Drizzled With Death (11 page)

“You are a lot lighter than I am. You could follow this guy up into that tree a lot further than I can without falling.”

“You want me to shimmy up the tree and pry a sloth out of it?”

“That’s right. Nothing to it.”

“Is it even legal for you to ask me to risk my life in the line of your duties?”

“There’s no risk. Look, I’ll stand right below the tree and catch you if you fall.” He stretched out two long arms that looked capable of wrapping tightly around just about anything he’d like. Except a sloth.

“I live on a tree farm. I haven’t fallen out of a tree since I was knee-high.”

“So, last year?”

“Is this really how you ask for a favor?”

“Sorry. Point taken.”

“It’s more the claws that worry me. They look pretty big. As big as maybe . . .”

“A mountain lion’s?”

“I never said I saw its claws. I was too busy noticing its teeth.”

“And its swishy tail.”

“You remember that?’

“I remember that call quite distinctly. Most often our damsels in distress are nowhere near as cute as you.” I felt myself turning hot and simultaneously pleased and nauseated. Most of the time when a guy around here gives me a compliment, he isn’t the one I wish was delivering it. As a matter of fact, all the time. The dating pool has a crack in it the size of the Grand Canyon, and all the juices leaked out about three weeks after high school graduation. Given my track record with men, scampering up the tree seemed a lot less dangerous than standing on the ground making small talk.

“Have you got something to put him in once I fetch him down?” I changed the subject with all the smoothness of a country road at the end of March.

“I’ve got a whole assortment of pet carriers, trash cans, and plastic storage tubs with holes punched in the top to allow for breathing. Does this mean you’ll help?” Instead of answering, I grabbed a low-hanging limb and began pulling myself toward the shaggy, drooping creature. It had finished the first apple and had moved on to a second, which dangled even farther out on the narrow branch.

Sooner than I wanted to, I reached the limb it was on. I sat, my legs dangling to either side of the branch, observing the creature, paying the most attention to its claws. I was surprised to see the way its fur parted along its belly like another animal’s would along its back. I guess that said something about its time spent hanging upside down compared with upright on its feet. Although, strictly speaking, I guessed it couldn’t be considered upside down if that was the way it preferred being most of the time.

“I think it’s still hungry. Have you got any sloth treats in your weapons arsenal?” Graham’s truck looked like it could hold a zoo’s worth of food with room left over for take-out Chinese.

“I haven’t brought anything specifically for sloths. What do you think it will eat?”

“It seems to like fruit. Where’s it from?”

“Central and South America. Maybe it would like a cup of coffee.”

“How about something leafy?” Graham nodded and hurried to the truck. He came back with a bag filled with produce. I flipped around and hung upside down to grab a head of romaine and a sleeve of celery from the bag. Without loosening my grip on the groceries, I righted myself on the branch once more, broke off a stalk of celery, and crushed the leaves just a bit. I hoped the scent would appeal to the poor hungry creeper. With excruciating slowness, the sloth turned its face toward the celery. I wasn’t sure if it was trying to make up its mind about how appealing it was or if it just required that long to get going in a new direction.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Graham asked.

“Do what?” The sloth began making its move. Inch by inch it oozed its way along the branch toward me.

“That crazy bat-swooping thing.” The look of awe on his face was priceless. It probably mirrored the one I had been wearing when I spotted the mountain lion peering in the sugarhouse window. Maybe I should tell him he was the one who was now imagining things. I resisted my childish side.

“I told you I knew how to climb trees.” I hadn’t told him about the years of gymnastics.

“Climb, yes, turn them into apparatus for an Olympic event, you did not.” He looked cute when he was startled, like a small child awakened from a dead sleep.

“He seems to like the celery.” I held the stalk out tentatively and scootched closer. The sloth was doing his part, but I figured the whole rescue operation would take a lot less time if I met him more than halfway. What I was planning to do once I got him within arm’s reach, I had no idea, but his interest in the celery felt like progress. “I think you ought to get a container. I’ve got a good feeling about this.” Graham hustled off again, this time returning with a pink plastic box with a matching lid. Just as advertised, it had jagged holes the size of half-dollars punched into the lid, making a grid of breathable space.

