I hadn’t forgotten how Guy had made me feel at the Knudsens’, but that seemed even more foolish now; unimportant, like an eighth grade girl would feel—which was a long, long time ago, when life was much, much simpler. My emotions were out of control, that’s all there was to it. I could never be attracted to a man like Guy Reinhardt.
The sky looked like the inside of an oven turned off to cool. Aluminum foil stars poked in and out all over the roof of it, dotting the blackness with little bits of silver light, of life pulsing somewhere distant. There was no sign of the Northern Lights, and I was glad of that. The early people—the settlers, pioneers, my parents’ people—were convinced that the wavering ribbons of colors in the night sky foretold the end of the world, and I wasn’t so sure that they were wrong. It felt like the end of the world for all of us, even without a flicker of the weird and unsettling lights.
The county police car was pointed grill out toward the road. Guy sat on the hood, smoking a cigarette, watching for anything that moved. From a distance, it would have been easy to mistake the glowing tip of his cigarette for a meteor falling from the sky as he casually tapped his ash to the ground.
I wasn’t trying to be quiet this time. It would have been almost impossible anyway on the dry drive with hard-soled slippers on my feet. I was having a hard time keeping my balance, trying not to spill any of the coffee.
Guy turned back to me as I approached from the rear of the car, a newer model Ford, painted in two tones of brown, one light, one dark. Starlight reflected off the bubble on the roof. He coughed and tried to cup the cigarette in the palm of his hand to hide it.
“It’s all right,” I said, coming to a stop next to him. “Smoking doesn’t bother me.” I offered him one of the steaming coffee mugs.
Guy took the mug with his other hand and kept the cigarette partially hidden the best he could. “We’re not supposed to smoke in front of folks while we’re in uniform. Hilo’s not too fond of smoking, anyway, you know?”
“Him and Hank both, but I doubt Hilo would mind.” I sipped the black coffee. I’d made it a little stronger than normal. I wasn’t blind to the fact that I had a long day ahead of me, and I knew it had already been an even longer day for Guy Reinhardt. He had already been on shift before I called the police, holding down the fort at the Knudsens’. He’d been the first to arrive after the call had gone out about Ardith.
“I suppose you’re right, Marjorie.” Guy’s shoulders relaxed, and he slid off the hood of the Ford, easily balancing the coffee in one hand and the cigarette in the other. “Hank sleeping?”
I nodded and looked up at him—Guy still had a basketball player build, and probably always would—then I looked over my shoulder to the house, wind-beaten white, but enough to stand out in the darkness. I had left the lamp burning on my desk. It was the only light on in the house. “He’s sleeping, thanks. Hard to tell sometimes.”
“I suppose so, Marjorie. It’s a hard row to hoe you’ve got here. Even without all of the troubles of late.”
I didn’t know quite what to say to that. Guy was right, of course, but allowing our troubles to stop us, to become a burden to someone else, well, it just wasn’t our way. Never had been, even when I was a little girl. I was a Hoagler before I was a Trumaine. Mother and Father were stiff-upper-lip kind of people. Don’t complain. Forge ahead. Clean up your own mess so other folks didn’t have to walk through it. Hank was the same way. Quiet, accommodating, always demanding that we keep our problems to ourselves. Maybe it was just how prairie people were, I couldn’t say for sure since I’d known no other way of life.
Instead of agreeing, I reached into the front pocket of my housedress and pulled out the pack of Salems I’d bought at the Rexall. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“I didn’t know you smoked, Marjorie.”
Guy seemed to enjoy saying my name. There was a lilt to it, that familiar Nor’ Dakota accent. Perhaps Sir Nigel’s book should have been about us. I might have learned something useful, something that could inform me every day. Prairie tribes instead of myths about headhunters.
I shrugged. “Hank doesn’t like it that I smoke—his mother died of cancer—and I understand, but it calms my nerves. Helps me to think straight when things are all jumbled.”
“Like now?”
