Drizzled With Death (7 page)

I tried to take a step backward, but the crowd was like a living wall of lurid interest. Everything slowed down in front of me, the way it does in movies or when you are having an out-of-body experience. The camel waggled its jaw, exposing domino-sized teeth. I tried again to back up but no luck. The camel stepped deliberately, painstakingly closer. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of my grandfather’s red-and-orange-checked sport jacket. Someone in a much more subdued color palette was next to him. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the giant creature. It continued its course and came to a stop right in front of me, so close its breath warmed the top of my head. I felt sweat spring from my armpits like a massaging shower head in a five-star hotel.

The camel lowered its head and snuffled my chest. I couldn’t have moved if I had been on fire. I think I tried to whimper, but even my voice was so scared, it went and hid. The camel nibbled its lips along my collar and then onto my neck. When it licked my face, I could only be grateful I didn’t wet myself in full view of the congregation.

Now the crowd backed up and I backed up, too. One step at a time, like an experienced ballroom dancer, that camel backed me all the way to the peeling white clapboards of the church. I rummaged through my brain for camel facts but could only see cigarette packets in my mind’s eye. I didn’t think camels ate meat, but with the size of its teeth, I wasn’t sure the swallowing was what really mattered to me. Tearing off a hunk of my neck would be just as bad for me whether or not he spit the undesirable bits out.

He lowered his head once more and dropped from investigating my collar to my waist and then my sides. With even more vigorous interest, he began probing my pocket. The one with the maple granola bars. A special on an educational channel blipped through my mind about some women and their cross-desert quest for specialty dates. Camels were their companions. My heart squeezed around in my chest like my great-aunt Hazel squeezed a buck—long, hard, and thoroughly.

If only Piper had known to use the granola bars instead of the salad the night before, she might have had better results from her rescue mission. I held stock-still, barely breathing through my nose as the camel’s head jostled around under my armpit. It’s fur pricked through my thin shirt and made me glad I had resisted the urge to dress for service that day. Truth be told, I’d grabbed the least wrinkled things in the closet because my grandparents so hate to be late for church. With the way the camel was behaving, I was glad the shirt wasn’t one of my favorites.

It seemed like it was one of his, though. Snickers and guffaws rippled across the church parking lot. I would have been embarrassed if I wasn’t so concerned about being operated on by a camel not qualified to perform breast reduction surgery. I was in no position to have a bit to spare in that department. Celadon had gotten most of whatever there was to receive genetically when it came to bustlines. Which was horribly unfair as far as Celadon was concerned since she was very clear about how vulgar it was to run around looking like a dairy maid.

I, on the other hand, was grateful for whatever little anything I could pile in and push up, and there was no way I was about to surrender a gram of it to a wayward camel. Just as I was reaching up to risk my hand being bitten off instead, a whole other sort of Graham entered the picture.

My hand froze in midair as I realized who the green-garbed person speaking to Grampa had been. I should have recognized the outline of his uniform hat, a rather dashing and distinct piece of headgear, I had to admit. But the camel had filled the foreground of my thoughts and it hadn’t seemed to bear scrutiny. Now I could see him inching closer, a pole with a loop on the end of it in his hands. The camel stuck out its tongue and lapped the front of my shirt, wetting it sufficiently to render it transparent. It was more like some sort of exotic dance show at a strip club involving animals than it was an assembly of worshippers. And the camel didn’t even have the decency to stuff my clothing with dollar bills for my trouble.

Graham worked his way to the left of the camel and Grampa moved in on the right. Grampa made a clucking sound, similar to the ones he makes to call horses. The camel made a noise back, best described as a cross between a rumbling stomach and a roaring belch. I felt my knees get all wonky, and I started to slide down the wall. The camel chomped down on my pocket, favored bits of me protected only by granola bars, and ripped it from the shirt. In a flash, Graham slipped the loop at the end of his pole over the camel’s head and then did something that cinched it closed.

The camel whipped its head toward Grampa, pulling Graham nearly off his feet. It made more gurgling growling sounds then spluttered blubbering spittle into my favorite geezer’s bearded face. I dove downward and scooped up the spilled granola bars. I waved them frantically above my head, hoping the smell would get through to the angry beast. I got my wish and then some. The camel whipped its head back toward me, its flapping lips dripping onto my head. I tossed the granola bars toward Graham. The camel rushed after them, dragging Graham and his looped pole after him.

