Authors: Nadja Bernitt
“They’ve found her, Meri Ann.” He pointed his index finger at her. “That’s why you’re here.”
“You seem awfully sure of yourself when you’ve only spoken to me for three minutes?”
“You want details? Then come on in.”
She wanted nothing more than to look inside his cabin, to see how he lived, to understand what made him tick, to look for physical clues that might support Jason’s theory about him. “Okay.”
She climbed the last steps and took cover under his porch, not that it was snowing yet, but a bitter wind had come up. She didn’t crowd him or his antique shotgun, a beautiful firearm with a rosewood butt and fancy etched metalwork. He noticed her looking at it.
“It ain’t loaded,” he said and broke it open for her to see. “Much as I’d like to snare a social worker, I ain’t got a tag this season.” He laughed at his quip as he stepped inside the cabin. In an eerie welcome, the door creaked as it closed behind her.
The only inside light came from an old fashioned boxy television, the sound muted. The screen’s glow filled the Spartan room in which he probably slept and ate. His furnishings were few: a worn sofa in front of the TV, a desk and a rustic pine table with two chairs on the kitchen side. The aroma of tobacco and coffee filled the air just as it had in Becky’s den. It blended with the scent of a smoky wood fire, which crackled in a black iron stove. That was the only sound in the one-room cabin, except for a tapping at the kitchen window.
Just above the sink, a bird hovered outside the window. Its beak tap, tap, tapped on the glass—shades of Edgar Allen Poe.
“That’s Baby, my golden.” Graber leaned his shotgun beside a cupboard. His broad, boney shoulders swaggered as he crossed the room to the window and his eagle.
“She’s huge,” Meri Ann said, with some trepidation.
“Not as big as an American bald, but the biggest diurnal in North America.”
“Diurnal?”
“Means they hunt daytime as opposed to night. Magnificent birds. Ever see a sky dance?”
Actually she had. “Yes, I saw something on a nature program where the birds lock talons and spin through the sky.”
“That’s right. Your mom helped me write a grant to study them.” His eyes glazed over. “Hold on, Baby.” Graber unlatched the lock and slowly lifted the window.
Meri Ann relaxed when she saw the galvanized metal wire of a cage, which reassured her that the raptor wouldn’t be flying around inside the cabin.
“A creature God designed to soar through canyons. Now she’s trapped inside a cage with half a wing that won’t hold air.” He shook his head. “I ought to put her out of her misery.”
Her discomfort about the bird had subsided, leaving her with only pity and concern that he might kill the hapless creature. Did he or didn’t he love his birds? Curious about the man, she watched him feed Baby scraps of what looked like raw liver.
But Meri Ann hadn’t come into his cabin to watch him tend a raptor. She needed his attention and to turn the conversation back to her mother. “What was it you were going to show me?”
Reluctantly, he closed the window and made his way to a desk at the opposite side of the room. He switched on a lamp, perhaps the one he’d switched off when she’d arrived. It spotlighted an ancient-looking portable typewriter like the kind Hemingway might have used but, more importantly, the light also shone on an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven photograph of her mom holding an eagle. The picture took Meri Ann’s breath.
She drew closer to the desk as he removed a file folder from the right top drawer. The bulging folder was the color of a corn tortilla, and chock-full of yellowed newspaper clippings. From the volume of the file, he had saved a book of articles.
“You wanted proof. Well here it is.” He opened the file folder and held up a clipping no bigger than a business card, one that looked newer than the rest. It read: BONES FOUND ON TABLE ROCK. “They’ve found her up there,” he said.
But Mendiola assured her that he’d kept any association between the incident and her mom’s case from the press, so it couldn’t be more than an announcement of the find. She shrugged as if it meant nothing to her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A ripple of skepticism crossed his face. “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know what I know, and you know it too. Admit it, Meri Ann, and you’ll save yourself a whole lot of pain. Truth sets you free.” He turned to her mom’s picture, ran his finger along the frame. “Death frees a person, too. I think Joanna’s free, and maybe that’s a good thing. Ever ponder that phenomenon? As long as there is no pain, no prolonged illness—poof—you’re gone and as free as a bird.”
But
you’re
gone
and
everyone
who
loved
you
is
left
without
you
.
