Just Over The Mountain (12 page)

It was a long while before he heard the sound of a creaking door and subdued whispers. He clicked off the book lamp and let his eyes adjust to the dark before sliding open the office door. Within seconds the back of the bakery was flooded with light as the door of the industrial refrigerator swung open. In the glow stood the boys, arms and legs too long and lanky for their skinny torsos, their jeans hanging off their flat butts, digging into the refrigerator for a big box of eggs. He watched them as they cautiously took the eggs, one at a time, from the box and placed them gently in a plastic bag.

He sidled around behind them to the back door of the bakery, blocking their escape. He flipped on the
overhead light. The boys jumped in surprise, dropped their eggs and whirled, scanning the place for another exit.

“Forget about it,” Tom said. “You’re mine.”

“Hey, man, we didn’t mean nothing,” one said.

“It was just a little fun, nobody got hurt!” said the other.

“Oh yeah, someone did,” Tom said, pulling out his handcuffs as he approached them. “You did.” He cuffed them, wrists to wrists, around a steel radiator in the kitchen. “Now don’t try to move,” he told them. “You might hurt yourselves or the radiator.”

“You leaving us?”

“Just for a minute,” he said, and went out the back door.

Birdie and Judge Forrest lived just down the block. As he expected, the house was dark. He could walk around the perimeter to find the opened window the boys had crawled out, but it was a moot point. He stomped up onto the porch and noisily rang the bell and banged on the screen. Pretty soon he had the whole party at the door. Birdie was in her chenille robe with some sort of pink plastic curlers in her silver hair, Judge in his pajama pants and brown leather slippers, his face all grizzly with late-night beard, and Chris in hastily drawn on jeans and bare feet.

“Tom?”

“Chris, I have your boys handcuffed to a radiator in the bakery. You’d better come with me.”

Chris looked positively stunned. Then he said, “You
handcuffed
them? Are you crazy?”

“No, Chris, I’m not crazy. I caught them stealing.”

Judge snorted and turned away, saying, “Ought to read the little beggars their rights.” Birdie sighed in exasperation and followed her husband.

“What were they stealing?” Chris wanted to know.

“Eggs.”

“
Eggs?
Well, for God’s sake, eggs? You handcuffed them for
eggs?
”’

Tom got a look of sheer impatience, which no one could affect better than a very large Cherokee. “They weren’t planning to make an omelette. You want me to just lock ’em up?” Tom asked, more than a little put out that Chris had so little concern over them breaking the law. But then again, maybe that’s how they’d gotten to this place in their young lives.

“Gimme a second,” Chris said, retreating into the house. He returned in shoes and shirt. “So, you’re trying to scare ’em, huh?” he asked Tom as they walked.

“No, but it wouldn’t hurt if they got a little scared. Fact is, I was trying to hold them still until I could get you to the bakery. We don’t question or cite juveniles without an advocate—usually a parent or guardian.”

“So, now what? I’ll take them home and they’ll get—”

“We’re going to the police station, Chris. There’s been a lot of vandalism around town and I have a feeling these young men are responsible for all of it.”

“What kind of vandalism? You mean, like egging?”

“And dumped trash cans, smashed flowerpots, some spray painting…”

“And you’ve decided it’s got to be my kids? Why my kids?” he wanted to know.

Tom stopped walking. He was getting a little tired of this cat-and-mouse. “Do you have any doubts your kids are vandalizing property? Because I’ve been in this business for a while and one thing I know, they didn’t just dream up this idea. They’re experienced vandals who know what they’re doing.”

“You have some sort of proof of that?” Chris replied, defensive.

Tom lifted an eyebrow. “If I make a call to San Diego PD, will I find out these boys have been in trouble before?”

“Come on, they’re boys! You know, boys will be boys?”

“These boys will be felons before long, Chris. They’re bold, they’re arrogant and they don’t appear to have any remorse.”

“Hey, that’s pretty insulting talk. I thought we were friends.”

Tom resumed walking. He said nothing, but what he thought was, the one who could stand a good scare is Chris.

“Lighten up, Tom! We were kids once! We pulled our share of pranks! We got in trouble! We weren’t handcuffed or put in jail, for God’s sake!”

Tom stopped again. “No,” he said solemnly, “because what we’d have gotten from our own fathers would have made jail look like a day at the beach. Maybe I should just turn these two over to Judge. He’s no candy ass.”

