by Ann McMan
“Nice try.”
“I’ll call you right back.”
“I’ll be here.”
They hung up.
Maddie sat there, holding the phone in her hand. It was surreal. She didn’t possess enough fingers or toes to count off all the ways her life had changed in the last eighteen months. And they were good changes—frighteningly good. In fact, she felt like god’s spoiled child. She had Syd. She had Henry. And now, at long last, she had her mother. And that was perhaps the least anticipated but most surprising turnaround of them all.
She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t miss her mother. It was like growing up without a limb—one she’d been born with, but lost somewhere along the way. And she never got over not having it. She was always keenly aware that it wasn’t there—like an amputee who, years later, still felt a tingling where her leg used to be.
Life’s great losses were like that. They piled up around her feet like dried leaves in the autumn. Every year they came, and every year, they took her by surprise. And every year, they filled her with the same faint traces of pain and sadness she always felt as the days grew shorter, and the warmth of summer faded into memory. But then, in the deepest part of winter, as she lay alone beneath a blanket of loneliness—if she closed her eyes extra tight, she could sense the coming of spring. It was always there, too. Every year. Waiting for her like a ribbon of hope that guided her through the longest night.
Well Maddie and Celine’s longest night had finally passed. And together, they had staggered into the sunlight like two sleepy prairie dogs. Now, although their interactions were earnest and affectionate, they were still careful of each other. And neither of them was entirely comfortable yet in this startling new landscape they woke up to. It was still unfamiliar, and many aspects of it remained formless and unknown.
But, she thought as she lifted her phone and punched in the numbers to call home, all the signs looked good.
Syd answered on the first ring.
Very good.
Chapter 9
WHAT SHOULD HAVE been an ordinary Tuesday night at home was anything but.
They were having an early dinner, and it was taco night—Henry’s favorite. David always complained about taco night because the hard shells tended to break, increasing the likelihood that tomato sauce would find its way onto his jacket. Of course, Maddie suggested that he could forego the dinner jacket on Tuesday nights. But David was David, and David dressed for dinner.
This meant that conversation ping-ponged back and forth between reminding Henry (again) of why the Camaro dashboard wouldn’t look nice on top of the piano and assuring David that Resolve really could get picante sauce stains out of wool.
The telephone rang, and Michael answered it.
“It’s Joe Baxter,” he said as he handed held out the phone to Maddie.
She got up and walked to the phone. No doubt the fat heifer, B4, had broken out again and wandered over to her pasture. Joe probably wanted to know if it was okay to come over and herd her home.
“Dr. Stevenson?” Joe said. He sounded out of breath. “You need to get over here right quick.”
“What’s the matter, Joe?” Maddie asked.
“Well, one of my bulls in the south pasture charged an old corncrib, and there was two people inside it.”
“Did you call the EMTs?” Maddie glanced at her watch. She could be there in less than five minutes.
“No, ma’am. The EMTs can’t do nothin’ to help these folks out now. But I did call the sheriff,” he added.
Maddie rolled her eyes and glanced at Syd, who was watching her with curiosity. The scene would be choked with deputies by the time she got over there.
“Okay, Joe. I’m on my way. Where should I meet you?”
“Meet me at the house. I’ll take you out there on the ATV.”
She nodded. “Be there in about five minutes. Make sure nobody touches anything, okay?”
She hung up and faced the table. “I have to run over to Joe’s. It sounds like one of his bulls charged two people who were inside a corncrib, and they’re . . .” She looked at Henry. “Unable to respond.”
“Oh, no,” Syd said with concern. “Do you know who they were?”
Maddie shook her head.
“Tis the season for that,” David said. “Bulls are pretty territorial this time of the year. I bet there were heifers around.”
Michael agreed. “If it charged somebody, you can be sure it was protecting its turf.”
“Probably.” Maddie sighed.
David held up an index finger. “Did you say they were inside a corncrib?”
Maddie nodded.
“Interesting,” he added. “I’m sure there’s one heck of a story there.”
“Sorry you agreed to be the county Medical Examiner, now, honey?” Syd asked.
“Getting there,” Maddie replied. She ruffled Henry’s hair and bent to kiss Syd. “I’ll call you if it looks like I’m going to be late. Okay if I take your car?”
Syd nodded.
Maddie walked toward the back of the kitchen and grabbed her field bag off a high shelf near the door.
“See you later,” she called out as she left.
David looked across the table at Syd with a raised eyebrow. “I’d pay good money to get the inside scoop on this one. I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna be good and juicy.”
“David,” Syd said with a glance toward Henry. “It could all be perfectly innocent.”
“You don’t seriously believe that, do you?” he asked.
Michael glared at him. “Why are you always so determined to put a crude interpretation on everything?”
