Death Climbs a Tree (22 page)

He charged across the clearing toward her.

“Mr. Walcher,” she greeted him. Below his rolled-up sleeves, even the hairs on his freckled arms were red.

“You again! I told you to get out.”

“That was before our friend Sylvia was killed.”

“Don't I know it. The place has been crawling with cops ever since.”

“Really?” Not when I've been here.

He blushed as only a redhead can. “We—uh, we had some damage out here.”

“Oh, the EFF people.”

“Yeah. Lost more than a day of work on my other jobs. Had to find a new place to store my equipment, and I've been coming out here and checking day and night in case they have something else in mind. Now they've sneaked a man up in that tree. Not even knocking her out of it did any good.”

She couldn't resist. “Oh? You knocked her out?”

“That's not what I said!”

She was tempted to tell him who was up in the tree now but decided it would make him madder. Better just leave.

“Good-bye, Mr. Walcher.” She turned to go.

He didn't answer, but she could feel his eyes boring into her back. He was still standing there when she started the motor and drove off.

On the way home, she kicked herself for not thinking of a way to get him to leave his fingerprints on her car. Going back might do it. He was belligerent enough to lean on it to warn her off. If not, she could make it stall and pretend to have trouble starting it up again. That would probably work with a man so eager to get rid of her.

Leave the detecting to me,
Fred would say. He was right, of course. The man he was looking for was dangerous. He'd sent Jill Root to Skirv's, and she didn't think he was concerned only with protecting Skirv's prints. She wouldn't be surprised to see Jill or someone else she knew turn up at the senior center tomorrow.

She was reading in bed when Fred came in. “You're early.”

“I wasn't doing anything useful.” He pulled off his jacket and tie.

“So Skirv's prints didn't match?”

“Nope.”

Joan felt hugely relieved, not so much because she knew the man as because he was part of Andrew's support system and she hadn't even let Fred and Andrew in on her suspicions. If Andrew had been killed because I didn't want to look foolish, I never would have forgiven myself, she thought.

Fred sat down heavily on the bed and untied his shoes. “Call me when Bert leaves tomorrow, and I'll send someone over to check the paint can.”

“But you don't think it's Bert.”

“Ketcham knows him. He doesn't think the man's been out of Indiana in his life.”

“Oh.” But hadn't Mabel said something about Michigan?

“We'll check anyway. Ketcham could be wrong. Anyone with reason to resent delays to the construction is suspect, and at this point we're down to looking under rocks.”

“Could he be a redhead?”

“Walcher?” He untied his shoes. “Utterback's hair was brown.”

“Yes. Maybe he dyed his hair in Michigan.”

“You're grasping at straws.”

“Looking under rocks. Fred, what about the meth lab? Did you—?”

“We found plenty of prints in that cave. No matches.” He was unbuttoning his shirt.

Of course they'd checked. She sighed. “I saw Andrew this evening.”

“He okay?”

“He thinks he is. When he first went up there, I hated it that you and he were at each other's throats, but now I almost wish you'd drag him down.”

“Not unless I have to. That's dangerous itself.” He dropped his shirt on the floor.

“I know.”

“It's like terrorism.”

“It's what?” she asked.

“Our own terror turns our lives upside down, puts people at risk, way beyond what the terrorists do.”

“I don't want to turn his life upside down. But I don't want him killed, either. You have to find this man!”

“We'll find him. Move over, woman. It's cold out here.”

She lifted the covers, and he slid in beside her. His body was chilled and his feet icy, but the arms that held her and the eyes that crinkled down at her promised something much warmer.

Joan smiled back and turned out the light.

22

By Wednesday afternoon, the weather had warmed up to sixty, and Bert arrived sans gloves, ready to paint. He was making a neat job of it and whistling while he worked when Joan went out to check half an hour later.

“Looks better, don't it?” he said.

“It sure does. I'll have to make you some ‘wet paint' signs, though.”

“I could tape 'em to the steps with masking tape.”

“Good idea.” I don't want him to be the bad guy, she thought, and she remembered that she'd have to find some more work if she wanted to be able to keep him on the job.

After taking him the signs, she spent the next hour walking around the building with a clipboard. The adult day care area looked distinctly dingy. Of all the people who need cheerful colors, she thought, those folks did. She consulted Karen Hultquist, who ran that program.

“That's great,” Karen said. “In fact, we could make it an activity, letting the people choose the colors they'd like to have here. Some of them have done some amazing paintings—I'd trust their color sense before my own.”

“Do it. I'll have to clear it with the board when they meet this afternoon, but we have enough for that in the budget, I know. And it's upkeep.”

By the end of the hour, she had collected enough jobs to keep a man busy for a few weeks, if he could take on small carpentry repairs as well as painting and cleaning.

She took her list back to her office and typed it into the computer to make copies for the board meeting.

The board members, of course, had to pass Bert Barnhart as they entered the building. Joan saw some of them give him a wide berth.

“Are you sure it's safe, having him work out there like that?” Mabel Dunn asked before the meeting began. “He scared the pants off me the other day.”

“He's been behaving like a perfect gentleman since then,” Joan said. “I think he was desperate for money.”

“I don't doubt it,” Annie Jordan said. “They can't survive on the little I pay Diane, that's for sure. And now with this construction falling through … Bert can do more than clean.”

“That's what I wanted to bring before the board,” Joan said.

“Well, let's call the meeting to order,” Alvin Hannauer said. He dealt quickly with the routine and returned to the question of Bert. “Now, what do you have in mind?”

Joan handed out her list. “I'd like your permission to hire Bert to do these projects and use him regularly for upkeep, if he continues to do as good a job as he's doing on those railings. He's a good worker so far.”

“He can't come in here and terrorize people,” Margaret Duffy said.