“Like now,” I said. I sat the cup of coffee on the wide front bumper of the Ford and pulled a cigarette from the pack. Before I could reach for the matchbook Betty Walsh had given me with my change at the Rexall, Guy flipped opened a Zippo and produced a steady flame.
I wasn’t surprised. It was the gentlemanly thing to do—light a woman’s cigarette. But it was an act of chivalry, and I was grateful for it. Hank had been like that, the kind man who always opened the truck door for me, made sure I walked into a restaurant first on the special occasion when we didn’t eat at home. Simple things. I missed those simple things the most.
I drew in on the cigarette, bringing it easily to life. I leaned back, exhaled, and watched as the glow of the Zippo’s flame vanished as quickly as it had appeared. This felt different—but similar—from the smoke I’d shared with Calla behind the library. We both needed an escape.
Guy’s stoic face lost its glow, but I didn’t look away from him. He had weathered his own difficulties, and cigarettes seemed to offer him the same salvation that they did me. I couldn’t imagine any other reason that he would smoke, especially considering that he had once been the most talented athlete in the county. I guess even athletes succumbed to the pressures of time and age.
Guy settled back on the hood, the cigarette in one hand, the cup in the other. “That’s a fine cup of coffee, there, Marjorie.”
I relaxed, too, against the corner of the front fender, standing directly in front of the dark double-headlights of the police car. I followed Guy’s gaze, toward the horizon, to a thin ribbon of gray hope that had broken into sight, unannounced by birds or any other voices in the sky, like wind or thunder.
The unsettling silence had remained throughout the night. The cool summer air was still, almost like it was too heavy to move.
“Thanks.” I took another sip of coffee and stared at the first sign of the coming day. I was more than ready to walk on the earth in the daylight, to be able to see for as far as the eye could see without worry about what was coming, or what was hiding in the shadows. “What do you think this is all about, Guy? These murders.” I remembered not to mention the amulet, since Hilo had told me not to. But I wondered what Guy knew of it, what the rest of the men in the department knew. Was the amulet just a secret between Hilo and me? I had to think that it was, but I would have been relieved if he had mentioned it.
I couldn’t help myself from asking the question. The only reason Guy was at the farm was because someone had murdered Ardith. The last time he had been around was the day everyone else had shown up for Hank.
“Can’t rightly say, Marjorie. I can tell you this, though, I never expected to see such meanness and violence in all of my life, not even with this badge on my chest. People around these parts just aren’t like this. Nothing could hurt so bad as to lash out like I’ve seen in the last couple of days. I mean, I’ve been angry, said things I sure wish’t I could take back, but I can’t conceive of a matter when a knife to the throat is the only solution.” Guy glanced at me quickly, then looked down to the ground. “My apologies, Marjorie. I shouldn’t speak of such things. This has to be difficult for you.”
“Harder for Hilo, I would imagine.”
“There is that. Not sure that I’d be able to come back from such a thing, if it was me.” Guy drew on his own cigarette then. It was the last puff. He pinched the burning orange tip of tobacco off the butt, and let it fall to the ground; Lilliputian fireworks, distant falling stars snuffed out with a heavy grind with the toe of his recently polished black boot. He field-stripped the butt, and dropped the filter and what was left of the cigarette into his pants pocket.
Guy stared hard at the horizon, and his wo
rds hung in the air. I heard something that I wasn’t quite sure of. Maybe it was ambition, a desire to step into Hilo’s place if the opportunity arose, or something else, a sadness or regret that I could never know.
My father, engaged in his own lifelong battle for his place in life, had once said to me, “There are two kinds of men in this world, Marjorie. Ambitious ones and ones with ambition. One’s to be avoided and the other’s to be encouraged.” I’m not sure why I remembered that at that moment, maybe it was the look in Guy’s eyes, maybe it was the way he said my name. I just wasn’t sure. But I knew I’d seen that look before.
