A Widow's Curse (9 page)

“I don't know.” He pulled on his earlobe.

The short musing silence that followed our comments was blasted quite suddenly.

“Gentlemen!”

Andrews and I both jumped.

Taylor stood in the doorway of the meeting room, a mask of gloom clouding his face.

“I'm afraid I have a bit of odd news.” Taylor took a step into the room. “Something has occurred at your home, Dr. Devilin, in your absence.”

I stood.

“What's happened?”

“You've just had a phone call.” Taylor paused. “Something about bringing a coin back home. Are you entertaining houseguests?”

The drive home was a tense affair. Shultz had called the law offices in something of a panic, according to Taylor. Apparently, a man had broken into my house or gotten in somehow; Shultz had fallen asleep on the sofa, and so the intruder startled him. After a moment, Shultz determined that the man must be an acquaintance of mine. He seemed quite distraught; said he urgently needed to speak with me, even more desperately wanted to see the coin. So Shultz called.

The problem was, when I went to the phone in Taylor's office, it was dead. When I called Shultz back, no one answered.

The road home seemed longer than it had ever been.

“And Shultz didn't say who it was.” Andrews kept going over the minuscule information we had, mumbling to himself. “Only that the man—”

“You can repeat what Taylor told us a hundred times, but you won't wring anything out of it. Just have a little patience and all will be revealed in a minute—when we get home.”

“Can't this heap drive any faster?” He rocked back and forth a little, unconsciously, I thought.

“The roads are still slick, it's almost dark, and I'm going as fast as I can.”

“Damn.” He said it to himself.

“Is there a more impatient man on the planet than you?”

“No.” He rocked faster. “But there's something more to my immediate discomfort than that. I have a stupid premonition. I know it's ridiculous, but I'm thinking about Shultz's saying the name of the Scottish play.”

“You can't be serious.” I gave him a sideways glance that I hoped would demonstrate my derision. “You're afraid something's happened because he said
Macbeth
in a diner?”

“And now
you're
saying it!” he exploded. “Drive faster.”

The last of the light that had kindled itself after the rain had gone was raging at the western horizon. Burnt red went to rococo pink and was eventually overtaken by a Parrish blue canopy that was settling over the nighttime sky. It was bruised sky, an autumn sky. September may have taken on summer's disguise for a while, but the costume was wearing thin.

Night always falls hard in Blue Mountain, and the dirt road up to my house was pitch-black by the time we got to it. No lights were on at my place, not even the front porch sconces, as we climbed out of my truck.

“Is he just sitting there in the dark?” Andrews wondered as we pulled up into my yard.

“He could be watching television. You like the lights off when you watch horror movies.”

“But I don't see the—thing, the flicker or whatever you call it. It doesn't look like the set's on.”

And the house was silent as a tomb. Windows open as they were, we should have heard something.

I slammed the door to the truck and took three steps before I froze.

“Wait!” I held up my arm.

Andrews looked around wildly.

“What?”

“Shh. The front door's open.”

He looked.

The door to my house was ajar by inches.

“This can't be good.” Andrews's voice had taken on a hushed tremor.

I stood for a moment, wondering what to do. It wouldn't have been the first time my house had been left open, or the first time anyone had gotten in. I rarely locked the door. But where was Shultz?

I took a slow breath.

“Shultz!”

Andrews jumped.

“Jesus, what the hell are you doing?”

“I'm
helloing
the house.”

“You're scaring the peanuts out of my M&M's.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Andrews sighed, then called out, “Shultz, come on!”

Nothing.

“He went off with the intruder?” I ventured.

“Right.” Andrews didn't move.

I bit my upper lip, then headed for the door.

“Wait.” Andrews couldn't believe I was on the march.

“Only one way to find out what's in a dark house is to go inside and turn on the lights.”

“Oh,” he called after me, mocking my insight. “I understand
that
metaphor all right. Well,
you
venture into your ‘dark house of the soul.' I'll wait for the paperback to come out.”

“Honestly.” I hit the front steps. “Shultz?”

“God.” Andrews followed me, stomping.

I opened the door and hit the switch that turned on the kitchen lights to my right, the closest inside switch. They were enough to reveal the nightmare image.

Shultz lay on the living room floor, facedown in front of the sofa, dead as a coffin nail. The back of his head was sunken in with a hole the size of a rotten plum, oozing.

 

Outside, the night was black by the time Deputy Mathews's squad car roared into the front yard: no moon, no stars, only the glare of the headlights.

