Just Over The Mountain (6 page)

June had gasped. “How can you talk about that possibility so calmly?”

Myrna had patted her arm gently. “I guess I just see it all as research.”

And, sure enough, a couple of books later a husband-and-wife con-artist team were rubbing out little old ladies for their fortunes, but eventually found themselves captured by one of their victims, herself a skilled murderess. Myrna was getting more shocking by the year.

On her way home from the clinic June dropped by her aunt’s house. Amelia’s car was still in front of the
house and it was she who opened the door. “Is my aunt Myrna receiving?” June asked.

Amelia simply turned and walked into the great house, leaving the door open so that June would know to follow. The Barstow twins were not only the biggest grumps in town, they bickered so fiercely with each other that Myrna only allowed one of them to work for her at a time. Essentially, they job-shared.

The door to the den that Myrna used as an office was ajar and she peeked in. Myrna was hunched over her laptop computer. June tapped lightly and Myrna glanced at her watch as she looked up to see June. “Gracious! Where has the day gone?” She pulled off the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, pulled the pencil from behind her ear and stood slowly. Stiffly. She took a moment to stretch out the kinks.

“You must be on a roll,” June observed.

“Darling, sometimes they just write themselves. This one isn’t going to let me sleep till it’s over.”

“If you’re too busy…”

“Nonsense. I have to stop. I don’t want to burn out, you know. Besides, I think it might be time for my martini. Join me?”

“Maybe for half a glass of wine. If you’re sure you’re not too busy.”

Myrna laughed, her loud, joyful cackle. “There are two things I’m never to busy for. My five o’clock martini and you, my dearest.”

“It’s almost six,” June pointed out.

“So it is. I might have to have two martinis.” Myrna
looped her arm through June’s. Her steps were slow and creaky as they walked toward the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t sit so long at the computer,” June said. “Get up and walk around, at least once an hour.”

“Lord, June, don’t you think I do? I’m eighty-four! I can stiffen up in ten minutes. Amelia!” she called toward the kitchen. The woman stuck her head out. “Bring us drinks in the sunroom. June will have a glass of merlot.”

“Chablis,” June corrected.

“She’ll have merlot. It’s better for her heart.”

“Merlot,” she accepted, knowing she’d only have a few sips anyway. “I did stop by to talk to you about something specific.” They came into the sunroom, an addition to Hudson House that was only fifteen years old. It stuck out of the north end of the house, seventy-five percent glassed-in porch, so that it caught the morning and afternoon sunshine. At six, the sun was slanting over the tall trees to the west and casting a soft light into the room. Dust motes floated in the soft rays of dusk light. Amelia and Endeara, for all the hours they spent at Hudson House, weren’t much for housekeeping.

Myrna took another leisurely stretch before sitting in a large wicker chair. “Specifically, what?” she asked.

Amelia arrived with drinks on a tray and a little bowl of Goldfish snack crackers.

“Tom called me earlier today. He said he’d run some bird-watcher off your property. He’d parked on the road and—”

“Yes, I met him.” Myrna closed her eyes and took a tiny sip of her martini. She smacked her lips, then opened her eyes. “Faraday. Nice fellow. I told him he could bird-watch, but not around the house. The Barstows get all excited if they see anyone lurking about. And I told him to take special care by the hydrangeas. They’re delicate.”

“You
talked
to him?” June asked.

“Yes, June. He knocked at the door.”

“You shouldn’t be answering the door!”

Myrna looked both bored and annoyed. “June, I don’t even
lock
the door.”

“Well, you should definitely lock the door!”

“You don’t lock
your
door!”

June made a face. She was locking it now, now that she had a secret lover who sometimes appeared as though out of the mist. Her secret lover might be an expert lock picker, but her father wasn’t. “Well, you’re a famous author. You remember that couple, what was their name?”

“I’m not famous. Everyone but the neighbors thinks I’m dead. They think other writers are writing my books. Why, at my last signing in Garberville, there were only two people I haven’t known for over twenty years!”

“But you let him in? You talked to him? I don’t think he’s really a—”

“Actually, no, I didn’t invite him in. I felt badly about that. I told him I was quite too busy to have him in, but he should feel free to bird-watch on Hudson land, as long as he didn’t hurt anything and stayed off the hy
drangeas. He said the police had run him off, so he wanted to be sure to ask permission. He seems a perfectly nice young man.”

“But Tom doesn’t think he’s really a bird-watcher, so now will you lock your doors?”

Myrna sipped her martini and said, “If it’ll make you feel better, June.” By her expression, she had absolutely no intention of doing so.

