Death of a Wolfman (A Lily Gayle Lambert Mystery Book 1) (9 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

I glanced both ways down the tar-over-gravel blacktop that served as the main road past the driveway to Mitchell Manor. Nothing moved in either direction. I rolled into the driveway, then had to really press down on my pedals.

The manor house sat at the top of a hill so the driveway began its climb right at the edge of the road. I was beginning to work up a sweat in the early November morning air when I spotted a path leading to the left off the driveway. It must be the one I was supposed to take to the gazebo.

To give my legs a rest from all the pedaling, I decided to walk to the meeting place. Surely it couldn’t be far from here. Pushing my bike a few feet into the woods, I stashed it behind a group of three trees close enough together to hide the bike from the casual glance of anyone going up or down the driveway.

A big flock of late-season blackbirds roosted in the trees above my head, watching in silence as I walked along the twisting path. Nothing else stirred. Not even a breath of wind. The only sound the crunching of the dead leaves under my feet.

Walking at a brisk pace, I tried to imagine what it could be that LizBeth wanted to pass along to me in such secrecy. Did it have something to do with her family history? Was there some juicy piece of information she wanted known? A clue that would lead me along a straighter path than the one I was pursuing?

Or had she seen something last night? Something to do with the dead squirrel at my back door? Shuddering in revulsion, I put the squirrel out of my mind for the moment. I’d go see Ben right after this meeting to see what he might have come up with to explain that awful trophy.

The Mitchell house was too far away from my own for LizBeth to have seen anything clearly. Unless she’d been looking around at just the right time with some binoculars. But would one of the exalted Mitchells lower herself to spying on the town in that way? Somehow I couldn’t picture it, though people did do strange things.

Just look at how many folks in the county had scanners they listened to like they were the latest soap opera. Of course it was a good way to keep up with happenings in the county because they’d be able to figure out a lot of things just from the addresses called in on the scanner to the police department. All it took was a knowledge of who lived where and the reputation of various family members.

A call out to Old Cemetery Road meant the Weavers, and everyone knew Josh Weaver was a terrible drinker and took it out on his wife when he came home drunker than Cooter Brown and decided she’d done something wrong. Folks would head on over to the hospital to visit with his wife Sophie, acting like they had no idea how she’d ended up there.

Pushing aside all this conjecture, I paused to take a deep breath. Even with all my bike riding, I felt a little out of breath from the trip. Surely I’d come to the meeting place in a minute or two.

The hands of my watch showed ten minutes after nine o’clock as I rounded a bend in the path. I just hated being late for anything. It drove me nuts for some reason, but everyone had their little idiosyncrasies. Feeling more than a little put out —LizBeth could have mentioned it would be quite a trek from the driveway to this gazebo—I saw a flash of white in front of me with water beyond. At last. The gazebo and the pond.

LizBeth sat with her back to the path; her long hair blew in a slight breeze coming off the pond. I felt even more put out. Here the woman sat, cool and collected, watching the pond while I’d worked up a sweat on the trek into these godforsaken woods. Whatever this information was, it had better be good.

Wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, I called out, “LizBeth, I wish you’d told me it was so far in. I wouldn’t have left my bike back at the edge of the woods.”

Stepping up into the gazebo, indignation uppermost, I prepared to castigate the other woman just a little more to get rid of the put-out feeling. Holding in emotions could be bad for your health; at least that was what I’d always heard. Anyone could tell you Lily Gayle Lambert had never been one to leave you in the dark when it came to her feelings on just about anything.

Turning to face LizBeth, my words died in my throat. The woman sat propped against one of the gazebo support posts, blood pouring from her mouth and running along her chin to drip in a slow stream onto the front of a white blouse rapidly turning scarlet.

LizBeth was very, very dead. I was very, very horrified. Finding my voice, I let out a scream that rent the quiet woods, bouncing from the still water of the pond and echoing across the forest. Heart pounding, I unglued my feet from the board floor, fleeing down the building’s steps. Racing along the path, fatigue forgotten, I screamed again. But who would hear me out in the woods like this? What if the killer was lurking nearby? Maybe it would be best not to scream any more just now and save my breath for running.
Feet, don’t fail me now.

Forgetting all about my bike hidden among the trees, I reached the turn from the path onto the driveway, digging deep for a second breath. I caught a glimpse of the manor roof over the top of the trees. Slowing for just a moment, I considered. Go to the manor house or out to the road to flag down the first car that happened to pass? The house was closer and would no doubt be the most logical choice, but my feet urged me toward the road instead. My feet pounding the dirt path, I plunged down the curved driveway at my previous breakneck pace.

Just as I came even with the main road, a flopping shoelace tripped me. Landing hard on all fours, I ignored the searing pain in my hands and knees, my attention caught by the unmistakable squeal of tires on pavement as someone struggled to stop before running me over. Scrambling crabwise, I scooted to the side of the road as fast as my hands and knees would allow.

“For the love of God, girl. Are you out to get me or what? That’s the second time in two days I’ve almost run you down.”

Heart drumming in my chest, breath rasping in my throat, I looked up. Bill Johnson stood in front of his Jeep, his face white as a sheet.

“H-h-help.” I tried to stand on spaghetti legs but couldn’t hold my own weight. Sagging back to the ground, I tried again to tell Bill what I needed. “B-B-Ben. Call—”

Bill rushed to my side, pulling me to my feet when I still couldn’t stand; he carried me to the Jeep, gently placing me on the passenger seat. Pushing my disheveled hair back from my face, he asked, “What is it, shug? What happened?”

