T's Trial: A Bone Cold--Alive Novel (3 page)

“Whoa, son!” Lyla grabbed him and hugged his neck. “We’re going to have to teach Tib to mind his own business.”

“Easy for you to say.”

She smiled at Fletch. “My son Harrison, Mr. Fletcher. Just home from school and obviously excited.” She turned back to the boy. “Did you see our other guest in the living room?”

“There was somebody on the piano bench, but he didn’t look too happy. You like to fish, Mr. Fletcher? I’m a wonderful fisherman. My grandpa Dub says I’m a natural. Got the touch.” He looked up at Lyla. “Tib’s waiting outside.”

She walked over to the double window and twisted the mini-blind wand. Fletch followed her gaze. A uniformed game warden leaned casually against his well-marked SUV. He was in his thirties, tall and cowboy slim, his sinewy arms folded on his chest, his booted feet crossed at the ankles. He looked relaxed, in control, at ease. He surveyed the property through dark sunglasses.

“Tib?”

“Warden Tibbet Wilson. Guardian of our little neck of the woods.” Thinly veiled sarcasm edged her voice. “Guess I need to tend to him, too.” She closed the blinds. “Any questions?”

“None, Lyla. Why don’t I just call a list down later? I apologize for taking you away from your business.” He paused. “And for Sam. He’ll be okay now.”

She smiled weakly. “I’m sure. Call anytime. Might as well come on out and meet Tib now.”

“You never answered me, Mr. Fletcher. Do you fish?” Harrison was insistent as they started out of the room, Shep in tow.

“Not as much as I’d like to. I was hoping to remedy that.”

“Need a guide? I’m your man. And I work real cheap!”

“Harrison!” Lyla grabbed his arm. “Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Thomas are here to get away from people. They’ll not be needing you.”

Fletch smiled tightly. “Sounds like school’s already started for you, young man. Not much time to fish now and still do homework.”

“Nah, third grade’s going to be real easy.” Lyla increased her grip on his arm. He finally yielded to the pressure. “But there’s so many fish, it’d be hard for you to mess up.” She just shook her head and hurried them down the hall.

T sat on the piano bench, his fingers drumming silently on the wood. His eyes followed the trio as they emerged from the hall and started toward the front door behind him. “My son Harrison, Mr. Thomas. He didn’t pause long enough to introduce himself earlier.”

“Harrison.” T nodded curtly.

Harrison stared at T and Fletch feared the flicker of recognition he saw there. The boy laughed. “Anybody ever tell you that you look like—”

“C’mon.” Lyla jerked him toward the door. “Call if you need anything.”

Fletch followed her onto the porch, rocked back and forth on his heels. Tib straightened himself up as Lyla came down the steps.

“Tib, thanks for bringing him up but it really wasn’t necessary. Harrison knows how to get into the house.” She made an arrow straight approach for him, her hands now on her hips. She tapped her foot in cadence to the arpeggios that were rounding up through the octaves on the piano.

“Just trying to help, Lyla. Figured your new guests were here.” Tib's voice carried across the driveway and he took his eyes from her to the porch.

She turned and waved in Fletch’s direction. “Mr. Fletcher, late of Hollywood, this is Game Warden Tib Wilson. No doubt, he’ll check with you a few times while you’re here just to make sure you aren’t over your fishing limit.” Sarcasm edged her voice.

Fletch raised his hand in greeting to the man. “Nice to meet you,” he called.

Tib smiled weakly and waved back. He inclined his head to her but didn’t take his eyes from the house. Their conversation was short and a bit heated after Harrison marched off to the Jeep, dog in tow. The boy’s body language told all: he’d been ejected from the dialogue.

Finally, Lyla turned on her heel and purposefully strode to the Jeep. “If you need anything, let me know,” she called to Fletch as she revved the engine and turned in the yard. She left them in a cloud of dust.

Fletch’s eyes followed her out. Tib walked halfway to the porch just as the front door swung open and T emerged. He came to Fletch’s right side and casually draped an arm around his shoulders, slightly shifting his weight to the older man. The warden didn’t blink.

Fletch couldn’t look at T for fear he’d either burst into laughter or put his hands around his throat and squeeze.