Tom was almost home for dinner when he was radioed by Deputy Ricky Rios that Ray Gilmore had called the police department, irate. Ray had a modest garden and henhouse that someone had raided, robbing him of eggs and ripe tomatoes.

Tom was nonplussed. “What does he want me to do? Read a fox his rights?”

“He says some kids have been throwing eggs and tomatoes at vehicles on 482, just about two miles north of Rainbow.”

That perked his interest. “That so?” he asked as his foot came down harder on the gas pedal. “I’m not far from there now.”

A road heavily traveled in the country, 482 cut through a hill that rose up sharply on each side of the road. Tom slowed to look around just as he entered the pass. Before ten seconds had gone by there was a large splat on his windshield. Runny yolk ran down into the wiper tray.

“I’ll be goddamned,” he swore in disbelief. He slammed on the brakes, spun the Range Rover around and jumped out of the car in time to see the foliage
ripple all the way to the top of the hill as the culprits made away. “That’s balls,” he said aloud.

But no one knew the hills and roads better than Tom. He drove his SUV down the road a bit before he pulled it over to the side, got out and locked the door. He picked up a path that would cut around to the opposite side of the hill. He crouched a little, keeping low, as he crept along the path. He saw a flash of light-colored clothing—a shirt or a jacket—as a kid darted across the stones of the creek bed, coming right for him. Tom put himself behind a tree and just waited. When the moment was right he stepped out and scared ten years off the life of the vandal, who dropped the eggs he carried in his pulled-up shirttail. They splattered on his shoes and washed down the stream between the rocks.

“Dad!” cried Johnny Toopeek.

It was an instinctive move on Tom’s part, a combination of shock and anger. He reached right out and grabbed his son’s shirtfront and gave him a shake. “You?” He couldn’t believe this!

“Dad, hey!” Johnny yelled.

“You’d throw things at moving vehicles? Like you don’t know how dangerous that is?”

“No way, Dad! Gimme a break here!”

Tom let go. Johnny was getting pretty big. At fourteen he was tall, and his feet were already size elevens. Tom looked at those feet. “The evidence may be circumstantial, but it’s all over your shoes.”

“Yeah, well, I was taking the eggs
back.
But thanks to you…”

“Back where?” Tom wanted to know.

“To Mr. Gilmore’s house, although I don’t know how old they are or when they got taken. Let’s just say I put a stop to it, okay?”

“Who’d you stop, exactly.”

“It ain’t important, okay?”

“It’s my main concern at the moment.”

“Well, I don’t snitch, so I guess I’m grounded or something.”

Tom tapped his foot and seethed. “Whoever you’re protecting just hammered the police car.”

“No
way!
Are you
serious?
”

“Serious as a heart attack, buster. Now, who are your friends. As if I don’t know.”

“Sorry, Pop. I don’t snitch. But I guess me telling them we don’t do that here wasn’t real convincing, so I reckon they’ll get themselves caught pretty quick. And I’ll wash your car.”

“Yup.” Tom turned and began to walk back to the Range Rover. He knew precisely who the culprits were, but he wasn’t about to let on in front of Johnny. Later they would have a little talk about snitching. Holding a confidence to keep a friend out of trouble was one thing. Clamming up as a matter of principle even if someone could get hurt, was another. Tom needed to be sure Johnny knew the difference.

June was just about ready to leave the clinic, when the phone rang. She was the last one to go and she could have let the machine pick up—there were emer
gency numbers on the recorder—but she answered, hoping it might be Jim.

But it was Charlie MacNeil. While June wouldn’t wish ill on anyone, it was fortuitous that Charlie had a bad sinus infection. She offered to keep the clinic open for a little while longer and give Charlie some free antibiotic and decongestant samples because she wanted a chance to talk to him about Clarence.

Forty minutes later, having told Charlie he looked like crap, given him the drugs and secured his promise to check on Clarence as soon as possible, she was ready to call it a day.

As she and Sadie were leaving the clinic, she noticed her aunt Myrna’s old Caddy at the café, right beside Elmer’s truck. She suspected they were holding a family meeting without her, so she pulled in.

But it was not a family meeting at all. It was poker. At a table in the corner sat Elmer, Sam Cussler, Burt Crandall the baker, Aunt Myrna in a straw hat with a long pheasant feather jutting out to the side and Judge Forrest. They usually played at Judge’s house. With Judge and Birdie living in the center of town, the quilting circle, of which June was a member, met there one night a week and poker was played there another.

June went to the counter where George stood, sipping his coffee. “What are they doing here?” she asked.

