Death Climbs a Tree (16 page)

“We appreciate that,” Fred said. “Last night I gathered you might be able to lead us to the cave you're talking about.”

“No might about it. I know these woods like the back of my hand. Let me get my stick.” She disappeared into the house, shutting the door behind her and leaving them on the front step.

When she came back, the stick in her hand was not a fragile old lady's cane but a hiker's gnarled staff. A sheltie bounded out with her.

“Heel!” she commanded, and the dog obeyed without losing any of its bounce.

Fred didn't hear the latch click when she shut the door, and she didn't turn to lock it. He could feel his eyebrows rise.

She looked up at him. “You think I'm foolish not to lock it? Nobody out here locks up. But there's a German shepherd in my house twice the size of this dog that'll make anybody breaks in sorry he tried it.”

Fred hoped so.

The stick and the sheltie led the way briskly along a ridge, down into a gully, and up another ridge. Yocum's Woods didn't look all that big on a map, but the ups and downs added considerably to the distance a person on foot traveled, not to mention the energy expended climbing and negotiating the rough ground. Limestone outcroppings revealed the nature of the land beneath the trees and brush. When they reached the gully after the third ridge, Patricia Nikirk paused. Fred, wishing for a stout staff of his own, welcomed the respite, but she wasn't even puffing.

“You can see it from here,” she said, pointing her stick at the side of the next hill.

Fred couldn't. The sheriff also looked baffled.

She chuckled. “That's what makes it a good hidey-hole. Come on; I'll show you.”

They followed her along the gully and started up the hill.

“This is about where I see the lights disappear,” she said.

And suddenly, in a tangle of rocks and tree roots, Fred saw an opening large enough to admit a full-grown man if he bent over. It was mostly hidden by brush that didn't look altogether natural. A little too convenient. The smell was powerful, as if a herd of cats had been using the woods for a litter box. That was enough for Fred. A different kind of herd had been cooking meth here, he was sure, with anhydrous ammonia one of the main ingredients. If they moved the brush away, they'd probably be able to see into the cave, but he didn't disturb it. Foot traffic had already worn enough of a path to make the entrance obvious, now that he knew to look for it.

“Well, I'll be,” Inman said. “I thought I knew this area pretty well, but I didn't know this was going on.”

“Surprised you, didn't I?” Mrs. Nikirk was enjoying herself.

“You smell it, too?” Fred asked Inman.

“Oh, yeah,” Inman said. “This is where we back off. Nobody's going in there without protective gear. The fumes alone can be toxic.”

“One of us should stay here,” Fred said. “Anyone who heard us coming will take off the minute we leave.”

“Or come out shooting,” Inman said. “We need more backup.”

Fred knew he was right.

Mrs. Nikirk had been waiting quietly, the dog lying at her feet showing no interest in the cave, in spite of the odor. “I never see anyone going in and out of a daytime,” she said. “Only at night. Besides, if they heard us, they're long gone. This cave has a back door, you know. I can show you that one, too.”

Now she tells us, Fred thought. But we didn't ask. Serves us right for not taking her seriously.

“Yes, ma'am,” Inman said. “We'd appreciate that. Just one back door?”

“Far as I remember. Of course, I don't remember the way I used to.” Her eyes sparkled.

Uh-huh, Fred thought. More likely you didn't want to show us everything you know right up front. Maybe you still don't. Some limestone caves went off in several directions, he knew.

“If they heard us, it's too late. Best we'll do is shut this one down,” Inman said as they followed her and the dog up the hill. “But if nobody was home just now, we might just get lucky tonight.”

Fred was glad the sheriff seemed to have forgotten about city–county boundaries. They were both following up ongoing investigations, and cooperating could only improve their chances of success. Inman was talking as if he'd be taking part in the next step.

The back door, on the far side of the ridge, turned out to be small enough that a man escaping through it would have to crawl out. Good, especially if Mrs. Nikirk wasn't holding out on them about still another opening.

They began the trek back to the road in her wake.

