"I'm the Canadian here," Allie quipped. She didn't want to ruin her shoes, and retreated from the edge of the mossy shore to more solid footing near the trail. "I'm supposed to be the one saying eh."
Erin laughed. "All the old Swedish geezers in my family have been saying eh since forever. I'm sure we invented it, but you Canadians portaged it back across Lake Superior to claim as your own." She bent down and picked a sprig of tiny green leaves from the edge of the bog.
"Wintergreen." She tore off a leaf and popped it into her mouth. "It will get a little red berry later in the season. Also edible." She handed the sprig to Allie who cautiously tasted it.
"Minty!" Allie exclaimed, putting a couple more leaves into her mouth. "Trés cool." They were surprisingly refreshing. She picked another sprig and put it in the front pocket of her jeans. This was the first time she had ever eaten anything off the ground in the wild and it was energizing.
She heard a veritable cacophony of birdsong, but could not name a single species. Brown, blue, red and black streaked wings flitted from branch to stalk all around her. Then there was a familiar staccato in the distance. Now that she identified as a woodpecker. Even in the middle of Toronto, woodpeckers hammered telephone poles.
Tiny yellow blossoms peeped shyly from the moss near her feet and she bent to smell the moist richness of new plant growth. In the grasses further ahead, dragonflies in dazzling colors zoomed precision loops in the air in pursuit of insects. A gold and white butterfly careened drunkenly between pink, purple and blue petals. Allie exhaled in awe. She never would have noticed any of this had she not stepped off the trail. She followed Erin's careful footsteps around the sodden edge of the swamp.
"Don't try to walk out past this point or zoop! You're underwater," Erin warned. "I did that once on a grade six field trip and my teacher, Mr. Wozniak, pulled me out by my little red backpack. 'First time in the swamp?' he asked me. The other kids teased me for the rest of the year." She laughed and then sobered. "I remember it being kinda scary." Fiona sniffed at the edge of the mossy area and backed away when her paws sank into the water.
Allie relaxed and began to enjoy the walk. It helped having a personal guide. Since she'd been in Morley Falls, her new job consumed her time and there was no chance to sightsee.
"What's going on?" She pointed to a stand of blackened spires across the bog. Occasional wisps of gray smoke still wafted into the surrounding air.
"Uh, I don't know." Erin deliberately evaded Allie's question. "The other side of the bog is close to the highway turnoff. We should go look."
"We could have driven!" Allie frowned suspiciously at her. She had not lived here long, but she knew that if they were near the highway, this would have been a short easy stroll from the paved road. She scratched itchy mosquito bites on her neck and scowled at the smelly swamp water ruining her leather shoes. Erin was being unusually deceptive and she had never seen this side of her. Why all the effort to come in the back way?
Without another word, Erin turned and led the way down the trail skirting the bog. Allie followed reluctantly. They slowed when they could see that the blackened spires were scorched tops of poplar trees and the smoking remains of a house below. Burned nearly to the ground, the brick chimney and the frame of the kitchen stove stood solitary in the wretched carcass of the home.
Allie stopped, feet rooted, and stared at the charred wood that used to be a home. Her face blanched and her gut twisted like she'd been punched. She bent over and gripped her knees to keep from falling.
"I don't want to go there." She backed away, repelled like opposing magnets.
Through the poplars, flashing lights of a police cruiser and an unmarked vehicle blocked the road into the home. A uniformed officer stood with his back to them, writing on a notepad. Accompanying him was a beefy blond man in jeans and polo shirt who casually leaned one haunch on the hood of the cruiser. The blond man crudely gestured the outline of a woman with both hands, obviously telling a dirty joke.
Both laughed and the blond man shielded his sunburned face to light a cigarette. He inhaled, tilted his chin and blew smoke straight into the air. Allie focused on the scene, not noticing Erin discreetly side-step behind an outcropping of brush. Her brain buzzed.
"Watch her burn. Watch her burn!" She exhaled the words as if in a foreign tongue.
