Cry Baby Hollow (33 page)

“Hell, Brothers Grimm would be an awesome theme. You should suggest it. Want me to run out and put it in the pot?”

Aubrey shrugged. “Just don’t put my name on it. Being the judge is too stressful.”

Joe popped up and headed to the door. “I’ll put both our names on it. That way I’ll know you’ll have to come to next year’s party with me.”

The door closed behind him and Aubrey laid her head back in relief. She hadn’t wanted to say anything, but standing for so long had made her leg throb and now she was feeling decidedly lightheaded. She was glad for a minute to rest, and very much looking forward to going home.

“You gotta promise you won’t do it again!” A voice snapped.

Aubrey’s eyes popped open, thinking someone had come in, but the room was empty. She looked around and saw that the library door was closed.

“She doesn’t
know
anything. She didn’t
see
anything. This murder shit is serious. You gotta be more careful.”

The voice definitely belonged to Vina, but she couldn’t hear who she was talking to.

“And today she saw a fat lady and a lot a clowns. People see what their minds tell them.”

A man’s voice broke in, but it was too low to be heard.

The front door opened and Joe closed it loudly, before Aubrey could motion for him to be quiet. The voices stopped abruptly.

“Time to go out,” Joe told her, helping her to her feet. Drake ignored them, snoring loudly.

“Just leave him be,” Joe suggested. “We’ll pop back by and get him on the way home.”

Aubrey nodded in agreement, too busy watching the library door to care much. She wanted it to open so she could see who Vina had been talking to, but Joe took her hand and led her through the house and out onto the back porch. People were crowded into the back yard, and Aubrey saw that the mist from the lake had pulled back, covering the water but leaving the damp ground bare.

Vina came out the door behind them, but whoever had been with her in the library must have gone out the front and around, because she was alone.

“Ready?” Vina asked her.

Aubrey nodded.

Joe saw her sway a bit and pulled over a chair so she could sit. Aubrey sank into it gratefully. Then he brought himself a chair and sat beside her, making her look less conspicuous. He gave her a wink and she reached over and squeezed his hand.

Vina picked up a bullhorn and hit the button, sending out a wave of earsplitting feedback.

“All right!” She called through it. “Aubrey was this year’s judge, on account of she’s new and also because all your theme suggestions last year sucked. Ya’ll do better this year or I’m gonna stop doin’ this.”

Vina waved Aubrey over, but when she saw her sitting, and the way she was struggling for breath, she held up her hand.

“Since she don’t know how it works, Joe is gonna officiate for her.”

Aubrey sighed in relief and Joe hopped up and took the bullhorn.

“This year’s best costume was awful hard,” he told them. “Ya’ll went all out and I just gotta say this was one of the best parties yet. Let’s hear it for everyone, and especially our charming hostess!”

Everyone cheered and Vina gave a little, waddling curtsey.

“So it’s only fitting that this year’s winner is…. The Fat Lady!”

Everyone cheered again. Aubrey figured that given the expense and effort she’d gone to on their behalf, nobody would have begrudged Vina her victory, even if she’d come in a brown paper sack. The fact that her costume was so spectacular only added a level of volume to their applause. Vina curtsied again, nearly toppling over, and they roared with laughter.

“And for best group costume…” Joe continued. “The Siamese Twins, by Lettie and Emaline.”

The crowd parted and the two women came forward smoothly, in spite of the awkward costume. They climbed up the steps and did a quick little soft shoe routine, ending in a big bow. Everyone loved it. After the applause had died down, Vina took back the bullhorn.

“And now, everyone have a Happy Halloween!” She called through it and at her signal, pumpkins all over the yard lit up. There were pumpkins along the porch railing and everywhere else they could be fit. They were hanging from the trees and snaking along the shoreline. Aubrey even saw them winking to life out on the lake, and realized that they were sitting on the dock, which was still shrouded in fog.

People began to disperse, going to look at all the pumpkins or going back to what they’d been doing before.

“How long will the party last?” Aubrey asked as Joe sat back down beside her.

“They should all a gone home by Wednesday,” he told her with a grin. “But we’ll just rest up here for a bit, and then I’ll take you home, okay?”

