The Secret of Hailey's Comments

by Kristy Tate

  Jeff wore a suit and he had his long dark hair slicked back into a ponytail. The jacket hung limply off his shoulders and flapped around his hips as he walked. He wore heavy, steel-toed boots and they flattened the tall grass as he made his way toward the slumbering the yak, a carrot in one hand and a rope and cinch in the other. Unmindful of his polyester pants, he dropped to one knee and slipped the cinch through the yak’s nose ring.

  Jeff spoke to the yak in a soft, almost melodic voice, reminding me of Ned and his bird calls.

  Inspiration hit. Ned, who always loved a scientific puzzle, could analyze the brown stain. I clutched Ryan’s arm. “I know someone who can tell us what’s on the bed sheets.”

  Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “Do we really want to know?”

  “Of course we do. We’ll just take whatever we find and give it to the authorities.”

  “How are we even going to get the bed sheets?”

  I nodded at Jeff. “I’m sure he’ll want to help.”

  #

  “Let me explain things to my parents,” Jeff said, as he parked the golf cart in front of a log house with a stack of firewood piled under a tin lean-to. The smell of lavender and honeysuckle competed with the stink of the livestock. “I’m sure they will be happy to help.”

  A collection of weathered outbuildings were grouped around a corral. The stable and barn stood on one side, and the slaughterhouse with its massive hook stood on another. A rope sagging under the weight of headless ducks ran along the eaves of the slaughterhouse. A recent kill, I guessed, noticing blood dripping from the birds. I didn’t know when duck hunting season began or ended, and I wondered if the statutes were even relevant or heeded on Lister.

  “Talk about going back to nature,” Ryan whispered in my ear.

  “You can’t go back to someplace you never left,” I told him.

  We followed Jeff down a dirt path. Given the tangle of honeysuckle, I doubted that the front door got much use, but around the back the lavender and honeysuckle turned into patchy grass. The backyard sloped toward a steep bank that ended on a rocky beach. A mottled rowboat bobbed in the murky tide. A much newer looking inflatable boat sat on top of the dock.

  Jeff led us into the mudroom that separated the back porch from the kitchen. Above the gleaming white porcelain sink sat a windowsill filled with clay pots sprouting herbs. Basil, rosemary, thyme, and a number I couldn’t recognize. The kitchen smelled much better than the farm yard. A massive oak table heaped with casserole dishes filled with food dominated the tiny room. I wondered why Lucy and Frank would need so much food, but then when a tiny, elderly lady dressed in blue lace and plastic blue pumps tottered in carrying a Jell-O salad, I realized the food was more than just to feed Lucy and Frank. It was offerings of love for the grieving.

  The elderly woman took us in then dismissed, but her eyes widened and her lips tightened when she saw Jeff.

  “Look at you!” she scolded. She sat the Jell-O down on the kitchen counter, not bothering to find space on the overly burdened table. The Jell-O continued to wiggle as the woman harangued. “That was Paulie’s good suit and look at what you’ve done to the cuffs!” She clucked her tongue and began to brush the suit with a gnarled hand.

  Jeff frowned at his pants. There was mud splattered halfway up his calves.

  Ryan stepped forward. “I’m sorry. Jeff’s muddied suit is our fault. He saved us from a yak.”

  The woman’s eyes ran over Ryan and then lingered briefly on my shorts. I fought the urge to tug on them so that they hung little lower.

  “I’ll pay for his suit to be cleaned,” Ryan offered.

  The woman stopped beating, her hand poised above Jeff’s lapel. “Who are you?”

  Ryan extended his hand. “Ryan Everett, ma’am.”

  She looked him up and down. “Well, Mr. Everett, I assume you’re here for the funeral and if you intend to attend the Lord’s house on this sacred, solemn occasion dressed in Levis and flip flops, then it doesn’t surprise that you don’t see the impropriety of dirtying a perfectly good suit to mark the passing of—” her eyes welled up and she blinked rapidly. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “…a saint.” Her hands shook as she raised them to her eyes.

  Lucy, dressed in a voluminous black skirt and a button down black serge blouse that had probably fit her twenty pounds earlier, bundled into the room. She gave Ryan, Jeff and me a hard look before she placed a large arm around the woman’s shoulders. The movement strained her already struggling buttons. “Now, Millie,” Lucy crooned, “please don’t cry. Helen would want you to be happy.”

