Death Climbs a Tree (5 page)

“Walcher?” Fred asked.

“The construction boss. He was giving Andrew a hard time yesterday. Threatened us with the cops. I told him we had one in the family.” For the first time since he'd arrived, her smile lit up her face.

“Good thing he didn't call us,” Fred told her. “If we got a complaint, we'd have to act on it.” Of course, then she might not have fallen. But if she had, it would have been our fault. “Go ahead, Andrew. Dig your hole.”

Andrew loped off toward the car.

Joan was already picking up the laundry she'd used to cover Sylvia and stuffing it into the plastic bag she'd taken it out of. “Nobody's going to complain now. Her tree-sitting days are over, anyhow, this spring. I only hope she'll be able to play the violin by next fall.” Wrinkling her nose, she dug into the smashed basket and began transferring clothes from the torn laundry bag to the whole one.

Then she spotted the other cell phone. It had to have fallen with Sylvia, who had been talking to Andrew.

Andrew came back with their long-handled shovel. “Mom, what are you doing?”

“Collecting her dirty laundry for you to wash.”

“Not me!” Andrew said.

“No worse than diapers. You'll see.” She smiled at Fred.

“Gross!” Andrew sounded about twelve.

Joan continued what she was doing. “Unless you want to explain to Sylvia why you buried her clothes. And here's her cell phone. It landed a few feet away.”

Andrew nodded and took it. He put his shovel into the dirt at the edge of the clearing. “I don't want to dig near the trees,” he said as he dug. “Walcher's already chewed up too much of this area.”

Ought to make your digging easier, Fred thought. “Okay if I leave?” he asked Joan.

“I'm all right now, thanks. But I'd better call work. I'm already late, and I have to clean up—I can't go in like this.”

“I'll see you two at supper then.” He leaned down and kissed her, keeping his distance from her filthy hands.

Andrew threw another shovelful of dirt out of the hole. “Not me. I won't be there. I'm going to take Sylvia's place.”

5

Joan wanted to curl up into herself or scream. Fred, his back rigid, had left them without a word, but she felt stuck as long as Andrew was digging. He was making quick work of it. Clenching her jaw, she bit back the objections that threatened to escape her lips and jammed the last of Sylvia's laundry into the bag.

Andrew measured the depth of the hole with the shovel. Joan eyeballed it at about three feet.

“You done?” he said.

She nodded, still not trusting herself to speak.

He tossed the basket into the hole, filled it in, and tamped it down with the shovel. “Okay, then, let's go.”

“Home?” Had he changed his mind?

“I need to take care of a few things.” He grinned at her. “I won't stick you with the laundry, Mom.”

As if she cared. “I'm not worried about laundry!”

“I'll be fine.”

“Like Sylvia?” She hadn't meant to say it.

“I won't take the kind of chances she took.” He wiped the shovel off on the leaves, picked up the bag of laundry, and started toward the car.

She wished she could believe it. Just being up that high was taking chances. He had to know it. And for what? A few trees that would end up being cut down anyway?

Andrew tossed the reeking laundry bag into the wagon's wayback and belted himself into the passenger seat. “Remember the first time I climbed a tree?” he said. “Dad got all bent out of shape, but you stood up for me.”

Joan started the car. “That was easier. I could face a broken arm, but this…” She shuddered. Considering the bleeding from Sylvia's ear, she had to wonder about a head injury and brain damage. How much of Sylvia would be intact once she woke up?

“I'll be fine,” he said again. “You'll see.”

On their way out of the clearing, they met Walcher, in a pickup. Too late to see the ambulance, Joan thought. It gave her some satisfaction to think he'd missed the whole thing.

Back at the house she called the senior center, saying only that she'd had an emergency and would get there as soon as she could. Then she shucked her filthy clothes and let the hot water sluice down her skin. She'd have to wash the steering wheel, too, she thought while she scrubbed her hands with a brush and hot soapsuds. Maybe with bleach.

