The Deadly Fields of Autumn

by Dorothy Bodoin

  “Then I won’t go to trial?”

  He winked at me. “Not this time, Jennet, but try to stay out of trouble, for all our sakes.”

  There was Mac’s signature condescension. In a way, I’d missed it.

  Welcome back, I thought.

  ~ * ~

  After a dinner of Camille’s stew and cornbread, after coffee and pound cake in front of the fireplace with Crane and Julia, I called Charlotte.

  “How are you settling in?” I asked.

  “It’s heaven to be home,” she said. “I’m just so happy. My poor Bronwyn was starving. She can’t get enough to eat. I have a Porterhouse for us tonight. I had too many days on bread and water,” she added.

  I told her about Anders’ capture and his appalling background.

  “Then you didn’t kill him?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it? Let someone else do it. I just want to forget the whole episode. I will, in time.”

  I agreed with her. Time was, after all, the greatest healer.

  “Come over soon and bring Bronwyn,” I said. “She can play with my dogs.”

  A few minutes later, Sue called.

  “I was delaying this as long as I could, but you have to know,” she said. “Bronwyn got away from me. I opened the door, and she just slipped through. I’ve tried to find her, but…”

  “She’s with Charlotte,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner. It’s been hectic.”

  And I told my story again.

  ~ * ~

  Leonora and Jake were my last visitors. By then, I didn’t think I would ever drink a cup of coffee again. While Crane and Jake took the dogs outside to play, I told Leonora what had happened.

  “I always miss out on all the action,” she said.

  “You’re lucky. For a while I thought Charlotte and I would be prisoners forever, and no one would ever know where we were.”

  Crane and Jake came in, windblown and red-cheeked with the entire collie pack prancing around them. Jake asked me to tell him about my experience.

  I obliged, but for the last time, I hoped. At least for tonight.

  “You’ll have a good story for your classes tomorrow,” Jake said.

  I was horrified. “I’ll never do that.”

  “We try to keep our personal lives private,” Leonora told her husband. “Nothing could be more personal than Jennet’s experience.”

  Jake was unconvinced. “Just imagine all the attention you’d get.”

  I could imagine only too well. My American Lit students would find my survival story laughable, and parts of it I could never reveal.

  No, there was a time for everything. As far as my Marston classes were concerned, this was a time for silence.

  Fifty-one

  I didn’t know whether it was too much company in one day, too much coffee, or a combination of both, but when I woke on Monday morning, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good day. I’d had a frightful dream of floating in mid-air over my house, unable to land. I had tried to breathe and couldn’t fill my lungs with air.

  It’s only a dream, I told myself. Get up. Be thankful that you can.

  I always gave myself the best advice.

  Crane was downstairs frying bacon, judging from the delicious smell traveling up the staircase. Our bedroom guardians, Halley and Misty, had deserted me. The scent of bacon can do that.

  I wanted to be up and alert before Crane left for his shift, but if I closed my eyes, I knew I would fall asleep. That would never do. Swinging out of bed, I took a breath, relieved to discover that it was possible, and walked to the window.

  Only a dream. Breathe.

  The view from the bedroom was dismal. Branches, stripped bare of leaves, blew back and forth against the sky. Yesterday Brent had said something about a warm-up with possible thunderstorms on Monday, a departure from Halloween’s early snowfall.

  Crazy weather.

  I took a red corduroy shirtwaist dress out of the closet and a double strand of pearls from my jewelry box. The color would cheer me on a dull day, and I was in dire need of cheer.

  The rush of depression took me unaware. Delayed reactions are the worst. I didn’t know where this one had come from or how long it planned to stay, but I couldn’t afford to let it overpower me. I had to teach today, and Mondays are particularly challenging.

  As I reached the landing, Candy dashed past me with a pancake hanging from her mouth. Crane’s shout followed her from the kitchen: “Candy, bring that back, you devil!”

  He should know it was too late.

  “Morning, honey,” he said as I kissed him. He was already in his uniform, complete with badge and gun, and ready for the day. “Do you think you can eat some pancakes?”