“You know, if I were you, I’d put that little foreign car in the garage and out of the weather. There’s a door opener inside there.” He gave them another once over before going back to his vehicle and starting the engine. He was checking in via radio before he’d completed the turn out.

Fletch shook T off his shoulder. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me just exactly why you did that?”

“Hmmm, sugar?” T air-kissed in Fletch’s direction as he turned to go back in. “That good ol’ boy is now just dying to get back to the other good ol’ boys and tell all. Some news rag gets the notion to trace us here, what’s the first thing anybody in this Podunk place is going to tell them after what he saw gets around? Bone Cold—Alive here? Not hardly, Mr. Newsman.”

Fletch weighed the merits of this as he followed T, then headed toward the garage.

T sat back down on the bench, replaced the scales with Beethoven. “Think the game warden’s her husband?” he asked as Fletch reached the dining area.

He turned back around. “No. At least not the current one. She was quite put out with him for some reason.” He listened a minute. T didn’t miss a note or beat. “You want my comment on your outburst now or later?”

“I don’t want your comment on anything ever. Period.”

Fletch walked back over to the piano. “You came very close to costing us our hiding place, your grandstanding turn on the porch notwithstanding. Lyla’s antenna is up, so we can pitch this stress story just so much. Some part of that kid’s psyche recognized you. He may not have put it into words today, but if he gets around you much, he will. She may have been upset with the warden for showing up, but his agenda is clear. He doesn’t like us. Whether because we’re ‘furriners,’”
he pronounced the word as Tib had described their car, “or he thinks we’re a couple… You tip our hand and…”

The music increased in volume. “I plan to sit here for three weeks, Fletch. As far as I’m concerned, you and she and he and the kid can all go take a flying—”

“I get the picture. While you’re so industriously playing, why don’t you compose a new song or two? I brought staff paper. Thought you could do it the old-fashioned way.”

“So it’s back to work, is it? No rest for the newly de-drugged.” He abruptly quit playing, placed his hands in his lap, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “He’s a cute kid. She’s got a cute ass. You and the do-right boy are just asses.”

Fletch was silent, waiting for T to open his eyes.

He gradually did and was calmer. “Go on. I can always tell when you’re dying to tell me some little snippet.”

“What was missing today?” Fletch practically smirked.

“Sex and booze. Not necessarily in that order.”

“The husband. There’s a kid. There are in-laws. Hell, while you were in here sulking, there was a grandfather and a mother and an aunt. There’s a house with her room and her son’s. There’s an ex or a boyfriend. What there isn’t, is a husband. A father. Think on it, T. There’s a mystery.”

“Got a better one than that, Fletch.” He started the scales again. “She’s got a perfectly tuned, to-die-for piano sitting at the end of the road a million miles from no where. She
used
to teach music. She
locks
the keys. What makes a musician quit?”

Chapter Two

“W
hy are you so mad at Tib, Mom?” Harrison asked as they left the property.

“He didn’t need to bring you up here.” Lyla took a deep breath and warmed to the subject. “You were perfectly okay down there. He knows that. He was just curious. Tib can’t mind his own business any better than Dub can!”

“What’d Grandpa do?”

“Harrison, you are just too young to understand.”

“When am I going to be old enough to understand?”

Lyla relaxed her hold on the steering wheel and smiled over at him as the Jeep left the gravel and found asphalt once again. “Someday you just are. Someday you’ll hear something or think something and suddenly everything else will fall into place. You’ll know when you’re old enough to understand.”

“I’m not worried about me knowing when. I’m worried about you knowing when.”

“Harrison, didn’t we have this conversation last week?”

“Mo-om. And why can’t I go fishing with them?”

“We don’t know them.”

“But they’re staying in our house.”

“Harrison.” She whirled the Jeep into the parking lot. Three parked cars unloaded their drivers. “When you’re older, you can be a guide. Now, no.”

“Lyla, turn that gas pump on, will you? I’ve got to get to work!” The nozzle was already in the hand of Stan Johnson, the fingers of his other hand drumming on the side of his pick-up.

She waved dismissively to him as she turned the key in the lock and Bertie Osborne caught up with her. White head shaking, she followed Lyla in, bee-lined her ample body to the state lottery play counter at the back and started filling numbers in rapid order. Harrison joined her to pick his numbers.

