by Kelly Irvin
“Go for help.”
She swallowed. Her throat was drier than a stale saltine cracker. “I’m leaving now.” She tucked the napkin around her bleeding sole, tugged on her shoes, and went to the bottom of the staircase. “Just close the door on your way out, if you don’t mind.”
Her voice sounded far too timid. “Even if you do mind.”
Ignoring the stab of pain in her foot, she trotted double time out to the phone shack. The tiny building with its two windows, one chair, and rickety old table steamed with heat and humidity. The light on the ancient cassette recorder blinked red. She ignored it and punched in 911. The dispatcher had a kind, calm bass. Mary Katherine explained and hung up.
Now what? It would take one of the deputies a good bit to get to her place. She sat in the oak chair Moses had made for that purpose.
The light was still blinking.
She punched the button.
The voice, though slow and scratchy on the old tape that had been rewound too many times, clearly belonged to Dottie. Her southern twang had deepened, a sure sign of agitation. “Mary Kay, I need you. Please come. As soon as you get this. I know it might be a while, but come.”
She strung out a while for three long seconds, like any transplant from Texas would. The recording ended with a sigh and hiss. It could have been a sob.
“What is it, Dottie? What’s wrong?” Mary Katherine spoke to the machine. She knew it wouldn’t speak back. She wasn’t an idiot.
She had to go to Dottie.
But the sheriff ’s deputy was on the way. She’d dialed 911. She couldn’t leave. They would think she’d been kidnapped or Dottie’s serial killer had chopped her up and buried her in the backyard.
They didn’t know about the serial killer. Thank goodness.
She slammed the phone shack door and raced across the yard—or her version of what racing would look like if she wasn’t a sixty-year-old mother of ten who rarely walked faster than a trot and had a cut on her foot. In the house she snatched a pen from the desk in the front room and scribbled a note. Gone to Dottie Manchester’s house. My friend needs me. Mess in kitchen. I’ll be back when I can. Mary K.
The police would be aggravated with her. So be it.
She lifted her skirt and ran. She was getting better at it.
TWENTY
Mary Katherine rarely wished for a car to whisk her across the country. Traveling by buggy offered time to enjoy the countryside and muse on new twists and turns for her stories. Not today. It took more than thirty minutes to drive the buggy into town. By the time she arrived, a long, black funeral home hearse, waxed to a sparkle in the afternoon sun, was parked in front of Dottie’s two-story wood-frame house with its black wrought-iron fence. Next to it was a gray Suburban. No ambulance. No fire truck. Firefighters were the first responders for Daviess County Fire and Rescue. She knew that from her experience with the fire at Amish Treasures.
Dread, black and heavy, weighted down her shoulders. Legs like lead, she climbed down from the buggy, trudged across the grass, and headed through the gate. A knot of anxiety twisted in the pit of her stomach. Dottie had planted rosebushes on trellises along the porch. The lavish red, pink, and yellow flowers were fading into fall, withered from a long summer. Dying.
Mary Katherine paused at the open screen door. Voices murmured inside. Gut-wrenching sobs drowned them out. “No, no, don’t take him. Not yet. I’m not ready yet.”
“Oh, Dottie.” Fierce memories burst from behind barricades to the dark corners of her brain. The world disappeared, the future disappeared, in that moment when a person realized the love of her life had gone on ahead without her. Surviving for the next second, let alone the next day, didn’t seem possible. The goal became to draw a single breath. If that worked, a person endeavored to draw the next one and then one more. The bright colors of laughter and joy snuck away, leaving behind a grimy world filled with shadowy gray if-onlys and whys.
“You have to go in.”
I know. I’m gathering my courage.
“She needs you.”
I know.
“You’ve been where she’s been right now. Gott has sent you to comfort her.”
I don’t know if I can, Moses.
“You can. You’re uniquely suited. Gott knows what He’s doing.”
She dug a tissue from her canvas bag, wiped her nose, took a breath, and slipped through the door.