“They have logistical problems. Myna’s is too far west, Doc’s is too far east, Syl Crandall doesn’t approve of poker, Sam’s got himself that new young wife and Judge has got Chris and the boys home.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, would you make me a milk shake to drink on the way home?”

“Sure thing.”

“I’ll just go say hello.”

Since poker is serious business, no one put down their cards or looked at her except Myrna. “Hi, everyone,” she said.

“June,” Sam muttered.

“Hi, honey,” Doc said.

“Evening, June,” said Burt.

“Hmmph,” said Judge.

“Hello, my dearest,” Myrna chirped.

“You in or out,” Judge demanded crossly of the sole female in the group.

“In,” she said, carefully sliding her chips into the center. “Two pair,” Judge said, putting down his cards.

“Full house,” Myrna happily compared.

The table groaned as she pulled the chips into her growing pile.

“I haven’t talked to Birdie in a while, Judge. You having a nice visit with Chris and the boys?” Myrna asked.

He turned his sour expression up at her. Judge wasn’t a cheery man at the best of times, but he definitely looked as though there might be a strain at his homestead.

“Loud, teeny-bopper music,” Elmer quietly confided.

“Arguing and such,” Sam obliged.

“Back talk,” added Burt.

“And they don’t do chores,” Judge barked.

“Oh? Sounds heavenly,” she said, and escaped with
her milk shake. It hadn’t taken long for the realities of teenage life to become evident at the grandparents’ home. That little glimmer of envy she’d felt when she’d first laid eyes on Chris’s twin sons was almost completely cured.

T
here was no one who appreciated Susan Stone’s skills as a nurse quite as much as her husband did. But there was no one who appreciated her skills as a wife and mother more than John, also. It was completely unfair of him to expect her not to work in her field, especially if she was unfulfilled. But she took care of all the housework, laundry, cooking, shopping and child care, and the harmonious atmosphere created by her efforts brought such a feeling of peace and comfort to his life. To Sydney’s life. It wouldn’t be easy to choose where he needed her most, but the way she managed their home and family was far more important to him than the way she managed the clinic.

He tried to express this to her, but she must not have sympathized with his concerns too much because she replied, “I wouldn’t mind a deal like that either. Should we discuss a role reversal?”

John grimaced. They were having this conversation
while they tidied up the kitchen and put out some snacks in anticipation of a quiet Saturday-night card game with friends, Mike and Julianna Dickson.

“Well, you’re absolutely right. Anyone would like to have a stay-at-home wife.”

“Especially a working mother,” Susan said. “John, you’re not in a residency anymore, Sydney is now in school full-time, your schedule is not as demanding as it was when you were full-time OB-GYN. It’s time for us to share the household chores a little better than we’ve been doing.”

“But Susan,” he said, and it sounded miserably close to a whine. “Are you sure it will be good for our marriage to work together all the time.”

Susan was petite and blond, but she should never be mistaken for meek or submissive. She handed him a can of mixed nuts with the same force she would use snapping a scalpel into his palm in surgery. “It won’t be good for our marriage if we
don’t
work together, both at the clinic and at home.” Her bright blue eyes glittered. Warned.

“You’ve made up your mind?” he asked weakly. “You want to work full-time?”

Susan rolled her eyes and turned away. She took the tray of nuts, napkins, playing cards and score sheet to the dining-room table. “We’ve been over and over this, John,” she called back to the kitchen. “If you don’t want me to work full-time, you have to come up with a better reason than that you like me doing all the scut work around the house.”

“I never said that!”

“Yes, you did. But you said it very carefully.”

“Things are going to fall apart around here,” he muttered under his breath.

“What?” she asked from the dining room.

“Nothing,” he replied.

It had only been a couple of days since June presented the résumé to John, announcing that this candidate, Susan Stone, was interested in a full-time position. Charlotte had been gone roughly two weeks, so they knew very well that Susan was up to the job, and Susan had had time to decide for herself whether she wanted to work full-time. But, “She can’t be,” he had said, perhaps hopefully. “Ask her,” June had countered. And he had.

John could tell that Susan was surprised he didn’t warm up to the idea. After all, they worked together very well. It’s not as though they got on each other’s nerves. At least, they hadn’t before this debate began.

She went back into the kitchen for glasses. “I never took you for a chauvinist,” she said. “And you, a woman’s doctor.”

“I’m not a chauvinist!”

“Anyone who wants his wife to stay home and do the housework so he doesn’t have to help with it is a chauvinist,” she informed him.

“No, Susan, that would be lazy. A chauvinist doesn’t respect women. I respect women. I just like to keep home and business separate. My home is my sanctuary.”

