The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) (17 page)

“Jess?” Tyler looked miserable standing before her, now empty handed. He pushed his hands through his hair, exposing the line of scar near his hairline. “Can I explain?” His dark eyes pleaded with her.

“Take a seat,” she gestured toward the rocking chairs he had helped her bring home. She put her purse inside and grabbed a throw blanket from the couch. Wrapped in the blanket, she sat in the other rocker.

Tyler found the scar on his head and, instead of merely pushing his hair back, he lingered with his fingers tracing the pink ridge. “I’m a vet,” he said. “I did two tours in Iraq.”

Jess watched as Tyler’s breath became shallow. He kept his face turned down, his hands moving from his scar to his thighs and back to his head. She looked for the telltale oblong bump in his hip pocket and was relieved to see he’d left the knife behind. Tyler again pushed his hair from his brow; he’d begun to sweat.

“I don’t want to get into too much of what happened.” He glanced at her and quickly away. “I was wounded over there, but…but I was lucky. My wounds healed. I was discharged…I did my share of heavy drinking to forget…” He glanced up at Jess and away, seeming to both need a connection with her and unable to hold one. “I’ve seen guys really fucked up. They can’t handle being back. They can’t cope. I decided not to be one of them, you know?”

Jess had heard about veterans with PTSD. Anyone who ever watched the news or listened to NPR had heard about the problems veterans were having after leaving active duty. She nodded and waited for Tyler to tell his story.

“So, I got my shit together. I went to trade school and bought the Water Wheel. I figured if I was in a quiet little place like Skoghall, things would be okay. I just needed to be somewhere that wasn’t crowded or noisy. I needed to be alone for a while, and I needed to do something with my life that I really wanted to do.” He glanced up again and quickly dropped his gaze. His hands rubbed long, hard strokes up and down his thighs. If he didn’t stop soon, he’d rub right through the denim. “It was working. I was feeling really good about my life. And then…” His eyes darted up to her face, out to the yard, back to his thighs. He sighed and pushed his hands through his hair.

“And then I came along?”

He nodded. “I really like you, Jess. You’re the first crack at a relationship I’ve had since getting back. I felt like I might be normal again, being with you. And then…” Though seated, his jeans were taut over his tensed thigh muscles. “The party was too much for me. I thought I could handle it. Especially since we were doing it together.”

“Oh my God. Tyler, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I should have told you. I just wanted to pretend I was fine. I didn’t want…” He paused to draw in a deep breath and release it slowly. As he did so, the muscles of his neck and shoulders relaxed some and his thighs softened against the rocking chair. “I didn’t want you to see me as damaged.” He looked up again and this time held Jess’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Jess held her hand out across the gap between the rockers. Tyler stared at it for a long time before extending his own and placing his palm against hers. Jess closed her fingers around his hand. “I startled you,” she said, “when you were already stressed.”

“But I never told you what I could do. You didn’t know…” He had to stop and clear his throat of the emotion welling inside. “…how dangerous I could be.”

Jess felt him looking at her cheek and brought her fingertips up to the swell and the cut. She didn’t think the cut was too bad. She hoped not anyway. “I’ll be fine.”

Tyler put his hands on the arms of the rocking chair and pushed himself onto his feet. “I hope you can forgive me.”

Jess stood, holding the blanket around her shoulders. “Do you want a cup of coffee?” She couldn’t help feeling partly responsible for her injuries—planning a party, startling Tyler—and she knew after what happened in front of the entire village, he would need a friend now more than ever.

“Really?”

“Come on.” She called Shakti and they went inside. “I’m going to get dressed. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Tyler went into the living room while Shakti followed Jess upstairs.

She got a pair of jeans, t-shirt, and belt out of her closet and laid them over the stool at the dressing table. It was time, she decided, and leaned forward to get a good look in the mirror. Seeing herself brought tears of shock to her eyes. The bruise was the size of a golf ball, a sick purplish color with yellow edges. At the top of the swell, too close to her eye, a strip of flesh had been gouged out by Tyler’s ring. It wasn’t too deep, but it was broad and would probably scar. She raised a hand to her face, then thought better of touching it. She already knew it hurt. Jess opened a drawer in the dressing table and rummaged around for some ointment to put on the cut. She was going to look like hell for a while. Turning her side to the mirror, Jess looked back over her shoulder as she raised her top to inspect her back. The small of her back had a big ugly bruise where she’d hit the edge of the counter. It was yellow-brown and tender to the touch. At least it wasn’t swollen like her face.

