Authors: Nadja Bernitt
She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket with the message written out. She pointed to the words, “I’ll call again, soon.”
She said, “Someone’s baiting me, like you said.”
He rubbed his tired eyes as if that might clear his mind. “Yup. Whoever this is laid low for fifteen years. And now he starts up again. I keep asking why now?”
She shook her head, wondering why herself.
“I’m thinking something’s whacked him out,” he said. “Maybe his or her significant other hopped a Greyhound, or he lost his job or something. And suddenly this sick puppy wants to reclaim his power.” Mendiola took a swig of his beer. A trickle slid down his bottom lip. He licked it off.
She leaned her elbows on the bar, resting chin in hands. She spoke as much to the smoky air as to him. “I understand greed, revenge or self-protection for motive, but not the psychology of power. It’s out of my realm.”
“The perp probably knows that. The trouble is ma’am, all we can do is wait.”
“You really think I’ll get another call?”
“Oh, yeah. Or some kind of contact. Can you hang around another forty-eight hours?”
Meri Ann briefly closed her eyes, dreading what Pitelli’s reaction would be
if
she told him—no—
when
she told him. “There’s no alternative; I’ve got to stay.”
The air hung heavy and not just from the bartender’s smoke. She and Mendiola faced forward, eyes fixed on the back-lighted bottles behind the bar. Meri Ann’s thoughts drifted to her brief encounters with Wheatley and Graber.
“Was Wheatley the last one to see my mother alive?” she asked.
Mendiola shifted uneasily on his stool, and she wondered if it was her question or if he was just tired of sitting in one position—he’d obviously been there a while.
“A witness placed her in a supermarket’s parking lot at about six in the evening after she’d left work. Seems she waved at someone.”
Meri Ann’s pulse rate shot up a notch and she could barely contain her excitement. “I didn’t know there was a witness.”
“You were a kid, weren’t you?”
She nodded, aware there was so much about her mom’s case that she didn’t know. “And you believed him? Her? Who was it?”
“A credible witness. Look, the evidence fit with what we knew at the time.” Mendiola squirmed on his stool, again. “My apologies for saying so, but your mom was having an affair with the engineer. At one point, we thought the relationship went sour and that Wheatley had killed her. We couldn’t prove it.” He took a slow sip of beer. “You want to read the case file?”
Of course she wanted to read the case file. She had intended to read it from the get-go. She swiveled around to face him, because it was very important that he understand exactly what she wanted.
“I want to work the case.”
R
iver House radiated an unnatural quiet as Becky peeled Meri Ann’s note from the refrigerator. “Something important has come up. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
Jeeze. What did that mean?
Becky stewed over the message while she made a cup of instant coffee. Then she went to work in the dining room with the radio on low, so she wouldn’t miss the phone call. She sorted through flowers, kept her ear tuned to every sound.
Every few minutes, she called out, “Come on, Meri Ann, where are you?”
The Sun Valley job left Becky disgruntled. Eastwood’s ex-girlfriend deserved a gold medal for difficult. The ficus trees had turned out better than perfect, and still the woman complained. Then after five hours of butt-busting work, the witch had cajoled Becky into installing bathroom curtains, hanging a painting and taking out the trash. Hell, if Becky hadn’t felt like somebody’s husband.
She snipped the stem of a tiny silk rosebud and admired its quality: cream-colored petals with strawberry pink edges on a bud the size of a bon-bon. Sumbitch, if the bud didn’t look edible. She threw it in the pile with the others.
Her knees ached from kneeling beside the box and her fingers from clipping the lot of them, a hundred-and-twenty so far and double that many to go. The florist owed her twenty real ivy topiaries and a bundle of baby’s breath, which they had promised to deliver first thing Thursday morning. Once she’d trimmed out the topiaries with the roses, she’d have centerpieces fit for a queen’s wedding. Even the country club snobs would take the roses for real.
Becky clipped away at the stems, mulling over Meri Ann’s vague message and wondering just when she would call.
A thud in the basement jolted her.
