See Also Murder (28 page)

“Don't want any more bad news,” I said, staring out the door, silently willing the phone to stop ringing. It continued just to spite me. I was sure of it.

“Might be the Irish Sweepstakes callin' to tell you that your ship's come in.”

“You really need to quit giving out our phone number.”

He feigned a smile, and in response I furrowed my brow, shook my head, and got up to answer the phone. Hank'd had his sight long enough, too, to know what the look on my face was.

He was ready to go, lying on top of the bed, uncovered, dressed in his one and only suit, the one I knew I would bury him in. That wasn't hard to imagine on a day like this.

The phone continued to ring. I limped to it with one shoe on and reached it just as the first edge of my nerves was about to fray. “Hello,” I snapped.

“Marjorie?” I knew the voice immediately. It was Calla Eltmore.

“Calla, it's good to hear from you.” I relaxed as quick as I could, kicked the shoe off, and immediately wished my Salems were close at hand, wished for a moment of normalcy. Our last couple of conversations had been tense, more tense than I could ever remember. I valued Calla's friendship, as well as her professionalism as a librarian, more than I knew. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, thanks. Look, I wanted to get back with you and apologize. I know you've been going through a lot recently. I was just upset about Herb, that's all. You understand. He doesn't have anyone to look out for him, and well, all of this turmoil has been hard on him. Hard on us all.”

“Yes, I think I understand. I'm sorry, too. Is he all right?”

“I think so. He's promised to escort me to the funeral home for the Knudsens' visitation. I was afraid he wouldn't go, but I think he should.”

“Good.” My shoulders sagged with relief. I wanted to ask why she thought Herbert Frakes should go, but I resisted. She would tell me if she thought it was important. “Maybe we could sneak off for a bit of fresh air,” I said with as much lightness as I could muster.

“I'd like that.” Calla paused, and the receiver buzzed as the wind bounced the lines between us. “Look, I did some research on Norse headhunters, and it turns out that they engaged in that activity, would take the head of their enemy in defeat as a trophy. Does that help?”

I sighed. I'd nearly forgotten that question and how it related to my own private investigation. I think I was looking for symmetry between the cannibals in Sir Nigel's book and what was happening around me in real life. I honestly didn't think it had anything to do with the murders at all. Hilo had said death had come quick to Erik and Lida. Most likely to Ardith and Professor Strand, too. There was little comfort in that, but I didn't think the killer was after a trophy. To be honest, I didn't know what the killer was after.

“Thanks, Calla. I appreciate your effort.” Silence again. Only this time it was prolonged. “Calla?”

“Yes?”

“Is there something else?”

“Yes.” It was almost a whisper. “I found out some information about that book you asked me about, too:
The Book of Norse Symbols,
by Larrson. The author's full name is Ithgar Larrson by the way.”

It was my turn to say yes. I leaned into the receiver. “Really?”

“Yes,” Calla answered, “The university library had one copy, but it was checked out recently.”

“Who checked it out? Please tell me it was Raymond Hurtibese.”

“No,” Calla said, softening the curves of her R's and dropping the volume of her librarian's voice at the same time. “Professor Phineas Strand.”

“Oh,” I said. My knees shook. “You've heard the latest news then?”

“I have. The professor is dead, has been for a few days.”

I nodded. At least that was a secret I didn't have to keep.

“The thing is,” Calla continued, “when the library dunned Strand a week ago, he said that he couldn't find it. It was a rare book. The university was mildly concerned but had faith in the professor. I'm sure they're a little more worried about the book now.”

“Raymond said his copy was a first edition, valuable” I said. My voice was hollow, and my whole body trembled like it was the middle of winter, even though I tried to make it quit.

“Do you think this means something, Marjorie?”

“I don't know, Calla; I just don't know.” Silence again. Shep pushed by me, sat loyally at the front door, and stared straight at the knob, trying to open it on his own with the powers of his exceptional mind. “I should go, Calla,” I said, interrupting the crackles the wind between us caused.

“I'll see you at the visitation, then? Good-bye, Marjorie.”

“All right; thanks, Calla.” Before I could say my own good-bye, she rang off and hung up. The conversation seemed odd, strained, but familiar and comfortable. Maybe I was being too sensitive to Calla's mood from the conflict we'd had before. I needed her presence at the library. I needed her friendship.

The truth was now that Ardith and Lida were dead, Calla Eltmore was the closest female friend that I had, and even with that I had never felt so alone in my life.

CHAPTER 32

I was about to hang up, but I heard someone breathing on the other end of the line. Truth was, I was listening for it, hoping for it. “Burlene,” I whispered, “is that you? Are you there?”

Silence. Breathing; consistent and familiar. Someone
was
there. I was almost certain that it was Burlene. Almost certain, but not one hundred percent. It could have been anyone. Now I was suspicious of everyone, even the wraith on the other end of the line. I knew it to be true, but I couldn't help myself, couldn't find a way to stop my failing lack of trust in every encounter that I faced or participated in.

I was still trembling from the information that Calla had given me. There was no way I couldn't help but wonder if the Larrson book Raymond had cited was the same one that Professor Strand had checked out and then misplaced. But it was in plain sight. On the bookshelf. Raymond had pulled it out from the bookshelf. If it was stolen, wouldn't he have hidden it?

“Burlene, please say something if that's you. I won't be mad, I promise,” I whispered into the black plastic mouthpiece.

I looked over my shoulder. Shep was still waiting to be let out. Still no answer. I was getting impatient. “What did you hear, Burlene? What did you hear?”