Guy didn’t seem to me to be the kind of man who would take advantage of someone else’s tragedy, but then again, he had been a star basketball player when we were young, and he had to be competitive and aggressive to achieve that kind of praise and skill. Age didn’t always erase those kind of traits. Sometimes, the disappointments that came along the way were nothing more than fertilizer, causing the ambitions to grow in an ugly, out of control way. Me and everyone else in Stark County knew Guy Reinhardt had had his fair share of disappointments.
“I’ve known Hilo a lot of years,” I said. “He’s one of the strongest, most dependable people I’ve ever met. But you may be right. This might just be enough to bring him to his knees, get the best of him.”
“I hope you’re wrong, Marjorie. I sure hope you’re wrong.”
The mix of coffee and cigarettes put a foul taste in my mouth. I wasn’t used to the combination so early in the day. I pinched the fire off my Salem, then hesitated before I ground it out with my rubber-soled house slipper. Guy noticed, stepped over, and took care of it for me.
“Can’t be too careful, Marjorie,” he said. Grassfires were another nightmare; a spark brought to flame by an easy wind could destroy the year’s crop and a hundred-year-old farm in one fell swoop. We’d both seen it happen more than once.
“Thank you,” I offered, as I watched him pick up the butt, perform the same stripping operation, then stuff it into his pocket with his own.
When Guy straightened back up, he fixated on the horizon for a long second. “Be a lot of comin’ and goin’ around here today. You up for that, Marjorie?”
“I suppose I have to be, don’t I?”
“I suppose you do.” He hesitated, then looked me in the eye. His gaze cut through the early gray dawn like a hot knife to butter. “State Police’ll take over. Hilo can’t handle this. Three murders in a matter of days, all so close together. They’re gonna look at you and Hank awful close, Marjorie.”
Guy’s words bounced around inside of my head and nearly took me off my feet. “What do you mean, ‘look at us close,’ Guy? Hank and I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Don’t matter, Marjorie. They have to do their jobs. I just wanted you to know what was coming your way. Everybody’s a suspect, Marjorie, everybody. At least till they’ve been cleared, alibis and such checked. Even you and Hank. You’re a suspect as much as anybody else.”
CHAPTER 16
I stared at the telephone. I didn’t want to touch the black receiver, hear the crackle of the live line on the other end, but there was no avoiding the call to New York that I had to make.
My indexing income was just like some farmers’ royalty payments from the oil wells that teeter-tottered unattended in their fields. Hank had always chased the oil and gas men off, afraid the pumps would foul the water and the land.
My payments weren’t royalties. It was a one-time payment. The author saw royalties from the publisher, I supposed, but I never did. I saw no long-term benefits from writing indexes. If I wanted to make more money, I had to take more work, or go out and find it—and that wasn’t as simple as it sounded. It wasn’t like publishers put help-wanted ads for indexers in the back of the Dickinson, North Dakota, newspaper.
My fingers tingled as I looked up at the clock on the wall. There was a two-hour time difference between New York City and North Dakota. I had waited as long as I could; otherwise, I risked getting a call back from Richard Rothstein, and I was positive that call would not be pleasant.
Not that any call is ever pleasant. Even on the occasions when I had spoken to Mr. Rothstein for normal business purposes, he had been curt, quick to speak, and bordered on being rude; the kind of rudeness never seen or heard in this part of the country.
I understood that things were different, faster paced, on the East Coast than they were on the prairie, and I’d had to adjust my sensitivities when I dealt with anyone in the New York offices, but I never ever looked forward to talking to any of them. It was like they spoke a different language.
I picked up the receiver reluctantly and listened before I dialed the 212 exchange.
There was a distant hum, which was normal most of the time, but the hum echoed, reverberated with distant, unidentifiable sounds, and that meant someone else was on the line, waiting, or getting ready to make a call. I listened for a couple of extra seconds to make sure that wasn’t the case, that I wasn’t stepping on someone else’s conversation or intention.
The sound continued. Hum, hiss, distant voices. A television turned down low.
“Is that you Burlene Standish?” I demanded, frustrated. I was in no mood for eavesdroppers, all things considered. I wanted this call over with, and the traffic on the road out front had already picked up.
