Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly (11 page)

Outside, I shivered in the cool
mist.  Haze smeared the street lamp’s harsh light.  I set one foot down, then
another, until I’d reached Grace Avenue.  I walked past the old grain silo
where barn owls still nested, turned left on Main, and continued past the
railroad tracks.

A half mile later when I reached
the security gate that closed off the road to Sword’s Hill, I stopped.

Andre’s house was up on the hill
along with the houses of five or six other rich people who had stripped the
hill of its trees and natural vegetation to build.  Some winters Warfield
laughed as the heavy rains sent lavish landscaping sliding.  What wouldn’t
those rich folks do for some blackberry patches, now? old-timers said.  I
thought of Andre’s political campaign and his ecological views.

What did Andre mean to do if he
got elected?  Had he posed such a threat to someone that they’d killed him?  I
hadn’t paid much attention to his campaign—I’d ask Fran in the morning.

I stepped closer to the four-bar
metal gate.  It’d be easy to climb over.  How hard could it be to break into
Andre’s house?  If I could find out who’d killed him and why, there’d be time
to work through Meg’s problems without the threat of her being hauled off to
jail.

I hadn’t paid attention to the
sound of a powerful car approaching until headlights threw my shadow onto the
pavement beyond the gate.

I walked parallel to the gate, not
looking into the headlights, getting out of the way of the motorist I assumed
would electronically open the gate.  Instead, the car door opened and Officer
Tough stepped out.

“What are you doing
here?” he demanded.

“I’m just out walking.”

“Why here?  Thinking of
collecting souvenirs?”  He shifted his weight, and his gun belt creaked. 
Up on the hill a dog barked.  His radio sputtered unintelligibly.  “You
want to explain what you’re doing here?”

“No,” I said, walking
back toward the road.

“Don’t you be walking away
while I’m talking to you,” he yelled.

“What are you going to do? 
Shoot me?”

He muttered something and got back
into his car.

I kept walking up the road out of
the fog, away from the gate, away from his car, away from home.

If I’d been thinking clearly, I
might have guessed they’d have a watch on anything to do with Andre.  I wondered
what kind of spy equipment they had installed near the gate.

I thought back to the
“Mission: Impossible” series I watched as a teenager and wished I had
an Impossible Forces team of my own.  I’d use them to find out what Fran was
hiding and why, what had so depressed Meg and why she was so angry with me. 
I’d have them find out who killed Andre and Annamaria—

I stood stock-still.  “Now
where did that come from?” I said to the dark road and the tall pines that
lined it.  Annamaria?  Surely it was just food poisoning or the flu?

I shivered and started walking
again, trying to drive the thought out of my head.  I could accept that Andre
had done something to precipitate his murder, but Annamaria?  A nicer woman
never lived.

I began making a mental list of
things to do to get things back to normal, since lists always have the power to
soothe.

Number one, Get Meg a
therapist.  I can’t handle her.
  A barking dog startled me.  I increased my
pace, hoping the dog was sleepy enough to stay in its yard.

No, get Meg away.  Fran’s
right—we should just leave town and let Gene work.
  A car approached going
fast, its radio blaring.  It raced around the curve and down the hill.

I’d go to Fran’s with Meg in the
morning, then make some excuse so they’d go to the climbing gym without me. 
I’d go get the tickets and meet them at the gym and we’d head for the airport. 
For once I’d let details sort themselves out.  Except, I’d have to get our
passports from the bank—thank God for Saturday hours.  And I’d better take a
few things in an overnight bag. 

I heard a vehicle approaching from
the rear, and when the truck came abreast, a man’s voice said, “It’s not
smart running at night.”

My first, startled thought was—I
had been running.  Somewhere along the road, habit had conquered shaky limbs. 
My second thought was that the last person I wanted to see was Gene.

“Lots of drunks out on Friday
night,” he said.

“Yeah, one passed me going
about 80 toward town just a few minutes ago.  Why don’t you go chase him?”

“Hicks got’m.”

I kept going.  His truck kept
pace.

“Hicks also told me you were
thinking of breaking into Andre’s house.”

I stumbled.