Aubrey nodded gratefully and sank down with her head on his shoulder.

“Will you stay?” She asked him hesitantly.

Joe looked down at her.

“I know you haven’t made it around the lake yet. Vina’s got a bettin’ pool going and I’ve got ten bucks on November fourth. I’d a heard if you’d already done it.”

Aubrey sat up straight and looked him in the eye. She looked around to make sure that nobody was within earshot, and then told him about the events of the last few nights.

He nodded, unsurprised.

“Heck mentioned it,” he told her. “Since it wasn’t an official crime scene, they needed my permission to go out and look around.”

“So you knew he’d be here,” Aubrey said, “and that’s why you came in with that woman.”

“I might a thought it’d do you good to see how it feels when the shoe is on the other foot,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You didn’t have to let her kiss you,” she said, trying not to sound too petulant.

“On the helmet,” Joe pointed out. “Besides, it coulda been worse. You coulda caught me in a hot tub with her when I was supposed to be recuperatin’.”

“I don’t like the idea of you in that trailer all alone tonight,” Aubrey told him, suddenly eager to change the subject.

“Hell, I don’t like the idea of me alone in that trailer any night, not with you right across the way… But if this is you givin’ up on gettin’ better, or just tryin’ to keep me from wanderin’ off, I won’t have no part in it.”

Aubrey nodded her understanding.

“I’m not giving up,” she promised. “I just miss you.”

Joe’s smile seemed to light up the dark porch.

“Then I’m all yours, darlin’,” he said softly, and pulled her head back down onto his shoulder.

The karaoke machine started up again and someone began to croon. The words of the old Platters song drifted across the lawn.

“Heavenly shades of night are falling, it’s twilight time. Out of the mist your voice is calling, ‘tis twilight time…”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Aubrey spent the
next day puttering around the cabin, feeling out of sorts. Joe had papers to grade and had gone home early, saying he’d be back with dinner. She worked. She read. She surfed the internet. But she was restless.

She wanted to know what was going on. She wanted to know who Vina had been talking t
o in the library the night before. She felt cooped up, trapped by an overcast sky that threatened to break into a downpour at any moment and by her leg, sore from a night on her feet.

At two in the afternoon, the rain started. Aubrey gave up on the idea of Joe coming back early and opening the hot tub for her. She went into the bathroom and filled the tub with scalding hot water, throwing in a handful of bath salt for good measure. Then, because she knew that her tolerance for sitting still and doing nothing was at an all time low, she lugged her laptop into the bathroom and set it on the vanity, where she could see it from the tub. She popped in an old Bogart DVD and stripped down.

The hot water loosened the tensed up muscles in her leg and shoulders and felt wonderful. She was just starting to wonder if she should get out and take a nap when the security system started to beep at her. It wasn’t the door alarm, just one of the cameras coming on. What now, Aubrey wondered. They weren’t even supposed to be active until after dark. Then she realized that the light sensors couldn’t tell the difference between the darkness of the storm, and actual night.

She dried her hand on the towel that hung from a bar beside the tub, and reached over to the laptop to pull up the video feed. Nothing. Aubrey swore under her breath, remembering that she’d disconnected the security system from the network so Lettie couldn’t accidentally access it. She crawled out of the tub, wrapped the towel around herself, and walked into the closet. The little monitor there showed her front yard as the only active display. She watched it intently, at first thinking that the rain or a falling branch had set it off, but then she saw movement. The wolf was back.

“That’s it,” she said aloud. “I’ve had enough of you and your two legged friends.”

She pulled on a pair of jeans, her hiking boots, and the shirt from a set of thermal underwear. She strapped on the Beretta’s shoulder holster, covered it with her leather jacket because it was the only waterproof one she had, and crammed her keys and cell phone into the pocket. She picked up two extra clips for the Beretta, checked that they were full, and shoved them into her back pocket. She picked up the Mossberg, gave it a quick once over, and went to the front door. Drake trotted up beside her with the tennis ball in his mouth.

