Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery (37 page)

“Debbie, I need to tell you—”

“Look at them, would you?” she said. “It’s like they’re standing in a prayer circle. They don’t look scared, though. I hope one of them isn’t hurt.” She walked faster.

“It isn’t a sheep.”

“Sorry, what?” She didn’t slow down.

I grabbed at her arm. “It looked like a person.”

Debbie turned her head, nose wrinkled. “What?”

“Well, I’m probably wrong. I got only a quick look when a couple of the sheep moved and it was hard to tell. Wow.” We’d gone about three quarters of the distance from the fence to the sheep under the tree and not only was the size of the tree more amazing the closer we got, but the sheep—my goodness. I’d been picturing a flock of Mary’s little lambs—petite things prancing and nibbling grass, maybe, but certainly not what I was seeing, which was more along the lines of a herd of St. Bernards. I couldn’t help but repeat myself. “Wow. You know, I thought sheep were shorter than that.”

“They’re Cotswolds.”

“That makes them big?”

“Yup, Cotswolds are big,” Debbie said. “The older ewes weigh a hundred eighty, a hundred ninety pounds. If your boots don’t have steel toes, try not to get stepped on.”

I wondered how I’d avoid that if the whole flock turned and suddenly came at me. Did sheep do that?

A couple of the lambs heard us and finally decided we were more interesting than whatever the herd was still engrossed with. They galloped toward us, very cute with their spindly legs and wagging tails even if they were taller than I’d expected. Debbie stopped and greeted
them by name. I was brave and went a bit closer to see over the backs of the mamas. And immediately wished I hadn’t.

“Debbie?”

She was down on one knee making goo-goo noises to her babies.

“Debbie? Hey, Deb. Debbie! These sheep need you.” That brought her head up. “And we need the sheriff.” It was probably too late for an ambulance.

I hadn’t known how sad sheeps’ eyes could look. Debbie’s flock stood like woolly mourners around two bodies at the base of the beech tree. Debbie, good shepherdess that she was, checked first to see if any of the animals were hurt. Then, when she was sure they were uninjured, she reacted.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.” She stared at the dead man, who looked as though he’d been cradling the dead woman in his arms. “Ohmygod. What’s he
doing
here?”

“You know him?”

She nodded, unable to speak, and started to shoo the sheep out of the way.

I stopped her. “Leave them, if they’ll stay. They make a good screen so the others back at the fence can’t see.”

She looked back toward the road, wide-eyed. “Oh my god.”

“Do you have your phone? Can you call 911? Debbie!”

She whimpered but pulled her phone out. Then she stopped and stared again. “Are you sure they’re dead?”

How could they not be? The woman, young and pretty and fallen sideways from the man’s arms, had two wet, red blossoms in the middle of her chest. The man, not much older, his head fallen forward, had strands of blood drying at the corner of his mouth and his nose and
a terrible hole in his right temple. A gun lay on the ground near his right hand.

“Make the call, Debbie, and stay here. I’ll see if there’s anything, any—”

I pushed between two of the sheep and knelt beside the bodies in the hope of finding a pulse. I reached toward the woman, stopped, then made myself touch her wrist and push aside the blond hair to feel the side of her neck. Cold. Cold. She was gone. He was gone, too.

But when my hand fell away from him it brushed against his sweater and an immediate twist of love and unbearable sorrow jolted me. I looked at my hand as though it should somehow be glowing. Of course, it wasn’t. Tentatively, I laid the tips of my fingers on his sleeve again. How could they feel what they were feeling? I moved my fingertips to the woman’s pullover and a rush of terror knocked me back on my heels.

I worked hard to swallow a scream, control my breathing. Worked to explain away the transferred emotions. It was delayed shock. It was my overactive imagination. It was the incongruence of finding violent death in this field of buttercups and new lambs. It was not, could not be, what my beloved and possibly delusional grandmother had written in the letter she’d left for me to read after her death. It wasn’t any kind of special talent or ability or anything to do with hidden secrets. It wasn’t.

“They’re coming.”

I looked up. Debbie pointed at her phone. I stood up, rubbed both hands on my jeans, scrubbing all sensation from my fingertips—pushing the memories of love, sorrow, and fear into what I hoped was an unreachable corner of my mind. “What did they say we should do?”

Debbie stood staring, arms hanging at her sides. She’d let her phone slip from her hand. I picked it up. “Are we supposed to stay here? Debbie?” I looked at the phone.
She’d shut it off. I looked at her. She was shutting off, too. “Okay, come on. Let’s go back to the road.” I started to take her by the elbow but pulled my hand back before I touched her. “Come on.”

She started walking with me, but turned to look back at the tree and stumbled.

That time I did grab her elbow and was relieved when I didn’t feel anything more than her trembling arm. We stood for a moment, and I continued holding on to her but I was afraid I was losing her.

“Debbie, did you warn the dispatcher about the sheep?”

“What?”

“About how big they are and about how the sheriff’s people need to be careful to not let them step on their toes?”

Debbie shook her head as though she didn’t quite believe how foolish the words coming out of a city girl’s mouth could be. She didn’t answer me, though, and looked back toward the tree again.