“I didn't mention it before,” Fred told Inman, “but our tree sitter saw those lights, too.”

“The woman who got shot down?”

“No. The one who took her place. My wife's son.”

Inman shot him a glance. “That's rough.”

“We've had some tense moments about it. He's basically a good kid.”

“But?”

“I can't talk him down. Hope I don't have to haul him down. And I don't think he really knows the people he's mixed up with. He's full of high ideals, and the devil take the consequences.”

16

Joan was glad Fred took time out for supper, but he seemed preoccupied and said almost nothing. He left again as soon as he'd eaten. “Late night,” he threw over his shoulder as he walked out the door. “Gotta check out some lights Andrew's been seeing.”

She turned on the porch light for the other members of the quartet, who would soon arrive to rehearse the music for Sylvia's funeral. She put four chairs in the middle of the living room under a good light and set up her folding music stand. She hoped the others would remember to bring their own. In a pinch, two players could share one. Certainly two of them could play out of one hymnal, but the Handel parts would be squeezed if more than one player used one of those little stands. Telling herself not to borrow trouble, she went to brew coffee.

Birdie Eads arrived first. “I'm glad you're doing this,” she told Joan. “I've been feeling so helpless. I don't know her sister, really, don't know what to say to her.”

“It's hard, isn't it?” Joan said. “But she seems to feel better since she's been able to make plans. The coroner says she can hold the service after tomorrow.” He had vetoed cremation, though, Linda had said. Probably better not even mention that to Birdie. “She was in a hurry at first, but now she's decided to wait till Thursday, so that her husband and children can come.”

“If this means something to her sister, then maybe it would to Sylvia, too.” Birdie's eyes looked misty, but she kept it under control as she unpacked her violin and set up her stand. “Where do you want me?”

“Over here.” Joan pointed to the second violin spot. “Nicholas agreed to play.” She held her breath.

“I'm surprised. He and Sylvia never got along.” Birdie took the second chair without objection.

“No, they didn't.”
But it was you who fell apart about sitting with him,
Joan wanted to say. Not that I'd blame you.

Nicholas blew in next on a gust of wind and dumped his violin case on the sofa. He gave Birdie the merest nod. “Where's the cello?”

You're not in charge here, Joan thought. “I'm sure she'll be here any minute. I hope you remembered a stand.”

Looking insulted, he pulled it from the zipper compartment of his case and set it up by the first violin chair. He started to tune.

Joan offered him her tuning fork, but he shook his head.

“I have perfect pitch. I'll show you.” He tuned his A string and then hit the tines of her tuning fork on his knee and held its foot against his violin. The resulting clear tone exactly matched the sound coming from his A string.

“I'm impressed.” Joan meant it. She often could come close by ear but was often a hair off. She was about to check her own strings when the doorbell shrilled again.

“Sorry I'm late.” Charlotte Hodden looked frazzled by more than just the wind. “I couldn't get the kids calmed down for their dad. Finally had to leave the baby crying. I felt like a mean mother.”

“God, I don't know how you put up with kids,” Nicholas said. “They'd drive me crazy.”

The way you act, I don't think it's ever going to be a problem, Joan thought. But who knows? Some women like men who push them around.

While Charlotte unpacked her cello and stand and found a spot in the rug for the cello's peg, Joan passed out the
Messiah
parts and the hymnals she had borrowed. They might as well warm up on the hymns. How hard could they be?

She found out on “Abide with Me” when she automatically began playing the alto part she usually sang.

“No, that's my part,” Birdie told her. “The first violin plays soprano, and the second plays alto, so the viola is the tenor.”

“You'll have to bear with me,” Joan said. “I haven't read bass clef since I quit piano lessons. I must have been all of ten.”

Nicholas sighed. She remembered the night he had marched over to the string basses to correct their playing—and he'd been right. But that didn't make him any easier to take.

“You'll remember,” Charlotte said. “Like riding a bicycle.”