He said, “See, it’s not safe
running in the dark.  Let me give you a ride home.”

Breathing deeply, I stopped.

He hit his brakes.  The battered
Dodge pickup, the only transportation left to him after divorce #2, rocked to a
stop.  When divorce #3 was finalized, he’d probably be walking.

I walked up to his window and
looked him straight in the eyes.  “Gene, I’ve had a really bad day.  I
need time alone.  So, thanks and good-bye.”

He shrugged.  “Okay.”

He drove slowly out of sight over
the crown of the hill ahead.

I started running again, watching
the ground for hazards and planning the contents of my getaway bag.

I was gasping for air by the time
I got to the top of the next, taller hill.  Watching the road in front of me
for potholes, I didn’t notice the parked pickup until Gene’s voice said,
“Don’t you think this is far enough?”

Jogging in place, I asked,
“What time is it?”

“It’s 12:13,” he
answered, getting out of the truck.

“So it’s another day.  Thank
God.  This one’s got to be better.”  I collapsed on the bed of his truck.

He sat down next to me, and we
gazed out across the downward-sloping pasture, south toward the smear of light
that was Portland and Vancouver.  Pines and cedars poked up from the fog lying
in a puddle at the foot of the hill.  Somewhere out there in the darkness,
several miles away, was his parents’ dairy farm.

“Do you think we’re out of
step, staying in a place our great-grandparents settled rather than moving on
to something new?” he asked.

“You belong here.”

“Not the kind of man you’d
ever write one of your books about.”

I laughed.  “I’m not telling
you my pen name.”

“I didn’t ask.”

We sat watching the fog’s slow
advance up the hill.

“Why are you so worried I’m out to
hang Meg?” he asked.

I leaned away from him. 
“What do you mean?”

One of his eyebrows lifted. 
“I mean you’re acting like you think she’s guilty and you need to protect
her.”

I stood up and faced him. 
“What do you mean?  It’s natural I’m concerned about her,” I said.  “I’ve
raised her from the day Sherry marched up the porch steps and presented Meg to
us.”

“The woman didn’t give Meg to
you, she gave her to George, the father of her baby.”

“George didn’t know what to
do with her.”

“Did you or your mother ever
give him a chance to find out?”

I walked away down the hill.  I
heard his footsteps crunching on the gravel as he came after me, and I began to
run.

He caught me, just where the fog
had crept up the hill to meet me.  He jerked me around to face him, but I
wouldn’t look at him.

“Liz, I’m sorry.  Just—let
me say this one thing, and after that, I’ll stay out of it, okay?”

I didn’t move.

“Liz, you and your mother
never gave George a chance after your father walked out.”

I tried to pull away, but his
fingers bit into my arms.

“You’ve got to hear
this.”  He went on in a soft voice, “You tarred George with the same
brush.  He was male, therefore he was not to be trusted.”

“He fathered a child with a
woman whose name he couldn’t remember next time he saw her!”

“Yeah.  He was irresponsible
about that, and he was set on his career, and he was selfish.  But he also
loved you and your mom, and he tried to take care of you both when your father
left.  But you cut him off at the knees—how was he going to get through that
wall of yours?”

“What wall?”

“Your distrust of all things
male—you wear it to keep everyone out.”

“You’re mangling
metaphors,” I said.

He sighed.  He stared off into the
mist. 

I stepped backwards, and he let me
go.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I nodded.  For the umpteenth time
that day, tears rose in my eyes.  I’d never had it pointed out how woefully
lacking I was so often in a 24-hour period before.

I turned toward town and started
walking, swiping with my sweatshirt sleeve at the tears running down my
cheeks.  I couldn’t be mad at him for telling me the truth.

His shoes slapped the pavement and
his voice was thick and low when he said, “Oh, jeez, Liz.  Please don’t
cry.”  He turned me around and guided me back to his truck.  The door
shrieked when he opened it for me.

Grateful the cab light didn’t
work, I climbed into the truck.  I said, “I never cry.”

“I know.”

We rode in silence.  He cleared
his throat.  “You’ve done a good job with Meg.  You should trust in the way you
raised her.”

“Thanks.”