  Millie sobbed against Lucy’s chest. “It’s not just Helen,” she said in a strangled voice. “It’s these thoughtless young people.” She waved a tiny arm in our direction. “They don’t have a sense of the sacred. They don’t understand or respect the solemnity of the grave.”

  “Hush,” Lucy soothed, patting the woman gently on the back. “They didn’t mean any harm. They didn’t even know Helen.”

  The woman swallowed audibly. “Jeff did.”

  “Yes,” Lucy conceded, giving her son a withering look. “Jeff did.”

  In defense, Jeff began to communicate to his mother in sign language. I studied the exchange, trying to catch Jeff’s meaning. Lucy watched while she comforted Millie. Her eyes widened, and she flashed her gaze between Ryan and me. Then she nodded sharply to Jeff. I wished I knew what had been said.

  Jeff motioned for us to follow him. He led us through a room filled with pine furniture to a door to the left of a wood-burning stove. He pushed open the door to what I guessed was Lucy’s and Frank’s bedroom. A rag rug lay on the floor and a bed with a crazy quilt sat in the middle of the room. Along one wall a sheet had been strung to hide a closet. Jeff pushed the sheet aside to display a collection of farmhand wear. One dress hung between a hand-knit cardigan and gray plaid flannel shirt. Jeff handed me the dress and then he handed Ryan a button-down shirt.

  I looked at the dress and thought of Hailey and Cleo’s closet.

  “It’ll look good on you,” Ryan said, a smile playing around his lips.

  “Jeff,” I said in low tones, hoping he could read my lips. “I don’t need this. I’m not going to Helen’s memorial.” I shook my head, hoping I was communicating.

  Jeff frowned at me and then turned to forage in the closet. He turned back with a spotted tie and a pair of blue Dickie pants. Ryan stopped laughing, his expression turned somber. He pushed the clothes back at Jeff and shook his head.

  “You have to go,” Jeff said in his wide vowels, “for clues.”

  “News?” Ryan asked.

  “Clues,” I said, reluctantly taking the dress. “He wants us to listen for clues.”

  “Six ears are better than two,” Jeff said. “Besides I can’t leave until after the service.”

  “We want to rent your boat,” Ryan said.

  Jeff looked out the window and frowned.

  “Of course, if you’d like to come,” I said quickly, noticing his disappointment. “I’m sure Ryan wouldn’t mind waiting.”

  Jeff nodded emphatically. “You need me to drive the boat.” He made a rocking motion with his hands. “It’s very tricky.”

  Ryan, with a grim look on his face, took the proffered Sunday best clothes and held them up. He’d need a belt.

  #

  I sat on the back pew of the little Methodist church scratching at the lacy collar of Lucy’s polyester, floral dress. Light filtered in through the stained-glass windows and cast yellow, red, and blue shadows on the heads of the mourners. The majority of the congregation had gray hair and bowed shoulders. I wondered if they were mostly neighbors that had lived on the island all of their lives and had hoped to be buried in the little cemetery outside the door. What would they do and where would they go if the Jenson’s expansion plans were successful?

  Several heads turned to look at us. A few nudged their neighbor conspiratorially. Their eyes glanced at us, widened, then quickly looked back to the pastor,
as if seeking his comfort.

  “People are staring at us,” I whispered to Ryan.

  Ryan smiled at them, showing his quick and easy charm. “Maybe they don’t get a lot of visitors.”

  Several of the women returned Ryan’s smile and gave me a hostile frown. I sighed and curled my toes in Lucy’s pink, plastic pumps. The dress looked deflated on me, as if I were wearing a colorful hot-air balloon that had lost its air. I rubbed at my neck. Lucy’s clothes aggravated the rash I’d developed across my arms, back and neck. I didn’t know if the rash was plant, insect or stress- related.

  From behind the pulpit Pastor Grayson delivered a sermon on the afterlife and resurrection while members of the congregation dabbed at their eyes. “Saiom Shriver wrote, a jade curtain of willow fronds parts world of green earth from that of blue pond. A grey curtain of morning mist separates turquoise waters from blue sky. A more slender veil is at the portal hiding paradise of the immortal.”