Dressed in fresh clothes and feeling clean from the skin out, she pulled her damp hair into a French braid down the back of her head. She heard the washing machine begin to fill. Thoughtful of Andrew to wait until she'd finished her shower. She would have hated for that lovely hot water to turn cold on her. He'd want to take a shower himself—the last one for some time, she realized, if he stuck to his guns.

He was waiting for her in the living room.

“I have to do it, Mom.”

She took a deep breath. “How can I help you?” He reached out to hug her, but she backed away. “Oh, no, you don't. I'm finally clean.”

“Sorry.”

He had washed his hands, she saw, though there was still grime under his nails, and his clothes were as muddy as the ones she'd thrown in the hamper. On the sofa, he'd stacked his own sleeping bag and winter jacket, a flashlight, his toothbrush, even textbooks. How much course work was he planning to miss? And how much did he think he could study, up in a tree?

He followed her gaze. “I've talked to my professors. They're okay with it.”

Already? She was impressed. Maybe he'd been planning to take a turn after Sylvia all along. At least he wasn't risking his scholarship.

“They'll give me makeup tests.”

“How long do you plan to stay up there?”

“A couple of weeks at most. Not as long as Sylvia would have. Some of the others will take over from me. And they'll keep up their shifts as ground support. The guy I talked to volunteered to set it up.”

“That's good. How are you going to get all this stuff out there?” I really need to go to work, she thought, but she knew she'd take him if he needed her.

“I've got a ride. The guy driving me out will help me get up to the platform, too.”

That problem hadn't occurred to her, but now she pictured the tree, with its long straight trunk, unbroken by many branches. Sylvia could have used a few more branches to slow her fall. Or would that have made her injuries even worse?

“How did Sylvia do it?” Climb the tree like a telephone lineman? It seemed unlikely.

“With a rope ladder, but it's still up in the tree. We've figured a way.”

She saw a coil of thin cord beside his textbooks and tried to erase the picture of him dangling in midair from something so flimsy. “You have your cell phone.”

“And Sylvia's. It still works. They just paid the bill, I know—it's for whoever is up there to use—so I can give you the number and you can use mine.”

It was small comfort. Sylvia's phone hadn't saved her.

*   *   *

The Oliver Police Station was quiet for the moment, but Fred's stomach was still churning. Bad enough to have Andrew involved with the woman, but up there himself? Even though today's fall proved how dangerous it was to be there at all, Andrew had no idea what he would be up against if the police had to bring him down. Or if the construction people simply ran a bulldozer into the oak tree. Even cutting down all the trees around it would leave him vulnerable to wind and would weaken the roots of his tree.

Fred dreaded most of all being called to haul Andrew down. Joan would never forgive him if he did anything to hurt her son. He'd have a hard time forgiving himself. He was genuinely fond of Andrew. More than fond, he realized. Nothing he could do to help him right now, though. He made himself turn to the task at hand.

Sylvia was in critical condition, the nurse had told him when he called. Still unconscious, but holding her own. Could he locate her next of kin? They hadn't found a phone in her name or an address or medical information in her pockets.

He'd promised, but a quick check of DMV records showed only a post office box as her address. Nothing that would lead to helpful neighbors. As a last resort, he supposed he could ask Andrew to look through her things in the tree, but he didn't want to have anything to do with sending Andrew up there. Still, Andrew might know her well enough to have heard about her family, or he might know friends who would know.

No answer at home, and Joan would be at work by now.

Then he remembered. Sylvia had played in the Oliver Civic Symphony.

He picked up the phone.

“Senior center.” Joan sounded pleasant, professional, and calm. Not the woman he'd found trembling under the oak tree.

“Joan, it's me.”

“You still mad?”

“I'm not mad at you.” He smiled and hoped she could hear it over the wires. “We can't let this business come between us.”

“No.”

“I'll do everything I can to keep him safe.”

“I know.”

He thought he could hear her smiling back.

“Have you heard anything more about Sylvia?” she asked.

“That's what I called you about. She's alive, but they need to locate her family. I can't even find her address. What can you tell me?”