“Or what if the sheep are startled by the uniforms or the shiny badges and charge at the cops? Because, you know, those sheep really are big.” I didn’t need to see Debbie’s face that time to know I did sound completely idiotic, but at least I’d prodded her mind in another direction.

“They’ll be fine.”

“The sheep, too?”

She made an impatient noise.

“Well, good. So come on, we can go back to the road and the sheep will be okay and the police will be okay. But are
you
going to be okay? The guy—was he a friend? Who is he?”

She turned and started across the field toward the road again. The sheep, their vigil disturbed, followed us in single file.

“I know both of them,” she said. “His name is Will.
That’s Will Embree.” Tears ran down her cheeks but her voice was steady. “And, Kath, this is so awful. That’s Shannon Goforth.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I know who either of them is.”

“You must have heard of Will Embree. Or, I don’t know, maybe you haven’t. There was some stuff happening at Victory Paper a couple of years ago that he got mixed up in and blamed for. There were protests and he was one of the protesters and it got real ugly.”

I remembered reading about it. Ugly was right. And deadly. Granny had sent me the articles from the
Blue Plum Bugle
, but it made the national news, too. Victory Paper International ran a pulp and wood product mill on the Little Buck, farther up in the mountains above Blue Plum, near the North Carolina border. The company had been accused, numerous times over the years, of causing massive fish kills in the river. The company always denied responsibility, pointing to reports from its own and from state and national inspectors. It had also denied responsibility for the odiferous brown foam that floated down the river from time to time. There wasn’t anything unusual, as far as I could remember, about the back and forth of accusations and denials. The concerns for the river were reasonable and the corporate response typical.

What I’d enjoyed reading about in the
Bugle
articles were the odd and odiferous misfortunes that befell Victory Paper. One misfortune involved graffiti depicting dead fish—hundreds of bloated, belly-up fish painted on the outside walls and windows of the mill, and on just about anything else within range of a can of paint, including dozens of fish on each of the company vehicles. The artwork had taken a lot of time and a whole lot of paint. In a festive touch, the empty spray-paint cans had been hung like ornaments from a tree inside the
security fence surrounding the plant. The pictures in the
Bugle
were great.

The odiferous misfortune involved a quantity of brown organic matter of unspecified but hinted-at origins. It was left on company doorsteps. Once or twice a week. For months.

But then there’d been another fish kill and local environmental groups staged a couple of raucous protests at the mill, surrounding it on all sides, with people up in trees and on the river in canoes and kayaks, and
in
the river, too, in wetsuits and fishing waders. It was the kind of thing I’d like to have witnessed and maybe taken part in. Had Granny been younger, I think she would have been one of the first up a tree or in the water.

“Some guy died, right?”

Debbie nodded.

“He drowned, didn’t he? But they decided it wasn’t an accident.” And the guy the authorities were sure did it had taken off into the mountains and no one had seen him in the two years since. It was a sad story for everyone involved. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“Will didn’t kill anyone,” Debbie said, her face tight.

“Wait—you mean that’s him? That’s
the
Will Embree back there? Good Lord. What’s he doing here?” I realized I’d echoed Debbie’s words from when she first saw him. Except her words had sounded different somehow. “That guy didn’t look like someone who’s been hiding out in the national forest for two years.” He didn’t. He was clean-shaven with trimmed hair. His jeans were worn and his sweater pilled and faded, but he had on new-looking running shoes. He looked more like a poor graduate student than a mountain man on the run. And when had I noticed all those details? “How did you recognize him?”

She didn’t answer, and slowed our already-slow pace, then stopped. “We’re going to have to tell the others, and
I don’t think I can. No, I know I can’t. I can’t. No. Ohmygodohmygod.” Her voice had started low and urgent but ended in that string of rising babble. Before it reached hysteria, I squeezed the elbow I was still holding. Maybe too hard, but squeezing it was less obvious than a slap on her cheek and just as effective. She closed her mouth and yanked her arm away.

“Sorry, Debbie. But it’s going to be okay. You don’t have to say anything. I’ll tell the others there’s been an accident and we’re waiting for the police. That’s all they need to know and they’ll be okay. And then the workshop will be good for everyone—don’t you think? It’ll be color therapy. Are you still up for it? What colors have you got for us? Aw, and look at that.” I pointed at the sheep. “The lambs are following us to school. So come on.” I took her elbow again and urged her toward the fence and the other women.

I
was practically babbling by then. Of course, we weren’t going to continue with the workshop. And if Debbie had set out pots of red dye for us, she’d probably have thrown up when she’d looked at them. But I hoped my yammer would act as a dampener to drown out her thoughts. It didn’t, though.

“You don’t understand.” She pulled away from me. “That’s Shannon Goforth back there.” Again she said the name as though it should mean something to me. “Bonnie Goforth’s daughter.”

“Bonnie Goforth’s daughter,” I repeated, shaking my head, still clueless.

A couple of the older lambs pranced past us and up closer to the fence. Thea hung over the top rail with a handful of grass. Ernestine reached between the rails with her handful. Bonnie had climbed right over and into the pasture. And then the name clanged into place.

“
Bonnie’s
daughter? Oh my God.”