Inside, Andrews and I had turned on every light in the house, even upstairs, and had sat silently in the kitchen, trying to think of what to say to each other—not wanting to think about Carl Shultz. I'd seen dead bodies; I'd even witnessed murder. Nothing compared to sitting in my own house with a corpse ten feet away.

I couldn't stop wishing Skidmore were in town. When we were younger, we'd been inseparable. When I left Blue Mountain, he was the only one to say good-bye. When I came back, he was the first to welcome me home. Now that he was sheriff, we spent a little less time together, but it would have been nice to have that sort of a friend nearby—under the circumstances.

Deputy Melissa Mathews was young, but Skidmore had complete confidence in her, so I did, too.

“Dr. Devilin!” she called from the front porch.

I stood slowly.

“Hello.” I didn't know what else to say.

She moved carefully through the front door and saw the body immediately.

“Okay,” she hollered over her shoulder, “come on.”

Several men and one gray-haired woman were coming up the porch steps by the time I got to the door to shake Melissa's hand.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” I told her, feeling foolish—it was something you'd say to a plumber if your water was running.

She held on to my hand.

“Are you all right, Doctor?” She searched my eyes, genuinely concerned.

“I—I'm a little shaken, actually. And my friend Dr. Andrews—have you met him?” I looked into the kitchen.

Andrews looked paler than usual. He held up one hand to wave weakly in the direction of the deputy.

“I don't believe we've had the pleasure,” she said, all business. “Excuse me.”

She held the door open and let the others in.

“This is Chester from over in Pine City,” she told me, patting one of the men on the shoulder as he passed. “He gets fingerprints. And you remember Mrs. Tomlinson.”

The grandmother nodded to me. She was carrying a Polaroid camera and had another, more serious one around her neck.

It took me a moment to remember where I had seen her. She was the wedding photographer in town.

“She's going to document the crime scene.” Melissa pointed her in the right direction. “She's done this sort of work for us before.”

Mrs. Tomlinson started snapping Polaroids immediately, and Chester had already popped on latex gloves and a surgeon's face mask.

I thought I recognized the other man, a deputy, though I could not recall his name. He began to search the living room.

Even for a million dollars, I could not have described any one of them the next day, except for Melissa, whom I knew. She'd been Skidmore's deputy for over a year, and many people in town had suspected their relationship, but Skidmore was married to Girlinda, one of the finest human beings on the planet, and he knew it. Besides, it would never even occur to Skidmore that Melissa was attractive—and never would.

Andrews, on the other hand, noticed right away.

Melissa's chestnut hair was pulled back in a braid that ran halfway down her back. Her expression was shy, but her stride was bold, and her mouth always seemed on the verge of a smile. She was still in her early twenties, and dozens had asked her out. She always refused.

“Could we step into the kitchen, Doctor,” she said gently. “I'd like to ask you a few questions.”

“Of course.”

Andrews stood when she came into the room and offered his hand. She took it and gave him what appeared to be a firm, masculine handshake.

“Dr. Andrews, is it?”

“It is.” He even managed a smile.

“And you both found the body?”

“I was first in.” I stood by the sink. “Do you want some coffee or something?”

“No, thank you. Please have a seat.”

Andrews and I sat at the kitchen table. She produced a small spiral notebook and a mechanical pencil and took a chair opposite us. For the next forty minutes, she took down the details of Shultz's visit, information about the coin, even a paragraph or two about related folktales, an indulgence to me, I thought. We finished with our trip to the Taylor law firm and what we had discovered there.

“All right.” She closed her notebook. “I think that's enough for the moment. We'll save the rest until the people from Atlanta get here.”

“What?” I thought I'd heard her incorrectly.

“I have to call Atlanta to notify the next of kin.” She sat back in her chair. “And I believe they may send someone up here to take a look at things.”

“You mean I have to wait up—”

“You can go on to bed if you want,” she interrupted. “We'll be here.”

“You mean I have to try to go to bed,” I said without missing a beat, “with the dead body of a very nice man lying on my living room rug?”

She leaned forward.

“I called Skid,” she whispered. “He told me to do it.”

“You called him?” I was surprised at how relieved that made me—not because I didn't trust Melissa, but because I wanted my old friend to be there. “What did he say?”

“He said to try and keep you from doing anything until he got here. He left Alabama when he hung up the phone. He drives real fast. He might be here in a couple of hours, really.”

