Rose Hill (30 page)

“I do believe you,” said Scott. “I’m just trying to figure out what to do about it. For crissakes, Cal, stop crying.”

“Are you going to arrest me?” Cal asked him, hiccupping slightly, and Scott felt his anger evaporate, replaced by irritation at the difficult place in which Cal had put him.

Cal’s English setter looked back and forth from his master to Scott with sad, pleading eyes. Cal’s wife went back to hovering in the doorway to the kitchen, wringing her hands.

“Does anyone else know about this?” Scott asked him.

“No, I haven’t told anybody but you and Sue.”

He started to cry again, but in more of a nose running than a tears running way.

“Okay. Here’s what happened,” Scott said, as he handed Cal his handkerchief. “Last Saturday you took your dog for a run on the other side of the river, he took off, and you got lost in the fog, period. Don’t mention deer, don’t mention guns, none of that stuff. You did leave the barriers down, which you will confess to your boss, and for which he will punish you accordingly. Malcolm Behr is a fair man, and he probably will not fire you for that. Tonight you took your dog across for a run again, God only knows why when he ran off the last time, but that was all you were doing when you saw the truck. Got it?”

“Thank you, Scott. I’d lose my job if I got arrested,” the big man said, and started weeping again. Cal’s day job was as a security guard at the power plant in the next county.

“All right,” Scott said, standing up. “No one’s arresting you, but for God’s sake don’t let the game warden catch you hunting anything out of season. He hates me and your boss, and would love nothing better.”

Cal’s wife ran over, hugged Scott, and kissed his cheek, saying “thank you” repeatedly.

“He won’t do it again,” she said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Scott’s head started to hurt as he left Cal’s house. What in the hell had happened to put Willy in the river and Theo dead in the vet’s office? Had Willy been dead before he hit the river, or did he drown? Was it suicide, an accident, or murder? He would have to wait until the county did a post mortem to find out.

Whatever happened to Willy, at least he knew it happened between just after 1:00 a.m., when Yvonne’s boyfriend Price saw the truck, and 2:30 a.m., when Cal put the barriers back up. Scott still could not imagine someone as small and weak as Willy killing Theo, from a standing position, with a single blow to the back of the head. However, he may have seen who did do it, and paid for it with his life.

When he got to the corner of Pine Mountain Road and Lotus Avenue, he saw Duke sitting on top of his SUV, which was parked by the side of the road.

“Are you following me?” Scott asked him, but the big tabby cat hopped down and ran up the railroad tracks behind the glassworks.

“If you’re one of those crime solving cats, please feel welcome to jump in at any time,” Scott
called after him, but Duke disappeared into the darkness.

Maggie struggled up from a deep sleep to find sunlight streaming through her front room windows and down the hallway outside her bedroom. She jumped up with a start, wondering how she could have overslept. The clock showed 8:47 as the time, and she could hear plenty of activity on the street from her window.

After Scott left the night before, she went upstairs to her apartment feeling so unnerved, half-hoping, half-fearing he would return. She couldn't decide if she would let him in or not, and the anxiety over her indecision made her feel sick at her stomach. She lay awake for a long time, and when she did sleep, she had disturbing dreams.

She felt her forehead now, and it felt hot.

‘I must be ill,’ she thought. ‘I might be coming down with something.’

It felt to Maggie as if Scott was all around her, that her pe
rsonal space was no longer her own. It was a feeling she had not experienced in a while, and in this instance, it felt like an invasion. She half-liked it, but it also made her feel a little nauseated; that couldn't be good. She dreaded the day ahead.

She dialed the store number and Jeanette answered, “Little Bear Books,” in a friendly voice.

“Oh Jeanette, thank goodness, is everything okay?”

“We figured you had a late night. Don't worry; everything’s fine down here, no reason to rush. Jonah's here with me, Mitchell and Kirsten are in the café, and everything is under control. Mamie’s already been in, complained about the romance selection, and gone again. Take a day off, for Pete's sake! I'll take the deposit when I go to lunch.”

Maggie was relieved but embarrassed, and hung up the phone thinking maybe she would take the day off. She didn't feel at all well. Maybe she was getting the flu.

She called her mother to apologize for not bringing her a cappuccino, and her mother brushed her off.

“You don't have to do that every day. I am perfectly capable of brewing myself a cup of coffee.”

Maggie said she would go over to the house and feed her father and grandfather lunch at noon, but her mother cut her off.

“I'll have Patrick do it; he'll be there anyway. Honestly, Mary Margaret, you don't have to wait on us hand and foot. We’re not helpless. We can survive one day without your services.”

Maggie hung up, feeling reprimanded and in the wrong for no good reason.

The phone rang and it was Hannah.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” she chirped, and then in a lower tone, “are you alone?”