  “Mm, yes.”

  The food of home was so much better than dry bread and bottled water. Oddly, though, I hadn’t been able to eat much last night even though I thought I was hungry.

  Crane’s looked at me for a moment and didn’t say anything. Then he asked, “Are you sure you feel up to going to school today?”

  I thought about it, thought about trying to catch my breath while my class waited for instruction. What if I couldn’t do it?

  “Maybe I should take a sick day,” I said.

  “You’re been through an ordeal. You need to sit and do nothing. Or play with the dogs. Whatever you feel like doing.”

  “I could look for a recipe for Brent’s yule log,” I said.

  How exciting.

  Candy slipped back into the kitchen, unabashed, licking her chops. She padded up to Crane and fixed her eye on the stove, clearly looking for more.

  Crane frowned. “Lie down, Candy.”

  “I’ll call the school and Leonora,” I said.

  “Morning all.” Like Crane, Julia was already dressed. She wore her new winter-white suit with her hair in a French twist.

  “I’m staying home today,” I said.

  “Have fun. I’ll be home late. We have an English department meeting, then we’re going out to dinner.”

  I took a breath, thought about it, and was afraid for a moment that I couldn’t take another one. But I did. Was this a symptom of a panic attack? After breakfast, I’d have to search for the disorder on the Internet.

  “The dogs were out, and I fed them,” Crane said. “They have fresh water. Sit down, girls. Pancakes and bacon are coming up.”

  Crane was unusually cheerful this morning. I wondered why. It couldn’t be the weather, which looked even less promising from the kitchen window.

  We ate breakfast quickly; then Crane and Julia went their separate ways. I was alone with the dogs and a whole day to myself and no idea of what I wanted to do.

  Would my breathing return to normal if I rested all day?

  I didn’t want to have to see a doctor. With luck, this new obsession would pass. Breathing was something you just do. You don’t think about it.

  You’ll be all right. You don’t need a doctor’s opinion. Believe it.

  The worst was over, after all.

  ~ * ~

  The dogs enjoyed their extra walk and playtime, all finished before the gray sky turned dark and threatening. Thunder rumbled over the Corners. The storm would break earlier than expected.

  I rummaged through the stack of Gothic paperbacks and CDs I’d brought from the library. Here was a video I’d borrowed weeks ago and never watched, the one with rainbow colored horses on the cover.

  Horses reminded me of my Western movie. In the trauma of the Halloween episode, I’d almost forgotten my haunted television set. With a storm on the way, the conditions were ripe for the movie’s reappearance. That is, as soon as lightning flashed in the sky.

  Today might well be the day.

  In the kitchen I filled a bowl with popcorn. Halley and Candy followed me to the sofa and lay down, Misty beside me and Candy on the floor. The thunder grew louder, and Misty, who had never been afraid during storms before, moved closer to me. Sky
was already in her safe place, under the dining room table.

  I ate popcorn mindlessly and waited for the lightning. Rain began to fall, splattering on the windowpanes. Lulled by the sound, I felt my eyes grow heavy. And close.

  I woke to an inferno of wild sound.

  Lightning streaked lines of fire across the sky. For a fraction of a moment, the living room burst into unnatural brightness. In the woods across the lane, a tree crashed to the ground.

  Coming out of my doze, I hurried to the TV and turned it on. Shrill feminine laughter erupted from the screen. Instead of a dusty main street in the Old West, three women sat at a round table giggling and talking about a racy new best seller. These weren’t the faces I looked for.

  I turned the volume down, took another handful of popcorn from the bowl, and closed my eyes again.

  The storm worked its fiery magic all around the house, flinging lightning at the earth. Thunder rolled across the sky over the roof and back again. The splattering sound turned into smashing as rain beat against the windows, trying its best to break them.

  In spite of the noise, I felt drowsy. I closed my eyes to the chattering women and relaxed. I was breathing normally now. Thank God. And I needed more sleep.