The occupant of the third vehicle grabbed a six-pack of cold drinks, two packages of cigarettes and a tabloid. Norm Hudson grinned as Lyla rang up his purchases. “Been to see your artistic houseguests, Lyla?” His bald head gleamed atop his sun-lined skin, his brown eyes dancing in the seventyish face. One side of his overalls was undone, and his tractor-greasy T-shirt proclaimed that he supported veterans.

“You and Dub, Norm, makers of uneducated guesses.” She handed him pennies in change.

“Lyla, your tongue is so sharp it’s no wonder you’ve never—”

“Get it out of the way, Norm.” Bertie elbowed him. “You never have anything to say bears repeating anyhow.” She laid her money and lotto form down.

“Gambling again, Alberta,” Norm retorted as he gathered his purchases.

“No worse than those cancer sticks you got there.” Her blue eyes twinkled. “Anyway, I win, I’ll give ten percent to the church.” She smiled a denture-perfect smile at Lyla and winked at Harrison who crawled onto the counter behind his mother. “Not that you’ll ever know it, since you haven’t darkened the door in a generation.”

“It’s hypocrites like you that keep me away.” Norm turned and grumbled his way out.

“What’s a hippo-crit?”

“Norm Hudson.”

“Bertie…” Lyla tsk’ed as she laid the official ticket on the counter along with Bertie’s form.

“Oh, all right.” She looked at Harrison. “A hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another. Usually has to do with morals.”

“What’s—”

“Right and wrong. You know about right and wrong, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded her head. “Can’t imagine Wes Lee’s boy not knowing about right and wrong.” She started to leave, then turned suddenly to Lyla and crooked a finger. Lyla came out from behind the counter and bent her head down to catch Bertie’s whisper. “I don’t believe none of what I’ve heard about your new houseguests. My cousin Edna’s boy, Robert James, well, you know, he’s,” she hesitated, “chosen an alternate lifestyle’s what they call it. He’s a fine man. Makes a good living. God only knows what he does… Anyway, you don’t pay no attention to Norm.” She patted Lyla on the arm and left, letting Stan open the door for her as he held out his gas card to Lyla.

“Why don’t you get one of them automatic pay-at-the-pump things, Lyla? Save me time.”

“It’d save you time if you didn’t tomcat till all hours and then oversleep.” She pulled the card through and handed it back to him. “You ought to stay home with the wife and how many kids now, Stan—three?”

“Did I come in for counseling? No, Lyla, I did not.” He signed his name and shoved the receipt and card in his jeans pocket. “I’d think someone with your taste in guests would learn to mind her own business.” He left as Tib was entering. So much for Dub keeping his opinions to himself. What
had
she been thinking?

“Well, Lyla, you left before the fun started.”

“What fun?” Harrison was alert at the mention of the word and sat up straighter on the countertop. Tib reached for him and put him on the floor.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and do your homework while I talk to your mom?”

Harrison looked up at her. “I don’t have any.”

“Go upstairs anyway.” She folded her arms across her waist.

“Can I ride down to Grandpa’s at the marina?”

“Call first, make sure he’s there.”

Harrison left for the old living quarters above the original Lee convenience store. The home place as Red and Dub built their mini-empire, it now served as Lyla and Harrison’s home when their place was rented out.

“Well, that was easy.” Tib leaned on the counter by the cash register.

“I’m not going to have any peace till you have your say. So have it. It’s too hot to fight.” She resettled herself on the stool, undid her hair, finger-combed it and started a French braid.

“I’m gone.” Harrison ran down the stairs and bolted out the back door. Lyla watched as Shep bounded after him.

Tib straightened up. “You going to tell me why you’re so upset with me?”

“It’s not you, Tib. No, let me rephrase that. It is you. And Dub and Norm and everyone else that is so narrow-minded—”

“Just trying to protect you.”

“Protect me? If I ever needed protection, it was the fish club I rented to last month. Where were your concerns when those rednecks pulled into town? I’ll have far less trouble from Dub’s artsy-fartsy crowd.”

“Now, darlin’.”

“Don’t darlin’ me, Tib. I am not your or anybody else’s—”

“Okay, okay.” He threw his hands up and retreated from the counter. “Why do you insist on letting out your house?”

“I thought you were going to tell me about the fun.”

He settled in one spot, pinched his lips together and put his hands on his hips. “The other one came out.”