“Yes,” barked Maggie, a little louder than she meant to.

“Don't bite my head off,” Hannah said. “I'm downstairs, can I come up?”

“Of course, sorry,” Maggie replied, and opened the door to the central hallway before she retreated to the bathroom to try to regroup.

Hannah had a key to the downstairs door so she let herself in and ran up, calling, “Morning, Sunshine!”

Maggie heard Hannah close the apartment door behind her, and walk down the long hallway back to the kitchen.

“I’m making you a cup of tea,” Hannah called out as she passed the bathroom. “I was just downstairs patronizing your establishment. I bought
myself a caramel latte, with my own hard-earned money. I didn’t even ask for a discount, not that you’d give me one.”

By the time Maggie appeared, standing in the doorway, still in her robe and slippers, with wild looking hair and a cranky look on her face, Hannah was steeping some English Breakfast tea for her.

“You know if I had a kitchen like this I would stay home and cook all day every day,” Hannah said.

“You'd go stark raving mad after three days,” Maggie said. “Like a bee in a jar.”

“And you don't use a tenth of it,” Hannah continued, ignoring her friend’s response. “It's a shame really.”

Maggie gestured to it all, saying, “Take it, then. I could survive with a toaster and a hot pot.”

“I can't imagine what it took to get it all up here,” Hannah said, as if she were seriously considering the offer, “let alone getting it back down.”

Maggie shuffled to the French doors that led to her small iron balcony and noted the bright blue sky and the few puffy white clouds. Several black birds were sitting on the telephone wire between a utility pole and her building, swaying in the wind. The whole town woke up and got going without her; why was that such a shock?

“The forecast is for one hell of a storm tonight,” Hannah said. “You’d never know it to look at it now.”

Maggie just grunted and wandered around the kitchen, poking around in drawers, looking for a hair clip.

“Well, don't you look like someone who was kept up late doing goodness knows what,” Hannah said. “Confess! You've had your way with that nice young man, haven't you?”

Maggie pulled her hair back into a wild, messy twist and clipped it wi
th a big barrette she found in the drawer by the sink.

“Certainly not,” she said, cocking a stern eyebrow at her friend as she sat down at the table across from her. “I left him in the same chaste condition in which I found him.”

“That's a pity,” Hannah said. “You could use a good roll in the hay.”

Maggie thought of how nearly she had rolled on the café floor with Scott the night before and her face felt hot.

“You did do something,” Hannah accused with a wagging finger. “You're blushing.”

“Drew gave me a perfectly nice kiss, thanked me for a lovely evening, and that was that.”

“He didn’t stick his tongue down your throat or slobber all over your face, did he?” Hannah asked. “Cause you don’t look too impressed.”

“No,” Maggie said. “It was short and sweet. It was very nice.”

“That’s the end of that, I guess,” Hannah said.

“Why do you say that? I like him. He’s cooking me dinner tonight.”

“Look, I want you to be happy, and Drew’s a great guy, but if the first kiss doesn’t steam up your windows, nothing else he does will, either.”

“You don’t know that,” Maggie said in a cross tone. ”I hate when you do that. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Let’s change the subject.”

They talked about Willy Neff being found in his truck in the river, and as awful as it was, neither could drum up much sympathy.

“I’ve got to go to Pendleton to pick up some new prisoners,” Hannah said. “And since I know what you love most in the world besides chocolate cake and root beer is a pepperoni roll from the IGA in Pendleton, I thought you might want to ride along.”

She looked hopefully at Maggie, who she could tell was about to say no. Hannah jumped in again before she could.

“I talked to Jean
ette; the bookstore is covered, and we can take care of Bonnie, Grandpa Tim, and Fitz before we go.”

Maggie pointed a finger at Hannah.

“Hah! My mother informed me this morning that she doesn't need me waiting on her hand and foot,” Maggie said. “And what's more, the sainted Patrick can take care of Grandpa Tim and Fitz.”

“Then there's no reason not to go,” Hannah said. “C'mon! Can’t you just taste the pepperoni grease soaked up by the warm, squishy roll?”

Maggie gestured to her hair, saying, “I need a shower, and you know this bird’s nest takes at least an hour to be put right.”

Hanna looked at the tangled, semi-matted mess on Maggie's head, and nodded her head in agreement.

“Okay, how about this? You take a quick shower. I will get the special comb and carefully, ever so tenderly detangle this wild wig of yours while your highness sips your tea, and if I can make it look presentable we can go.”

Maggie sighed deeply and went to take a shower.

“You know, most people would love to have this hair,” Hannah said fifteen minutes later, as she started the detangling process from the bottom, using a wide-tooth comb. “It's a gorgeous color, and people pay a lot of money for this kind of curl.”

