Pall in the Family

by Dawn Eastman

  The dog must have sensed we were nearby, because he stopped fighting with Stark and scanned the trees looking for us. Stark stood very still, his head cocked, listening.

  “Hello? Who’s there?” His face was in shadow, his long hair falling over his eyes.

  I gestured to Seth to stay back in the trees, and I stepped forward into the clearing.

  “Hi, Joe. Thanks for catching my dog.” I willed my voice to stay calm, but I could barely hear myself over the pounding in my ears. All my alarm bells were clanging.

  Joe’s mouth formed a smile.

  “This isn’t your dog.”

  I forced myself to take another step forward. I felt Baxter leaning into my leg, his chest vibrating with a growl that began deep in his throat. “I’m taking care of him for the owner.”

  “The owner is dead.” Stark put Tuffy down. The dog snarled and bit into Stark’s ankle. Stark’s other leg came around and caught Tuffy in his back leg. He let out a yelp of pain and the little furry body flew several feet before landing still and silent just a yard or two from where Seth was hiding. Stark bent down to his shovel, and when he stood, he had a gun in his hand pointed directly at me.

  Baxter growled and pulled on the leash, I held firm with both hands. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I heard loud breathing to my left.

  I felt Seth grab my gun from my waistband. I turned and saw him, his face streaked with tears, aiming my gun with a shaky hand at Stark.

  Stark let out a bark of laughter. “Call off your bodyguard, Ms. Fortune.”

  “Seth, put the gun down.” I took a step toward him, but Stark shook his head and motioned with his gun that I should stay put. My body felt like ice as I watched Seth grip the gun, my mind playing out every sort of horrible outcome. The safety was still on, and Seth didn’t know how to shoot, as far as I knew. But Stark didn’t know that, and he’d already killed two people who’d gotten in his way.

  “Seth, listen to her,” said a new voice. Milo stepped out of the trees toward Seth. He didn’t even glance at his stepfather. “Seth, you don’t want to do this. It will follow you for the rest of your life, believe me. Put the gun down and no one will get hurt.”

  “Tuffy’s already hurt!” Seth said.

  Milo inched closer to him. “Seth, you’re not a killer. Put it down.”

  Seth glanced at me. I nodded. Baxter moaned as if to join in the chorus of reason.

  Seth let his arm drop, and Milo stepped forward to take the gun. He put his arm around Seth, who shrugged him off and ran to where Tuffy had fallen.

  “You shouldn’t come to the woods at night, Ms. Fortune. You never know what might happen,” Stark said.

  This was it, I thought. In my effort to protect my family by sending them on a wild Milo chase, I had left myself open to danger. And since Seth was always with me these days, he was in danger, too. In the distance, I heard something crashing through the forest. And a siren.

  “Stark, put the gun away. It’s over,” Milo said. He pointed my gun at Stark.

  I heard a ka-chink to my right. Cecile held a hunting rifle up to her shoulder, aimed at me. I wasn’t shocked, based on Tish’s diary entry, but was angry at myself for momentarily forgetting that she was just as dangerous as Joe.

  Stark laughed and shook his head. “It’s not over for—” he began.

  His next words were drowned out by the sound of a car approaching through the trees, the siren flashing and wailing on top. Tom pulled the wheel hard to the right but too late to stop it from crashing into a huge oak at the edge of the clearing. We were all momentarily distracted by its arrival. The driver’s side was blocked by the tree, but the passenger door flew open, and Mac climbed out. He took a step toward us, his arms outstretched just like in my dream.

  I turned to warn him to stay back, and my hand loosened on the leash, which was all Baxter needed. I felt Baxter’s low growl, then the leather leash ripped into my hand as it was pulled out of my grasp. He launched himself at Stark with a deep bark. Joe put his arm up to protect himself and, just as Baxter was about to land on him, the gun fired. Dog and man went down in a pile of fur and stringy hair. Stark rolled out from under Baxter and started crab-walking away, but the dog didn’t move. I heard a deep howl begin off to my left. Tuffy had come around and made the most mournful sound I had ever heard.

