by Becki Willis
“Will do!”
Madison hung up the phone, still smiling. Her grandmother was a handful, that was for sure.
***
“I’ve been thinking.”
Blake made the announcement as the credits from the movie rolled. They were watching Home Alone, another oldie-but-goldie in their Christmas collection.
“Well, this is a first!” his sister quipped. “Better watch out.”
“I’m serious. I’ve been giving it some thought, and I think we need to start a new Christmas tradition this year.”
“What did you have in mind?” Madison asked. Knowing her son, it revolved around food.
A scowl puckered the boy’s handsome face. “That’s just it, I’m not sure. I just think we need to start something new. You know, because this year we’re starting over. New house, new town, new friends.” He shrugged, suddenly embarrassed by his sentimental observation.
Touched by his thoughtfulness, Madison smiled. “I think that is an excellent idea, Blake.”
“We can keep all the old ones,” he was quick to note. “But maybe we could add something new. Something that’s just ours. Without…” He stopped suddenly, uncomfortable in finishing his thought.
“Without Mr. de?” his sister was quick to smirk.
“No, I didn’t mean him. Maybe we could even include him.”
Bethani rolled her eyes. “You’re just suffering from hero worship. Ever since he took you hunting and you killed that big buck, you’re like the president of the Brash deCordova fan club!”
They bickered for a few moments before Madison broke in, her voice gentle. “Were you referring to Genny, Blake? I know you love her, but it’s okay if her being here bothers you. It’s only until she and Cutter get married, but I guess I volunteered our home without consulting you two.” Realizing that fact in retrospect, Madison frowned at her oversight. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you both before I offered our house to her.”
“You moron!” Bethani accused, tossing a pillow at her twin. “How selfish can you be, wanting to turn Aunt Genny out on the streets! And after the way she spoils you, cooking all your favorite foods!”
He easily deflected the second pillow. “Hey, knock it off! I wasn’t talking about Aunt Genny. She and Cutter can both move in, for all I care. And if you hadn’t suggested it, Mom, we would have.”
His mother looked relieved. “Okay, good. Because sometimes I forget that you two are growing up so quickly, and that you should have a voice in family decisions.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m getting at. All our old traditions are great and all, but… but they’re ones you and Dad started, when Beth and I were little.” A brief look of pain crossed his face. “But Dad’s gone now. And maybe… maybe it’s time we started something new, that’s just ours. Without… without him.”
Bethani sniffed, but for once, she had no snide comeback. Maddy blinked her dewy eyes and offered a shaky smile. “I think that is a really good idea, sweetie. You’re right. Moving here to The Sisters, making new friends and a new life for ourselves, in this fabulous new home, deserves a new tradition!” She swiped away a rogue tear that escaped her lashes. “So, what will it be? Let’s decide together!”
“You know, I really enjoyed shopping for the Angel Tree,” Blake said. “I know it didn’t end up like we thought, but that was cool, pitching in to help like that. Maybe that could be something.”
His generosity made Madison proud. “Excellent suggestion.”
“You know how we bake cookies for all the mothers on Mother’s Day? Maybe we could do that. Give cookies to the needy, or something,” Bethani suggested.
Blake vigorously nodded his blond head. “And that night we lit the house. That was cool, inviting the neighbors in for hot cocoa and cookies.”
“But we can’t do that all the time,” his twin cautioned. “Do you know how many people drive by every night, just to look at our house? We’d have a revolving door!”
“No, but maybe we could find a way to take the cookies out to them,” Madison said. She wasn’t keen on the idea of inviting strangers into her home, but this was Christmas, the season of giving. A gesture of kindness might not change someone’s life, but it could certainly change their day.
“Hey, I could rig something up!” Blake said, his blue eyes glowing with excitement. “Not exactly an app, but some sort of text program. We could have a sign in the yard to text a certain number, and, if we’re home, we could take a bag of cookies out to their car!”
“And if we’re not home, or we’ve run out of cookies, we could have a recording of a Christmas song or a poem or something!”
The ideas swirled, some more outrageous than others. For Maddy, the best part was the excitement shining in the twins’ eyes, and the laughter that rent the air. She could imagine nothing sweeter, not even the cookies that they planned.
“So, we’ll get to work on the details, and see if it’s do-able,” she summarized after a half hour of brainstorming.
“This is going to be fun! I know Aunt Genny and Granny Bert and Megan will help us do the baking.”
“Jamil’s dad is a computer programmer. He’ll help me with the text system.”
“As cool as this one is, I was thinking we might also like to add another tradition,” Madison suggested.
“Like what?”
“What if we hosted a big Christmas meal here, for our closest family and friends? I know we will already be spending time with them, but when we do Christmas at Granny Bert’s, it’s with the entire family. Between all the aunts, uncles, and cousins, there’s like fifty of us. Genny will probably spend a lot of time with the Montgomerys this year, and your friends will be with their families. The deCordovas have invited us to come there on Christmas Eve, but again, that’s a big bunch.” Seeing Bethani’s sharp look, she was quick to assure her, “I haven’t given them an answer yet, not without talking to you two. But I was thinking maybe Christmas evening, after everyone has done their own presents and had time with their own families, we could invite our closest family here, and exchange presents among ourselves. Maybe serve something totally un-Christmassy, like Mexican food or something.”