I pushed through the crowd and raced back inside. The rest of the granola bars sat mostly untouched. I grabbed them then snatched a tray piled high with cereal treats for good measure. If camels liked one grain-based breakfast item, maybe they would enjoy another. I raced back out the door and skidded to a stop in front of the camel, who was trying to blow a bit of napkin from his gluey bottom lip. I wish I could say I had it in me to reach up and help him, but I didn’t. The best I could manage was to toss another bar on the ground in front of him.

He snarfed it so fast I felt a pang at how hungry he must have been. The freckled kid’s father appeared out of nowhere with a piece of pink nylon rope in his hands.

“If we could get this looped over his neck, we could hitch him to the tie-downs on your truck until we get a trailer for him,” he said, pointing at Graham’s state-issued vehicle.

“Great. If someone would fish my keys out of my pocket, we could back it over here.” Graham panted a little when he spoke. I assumed it was from wrestling with the camel, not from gazing on my sublime beauty, slobbered shirt, goopy camel spit hair, and pit stains the size of reservoirs.

“What about this instead?” I asked, dropping another piece of granola bar a few feet closer to the truck. The camel pounced, if that is a word that can be used with camels. The bit of bar was down the hatch and he was swinging his head scanning for more before Graham could regain his balance. I tossed another piece and another until I ran out of bars and had to switch to cereal treats. From the look on the camel’s face, I wasn’t sure how well he liked them at first, but he got over his aversion, and got all the way to the truck before the batch was gone. Freckle boy’s father slipped the rope over the camel’s neck. Graham tied it to the truck.

After all that work, I felt the need for a cereal treat myself. But minding my manners, I offered one to Graham first. I would have included freckle guy, but he was already back with the others bragging and laughing about something I hoped was not me and the frisky way the camel had behaved.

“No thanks. I’ll pass.”

“Not much of a sweet tooth?” I asked, hoping to confirm he was a disaster of a human being.

“Not a fan of a camel’s leftovers.” Graham pulled off his hat and wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm. “You must be all right if you’re tearing into a snack. Or are you a stress eater?” He squinted at me, as if the secrets of my mental health were splayed across my face like a milk mustache.

“I don’t discuss my interior life with complete strangers.” I crossed my arms across my chest, suddenly aware I didn’t stand around in wet blouses in front of them either.

“Interior life? And how do you define strangers? I introduced myself to you two nights ago.” He crossed his own arms across his chest, but the way he did it looked expansive and strangely appealing, not huddled and defensive.

“I acknowledge you are an embodiment of an establishment with which I have familiarity. That does not make us confidants.” What was I doing? Channeling Celadon? Or a long-dead Victorian spinster? I suddenly wondered if my mother had dosed me with some strange potion in my morning java.

“I just saved you from being mauled by a camel.” Now he untucked his arms and jacked his thumb at the humpbacked beast standing quietly behind the truck.

“Oh, he’s a real killer, that one.” I pointed, too, as the camel let off what appeared to be an enormous yawn before sagging to its knees on the parking lot.

“At least that animal isn’t a figment of your imagination.”

“At least he wasn’t endangering anything. Well, at least anything besides your pride. I seem to remember him dragging you off your feet until someone thought to lead him along quietly with food.”

“Maybe he’s a stress eater, too.” Graham clapped his hat back onto his head with a little more vim than was good for something made of fabric.

“I’m sure you have better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than to ask me about my eating habits.”

“I suppose they aren’t strictly under the purview of the Fish and Game Department.”

“But all those animals still roaming around are, so I won’t take up any more of your time.” Behind me I heard footsteps and a hacking, throat-clearing cough. Grampa stood there, sticking out a gnarled paw in Graham’s direction.

“Nice job, young man. Quick thinking. I’ve called my grandson, Loden, Dani here’s brother. He’ll be along with a horse trailer in just a few minutes if he doesn’t get stopped for speeding by Dani’s former beau. Laser gun Lenny.” Grampa pumped up and down on Graham’s arm with enough enthusiasm to bring up water from a well. I was enjoying contemplating how sore his arm was going to be tomorrow morning between the camel and Grampa.

“His name’s Mitch, not Lenny. And you know he doesn’t use the laser gun. He prefers to eyeball speeders.”

“He prefers to eyeball the ladies.” Grampa pulled on Graham’s arm to draw him closer. “That’s what broke them up. A speedy, roving eye. But Dani doesn’t like to talk about it.” Graham grinned at me, a beguiling, boyish grin, one of his top front teeth overlapping the other just enough to keep him from being pretty. Darn. I didn’t want to notice something like that.

“Dani doesn’t seem to want to talk about much, does she? Not her ex–gentlemen friends, not her eating habits, and if I remember correctly from the other night, not even her given name.”