As the sloth came closer and took a first tentative nibble of the leafy end of the celery, I assessed my options. While his claws were intimidatingly long, he looked too complacent to pose a real threat to my safety. My jeans were thick enough to protect me and so was my jacket. As to size, he looked like a medium-sized dog. I never had problems picking up the family dogs even when I was much smaller than I was now. I bent my arm and pulled the celery closer to myself as the sloth reached for a second bite. He followed, and little by little I coaxed him right into my lap. He clung to my arm as if it were a tree branch. I tried to keep my attention on his flat, appealing face instead of his claws.

The stalk of celery was diminishing in my hand, an inch at a time. I felt panic start to rise. What would happen when it got right down to the end near my fingers? Should I have laid it flat in my hand like I was feeding a horse? I shifted the celery and felt it begin to fall. Without thinking, I lunged for it. I lost my grip on the tree, but the sloth never lost its grip on me. It clung like a baby monkey to its mother as I fell ass over teakettle from the branch into Graham’s outstretched arms with a thump.

“Now I know where I had heard your name before,” Graham said, staring at me with wide-open eyes. “Knowlton mentioned you at the USM.” I began to struggle, realizing I’d survived my fall. I’d never been too interested in being swept off my feet, and certainly any notions of that kind I may have briefly entertained never included a sloth, three-toed or otherwise.

“What do you mean, Knowlton mentioned me?” I asked as Graham stood me on my feet in one swift motion.

“At the Underground Swap Meat, he mentioned your talents.” Amazingly, the sloth still clung to me and was attempting to pull itself higher by grabbing fistfuls of my hair. “Here, let’s get him into this before he creates a bald spot.” Graham pried the lid off the container and began gently tugging on the sloth.

“The what?” I asked.

“The Underground Swap Meat. It’s a semiannual event where taxidermy enthusiasts get together and swap supplies.”

“And by supplies, you mean carcasses?”

“Basically, although sometimes tools and even business supplies get exchanged. I think someone even traded vehicles once.”

“How do you know about this?”

“The state used to hold a roadkill auction before rabies became such a worry and we had to shut it down. When the USM sprang up after the closure, we decided to investigate as a matter of public safety.”

“And everything was aboveboard?”

“It was all very clean. As a matter of fact, after the first time we showed up, the organizers sent us an invitation every year. Taxidermists aren’t fans of disease any more than the rest of us.” Graham held out another stalk of celery toward the sloth.

“That still doesn’t clear things up for me. Why was Knowlton talking about me?”

“Oh, it wasn’t just me he was talking to. He bragged about you to anyone standing still. None of us understood how a guy like that ended up engaged to a woman like he described.”

“Engaged?” I felt my voice climbing the scales more than I heard it. Maybe because it had gone up into dog whistle range.

“Right. He would go on and on about his fiancée’s acrobatic talents and how entertaining that could be under certain circumstances.”

“What sort of circumstances are you talking about?” I was starting to feel a boil in my stomach that spread up into my chest and threatened to pop my eyes straight out of my head.

“I don’t think I know you well enough to go into the details. It might embarrass you to no end. I know it would make me uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t know me well enough to listen either.” Graham kept tugging on the sloth, attempting to pry it off me. I was beginning to think the thing was part octopus the way it stuck to my torso.

“You’ve got me there. It was disrespectful and it was none of my business. For the record, he made it sound very flattering.”

“He made it all up.”

“It did sound like he was exaggerating a bit. After all, how could anyone really manage to . . .” Graham tapered off, turning red and staring at the ground instead of meeting my eyes.

“He wasn’t exaggerating, he was lying.”

“I don’t see how you can be so sure if you weren’t ever there.”

“That’s what I’m saying to you, I wasn’t ever there. And neither was he. Knowlton and I have never been more intimately enmeshed than sharing a seat on the school bus.”

“So you’re one of those old-fashioned girls who’s saving herself for the wedding night?”

“We aren’t engaged either. We never have been.”

“Well, that’s disappointing.”

“What?”

“Knowlton was describing every man’s dream girl, and now you burst my bubble and tell me he made it all up?”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t a dream girl. I just said he had no way of knowing if I was or if I wasn’t.”

“There are going to be a lot of disappointed guys when I tell them Dani Greene isn’t as advertised.”

“What do you mean by a lot?”

“I mean all across the state. Guys came from everywhere to attend the USM. By about the third year I started wondering how many of the men showing up were more interested in hearing the next installment of the Dani escapades than swapping critters.”

“That doesn’t seem flattering.”

“They do love their carcasses, so it might be saying more than you think.”

“Too much has already been said. This has been one of the worst days of my life.”

