3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 (9 page)

Chapter 18

Ike’s mother held court ensconced in what used to be the back parlor. A hospital bed dominated the center of the room. The rest of the furniture had been removed except for an overstuffed Victorian loveseat and a recliner of uncertain age, each placed in one of the room’s two remaining corners. An incongruous combination, but the first served for visitors and the second for Abe, who would sit with his wife for hours and often late into the night. A lamp cast a soft glow from a side table and the bed had been raised so that she could sit up, see, and speak to her visitors.

Abe ushered Ike and Ruth into the makeshift hospital room and closed the door.

“You are Ruth Harris.” Ike’s mother smiled at Ruth. Her skin looked like old parchment. Ruth smiled back and took her hand. She could smell death. Ike’s mother would not see her next Passover.

“You have that look,” she said from the depths of her pillows.

“Sorry?”

“You can feel it, can’t you—Death. He’s here in the room waiting for the old bat to give it up, but I’m not ready to go, so he’ll have to wait. Don’t worry, Abe and I talk about it all the time. Now, Isaac here gets a little jumpy when I bring it up. It comes from being young and unwilling to face the inevitable.”

Ike started to say something, but his mother held up her hand to silence him.

“Ruth is a nice name. I wanted to change mine when Abe and I married. My nose-in-the-air, bigoted family held with Hitler that the Jews were an inferior race and cut me off forever.”

“They never accepted you two?”

“No. You have to understand they were from a different era and were very right wing even for that one. They were closet Nazis, if you want to know the truth, and thought the late unlamented Führer was just the victim of a lot of bad press. Hard to believe, isn’t it, but there you are.”

“There are people like that out there now,” Ruth said and recalled one or two prospective faculty interviews.

“Oh yes, always will be. But I wanted to tell you about my name change. When they tossed me out of the family, so to speak, I decided I would change my name. Not just my surname but all of them. Well, I started calling myself Naomi. Isn’t that a lovely name?”

“Yes, yes it is. Why Naomi?”

“Well, that’s the good part. Do you know your Bible?”

“Um…to tell the truth, no.”

“Not to worry, practically no one does anymore. Just enough to misquote it. Well, the story is this—a man from Bethlehem went with his wife and two sons to live in Moab. That’s another country across the Jordan from Israel/Judea, a gentile country. The wife’s name was Naomi. So anyway, both of their sons marry Moabite women and things were going pretty good but then all the men died. Not important for now to go into the how of it. So broke and widowed, Naomi decides to go home. Her daughters-in-law walk with her but she says they should return to Moab where they have family and so on. One of them—I forget her name—”

“Orpah,” Abe said.

“Thank you, honey. Orpah went back to Moab but the other woman, Ruth, said, ‘No, I will stay with you and where you go, I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge, and your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.’”

“I told her if she wanted to use that old story, she should be Ruth, not Naomi,” Abe said. “See, Naomi was not the one making the big switch. She was just going home. It was—”

“You hush, Abe, this is my story. And I liked the sound of Naomi better. Ruth could be anybody. I had a roommate at Wellesley named Ruth and she was as WASP as the DAR. Naomi is a departure and likely to catch my family’s notice. Ruth wouldn’t do it.”

“But you never did it.” Ike winked at Ruth. “Tell her why.”

“Never you mind, Isaac. That’s all over and done with. It’s the principle that I am illustrating here.”

“She and Dad were married no more than three months when there was a huge scandal in Richmond concerning a certain lady of the night who was caught
in flagrante delicto
with the governor. Her professional name was Naomi. The press started calling her Naughty Naomi.”

“Had to put the kibosh on the name. I’d just won a seat in the House and couldn’t take no chances on a misunderstanding and stupid questions from the press boys,” Abe added.

“If you two would just excuse me, I’d like to finish my story.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Together.

Ruth smiled.

“So, it didn’t matter in the end. My family lost all their money in get-rich-quick schemes my moronic cousin, Randolph, persuaded them to buy into, and they ended up selling their mansion in the Greenspring Valley to Baltimore’s best known and, forgive me, notorious, Jewish family. Isn’t that just a wonderful irony?”

