Looking for Me (30 page)

O
n a Tuesday in early September, I arrived at the shop feeling lighter and happier than I had in years. Throwing on a smock, I began the day by sanding a Venetian footstool while Albert mixed wood filler to repair a chair leg that the owner’s puppy had chewed.

His radio was tuned to an oldies station, and when the Four Tops began to sing one of my favorite songs, I belted out the words right along with them,
“Reach out for me!”

Lost in a moment of joy, I shimmied around the workroom, snapping a rag against my hip, the wall, and my bench. I wiggled and jiggled and had myself a gay old time. When I looked up and saw Albert watching me, I stopped and said, “What?”

“If you don’t stop singin’, I’ll be the one
reachin’ out
to turn off this here radio. Ain’t nobody ever told you?”

“Told me what?”

“That you can’t sing.” He shook his head and added, “And you sure can’t dance neither.”

I laughed. “C’mon, Albert. Lighten up.”

The bell above the front door rang, and I went right back to singing as I shimmied out of the workroom. Behind me I heard Albert chuckle. Straightening my shoulders and tossing the rag aside, I went to greet whoever had come in. I was surprised to see Olivia.

“Hey, I stopped at that junk shop over on Meeting Street this morning. Look what I found.” She handed me a bolt of fabric. “Something told me this was special.”

I pulled off the rubber band and turned down a corner so I could examine the face of the fabric. It was the most gorgeous watermelon-and-cream silk stripe I’d ever seen. “Oh, my gosh, this is outstanding.” I counted how many times the fabric had been rolled around the tube. I think there’s enough to make draperies for my home office.”

“So that means you want it?” Olivia said with a knowing smile.

“Absolutely. What do I owe you?”

“Twenty-five bucks,” she said, admiring a silver rice spoon on the display table.

“That’s a steal. C’mon back so I can pay you. Do you have time for coffee?”

Happy for the invitation, she followed me to the kitchen. I poured a cup for both of us and was about to sit down when
t
he bell above the door sounded again. Inez called out from her office, “Stay put—I’ll go. It’s probably the mailman.”

Not a minute later, she walked into the kitchen and sang out, “Flowers for Miss Theodora Overman!” She placed a lush bouquet on the table—white hydrangeas, pale pink roses, and fragrant purple stock, accented by seeded eucalyptus.

I didn’t need to look at the card to know who’d sent them. From a narrow white ribbon tied around the vase, I removed the small envelope. Trying to look nonchalant, I slipped it into the pocket of my smock.

“These are spectacular,” Olivia said, turning the vase in a slow circle. I adore hydrangeas.”

Inez folded her arms across her chest. “So who sent them?”

“Yeah, Teddi, what’s the card say?”

“I’m sure they’re from one of my clients.”

Inez arched one perfectly drawn-on eyebrow. “Baloney. I’m not leaving this kitchen till you open that envelope.”

“Me neither. Where is that card, anyway?”

“She tried to be sly and put it in her pocket,” Inez said.

I removed the envelope and opened it. The card simply read:
“
Sam.
”

“I told you, it’s a
client.
”

Inez snatched it from my fingers. “I do all the billing around here. We don’t have a client named Sam.” She tapped the card with her finger and narrowed her eyes. “Except for one.”

When I grabbed the card away from Inez, she let out a hoot. “So it
is
Sam Poteet.”

“No!” Olivia bleated. “Son of Miz Sticky-Fingers Poteet? But you said he was a toad.”

“That was before I met him.”

Inez asked, “How long have you been dating him?”

“Just a few weeks.”

Olivia flashed me a look. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I wasn’t ready to tell you. It’s not a big deal.”

“Of course it is. He’s sending you
flowers
.”

Inez leaned against the doorframe, her lips curving into a knowing smile. “You like him. I can see it in your eyes.”

I lightly touched a hydrangea. “Yes. I do.”