“Come on, it can’t be that bad.” Graham wrapped one hand around the sloth’s arm right where its wrist would be and managed to detach it from me. For a moment the animal dangled between us like a child swinging from its two parents’ hands while out on a walk.

“It is that bad. My business is headed for ruin and now I find out my reputation has been destroyed for years and I never even knew it.”

“Then that’s not so bad, now is it? If you didn’t know, it didn’t affect you.” Graham tossed the rest of the celery into the box then gently dangled the sloth in after it and snapped on the lid. He hoisted the box into the back of his truck, all set to go.

“You must be an optimist.”

“I guess maybe I am. I’m the guy who always stops people thinking their bags are too full, not that they’ve been taking fish that are too small.”

“So what’s the silver lining to finding out my syrup is responsible for a death and that my business needs shutting down?”

“Did you like the person who died?”

“No. I definitely did not.”

“There you go, a very shiny silver lining if you ask me.”

“My business is in the tank, my reputation’s shot both professionally and personally.”

“At least you’ve got someone who wants to marry you.”

“And that’s a good thing in your opinion?”

“Sure. I’ve always wanted a family of my own. Haven’t you?”

“I’ve got more than enough family already, and they do enough worrying about my marriage prospects so I don’t have to do it myself.”

“You come from a family of incurable romantics?”

“Consummate meddlers.”

“You’re lucky they care enough to butt in.”

“You’d be singing a different tune if they kept trying to set you up every time you turn around.”

“Maybe I could use the help.” I had noticed Graham didn’t wear a wedding band, but he didn’t look like someone who would need help finding a date. He had excellent posture, a decent job, and all of his teeth. That was a whole lot more than I could say for most of the guys Celadon tried setting me up with.

“I’ll let them know. I’m sure they’d love to expand their hunting grounds.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“Although you’ll be too busy for a while chasing all those exotics to spend time running around after any women.”

“For the right woman, I’d find the time.” Graham leaned a bit closer and looked me directly in the eyes. I felt flustered and broke off eye contact. Just through the trees an equine shape slipped through the woods. “Did you see that?” he asked and dashed off in pursuit. I guess I must not have been the right woman.

After that, there was nothing for it but to keep heading over to the
Stack and drown my sorrows in a flood of some nontoxic maple syrup and whatever fatty carbohydrate Piper was serving to go with it. Piper gave me a hurried smile over a plume of steam rising from a row of freshly filled coffee mugs. I couldn’t find it in myself to smile back so I just nodded and slid into a booth near the back. If I sit in them just right, my size allows me to be completely hidden in a booth. Not a bad thing when what you want is food, not company.

Before long, Piper arrived carrying a plate piled high. She slid into the seat across from me and plunked the plate down in front of me.

“What’s that?” I asked, eyeing the plate.

“The special. It’s called the Who’d a Thunk It. With a side of sweet potato fries, so crispy they’re almost burnt. Just the way you like them.”

“I don’t know if I’m up for anything new.”

“You’ll be up for this. It’s really just a gussied-up toasted cheese sandwich.”

“It looks like waffles.”

“I sandwiched maple cheddar cheese, caramelized apples, and crispy bacon strips between two whole-grain waffles then toasted the whole thing on the griddle. It’s best drizzled with syrup so eat it with a fork.” Piper plucked the syrup pitcher from its spot snuggled against the wall and sozzled my sandwich with a heavy hand.

“I think you mean drizzled with death.”

“Myra stopped by earlier. She blabbed about the lab results.”

“I just hope I haven’t poisoned anyone else.”

“You haven’t poisoned anyone at all. Someone else tampered with Alanza’s portion. As soon as the lab results on the rest of the jugs come in, you’ll be back in business.”

“Bad news spreads faster and sticks longer than good. I don’t know if the business will survive this sort of thing. Especially if Celadon has anything to say about it.” I poured syrup over everything on the plate.

“As soon as you reopen, we’ll put the stock we have here on sale. Buy one, get one free, or some such thing. People will be so happy with the price they’ll forget all about anything else, and you’ll be back at the top of your game.”

“What about the people who buy online?”

“I’m telling you, it isn’t going to matter before you know it. So cheer up and clean your plate. You’re still looking a little frazzled.” I told her about my run-in with Graham and all the things Knowlton had said about me at the auctions.