She had four glasses in her hands and miraculously did not fire them, one at a time, at his head. “You have not one but two medical specialties. It’s hard to believe you’re dumb as a rock.” She took the glasses to the table just as the doorbell rang.

Sydney ran to the door and flung it open, knowing that the Dicksons were bringing her best friend, Lindsey, to spend the night. While the grown-ups played cards, Sydney and Lindsey would watch a movie and eat popcorn in the big bedroom, just like at a pajama party.

Susan and John put on their host faces to welcome the Dicksons, and the discussion was tabled for the time being. But the irritation wasn’t very far beneath the surface for either of them. Seconds after saying hello at the door, John said, “Come on, Mike, let’s have a beer. I’m not on call.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said, and the men disappeared into the kitchen.

“Put some popcorn in the microwave for the girls,” Susan shouted after them.

“Yes, ma’am,” John said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

The Dicksons had five children between the ages of eight and six months. Julianna had brought the new baby, Douglas, and a homemade cake for something sweet after a few hands of bridge. The other kids were at home with Grandma Dickson, who lived with them. Julianna dropped her purse and the diaper bag onto the sofa, saying nothing about the last exchange of words.
Then she chanced it. “Is there tension in the air?” she asked in a whisper.

“The job,” Susan whispered back.

“He doesn’t want you to keep it?”

“It’s not just that. It’s the way he doesn’t want me to. Like it’s a hobby. Like I won’t get my chores done if I have a job.”

“Uh-oh.”

“You want a soda? Tea?” Susan asked.

“What are you having?”

“Arsenic,” she muttered.

Julianna handed Susan a small quilt from the diaper bag to spread on the floor for Douglas. She knelt to settle the already sleeping baby, using two couch pillows to form a barrier, while Susan went to the master bedroom to put a movie in the VCR for the little girls. Douglas came from a busy household full of noisy children; the card game wouldn’t bother him a bit. Besides, Julianna liked to keep him close enough to check on him frequently.

Julianna was a true domestic engineer, involved in lots of home projects, everything from quilting to canning. She also participated in every activity, from church to school, that involved her five kids. She was content and happy and challenged.

Julianna and Susan were such close friends because they completely understood one other, though different passions drove them. Susan was a gifted nurse with great medical instincts, and Julianna admired that. Indeed, she relied on Susan almost as much as she
relied on her doctors, June and John. When Douglas was born he had a SIDS episode in which he briefly stopped breathing. Julianna had been terrified of losing him. She’d had a million concerns and questions, and Susan had listened and answered patiently, compassionately, helping her new best friend through the crisis.

Likewise, Susan admired and respected Julianna, understanding that she worked in a career field she had chosen. In fact, it was Julianna who had offered to keep Sydney after school if Susan decided to go back to nursing full-time, and Susan could not have dreamed of a better solution to that problem. There wasn’t a person she’d rather have care for her only child.

The women had only known each other since the Stones had moved to the valley six months ago, but they were instant best friends, confidantes, soul sisters.

The men came back to the dining room with more snacks—corn chips, salsa, bean dip and two frosty mugs of beer, half gone. Susan looked at Julianna, raised a slim eyebrow and said, “How about a tiny dollop of Chablis?”

“If my OB says it’s okay. I’m nursing.”

“Your OB says you can have a dollop, and Susan may have two dollops as she is nursing, but not, you know, nursing.”

“You are as funny as a rubber crutch,” Susan said, going to the kitchen to fetch wine and a pitcher of ice water. Without further sniping, popcorn was delivered to the girls, Douglas was checked once more and the foursome settled down to cards.

They hadn’t played long when Julianna asked about
Charlotte, and John reported, “She rallied. They did an angioplasty and got her out of CCU and into a double room. She’s up walking and criticizing the nurses.”

“Good as new?”

“Not exactly,” John said. “If the blockage had been detected before the heart attack, she might be good as new, but unfortunately she sustained some damage. She’ll have to overhaul her entire lifestyle or she’ll have another one. And it could easily be the big one.”

“That’s tough. Mike’s dad passed away from heart failure,” Julianna said. “If he hadn’t been out in the orchard, we might’ve saved him. It’s so lucky for Charlotte she had the attack at work, where all the people and supplies were handy.”

“I knew she’d make it, given half a chance,” Susan said. “She’s tough.”

“You don’t want to mess with these Grace Valley women,” Julianna said. “We’re tougher than we look.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Mike agreed. “Lately I think they’ve been getting a little too tough.” Julianna glared at him. “Not you, honey. I mean, you know, we got ourselves a bunch of real macho gals around here.”