Dottie knelt on the carpet in the living room next to Walt, who lay on his back, eyes closed, mouth slack. His shirt was torn open, revealing thick gray hair on a chest dotted with white patches the paramedics had left. Mary Katherine fastened her gaze on his face. Desperate to look away, she found her gaze locked on the purple-gray loose skin of his jowls. The cowboy with the belly laugh had slipped away. A shell of a body remained, his features cold and blank.
Don’t look. Focus on Dottie. Dottie needs you.
She swallowed the bitterness in the back of her throat. Her stomach heaved. She sucked in air and ripped her gaze from Walt. He didn’t need her anymore. He rested in eternity.
Joe Elliott, the Daviess County coroner, stood next to her, a clipboard in his hand, scribbling furiously on form after form. Christopher Johnson and Lee McKee from the funeral home attempted to cover up Walt with a white sheet so they could load him on the gurney.
Dottie swatted Christopher’s hand. “You can’t have him. Not yet. He needs a fresh shirt. Look what they did to his shirt. It was brand new from Ray’s Western Wear.”
She looked up at Mary Katherine, her expression imploring. Her face was blotchy with tears and her nose running. She hiccupped another sob. “He would be so embarrassed for anyone to see him like this. Tell them.”
“Dottie, honey, it’s okay.” Mary Katherine knelt and wrapped her arm around her friend. Dottie’s thin body shook. Mary Katherine hugged her close. “They’ll take him over to the funeral home and get him fixed up. You can pick out another nice shirt, his favorite one, and a pair of those Levi’s he likes. We’ll take them over later. He’s already wearing his favorite boots.”
“He likes the ostrich-skin boots better for dress-up.”
“Then we’ll take those too.”
“Oh, Mary Kay.” She rested her forehead on Mary Katherine’s shoulder. Her sobs poured out, the tears wetting Mary Katherine’s dress. “This can’t be happening. It can’t.”
But it was. The unreality of it would last for a few hours, maybe a day, then the numbness would set in. Followed by an anger that threatened to set the world on fire. Mary Katherine nodded at Christopher. He and Lee heaved Walt’s body onto the gurney as gently as they could under the circumstances. He was a big man, big in body, big in heart and soul. To think he was gone didn’t seem possible. They grunted a little. Mary Katherine smoothed Dottie’s hair, keeping her head turned away from seeing her husband’s undignified progress onto the gurney.
They covered him gently with a blanket as if he might get cold. Moses died in summer. They still covered him with a blanket. Mary Katherine shivered. She looked away and her gaze connected with Joe’s. He shook his head and gave her a ghost of a smile. He was a muscular, fit man with rimless glasses and thinning silver hair. He looked like a runner. He’d likely done this hundreds of times in his career as a doctor who also served as the county’s coroner. “Natural causes. Cardiac arrest. I gave Walt’s doctor a call. He’s had heart disease, hypertension, the works, for years.” He started to say something else, but his gaze swung to Dottie. The wrinkles in his forehead knotted. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Come see us when you’re ready to make arrangements.” Christopher’s voice was gruff. He’d done this hundreds of times too, but nothing in his tone suggested it had become rote. “There’s no rush since you two already picked out your caskets and paid for our services. We’ll have everything ready for you. We’re so very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Manchester.”
Mary Katherine helped Dottie to her feet.
“Thank you.” Dottie’s voice quavere
d. She lifted the blanket and patted Walt’s face, then kissed his cheek hard once, then again more gently. “Take care of him for me.”
“We will, ma’am. I promise.”
Her knees buckled. Mary Katherine grabbed her around the waist and guided her to the La-Z-Boy recliner that sat next to an enormous chocolate-brown sectional couch. They were situated facing a big-screen TV that took up most of the far wall. The Manchesters were famous for their football game parties and movie parties and cribbage parties. All those friends would need to be called.
Dottie sank into the chair. She looked two sizes smaller than she had the day before. Hands in her lap, Mary Katherine sat on the edge of the couch. They itched to do something, anything, that would keep her from having to look at the face of her own grief after all these years. “Let me make you a cup of tea. It’ll calm your nerves.”