“As much as I love turkey and dressing, we have it like four times in a row,” Blake agreed.
“I like that idea,” Bethani said. “Like stretching the day out, as long as we can.”
“Yeah, after opening gifts on Christmas morning, the afternoon is usually a bummer,” her brother agreed.
Bethani gave a smart nod. “Then it’s official. We’ll be saving the best until last.”
Madison sat back with a smile on her face. This was new, hearing the twins take charge and make plans for the holidays, but it was nice. Like it or not, her babies were quickly growing up, and it was important they have a voice in family events. Helping with the planning gave the teens a personal interest and ensured their participation. Madison firmly believed that cultivating family traditions was one of the most important things she could do as a parent.
Roots, she believed, were vital to all living things. Particularly to families.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Bad weeds,” Brash grumbled, reading over the reports he held in his hands. “Someone ought to pull up the Fowler family roots and spray ‘em with weed poisoning. Nothing but trouble, the whole bunch of them.”
What the police reports couldn’t tell him about Dickey Fowler, Lydia deCordova could. For double measure, he called Granny Bert’s cell phone. On her way home from the airport, she confirmed the worst of it.
“Lowlife thugs,” she all but spat. “Product of inbreeding. While Dickey, Sr. was down in Huntsville on death row for killin’ their neighbor—some scuttle over a pet rooster, I think it was—his momma Lois got pregnant by her father-in-law. She named the baby Dickey, Jr., but he’s Harlan Fowler’s child, no doubt.”
“While that is disgusting, it’s not exactly inbreeding,” Brash said.
“It is when Harlan is Lois�
�� uncle. And it goes back further than that. Lois’ grandparents were second cousins.”
“I feel like I need a shower,” Brash muttered.
“The only decent one out of the whole lot was Billy, Lois’ brother. He moved off and became a game warden for the state, but he was killed a few years back in a freak accident, trying to untangle two fighting bucks from going over a waterfall. Somehow, his sleeve got caught up in their horns, and the whole lot of them drowned. A darned shame, since he was the only one with a lick of sense and decency.”
“I remember reading about that. Didn’t realize the man was from here.”
“He distanced himself from the family, and who can blame him? He named his sister as beneficiary in his will, though, so when he died, they sent his last effects home to her.”
That explained the uniform.
“She took the insurance money and went to Louisiana gambling, instead of fixing up her house like she should have done. Have you seen that dump Dickey Jr. lives in? The utilities were cut off three years ago when Lois died, but he was too lazy to move out. That place is going to fall in around him one of these days.”
“I was thinking he was related in some way to Bernie Havlicek.”
“Sure is. Dickey Fowler’s grandmother was a Havlicek, which makes him third cousins to Bernie Havlicek.”
Bernie Havlicek’s name was on every list Brash kept, and underlined multiple times. He was known as a troublemaker and small-time criminal. Even though his name came up in various investigations and he was a POI in half the crimes committed within the area, he somehow managed to skirt the law, evading arrest on mere technicalities. Brash had visited him two days ago, letting him know he had eyes on him.
It could be no coincidence that Maddy was targeted.
“You’re right,” Brash ground out. “A family of lowlifes.”
***
Calling Dickey Fowler’s habitat a ‘house’ was an insult to structures everywhere, Brash decided. He approached the residence on foot. No need to announce his visit and give the man time to run.
Going in on foot meant leaving his cruiser three hundred yards away, out by the dirt-paved county road. It meant weaving his way through the overgrown woods and weeds threatening to overtake the property. A pitted gravel road led straight up to the house, but Brash chose to stick to the tree line, where his advance would be less noticeable.
Fifty yards out, he could smell the outhouse. It was the rickety lean-to to the left of the old home place. Both structures looked like a stiff wind could lay them out flat. With any luck, a norther would blow in this afternoon and do the world a favor. Flies buzzed around the outhouse, making almost as much racket as the coon dog tied nearby.
So much for a stealthy approach.
The coon dog bayed out a warning that a stranger was near. Brash spoke to the dog in low, calm tones, but the dog continued its protest, racing up and down its drag chain as it strained to be free. From the looks of it, the canine was one meal away from starvation. Brash made a mental note to call Animal Welfare.
Edging his way around the side of the house, keeping well away from the reach of the dog, Brash peered into the nearest window. Between the grime and the grease and the condensation, his vision was limited, but there was no missing the collapsed ceiling in the middle of the room.
How did a person live in a dump like that? He cringed with the thought of it as he continued around the back of the house. The lower half of one window sported a cardboard panel in lieu of glass; another was riddled with cracks and dings, all centered around a distinct bullet hole. The house was built upon blocks, but Brash swore he could take it down with one swift kick. The two pilings he could see were crumbling, and both were an inch or two off kilter. The pathetic floor that spanned between them sagged enough to make the third window a handy height for spying.