“Well, I’d feel a bit funny giving out any more details of her love life or even talking about what she eats.” Grampa drew even closer and dropped his voice. “Women can be awful funny about that sort of thing. But her given name is a matter of public record so she can’t be sore about that, now can she?” I couldn’t believe it. I was going to turn into a stress eater at this rate. Between the mountain lion, Alanza’s death, a pat-down performed by a camel, and now the outing of a closely held secret by my own relative—it was enough to send a swimsuit model to a fudge factory.

Rumbling on the road drowned out what my grandfather had to say. Gravel sprayed into the air and the camel sprang to its feet. A truck rattled to a stop and Loden popped open the driver’s door, leapt to the ground, and towered over me before Grampa could squeak out another word.

“Here it is. And that must be the new guy in Dani’s life.” For a heart-hammering second, I thought he meant Graham, and my cheeks got so hot I thought they’d blister for sure. Then I realized, only a little less embarrassingly, he was referring to the camel. As the only brother in the family, he got away with a lot and expected we would all forgive him no matter how mercilessly he teased. Usually he was right, but I was ready to spit nails dipped in camel slobber. Without a word, I turned my back and headed for the church basement.

I found Grandma at the sink up to her elbows in soapy water and the spirit of Christian helpfulness. I ignored all the stares and giggling and asked if we could head home.

“Well, of course we can, Dani, love. You look completely done in.” She wiped her hands on a faded apron she’d never allow in her own kitchen, then slipped it off and handed it to Mindy, the organist, saying the hot water would help keep her finger joints nimble. I grabbed another maple blondie off the church table. I must have looked even worse than I felt because Grandma didn’t say a thing about how unladylike it was to be gluttonous, and she didn’t even take the time to collect her ugly plastic cake tote. Anything that separates a New Hampshire woman from her Tupperware is serious business indeed. I’m not sure if it is inherent cheapness in our culture or if it is a collective consciousness about the fact that a New Hampshire native invented Tupperware. You can expect a lot from a mother or grandmother here, but don’t expect to come home to a smile and a cookie when you tell them you’ve lost their Tupperware. Women here wash and reuse aluminum foil. You can just imagine what happens with stackable matching bowl sets with burpable lids.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon pacing in the sugarhouse
and trying to convince myself not to stick my nose into police business. Unfortunately, I’m not that persuasive. By the time the sun was thinking about packing it in for the day, I was in my father’s old MG Midget tooling along toward Jill’s house to ask a bunch of questions that were none of my concern.

Sugar Grove is like most towns in New Hampshire. The roads are narrow and they twist and turn around natural obstructions like rock formations and stream beds. Jill’s property wasn’t very large and she didn’t own that many trees of her own, which was why she borrowed trees from Alanza for her sugaring operation. But their properties did touch even though the public road didn’t connect them. I wondered if there was some sort of logging road or cart track that did. If I didn’t want to let Jill know that I was curious about her relationship with Alanza, I could ask Knowlton. He knew all the back roads, paths, and underbrush in the area. I’d have to see if there was a better way to find out, though, because owing Knowlton a favor was always on my not-to-do list.

I slowed down, scanning the side of the road for the hidden entrance to Jill’s property. Her driveway blended in perfectly with the ground, completely covered in beech and maple leaves. A large boulder flanked one side and a weathered signpost with no sign hanging on it marked the other. I turned in and puttered up the long stretch of dirt to the tiny cape-style house, glad the ground was starting to freeze instead of it being mud season. Their place is impossible to access in mud season without a four-wheel-drive truck and hip boots.

I decided my best tack to take would be of concerned breakfast attendee. That way I could ask questions without feeling so nosy. What I really wanted to know was why she missed the breakfast and whether or not she had reason to harm Alanza. I wondered what she was going to do to replace the loss of income from the trees they could no longer tap.

I pulled in alongside Jill’s little white jeep and a dirty, pockmarked gray truck. The truck looked familiar but I couldn’t place it since it really wasn’t at all interesting. I yanked on the emergency brake to be sure I didn’t need to chase my ride down the side of the hill and made my way to the front door. A twig wreath with plastic eggs tucked into it, left over, I assumed, from Easter, slapped up and down in my face as I knocked on the door.

The door was yanked open and Hanley Wilson stood in the entrance looking for all the world like he owned the place.

“You need something?” He took a tug on a can of beer, then let out an echoing belch.