“No, it won’t. But thank you.” Dottie tugged at her silver hair with trembling hands. It stood out in ratted tangles around her head. “It’s a nightmare. I’ll wake up and it’ll be over. Won’t it?” She stared at Mary Katherine as if she didn’t recognize her. “I’d just walked into the house after work. I always come in the back door through the kitchen because it’s closest to the garage door. Binkie was barking—one of the paramedics locked him in the guest bedroom, poor thing is probably beside himself—Cleo kept wrapping herself around my feet so I couldn’t make my way across the room.”
Mary Katherine nodded. She didn’t need to know all this, but Dottie needed to tell the story the way she needed to tell it. Cleo, a Siamese with burnished cream-colored fur and sapphire eyes, sashayed across the room and leaped into Dottie’s lap. Likely she was better medicine for what ailed Dottie than a cup of tea.
“I yelled out to Walt. He called me earlier complaining of indigestion and a headache, so I knew he was home. Besides, I pulled into the garage next to his truck like I always do.”
“And he didn’t answer you?”
“No, he did. He was in the living room. The TV was on. He was watching a rerun of American Pickers. He loves that show.” She chuckled for a second. The sound petered out and her watery smile faded as the realization that he would never watch his program again raged in her face. She swallowed. “I came on in, ready to scold him for eating a steak last night and french fries and a big bowl of ice cream. He had a little helping of broccoli like that was supposed to make it all okay. Then he wouldn’t go for a walk with me. He said he was too full.”
She stared into space, her hands sliding through Cleo’s fur. The cat’s purr reverberated in the split second of silence. “I came into the room.” Her voice broke. She swallowed again. Tears teetered in her eyes, then slid down her cheeks, leaving tracks in her powdery foundation. “He got up to give me a squeeze the way he always does. He looked at me kind of funny. His hand went to his shoulder. He took a few steps. Then he sank to his knees.” Her hands covered her eyes as if she could block out the memory. Cleo meowed, at her owner’s distress or because she demanded more petting.
Dottie’s hands resumed smoothing the cat’s fur. “I ran to him. He panted. It hurt. He looked at me like he wanted me to explain what was happening. Then he keeled over. He stopped breathing.”
She bit her lower lip and shook her head. “He wasn’t breathing. I called 911 and started CPR.” Her hands moved from Cleo to her shoulders and rubbed. “I pushed on his heart just like I learned over at the community center. Over and over. My arms hurt from doing it so long.” Her head drooped. She sobbed. Yowling, Cleo leaped from her lap and scurried under the couch.
Mary Katherine covered the space between the chair and the couch in two long strides. “You did everything you could. You did everything right.” She pulled Dottie into a hug. The woman’s head rested on her shoulder. Her entire body shook with the force of her sobs. “There was nothing more you could do.”
“I couldn’t save him.”
“You couldn’t. It was his time to go.” Mary Katherine closed her eyes. Those words hadn’t helped her after Moses died. They wouldn’t help Dottie now.
Moses had been gone by the time she went into the bedroom to see why he hadn’t come out for breakfast. His skin was cool. When she shook his arm, his head lolled to one side. The teasing words calling him a lazy old man had died on her lips. She climbed into bed next to him under the covers, thinking she could somehow warm him. She said his name over and over again, determined to call him back by sheer force of will.
He never answered.
Dottie’s head jerked up. Horror etched lines in her tear-streaked face. “How will I tell the kids? Mary Kay, how will I tell them?”
“Gently.” The same way she’d told each of her children. Angus, Beulah, and Barbara were at home that morning. She told them first. Angus went to fetch Cyrus, who told Freeman. With the men’s help, she told the others. The simple truth. God had taken Moses home. “Call your sister first. She can come up from Oklahoma to help you.”
Dottie nodded. “Walt’s brother and his parents. They’re eighty-five and eighty-six. They’re in Lampasas, Texas.”
“Maybe your daughters can stop and pick them up.”
Dottie’s unfocused gaze skipped around the room. “He wanted a church service with all the trimmings. Singing and praising God that brother Walter has gone to the Lord. That’s the way the Baptists do it. We wrote it all out last year. I never thought we’d need those papers so soon.”
“No one does.”