Jess sighed. She wanted that cup of coffee now more than before, and maybe Tyler’s company would do her some good. She thought about Tyler, the knife he carried, some of his quirks that now made sense, while she changed into her jeans and put on a bra. She was pulling the t-shirt over her head, carefully stretching the neck so it didn’t rub against her face, when she heard the thud of heavy footfalls in the hallway outside her door.

Tyler burst into the room and grabbed her. Jess yelled out, a sound of pure surprise, as he knocked her to the floor. She landed on her ass first, then her shoulders hit, and her head followed. The impact was mild compared to the one at the café, more frightening than damaging. Her t-shirt was  still bunched up over her chest and Tyler was on top of her, his crazed eyes searching the room for something. Jess tried to squirm away, but he weighed too much. He looked over his shoulder at the dressing table and one hand shot out, grabbed the belt off the stool and with a terrifying efficiency, looped it over Jess’s hands. Tyler cinched it down and tightly bound her wrists, a simple task since the belt was made of webbing with grommet holes running its entire length.

“Tyler, what are you doing?” She strained to free her hands.

“Where is it?” he shouted in her face. Tyler raised his hand to strike her.

Jess turned her face away from him, her eyes squeezed shut, shoulders pulled up to her ears, anticipating the blow. “What? Where is what?”

“The weapons cache. Where. Are. The. Guns.”

“What guns?” Jess opened her eyes just enough to see. Tyler held her wrists with one hand while still sitting on her, the hand that had been poised to strike her was fumbling at his hip. Jess prayed the knife wasn’t in there somewhere after all.

“I know you hid them. Now where are they?” Tyler screamed at her, demanding the impossible. “Come on you gook bitch! Where are the guns? Bang! Bang! Shoot GI Joe? You got ‘em in a tunnel? Huh?” Tyler shook her by the wrists and Jess’s head thumped against the floor. Jess knew she couldn’t throw him off of her. Even if her back hadn’t been injured, she didn’t have that kind of strength. “Come on, show me!” He got off Jess and yanked her to her feet by the tail of the belt.

“Tyler, please. Tyler. Wake up.”

He grabbed the back of her t-shirt and twisted the collar into his fist, tightening it around her throat. Jess felt the panic of the night before, and she thought she was going to die without ever a writing a thing. Tyler shoved her, his hand driving into her back. Jess jerked forward and was simultaneously restrained by the choke hold he had on her shirt. She put her hands to her throat and tried to get them under the collar, to loosen the fabric digging into her neck. It was impossible to grasp anything with Tyler jerking her toward to the top of the stairs. As he pushed her onto the top step, she grabbed at the railing. Jess’s eyes watered and she could hardly see. She stumbled and caught herself with the railing while the shirt tightened against her throat, which helped to keep her on her feet while choking her even more. Tyler screamed at her as they made their way downstairs, nonsense about guns and gooks, demanding she show him where the weapons cache was hidden. Jess thanked God when she reached the first floor. Tyler pushed her through the vestibule and onto the porch.

Two squirrels ran across the driveway in front of Tyler’s black pick-up and leapt onto the sugar maple. They spiraled up its trunk and disappeared into the branches. In the woods, the woodpecker sounded its
rat-a-tat-tat
against one of the tree trunks. It seemed impossible that they could carry on happily while Tyler was choking Jess on her own porch. Beyond the sugar maple, she saw the smokehouse and her body went cold.

“You fucking gook. Gook bitch,” Tyler snarled behind her. He gave her a shove and she fell forward onto her knees and elbows, unable to catch herself with her hands. She cried out at the crunch of her joints landing on the wood boards and began to sob.

Jess had her eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the next blow. Tyler moved behind and around her, then jumped off the porch. She didn’t know what he had in mind, only that it wasn’t his mind. She looked up when she heard his car door slam shut and watched as he backed down her long driveway, bouncing violently, nearly smashing into the barn, then swerving back onto the gravel. The truck disappeared behind the trees that lined Haug Drive. Jess heard the squeal of tires as Tyler threw the truck into gear and sped away.