“Oh, come on.” David picked up his taco. “And just what do you think they were up to in that nasty old corncrib? Starting a book club?” He took a bite, and his taco shell shattered. Large globs of ground meat and sauce dropped onto his shirt and rolled down the lapel of his puce jacket.
Henry giggled.
“Yep,” Michael said with a smile. “Good and juicy.”
BY THE TIME Maddie reached the ruins of the corncrib, the place was crawling with people. It looked like sheriff’s deputies from three counties had converged on the scene. They were standing around in clusters, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes . . . waiting for her to arrive. She didn’t see Byron Martin, but she knew him well enough to know that he would be none too pleased with the number of off-duty officers who had responded to Joe’s call.
News in this county sure traveled fast.
She recognized Charlie Davis standing near the collapsed wall of the weather-beaten structure. She was nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The low murmur of conversation that had been going on when she arrived stopped as she approached the deputy.
“Hello, Doc,” Charlie said, touching the brim of her hat. Maddie hadn’t seen her since the day of the tornado.
“Hi, Charlie. Any I.D. on the victims?”
“Well . . .” She looked down at her shoes. “We’re pretty sure the man is Lonnie Pollard.”
Lonnie was the local insurance agent.
Maddie nodded. “And the other victim?”
She shrugged. “It’s a woman. That’s about all we can tell until we can—um—unhitch them.”
Maddie raised an eyebrow. “Unhitch them?”
Charlie looked embarrassed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Okaaayyy,” Maddie said. “Any idea how they got here?”
She nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We found a car parked about half a mile down the road there. It looks like Lonnie’s—has a big Farm Bureau sticker on the bumper. It was locked.”
“Is Sheriff Martin on his way?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right then,” Maddie said. “Let’s take a look inside, and see what we have.”
Charlie stepped back and half turned away as Maddie carefully picked her way into what was left standing of the corncrib. One exterior wall had pretty much been demolished,
but the other three sides were still intact. Beneath a fallen roof beam she could see the nude bodies of two people. The woman was face down, bent over a hay bale, and the man who lay prone on top of her did appear to be Eunice Pollard’s estranged husband, Lonnie.
“Oh, good god,” Maddie said as she approached the conjoined pair. She opened her bag and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. She knelt down next to them and felt each for a pulse, knowing she wouldn’t find one. Lonnie had a massive head wound, likely sustained when one of the roof beams fell and hit him. There was blood on the edge of the thick board that lay across his shoulders. Beneath him, the woman appeared to have similar injuries. Both of their bodies were marked with what looked like dirty hoof prints.
She took Lonnie’s temperature. All indications suggested that the couple had been dead for four to six hours. Apart from the obvious bull attack, there was no sign of misadventure.
Joe had found them when he was out riding along the fence at this side of the pasture, looking for B4—who, as Maddie predicted, had escaped again. The bull responsible for the attack was now locked in a paddock, waiting for animal control to arrive.
She looked around what was left of the tiny structure. A stack of clothing was visible beneath a pile of rubble near the door. She saw the strap of what looked like a red bag.
“Anybody check that bag over there for a wallet?” she asked.
Charlie shook her head as a deputy Maddie didn’t know handed Charlie a pair of gloves. She pulled them on before stepping into the rubble and carefully uncovering the bag. Inside it was a matching red wallet, studded with rhinestones. She opened it and pulled out a driver’s license.
She looked up at Maddie. “It’s Myrtle Anne Nicks.”
The other deputy snorted. “That figures.”
Maddie looked at him. “Care to explain what you mean by that?”
He shrugged. “She’s kind of famous for this kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing?” Maddie asked.
He waved a hand to indicate the two crudely intertwined bodies. “Let’s just say that Lonnie ain’t her first back-door man.”
“Jesus, Burns.” Charlie elbowed the deputy in the side. “Wanna show a little respect?”
“For Myrtle Anne Nicks? You gotta be kidding? That woman could speak ten languages and not say ‘no’ in any of them.”
“I meant for Dr. Stevenson,” Charlie hissed.
“Hey?” Maddie said. “Wanna stow the commentary and come help me turn them over?”
They looked at each other.
“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.
“Do you want us to separate them first?” Charlie asked.
“Frankly,” Maddie said, “I don’t think we can until they come out of rigor.”
“Talk about your hard-ons,” Burns quipped. “Looks like ole cheatin’ Lonnie finally found a way to stay up all night.”
“Burns, you wanna put a fucking sock in it?” Byron Martin had arrived, and he didn’t sound pleased.
Burns sobered up at once. “Yes, sir.”
Byron jerked his head toward the pasture. “Go outside and call the damn funeral home, and tell the rest of those off-duty assholes that if I hear so much as a snicker, you’ll all be spending the next month selling plastic poppies outside the Dollar General.”