I watched his eyes roam the woods. No doubt looking for anyone who might have been chasing me down the driveway. Bill was like that. A real knight in shining armor.

My entire body trembling, I managed to get a few words past my numb lips. “Call Ben. Dead body.”

With a shocked look, Bill whipped his cell phone from the holster on his belt. “Yeah, Reenie. This here is Bill Johnson. I’m out on the main road out of town by the driveway to the Mitchell place. I’ve got Lily Gayle here and she’s shook up bad about something. She said to call Ben about a dead body.”

He listened for a moment, then said, “I guess it’s a new one. She’s pretty shook up right now. Reckon I oughta take her home and let the sheriff talk to her there?” He listened some more. “Well, I guess you’re right. But you tell Ben to get on out here right now, you hear?” He put the phone back in its holster.

“Reenie said I should stay here with you till Ben gets here. Because I don’t know where the body is and you’ll have to show Ben.”

Shuddering, I reached out a hand to Bill for comfort. I really, really didn’t want to go back out there into the woods. That sight was one I never wanted to witness again. Sure, people I knew had died before, and I’d attended their funerals—after old Doc had fixed them up nice and pretty for public viewing.

Seeing LizBeth out there in the gazebo like that had shaken me to the core. The wolf man hadn’t upset me near as bad. But then, the wolf man was a stranger. And somehow it hadn’t seemed quite so gruesome out there in the woods on Halloween. Maybe because Ben was with me at the time.

As Bill clasped my shaking hand in his, I let out a small scream. Bill turned my hand over and saw the raw patch filled with dirt from my fall into the road. I watched his eyes move to the knees of my jeans. Following his glance, I saw both knees were torn and blood stained the washed-out denim. What with being so scared of finding the body, then almost getting run over by Bill—again, I hadn’t felt the pain in my hands and knees from the scrapes acquired in my fall.

“While we’re waitin’ on Ben, let me clean up your hands and knees for you. Don’t want those scrapes gettin’ infected, do we?” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Besides, I always wanted to play doctor with you.”

I summoned a tiny smile for his attempt to make me feel better with that comment. Everyone knew he’d been head over heels for his wife since they were both in high school.

“There now,” he said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” But my hand still trembled in his and my body still shook every few minutes. Bill reached under the seat and produced a first aid kit, then pulled a bottle of water from a backpack lying on the seat. Leave it to Bill to be prepared to take care of the minor hurts of a hysterical woman out in the middle of nowhere. But then, he’d been a Boy Scout and even an Eagle Scout way back when.

Hearing a car coming along the road headed toward town, we both looked up. Louise Farmer pulled to a stop next to the Jeep. “Y’all need some help?” Her eyes wandered over both of us.

“That’s OK, Louise. Lily Gayle took a tumble in the road and I stopped. I’ve got it under control. Ben’s on his way out here.”

Louise looked us over once more. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t need anything, I’ll just head on into town.”

“Thanks, Louise. You’ll probably pass Ben on the way. He should be here any time now.”

As Louise’s car disappeared down the road, Bill dribbled water onto my palm, then wiped gently with some sterile gauze. “Some of this is kind of ground in to your hand. I’ll get it cleaned up best I can, then you can go to the clinic later and get someone to do a better job.”

I nodded. Whatever. When he poured alcohol over my palm, I clenched my teeth tight to keep the F-word from coming out loud enough to be heard all the way back to town.

By the time Bill had cleaned both my hands and knees, after tearing my jeans further, Ben had screeched to a stop behind us in his cruiser.

Sliding from the Jeep, I stumbled my way into my cousin’s arms. He hugged me tight against him, one hand stroking my back to calm me.

“Lily Gayle, what in hell is goin’ on out here? Why are you out here on the Mitchell property? You know they’d just as soon shoot first and ask questions later.”

Tears rolling down my face in an unending stream, I couldn’t get a word out. Ben eased me away from him and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, producing a silver flask. “Here. Take a couple big drinks from that.”

Shaking my head, I pushed the flask away.

“Do it. Now. I need to find out what’s happened here.”

Taking the flask, I raised it to my lips. The metal clattered just a little against my teeth, then the first warm swallow found its way to my belly. Ben tilted his hand against his lips, urging me to take another drink. Because the first one had gone down pretty easy and I felt a little better, I took one more, smaller swallow.

From behind me, Bill said, “Drinkin’ on the job these days, Sheriff?”

Ben glowered.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Bill hold up his hands in the surrender posture, then climb into his Jeep and face forward, away from the two of us. Poor Bill. He’d only been trying to lighten the moment, but he’d brought back the ugly specter of the days after Ben’s divorce, when he had indeed drunk on the job and just about everywhere else until I’d taken him to task over the foolhardy behavior that could cost him his job.

With the whiskey percolating into my veins from my empty stomach, I began feeling much calmer. Enough so that I could tell Ben my story.

“I came out here to meet LizBeth. She called late last night. After everybody left, but I didn’t want to answer the phone in case it was whoever left that dead squirrel, so I let the machine pick up. It was her asking me to meet her out here this morning. Said she had something important she wanted to tell me but didn’t leave a hint what it might be about.”

Ben frowned. “You mean to tell me that after what happened last night, you just up and decided to come out here by yourself without telling anyone where you were going?”

“Well, I didn’t see any harm in it. She hired me to do a family history project for her. I figured it was more than likely something to do with that.”

Ben gave me a stern look. “We don’t know who put that squirrel on your door. It could have been somebody from that house. We have no idea who it might have been. Or someone who forced LizBeth to set up this meeting and then killed her before you got here.”