I searched through my pack for something to write on, but it offered only keys, wallet, and remnants of lunch. I looked at the woman’s backpack. No, I couldn’t, I told myself. But as long shadows blanketed the mountains, I opened a side compartment and rifled through it. I found a small, blank notebook with an attached pen, tore out a sheet, and wrote a note describing the location, best I could. I wiped my prints off the pen and notebook, and put them back in the pack. The note went inside the bread bag I’d stashed in my pocket after lunch; I tied it to Jake’s collar.
“Go home, Jake. Go home!” It was a longshot, but worth a try. His brown eyes looked sad, but then they always did. “Go home, Jake. Be a good boy.”
The third time I said it, he turned and ran, though not down the path we’d taken. God, I hope he knows where he’s going, I thought, as he raced up the creek bank. And I prayed Mildred hadn’t called Abit inside.
I watched Jake climb the steep trail and head over the ridge. When the last of his golden fur disappeared below the horizon, I laid back against the red oak, avoiding the stare of the dead woman. It would be at least an hour before anyone could get there.
I tried to rest, but when my eyes closed, unwelcomed memories rushed to mind. I reopened them. That’s when I saw the dead woman turn her head toward me. I screamed, but quickly felt foolish. It was just the wind blowing her long hair.
I knew not to touch anything. I’d been involved in several police investigations in D.C. and watched enough television shows to know the drill. But eventually, curiosity won out. I crawled over to her, pulled my sleeve over my hand to avoid fingerprints, and began carefully rummaging through the backpack again, trying to find out who she was and where she’d come from.
Her wallet contained twenty-six dollars and a few coins, but all the slots normally bulging with credit cards and driver’s license were empty. I also found a syringe case, the kind diabetics carry with them. Otherwise, the pack held only an apple and a scarf. No keys or identifiers of any kind.
I was getting stiff, so I stood, stretched, and started pacing. From a different angle, I noticed a corner of white barely sticking out of the left pocket of her flannel shirt. I pulled down my sleeve again and removed the note. I clumsily opened the handwritten note with my makeshift gloved hand.
I’m tired of so much sorrow. My life or death doesn’t matter. L.
I struggled to refold the note and slip it back into the pocket. I knew I didn’t have any connection to this death, unlike a tragedy I witnessed in D.C., but my nerves felt raw. I kept walking. I started to shiver from the cold, but wouldn’t allow myself to borrow anything from her stash. I found another smooth beech tree surrounded by brush that sheltered me from the wind, scrunched down, and waited.
My thoughts drifted back to my home and office near Dupont Circle, where I wrote for a variety of magazines and newspapers. I had a nickname among colleagues—Ghoulfriend—because I somehow kept getting assignments for sad and even violent stories. I was good at it, maybe because I took the time to understand both the backstory and the current story. I covered unimaginable situations, except by those who’d suffered them. Men who passed as loving fathers during the workday but turned into monsters in the basements of their family homes. Women who grew up with abuse and perpetuated that pattern on to another generation. Men so troubled by wars that it seemed only natural to kill—including themselves, either intentionally or through the slow death of drugs and alcohol. I recalled the relief I always felt when I’d hear about their passing, and how I still grappled with that. It seemed wrong to be glad someone died, but when their suffering never stopped, it was hard not to be thankful they’d finally been released from so much pain.
I stood again and paced around the natural enclosure. I noticed some British soldiers, the green matchstick lichen with bright red “hats,” standing at attention atop a huge fallen trunk, its center hollowed out by rain and time and animals seeking shelter. The birds were singing again—or was I just hearing them again? Two nuthatches flittered through a nearby stand of white pines. A cluster of spring beauty eased my mind, until I saw they were growing inside the skull of an opossum. I kept moving.
As I paced, I noticed that her youthful face was pretty in the way that most young people are. I couldn’t imagine why her life had to end that way. I knew features were superficial, that the urge to kill yourself garnered energy from dark places deep within, but she didn’t look tired or drained like the other victims I’d seen. No telltale lines that broadcast an unbearable hurt. But who really knew?
I shivered in my light jacket and waited. Finally, I heard Jake’s bark over the grinding gears of a four-wheel drive.
My throbbing ankle brought me back to my apartment. When I stepped out on to the landing, I noticed the sun had dropped behind the mountains, carving the sky with angry slashes of purple. Swallows swooped through the air, as though they were drawing a curtain on the day.
I limped down the long wooden staircase that hugged the outside of the building, leading down to the driveway. Only the promise of aspirin inside the store kept me moving. As I turned toward the front door, I saw Abit craning his neck to see me. Jake had run ahead and jumped in Abit’s lap, threatening to topple him from his chair. I couldn’t help but smile at my makeshift family.
I recalled the first time I saw Abit, a lanky kid nervously pacing around the front of the store, afraid the new owner would throw out his chair and ban him from his perch near the door. He’d reminded me of a teenaged Opie Taylor, sporting a cowlick and overalls. Still did.
“Howdy, Mister. I suspect you’d like to come in.” I’d started calling him that to avoid using his mean-spirited nickname, though that was hard to stick to since almost everyone called him Abit. Over the years, it seemed to have morphed into just another name, no more peculiar than Cletus or Enos; I hoped it had lost its sting for him. When he looked over his shoulder toward his house, I added, “I don’t think your mother will mind today. Besides, it’s after hours. You can’t bother the customers, can you? Why don’t you pick out something to drink, and we’ll talk.”
A Life for a Life and all books in the
Appalachian Mountain Mysteries series
are available at book retailers.
Books by Lynda McDaniel
FICTION
Waiting for You (free prequel)
A Life for a Life
The Roads to Damascus
Welcome the Little Children
Murder Ballad Blues
NONFICTION
Words at Work
How Not to Sound Stupid When You Write
How to Write Stories that Sell
Write Your Book Now!
(with Virginia McCullough)
Highroad Guide to the North Carolina Mountains
North Carolina’s Mountains
Asheville: A View from the Top
Murder Ballad Blues Page 23