Easy for you to say, Joan thought. You're not playing in a foreign language. The B flat below middle C was easy enough, and she could find the next few notes by interval alone, but after that it was hard.

Right. All Cows Eat Grass, those are the bass clef spaces. I can't believe I'm going back to that. And the lines are Good Boys Do Fine Always. Miss Whatsis would be proud of me for remembering. Or shocked that I needed to.

They moved on to “The King of Love My Shepherd Is,” a version of the Twenty-third Psalm set to an ancient Irish melody that Joan loved. This one took the tenor part down another note, to the D on the C string. If the tenors sang much lower, she'd have to play an octave higher than what was written—that C was the lowest note on her viola. She still missed many of the notes, but she was getting the hang of it. By the time they played “Lead, Kindly Light,” she was feeling a tad more confident, and she almost enjoyed the moving parts of “In Heavenly Love Abiding,” totally unfamiliar to her but one Linda Smith had chosen.

Last, they played “For All the Saints.”

“You don't want this one to drag,” Joan said. Even if she couldn't find the notes fast enough—the tenor part in this hymn was written at the bottom of the treble clef. In most of her viola music, treble clef was used only for higher notes. For some of these notes, several lines below the staff, she had to decipher lines and spaces all over again. But it went well, all things considered.

“Let's open with it,” Nicholas said. Joan hesitated, but the others agreed.

They took a brief break before starting the Handel. Joan poured mugs of coffee and directed Charlotte to the bathroom. Pregnant again? Maybe, though she wasn't showing yet.

By the time Charlotte picked up her cello, Nicholas and Birdie were debating how to take the long-short-longs in the Handel. Nicholas started it. No matter what Handel had written, he said, it was established practice to play the shorts only half as long as they were written and to double dot the longs.

“In the overture, yes, but not here,” Birdie objected, and the two of them went at it hammer and tongs. Charlotte rolled her eyes, but Joan was surprised and pleased to see Birdie stand up to him. Agreeing with his musical, if not his human, approach, she was relieved when Birdie caved in and they could get on with the rehearsal.

By nine o'clock, she was fading fast. They'd worked through the Handel several times, coming as close to an agreement as she thought they were capable of, and she was making mistakes she hadn't made half an hour earlier.

“Let's take it straight through from the top one more time,” Nicholas said.

“Sorry,” Joan said. “I can't.”

“Sure, you can.”

“I'm too tired. This has been quite a week for me, and I just ran out of spizz.”

“Something happen to you?”

Birdie kicked him in the ankle. “She was there when Sylvia fell, you jerk. She practically caught her.”

“You did?” Nicholas looked at her with new respect, and Joan could see the questions forming in his mind. But he shut his mouth.

She loosened her bow, dusted the rosin off her viola, and tucked them into her case. “I'll see you all Wednesday night. I'll sort out the bass clef between now and then, and I suppose we could run through the Handel once after orchestra rehearsal. Or during the break.”

“We'll be fine,” Charlotte said. “You take it easy for a few days.”

“Thanks, Charlotte.”

Nicholas didn't contradict her but packed up quickly and whipped out the door.

Birdie, last to leave, gave her a hug. “I'm glad you asked me. I didn't think it would help me, but it's going to.”

Joan didn't want to mention Nicholas or ask Birdie to go back up and sit with him at the children's concert. Leave well enough alone, she thought. But she no longer felt so worried that Birdie would back out. She returned the hug and heaved a sigh of relief when the door finally shut behind her.

If only she could feel sure Andrew would be safe. The music had pushed that worry out of her mind for a while. She considered phoning him. He might hang up on her again. Or maybe he was already asleep out there in the dark.

But if Fred expected to be late checking on the lights Andrew saw, Andrew must have seen them at night. And it wasn't ten yet.

It's just my stupid pride, she thought. Curling up on the big sofa, she called his cell phone.

He picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Andrew, it's Mom.” She held her breath.

“Hi, Mom,” he said as if nothing had happened. “What's up?”

“Not much. Practiced some music for Sylvia's funeral. Linda wanted a quartet.”