  His words reminded me of the tunnel Wyeth and I had slid down, how we had jumped into its depth, not really knowing how far we’d sink, and how we’d careened through the semi-darkness never really gaining our footing. I had plowed, head-first through fern fronds and somehow ended up at Ryan’s feet. I glanced at Ryan. He leaned forward, his head bowed, and his eyes closed. Was he sleeping?

  Artie, sitting with James on the first row, cried openly. James looked stiff and uncomfortable in a black, form fitting suit. Dean and Dina sat near the back. Dina, I noticed, wore the same men’s tailored suit she’d worn yesterday. Our eyes met and she looked away. Something about her appearance bothered me. Maybe she’d been crying. I waited for her to turn again. She sat still and straight, but then her eyes slid back toward us and I realized what had bothered me. Dina wore badly applied eye-makeup. Ryan must have felt her gaze, because he raised his head and met her eyes. He smiled when she blushed and looked away.

  Dean had on a bright yellow tie covered with buttercups. I wondered if he’d had it custom made to match the Dina’s Dairy logo, and if he had, it seemed tacky to wear it to Helen Dunsmuir’s memorial service.

  Ryan shifted on the pew, uncomfortable in his borrowed shirt. Just below the crown of his head a twig poked out of his thick brown hair. He pulled at his collar and the twig inched downward. I gently reached across and removed the twig without his noticing and redirected my attention to the sermon.

  Pastor Grayson stopped speaking and took his seat. Sniffling and quiet sobbing filled the brief silence. A woman in a pink chiffon dress stood beside the piano. A tiny woman with bottle blue hair slid onto the piano bench. The piano tinkled and momentarily the woman began to sing.

  “Come let us anew, our journey pursue, roll around with the year, and never stand still till the master appears.”

  I didn’t even know Helen Dunsmuir, so my sudden tears surprised me and I blinked rapidly. Empathy should be a requirement for an advice columnist, but I suppose I’d never mastered the “sensitivity honing” Gram yammered about. I found it easier to be jaded and critical of the reader’s often self-induced misery.

  “Our life as a dream, our time as a stream, glide swiftly away and the fugitive moment refuses to stay.”

  The woman in the pink chiffon had a surprisingly low alto voice but before I could get lost in her music, Ryan interrupted my thoughts.

  “It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out what a brown smear on bed sheets could be,” Ryan whispered, destroying my reverent mood.

  “Ned won’t mind. The man pokes and analyzes owl scat for fun. He won’t be put off by dirty sheets.”

  “The real question is who would want to kill Helen Dunsmuir and why?” Ryan asked. “Who has a motive?”

  “James has the most to profit being the main beneficiary.” I looked over at him. His profile looked chiseled and hard. “Dina and Dean have motive, although it’s weak. Would they kill to expand their business?”

  “Some people will kill for twenty dollars,” Ryan whispered.

  A blue-haired woman turned to give us the stink eye. Ryan twinkled his smile at her and her expression turned soft.

  “How is their business?”

  “It looks successful.”

  “And what about Phil Henderson?”

  “A crook, but bilking millions out of senior citizens is different from killing them.”

  I glanced at Ryan. I knew his commission from the Dunsmuir sale could probably pay my annual salary at the academy.

  “For the arrow is flown and the moments are gone. The millennial year presses on to our view and eternity is here.” The song came to a close and the chapel filled with a quiet deference while James approached the pulpit.

  Ryan jabbed me sharply in the ribs. I looked at him and mouthed, “Ow.”

  He nodded toward the door. There, backlit by the sun, casting a long shadow down the aisle, stood Phil Henderson. He sat down in the pew across the aisle from us. Phil and James exchanged long looks and then James began to quote William Wordsworth.

  “Which was once so bright

  Is now forever taken from my sight

  Though nothing can bring back the hour,

  Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

  We will grieve not, rather find,

  Strength in what remains behind...What though the radiance'

  find, Strength in what remains behind...”

  I stood up. Ryan took my hand. “Where are you going?” he whispered, trying to tug me back onto the pew.

  I nodded toward Phil. “To get Wyeth.”

  Ryan, whom I suspected didn’t really want to listen to a eulogy or accompany dirty bed sheets to Lake Sammamish, followed.