I nodded, doing my best to rally.

“Did he give you any advice concerning just how you might keep me from doing anything?” I lowered my lids.

“You know those tranquilizer darts that we use on the rabid dogs?” She managed to keep a straight face, but her eyes were bright.

“You brought more than one, I assume. I'm fairly riled up.”

“Got a whole case out in the car.”

“Well”—I stood up—“go ahead and hit me with at least one. I'd like to get a good night's sleep.”

“That's a good one.” She finally gave in to her smile. It had exactly the opposite effect of a tranquilizer dart. “You surely are a mess, Dr. Devilin.”

“Amen to that,” Andrews chimed in.

He wasn't looking at me; he was staring into Melissa's eyes—or trying to. She looked away. I marveled at Andrews's ability to pursue her in light of the circumstances. My own courtship with Lucinda had progressed at a glacial pace, and there had been nothing of what could be called “flirtation.”

“I'm going upstairs to try and sleep,” I announced.

Melissa nodded. Andrews ignored me in favor of her.

I tried not to look into the living room on my way up the stairs.

 

I was awakened by loud voices.

I didn't know if I had slept a minute or a day. I couldn't tell what the voices were saying, exactly, but there was an air of disagreement that filled the whole house.

I dragged myself out of bed fully clothed. I'd only taken off my shoes. I tried to get them back on, but gravity had somehow increased its angry control over my body, and nothing was easy.

As I made it to my door, I thought that one of the voices might be Skidmore's. That eased gravity a bit and propelled me through the hall and down the stairs.

Before I hit the bottom step, I could hear the argument coming to a boil.

“I don't care who you
think
he is, Sheriff. I don't care if he's the mother of your
children.
He's our suspect!”

The man yelling was dressed in a cheap black suit and standing in my living room with his finger in Skidmore's face. His face was like a Halloween mask, contorted and vaguely ashen. Another man, older, stood behind him, looking down at his own shoes. Skidmore had his back to me.

“One more sentence,” Skidmore warned between welded teeth, “and you're in my jailhouse.”

“What?” the man exploded.

“Let's see. Assaulting a police officer, I think.” Skidmore looked toward the kitchen. “Deputy Mathews, did you see this man assault me?”

“Yes, sir, I did,” she called back immediately.

I cleared my throat.

“Excuse me, Sheriff. I heard the whole thing.” I smiled at the faces suddenly turned my way. “It's a clear case of mistaken identity. I am
not,
in point of fact, the mother of your children, and I have the medical records to prove it.”

Skid's face relaxed as he looked up at me.

“Hey, Fever.” His voice was soft.

I was dismayed to see, over Skid's shoulder, that the body of Carl Shultz was still there.

“And as I explained to the very capable Deputy Mathews,” I continued, entering the room, “Dr. Andrews and I were in Pine City at a lawyer's office when our friend here was killed.”

“The time of death has not quite been determined,” Melissa told me, wincing as she said it.

“You must be Dr. Devilin.” The man in the cheap suit gave me what is sometimes called, in lesser fiction, “the once-over.”

“This is Detective Huyne from Atlanta.” Skidmore sighed. “Mr. Shultz's family, apparently, exerts some influence there.”

“Bite my ass twice,” Huyne growled.

“In my house,” I said tersely, coming to stand just a little too close to the man, “I prefer better language. I'm not against profanity, exactly. I just think that any person with the intelligence required to become a police detective can probably think of ten or twelve better words to use, words that are more expressive and infinitely clearer. Now, if you have the idea that that you can bully my friends and me with an urban attitude and a few low-IQ insults, then I stand corrected in the matter of prerequisite brainpower for your job. Your bad manners, however, are only going to make it more difficult for you to accomplish anything on this mountain. So let me make things easy for you: I didn't kill Shultz, I have a witness who was with me all day, I have a witness in Pine City who is a pillar of that community, and anyone you'll ever talk to in Blue Mountain or in Atlanta will tell you I'm not capable of murder because I have too much guilt and psychological trauma as it is. I'm guessing that you haven't found a murder weapon, and if you ever do, it won't have a trace of me on it—this is assuming that he died from having the back of his head caved in. And on top of it all, my alibi in Pine City spoke to the deceased, who told him that a man had just broken into my house and was demanding to see me. It's the reason we hurried home from the lawyer's office—did I happen to mention that we were in a lawyer's office? So, obviously, the man who broke in killed our friend here. Any questions so far, or should I continue?”