A steady line of curious folks drove by the house as slow as they could, turned around in the field just beyond the end of the yard, then drove back by again. They pointed grimly at the first barn. I’d had enough morbid curiosity to suit me for a lifetime, but I knew there was nothing I could do about any of it.
Burlene didn’t answer me. Whoever it was on the other end of the line cupped their hand over the bottom receiver a little tighter. The echo diminished, but it didn’t disappear completely. I knew her ways. It wasn’t like this was the first time she had listened in on my conversations. Hardly.
“I know you’re still there, Burlene,” I hissed. I could barely contain my anger. Rage was as foreign to me as finding a dead body on my property, but I recognized them both—and they made me equally afraid.
Funny thing was, I wouldn’t have recognized Burlene Standish if she was standing next to me at the checkout at the Red Owl grocery store. Her husband, Miller—Mills to most folks—scowled at everyone when they mispronounced his name by accident or on purpose, and called him Miles. He’d worked as a butcher at the Red Owl for as long as I could remember, so come to think of it, I doubt she’d be there at all. Miller most likely took home all of the groceries.
I wasn’t sure why, but I’d heard Burlene had always been sickly, a shut-in if there ever was one, so I supposed her sources of entertainment and human interaction were limited. Television should have kept her occupied. Still, being elderly and lonely didn’t give her the right to be a class A nibnose. Damn party lines. That’s what I thought. I needed some privacy to deal with the things that had presented themselves in my life.
I heard a whisper on the other end of the phone, but I didn’t understand the words, couldn’t hear them clearly. “What?” I snapped. “Look, I’ve got important business to attend to, Burlene, so if you’ve got something to say to me, then speak up, and get on with it.” I might just need more coffee, since I hadn’t slept well and had spent longer talking to Guy Reinhardt than I should have. Maybe she needed to make a call, but I doubted it.
“I heard something, Marjorie,” the quivering old woman’s voice said just above the former whisper. It was Burlene, there was no mistaking her wobbly voice. I wanted to continue to be mad, but any anger I felt disappeared once her words settled in my mind, confronted my rage with consideration of the timing of her bad habit of listening in on other peoples’ business.
“What do you mean you heard something?”
I remembered the telephone dangling when I had come home from town. Ardith had been on the phone, taking a message from Richard Rothstein, when something had drawn her away. Burlene had been
listening to the whole thing. Most likely, she had heard Ardith’s last words. I shivered at the realization.
“I heard something,” she repeated. It sounded like Burlene was afraid, had just seen a ghost, or someone lurking outside her window. I imagined her cowering behind a plastic-covered davenport.
Click. Hiss. The line was open, and Burlene was gone, but that didn’t stop me. “What did you hear, Burlene? Damn it, what did you hear?”
Silence. No answer. Just the rustle of the wind from outside my own house. I stared at the phone, frustrated. How could Burlene do that, say something like that, then hang up? It was mean and frightening at the same time.
“You all right, Marjie?” Hank called out.
“I’m fine,” I answered back, cupping the mouthpiece myself, just in case someone else had picked up.
“You were yelling,” he said.
My fingers trembled on the phone. I exhaled deeply. “I’m fine, Hank,” I called back to him. “It was just Burlene Standish on the line.”
“Sad busybody she is.”
“It’s fine, Hank, don’t worry about it.”
The window was open, and an easy morning breeze fluttered the curtains. The hem was starting to unravel, but mending was low on my list at that moment.
It was going to be a warm day, there was no mistaking that, but it wasn’t uncomfortable yet. Perspiration beaded up on my forehead, and my heart beat like I’d just run from the third barn to the house without stopping.
“If you say so,” Hank said. His struggle to speak reverberated through the house, though my veins. I stared at the bedroom door and let Hank’s voice fall away without offering a response.
I tried to push away what Burlene had said, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. She had heard something. But what? A scream? A gunshot? If she had heard something, wouldn’t Hank have heard something, too? What had he said? “I heard her ask the person on the other end of the line to hang on, then Shep barked and she padded out the door. She never came back.”
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