Pall in the Family

by Dawn Eastman

  “I’m just here to visit Tish. I’m not working. Actually, I don’t do that at all anymore.”

  Harriet sniffed. My group moved away again.

  “Yes, I had heard that.” Harriet gave me the once-over, and narrowed her eyes in disapproval. “Well, as you can see, she’s with a client right now.”

  I glanced over to see an elderly woman taking the chair in front of Tish. The man she’d been arguing with was just going out the door. My breath caught, and my mind raced—it was the same guy who had stopped to pet Baxter in the street yesterday.

  “Okay, I’d better go, then. Nice seeing you, Mrs. Munson,” I said, and hurried out the door after the mystery man before she could stop me.

  I wanted to catch up to him and—do what? Accuse him of petting Tish’s dog? I raced out the door while glancing back at Tish and ran straight into Mac.

  He gripped my arms to keep me from falling over.

  Mac smelled really good. Like pine trees and fresh breezes off the lake. I tried to get my footing while he held me for a moment too long. Long enough to remember how much I liked being this close to him. From the way his eyes got soft, he was remembering, too.

  “Hey, what’s the rush?” he said, and set me back onto my feet.

  “Oh, um, no rush. I came to talk to Tish and she’s busy, so I’ll just come back later,” I said.

  “I heard Andrews made his arrest on your front porch.” Mac had dropped his cane during our collision. He bent to pick it up.

  “Yeah, it was a bit dramatic. Gary was at the house picking up his dog.” I rubbed my arms where his hands had been, still feeling the heat.

  “Andrews could have picked him up earlier, but I think he wanted to impress you.” Mac was standing too close. I had to look up to see his eyes.

  “Impress me?” I stepped back and wondered where this was going.

  “You mean you haven’t noticed how he gets weak in the knees whenever you’re around? You’re slipping, Clyde.”

  We had to move aside to let a group out the door. Mac took my arm, and we stood in the grass off to the side of the walkway.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re just old family friends.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I’m glad to have it over and done with. I wasn’t looking forward to a long investigation in this town.”

  “Are you sure it was Gary?”

  “I wouldn’t have had him arrested if I wasn’t sure. He lied about his alibi. He had a motive and opportunity.”

  “So? People lie all the time. It doesn’t make them murderers.”

  “Just leave it alone, Clyde.”

  The air around us had become much cooler. Mac stepped past me and went into the Reading Room without another word.

  * * *

  With Mac out of his office, it seemed like a good time to visit the police station and see what I could learn.

  Lisa smiled when I entered the station.

  “Mac’s not here right now,” she said.

  I sighed. “I’m looking for Officer Andrews.”

  Lisa flushed. “He’s out, too. He’s checking on a report of digging near Message Circle.”

  “Again?”

  She nodded. “The crazy thing is, whoever is doing it is trying to fill in all the holes when they’re done. I thought it was kids playing treasure hunt or something, but now it’s been going on for long enough that I doubt it’s a couple of eight-year-olds pretending to be pirates,” she said.

  “Where is it happening?” I said.

  “Well, kind of all over in the park. Some of it is on private land, but not much. Sara complained that her land had some areas dug up about a month ago. But I shouldn’t be talking about it. Charla always says I don’t know when to keep quiet.” She turned to her computer and pretended to be busy. Charla was right. Lisa never could keep a secret, which was bad for those trying to keep a secret but great for those trying to get information.

  I decided to bluff. “My Mom told me about that—I think it’s near my Dad’s cabin. . . .”

  Lisa was already shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Isn’t his place on the west side of Singapore Highway? She owned a lot that her father bought from the city back in the nineties when they consolidated some of the park on the south side of Greer’s Woods.” Lisa was drawing a crude map on a scrap piece of paper. “She and Gary split it in the divorce settlement. That’s what they were always fighting about. He wanted to sell and she didn’t, but the developers wouldn’t take his land without hers.”

  “And that’s the area that’s being vandalized?” I indicated the area south of Greer’s Woods.

  “Not the only one. Also over here.” She pointed with her pencil to a section that was adjacent to Greer’s Woods. “You know the city council is not going to put up with trouble anywhere near Message Circle.”

  “They’ll have Tom out there guarding it on his off hours next.”

  She laughed and nodded. The phone rang and she held up a finger while she answered it.

  I wondered why I hadn’t heard of this from my mother and aunt. They must have known that Sara and Gary had been fighting over the land. That would have only strengthened the argument that Gary had killed her. I’d heard about the developers wanting to put in a strip mall out along the coast highway. The town was very much divided on that score. Some were excited about the new stores and services it might bring in. Others were mourning the loss of the forest and the natural beauty of that area just outside town. And there was the give-them-an-inch camp that saw the strip mall taking over the whole town within months of its completion.

  Lisa hung up the phone and offered to leave a message for Andrews.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll try to reach him later. Hey, do you have any news on Gary Landess?” I knew I was pushing my luck, but I had to try.