“We’re not going for a walk you idiot,” she warned him. She looked around the cabin, out all of the glass, but didn’t see anything on Joe’s dock or anywhere else. She opened the front door and stepped out onto the deck. The front yard was empty as well.

“Shit,” she swore vehemently.

Drake ran past her into the yard and cavorted around in the mud puddles, getting his fur coated in filth. She sighed, but let him have his fun, aware that she was going to have bath him to get the golden dye out anyway. He tossed his head to the side and released the ball. It bounced away from him with a splash, and he ran to retrieve it.

“Alright, alright,” she told him, taking the hint. The rain had tapered off to a slow drizzle and there was still plenty of daylight left. Besides, she told herself, she might see something along the way. She popped back inside, traded the Mossberg for her cane, and came back out.

They made it to Joe’s uneventfully. Aubrey saw that his truck was gone. She checked her watch and decided he must have already gone to pick up supplies for dinner. She should have left him a note, she realized, but she knew if she turned back and did it now, she wouldn’t leave the cabin again. The soak had loosened her leg muscle and the walking felt good. She reminded herself again to try to find a motorized cover for the hot tub.

The rain had completely stopped by the time they made it to Wayne’s place. His truck was gone and the garage sealed tight. Part of her wanted to go over to it and poke around. She stopped and threw the ball for Drake, considering her options.

If my life was a movie
, she told herself,
and I was watching the main character do that, I’d lean over to whoever I was with and say what an idiot she was
. She pressed on, deciding to go as far as Vina’s and then either take a rest, or bum a ride back to the cabin, depending on how she was holding up.

She crossed the creek, near where she had cut through when she saw the man in the woods and the witches, and scanned the roadside carefully. There was no sign of anything amiss and Drake was acting, if anything, a little more frisky than normal. He certainly didn’t seem the least bit wary. If there was anything going on in the woods, he was as oblivious to it as she was.

She got to Vina’s and decided that she could press on, but that she should leave a message there for Joe, in case he came back and found her missing. She turned down the driveway, ridiculously glad to be walking on real pavement instead of gravel, even if only for a short way. When she saw the house, she stopped dead.

Detritus from the party littered the yard. The termite tent had been removed from the house, but the circus tents still surrounded it. Most of the refreshment carts had been taken away, but there were still overflowing trash cans, now full of water as well, everywhere and sodden wrappers and half dissolved popcorn peppered the ground. That wasn’t what caught her eye, though. The driveway was full of cars and there among them, was Joe’s.

She remembered that Joe had told her a crew came by the next day, but she supposed that the rain had delayed them. She also knew that Vina threw another little party for the lake residents to view a slide show of the photographs, but it was much too soon for that, and she surely would have been invited. What then, she wondered, was all this about?

She examined the cars. Joe, Lettie, Germaine, Erma, Emaline, Armistead… Assuming a bit of car pooling, everyone from the hollow was there except herself and Wayne Mosley. Did this have something to do with the conversation she’d partially overheard last night, she wondered.

She grabbed the tennis ball out of Drakes mouth and, instead of throwing it, shoved it into her pocket.

“Keep quiet,” she told him and stepped off of the driveway and into the yard where the tent that they’d had their pictures made in blocked her from view from the house. She squelched forward until she was right behind it and then slunk around its side, heading for the library window at the front of the house. She came to the edge of the tent and glanced around it. The curtains were drawn tight. Aubrey walked forward as stealthily as she could manage with a cane and a bum leg, and flattened herself against the wall below the window. She couldn’t hear anything, and glancing up, she didn’t think the light was even on. She eased around the house.

“Heel,” she whispered to Drake, who was walking beside her sedately enough, but was far enough out in the yard to be easily seen through a window. He trotted over to her obediently. “Stay here,” she told him. He sat happily in the mud, thumping his tail and sending little ripples though the puddle.

Aubrey crept around the corner of the house and headed toward the back. Half way there she froze. She heard voices. Either they were in the kitchen and had the doors open or they were all sitting on the back porch.

“I still say men shouldn’t even get a vote in this. What’s it to you, anyway?” Vina asked.

“Vina,” she heard Erma say peaceably. “We’ve already agreed that they have just as much a right to be involved as the rest of us.”