“On that happy note, we will let you rest, Momma.”

“Now Isaac, I will decide if I need to rest. You two men go on back to the living room and talk politics or maybe something a little less lethal, and leave me to have a little heart-to-heart with Ruth. Go on, scat.”

***

Sam let the phone ring twenty times. Ten was her usual limit, but for Karl, she’d wait. What had happened to his answering machine? He had an answering machine. Why didn’t it pick up? She had the headset poised to disconnect when a voice crackled at her. A woman’s voice.

“Yes, hello?” She sounded young. “Who is this?”

“Is Karl there?” Sam’s heart sank into her shoes.

“He’s not available. Who’s calling?”

“Sam.”

“Sam? Come on, who is this?”

“He hasn’t told you about me, has he?” She would fight back even though she really only wanted to hang up and have a good cry.

“Sorry, no Sam on my list.” The line went dead.

So that’s that. She thought. New assignment indeed. Tied up for the time being—right. She wanted to be angry, she wanted to drive to Alexandria and scratch the woman’s eyes out, and she wanted Karl back. She put the phone down, picked up her box of tissues, and went to the kitchen where she proceeded to down a pint of rocky road.

***

Steve Bolt drove to the store at the foot of the mountain. Sonny Parker greeted him when he walked in. “Where you been, Steve. People been asking about you.”

“Where’s Wick?”

“Goad? Poker night. He’s probably fleecing your buddy Oldham out of whatever money he has.”

“He ain’t my buddy, you hear? Anybody says otherwise and they’re in trouble with me.”

“Okay by me. So where you been?”

“Had an errand to run, and then I had to lay low for a while.”

“None of my business but—”

“You got that right. I need some kerosene and some canned goods.”

“Well, now Wick, he said I wasn’t to give you no more credit—”

“I have cash money. Look here.” Bolt flashed a wad of twenties.

“Okay, you know where everything is. Help yourself. You might have to pump some kero though. Couple of city folk were in here a while ago and drained the barrel. I asked them what they wanted with that much. I mean if they was camping…they weren’t from around here so I figured they were campers or rented one of them retreat cabins over on the state road. But even then they didn’t need that much. Well, you know them city people. Got no more sense than bunny rabbits.”

Steve filled a bag with baked beans, corn, Spam, and peach halves. Sonny had been right, the barrel stood dead empty. He started to work the pump.

“Funny thing about them men. I figured they’d head back down the road to wherever they were staying but they didn’t. They took off up the hill toward your place. I reckon they got lost. They’ll be helloing back down here in a minute or two.”

Steve filled his kerosene can, gathered his bags of canned goods, and took them to the counter. He laid ten twenty-dollar bills on the counter.

“This will catch me up with Goad and then some. You mark it down in the book—two hundred dollars. Then minus out all what I owe.”

A dark sedan roared past the store, downhill.

“I told you they’d come by here. Shoot, they must be in a big time hurry.”

Steve looked out the window as the car flashed by. In the dark and poor light he could not see much. He did notice that the license plate was not Virginia or North Carolina. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear they were DC plates. He froze for an instant, then rushed to the door and looked up the hill. His house would be just around the bend. He couldn’t see the house, but he did see the pillar of fire rising above treetops just where his house should be. A sudden flash and a shower of sparks leapt a hundred feet or so straight up, like Fourth of July fireworks. Steve left his groceries and kerosene on the counter and drove away—downhill.

Chapter 19

Early the next morning, Ike found Ruth sitting in a rocking chair in the living room. She had a blanket across her knees and a book in her lap. “Sleep well?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I did not.”

“You’re worried about the CIA connection, about Charlie. Listen, I was up half the night thinking about that and I—”

“That’s not what kept me up. This is.” She held a book out to him. “It’s a Bible. Your mother gave me a Bible. She said I should read the book that’s named after me.”

“The Book of Ruth? I rather think it’s the other way around.”

“You don’t think the compilers of the Bible had me in mind?”