  The howl was deafening in the otherwise quiet clearing. The car engine hissed, and the headlights lit up the woods to the north of us. The bubble on top spun, and the flashing lights revealed Milo wrestling with Stark for possession of the gun. I caught a glimpse of Cecile running into the trees, but I couldn’t deal with her until I knew Seth was safe and I had checked on Baxter. I signaled Seth to stay on the ground near Tuffy. I saw Stark’s gun drop to the forest floor as Milo slammed his knee into Stark’s gut.

  I crawled toward Baxter. He still had not moved. I reached his long body and ran my hand along his chest. It was wet. I looked up to see Mac running toward us, and back at my hand, covered in blood.

  Mac ran past me and pulled Stark away from Milo. Stark’s gun lay glinting in the moonlight just a few feet from me. I grabbed it. Seth had moved closer to Baxter, and Tuffy continued his keening. As Mac clicked the handcuffs onto Stark’s wrist, Tom finally climbed out of the police car. Alex and Diana emerged from the trees.

  “I tried to text you about Cecile,” Diana said, as she ran over to where I sat with Baxter. “We saw her headed this way with a rifle.”

  Stark’s gun lay in my hand, and I could see Sara and then Tish falling to the ground. I shook my head to clear it, and then focused on the section of woods into which Cecile had disappeared.

  Alex had already moved to check on Seth and Tuffy. They seemed to be examining Tuffy’s back leg.

  I stood and told Seth to stay down near the dogs. I gestured at Diana to check on Baxter, although the hopeless dread was already settling around my shoulders. The red and white lights of the cruiser reflected off the closest trees, leaving the rest of the woods in darkness. I wondered for a moment if Cecile could be out there hiding and decided she had probably run toward the road to get away. I was up and headed into the woods before I had time to reconsider.

  “Tom, Baxter needs help!” I ran past him into the darkness and heard Mac’s voice calling me as I slipped between the trees.

  I tried to calm down and focus. Tuffy’s howl was masking all other sounds in the woods and, with my back against a tree, I tried to listen past his racket to anything that might give away Cecile’s location. I continued toward the road, pausing every minute or so to listen. Tuffy finally stopped his noise, which had me concerned. Was Baxter dead? Was Tuffy hurt and unable to continue?

  As I got farther from the clearing, the lights from the squad car no longer penetrated, and I moved through the trees with only weak silver moonlight to guide me. It was eerily quiet. No animals were moving about, no owls hooted. Then I heard it.

  Scuffling and swearing and thumping. I followed the sound, being careful to stay under the cover of the trees. I saw two people struggling on the ground. Long white hair blended with blonde spiky hair as Cecile and Vi rolled around on the mossy forest floor. I entered the melee just as Mom cocked Cecile’s gun, which caused the rumpled twosome on the ground to freeze.

  “Vi, what are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m subduing a suspect.” She sat up and moved away from Cecile, who stayed on the ground. Both of them had dirt streaks on their faces and twigs and leaves hanging off their hair and clothing.

  Mom walked closer and pointed the rifle at Cecile. I went to help Vi get up. She struggled to stand and favored her right leg. I grabbed her elbow and pulled her up out of her crouch. She leaned against me and began brushing leaves off her skirt.

  “What should I do, Vi?” Mom didn’t glance our way but continued to point the gun at Cecile.

  Cecile lay p
erfectly still, mesmerized by the barrel of her rifle. She wisely chose not to speak. Her eyes flicked from Vi to me to the gun. Her hope of escape evaporated when Mac burst upon us.

  “What the—?” he said as he took in the scene: Vi and me covered in dirt and leaves, Mom holding a gun on Cecile, who also looked like she’d been dragged through the forest.

  I tilted my head toward Cecile, and Mac went to her and pulled her to her feet. Mom lowered the weapon.

  We trudged back through the woods. Vi leaned heavily on me, and I half carried her most of the way. Mom and Mac flanked Cecile, who walked with her head down, refusing to speak.