* * *
Erin snapped her attention to Allie whose eyes opened wide. Face twisted in fear, she pivoted and strode back down the trail. Her stride became a hurried jog and then she sprinted. Swampy muck clung to her shoes and spiky branches scratched her skin bloody. Fiona yelped and thrashed blindly in her terrified wake.
Erin lost sight of them and her throat ran dry. In the woods, brush crashed like a fleeing bull moose. Allie had missed the trail. Following the noise, she tried to parallel their progress from the footpath. With fewer obstacles, she reached the truck first.
Allie stumbled from the trees fifteen minutes later, T-shirt torn and arms bloody. The recently applied Band-Aid had vanished from her eyebrow and a new trickle of blood wound its way along her cheekbone. She pushed past Erin and groped for the truck's door handle. Fiona whimpered and circled her legs.
Erin grappled with the remote key. Too late. She bolted like a cornered rabbit around the truck. Finally she stopped, bent and vomited onto the road.
"I'm so sorry!"
"Stay away!" Allie panted. She clung tight to the truck's bumper, thighs trembling beneath her.
Erin looked into her girlfriend's stricken face. There was only one option now. She had to tell her.
* * *
"Church Lady. Burning in hell. Are you on crack?" Allie sprang from the kitchen chair. She had washed up and changed her clothes but angry red scratches marked both arms. A fresh Band-Aid covered her eyebrow and she had applied more makeup to cover scraped skin. "This whole story is preposterous!" Arms crossed over her chest, she glared at Erin.
"I'm not saying you're some kind of witch or anything." Erin hesitated. "But you react to things before they even happen, you dream about things you can't possibly know, and you freaked out—"
"You watch too much reality TV. This is not rational."
Erin took a deep breath and began again. "I just mean that it's interesting when you move things right before I drop something on the exact spot. You brake before the car in front of you swerves into your lane. You open the door for the dog two seconds before she gets there. You know what's happening before it does. You do it all the time."
"I'm a good guesser," Allie scoffed. "Everyone does that."
"Well, actually everyone doesn't. That's why people break stuff and there are car accidents. Other people don't know what's coming."
"So let me get this straight. You dragged me down a back road donkey trail through a stinking swamp swarming with mosquitoes." Allie angrily gathered her wallet, phone and keys. Snatching up her laptop case, she faced Erin. "And you pretended to be my tour guide, all to make sure your cop buddies didn't see you sneak me to a house where a poor old lady died in a fire!"
Erin swore there were sparks in the air. She nodded contritely.
"Because you think I can magically solve your murder case with my nonexistent superpowers. You are the only one who thinks it's murder, because you say all the other cops think it's an accident!" Allie's angry voice raised in pitch. Fiona circled her and she reached out to reassure the dog.
"It wasn't an accident." Erin clenched her jaw tight. "I looked at the scene this morning before I came home and I've known Dolores since I was a kid. She was extremely meticulous." Allie raised an amused eyebrow.
"More than me," Erin conceded. "My point is that she would never have left all four gas burners on. She wasn't some forgetful old lady. She had specific routines and just because she was in her seventies does not mean she wasn't still sharp as a tack. You can ask her Bridge partners, or any of the ladies she served with in the Lutheran Women's League. She was clear headed and precise. This just does not fly. I know t
his was arson. Someone murdered Dolores Johnson."
"People make mistakes."
"That's only one piece of the puzzle. Someone had been breaking into her home when she went out. She filed three police complaints in the last month."
"That changes things." Allie adjusted the strap on her shoulder. "What was stolen?"
"Umm, nothing was actually stolen but Dolores was certain someone had been in her house." Erin bit her lip and waited for the inevitable.
Allie sighed. "Reinforcement for the scatterbrained-old-lady theory at the office?"
"If you were as detail oriented as Dolores, trust me, you'd know when someone messed with your stuff."
"Well, that's solid evidence." The sarcastic tone unnerved Erin. A few months into this relationship and everything they had built together crumbled before her eyes.
"But there's your nightmare—"
"Everyone has nightmares," Allie retorted. "I need to go. I can't lose my new job." She wrenched the door closed behind her and left Erin standing alone.