“Possible, but not likely. Of course prophecy was a much more powerful gift then than it is now so…who knows?”

“I’ve been reading it, last night and again this morning. Not just the Ruth bit—but parts of the rest of it—strange book. You know all about the Book of Ruth, I guess?”

He nodded.

“So you know that Ruth married a man named Boaz and one of their descendents was King David, of David and Goliath fame.” She frowned and closed the book. “I’ve never read any of it—the Bible, I mean—never felt the need. I come from a long line of committed secular humanists. Do you think she sensed that? Is that why she gave it to me?” Ruth shook her head—in annoyance or puzzlement, he couldn’t be sure. “Or is it because she’s dying? That’s it, don’t you think? You know that would put a special valence on it.”

“Put a special what on it?”

“You said prophecy just now. People approaching death see things, know things, allow impulses they would normally suppress to surface, and then they say and do things that sometimes border on the prophetic—you understand?”

Ike nodded again. He wasn’t sure he did, but Ruth had the bit between her teeth and he thought it best to let her finish her thought. She sat for a long moment staring at the fireplace.

“Ashes,” she murmured. “Heat’s gone from them. Cold as death. They serve no useful purpose other than to remind us of yesterday’s fire.” She studied him for a long moment, as if she were seeing him for the first time. She stood, stepped across the room, bent, and kissed him on the lips, hard. She looked at him fiercely with a pair of no-nonsense eyes.

“Ike, the last thing she said to me was, ‘Don’t you think David is a nice name?’”

***

The sun shone in a cloudless sky. The temperature rose to the mid-forties and winter temporarily deserted the Shenandoah Valley. It would return, certainly, but not with the uncharacteristic vengeance it had displayed during the previous two days. Whaite’s car, his beautiful show car, managed to survive ice and snow with no apparent damage. Now, as he drove south to Buffalo Mountain, its paint job received regular and massive applications of muddy, salty water. The road’s shoulders still had piles of melting snow left by the plows. They formed weirs that held small ponds of dirty slush. He had to drive through them, sending geysers of water up under the body, across the road, and over the shoulder. Approaching cars showered his when they careened into several inches of similarly trapped road water. His windshield wipers began to streak. Adding washer fluid helped, but only slightly.

He pulled around behind Goad’s store and, again, parked out of sight. Inside, Goad stood behind the counter staring at his ledger and punching numbers into a small calculator.

“Wait a minute, ‘Whaite a Minute,’” he said without looking up. “I’ve got to add up an account. Steve, the guy you were asking about, came in here last night and paid his back bill. Then Sonny said he acted like he’d seen a ghost and high-tailed it out the door. Left all his things right there on the counter, too. Turns out his house caught fire. He was standing right where you are when he seen it go up.”

“Caught fire? His house?”

“Yep, went up like a wild fire in dry timber. Whoosh! The whole place is nothing but ashes and bits of plumbing sticking up here and there.”

“This happened last night?”

“About midnight. Sonny said Steve took one look and took off downhill, like the witches was after him, and he ain’t been back. You’d think he’d come back to look, salvage what he could, but he ain’t. Well, maybe he’ll be in later to pick up his stuff.” Goad licked the end of his pencil, made an entry and closed the ledger. “I saw that car you’re driving. Is the Sheriff’s Department up in Picketsville looking to draw attention to itself?”

“No, it’s mine, Wick. Not wise to bring a patrol car out of our jurisdiction and my truck is busted.”

“Well, it’s something. Don’t see many lipstick Chevelles anymore.”

Whaite offered his card. “If Bolt does come in, give me a call, will you? I need to talk to him.”

Goad pocketed the card. Whaite knew he might call or he might not. Mountain loyalties were stratified and Whaite had been away too long and was law enforcement now. He could only hope. “You weren’t here last night when he came in?”

“Me? No sirree, I was out playing poker. I went on my weekly sojourn to lighten the pocketbook of one Donnie Oldham. Now there’s a coincidence for you, Mister Deputy. Here old Steve pays me off and last night, so did Donnie—pretty near a thousand dollars—cash money. I proceeded to relieve the boy of another two hundred ’fore he quit. He thinks I cheat.”