  A jaunty tune woke me. The chatty women were gone. Animated lemons with fancy hats danced around a picture of a cake on a box of sponge cake mix.

  Either I’d missed the movie or it hadn’t played at all. I’d never know, but a quick glance at the clock told me I’d only been asleep for fifteen minutes. Usually, whole chunks of time passed while I lost myself in Susanna’s adventure.

  In those fifteen minutes, Candy and Misty had eaten all the popcorn and licked the bowl clean.

  “Naughty dogs,” I said half-heartedly. “Don’t be sick tonight.”

  I sighed, setting my disappointment aside. There would be another storm and another chance to visit Susanna’s world. I’d find out if she recovered from the gunshot wound and if Luke caught the bank robbers and who the new lady in town was.

  In the meantime it was early, and the rest of the day lay before me, taunting me with waiting chores and unfinished projects.

  I wished I’d put the red dress and pearls on and gone to school.

  ~ * ~

  In the afternoon, the sky cleared. Everyone I knew was away. Crane on the road, Julia lecturing her class, Annica serving late lunches at Clovers. Miss Eidt would be behind her desk in the library, twisting her rope of pearls as she waited for one of the library’s patrons to need her.

  I could go to the library.

  It didn’t occur to me to avoid the library after my horrible experience at the party. I could take back my overdue books, an errand I’d been putting off. It had been a never-to-be-repeated happening.

  Sensing my wandering attention, Candy reminded me with a vigorous nudge that the dogs would enjoy a walk now that I was home.

  “Later,” I told her. “We’ll go for two walks. All right?”

  At my desk I began collecting books to take back to the library. Here was The Place of Sapphires. Miss Eidt would enjoy that one. Here were the Western videos. We’d long since viewed them, but I hadn’t seen the one with the horses on the cover. I might as well return it.

  Before adding it to the stack, I took one last look at the cover. Rainbow colored horses galloping across the plains. It contained four Western shows that had played on television, obscure series I’d never heard of.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The fourth movie was titled Susanna of the West.

  Fifty-two

  Susanna of the West was an obscure series, a women’s Western that had a brief run in the mid-seventies. It had been cancelled after a mere fifteen episodes. The movie on the rainbow horses CD was a compilation of two of the programs. All those days I searched for the movie! It had never been a product of Hollywood.

  I saw the names of the cast, some of them now deceased. There was the handsome actor who played the part of Luke, the man who reminded me of Crane. And Susanna. I recognized the actress’ name. Older now, she still appeared on television from time to time.

  Maybe I could find more episodes. Someone, somewhere, must have loved Susanna’s story and copied them on VHS tapes. I didn’t have to wait for a lightning bolt to bring the movie to my haunted television set. I could search the Internet.

  I shut down the computer, for the first time optimistic about finding what I wanted. Another day.

  Wait! Wait a minute!

  This was a welcome development, but it didn’t solve the mystery of the TV. Why did the movie appear when lightning struck? Why was I the only one who had ever seen it? The mysteries seemed to multiply. Why did I see consecutive scenes even when the viewings were spaced over days? And why did Eustacia Stirling see Peter, Paul, and Mary in concert? Did we see our ideal show, the kind of program we enjoyed the most?

  Would I ever know? Did it matter now that I’d be able—I hoped—to find the whole series?

  Candy and Misty stood in front of me, wagging their tails, reminding me of my promise of a walk. The rain had stopped. Also, where was their fresh water?

  I pulled myself out of the fog of speculation that had wrapped itself around me. I had responsibilities in the here-and-now. Activities I loved. For instance, walking with my collies in the rain-fresh lanes of Foxglove Corners.

  As I spread gravy bones on a newspaper for my hungry crew, my thoughts took another direction. I remembered saying that perhaps a lightning strike had turned the television into a freak. I liked that idea better than Brent’s suggestion of a tiny CD imbedded in the TV’s inner workings.

  All, right. Accept it and go on from there.