Her legs weakened. For the life of her she hadn’t expected insight into his philosophy of death as equivalent to freedom. In some ways she believed it too, but she didn’t want to hear it from him, not when it might mean he liberated people himself. The thought made her physically ill but she did her best not to show it. She braced her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“You’ve obviously given a lot of thought to Mother’s case. Maybe you’re reading things into it that aren’t there.” She nodded in the direction of his file.
“There you go again, playing me like a foolish old man.”
She was playing him like the wild card he appeared to be. “I didn’t mean to.” She took a hesitant step closer to him. “Mind if I take a look at those clippings?”
His eyes flashed a warning. “Later,” he said, “not now.”
She backed off as he laid his wide hand on the file. His act of possession set her more on edge and she thought she had better get going. Though his age made her feel physically superior to him, she read him as borderline crazy. And every cop knows it takes ten strong men to subdue one madman.
“Go on, get out. I see you looking at the door.” His lips curled in disgust. “You are afraid of me.”
“On the contrary, I’d like to stay and talk to you. But I have an appointment. I might be back tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”
Graber laughed. “Sure you will, probably with a friend or two.” He held the door for her.
She tried not to hurry, at least not to appear overly eager to get out of his house. Sliding past him, she thanked him for his hospitality—though it wasn’t exactly hospitality in any familiar form. When she reached her car, she glanced back.
He stood on his porch. The wind whipped loose hair not caught in his ponytail, and he looked like a wild man with one finger in a light socket. He called out loudly, “Somebody’s watching you, Meri Ann Dunlap!”
M
eri Ann drove down the mountain in a rush of adrenaline. Harold Graber gave her the creeps—this self-appointed prophet with a dossier on her mom. Was he nuts or was he perceptive? Did the old geezer know something she didn’t? Like the odor of the birds, his image clung to her, especially his parting words, “someone’s watching you.” She suspected this was the case and kept thinking about the woman in the raincoat that she and Becky had both seen. The incident at the river also heightened her suspicions. She felt certain someone had called her name. What did it all mean?
The mountain weather broke, raining down sleet mixed with snow, making it tricky to maneuver the turns. She skidded once and cursed the slick road. Her windshield wipers pushed the icy slush until well after she’d passed the dam. At the lower elevation, it cleared to an ordinary overcast day.
It was one o’clock when she hit the edge of town.
Hungry, she spotted a bakery with a sign promising whole-earth grains. She pulled into their lot and went inside.
Welcoming gingham curtains hung at the windows and colorful Matisse prints adorned the walls. The air was redolent with the scent of fresh-baked bread. Meri Ann breathed it in, glad for the normalcy of a bakery. She felt an intense need for some comforting carbs, and she had come to the perfect place.
Several racks of hand-shaped loaves lined the wall behind the counter. “Beautiful bread,” she said to a plump woman with a rose-petal complexion.
The woman hopped down from her perch on a wooden stool. “Everything’s organic, grown and ground right here, stone ground on a wheel out in Eagle.” She pointed at the racks. “These high-gluten breads are really great for vegetarians, and it’s really, really healthy, at least if you can tolerate gluten. Are you a vegan?”
Meri Ann shook her head. “No. I just like good food.”
She bought two loaves of sprouted, bulgar wheat and six blueberry muffins for Becky. For lunch she ordered the special, a sliced tomato and avocado sandwich with alfalfa sprouts.
“Extra sprouts?” the clerk asked.
“Extra everything,” Meri Ann said as she rubbed her grumbling stomach, wondering whether she should order two. “And some hot herbal tea. Chamomile if you have it.”
She took lunch to a table beside a window. The avocado was perfectly ripe, rich and sweet, the tomato slightly tart and fragrant as if it has just been picked from the garden. She savored the sandwich and rehashed the visit with Graber. So much about it bothered her. In particular, she wondered how he had connected the incident on Table Rock to her mother. It could have been anyone’s bones, according to Mendiola.
She also wondered about Aunt Pauline and Tina Wheatley. They thought her mom was alive. Mendiola, Wheatley, Jason, and Graber thought otherwise. Sadly, Meri Ann agreed with the men. Her mom had to be dead. The only questions left were when, why and how, a task for Mendiola when he had time.