Dottie threw her arms around Mary Katherine in a stranglehold hug. “I’m so sorry for what you went through. I saw it. How you suffered after Moses died. I thought that would never happen to me. I don’t know why. It’s ridiculous. Of course it could happen to me. It just did.”
“We don’t like to think about it.” Mary Katherine loosened Dottie’s grip. “Let me start some tea. We’ll make a list of who needs to be notified and what needs to be done. After you’ve had your tea, you can call the kids.”
“You’ll stay with me while I do it?”
“Absolutely.” She helped Dottie to her feet. “You can count on me.”
TWENTY-ONE
The soft whine was the first clue something had changed. Ezekiel stood on the pieced rug inside his front door and listened. The whine faded away. He waited. Paws made a clickety-clack sound on the wooden floor. An animal had somehow weaseled its way into his home. Raccoon? No, something heavier. Bobcat. He swallowed a snort. That would be quite a shock for both of them. He edged toward the living room. A butterscotch, midsized dog loped down the hallway. Its tail whipped, its big ears flopped, its tongue hung from its mouth, slobber trailing in the air.
Its yip-yip held a note of joy at Ezekiel’s arrival even though they’d never met before. The dog seemed to have little control over its oversized paws as it skidded and landed at Ezekiel’s feet. He leaned over and addressed the stranger directly. “How did you get in here?”
The dog barked and jumped up on Ezekiel, paws reaching to his waist, nearly knocking him back. It was a he. Still a puppy despite his size. His fur smelled as if he’d rolled in roadkill. His breath stank even worse. “Down, down.”
He dropped into a sitting position, but his snout still smiled. Drool dripped on the floor. “So you’re smart. Gut boy. That doesn’t mean you can stay.”
“Oh good, you met the dog.” Burke came through the door behind Ezekiel. He wore a gray, long-sleeved T-shirt, baggy blue jeans, a New York Yankees baseball cap, and his usual ragged tennis shoes. Apparently he’d used his paycheck to buy himself some warmer clothes at the Walmart in Chillicothe. “I wanted to introduce you, but you got home earlier than I expected.”
Ezekiel moved out of his way. The dog followed. “Andrew came in. He insisted on taking over my shift. What is this dog doing in here?”
“You needed a dog. I thought I saw a fishing pole around here.” Burke strode past Ezekiel and headed toward the hall. The dog stayed with Ezekiel. “Kenneth and I are going fishing. Want to come?”
&nb
sp; “He stinks. What makes you think I need a dog?”
“He smells like dog, but you can give him a bath later. It’s too quiet around here at night.”
“I like quiet. Why don’t you have a dog?”
“It’s too hard to travel with a dog.” Burke tugged two fishing poles from the storage closet at the end of the hall and returned. A satisfied grin stretched across his grizzled face. “Come on, let’s go fishing.”
Ezekiel took the pole. Force of habit. He never turned down the opportunity to fish. “Wouldn’t early morning be better?”
“Not for channel catfish.” A note of mock horror resonated in Burke’s voice. “Besides, it’s not about the fish.”
“Does Leah know? Kenneth isn’t allowed to go to the creek anymore without one of them.”
“I asked. She gave her blessing. I guess my lesson in fine cuisine convinced her.”
The chili had been a three-indigestion-tablet delight.
“He’s on his way down.” Burke headed for the door. “Bring your dog.”
“You brought him home.” Ezekiel followed him out to the porch. “He isn’t my dog.”
“He is now.” Burke snagged a tub of night crawlers from the porch. “Who could reject a face like that?”
“He’s a little dopey looking.”
“He’s a puppy. He has to grow into his feet. What are you gonna name him?”
“Nothing. He’s not my dog. Where did he come from?”
Burke waved to Kenneth, who swung along on his crutches, Boo keeping pace at his side. “Hurry. Daylight’s burning!”
“Keep your pants on, boy.” Burke strode across the yard, headed for the road. “I think Mike is a good name. I went into town this afternoon to Teeter’s Outdoor Supply to get the worms, and Mike was hanging around outside. The guy there, what’s his name, said he’d been hanging around for days. No collar. Friendly as all get-out.”
“His name’s not Mike.”
“What then?”
“He must be really fast.”
“I drove slow.”