going then,” Al said, and disappeared around the opposite side of the house where the rose bushes were located, the same bushes he’d trimmed a few short days ago.

  “Were the lights necessary?” she asked Charlie.

  “I flashed them to warn you,” he said, and removed his chief’s hat. “I’m here to arrest your dad.”

  The muscles coiled along her spine. “You’re arresting him?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have a choice,” Charlie said. “Is he in the guesthouse?”

  Ian emerged from the main house. He was carrying his briefcase.

  “Did you know Professor Coyle had a mistress in town?” she blurted, glancing as Ian approached, the words coming out in a rush. She’d meant to have a conversation with Ian last night about bumping into Terry and how oddly he’d behaved. But then Myna had knocked on their bedroom door, and she’d been so distracted by the conversation with her sister that she’d never gotten around to talking with him about it. She hated having to break his confidence. But she had to throw something at Charlie, force him to see there were other possibilities, other suspects. “And that the professor didn’t come straight to the dam that day?” She remembered now. He’d mentioned going somewhere else first, and she’d thought it strange at the time. She continued. “What if he stopped at her house? You’d have to check into it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Where did you hear this?” Charlie asked, narrowing his eyes.

  She shook her head, signaling they’d talk about it later. Ian was two steps away.

  “I saw the lights,” Ian said.

  “He’s here for Pop.”

  Hank came out of the house wearing his backpack.

  She said to Charlie, “Please, don’t do anything in front of Hank.” She turned to Ian. “Take Hank to school. Go to work. I’ll text you later.”

  “I should be here. I’m sure I can find a sub.”

  “I know, but what I really need is for you to get Hank out of here. I don’t want him to see his grandfather getting arrested.”

  Ian stared at Linnet. “Are you sure?”

  “Go,” she said to him.

  “Text me as soon as you can,” Ian said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Ian met Hank at the car. She waved and watched them leave. Once they were out of view, she turned back to Charlie.

  “Do you have the name of this mistress?” he asked.

  “Donna Cowell.” Her tongue was thick, swollen with gossip. “She’s one of the teachers who works with Ian at the high school. She took a continuing education course at the university recently, and that’s how they met. That’s all I know.”

  Charlie nodded and pointed toward the guesthouse. “I’ll go and get him now.”

  “Wait.” She was panicking. “There’s something else you should know. Yesterday, I ran into Donna’s husband, Terry. He looked angry. When I brought up the professor and his wife, he told me to stay the hell away from him. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

  He seemed to consider what she’d said, taking a moment before replying. “I’ll look into it. But I’ve got a witness, one of the reporters from out of town.” He hesitated as though he wasn’t sure if he should say anything more, and then he added, “He saw your dad with Professor Coyle at the dam not thirty minutes before…” He glanced in the direction of the guesthouse.

  “He’s not there. He’s with Myna. They’re watching them dredge the dam.” Charlie couldn’t arrest Pop at the dam, not with all the locals and the reporters across the way. “Let me go and get him,” she said.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No, please, wait here.” How many times had she said please in the last few days? More times than she’d ever had to before. “He’s not going anywhere, and there are so many people around.”

  He nodded, and she turned to go.

  “Linnet,” Charlie called.

  Her steps faltered, but she didn’t respond. She refused to look back at him. Her strides were long and purposeful and somehow clumsy. There were voices coming from the dam. Two she recognized. The third had her racing down the path, tripping on the uneven terrain.

  It couldn’t be.

  But it was.

  She stopped short of the water, her feet sinking into the mud on the embankment. Jake was standing next to the bench where her sister and Pop were sitting. What the hell was he doing here? The anger in her chest lodged in her windpipe, white and hot. Dead fish were all around her. Their scales were shiny, their eyes vacant. She picked one up, feeling its heft, smelling the horrible scent, the winterkill. It hit Jake in the shoulder before she realized she’d thrown it.

  “What the?…” Jake whipped around.

  “Get away from them!” she shouted. “Leave them alone.”

  Myna and Pop both looked stricken. Myna shot up from the bench first. “What do you think you’re doing?” she yelled.

  Linnet reached down and threw another fish. This one struck Jake on the hip. He held up his arms to protect himself.

  “Please!” Myna shouted. “Stop it!”

  But Linnet had no intention of stopping until she ran Jake off their property. “Stay away from my family!” she shrieked. She was vaguely aware of voices bouncing off the water, people hollering from the other side of the dam. Flashes went off, but she wasn’t registering the light as flash from the expensive news cameras. She picked up another fish and was about to chuck it when someone grabbed her arm.

  “No, you don’t,” Charlie said, and pinned her arm behind her back. He pulled her close, his breath hot in her ear. “You’re making matters worse.”

  She struggled to get away from him, but his grip on her arm tightened. “Ow,” she said.

  “Listen to me,” Charlie said. “The reporters are taking pictures. You’re going to be all over the front page if you don’t knock it off right now.”

  She looked at the crowd across the water. Picketers and reporters
and fishermen all stood in silence watching the scene unfold. Charlie relaxed his grip on her forearm, but when she tried to wrestle herself free, he wouldn’t release her entirely.

  “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?” Charlie asked the four of them.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Chief,” Jake said, and wiped his shoulder where one of the fish had struck him. “I need to have a word with you.” He pulled an old, black cell phone from his pocket.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Myna rushed to Jake’s side and slipped her hand over his, hiding the phone from Charlie’s view. “Please, Jake,” she said quietly. “Put the phone away.”

  Pop was up from the bench and walking toward Charlie. “Take your hands off my daughter,” he said. And then he said to Linnet, “What in the world has come over you?”

  While Pop and Charlie and Linnet argued, Myna seized her opportunity to talk with Jake. “Please leave Charlie out of this.”

  “Why should I?” Jake asked.

  “Do it for me. And I promise I’ll tell you everything I know about…” She closed her eyes and released a slow breath. “I promise I’ll tell you what I know about the phone and your father. But not now. Not here.”

  “Then when?”

  “Meet me tonight. I’ll text you the details later. Just promise me you won’t talk to Charlie, at least until after you hear me out. I’m begging you.”

  He stared at her long and hard, as though he were trying to decide if she was pulling one over on him. “Fine,” he said. “But you better tell me what the hell is going on. This is your last chance to be straight with me, or I’m going to the police.”

  “I promise,” she said, wondering how in the world she was going to convince Linnet this was the right thing to do, that it was the only option.

  “Your sister’s crazy,” Jake said, and put the old cell phone back in his pocket.

  “Yes,” she said, and couldn’t help but smile a little. In a screwed-up way, it had been good to see Linnet pummel Jake with fish. It reminded Myna of the kind of sister Linnet used to be. Spunky. Fun.