"Not like you," Erin whispered to the empty hallway. She crumpled to the floor and wrapped her arms around the dog's neck. Fiona leaned up against her, nuzzled her cheek and gave her ear a lick. Burying her face in the soft fur, they sat together by the door.
CHAPTER THREE
Minnesota's vibrant wildflowers splashed color on the shoulders of the road in hurried summer bloom. Today Allie drove her car, Erin occasionally interrupting the silence with brief directions.
"Turn right after the third red mailbox."
The black Mini Cooper bumped over potholes that Allie made no attempt to avoid. Erin grunted when the tires shuddered through a particularly large one but Fiona stood her ground on the back seat. The dog dangled her tongue out the open window, grinning enthusiastically. Allie ignored Erin, and the car's chattering suspension.
Was this payback? She would not be so impressed when she dealt with car repairs later. Ah well, she never kept a car longer than three years and could always trade it in.
Allie had met Erin's parents but Erin knew she was anxious about meeting the rest of the Ericsson clan. Although nervous, it was time. At the very least, it had to be better than sitting home for another night of avoiding each other. The future had seemed so beautiful when they first moved in together. Maybe they could fix things.
"Did you remember to bring dessert?" Erin asked. "I'm sorry I got tied up at work, and I didn't give you much notice—"
"Don't worry."
"My family is pretty big on dessert."
"I took care of it." Allie's tone was final.
Erin snuck a peek at her girlfriend and felt a familiar leap in her chest. This was the woman she had fallen for six months ago in Toronto. They'd met at a party and she had made an ass of herself flirting with the beautiful brunette, thanks to the ubiquitous Jell-O shots she'd too eagerly consumed. Allie didn't have to say a word. She had simply arched one exquisite eyebrow, and the look shook Erin to her very foundation. Really? it said.
She still remembered those exotic brown eyes, flecked with gold and green, locked steady on her own. They looked right into her and she felt naked. Her bravado evaporated in embarrassment when it dawned on her that she'd had too much to drink. Of course, Allie was too grounded to be fooled by inane lines. Too discerning to fall for the clumsy flirtations of an arrogant stranger. In that moment, Erin knew Allie disdained the superficial, the immature, and she was ashamed.
She withdrew and spent the remainder of the night drinking coffee, trying not to look like a stalker. She just could not take her eyes off that woman. It was more than a physical attraction. Sure, she was awed by Allie's athletic beauty, but there was something more. As the evening progressed, she found it harder to resist the overpowering desire to release the hair tie from that tidy ponytail. She longed to set those brunette tresses free, to kiss the curve at the corner of her mouth where it curled into a mischievous grin. She wanted to get close enough to breathe her in. She couldn't really describe what compelled her, an internal vibrancy. Fierce strength and solid confidence swirled around her and Erin was captivated. Hopelessly enraptured.
Over the next months, they'd formed a long distance friendship and Erin was ecstatic when it blossomed into love. She made up for her crass first impression, ten times over, Allie later laughed. Allie was the one who'd made the life changing decision to move all the way from Toronto to rural Minnesota to be with her. Only weeks ago, they moved into their forty-seven-year-old fixer-upper with big plans to renovate it together. That's when the nightmares had started.
When they reached the red mailboxes, Allie jerked the wheel to enter a hidden driveway, at first glance no more than a break in the bush. Wider than it looked, the opening led to a manicured lawn ringed by meticulously tended flowerbeds. A tidy white bungalow and large garage nestled under mature trees. Fifty years of footprints had worn a well beaten path to the river where a red motorboat lay moored to the dock.
A huge trampoline graced the lawn, beside an equally large satellite dish. Two young girls shrieked excitedly, their shoes discarded and dresses twisted by their leaps into the air. Allie parked at the end of the drive and tilted her seat forward to let the dog out. Tail wagging in circles, she bee-lined for the sound of children.
"So glad you made it." The screen door banged shut behind a middle aged woman to whom Erin bore a striking resemblance. Her blonde hair had paled but she had the same compact build, piercing blue eyes and fair complexion. A small boy followed her. He stood on tip toes to peep through the window of Allie's car.