“You know what the most surprising thing about all of this is? That Knowlton knew enough about sex to make up something interesting. That guy has hidden depths.” Piper got the kind of look in her eyes she always did before announcing some new delicious idea she had for the restaurant.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“About what?” She batted her baby blues my way, like she did at flirtatious geezers who said more than they should. Like she did when we were kids and the teacher thought she’d been stirring up trouble.

“About Knowlton. You know how you are about hidden depths. If you start trying to plumb his, or worse, let him get round to measuring yours, I will lose my anchor in the sea of reality.” And I would, too. Some things a person can count on. Mosquitoes will bite, paper cuts will sting, and Knowlton will not be of romantic interest. These things were as immutable as the laws governing the moon’s trip around the earth. It was bad enough Knowlton had invented some escapades for me. Watching Piper contemplate stirring some up with him for real was enough to drive me away from my fries. And nothing ever drove me from my fries.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Good. See that it remains that way. I may be young but there is only so much my ticker can take in one week.” And just as always happens, the Stack filled up all at once, like a basement after a sudden storm. Piper hurried back behind the counter to welcome the newcomers and Mitch took the opportunity to fill her spot.

“So I hear not only have you been bopping off the locals, you’re hallucinating, too.” Mitch reached across the table and plucked one of my fries off my plate like we were in the habit of companionably sharing food. I was pleased to see a big blob of syrup land in the middle of his uniform shirt. If the angle was just right, you could see a bit of softening across his midriff. The syrup landed just about where a spare tire was thinking of inflating.

“I must be because I could swear I just saw an officer of the law steal some of my meal.” I yanked my plate closer and wrapped my arm around it like a pirate guarding his rations.

“Yup. You surely are seeing things then. You know how upright our police officers are.”

“I seem to remember you trying to convince me to join you in being anything but upright.” I speared a forkful of outrageously delicious sandwich and bit down on it with more force than I had intended. Mitch blushed a bit under his baby-smooth shave. He probably would never be able to grow a beard like Grampa’s.

“I heard you were hallucinating about mountain lions out at your property the other night.” Mitch always did know how to change a subject.

“Now where’d you hear a thing like that?” Myra was the only one I could think of who knew about my call. Honestly, I was surprised she hadn’t gotten on the horn and spread the news before she even put in the call to Fish and Game.

“From that game warden.” Unbelievable. And to think I had maligned Myra in my mind.

“I think you mean conservation officer. And why would he tell you a thing like that?”

“We’re both law enforcement officials, and I think he wanted my expert opinion on the reliability of the person who claimed to have witnessed the big cat.”

“I see.” If Graham didn’t hurry up and finish his business in Sugar Grove, I was going to be tempted to move out.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.” His hand crept across the Formica tabletop at about the same rate Graham’s sloth would have.

“Which was?” I grabbed a sticky menu from the rack at the table and whacked the back of his hand with it.

“That you’re a crazy pipsqueak with a taste for the grape.”

“He said that?”

“Not in those exact words but that’s what it boiled down to in the end. He stopped by the station after he got done at your place. Asked if you had ever been picked up for DWI or public drunkenness. Wondered if you were legally blind or affected poorly by the full moon. That sort of thing.”

“All of which you confirmed, apparently.”

“Well, I felt duty bound to reveal it was you who spiked the punch at the post-prom party.”

“I added a container of iced tea mix because it wasn’t sweet enough.”

“And that you suffered from eye strain.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You were voted class bookworm. That had to lead to some permanent damage.”

“Dare I ask about the moon?”

“Remember in the fifth grade how you jumped on Andy Peals and started hitting him with your lunch box when he mooned the pastor’s wife from the school bus?”

“Are you really allowed to take down witness statements?”

“He seemed pretty interested in what I had to say. And now with the way things look about Alanza dropping from eating your syrup, I’ll be surprised if you don’t get hauled off to the loony bin in Concord.”

“The syrup is not my fault. There are all sorts of people with great reasons for poisoning her.”

“Like who?”

“Like Roland. Like Knowlton.” Although knowing Piper’s taste in men, if Knowlton landed in jail on a murder charge, she was sure to become even more interested in him.

“Don’t forget Myra.”

“Myra had a problem with Alanza, too?”

“Of course she did. Myra was a Bett before she married a Phelps. Alanza got her mitts on the property bearing the family name and then set about destroying it. You can bet Myra was angry.”

“I didn’t realize Alanza and Myra were related.”

“Only distantly, to hear Myra tell it.”