“We’re making progress, Liz.  I
can’t say too much, but we’ve found some—”

“What?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You were spilling your guts to
Sheila!”

“I didn’t tell her anything that
wasn’t going to make the rounds anyway, but this stuff is different.”

I sat silent, fuming.

“You think Andre was killed
because of his political ambitions?  He said he was out to kick butt,”
Gene finally ventured.

“He’d played with the idea of
running for office for a long time, but he never seemed serious.  I guess
Barry’s death made him take his own life more seriously.”

Gene snorted, “Barry.  That
faggot—”

“Barry was a decent,
humorous, sometimes vain and silly man who loved life a lot.  He didn’t deserve
to die as he did, and he certainly doesn’t deserve to be called names by a
provincial, narrow-minded—”  I drew a deep breath.  “Sorry,” I
said, “but I can’t stand to see hate perpetuated so thoughtlessly.  Barry
was a good man.”

“Look, I can’t—I am
prejudiced—but I try to treat everyone the same no matter how I feel.  Don’t I
get some credit for that? “

“Yes, I guess you do.”

My thoughts drifted to George.  He
had always planned on being a football star.  He’d trained and played like a
demon.  He’d had one great season, rookie of the year, and then in the midst of
the next season, his knee had been ruined.

He couldn’t adjust.  He’d promised
he’d come home to make a start at something else, but when his plane arrived,
he hadn’t been on it.  Just like our father before him, he’d disappeared,
leaving his daughter.  Meg had been so young she’d never suffered what I had. 
Several years later, Mother announced she’d received a telegram saying George
was dead.

When we passed the Sword’s Hill
gate, Gene pulled off.  He leaned across me and rolled down my window and
called to Officer Hicks, “Everything okay?”

“Real quiet.”

“I’m calling it a
night,” Gene said.  “I won’t be in till noon tomorrow.”  Gene
rolled up the window and continued into town.  “So do you have any information
for me?” he asked, his tone casual, “Anyone I should look at closely?”

“That’s disgusting.”

“You ask me, the murder was
disgusting.”  He flicked his high beams at someone who hadn’t lowered theirs. 
“Most likely it was someone there last night, Liz.”

“But we know them.”  I
bit my lip.  “There’s no reason to think he did it, but if I had to pick
someone who fit the profile of who murderers turn out to be, I guess I’d pick
Jared.”

“Because he’s so quiet?”

“Yep, just what the shocked
neighbors always say.  But he’s a young man screwed down too tight.  He’s
taking pre-med because Alisz wants him to be a doctor like Hugh, but he’s
fascinated with dolphins.  He’s giving up his dream to please his mother.  Almost
everything he does, like being in the play, is to please her.”

He was silent, considering.

Oh, God, why had I said anything? 
It was despicable to finger Jared because I was so afraid for Meg.

The church was dark when we turned
past it.  It looked like a grim fortress.  How forbidding it must look to those
who didn’t know the Sanctus light burned within it.

Kirk’s VW was gone.  Was he out on
a date?  Or out comforting “all those who suffer in body, mind, or
spirit?”

“Gene, forget I said that about
Jared, okay?  I shouldn’t have—”

He turned the corner and stopped
with a squeal of brakes to avoid hitting Meg’s car.  “What happened
here?” he asked.

“Long story,” I said.

“Is Meg all right?”

“Yeah.”  I forced myself to look
at him and surprised the strangest little smile on his face.  “What?”
I demanded.

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry I buckled when you
said that stuff about George.”

“I’m sorry—”

I batted away his apology. 
“I haven’t—I don’t know—it seems like everything I thought was true
isn’t, that I’ve been living in some kind of dream world …”  I pulled the
handle, but the door wouldn’t open.

Gene leaned across me.  For a
startled moment I thought he was going to kiss me, but he shoved the door and
said, “It sticks.”

I slid out of the cab.

I walked in front of the truck,
and Gene said, as I reached his side, “Take care, Liz, this whole thing
gives me the creeps.  There’s something weird going on, and—”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t be talking like
this.”

I smiled at him.  “Doesn’t suit
the image?”

He grinned back, “Not even a
little bit.”