  I ran toward the cottage. The pumps slid on the dirt path and I finally slipped them off. Ryan ran at an easy gait beside me, and it infuriated me that he seemed to be trotting beside my full-blown sprint. The dirt beneath my bare feet felt soft, but I had to watch for rocks and twigs.

  “Why are we running?” Ryan asked without even huffing.

  I didn’t answer. If Ryan had a dog he wouldn’t have had to ask, and since he didn’t have a dog, he wouldn’t understand. Besides, I knew I couldn’t keep running at this pace and still speak.

  “We don’t even know if Wyeth’s at the cottage,” Ryan said, loping beside me. Frank’s flat penny loafers made a slapping sound against the dirt.

  I gave him a funny look and took the turn that led to the boathouse.

  “I’ll go to the cottage,” Ryan said, “and meet you at the boathouse.”

  Ryan’s path twisted up a slight incline and disappeared into a thicket of alders. Occasionally I saw him through the trees. He was still running. I picked up my pace on the downhill slope. Wyeth began to bark.

  A quick glance assured me Phil’s boat was empty. I slowed on the slippery dock, but my heart didn’t. Wyeth’s barks turned frantic. The boathouse smelled dank and light filtered through the cracks of the heavily weathered boards. I found Wyeth tied with a fat white, rope to a dock piling.

  I stumbled toward him, wrapped my arms around him and began to cry in relief. And maybe also for Helen Dunsmuir.

  #

  With Wyeth in tow, Ryan and I circled back to Lucy’s and Frank’s. If Ryan noticed my red eyes, he didn’t comment. We walked around to the back porch. I waited outside while Ryan went to get the sheets and change his clothes, because I didn’t want to leave my dog. A fat calico watched us from a perch on the windowsill.

  The service must have ended after we had left, because inside, I heard Frank cussing on the phone. Through the window I saw Lucy in a La-Z-y boy rocker dabbing at her eyes. Neither had changed out of their funeral clothes. They would soon be hosting and feeding mourners. Lucy looked up at Ryan with red rimmed eyes. “Dad-burned yak,” she said, a sob catching in her throat. She honked into a tissue and waved Ryan toward the bedroom.

  Frank hung up the phone and turned to Ryan. “You’ll have to go without Jeff. He’s got to stay here and help me find that yak.”


  Lucy stood, on shaking legs. “Frank, no!” She took a deep breath and her voice slightly steadied, but even through the window her voice shrilled. “Now is not the time to be chasing yaks! Jeff needs to be here to properly mourn Helen and so do you!” Her voice turned to a plaintive whine. “I need you with me.”

  Frank hitched up his pants. “Woman, we’ve been mourning Helen Dunsmuir for days. You know we can’t allow Twinkie to trample Loyd’s garden. He promised to shoot him if he caught him again.”

  Lucy’s face turned a mottled purple. She squeezed her eyes closed. “Shoot! I wish he would shoot Twinkie then he’d be free. I’d be free. We’d all be free and we could get on with our lives, untied from this God forsaken farm!” I felt sorry for Ryan who had a front row seat to the marital drama. He studied his toes, undoubtedly wishing he were somewhere else.

  Frank took a menacing step toward Lucy. “And then what’ll we do? Huh? Someone’s got to work to feed this family!”

  Lucy dissolved into a heap of tears on the rocker. She muffled her sobs in a crocheted afghan and the rocker swayed beneath her.

  Wyeth began to whine and barked when someone rapped on the front door. The screen door slammed and the calico abandoned her perch on the sill and dashed across the spotty lawn. Wyeth watched her go.

  “Yoo-whoo,” a voice called.

  Lucy sat up and sniffed. “They’re here.” She ran a hand through her thick dark hair and wiped her eyes on the afghan.

  Frank shifted from one foot to another, his eyes darting around the room. He looked painfully uncomfortable, ready to bolt.

  Lucy waved an arm at him. The middle button on her shirt came undone, exposing a white bra and flesh. “Just go,” she said.

  Frank jerked his head at Ryan who followed him out the back door. I stepped away from the window so they wouldn’t know I had been spying on them.

  “Fool woman,” Frank muttered when he joined us on the porch. He cleared his throat and blinked back tears.

  I handed Ryan Wyeth’s leash. “I have to change my clothes,” I whispered, reluctant to enter the house.