She sat back on her heels. She could hear her heart drumming in her chest. Or was it the woodpecker thumping away in her trees? She raised her hands to her face and used her thumbs to wipe the tears from her good cheek. One of the squirrels came down the tree trunk and paused, suspended upside down, to look at Jess, as though considering whether it was safe to touch the ground. It turned and went back into the branches. Jess stood shakily and turned to go inside. She caught herself against the door frame and waited for her equilibrium to return, repeating to herself,
you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay
, until she was able to take the next step and cross the threshold.

On the other side of the vestibule, Jess screamed.

A trail of bloody footprints traced her path down the stairs and through the hall toward the front door. She pulled against the belt, tugging and twisting her wrists, but it was too tight. She only caused herself more pain as the edge of the webbing dug in. Still she struggled, even putting her hands between her knees and pulling against them. She ran through the living room so she would not have to walk past the footprints and into the kitchen. She yanked a knife out of the butcher block on her counter, thinking she might somehow slip it between her wrists and saw through the belt. She fumbled as her entire body began shaking. The knife fell from her grasp and gouged the pine flooring dangerously close to her bare foot. Jess sobbed, her panic overwhelming her ability to think.

Going back through the living room, she grabbed her purse off the coffee table. “Shakti.” She was barely able to get the word out, but the puppy responded, wiggling herself out from between the couch and the wall. Jess ran from the house. She opened her car door and threw her purse into the passenger seat. Shakti scrambled into the foot well and Jess climbed in, forcing the dog over the middle console and onto the seat next to her. Jess pushed the starter button. The dash lights blinked on and the car beeped at her. “Fuck!” she cried, looking frantically at the readouts, before realizing she hadn’t depressed the brake.

The car started and she reached awkwardly across her body, trying to open her hands enough to grasp the shifter while depressing the button on its side, and then slide it back into reverse. Jess left her house with little more control and a great deal more difficulty than Tyler had displayed. Each rut she struck jarred her and Shakti, bouncing them on their seats, while her car beeped an incessant warning that her seatbelt was unhooked. She made it onto Haug Drive and got the car headed toward town.

Jess was driving too fast and veered into the other lane as she took the turn onto Main Street. A driver leaving town swerved to avoid a collision and blasted his horn. Jess jumped and lost hold of the steering wheel momentarily. Her tires hit the soft shoulder lining Main Street and she slammed on the brakes, jerking to a stop that rolled Shakti off the seat and against the front of the car. Jess began to tremble again so violently that she couldn’t hold the brake steady. The car moved forward in fits and jerks each time her foot lifted from the brake only to tamp it down again. “Get control, Jess.” She took hold of the steering wheel, clutching it between both hands, and turned it back toward the road. Carefully, she lifted her foot and let the car coast downhill, controlling her speed with the brake. When she reached the old west storefronts, she slid across the road and pulled onto the shoulder. Jess wrangled the shifter into park and honked her horn. “Please, be here.” She honked again.

 Beckett stepped out of the hardware store. Jess banged her fists against her side window like a trapped animal. Beckett ran down the steps. He yanked open the door, and she fell into him, her bound hands held up between them. “What the hell?” he said.

“Tyler.”

Beckett straightened up and looked over the roof of Jess’s car toward the café.

“Beckett!”

He bent again and looked at Jess’s face, the purple swell of her cheek, the frantic eyes red with crying. He quickly unbuckled the belt and threw it down on the ground. He held Jess by the shoulders, his gaze searching her face.

“I, I, I…” she couldn’t get beyond that. She was about to fall apart. Jess stared at the neatly spaced round impressions the grommets had made in her flesh.

Jess continued to rub at her wrists, even though the impressions were gone. Shakti had curled up in her lap, refusing to be without constant contact. She found it difficult to look at Beckett. He hadn’t said anything that indicated he blamed her, and yet. Just like she had blamed herself for planning a big party and for startling Tyler, she now blamed herself for inviting him inside her house. She felt a fool. Naive, gullible, trusting, sympathetic—all to a fault that almost got her killed.