She jumped up. Her clippers slid to the floor. Like a bolt, she headed down the hall and opened the basement door. Her feet rooted at the doorsill. Her first thought was that something had fallen, but now, standing at the head of the stairs, she wondered what had caused something to fall. She listened carefully. The furnace hummed. Other than that, all was quiet. She flicked on the light and eased down the stairs, but stopped near the bottom.
“Sumbitch.”
Several aspen logs lay askew, the ones that had leaned against the basement window. The window was ajar. Becky panned the room’s shadows to see what had caused the ruckus. The last thing she wanted was some animal hiding out in the house, or jumping out unexpectedly.
An old broom leaned against the stair rail and she grabbed it for protection. Idaho grew pesky critters, porcupines among them. Becky backed up the stairs, ready to stave one off if she had to. She gave a short miserable moan. Where was Meri Ann when she needed her?
# # #
Meri Ann’s headlights barely penetrated thirty yards ahead into the ground fog on Schuster Lane. The poor visibility slowed her to a slug’s pace as she brooded over the decision to stay in Boise and the dreaded call to her boss, Pitelli. What choice did she have? Only a fool would—
She stared ahead at River House, not believing what she saw in front of her. Someone was at the side of the house hunched over the basement window. She flipped on the high beams, fully revealing a person in a raincoat. This time, Meri Ann was not looking down from a height but seeing her or him at eye-level. Still, she wasn’t sure if this was a large woman or a small man. Whoever it was bolted into the dense thicket to the right.
Meri Ann flung the car into park and jumped out. Her feet flew across the pavement and into the wooded lot. A tangle of branches slowed her, snagging her clothes and whipping her face.
A car door slammed in the distance. An engine turned over. Meri Ann stopped and caught her breath. It might be Boise’s high altitude, or four days without a workout, or both, but she stood clutching her side, gasping for air as though she’d run a marathon.
She turned around slowly and headed back.
The first thing she checked when she cleared the thicket was the basement window, a long narrow affair about the size of a one way street sign. It was partially open. But the prowler, obviously, didn’t expect to enter through an impossibly small space. Meri Ann wrapped her jacket around her hand and pushed it open. She stuck her head in far enough to see a neatly folded piece of white paper on top of one of the fallen logs. Maybe it was trash or a note Becky had written. And maybe not.
She hurried into the house through the kitchen door.
Becky met her, holding a broom in her right hand like a spear. “Oh! Thank God it’s you. Jeeze, kid, I got the heebie-jeebies. Something knocked over my logs in the basement.”
“Correction,” Meri Ann said, “
Someone
knocked them over. We’ll need the window dusted for prints.”
Becky’s blue eyes widened. “Sumbitch! Sumbitch. I’ve said that three times in the last ten minutes.”
Meri Ann dialed Mendiola’s pager. When he called back she gave him a rundown on the prowler and made arrangements for forensics to work the scene. But before the team got there, Becky and she had surveyed the basement.
Meri Ann approached the fallen log with the folded paper atop. “Is this yours?”
Becky shook her head.
“Then it’s evidence.” Meri Ann used two plastic sandwich bags in lieu of gloves to pick it up. “This is called tampering with evidence. I shouldn’t—”
“God, kid. I can’t stand the suspense. Just do it.”
Meri Ann carefully unfolded the note.
God
shall
visit
you,
and
you
shall
carry
up
my
bones
from
here.
Genesis,
50:25
Becky stared, wide-eyed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.” Yet Tina Wheatley came to mind. The biblical quote she’d spouted out in the office was of the same ilk as this one. Meri Ann carefully refolded the note, placed it where she’d found it.
A deputy and lab technician arrived ten minutes later. The search of the grounds and fingerprinting took around an hour. Mendiola didn’t come. It wouldn’t have mattered; the forensics crew found zilch, other than the note. After they left, Meri Ann did her own walk-around followed by damage control. She nailed the four basement windows shut, boarding up the two big enough for human access.
She sat across from Becky at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of chamomile tea.
Becky drank warmed-over coffee, which looked strong enough to walk by itself. She took a swig and decisively set down the cup. “Okay, I’m getting a gun.”
Her enthusiasm made Meri Ann more nervous than she already was. She knew for a fact that Becky couldn’t shoot any better than she could sing. “Have you done any recent shooting?”