“I was hoping to speak with Jill. This is her house, isn’t it?” I was surprised to hear myself even asking that question. I knew it was Jill’s place. I’d been here off and on over the years for syrup-making things and community events as well. What I couldn’t understand was what Hanley would be doing there.

“It is.” He turned his face away from the door and yelled inside, “Jill, you’ve got company.” He drained the can, crumpled it, and tossed it past my head and into the lawn before pushing past me, leaving the door hanging open. I stood on the threshold waiting for Jill to appear to invite me in. I felt the warm air from the house streaming past me and decided the neighborly thing would be to enter and close the door, invitation or no invitation.

“Jill, are you in here? It’s Dani Greene.” I heard some rustling in the room to the left of the central hall and followed the noise. Smoky woodstove smells filled the air, and a log popped and hissed. Despite the warmth in the room, a figure huddled beneath a brown and orange afghan on the sofa. A bit of deep brown hair peeked up above the blanket. “Jill, are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m a bit under the weather.” Jill’s voice sounded weak. I stepped just a little closer. I sure didn’t want to catch whatever she had. I might not want to challenge Grampa for the pewter pitcher but I could hold my own at Thanksgiving dinner and a brush with the stomach flu would ruin all that.

“I thought you might be. Is that why you missed the pancake-eating competition?” It was hard to imagine the effects of all those pancakes on a stomach wrestling with a bug. I felt a rush of wind beside my leg, then a flying ball of fur landed on Jill’s body. A tiger cat with a crumpled ear stared at me. Jill lurched upright in surprise and the blanket slid away from her face. My jaw dropped at the sight of her. A fist-sized purple mark marred her usually pale skin. One brown eye was swollen shut and her top lip was cracked open in two places. Even her nose looked inflated.

“Please don’t say anything.” Jill burst into tears but it looked like the act of speaking and crying was causing her even more pain. I slid a pile of magazines aside and sat on the trunk in front of the sofa.

“How could I not? Is this why you weren’t at the competition?” I dug in my pocket and found a crumpled napkin, probably from the Stack. It didn’t look used so I handed it to her. She dabbed her eyes so slowly I knew she was still trying to hide. She nodded just enough to let me know I was right but even that looked like it hurt from the wince on her face.

“Who did this to you?” I asked. “Was it Hanley?” I waited for an answer that took its time coming.

“Yes.” Jill’s voice came out muffled through her tear-clogged throat and inflated lips. “It was Hanley.”

“What in the world did he do a thing like that for?”

“He gets drinking sometimes and he doesn’t think.”

“But you hardly know him.”

“We’ve been seeing each other for several months.”

“But he’s married to Connie.” And even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t imagine what Jill saw in him. Hanley was such a loud, obnoxious kind of guy and Jill was so pleasant and soft-spoken. I would have thought someone like him would have turned her off completely.

“He says he doesn’t love her. Not like he loves me.”

“This doesn’t look like love to me.”

“This is the first time it’s been like this.” Jill snaked a slim hand out from under the blanket and rubbed the cat behind the ears.

“Has he ever hit you before?”

“No. He’s grabbed me and shaken me once or twice. Sometimes he holds on to my wrist or arm too tightly and leaves a bit of a mark. He had too much to drink up at his camp on Friday night and he let loose on me, that’s all.” That’s all. Not really a healthy standard.

“How did you meet him?” Not that everyone in town didn’t know the guy. It’s just that most tried to steer clear of him whenever possible. Considering he is the most experienced forester in Sugar Grove, and Greener Pastures is a tree farm, that isn’t a luxury I’ve had.

“We got to know each other up at Alanza’s last spring when I was tapping her trees. Hanley takes care of the trees on the property so he was always around. One thing led to another.” And he wasn’t working at Alanza’s anymore since there wasn’t any Alanza. I wondered if Jill had heard about her death.

“Jill, did he tell you what happened to Alanza?”

“No. He hasn’t said anything besides ‘Is there any more beer?’ to me since he did this.” Jill gestured at her face.

“Alanza’s dead. She keeled over in her stack of pancakes at the competition yesterday morning.” I watched her face, looking for surprise or worry, but it was hard to make anything out with all the bruising and swelling.

“That’s terrible. Did she have a heart attack or something?” Jill pulled the afghan up closer to her chin like she was warding off the bad news.

“Not exactly.” I wasn’t sure how much Lowell wanted the public to hear yet so I felt like I was on slippery ground. “The police are treating it as a suspicious death.”

“Oh my God.” Jill slumped back, clutching the afghan even higher up on her chest, so high, in fact, her chin and lower lip disappeared behind it. “Do they have a suspect?”