  After all, not every mystery has a neatly tied up solution. Take the violets that grew in Brent’s wildflower field on Huron Court. What governed their bizarre behavior? Would I ever know? And did the phantom Christmas tree still exist on some unknown plane? Would I turn on the haunted TV one day and see Susanna and Luke in each other’s arms?

  Perhaps. Who knew? I’d have to wait and see.

  I took the leashes from their hooks and contemplated which three dogs I would take for the first walk of the day.

  ~ * ~

  Crane came home with a large box that attracted the immediate attention of every one of the seven collies.

  “I hope you didn’t start dinner,” he said. “I have a pizza.”

  I’d thought about everything except cooking. “We could finish the stew and cornbread.”

  “Save it for another day. We’re going to have pizza tonight. I bought a large one so there’ll be some for Julia. I’m glad she’ll be home late. Not that I don’t love her, but…”

  “I know.”

  I plowed through the ravenous collies and went straight into his arms. “I want it to be just us tonight.”

  “And forever,” he said.

  Meet Dorothy Bodoin

  Dorothy Bodoin lives in Royal Oak, Michigan, a city which is an hour’s drive from the town that serves as a setting for her Foxglove Corners cozy mystery series. Dorothy graduated from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English, and taught secondary English for several years until she left education to write full time. She has written one Gothic romance and six novels of romantic suspense, along with the Foxglove Corners series.

  Having lost her best friend, rough collie Wolf Manor Kinder Brightstar, in December, she is at present living without a collie. Kinder was a rough collie. For those unfamiliar with the term, think of Lassie. The smooth collie is exactly like Lassie except with short hair. Dorothy hopes by the time her next Foxglove Corners book is released, she’ll have a collie in her home again.

  Works From The Pen Of Dorothy Bodoin

  Treasure at Trail’s End (Gothic romance) - The House at Trail’s End seemed to beckon to Mara Marsden, promising the happy future she longed for. But could she discover its secret without forfeiting her life?

  Ghost across the Water
(romantic suspense)—March, 2006—Water falling from an invisible force and a ghostly man who appears across Spearmint Lake draw Joanna Larne into a haunting twenty-year-old mystery.

  Darkness at Foxglove Corners—Foxglove Corners offers tornado survivor Jennet Greenway country peace and romance, but the secret of the yellow Victorian house across the lane holds a threat to her new life. (#1)

  Cry for the Fox—In Foxglove Corners, the fox runs from the hunters, the animal activists target the Hunt Club, and a killer stalks human prey on the fox trail. (#2)

  Winter’s Tale—On her first winter in Foxglove Corners Jennet Greenway battles dognappers, investigates the murder of the town’s beloved veterinarian, and tries to outwit a dangerous enemy. (#3)

  A Shortcut through the Shadows—Jennet Greenway’s search for the missing owner of her rescue collie, Winter, sets her on a collision course with an unknown killer. (#4)

  The Witches of Foxglove Corners—With a haunting in the library, a demented prankster who invades her home, and a murder in Foxglove Corners, Halloween turns deadly for Jennet Greenway. (#5)

  The Snow Dogs of Lost Lake—A ghostly white collie and a lost locket lead Jennet Greenway to a body in the woods and a dangerous new mystery. (#6)

  The Collie Connection—As Jennet Greenway’s wedding to Crane Ferguson approaches, her happiness is shattered when a Good Samaritan deed leaves her without her beloved black collie, Halley, and ultimately in grave danger. (#7)

  A Time of Storms—When a stranger threatens her collie and she hears a cry for help in a vacant house, Jennet Ferguson suspects that her first summer as a wife may be tumultuous. (#8)

  The Dog from the Sky—Jennet’s life takes a dangerous turn when she rescues an abused collie. Soon afterward, a girl vanishes without a trace. Ironically she had also rescued an abused collie. Is there a connection between the two incidents? (#9)

  Spirit of the Season—Mystery mixes with holiday cheer as a phantom ice skater returns to the lake where she died, and a collie is accused of plotting her owner’s fatal accident. (#10)