I didn't even know that it
was
Burlene Standish on the line, but I knew someone was there. The question I just asked had been at the forefront of my mind since the last time Burlene and I had talked, and I had to ask. I had to. Even if it wasn't her. Even if it was the . . .

I gasped at the thought that it might be the killer on the other end of the line. If I had been cold and trembling before, I was frigid now, about to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces of ice. “Please, Burlene . . .” It was a stronger whisper, a demand, a prayer, a plea.

“I heard a scream,” Burlene Standish finally answered, her voice fleeting, shaky.

“It could have been the wind,” I said, repeating what Hank had told me when I'd talked to him about Burlene before.

“It was a scream. I heard her scream.” Burlene insisted. And then a loud click echoed in my ear. The party line went dead—silent, private, alone, like it should have been all along.

“Burlene!” I yelled, but to no avail. She was gone, sitting on the other side of the telephone staring at it, I imagined, just like I was: fearfully uncertain, afraid to move.

Even in its most basic form, the telephone was a technological marvel. One like the television that brought the outside world into our house without regard to emotions, the truth, or what was happening at that very moment. Sometimes, I thought that Hank and I had been born in the wrong century.

Shep barked at a car as it pulled onto our land. I was at the front door, about to check on Hank, ask him again when Jaeger and Peter were supposed to come by and help load him into the truck. I had the door half open, expected it to be them, but it wasn't.

The car that had pulled casually past the county police car at the end of the drive was familiar, unexpected. Just the sight of it shook me to the bone with a reminder of sudden fear. It was the green Chevy. I slammed the door shut at the sight of it.

Shep kept barking, which alarmed me further. I marched into the bedroom, grabbed up the Western Auto Remington, then spun around to make my way out of the room.

“What is it?” Hank asked.

The tone of his voice stopped me in my tracks. “I don't know,” I said. I looked back at him. He was white, pale in his only suit, which was loose at the neck, with no tie and a moth hole that I'd failed to see just at the belt loop. “I'll be fine, don't you worry,” I said, then headed out of the house with Shep.

I met Curtis Henderson, the new extension agent, on the front stoop with the .22 firmly pasted across my chest and a scowl on my face as hard as the granite blocks that made up the foundation of our house.

Henderson recoiled as shock and surprise registered in his eyes. He gripped his briefcase as tight as he could and focused his attention directly at the Remington in my hand. “Mrs. Trumaine?” he said. His voice cracked. He was a twin to Hank, at least in state of mind and emotion; the plague of fear and uncertainty had infected him, too.

Curtis Henderson still had a boyish face and unruly ironweed hair. The darkness of him stuck out to me, for some reason, even though he was pale with fright. I didn't like him. He frightened me.

“What do you want?” I glared at him, then arched my head to the side, just in time to see Guy Reinhardt ease up out of the police car and look my way.

“I need to speak to Hank, if it's all the same to you, Mrs. Trumaine?” He stuttered on Trumaine. It sounded like he'd said Tru-Tru- Trumaine. I heard a distant train in my memory.

“You can talk to me,” I said. “I told you that before. Nothing has changed.”

“I'm sorry, it's imperative that I speak with Hank, with Mr. Trumaine.”

I shook my head no. “That's not going to happen. Not today. Haven't you been paying attention to what's going on around here?”

“Hard not to notice that, ma'am,” Henderson said. It took a concerted effort for the young man to breathe deeply. I bet they didn't teach a class in college that specialized in handling a gun-toting, mad as hell, farmer's wife. “But I still got a job to do,” Henderson continued, “and I really need to speak to Mr. Trumaine. It's important, or I wouldn't insist on it. I really wouldn't.”

I stared at him, at the sweat beading on his lip. He really was no more than a kid just out of college on some kind of mission that concerned Hank. If it concerned Hank, then it concerned me, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Guy Reinhardt walked our way steadily, making his presence known, but not showing any immediate concern. That in itself allowed me to relax a bit. I was grateful that it was Guy on duty. It gave me confidence, made me feel safe in a way I hadn't felt for a long while.

“You wait right there,” I said to Curtis Henderson. “Just stay right where you are.”

He nodded and signaled that he would, but a look of curiosity fell across his face, especially when I pushed past him and made my way to his car.

I stopped a couple of inches from the green Chevy, just at the driver's side taillight.

“There a problem here, Marjorie?” Guy asked.

I didn't let my eyes leave the side of the car, and my feet didn't stop moving as I made my way slowly to the headlight. “I was run off the road last night coming back from Hilo's. I told Duke about it, but there was nothing to do since I didn't see the car. But I got a shot off at it. I'm just making sure this wasn't the car.”

Guy walked alongside me. I could smell him, fresh and cleanly shaved, splashed with Old Spice aftershave, and dressed in a heavily starched uniform. I tried to ignore him, but it was impossible.

“What do you mean you shot at a car?” he asked, as he came to a sudden stop, put his hands on his hips, and looked at me like he was trying to decide whether to write me a ticket or not.

I had stopped just at the bend of the Chevy's chrome front bumper, just as the silver hunk of metal reached around to the front of the car, where I thought I had aimed in the dark. “They rammed me, tried to wreck me,” I said as I craned my neck to look up into his sky-blue eyes. “I wasn't going to sit there and shiver, wait for someone to come for me. I let 'em know that it'd be a mistake to come any closer, to come after me.”

Guy sighed, then nodded. “Probably best that you did that, but I wouldn't make a habit out of it, Marjorie.”

“No need to worry, Guy. I've had this rifle in my hand more in the last couple of days than I have in the last couple of years. I'd just as soon set it behind the bedroom door and never touch it again. My fingers are more comfortable on typewriter keys, not on a trigger.”