"Did you bring your kitty?" He pulled himself up with the door handle and pressed his forehead to the glass. "I never saw a kitty with only three legs."
"No, Jimmy, but we brought Fuzzy Fiona." Erin messed up her four year old nephew's hair. She had almost forgotten that the cat was missing a leg. It didn't slow her down, but possibly contributed to her evil personality streak. She could jump, crawl and sneak into the most unusual places and scare Erin half to death in the process. It had taken some getting used to when Allie moved in with not one but two house pets.
"Fiona is over there." Allie pointed to the lawn where the dog lay flat on her back, accepting belly rubs from the girls who had abandoned their trampoline. "Go ahead. She loves everyone."
Jimmy peeked once more into the back and whispered. "That's a pie in a box!" He climbed off the side of the car and scurried off toward the other kids.
"It is nice to see you again, Mrs. Ericsson." Allie's face flushed slightly when she retrieved her dessert offering from the floor behind the seat. The brightly colored cardboard box promised Delicious Blueberry Pie. Homemade taste. She handed it to Erin's mom who held the box by the edges.
"Auntie Erin's new friend brought a store-boughten pie!" Jimmy called out, running across the lawn. The girls turned to gape at Allie.
"Well, thank you Allie." Erin's mom politely ignored the kids' chatter. "I'm Ellen. Please don't be so formal. This is not Buckingham Palace. Come in. Come in."
Allie followed Erin and her mother up the steps to the freshly painted porch. A spray of small blue flowers in a pink vase sat on a table just outside the door and a half dozen pairs of assorted footwear jumbled together beside it. She added her stained leather shoes to the pile.
* * *
Inside, it was surprisingly bright and Allie raised her eyebrows at a row of floor to ceiling windows looking out to the river. Fiona ran by outside, tail windmilling behind her, pursued by the two exuberant girls. Jimmy followed on their heels, a stick in his outstretched hand. All three kids were blond haired, fair skinned and pink cheeked.
Erin's mom urged Allie to take over her seat at the table and introduced her to Erin's brother Thomas, and sister Liz. Ellen then made a point of busying herself in the kitchen. Thomas was fair haired like the children but Liz was the only one in the clan with light brown hair. Both regarded Allie with familiar clear blue eyes, the Ericsson family trademark.
Allie n
oted the playing cards splayed on the table, a game of Cribbage already in progress. Erin shrugged apologetically and headed back to the door where her father, Tom Sr., stood in his navy blue coveralls. He held grease stained hands up like a surgeon and avoided touching anything. She joined him on the porch and the two of them assumed the same casual posture while they examined a mechanical part.
"I think it's a problem with this little jigger here," he told her.
"The impeller looks worn. Did you check the oil seal?" Erin pointed at something and he squinted at it, furrowing his eyebrows. They spoke for a moment, alternately inspecting the part and then walked off toward the garage.
"The boat motor is kaput," Thomas explained to Allie when they'd gone. "Dad and I tried to fix it earlier but Erin's always been better at engines. I'm a computer guy. We don't like to get our hands dirty."
"You'll have to take over for me." Erin's mom pointed to the cards on the table. She turned to the open oven and poked at a large turkey partially covered with shiny foil.
"I'm afraid I've intruded," Allie said. "I don't know how to play Cribbage." Thomas and Liz exchanged a veiled look.
"Don't worry, we'll teach you," Liz said. She shot another of those indecipherable looks at her brother. "Mom!" she called over the whirring of the stove hood fan. "Where's the blueberry wine you made last fall?"
"Erin says you're an IT Tech?" Thomas chose three glasses and poured the wine his mom had produced. "Is that how you are allowed to work in the States so soon after moving here?"
"Something like that," Allie said. "My work permit was expedited when my company offered me the position. They had no local applicants with the requisite skills and I had to give them a copy of my diploma, of course."
"I do graphic design so all that techie stuff is alien-speak to me. I just make the front end pretty."
Just Intuition Page 3