I walked home from work that evening carrying Sam’s flowers. They were so heavy that by the time I set them down on my front porch and unlocked the door, my shoulders ached. After I played ball with Eddie and fed him supper, I carried the flowers upstairs. Just as I set them on my bedside chest, the phone rang. I flopped onto the bed and smiled when I answered, hoping it might be Sam.

“Teddi. It’s Gabe.”

“Hi, I was just thinking about you and Sally this morning. How are—”

“Teddi, are you watching TV?”

“No. Why?”

“Good. Whatever you do, promise me you won’t watch any news channels.” Gabe let out a long breath. “I hate having to tell you this, but it’s better you hear it straight from me and not from some newscaster.”

“What?”

“Remember when we talked last month and I told you about the poaching going on in the Gorge? Well, it was worse than I led you to believe. A lot worse.”

“What do you mean?”

There was no response.

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. “Gabe?”

“I don’t want to talk details, and believe me, you don’t want to hear them. But some sick psycho was . . . was slaughtering wildlife.”

My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, no!”

“On Sunday the rangers closed off all entrances to Daniel Boone Forest and shut down access to the Gorge. About sixty of us started to hunt for whoever was responsible. Yesterday a group of climbers found . . . Well, it was so bad that CNN came out and filmed parts of the area where one of the slaughters took place. I don’t think they’ll show much of the footage, but they did several interviews with the rangers.”

As Gabe talked, I pushed myself up from the bed and began pacing around the room.

“Early this morning four us set off for Clifty Wilderness. I guided the group—Doug, a buddy of mine who’s an ace tracker, and Mike and Ben, two marksmen who volunteered in the hunt. Doug picked up some tracks that led us into a really rugged area between sheer drop-offs that had to be two hundred fifty feet. Anyway, we found the bastard.”

“You did? Oh, thank God. Is he in jail?”

“No, he’s—”

“What! Why isn’t that son of a bitch behind bars?”

“Because he’s dead.”

I shook my fist in the air and cheered, “Good! Was it Mike or Ben who did him in?”

“Neither. Someone shot him, but we don’t know who. Not yet anyway. It looked like he’d only been dead for a couple hours when we found him. Does the name Leland Boles sound familiar?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“He was a notorious poacher from West Virginia. In one year alone, he killed eight bald eagles. Back in 1980 he was convicted of twenty-one counts of multispecies poaching. He served seven years in the West Virginia State Penitentiary. According to his ex-girlfriend, the minute he got out, he started poaching again.”

“And you’re sure he’s the one who was slaughtering—”

“Oh, yeah. No question about it. The investigation is under way, so I can’t tell you what all we found, but it was the sickest . . . Well, anyway, he was the guy all right. A handgun with a silencer was lying not far from his feet, but Boles obviously didn’t have time to fire. He was shot with an arrow, and whoever did it was either one heck of a marksman or just plain lucky, because the arrow wasn’t high-strength carbon or even aluminum. It was handmade.”

I lowered myself to the edge of the bed. “Handmade? What did it look like, do you remember? I’m . . . I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I remember. I’ll never forget it. Boles was lying on his side with the arrow sticking out of his back. And by the look frozen on his face, the bastard got a real good look at who sent him straight to hell. He was shot from the front.

“Doug’s an archer and studies Native American artifacts. He said the arrow was expertly made. The arrowhead was a Clovis point—very sharp and lethal. The fletching was made from black feathers. Probably from a crow, but I couldn’t get close enough to be certain without disturbing the scene.”

Squeezing my eyes closed, I leaned my forehead against the bedpost. Thank God I’d never told Gabe about the arrow I’d discovered in the barn. “Are . . . are handmade arrows rare?”

“No, I wouldn’t say they’re rare. I’m really sorry I had to call and tell you this, but Sally and I didn’t want you seeing it on the news. All the animals were dead except for a young female bobcat that somehow managed to crawl away. Sally and Doc Waters worked on her for hours. They had to amputate her right front leg. We named her Lucky.”

“I pray that poor creature lives up to her name.”

“We do, too.”

“Gabe, if you hear anything that you can share, anything at all, will you call me?”

“I will. ’Bye, Teddi.”