“You calling me a candy ass?” Chris challenged, pressing his face close to Tom’s.

Tom had not wanted it to come to this, but he wouldn’t back away. The fact was, if Chris was spoiling for a fight on behalf of his kids, he was seriously misjudging the prospect of success. Tom was bigger, stronger, well trained and, by now, pissed.

Tom grabbed Chris by the front of his shirt and pulled him even closer, nearly lifting him off the ground. His words were slow and measured. “They’re in big trouble. They broke into a business, they stole property and they’ve been doing damage all over town. You can either step up to the plate and be a father to these two, or I’ll lock their skinny little asses up and turn them over to the county juvenile authorities tomorrow.” He let go and Chris dropped back. “Quit making excuses and take care of business.”

Tom strode off toward the bakery, leaving Chris to follow.

T
he first blow came in the form of a headline. Bones Found on Novelist’s Property Likely Those of Long-Missing Husband. The newspaper was from San Jose and the byline belonged to one Paul Faraday. The word
likely
was true license; the number of years the bones had lain under the flower bush had not yet been determined.

But the article was a potentially damaging account of how Myrna Claypool’s husband, a man whose very roots appeared untraceable, disappeared without a trace and that Myrna never bothered to go looking for him. The article alleged that she killed him and buried him in pieces around her garden. And proceeded to spend years killing him off in her books.

The newspaper article had been faxed to Tom who had walked down to the clinic with it. From there, June spotted Elmer’s truck parked outside the café and they went immediately to Myrna’s.

Myrna wasn’t quite ready to be receiving. She was
still in her dressing gown, her white hair flat on one side and springy on the other, a pencil behind one ear, a pen behind the other, her glasses dangling around her neck and her face all crepelike wrinkles from sleep. When she opened the door to find them standing there, she said, “Oh no, not again. Now what?”

“It’s those bones, Myrna,” Elmer said. “Let’s put on the teakettle.”

“Mercy, this is becoming very annoying,” she said, but she let them in. “It’s a good thing I’m a spontaneous person or I don’t think I’d have the humor for this. I’m barely awake and I haven’t read my paper or done my crossword or eaten my bran.”

“I’m afraid this might get worse before it gets better, Auntie,” June said. “This could be blown out of all proportion.”

In the time it took Myrna to read the faxed article, the kettle whistled and June had found muffins to warm and add to their breakfast tea.

Myrna sipped her tea daintily. “June, I don’t know who those bones belong to, but I can assure you, they do not belong to Morton.”

In total frustration and impatience, Elmer demanded, “And I would like to know once and for all how you are so certain of that!”

She inhaled sharply and pursed her lips. “If you speak to me in that tone again, I’ll simply ask you to leave. I’ve had about enough rudeness for one morning.”

Pleadingly then, “Myrna,
how?
”

“Very simple, Elmer. I’ve been digging in that garden for forty years and I have yet to come across a skeleton of any sort, and certainly not Morton’s.”

June reached across the breakfast table, took one of Myrna’s skinny hands in hers and said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but if any of this article is true, if Morton’s disappearance, past life or whereabouts can’t be traced, I imagine there will be an investigation. And with all the times you’ve killed off the philandering husband…”

“Now, June, I’m a writer. It’s what I do. I once wrote of a murdering doctor, but you and Elmer haven’t been under suspicion. The fact is, I haven’t the first idea where Morton’s got to. And I’m not sure he philandered, either. You always think that when a husband wanders off, but I don’t suppose that’s the only reason they leave. After all, Morton was sweet. And somewhat dull, if you know what I mean.”

“Do you mean to say he simply didn’t come home, you never bothered to look for him, and that’s that?”

Myrna stiffened slightly, and with a bent finger she toyed with the doily beneath her teacup. She was so tiny and frail that to imagine her chopping up a dead body was impossible, to say the least. But it also made the whole idea intriguing.

“It was not quite so simple as that…but then again, perhaps it was. Morton and I got on nicely when he was in Grace Valley. A time or two he came along when I went to a writers’ conference or book signing, but only if it happened to be in the path of his sales job. As years
went by, I suppose we grew apart. We weren’t young when we married in any case. We were already set in our ways, middle-aged, independent… You know, dear,” she said, tilting her head and looking at June in a way that indicated she’d stopped just short of saying, “like you.”

Elmer cleared his throat. “Go on, Myrna.”

