A Line To Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery) (9 page)

“Some of it was okay. We all worked. There wasn’t a lot of discipline, but we mostly got along. There was always a royal battle with the public schools about the members’ efforts to teach us at home. Eventually, all of us kids had to go to regular school. A beat-up old bus took us in every morning and brought us back every afternoon. If you got out early, you waited. If you wanted to play sports or anything, you had to find a way home and there wasn’t anything reliable, so mostly we didn’t join anything.”

We sat together in the kitchen but Andy had left me, gone a long way back in time to his memories. I guessed he still carried some old baggage.

“Our clothes were a mess and some of the girls really carried on about that. Then they gave up and were as outrageous as possible. You know how kids do, for the attention, to say ‘I don’t give a damn what you think.’”

“Is your first name really Pacifist?”

He laughed. “I forgot that was in
Freckles
. Yeah, it is, and I never had a Twinkie ‘til I was thirteen.”

“Well, that was just wrong.” I smiled.

“There was a lot of talk about peace and harmony and love for everyone, but not a lot of help when it came to chopping wood for the stoves. The winters can get pretty cold up north. Gradually, people left, and pretty soon only a couple of kids were still there. They were a lot younger than me.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “My folks were true believers, though—from each according to his ability and all that. They stayed and so did a few others, but they thought I should go to live in Buckley with my grandparents for a while. In the winter at least, to go to school, then return home for the summer. Only, I never did—go home, I mean. I loved Buckley and said I wanted to stay. My grandparents were great. They didn’t ask too many questions. They just let my folks know, gave me a home and did the best by me they could.”

He stopped for a minute and then looked at me with a one-sided smile. “They even let me go by Andy instead of Pacifist.”

After that, we sipped our coffee in silence, and I snuck looks out the window.

Andy bit into a brownie. “Good.” He finished it and took a second.

The back door burst opened and Dominic ran in. “Hi, Aunt Merc.” He collapsed onto a chair. “Hey, Dad. You should see me throw the ball.” He tossed a baseball in the air and caught it.

“Have a brownie, Dom.” I pushed the box toward him.

Dominic helped himself, crammed one in his mouth and grinned widely, displaying chocolate
covered teeth.

“Dominic,” Andy snapped. “Stop that.”

“When my brother and I were little and we were going someplace in the car, we covered a front tooth with Blackjack gum and smiled at all the cars passing us.” I smiled at Dominic. “Our mom taught us to do that.”

Dominic giggled, swallowed with a large gulp and went to the refrigerator. He poured himself a glass of milk. “Want to see our workshop? We’re fixing a table.”

I raised my eyebrows slightly, looking at Andy.

“We found an old dining room set at a garage sale. We’re refinishing it. There’s a hutch, too. Underneath about five different layers of paint is oak. Solid oak.”

“Uh, sure. I’d like to see it. I’m about coffeed out for the day. Then I’ve gotta go.”

The three of us went out through a window-enclosed back por
ch and down a narrow walk to the converted garage. No one could look in and see what was going on inside because, rather oddly, there were no windows. The only natural light came from skylights in the roof.

The table was in the middle of the room. Its top had been stripped to the natural wood, but bright green paint still covered the legs. Andy had pushed a green hutch and several chairs, whose surfaces were painted with birds tying ribbons around hearts, back against a wall.

“Smells good.” I sniffed the combined scents of fresh sawdust and woodworking chemicals.

“You like it?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.” He looked bemused for a minute.

“It’s like oil and turpentine when I paint. What are you using?”

“Lacquer thinner and denatured alcohol.”

“I think the smell is part of the pleasure of creating.” I paused. “I suppose to a lot of people, that doesn’t make much sense."

He didn’t answer.

I looked around but stayed close to the door. “My dad is a great paper man. No matter how complicated our taxes are, he can always do them, but he can never fix anything around the house. Mom and my grandfather replace washers and stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“I asked him once how come he couldn’t fix stuff and he said because his father was a cowboy and didn’t know how, either. Then I asked what his family did when things needed to be repaired, and he said, ‘we moved.’”

Andy laughed. “Are you kidding me?” Before I could answer, he turned saying, “Dom, time for bed.”

“Ah…”

“Put your bike away and hit the shower.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “We need to finish packing and stuff, remember?”

“I’m going to the farm, Aunt Merc. They have llamas. They spit, don’t they? Like camels?” Dominic sounded pleased at the prospect.

“Llamas? I don’t know. I think they whistle when they get nervous. Anyway, they have good hair for sweaters. Does your gramma knit?”

“Of course,” Andy answered for him. “Waste not want not.”

I laughed.

“Can I take my bike?”

“Sure.”

“Good.” Dominic ran out into the gathering dusk.

Andy stood in the shadows, turning a piece of dowel in his hands.

“What about the police? Can you leave the area?”

“I am.” His voice was harsh.

“Dom will love it, you know. City kids love farms. It’ll be a whole new experience for him.”

“I hated it.”

The anger in his voice came through. In a frightening few seconds, he’d done a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, gone from laughing at my anecdote to exploding in anger. I froze in a vice grip of fear, stricken into silence. Was I seeing Andy as the police saw him? The garage, insolated near the back of the property, had gotten dark. I couldn’t see his expression but in the awakening shadows he turned a piece of dowel in his hands. I took a deep breath to arm myself from fear and then there was a loud cracking sound, like a sudden thunderclap. The dowel in his hands had snapped in two.

Chapter 8

The memory of the broken dowel in Andy’s hands rode home with me and crept insidiously into my apartment. Andy and I both gave a start at the sound of the crack. I’d said a hasty good-bye and Andy barely acknowledged it. When I left, he was staring at the two pieces, almost as if he had no memory of how they came to be there.