She cleared the table, her eye on a wall-mounted telephone. Operating without a cell phone was like stepping back to the dark ages. She pointed and asked, “Mind if I use that?”
“Go ahead.” The woman motioned her around the end of the counter.
Meri Ann thanked her and reached into her pocket for Mendiola’s business card. The first order of business was to alert him to Graber. Soon she’d have to tell him about Wheatley’s love letter and the man’s lunatic wife, but not just yet.
Detective Neles answered and told her Mendiola was out on a call.
“Can you page him or get him a message? I need to talk to him this afternoon.”
Neles hesitated, which probably meant Mendiola wasn’t answering calls or pages. “I’ll give it a shot,” he finally said.
“I’d appreciate that. What about Lt. Dillon?”
“She also out, at a training seminar.”
Meri Ann thanked him and hung up, frustrated but willing to wait. She had somewhere else to go.
She drove straight to her childhood home, a street off Hill Road, a section of Boise just outside the city limits. The county location meant the case had been handled by the Ada County Sheriff’s office rather than to the city police. She briefly wondered if that would have made a difference.
She slowed, approaching the brick split-level home of her youth. The flowering magnolia tree her mother had planted had tripled in size. Its gray bark was bare this time of year, but memories of the pink waxy flowers bloomed in Meri Ann’s mind.
Goosebumps rose on her arms. Time raced backwards. She was fourteen, home from school and eager to drop her books on the table, switch on the television and watch reruns of Charlie’s Angels. The homey scene drew her in, and she saw her dad’s red Jeep pulling into the driveway. She heard his footsteps on the front porch.
“Hey, there.”
Meri Ann blinked, jolted back to reality by two soft words, a voice floating across the years. She turned to the sound. The neighbor’s eldest daughter, Meri Ann’s former baby-sitter and confidant, approached her. Meri Ann hurried to meet her. “Marsha, oh my God. How are you?”
Blonder than ever, Marsha wore her hair clipped high on her head, accentuating her longish nose and small, gem-like blue eyes. She tilted her head back and blinked several times. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Neither can I.”
Marsha grabbed Meri Ann’s hands, pumping them up and down. “What are you doing, visiting, come back to live? I’ve got a place in Salt Lake now, and a hunk named Greg. Are you married, got kids, what?”
The barrage of questions brought memories of late-night conversations. “You haven’t changed a bit,” Meri Ann said. “You were always Barbara Walters, worming out my secrets.”
“So how about it? What are you up to?” Marsha sobered. “Oh, I hope you’re not home for a funeral. Did they find your mother?”
Meri Ann avoided Marsha’s questioning eyes. “I’m visiting Becky Schuster and was just driving by. I’d expected to see your mom but not you. You look good, happy.”
“I’m in cosmetic sales and made regional manager. I love it. Come on in and see Mother; she’s baking cookies. Daddy’s off at McDonalds with his retiree cronies. He was supposed to do the storm windows before he left, but he forgot. Mom’s mad at him. They still scrap on a regular basis, even when I’m visiting and when I’m not.”
Meri Ann remembered the feisty pair. “I’m glad she’s here.”
“Mother went into depression when your mom disappeared. They were like sisters.”
“Think she has time to see me?”
“Are you kidding? She’d throw a fit if you came to town and didn’t say hi.”
Marsha led her inside and into a butter yellow kitchen, rife with the scent of warm chocolate. “Look who’s here,” she called to her mom, her voice so enthusiastic you’d have thought Meri Ann was the Queen of England.
Mrs. Johnson stood facing the stove, a wide-hipped woman with gray streaks in her otherwise brown hair. She turned around. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes grew wide with surprise. “Meri Ann Dunlap. Well, I’ll be blessed.”
“Actually Meri Ann Fehr.” She offered her hand. “I got married.” She saw Mrs. Johnson’s expression brighten and explained, “It didn’t work out. We’re divorcing.”
“I’m very sorry. It happens so often these days.” The matronly woman moved forward, wrapped her strong arms around Meri Ann and hugged her. “You darling girl.” She stepped back, her face plainly showing emotion. “I never expected to see you again. You poor little thing. Well, you’re not little by any means now. But I knew you when you were.”