“Of course not,” Joan said. “I'll make him understand that. But the way he's been behaving, I suspect he's already ashamed of himself. And we'll have to decide on a pay rate, if he's going to continue.”

“We're not getting the volunteers we used to for that kind of thing,” Alvin said. “I vote we take him on. It will cost less than hiring contractors for some of these piddly little jobs, even if you could get them. You think you can get him to agree to be on call for emergencies?”

“If he knows how to deal with them, I'd think so,” Joan said. When the meeting ended, she had her vote. Now if only Bert's fingerprints wouldn't put him beyond the pale. But there was no harm in letting him know he had work.

“You mean it?” he said when she told him, and she thought his eyes misted over. “You have any idea how long I've been looking?”

“I mean it. The board was pleased with your work. They took a vote this afternoon.”

“You won't be sorry!”

They settled on the details. She paid him for the railing and showed him her list. “I want you to keep your eyes open for other things that need fixing or fixing up. This building gets hard wear.”

“You want I should start on the inside walls next? That's top of your list.”

She'd know before tomorrow whether he was dangerous. Still, why start with the indoor work? “No, I want to give the adult day care people time to decide on the colors they want in there. Start by clearing the winter trash off the lawn and the flower bed. You saw the rake and garden tools down there with the paint supplies. Just be careful of the bulbs. Right now you can hardly see some of the flowers under all that, but they're blooming, and a rake can wreck the petals.”

“You got it. I'll start a compost heap in the back corner with what I take off. By fall, we can use it.”

When Bert left, she called Fred. “He's gone for the day. I feel like Judas. We just hired him as our regular handyman, and I think he's going to be good.”

“I'll send someone over. If he's not our bad guy, you'll get a free security check out of it.”

“I suppose. Nobody checked on me.”

“You don't fit the profile.”

“Fred!”

“You had character references right here, remember? But you have to be realistic if you're going to hire people off the street like that. I wouldn't want to trust my mother to a place that used anyone the least bit dangerous.”

“No, of course not. But I wouldn't be surprised if Helga could hold her own against Bert.”

He laughed. “You have a point.” Even though her mind was failing, Helga Lundquist, Fred's mother, was still a strong Swedish woman.

“Will I see you tonight?”

“Orchestra rehearsal, right? So I doubt it. I'll grab a bite sometime.”

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, Jill Root appeared at her office door. Today she was in uniform and looked like the mature police officer she was, not an Oliver College kid. “I've come for the paint can.”

Joan walked her down to the supply room, where she found it, neatly labeled on top with the date, “Railing,” and a stripe of the green color. “He did everything but sign it.”

“I'll bring it back, unless it turns out to be evidence.”

“Tonight?”

“Oh, sure. Is he still using it?”

“I don't think so. But he'd miss it. If his prints don't match, I don't want him to know we suspected him of anything.”

“Him and most of the guys in this town,” Jill said. “It wouldn't be so bad if we could tell people we needed to eliminate them. But we don't want to tip off this Utterback character.”

“You think that's his real name?”

“If it is, he's living in a cave somewhere. I never heard of him, and we haven't found any record of a man by that name doing anything here.”

“In a cave … I suppose that's possible. Out there in the woods, like the meth lab.”

“Possible, but not likely. If that ever was his real name, it's not the one he goes by these days. He's walking around acting perfectly ordinary, except of course for killing people.”

“You think he'll keep doing it?”

Jill shook her head. “I wish we knew. We're keeping watch out there, though. The lieutenant doesn't say much, but we all know it's your son up in that tree.”

Joan couldn't answer.

Jill gave her hand a quick squeeze. “I'll be right back.”

After she left, Joan surveyed the storage room. Already, Bert had done more than label the paint. All the paint cans stood in rows, as did the garden tools and the cleaning supplies, each in its own section of the room's rough shelving. Even the smells seemed to have grouped themselves. It hadn't been chaotic before his arrival, but even before knowing he had a job, he'd made order out of disorder.

I can't believe this man would casually shoot rocks at innocent people, she thought. Unless he didn't think of them as innocent. If Bert thought Sylvia and Herschel Vint were keeping him and his wife from the work they so badly needed, what would he do? Considering how he'd behaved the first time she met him, she couldn't put murder beyond him.

By the time Jill returned, Joan wanted urgently to know the verdict. Ah, she'd brought the can back, a good sign.

Joan took it from her. “It's not Bert?”

“No. Not even close. And the lieutenant said to tell you Barnhart's not wanted for anything, either. We've had a couple of domestic calls, but he was never arrested.”

“That's good, right?”

“It might not mean much. Sometimes the woman gets cold feet when it comes to pressing charges. And sometimes she didn't call in the first place. A neighbor complains, but the woman loves the guy in spite of how he treats her.”

Hard to imagine, but Joan knew it was true. “Thanks, Jill.”

“Or the neighbor made it sound worse than it was.”

“I hope so.”

“He's never bothered anyone else. Shoots off his mouth is all.”

She'd have to keep an eye on him, Joan thought, and ask Annie to watch out for his wife. After Jill left, she went down and replaced the can exactly where she'd found it on Bert's neat shelf. Time to dash home for a quick meal before rehearsal.

Walking home bathed in the sunshine still delighted her after a winter of walking home in dusk or even in the dark, especially when someone failed to collect a frail family member from the adult day care program on time. By midsummer, she knew, she wouldn't enjoy that sunshine so much, but right now, it was pure pleasure.

By now, too, the runners and dog walkers were populating the park on her way home, though during the winter she saw few of them. She exchanged greetings with people she never saw anywhere else and couldn't name, even though she recognized them from their regular evening walks.

At the edge of the park, she paused only a few moments to admire Laura Putnam's new puppy and sympathize with Ellen, Laura's mother. “You sure you're up to it?”