“You’ve heard all this before! The story doesn’t change! I was only vaguely aware that Morton hadn’t been very attentive, probably because I had such a benign interest in his attentions to start with. Nothing like the women in my books, who are so passionate and observant and
present.
My mind has always wandered, not just since I’ve become, well, older.”

“Do you think his interests were elsewhere?” June asked as delicately as possible.

“That would explain it one way,” Myrna said. “As far as his having no record or history, what rubbish. He worked for the Sandfield Office Supplier of California. When I realized he’d been gone a bit longer than usual, I called his home office in Sacramento and they said they’d be happy to get a message to him. Of course I said no thank you, there was no message.”

“Now see there?” Elmer said, slapping his knee. “There’s a piece of information never before shared. Lord, Myrna, why haven’t you said anything about that? It proves he wasn’t dead. Why’d you keep it to yourself?”

“Well,” she said, picking at the doily, “there are things a woman doesn’t really like to discuss.”

June, who still held Myrna’s other hand, said to her
father, “Think of the embarrassment, Dad, of admitting your husband has run off and abandoned you, possibly for another woman.”

“Oh, that wasn’t the trouble,” she said. “It was, well, when I realized he hadn’t been home in a while, I couldn’t figure out how long it had been. I keep records of everything else, but never Morton’s comings and goings. Finally, frustrated, I decided to go through his things, detectivelike. He was a traveling man. There was precious little here—four pants, two jackets, three sweaters, seven shirts, shoes. All still there, not that I thought he’d be back. It was as if he’d only visited here…and then, maybe he had. But he had claimed that little back bedroom on the third floor, the one you had as a playroom when you were a tot, Elmer. Morton used it as his library…or office, if you like. That was where he shelved his favorite books and figured his receipts after a week or two of selling. He’d take a pipe—which I wouldn’t have in any other part of the house—and he’d sit in the recliner and read or listen to the radio. The view from there is marvelous, down the western slope toward Rockport. At night, there are a few lights out in the distance.”

As Myrna meandered off course, June and Elmer waited impatiently. She looked at them densely, as though she couldn’t remember why they were there.

“Oh!” she said. “Yes, the library. I almost never went up there. Too much trouble. Plus, it was Morton’s room, and smelt of pipe smoke. So, I went to have a look, and what do you suppose? I found the newspaper he’d been
reading that last evening I remembered seeing him. I was writing until dinner and he’d said he’d have a cup of coffee, read the paper, and I should call to him when I was done. Then he’d climbed the back stair. It was the
San Francisco Chronicle.
His coffee cup was still there, a little brown ring around the bottom. The paper was neatly folded on the table beside his favorite chair.” She swallowed and her cheeks colored slightly. “It was almost a year old.”

June and Elmer were temporarily struck silent. Finally June said, “Myrna! You didn’t miss him for a year?”

“We weren’t terribly close,” she said, lifting her teacup to her lips and taking a delicate sip.

June and Elmer were very quiet on the way back to town. June broke the silence as they pulled onto Valley Drive. The café and clinic were in sight. “When she said she lost track of him, she meant it.”

“As marriages go, they must not have had much of one.”

“And you wouldn’t have noticed that, Dad?”

Elmer cast a glance at her. “Now, how would I? I didn’t expect Blythe and Daniel Culley to be on the skids, either. Did you? If working in medicine all my adult life taught me anything, it was that people have intensely complicated private lives. Just when you think you know what’s what…”

“Leave me off at the police station, Dad,” she said. “I’m going to see if Tom has found out anything and
then I’m going to go about the business of finding Myrna a lawyer.”

“She has a lawyer, June. That Price fellow from the Bay Area.”

“That’s for books and finances. I think she’ll need the advice of someone with a more, I don’t know, criminal bent.”

“You don’t imagine she did anything wrong?” he asked.

“Not in the least. But someone does. Paul Faraday, for one.”

Elmer pulled into the driveway of the little three-bedroom house that doubled as a police station. “I should go with you…”

“Do me a favor, Dad. Go home and get on the phone. See what you can find out about Sandfield Office Supplier of California.”

“You know, Morton was just a tish older than Myrna, and she’s eighty-four,” Elmer said. “Can you imagine him still being alive?”

“I’m trying to imagine him working as a traveling salesman in his late sixties,” June replied. “Dad, we should have looked into this a long time ago. In letting it go, we might have left Aunt Myrna vulnerable.”