I returned the phone to its cradle and looked out the window.

NOVEMBER 1971

S
now. It began after supper. From the kitchen window, I watched fluffy snowflakes blanket the fields and build on the barn roof. The timer dinged, and I pulled a sheet of oatmeal cookies from the oven. While I was sliding them onto the cooling rack, Mama came up from the cellar. “Teddi, where’s your brother?”

I turned, spatula in hand. “I think he’s in his bedroom.”

Daddy walked in and poured himself a cup of coffee. “He’s in the barn, Franny.”

“Doing what?”

“Setting up his sleeping bag.”

Mama’s eyes flared. “He is
not
sleeping in the barn. It’s twenty degrees outside. He’ll get sick.”

Daddy glanced out the window. “I told him he could, so let it be.”

“Now, why would you go and do something like that?”

“Franny, he’s a
boy.
If he gets too cold, he’ll come in. It’s good for him to harden up.”

With a scowl on her face and her lips pressed tight, Mama walked out of the kitchen.

When the cookies had cooled, I put a handful into a paper bag and filled a thermos with hot chocolate. Buttoning my coat, I tucked the cookies into one pocket and the thermos into the other.

The snowfall was so heavy that I could hardly see the glow of the light above the barn door. Other than the muffled sound of my footsteps and the dry scrape of a tree branch rubbing against the house, the landscape was hushed.

I gave the barn door a tug, opening it just enough to squeeze inside.

“Josh? Can I turn on the lights and come up?”

“No, wait a second.” A moment later my brother shone a flashlight on the floor in front of my feet. “Leave the lights off. Just follow the beam to the ladder.”

I stomped the snow from my boots, the thermos warm and heavy against my thigh as I climbed the ladder. When I reached the hayloft, Josh pointed the flashlight toward a shelf of hay topped with his sleeping bag. “It’s nice up here.”

I pulled the thermos and bag of cookies from my pockets. “Surprise.”

“Wow, thanks.” He took a big bite of a cookie and grinned.

We sat next to each other on the sleeping bag while Josh scarfed down another cookie. After he drank some hot chocolate, he jammed the flashlight into a bale of hay, sending a soft circle of light shining high above the rafters.

“Teddi, watch this.”

A quick shadow of a bird moved through the circle of light. I smiled while my brother adjusted his fingers and made a hand shadow of a bird diving from a rafter.

“That’s a hawk,” he said. “They’re wind masters. Did you know they dive at a hundred twenty miles per hour?”

I nudged him with my elbow. “You’re making that up.”

“Nope.” He thumped his finger on a book resting on his pillow. “Read it right here. And peregrine falcons are even faster.”

As I opened my mouth to ask a question, Josh sat upright. “
Shhhh.
Did you hear that?”

My eyes widened. “What?”

He switched off the flashlight and whispered, “Follow me.”

We tiptoed to the back of the hayloft, and without making a sound my brother undid the latch and inched open the loading door. He stepped to the edge and motioned for me to come look. We were more than thirty feet aboveground, and I held tightly to the doorframe and peered out. At first I didn’t see what Josh was smiling about, but as my eyes adjusted to the shadows and falling snow, I smiled, too. Below us was a bobcat.

I turned toward my brother and whispered, “What’s he munching on?”

“Leftover chicken.”

Josh lowered himself to a sitting position with his legs dangling out the door, and I joined him. We sat in the moonlight and watched the bobcat eat his supper. When not a morsel was left, he turned and limped into the woods.

“Poor old guy. I’m tryin’ to help him along by giving him food every night. But I don’t know how much longer he’ll be around.”

I leaned against my brother. “I love your big heart. There’s a special place in heaven for you.”

Josh shrugged. “I don’t much care where I go when I die, as long as it’s where the animals are.”

We fell silent, our legs dangling free as the vapors of our breath clouded together. Minute by minute the snowfall increased until the woods became a lacy blur. Giant flakes swirled through the open door, and from the corner of my eye I watched my brother turn white in nature’s benediction.