“Do you?”

“Not with him. He’s the worst poker player on the East Coast, reckless. I don’t need to.”

“What’s he like, besides being a bad poker player?”

“He’s an idiot. Got this hot temper and always starting in on people. In the good weather he dresses up like some mountain man. He’s like one of them whatcha-call-ums, a reenacter, you know? Bib overalls, wide brimmed black hat, bushy beard—the whole bit—and toting a pistol in his pocket. Like I said, he’s an idiot.”

Whaite thanked him, reminded him about calling, and drove up to Bolt’s house, or what was left of it. Where there had been a single line of tire tracks before, there were multiple sets now. The fire engines, which evidently arrived too late to do any good, had nearly blotted out the others. He thought he saw a tire print or two that were neither Bolt’s VW nor the fire truck. Someone else had been to the house after Whaite left and before the fire company arrived. That could mean the house was torched. There’d been no smoke from the chimney the day before. That meant the space heater was not operating, so how else could the fire have started?

He needed to find Steve Bolt.

***

Ike and Ruth left the farm late. Abe insisted on making a huge country breakfast. She just picked at her food. She could not say goodbye to Ike’s mother who, Abe reported, still slept and he didn’t want to disturb her. He promised to tell her everything Ruth said. She poked her nose out the door, shivered, and allowed herself to be togged out in a parka, a pair of boots, and wool gloves from the back closet. Her coat now lay in her lap and a plastic bag held the remainder of her things, including the Bible.

“It’s late, I’m sorry,” Ike said over the noise of the engine, which always sounded like a surplus tank until its motor warmed up.

“It’s okay, I called and had Agnes rearrange my schedule.”

“How is Agnes these days?”

“Much the same. She is a sterling personal secretary—”

“Administrative assistant.”

“Right, administrative assistant. She is efficient, honest, cares about me. You would be wise to mend your fences with her. I know for a fact that if she takes it into her head to make your life miserable, she can and will.”

“What I can’t understand is what did I do to earn her enmity? I’m polite. I don’t take her paper clips without asking and I never, ever, ask her to fetch me coffee. That pretty much defines the sensitive man, I think.”

“She’s afraid of you, if you must know.”

“Afraid? Of me? Why?”

“The same reason I am. You are a dangerous man, Schwartz.”

“I missed something here. When did I become a danger to you and Agnes?”

“Agnes sees you as a threat to me because she cares about me, so the danger transfers to her.”

“I’m lost. Start again.”

“No, you’ll have to figure it out on your own.”

Ike sighed and shook his head. “Lunch then. I’m meeting Weitz. Join us.” He pulled up to the front entrance of Callend College. She turned to him. He did not like the expression on her face and was sure he did not want to hear what would come next.

“No, not today, Ike. And about tonight, your protecting me and all that—look, I appreciate it but I need some alone time. Don’t worry, I’ll have the college cops camp out on my porch until this thing blows over or the bad guys kill me. But I don’t want to see you for a while.”

“The first part’s okay. I didn’t sleep that well last night either. I kept running what happened back then over and over in my mind. I’d pushed it all away but around four in the morning, I remembered. I couldn’t have seen what happened from where I was sitting, but I was sure I saw what happened. I am sure Charlie is clean. And if he isn’t, well…”

“Well what?”

“There’s nothing I can do to stop him, anyway. The best protection in that case is to give the appearance the thought never crossed our minds. But that doesn’t mean we can’t see—”

“No, no. The two aren’t connected.” Ruth gazed out the passenger side window. Her brow furrowed, mouth drawn tight. She exhaled—not a sigh—a soft whoosh. “To tell you the truth, your mother spooked me a little. I need to make some decisions and I need to do it alone.”

“Decisions?”

“Don’t push, Ike.”

“We’re still fine?”

“We’re good. That’s not the problem. It’s about yesterday’s fire, and flannel nightgowns, and if I don’t get out of this rattletrap right this minute, you are going to see me cry and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you do that—not today, anyway.”