  “No, he’s still back in holding. They’re waiting to transfer him to Grand Rapids. His lawyer has been in and out all day demanding this, that, and the other.” Her hair didn’t move when she shook her head.

  “Nothing new, then?”

  “Well, you know they don’t tell me much.” She frowned. “But, I’m pretty sure they’re treating it like it’s all wrapped up.”

  12

  I left the police station lost in thought and found myself a few minutes later in front of Stark’s place. How convenient. It concerned me that I was practically haunting the Grill—I didn’t want to be lumped in with the “regulars” who sat in the back booth and gossiped all afternoon—but these were desperate times. I needed to talk to Alex now.

  It was after the lunchtime rush, so the dining room was mostly empty. I stepped inside. A young man with hair in his eyes was bussing tables in the slow and distracted fashion of the truly bored. He didn’t notice me weave through the dining area and up to the kitchen door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  Just as I was about to push it open, it swung toward me and would have given me a black eye if I hadn’t jumped back in time.

  “Oh, sorry,” said the Baxter-petting, Tish-arguing man.

  “No problem. I was standing too close to the door,” I said. My mind raced through every person I had ever known trying to figure out how I knew this guy. It was the eyes that got me.

  “If you’re looking for Alex, he’s in the back.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder, smiled, and headed out the front door.

  The busboy gave him a “Later, dude” which didn’t help me at all.

  I blinked and squinted at the bright lights of the kitchen. After the dim dining room, I was surprised the waitstaff didn’t routinely run into each other through temporary blindness.

  I found Alex in the walk-in fridge, taking inventory of his produce. He dictated his list to a young man with a buzz cut and tattooed arms.

  “Clyde, hi. Did anyone see you come back here?” He looked past me over my shoulder.
r />   Not the warmest welcome, but I understood. Joe Stark had a strict policy on visitors to the kitchen.

  “I don’t think so. The busboy is in some alternate universe and the dining room is empty.”

  “Stark just left, Alex,” the assistant said.

  “Oh, good.” Alex took the top pages and handed the clipboard to his assistant. “Come on back to the office,” Alex said to me.

  “Hey, did you see a guy back here just before I came in? Shaved head? A little taller than me?”

  “Yeah, that’s Milo.”

  “Milo?”

  “Milo Jones.” Alex said the name slowly, as if he was speaking to a recalcitrant busboy. “He’s the land developer in charge of the strip mall project out by the highway. He’s also Joe’s son, which apparently gives him the right to muck around in my kitchen.”

  “That’s Milo Stark?” I could feel that my mouth was hanging open in an unattractive way, but I couldn’t help it. No wonder he’d looked familiar. But, he’d changed a lot since I’d seen him last. For one thing, he used to have gorgeous dark curly hair.

  “Milo Jones. I don’t know why they have different last names. Joe introduced him as his son.” Alex shrugged and sat at his desk, unbothered by the reappearance of Milo Stark.

  “Don’t you remember the Milo Stark scandal?” I said, and sat in the only other chair. “I was still in junior high when it happened. I guess it had all died down by the time you moved here in high school.” I was mostly mumbling to myself—a habit Alex adored.

  “What are you talking about?” He sighed, glowered at me, and set down his papers.

  “Milo has been gone for a long time. I heard he joined the army. Then I heard he was dead. No one knew what happened to him.” I was talking fast, feeling edgy as I remembered those days after Julia Wyatt went missing.

  “Well, clearly, he’s alive and well and planning on building a strip mall, when he isn’t interfering in my kitchen. Why the mystery?”

  “There was some trouble the summer after he graduated from high school. A girl went missing, and he was the last person seen with her.” I forced myself to slow down. “Of course, everyone in town got involved. The psychics all weighed in on whether she was dead or alive and where she might be.”

  There had been tarot readings and animal consultations at my house. I had still been young enough that I hadn’t turned my back on the feelings and messages I received. My mom and Vi had hounded me every morning for a dream report and watched me for any change in demeanor that could indicate I knew something. All I saw when I thought of Julia was bruises. I could hear her crying and saw the grayish-purple marks on her arms and legs, but nothing more. Grace had moved all the way to New York City by then, due to one of my dreams. My family was looking to me to solve the mystery of Julia’s disappearance and establish myself as the true heir to my grandmother’s talents.

  “Wow, I can’t believe I’ve never heard this. I thought Sara was the first murder in Crystal Haven.”

  “Well, technically that’s true. Julia’s body was never found, but her clothing was discovered in the woods. She and Milo dated for most of high school. He left town shortly after the investigation closed, and he hasn’t been seen since, as far as I know.”

  “He certainly hasn’t been acting like a fugitive from justice,” Alex said. “He’s been acting more like returning royalty if you ask me. He’s been in and out of town all spring, working on this project. And has no qualms about rearranging my kitchen and giving helpful hints to the staff. He and Stark are at each other, though. Joe doesn’t want the strip mall, so he’s always fighting the zoning.”

  “There’s not a lot of fatherly support?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I saw Milo arguing with Tish today. What could Tish have to do with him? And Milo knew Baxter. He stopped to pet him outside the restaurant the other day.”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he argues with plenty of people in town.”