“Yes, sir.” Burns looked at Maddie. “Sorry, Doc.”
He backed out of the tiny space.
Byron shook his head. He walked toward the rubble and knelt next to Maddie. “What have we got?”
She sighed. “Two cases of blunt head trauma—his from this beam when the wall came down; hers from the bull. It looks like a pretty clear case of accidental death.”
“Jesus.” Byron looked down at the two bodies with disgust.
“Somebody’s gotta tell Sonny,” Davis said.
Sonny Nicks was Myrtle Anne’s husband.
Myrtle Anne owned the local beauty parlor, Hairport ’75. For the last couple of years, her son, Harold—who was an expert colorist and a huge Karen Black fan—had managed the salon.
“I know,” Byron said. “I’ll do it. Right after the Buford boys retrieve the bodies, and the county picks up that damn bull.” He met Maddie’s eyes. “I can’t even tell you all the ways this is gonna blow this damn town apart.” He shook his head. “A damn corncrib in the fucking spring. What the hell were they thinking?”
“Well,” Maddie said. “I guess there’s no reason to put it off.”
Byron sighed.
Together they rolled the fused couple over.
“Holy crap,” Charlie said.
Myrtle Anne had a strange little smile on her face, but that wasn’t the oddest part. In the center of her forehead was a round indentation—like the ring mark a wet beer can leaves on a coffee table.
Maddie ran her fingers over it. “It’s a hoof print.”
Byron shook his head. “Jesse Buford is gonna earn his keep on this one.”
ONCE THE EXCITEMENT from the tornado died down, things in Jericho quickly got back to normal. Within a month and a half, the damage to Main Street had mostly been swept up or boarded over, and only the school still showed any signs of major disruption. It was business as usual.
And, predictably, nothing brought people out on a weeknight like a “viewing.”
Thursday night at Buford Brothers Mortuary was one for the record books—a bona fide twofer. Nobody in town was going to miss out on this one. Buford’s only had two reception rooms, and both viewings were taking place on the same night.
For the residents of a small Virginia town, this was like winning the lottery.
And tonight, every restaurant in Jericho was hopping. Over plates heaped full of country-style steak and creamed potatoes, people who had squeezed into their best church clothes speculated about how on earth the Bufords were going to keep the two families separated. Stories about how Myrtle Anne and Lonnie had been discovered in Joe Baxter’s corncrib spread across the county faster than an outbreak of e coli at a church barbecue.
It was widely known that there was no love lost between Eunice Pollard and the Nicks family. In fact, there was no love lost between any of about two-dozen county wives and the Nicks family.
People liked to say that Myrtle Anne loved her husband, and everybody else’s, too.
A baker’s dozen of Myrtle Anne’s other “victims” were planning to attend the viewing en masse, in a show of support for Eunice, and everybody just referred to this contingent as The Wives. Tom Buford had three rows of special chairs set up and roped off for The Wives at the back of Parlor One. They were in the same room with Lonnie, but were far enough away that nobody could question their disdain for his behavior.
Across the hall in Parlor Two, Harold Nicks had no chairs set up. He didn’t want people hanging around and making a spectacle out of gawking at his mama. People said they heard that this was because Jesse Buford had to use an entire eight-ounce jar of mortician’s wax to fill in the hoof print on Myrtle Anne’s forehead. Some said it would’ve been easier to just not have the casket open, but Harold did his mama’s last hairdo himself, and he wanted her to go out in style.
Nobody in town could backcomb hair better than Harold Nicks.
In fact, Sonny always blamed Myrtle Anne for turning their son gay by taking him to work with her from the time he was a baby. He said the changeover probably happened because of all that exposure to activator and perm rods.
“That’s what they do,” Sonny said. “They shrink stuff up.”
And it might have been true. When other boys wanted footballs and toy cars for Christmas, all Harold wanted were wigs and hot rollers.
Sonny just couldn’t talk about it.
Parlor Two was choked with customers of Hairport ’75. And it was a truly eclectic mix of people.
Harold cut and styled hair for a lot of men, too.
Sonny couldn’t talk about that, either.
THE VESTIBULE THAT separated the two parlors at Buford’s Mo
rtuary was like a demilitarized zone. People who weren’t particularly attached to either family found themselves milling around in the tiny space between the two rooms, not really knowing where to stand or who it was safe to talk to.
Depending upon where they stood, they could hear snatches of piped-in music emanating from each of the two viewing rooms. It was like a modified version of “Dueling Banjos”—except that Lonnie’s soundtrack was of the more traditional “Old Rugged Cross” variety, and Myrtle Anne’s was more . . . eclectic.