John laughed. “When you think about it…” He fanned his cards and studied them. Then he chuckled again.

Mike joined in. “You don’t behave yourself, someone might just load your butt full of buckshot.” He took a pull on his beer.

“What d’you suppose Daniel Culley did to get Blythe that worked up?”

Mike studied his cards. “Probably tracked in mud. I know the last time I did that, Julianna chased me out of the house with a broom.”

“Least she didn’t chase you down with a gun!”

Both men laughed at themselves. Susan and Julianna exchanged looks. Unamused looks.

“She comes at the end of a long line of women who call the shots,” Mike said.

“You’re going to get into trouble,” Julianna warned.

“What? I’m just telling it straight. How about Myrna Claypool? We were just kids when her husband disappeared…twenty years ago or so. I bet he tracked in mud and she took him out.” He laughed uproariously at his incredible wit. John, with poor judgment, joined him.

“You are
so
funny,” Susan said facetiously. “Poor Myrna.”

“Poor Myrna keeps writing these creepy books about husband killing.” Mike shuddered. “And you know what? The wife always gets away with it!”

“It’s just wishful thinking,” Susan said. “Are we going to play?”

“You bet,” John said. “Women against the men. Mike? You ready for another beer?”

“Mike, I don’t mind driving home,” Julianna said, “but if your tongue gets any looser, I’ll be driving home alone.”

“Yes,
ma’am,
” he said. Then he giggled behind his hand.

They played a couple of hands amicably, the men
losing by miles. Susan suggested some coffee and dessert, but the men weren’t ready yet.

“I almost forgot,” Susan said. “We have a new preacher! June and I walked over to the café yesterday and he’d just pulled in. His name’s Harry Shipton, he’s from Carmel originally, he’s about forty and single and very handsome.”

“Did June look interested?” Julianna wanted to know.

“You know June,” Susan said. “Even if she was, she wouldn’t let on.”

“He’d better mind his manners,” Mike said. “Our women ran the last preacher off for womanizing and philandering.”

Julianna glared at her husband. When he’d said “our women,” the inference had been literal. In fact, it was Julianna and Susan who’d spearheaded an effort to boycott their last minister because of his scandalous behavior toward women. It had been no laughing matter. It was so unlike Mike to be talking this way. He was usually much more sensitive. He must be allergic to beer, she decided.

“It’s getting so running a man off is going easy on him,” Mike added.

Mike and John melted into hysterical laughter, nearly falling off their chairs in the process.

“I’m going to turn on the coffee,” Susan said, folding her hand.

“I’ll cut the cake,” Julianna said.

Once in the kitchen, the laughter of their husbands
ringing out in the other room, the women looked at each other in disgust. “Is this all about the job? All this poking and jabbing?” Julianna asked.

Susan shrugged. “I’m as astonished as you. John has never acted as though the most important contribution I make to our relationship is staying home, doing the housework. I worked straight through my pregnancy with Syd and the only reason I didn’t go right back to work after she was born was that we moved so John could do his family medicine residency. You know, we were newcomers. I didn’t have a network for either work or child care, and with a baby…”

“Sure. It was more practical to be a full-time mom.”

“Plus, I thought we might have more children…”

“But you’ve pretty much decided not to?”

“I’d take another one in a second, but I won’t kid you, Jules. I don’t want a tribe.”

Julianna laughed and touched her friend’s arm. “Not everyone feels like raising their own ball team. But maybe one more for you, huh?”

“Maybe, but another baby wouldn’t keep me from working. I love my work. After years in the operating room, I never thought I’d be so excited about going to work in a clinic, but it’s great. Every bit as exciting as surgery.”

“Then you just have to do it,” Julianna said. “Don’t worry about John. He’s a good guy. He’ll recover.”

“He’d better, or I’ll start thinking about the merits of settling this discussion the way Blythe Culley did.”

“I have to admit,” Julianna said, “that there were a
couple of times during cards that I found myself fantasizing the same thing. They’re a little out of control tonight.”

They put the cake plates and coffee cups on a tray. When they returned to the dining room the men had barely gotten control of their idiotic mirth. Like children. Julianna was thinking, maybe coffee will help, and Susan was thinking, I hope it’s not a mistake to give them sugar.

John plunged his fork into his cake, put a big bite into his mouth and sighed in ecstasy. “Julianna, you are a queen among women. Mike, you are one lucky SOB.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said with his mouth full.

“I used to be lucky,” John said. “Now, it looks like if I want cake, I’m going to be making it. Susan is going back to work.”

Mike leaned sideways to put an arm around Julianna’s shoulders and pull her toward him. “Not Julianna. She lives to please me.”