I thought about this while I looked for a parking place. The only open spot was half a block away from my building, a potential mugger’s hideout next to a mass of old rhododendrons. What if Andy followed me? What if he thought Isca had told me something I wasn’t supposed to know? I wished I had a flashlight in the glove box, but since I didn’t, I opened and closed the car door as quietly as possible. My footfalls sounded abnormally loud on the pavement. One streetlight had an irritating habit of going off when anyone walked underneath it.
How convenient for a
bag-snatcher—or worse.

My apartment’s entry hall had a narrow table under the mailboxes where the mailman left packages. I barely glanced at it, wishing, suddenly, I lived in a secure building.

Even after I’d unlocked the dead bolt on my door, went inside and relocked it, I still didn’t feel safe. More like maybe a psychopath lurked inside and I’d just locked myself in with him. I left the lights off in order to see outside and partially opened the sliding glass door to the balcony. Though the spring days had been unusually warm, the nights were cold. Voices in the park faded until only the footsteps of joggers on the gravel paths remained. The joggers seemed to prefer the cooler night air.

The neighborhood stray cat sat outside on one of the deck chairs. He was one step away from emaciation. I’d fed him before and he apparently remembered.

He purred and followed me inside. I locked the door, put a piece of dowel in its track and turned on some lights. The only fish I had was a can of tuna. I mixed it with cereal.

Jose watched me switch off the radio and cover the back of his cage. He’d spend some time preening his feathers before he tucked his head under his wing. I liked the little noises he made. They were companionable. “Hello, kitty.” I rubbed his cheeks and head. “Hello, porch cat. Have you been out tomcatting?
I’ll get you some real food tomorrow.”

Porch Cat ate and I sat in a rocking chair and put my feet up. My thoughts returned to Andy. “Is it possible he murdered Isca and has no recollection?” I tried to remember the Ted Bundy case. Ted had been so notorious, a lot was written about him. No mention of amnesia, however.
Interesting town that gave the world Bing Crosby and Ted Bundy
.

The cat jumped on my lap and kneaded my thigh with half-sheathed claws. I closed my eyes and leaned back, rocking the chair a bit. Jose fell silent as he settled in for the night.

Three years after my husband Jack’s death I still mourned. I did my job like an automaton and, at the end of every day, went home and went to bed. I saved money on groceries because I didn’t eat. Finally, I’d gone to the doctor.

In all those years since, there was just that one time. That improbably, impossible and totally inappropriate time.
Caught me with my Prozac down
. I found relief in therapy and was thankful my insurance covered the payments. When the psychiatrist finally cut me loose I was able to resume my life and learned to like it as it was. Everything about Andy seemed headed toward emotional involvement, toward turmoil I didn’t want.

When the phone suddenly rang, all three of us jumped. I’d forgotten to turn on the answering machine—again. The noise bounced off my walls like the sound of clashing cymbals. I couldn’t explain my naked fear, but my stomach knotted. The stridency of the tone seemed magnified by the lateness of the hour. The succession of shrill rings went on and on, reminding me of a dog baying for blood. That, in turn, fed my terror. Attached malevolently to the wall like an overfed spider, the persistent sound seemed angry. In movies babysitters answered phones only to be told something or someone was coming to get them. I sat and watched it ring.

“I see you. I know you’re there. You can’t hide in the moon-mad night,” the ringing shouted. Then even more terrifying, “I can wait.” Abruptly, the sound stopped and I was very, very cold.

“People usually hang up after a ring is completed,” said the rational side of my brain. “They generally don’t cut off mid-ring.”

“Something’s coming,” said the irrational side.

“Mercedes!” A fist pounded on my door. I leaped up and clutched my throat like some Victorian heroine. The dislodged cat protested.

“Merc, it’s Dave.”

I was so relieved I wanted to cry. My hands shook as I undid the lock. Dave walked past me carrying a box.

“Don’t you answer your phone?” He set the box on the coffee table. “I saw you come in. I let the phone ring and ring.”

“Well, where the heck have you been? Why are you never around when I need you? I don’t suppose you know Isca was murdered and her ex-husband and I found her body and he’s the prime suspect and…”

“Say what?” Dave stood and stared in disbelief. “Isca? Are you kidding me?”

“Why the hell does everyone keep saying that? Of course I’m not kidding. Who kids about murder?”

“Okay. Whoa. Chill for a minute and tell me what’s going on.”

I returned to the living room and plopped back into the rocker.

Dave sat on the couch. “So, what’s the story?”

I told him all that had happened. Being able to share the horror with a good friend took some of it away. Eventually, we wore the topic out and I looked at the box he’d carried in. “Look. It’s from my folks. They’re in Costa Rica. I wonder what it is.”

Dave’s attention was diverted, as I’d hoped it would be.

I got a knife and began to cut the heavy tape. The box was labeled Sarchi, Costa Rica. A picture of, and the Spanish word for, a cart were stamped on the side. Inside was a note from Mom. “Letter to follow.”

“It’s a miniature ox cart.” I took out newspaper-wrapped parts.

“What’s Spanish for ‘some assembly required’?”

Dave and I laughed.

“Ox carts are their ‘thing,’ you know, like shortbread is to Scotland.” I smoothed a newspaper wrapping and glanced at it.

“
Tico Times.
Dad has a subscription. It’s the English paper for retirees in Costa Rica.” I set the papers aside to look at later. “Coffee farmers used to caravan coffee beans down from the mountains to the ports in carts like this one. Bigger, of course. You still see them used in rural areas. Aren’t the colors pretty?”

“Fabulous.” Dave didn’t seem overly interested in my somewhat pedantic comments. “Say, what are you doing this next Saturday?”