“My orchestra address list is at home, in my desk. But you could ask at Fulford—that's where she works. She probably has medical insurance through them, too. She's pretty tight with Birdie Eads, who works there. Birdie's another of my violinists. She's as likely to know about Sylvia's family as anyone.” She paused. “Go gently with her, Fred. This is going to hit her hard.”

“I promise.”

“Annie Jordan told me the other day that Sylvia grew up in Oliver, but her parents were dead. She has a couple of sisters, if I remember right. Long gone from here. Want me to ask more?”

“Please. Call me if you hear anything specific.”

“I will. And Fred, you tell me if you hear anything about Sylvia.”

If she dies, you mean. “I will.” He felt better when he hung up, even though as far as he knew, nothing had changed about Andrew. He hadn't even asked her about Andrew. But it hadn't seemed to matter.

So Sylvia was local. For some reason, he had assumed she'd come as a student. Sergeant Johnny Ketcham was his best source of information about anyone with a local history. And he was at his desk, Fred saw through his open office door. He reached for his jacket.

“Got a minute, Ketcham?”

Ketcham looked up over his wire rims. “Sure, what's up?”

“Grab your coat and come with me to Fulford Electronics. I want to pick your brain.”

Ketcham drove while Fred filled him in. “Sure, I know her. Well, her family. Father a drunk, mother killed in a head-on with a semi. Left three little girls. The older two left Oliver a long time ago, before Rick Purcell finished drinking himself to death. Sylvia was the baby, about ten when her mother died. Her sisters pretty much brought her up. Ought to be past thirty by now. But I haven't kept up on her sisters.”

“Then let's hope she told someone here.”

Ketcham parked in a spot marked “Visitors.” Fulford Electronics was a medium-sized low cinder-block building, painted white, with its name in understated blue lettering above the door.

Fulford had not wasted a lot of money on appearances inside, either. Or maybe efficiency and prudent use of customer funds was the image it wanted to project. Three plain black chairs with minimal upholstery on their seats and backs were less welcoming than those in most dental offices.

A gray-haired receptionist with a sweet, grandmotherly face looked up from her flat-screen computer when they approached her desk. “Can I help you?”

Fred showed his badge. “Lieutenant Lundquist and Sergeant Ketcham,” he said. “We have some questions about Sylvia Purcell.”

“She's in trouble with the police, isn't she?” the woman said. She sounded worried. “For sitting in the tree?”

“No.” Could this be Sylvia's friend Birdie? “She's not in trouble, but I'm afraid she's been hurt. We want to find her family.”

“Oh my God! I knew it!” The woman's eyes filled with sudden tears. “We tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen. And now she's dead.”

“No, ma'am,” Ketcham said. “She's alive.”

“The hospital asked us to find her family,” Fred said. “She ought to have someone there.”

The receptionist wiped her eyes. “Sorry. I don't usually get so emotional, but we've all been worried about her. I'll ring Birdie Eads from Personnel for you. If anyone knows about Sylvia's family, Birdie will.” She tapped buttons on the phone in front of her and spoke softly into her all but invisible headset.

Fred paced in the small lobby. Ketcham stood quietly.

“You can go back, Lieutenant,” the woman said. “Straight down this hall and take a left at the double doors. Personnel is the second door on the left. And I hope she'll be all right!”

“Thanks.”

They didn't need her directions. A short, well-endowed blonde who had to be Birdie ran to meet them halfway down the hall. “Jenny said she's hurt! What happened? Did she fall out of that tree? Is she going to be all right?”

“Yes, she fell,” Fred said. “But she was alive when she reached the hospital. That's all we can tell you at this point, except that they want to find her next of kin.”

“They think she'll die,” Birdie said, and now her eyes teared up, too. “They probably want her organs, the ghouls.” Her voice cracked, and a tear ran down the side of her nose.

“Don't jump to conclusions,” Fred said, immediately wishing he hadn't put it that way. “They may need consent for surgery.”

Ketcham handed her a clean white handkerchief—trust Ketcham to have one ready.

She took it and blew hard. “Come on. Let's see what we have in our records. I know she has a sister in Iowa. That's the one she's closest to.”