“I don’t think anything is certain yet, not even exactly how she died. It looks like it could have been poison.”

“Poison. That’s terrible. How did she take it?”

“Badly.”

“That’s not what I meant and it’s not something to joke around about either.” I think Jill was glaring at me but I couldn’t be sure with the way her eye was swelled shut.

“It looks like it may have been in the syrup bottle at her place setting.”

“Didn’t your sugarhouse donate the syrup?”

“We did.”

“You must be frantic. What if the whole batch was tampered with?” Jill sat up again and loosened her grip on the blanket in her distracted state. “You’ll have to recall everything sold since the last year. Or even before that if the syrup wasn’t from this year’s batch.”

“We sold out last year. It was definitely this year’s batch.” That got my dander up. Selling out is something I pride myself on. Sometimes we have so many orders we have to dip into the family’s private stock just to not have to disappoint customers before we can put the sold out announcement on the website or up in the store.

“Well, that’s good. Still, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. It’s going to do a lot of damage to your business if people think they’ll get poisoned using your products.” If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn Jill was trying to hide a smirk. I wanted to hit her myself, but of course, that would be the wrong thing to do. I decided it was time to go.

“Is there anything I can get you before I leave?” I thought she needed some soup or maybe a stiff drink.

“Just promise me you won’t tell anyone about this, Dani. Things will only get worse if Connie finds out.” Jill looked at me cockeyed.

“I can’t promise I won’t say something to the police if I see this again. But I won’t go around telling anyone else. It isn’t anyone else’s business. But if something happened to you and I hadn’t said anything to Lowell, I’d never forgive myself. That’s the best I can do.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to accept that.”

“I make a mean maple martini. Would you like one?” I had to at least offer.

“Drinking’s what got me into this mess in the first place. I think I’ll pass.” Jill twisted her puffy lips into a smile. “But thanks for offering. Maybe some other time when I have something to celebrate.”

“Are you going to be all right here alone? What if Hanley comes back? He didn’t seem like he was in a good mood.”

“My brother will be here any minute. He’ll be staying overnight.”

“It sounds like you’re all set then.” I waved good-bye and let myself out, making sure the cat didn’t slip out with me. With a mountain lion on the loose, Sugar Grove was no place for a house kitty.

• • •

Nothing starts the day right like a walk through the sugar bush.
Any time of year the trees and the quiet and the fresh air make me glad to be alive. Which is why my early morning wanderings so often take me to the spot on the property where my father died.

I had just reached the spot, the one I had made my brother take me to after I got home from the funeral and needed to see just where it had happened, when I heard the kind of crackling underfoot that meant someone wanted to be noticed.

“Good morning, Dani.” Knowlton stood a few feet away holding a bulging backpack. This was not a favorite part of my mornings. Often when I was out taking my early, early morning walks, Knowlton was finishing up his night of wanderings and we ran into each other. Grampa always let him make himself comfortable on our property, and in my opinion Knowlton took advantage of that fact. He could wander anywhere he chose to look for dead things, but he preferred to lurk around here in hopes of catching sight of a live Greene girl.

“Still out, I see.”

“It was a great night. I saw all sorts of things out roaming around.”

“You didn’t see anything large, did you?” If I was forced to run into Knowlton, the least I could get out of it was a report on mountain lions. Maybe one would eat him.

“I think I saw a couple of the escaped lemurs. And I picked up a couple of feathers that look like they belong to parrots. Do you know if there were any escaped parrots?” Knowlton will stuff anything dead enough to hold still, but his specialty is birds. Maybe it’s his beaky nose but he is nutty about birds. From the chickens he raised for 4-H fairs as a kid to the bird sanctuary he tried to get Lewis Bett to establish on his property before he died, Knowlton was a hardcore birdaholic. Which got me thinking about Alanza’s death.

“I heard a couple of them were instrumental in the escape of the other animals.” Not that I was going to tell him how. Any opening to talk about amorousness was not something I was planning to ever give Knowlton.

“I knew parrots were smart but I wouldn’t have thought they could plan and orchestrate an escape other than out of their own cage.”

“Let’s just say they were more the catalysts than the masterminds and leave it at that. I wouldn’t want to go gossiping.”

“That’s one of the things I love about you, Dani. You’re always thinking about the right thing to do.” I can’t stand being around Knowlton. Every time I’m with him, he says something sweet and goofy like that, and it is so hard to brush him off. My only strategy was to hold him at arm’s length until he found a girl of his dreams that reciprocated. Questions about his proposed bird sanctuary always distracted him.