  * * *

  The next hour was a blur filled with flashing lights from the police cruiser and Tuffy’s howl. The little dog had started up again and didn’t stop until he and Baxter had been taken away to the emergency vet clinic. Andrews had radioed that shots had been fired, and when the ambulance arrived, Mac bullied them into transporting the dogs to the vet. I remembered Seth’s face, young and scared, wet with tears, as he asked if I thought Baxter would be okay. I said I didn’t know, because if I told him what I really thought, we would have stood there all night crying.

  The Starks were taken into custody for the murders of Sara, Tish, and Mike Jones. I had figured out that much on my own, but I still had a long list of questions. Milo admitted he was in town to find evidence that his stepfather had killed his father in the hunting accident. He’d been digging for the rifle all this time. He filled us in on the rest: Tish had seen Cecile leave with a gun and come back without one on the night of Mike’s death all those years ago. She’d been babysitting that night and had suspected they had killed him, but she was just a kid, and no one would listen to her.

  Tish kept the secret as she grew up. No one had believed her when she tried to tell them about what she saw, and then she got scared that her knowledge would put her in danger, so she let it drop. Then, two years ago, she ran into Milo in Chicago, and he asked her to do a reading for him. He said he was interested in learning about his past. She faked the reading and told him that his father’s murderer had buried the gun in the woods. Milo launched a plan to get access to the land and dig up the gun to link it to the murderer. They’d been arguing recently because she finally told him that she had faked the reading and only assumed the gun had been buried out there. They both thought Joe was the killer.

  According to Milo, Tish said she had lost the ability to do readings after the fake one. Either it was guilt or some cosmic consequence, but her practice fell off. She was desperate to fix things.

  “It makes sense now,” Mom said. “Tish had been irritable and stressed for months. She went to tons of conferences to try to improve her skills. Whenever I tried to talk to her about it, we ended up arguing.”

  Sara’s séance accusing someone of being a murderer pushed them all over the edge. Tish thought it could have been the Starks Sara was referring to, Milo thought it was his stepfather, and Cecile thought Sara actually had knowledge about Mike’s death. I secretly wondered how much the newspaper stories had to do with Sara’s séance. She may have been playing a very dangerous game of trying to draw out the murderer. I wasn’t sure we’d ever know what really happened that night, except that it triggered everything that had come after.

  I left it to Mac and Tom to sort out all the conflicting stories. I barely had time to thank Mac for coming to the rescue before he headed back to the station to begin the long process of building a case against Cecile and Joe. Alex offered to take Seth and me to the vet clinic, and we gratefully accepted.

  29

  I opened my eyes the next morning and squinted at the brightness. Every muscle ached from having been dragged around the woods by Baxter the night before.

  Baxter. I tried not to think about him. He had been so brave. I wished I could take back even one of those times I had pushed away his wet nose. I would have placed a large bet that Baxter would have run for cover before ever protecting me, and I was thankful I had been wrong. He’d been my very own secret service dog and now he was . . .

  I got out of bed, pushing all thoughts of Baxter out of my head. It would be even worse dealing with Seth if I was teary-eyed. I went downstairs in search of coffee and news.

  In the kitchen, Mom came up to me with tears in her eyes and hugged me.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” I patted her back and tried to pull away.

  “No, it’s not. You could have been killed.” She squeezed once more and released me, but gripped my hand. “It was bad enough when you were in Ann Arbor and I imagined you to be in danger all the time, but for it to happen here, right under my nose.” Her lower lip quivered as she fought for control.

  “Mom, it just got out of hand is all.” I sat at the table and focused on the coffee she slid in front of me.

  “It wouldn’t have gotten ‘out of hand’ if you had known what to expect going in.” She stood in front of me, arms crossed. “Clyde, you wouldn’t go into a building on a police call without assistance, would you? If you were expecting trouble?”

  My mind flashed again to Jadyn. I remembered the adrenaline racing through my system as we caught sight of him and chased him through the alleys behind the apartment building. I knew I wouldn’t have done that if my partner hadn’t been with me. I would have called for backup; the kid would have gotten away.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then why do you go through life without using the support that has been given to you?” She had her hands out, pleading. “Why do you insist on ignoring your gift when it could save your life?”