If the first blow was the newspaper article, the second came from the forensic anthropologist in Sacramento. Tom had taken the bones to the county coroner who’d shipped them to a specialist. No one was in any kind of hurry until the publication of Paul Faraday’s scathing scandal piece, and then, in hopes of warding
off further inquiry, Tom had called Sacramento. The pathologist had confirmed that the bones could be approximately twenty years old and came from a male in late life.

“His sixties?” June asked in a desperate whisper, though the only other person in the police station was one of the Wydell brothers who had gotten drunk, beaten up his cousin and was sleeping it off in a back bedroom–holding cell.

Tom nodded yes to the question. “But none of this is official. The doctor needs more time. Maybe weeks more.”

“I’m going to walk over to Birdie’s and talk to her about a lawyer for Myrna. I think Faraday’s got it in for her.”

A pained expression came across Tom’s features. “I’ve had a call from the prosecutor’s office. They want the county sheriff’s office to look into this.”

“Look into it
how?
” June demanded, panicked.

“They’d like to search the house and grounds,” Tom said, almost wincing.

“Oh, Tom, I don’t know what that would do to Myrna! She’s too old for this!”

“Don’t get yourself all shook up,” he said. “First of all, no one around here is tougher than Myrna, and with all the friends she has, she’ll have lots of support. Second, she hasn’t thrown anything away in better than forty years. I was able to convince the prosecutor’s office that we’d keep an eye on her, be sure she’s not getting rid of evidence, at least until there’s more con
clusive information about those bones. In the meantime, I’m going to ask her very politely if she’ll let me have a look around.”

June got a faraway look. “His clothes are still hanging in the closet he used. I wouldn’t be surprised if the newspaper he was reading the last evening she saw him is still folded on the table by his chair in that third-floor study—the only place she’d let him take his pipe.”

Tom frowned. “Don’t the Barstow twins cook and clean for Myrna?” he asked, perplexed.

“Sort of. They’re all just a bunch of eccentric old women who barely keep the dust off the mantel, but they do for each other pretty well. Without Myrna, the Barstows would starve to death, and without the Barstows, Myrna would be in far worse shape than she is. That house is huge. It’s like a castle, filled to the brim with junk. When she goes, I think Dad and I will just light a match to it.”

“That’s good then,” he said. “It’s all still the way it was when he left.”

John walked down to the Flower Shoppe very slowly, his hands plunged into his pockets. He paused in thought outside the door, and looked inside. Justine was not in view; she must be in the back, designing, he decided. When he finally entered, the bell tinkled his arrival, but he was alone in the shop. He leisurely looked at the displays of Justine’s floral arrangements, both dried and fresh. Having grown up around flowers,
she was an artistic genius when working with them. If her business were in a larger city, likely she’d have grown and expanded.

“Well, Dr. Stone,” she greeted, coming from the back. She wore a stained bib apron, and was wiping her hands on a towel. She rubbed at fingers that were stained brown, red and green. “As long as Mrs. Stone stays annoyed with you, I can save for my retirement! Haven’t you two made up yet?”

“There are days I think we have,” he said. He shrugged lamely. “And days no amount of floral art can help.”

She laughed at him. “If you men would give more flowers on occasions when your wives are happy, you’d save money. What do you feel like today?”

“I feel like talking,” he said.

By her expression, she knew at once why he was there. Her eyes first registered shock, then her gaze was downcast, possibly in shame in being caught.

“I gave Dr. Worth a call. He says you’ve stopped the chemo.”

“Well…I…”

“He said you only had one treatment. Justine, why didn’t you talk to me about this? Why didn’t you talk to June?”

Her head snapped up. “Because I knew what you would say! You would say I had to have chemo. You’d say there was no discussion! Why discuss something that has no discussion?”

“It’s a time bomb. A killer. Ovarian cancer is the
worst. And you won’t even know it’s getting you until it’s too late.”

“I want a baby!”

He shook his head sadly. “Your odds are so bad, I’d almost go with hopeless.”

“Of conceiving? Hah! Well, I’ve got news for you. I’m—

“Of surviving,” he said somberly.

“But the baby…?”

He shook his head. “A baby takes nine months, Justine. Seven at the very least. Ovarian cancer doesn’t need that much time.”

She bit her lower lip and looked away from him. She was pale; there were dark rings under her eyes. She wore a ball cap with her brown ponytail sticking out the back, probably because she hadn’t fixed her hair. Probably because she didn’t have much energy.