“But how did someone from out of town like Alanza inherit when Myra didn’t?”

“That I don’t know. Myra likes to yak but she decides what about, and she wasn’t mentioning anything about the terms of the inheritance.”

“Did you try to pry it out of her?”

“Of course not. It was none of my business.”

“Well, it might be now. It sounds like it could be a motive. And Myra has access to the grange hall.”

“So does everybody and his brother,” Mitch reminded me.

“That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be asked about it.”

“That’s something best left to Lowell. I have no intention of tangling with her.” Mitch slid toward the edge of the booth. “As a matter of fact, I think I’m going to leave it to you to mention it to Lowell. Something as potentially explosive as accusing an employee of murder might be best coming from you.”

“Why me? You’re the professional, remember?”

“But you’re the do-no-wrong goddaughter, remember? Have you forgotten the crossing guard incident?” Mitch stood next to the table and managed to snitch one last fry.

“You steal my food again and I will be sure to speak to Lowell about your proclivity for crime.”

“That’s to get you back for the radar gun details Lowell put me on after I dumped you.” Mitch walked off, wiping sausage grease from his fingers on his pant leg. Just another reason things would never have worked out between us. If my grandmother had ever seen that at her dinner table, she would have given him some poisoned syrup on purpose.

• • •

I meant to keep out of things and simply wait for the call from
Lowell letting us know someone had tampered with Alanza’s syrup bottle. But by nine the next morning, I had bottomed out my e-mail in-box, polished silver service for thirty-six, and scorched three different batches of caramel sauce for Thanksgiving dinner. I could hardly refuse when Grandma suggested I leave her kitchen in peace by heading for town to do some early Christmas shopping. I decided to use Christmas shopping as an excuse to ask Tansey Pringle a few questions about Alanza.

Tansey had her feet up on an overturned plastic milk crate when I pulled up into her driveway. I’m sure she was surprised to see me since generally I am doing my best to elude her efforts to hook me up with her son, Knowlton. She knocked over the crate and sprang to her feet, an impressive feat considering her age, sixty-six, and her arthritis, rheumatoid. Neither of which stopped her from serving as president of the local snowmobile club or running her small family farm.

Tansey liked to complain but never about her health or her work. She was happy to complain about town politics, other people’s decisions, and the weather but not about herself and certainly never about Knowlton. He could do no wrong in her eyes, and she just could not comprehend why it was that he was still single. I don’t know that it had occurred to her that having her as a mother-in-law might be a part of the problem. She spat a huge gob of tobacco on the ground next to her before speaking. A little trickle of the juice strayed down from the corner of her mouth, and I resisted the urge either to stare or point it out to her. If her mother had never gotten basic niceties into her head, there was no way it would be worth my time to try to do it. Besides, my grandmother would take me over her knee if Tansey reported I had been sassing my elders.

“Knowlton’s not up yet. But if you wait a bit, he’ll be moving around. He had a long night out in the woods.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the snowmobile club.” I didn’t want to come right out and ask her about how the club would have been affected by Alanza’s plans to close the property for use. She might take offense and clam up entirely. But given any sort of opening, she was sure to let it all out. If I was careful, there was no way she could resist. Now for a good excuse as to why I was asking. I hated to do it to him, but I was about to sacrifice my own brother to the snowmobile gods.

“Were you thinking about joining?” Tansey leaned toward me like she always did when she got excited about something. Usually she was bragging about Knowlton and the latest thing he had dragged home and stuffed, but talk about snowmobiles ran a close second.

“Oh, not me, Loden. I’m having a hard time deciding what to get him for Christmas this year, and I thought a membership to the snowmobile association would be just the thing.”

“I didn’t know he was interested in snowmobiles.” Tansey looked up into the sky like she was checking her file on potential in-laws for Knowlton and then brought her eyes back down to my face like she came up empty. Which went to show that despite her advancing years, there was nothing wrong with her memory. Loden had never in all his life expressed an interest in snowmobiles. He had expressed plenty of disgust, but never any interest. He hated their noise and the stink of the exhaust.

“Well, that’s why it would make such a great surprise. He could really use something new to do in the winter, and this might be right up his alley. What can you tell me about the club?” I tried not to shift from one foot to the other like a little kid needing to pee, but that’s what lying did to me. It made me have to pee.

“Well, we’ve got a strong club established. We have over two hundred members and miles and miles of trails we maintain every year.”