  “It wouldn’t help, it never helps. In fact, I did know something about last night. I had a dream about it. It didn’t help in the least, except I thought it was Mac who was going to be shot.”

  “Is that why you started avoiding him?” She sat across from me.

  “What?”

  “He told me. He said things were going just fine between the two of you, and then you withdrew for no reason. He didn’t understand it.”

  “I thought I could protect him if we stayed apart,” I said without meeting her eyes.

  “The thing about your gift, Clyde, is it will never be of any use until you learn how to understand it. You can’t pay attention to some of it and not all of it. You have to know what you’re doing, or you’re going to end up getting hurt.”

  “Mom, when was Mac here?”

  “He came by looking for you after Tish’s funeral. He spent some time with Vi and then left.”

  “Who spent some time with me?” Vi clumped into the kitchen using Mac’s cane. She clearly hadn’t slept much and was covered in scratches from her brawl with Cecile.

  “Mac,” we said in unison.

  “Yeah, he had it all figured out.” She flicked her hand and made her way to the table to sit with us.

  “What are you talking about?” Mom said.

  “He said he needed me to keep everyone interested in Milo so no one would get hurt.” She gestured around the table. “You can see how well that worked out.”

  “Start at the beginning, Vi,” I said.

  “He came here after Tish’s funeral and said he’d been looking into old cases. He suspected that Joe or Cecile or both of them had . . . killed Mike all those years ago.” Her voice trailed off, and she stared past me out the kitchen window.

  “So, why didn’t he arrest them and save us all this trouble?” Mom’s brow was furrowed, and a storm was brewing in her eyes. She got up and went to the coffeemaker, a reflex when she expected a long conversation.

  Vi pulled herself together and summarized Mac’s investigation. Mac had followed leads that were on Sara’s computer. She’d been investigating Milo. When Milo came to town, Sara’s lawyer instincts kicked in, and she decided she should know more about this guy who was trying to change the town and was causing trouble between her and Gary. In researching Milo, she f
ound the newspaper reports about Julia, and that led her to the older reports about Mike Jones. Joe and Cecile were big believers in psychic phenomena. Mac assumed that, when Sara had accused someone at the séance of being a murderer, they thought she knew more than she did.

  “What a mess.” Mom put the coffeepot on the table with milk and sugar. “But why kill Tish?”

  “I think I can answer that,” I said. “Tish knew all along that the Starks had been involved somehow. She either let it slip that she knew or . . .” I stopped, remembering Cecile hiding in the bushes while I told Tom that I was sure Tish knew something.

  I put my head back in my hands. Cecile must have gone straight to Joe and told him Tish was a threat.

  “Mac thinks that Milo told them he was on to them and why,” said Vi.

  My head popped up and I looked at her.

  “According to Mac, Milo had been very up-front with Cecile about what he was doing in town. He wanted to find the gun that killed his father and prove it was Joe who had pulled the trigger.” Vi stirred her coffee.

  “But he never suspected that his mother was involved as well, because Tish never told him that part.” I finished the tale. Maybe it wasn’t what Cecile had overheard that caused Tish’s death, but it probably didn’t help.

  I put my head down on the table, thinking about the mess we had made, and how I had put my family in danger.

  Vi patted my arm. “You know, we were all in it together. We all wanted to catch the killer.”

  * * *

  Tuffy and Seth shuffled in looking for breakfast, and we were distracted by looking at Tuffy’s cast. We’d called Gary from the vet clinic the night before to get permission to treat his broken leg. When Gary heard how much it was going to cost, he offered to let me keep the dog. He admitted that he and Tuffy had never gotten along, and he was almost bankrupt from his gambling debts. Seth was now the proud owner of a shih tzu. Grace was not going to be thrilled. The vet said Tuffy would have to wear the cast for about a month and would need lots of care during that time. Seth had already become Tuffy’s servant, so not much had changed on that front. We all purposely avoided talking about Baxter.