Maggie
winced and groaned as Hannah worked the tangles out.

“It's not hair, it's an affliction,” Maggie said, “and ‘most people’ can have it.”

“Everything you have going for you, which most people would feel blessed with, you consider a curse,” Hannah said. “You are the most contrary person I know.”

“Don’t lecture me,” Maggie said. “I have a mother for that.”

A half hour later they left the bookstore just as Scott was walking down the street toward them. Maggie felt panicked, and her heart raced.

Hannah yelled, “Jinkies! It's the cops! Make a break for it!”

Scott briefly acknowledged Hannah's greeting, but his intense focus was on Maggie, who could see Hannah watching with piqued interest.

“Where are you two off to?” he asked.

Maggie replied, “To Pendleton to pick up some inmates,” looking everywhere but at Scott.

He stood directly between Maggie and the passenger side door of Hannah's truck, and Hannah might as well have not been there for all the attention he paid her.

“While you’re there,” Scott said, “would you mind stopping by the retirement home and talking to Ruthie Postlethwaite about Margie and Enid?”

“Sure,” Maggie said, shrugging, but still not making eye contact. “Why?”

“Just to see how they’re doing. Remember the thing Lily Crawford mentioned that I asked you about,” he said cryptically.

“Oh yeah,” Maggie said casually. “Will do.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don't know. We might go to the city and do some shopping.”

It was obvious from her double-take that it was the first Hannah had heard of this plan. Maggie could see her making note of the body language and palpable tension between Scott and her.

“Call me when you get back,” he said. “I'd like to finish the conversation we started last night.”

He smiled at Maggie then, in a knowing, intimate way that could not be mistaken for anything other than serious lust, and Maggie felt the flush start in her chest and zoom up through her face.

“Alright,” Maggie said, as she pushed him aside to open the truck door. “I'll call you.”

Scott grinned at Hannah and said, “You girls be careful now.”

He stood on the sidewalk, grinning from ear to ear, watching them until they were out of sight.

“What in the hell was that about?” Hannah demanded, before they were a block away from him.

Maggie hid her burning face in her gloved hands and would not look at Hannah. She mumbled something Hannah could not make out.

“Mary Margaret Fitzpatrick,” Hannah said, smacking her on the arm, “you look at me and tell me what happened between you and Scott Gordon.”

Maggie
shook her head and kept her face hidden in her hands.

“This happened last night?” Hannah asked. “After you dropped off Drew?”

“Yes,” Maggie said, the word smothered by her gloves.

“You brazen hussy
,” Hannah said. “Seducing men right and left, one after another.”

Maggie's head popped up.

“I did not!” she said, trying to give Hannah a mean look, but smiling sheepishly instead. “Scott was waiting for me when I got back last night. It was awful.”

Hannah could hardly keep her eyes on the road.

“Awful? You had sex with Scott Gordon and it was awful?”

“No, no, no,” Maggie laughed. “I’m saying it was awful because it made me feel awful, afterward.”

“After the sex,” Hannah insisted.

Maggie smacked Hannah on the arm, yelling, “No! There was no sex!”

“Okay, okay, don't get physical on me. There was no sex. You don't have to tell me anything.”

Hannah appeared
offended and made a pretense of concentrating solely on the road ahead. Maggie knew it was an act, but went along with it. She needed time to think.

Maggie had hoped Scott would pretend nothing happened, at least in front of other people. She could see now it had been a foolish hope. Scott wasn't going to keep it a secret and didn't care who knew it. She had kept him at a safe distance for the last couple of years, across a minefield of bickering and continual rejection. That battleground had been crossed the previous night, and he wasn't planning on retreating. As soon as she weakened and let her defenses down, he was acting as if he had already captured the castle.

Maggie dreaded the days ahead. She felt she had only two choices: she could reject him completely and finally, and hurt him terribly, almost certainly laying waste to the close friendship they had developed over the years; or she could give in and subject herself to what felt like the complete surrender of her safe, orderly world.

She wanted him, oh my, yes. She secretly wished he would come back to her last night and finish what he started. But she knew him so well. There could be no long-term hot affair with Scott Gordon, no way. As soon as he was in her bed, he would be pressuring her to marry him, and once she was married to him, it would be Mother Marcia and her in the center ring, with Scott as the prize, ‘til death did they part.

She was so fond of the man, she did love him, and there was no doubt the physical attraction was intense, but she had these nagging doubts. It hadn’t felt like that with Gabe. Maggie would have married Gabe in a heartbeat. Maggie would have followed him to the ends of the earth if he’d asked her to. She had assumed she and Gabe would eventually get married, have children, and then grow old together. Unfortunately, during the three years they were together Gabe never proposed, and then one night Gabe was gone.