“No, but I can point and squeeze a trigger. And if there’s trouble, I want protection, something beside my bed. That’s all. Paw Paw’s got some guns in the front room. Let’s check it out.”
There were several knives, rifles and a double-barreled shotgun about the same vintage as Graber’s, but from the looks of them, they hadn’t been cleaned in years. The only handgun was a Lugar, no doubt state-of-the-art when Paw Paw’d lifted it from a German soldier during the Second World War.
She opened the slide and checked the chamber to make sure the weapon was clear. It was, and she found a can of very old Hoppes gun oil—good old Hoppes the gun oil she used at home. She started to clean the pistol. While she oiled, Becky built a fire in the fireplace. She supposed the scene appeared cozy, but the knot in her stomach grew with each lick of the flames. Becky would be more dangerous with the pistol than without it. Meri Ann laid the weapon on the table.
“Lock and load protection is fine, but I don’t want you picking up a loaded pistol every time you hear a sound. I really don’t want you near one. Anyway, I’m not so sure the person who left the note wants entry so much as they want to frighten me out of town.”
Becky’s mouth dropped. “No way we’re waiting to find out. All we need is some ammo.” She began opening and closing cabinets and drawers. After a frenzied search, she collapsed on the sofa. “Maybe I threw it out.” She looked sheepishly at Meri Ann. “Maybe your right about me with a gun.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get shells for the shotgun tomorrow. That’s a better deterrent than a hand gun. We’ll make sure the doors and windows are locked, the drapes drawn and phones close at hand. Keep the outside lights on day and night, so we won’t forget them.”
As she secured the house, Becky followed her around like a shadow. “We’ll be okay, huh, kid, what with the deputy’s patrol?”
“We’ll be fine,” Meri Ann assured her, although she wasn’t sure herself. Everyone knows that if someone wants in your house, there’s always a way.
They carried flashlights to their respective rooms. She checked the time, amazed it was 11:35. It felt more like three in the morning.
Meri Ann sat cross-legged on the bed with the phone in her lap. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark and her resolve to the situation; yet she hesitated calling Pitelli. It took a few minutes to gather her courage. Once she had, she dialed his number.
He picked up on the third ring.
“Hi,” she said, surprised to hear the television playing in the background. “How come you’re up so late?”
“Could be the greasy hamburger I ate at ten o’clock. It wasn’t as good as the ones you bring me from the Key.” He burped and excused himself. “Why the call?”
“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
Silence. She didn’t even hear him breathe. “Are you there?”
He grumbled, “One problem after another. So what’s yours?”
“I got a call from my mother, or someone claiming to be my mother. She’s going to call again. I think I’m being stalked, that maybe Mom’s killer’s come out of the woodwork. I’ve got to see this out. The lead detective wants me here for the next forty-eight hours to answer the call. I’m going to ask the lieutenant if I can work the case along with him.” Meri Ann waited for Pitelli’s response. It seemed like forever. “Say something.”
“Shi-it.” It came out like steam. “I knew this would happen. You’d get out there and stick your nose in it. You’re so damn hard-headed, Fehr and what the hell am I supposed to do while you’re off in the great northwest playing Hitchcock?”
He went on for another interminable five seconds. She held the phone away from her ear while he ranted. Finally, he let up the tirade. “Okay, tell me about the stalker.”
She explained what little she knew.
“A visit from God! Sounds like a psycho,” he said.
“What would you do?”
“I’d stay and do my best to wipe the bastard off the face of the earth.”
In her prayers, that happened. “Then you’ll talk to the sheriff?”
“Yeah. But I also got to level with you. What I’d do, personally, and what I do as your boss are two different things. Understand, Fehr?”
Fehr. She had missed hearing her departmental name, the genderless camaraderie. “Do what you can,” she said. “And thanks.”
She sat for awhile after she hung up. Then she moved to the window. The mist had lifted slightly, leaving the streets as reflective as glass. She studied every shadow, every possible hiding spot, then went methodically from window to window on the third and second floors. No one in sight. Not at the moment. Yet she had every reason to believe someone lurked in the blackest part of the thicket, waiting for her.