Through the grungy panes, he saw what must be the living area of the house. It looked more like the aftermath of a tornado. Crumbled newspapers, empty take-out bags, discarded clothes, and all manners of filth scattered about the room. Amid the trash, he could see a broken-down sofa, an old Formica-topped table, two chairs with ripped and gutted cushions, a box fan, and the barest bones of a kitchen. More flies buzzed around the over-flowing trash can, where pizza boxes and beer cans flourished.
With a grunt, Brash noted the one item of luxury in the otherwise desolate room. A fifty-inch flat screen television sat on the floor across from the couch, powered by an extension cord. The house might lack indoor plumbing, but it had electricity.
There was one more room on the far end of the house. The back window was covered with what looked like an Indian blanket, so he eased his way to the end. The window there had a tattered set of old louvered blinds, most of the slats broken or bent. Brash peered through the gaps and viewed the sorry excuse of a bedroom. It looked as if someone had begun packing up the house. Assorted items—framed pictures, a lamp, a broken mirror, old linens—spilled from opened cardboard boxes. Bulging trash bags piled upon one another in one corner. A stack of old magazines made a leaning tower beside a cluttered chest of drawers. Somewhere under a jumble of dirty sheets and soiled laundry was an old mattress attached to a rusty iron bedstead. In an antique store, the bed would be valuable. In this dump, it was most likely contaminated.
Seeing no sign of Dickey in any of the rooms, Brash proceeded to the front door. The handle didn’t work, so all it took was a firm knock to push the door inward.
“Dickey Fowler?” he asked, knocking a second time. “Dickey Fowler, this is Police Chief Brash deCordova. May I come in?”
The house was empty. After a brief round through the rooms, Brash hurried out for a breath of fresh air. Judging from the box of chicken wings that had yet to grow a bacteria beard—as opposed to the leftover pizza, tacos, and fried chicken all sporting mold and fuzz—Dickey had been here recently. Brash saw none of Maddy’s purchases in the house, but he did see the crumpled uniform of a state game warden thrown haphazardly over the couch. He snapped off pictures of it and other items of interest, but left everything untouched.
Making another sweep around the perimeter of the sad shack, he again noted the heavy-duty extension cord that fed into the bedroom window by way of the broken windowpane.
“Surely not,” Brash muttered. His eyes traced the thick cord strung across the yard before it disappeared into the woods. He looked around and spotted the power pole on the property. There was a gaping hole in the electrical box, right where the meter should be. “That sorry son of a—”
Brash’s words faded away as he followed the cord into the woods, where it connected to another cord. A cluster of trees, a broken barbed wire fence, and two extension cords later, he came to the neighbor’s power pole. The cords were feeding directly off their meter.
Nostrils flared in anger, Brash marched into the neatly kept yard he knew belonged to Gus and Joan Prather. He rapped on the door and waited for someone to answer. In contrast to the shack on the other side of the trees, the Prathers’ older mobile home was neat and tidy, and in good repair. It was dressed for the holidays, a string of colorful lights draped along the roof and over the rails of the front porch where he stood.
“Why, Officer de, I didn’t hear you drive up!” the older woman said in greeting, wringing her wet hands on a dishtowel. “Come in, come in. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Sweet tea?”
Brash stepped into the dimly lit room, noticing that most of the lights were off in other areas of the house.
“A bit dark in here, Miss Joan. How do you see to do your sewing?” Joan Prather was best known as the local seamstress, offering a wide range of services that included sewing, alterations, and mending. She did the work from her home, as evidenced by the sewing machine set up near the front window, immediately next to the Christmas tree.
“I open the curtains when I work, and I have a lamp nearby,” she said cheerfully. “Lands sakes, our electric bill is so high, we only run the lights at night. I h
ave no idea how two old people can use so much electricity, but somehow we do!”
“I think I might have an explanation for that. Do you know anything about an extension cord plugged directly into your meter?”
The confusion on her face was answer enough. “An extension cord? Why would we have an extension cord out there? Gus doesn’t do his woodwork anymore. Bursitis, you know. It ails him something terrible.”
Brash sympathized with the elderly woman before asking, “Do you know your neighbor through the woods, Dickey Fowler?”
She tried to keep the disdain from her face, but traces of it slipped into her frown. “What has he done now? Every few weeks, the county law comes by, asking the very same thing. Usually wants to know if we know his whereabouts. As if we keep up with that boy!” she sniffed.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen him in the last day or so?”
“I can’t remember the last time I saw him. It’s been a good month or so, and that was only when we passed him in the car. We avoid the dirt road when we can, usually taking Thompson Road out this way. But what’s this about an extension cord, Chief?”
“I suspect Fowler has been piggy-backing on your meter, using your electricity to run power to that shack he lives in.”
“Lands sake, that can’t be true!”
Brash gave a sad nod. “It sure looks that way. I’ll call the electric company to come out and check, and to make certain this sort of thing won’t happen again. I’m terribly sorry, ma’am, that he’s been bilking you this way.”
“That Dickey Fowler has always been a troublemaker, but I never dreamed he could do something like this! Gus and I can barely make ends meet, without him stealing our electricity!”
After a few more moments commiserating with the elderly woman, Brash said goodbye and retraced his path through the woods. He left the cords where they lay, but unplugged them at every coupling.