  I left Alex to his work and was halfway to my car when I remembered I had wanted to tell him about the digging and Sara’s land.

  * * *

  I went home to get two things; a stack of targets and my gun.

  Thoughts and suspicions swirled in my head. I had to go do the only thing guaranteed to clear my mind: shoot things.

  I don’t like hunting. But I discovered while in the police academy that I like guns. I like to shoot them and to hold them and the sound they make and the power that shoots up your arm when the bullet leaves the barrel. Even though my police career was possibly over due to a shooting incident, I still hadn’t found a better way to think than in that moment before I pulled the trigger.

  I grabbed my Browning .22, since it is my favorite target pistol. I left my Glock locked in its box. I had no intention of shooting it until I decided whether I was returning to Ann Arbor.

  I stopped at the small cabin my father had built when my sister and I were young. We used to come out here and camp in the summer. Now my father used it chiefly to get away from my aunt. It was set on three acres of woodland that was about a half mile west of the hotly disputed land of the developer. I wondered what would happen to our place if Milo succeeded in building his strip mall.

  I walked out to the poor tree that had always served as the hanger for the target and hung the first one of the day. I walked away from the tree, turned, and took three deep breaths.

  As I took aim through the sight, I felt the calm enter my body. When my hand was steady, I held my breath, pulled the trigger, and braced for the recoil. I felt it go up my arm into my shoulder. My mind was mercifully blank. I unloaded the clip into the tree and felt more at peace than I had since I found Sara’s body lying motionless on her kitchen floor.

  A quick examination of the target showed I was a little off my game, but at least the shots were all near the center.

  I shredded four more targets until my arm got tired.

  I felt calmer, but no nearer to a solution. I was past caring whether the answer came from my rusty psychic sense or from that intuitive flash of insight that I sometimes felt when working a case. My “gift” was not in the habit of helping out when I wanted answers. It was more likely to give me riddles and scary visions. I still had questions without answers and was unsure how to proceed. I was suspicious of Milo, Tish was acting strangely, and I didn’t know whether Gary was capable of killing his ex-wife. And, after my mistake in the spring, I realized I no longer trusted my instincts.

  I packed the gun and targets away. The rutted trail that led to my dad’s cabin was barely passable in a car. The Jeep bounced along through the trees and I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled out onto the highway. I glanced in my rearview mirror and thought I saw a bald man walk into the woods. But when I slowed and turned my head to look, he had disappeared.

  13

  I arrived home to chaos. My mother’s angry voice came from inside the house. Dad and Seth met me in the front yard. I asked what was going on inside.

  “I was on the computer, I got distracted . . .” Seth began.

  “It looks like a 10-80 in there. I’m going back to work.”

  Dad had every Wednesday afternoon off, so I knew that was a lie. He shook his head and mumbled something about the “usual insanity” before slamming his car door.

  Seth looked to me for a translation.

  “10-80 is a bomb explosion,” I said.

  Seth nodded. “That’s about right. I’m really sorry,” Seth said.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “Not me—Tuffy.”

  Seth and I took the steps two at a time and followed the shrieks toward the living room.

  “Look at this room! It’s ruined!” my mother said, her arms out to encompass the wreckage.

  Tuffy was nowhere to be seen, but his handiwork was evident throu
ghout the room. The throw pillows were scattered everywhere, some of them gutted, their fiberfill innards spilling onto the carpet. Fringe had been ripped from its ribbon and the strands were draped on the furniture like tinsel on an overly adorned Christmas tree.

  “Now, Rose, you know he’s distraught. You’re scaring him. I won’t be able to find out why he did this if you don’t calm down,” Vi said. She was approaching my mother while patting the space in front of her as if trying to calm the very air around her.

  Unfortunately, my mother spotted Seth and me standing in the doorway.

  “You two are responsible for this.” She pointed a shaky finger at us. Seth stepped behind me.

  “Mom, what happened?”

  “Tuffy happened, that’s what. Where have you been? You should see the bathroom. It’s like a band of drunken teenagers got lost in there and tried to TP the entire room.”

  “Where’s Tuffy now?” I asked, glancing around the room.

  “Who knows? He disappeared as soon as I discovered what he’d done in here.”

  “You mean as soon as you started screaming,” Vi said.

  “Nana Rose, I’ll clean it up. I should have locked Tuffy in my room,” Seth said from over my shoulder.

  That statement left me speechless for a moment.

  “You will?” I asked.

  Seth nodded.

  “Let me go find Tuffy. I’m pretty sure I know where he is,” Seth said, and headed toward the bathroom.

  We traipsed after him.

  The sea of white assaulted us as we peeked into the room.

  “What the f—heck?” I said. I glanced at Seth.

  He looked at me with flat eyes. “Really? F—heck?”

  I shrugged.

  Seth bent to one knee by the toilet and talked quietly. After a moment, a quivering ball of fur emerged from behind the toilet bowl and rushed into Seth’s arms.