The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) (18 page)

“We have to call the police.”

“Beckett, we can’t.”

“Why the hell not?” His anger flared, not for the first time. “Jess, he could have killed you.”

“I know. But it wasn’t him. He needs help. Obviously. But
he
didn’t do this to me.”

Beckett thumped the table with his hand and Jess jumped. “I’m sorry,” he said.

When she met his gaze at last, the look in his eyes scared her. It was fierce and protective and eager to do something. “Beckett, he was…” She looked away from him before continuing, “…possessed by the red-haired woman. He called me a gook. He was yelling about guns, a weapons cache. Tyler was in Iraq, not Vietnam.” She put her hands on Shakti and stroked the soft fur around her ears. Somehow it made everything less frightening.

Beckett shifted on the bench across from Jess. He kept looking out of the studio windows and up Main Street toward the café.

“Stop it,” Jess said. “Whatever you’re thinking about Tyler doesn’t help me.
He’s
not my problem.”

“He could have killed you,” Beckett protested.

Jess held up a hand to stop him. “He’s damaged. I think he’s got a crack in him that made it easy for her to use him. And she used him to get to me.
She
is my problem. Punishing Tyler won’t get rid of the red-haired woman. And I know he feels awful. What she did to him…”

“Jess,” Beckett stared at her. “Look at yourself. Look at what you’ve been through in a day’s time.” He shook his head.

Jess expected him to tell her she’s a fool, that she’s lucky to be alive, that she’s bad news and should leave him alone.

“I can’t believe how brave you are.”

“What?”

“We’ll sort this out, all right?”

Jess began to cry again, this time from relief.

Beckett rented an apartment in one of the old houses near the river. He had the second story, with a kitchenette and a tub without a shower tucked under the slope of the roof. It was, in a word, a dump, but it was cheap rent. The furnishings were sparse, but of decent quality and taste. Beckett wanted to put a loft in above the pottery studio, but there were costs associated with renovating such an old building, costs he couldn’t afford yet. If Jess was disappointed with his apartment, she kept her mouth shut and only let herself be grateful for his kindness. He showed her around the small space by pointing to things from the doorway, then left her to rest while he finished some work at the hardware store.

Jess left Shakti to her sniffing explorations and looked at the bathtub. Tucked under one of the dormers, it was impossible to stand in. She turned on the tap and let the first rust-colored water go down the drain before stopping it. Rummaging around Beckett’s cabinets turned up a box of Epsom salts. It wasn’t a bath bomb, but it would help. Jess leaned over the sink to look at her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. She looked like shit.

Besides the lump on her right cheek and the cut, her eyes were haggard looking. Her hair hung limply from her head. Her entire expression was…depressed…exhausted…morose…sallow…gloomy….
Come on, Jess
, she thought,
you’re the writer here.

The water burbled and splashed, a fine steam rising off its surface. She reached across the tub to raise the small window a crack and let some of the heat escape. They would hit the upper seventies today as Wisconsin’s weather slid from one end of the spectrum to the other—twenty below in January, a hundred in August. Jess loved the moderate seasons as a counter to and reward for the harsher times. She threw a couple handfuls of the salts in the tub and climbed in. Raising her leg high enough to step over its edge pained her back, a reminder of all she wanted to forget. She sank into the water and let the heat ease the tension from her body, muscle by sore muscle.

When Beckett returned from the hardware store, he found the apartment quiet, the bathroom door open. Shakti snoozed on the bathmat next to the tub, but lifted her chin from her paws and thumped her tail in greeting when she saw Beckett. Jess lay in the tub, her arms draped over the sides, her head lolling toward her shoulder, eyes closed and lips parted in a deep sleep. He watched her, tracing her form through the water, noting the way when she inhaled her breasts rose to the water’s surface without quite cresting. Beckett could lose himself considering form, but he would have been enamored of Jess’s form even if he weren’t an artist. Jess sighed and turned her head over her other shoulder. Beckett stepped back from the doorway, effecting a modest distance. “Jess,” he called softly.

When Jess came out of the bathroom, clean, dry, and dressed in one of Beckett’s t-shirts, he was at the kitchenette, preparing their lunch. He smiled. “You look good in my shirt.”

“Do I?” Jess looked down, taking it in for the first time. It was a St. Paul Classic bike tour t-shirt. “You’re a cyclist?”

“I was. I am. I don’t ride like I used to.” He set plates on the small table, a chrome and Formica set from the 1950s. “After lunch I’ll take you to urgent care to get that face looked at.”

“I can’t.” Jess sat at the table and Beckett put a glass of water in front of her. “They’ll think I’m in an abusive relationship. They’ll want to arrest Tyler. It’s too hard to explain that he has PTSD and I have a ghost.”

“Jess.”

“I can’t do that to Tyler.”

“Tyler left town.”

“What?” Jess looked at Beckett, a question forming that she was afraid to ask.

“I went by the café and then I went by his place. Both are deserted.”

It stung briefly that Beckett knew where Tyler lived and Jess had never seen his place, but it was not, she realized, relevant anymore. “Are you certain? How could he pack anything up that fast? And the café…he just got all his supplies in for the tourist season. And hired new staff. And…”

“Jess, he’s gone.”

“This just gets worse and worse.”

“Hey,” Beckett snapped. “Stop that. Tyler is not your responsibility. Ghost or no ghost. It’s not like you knew he’s an alcoholic and put a drink in his hand. He didn’t tell anyone his story. Maybe he would have made friends here if he’d been honest and given people a chance to understand him.”

“It’s not that simple, is it? He wasn’t in control when he…when he…”

“Almost killed you?” Beckett’s voice was near shouting. He took a breath before speaking again. “You really do sound a like a battered wife.”

Shakti left a spot she’d claimed to pad Jess’s knees with her paws, a whine of concern pleading for comfort. Jess lifted Shakti to her lap and hugged the puppy to her chest. “Beckett,” she said, “please don’t be angry with me.”

He sighed heavily and sat in the chair across from her. “I don’t know how to deal with your ghost, but you’re getting that cheek X-rayed. I don’t care what the doctors think.”

Jess was right about what the doctors would think. She was submitted to a battery of questions by the nurses, doctor, and X-ray technician. Each one listening keenly for any inconsistencies in her story, which she and Beckett had rehearsed on the way to Bay City. They agreed to tell the truth about the party and Tyler being a vet with PTSD. They would omit any details that could identify him and refuse to give a name. The film was inconclusive, but Jess probably had a hairline fracture to her cheekbone. It was nothing the doctors could fix. They said she was lucky. Tyler could have shattered her cheek bone or the orbit around her eye. They closed her gash with skin glue and assured her she would have a scar.

Chapter Eleven

Bonnie straightened John’s tie and smoothed it over his shirtfront. He wore a three-piece suit to interviews; the soft gray single breasted jacket was a good color for this time of year. The tie was one Bonnie had given him the night before, for good luck—a navy and red diagonal stripe that said “Van Hauser Sales Rep” if ever a tie did.

“I just hate to leave you overnight,” John said. He stroked Bonnie’s head, flattening her red curls under his palm with each sweep of his hand. It was a tender, protective gesture, and Bonnie adored him for it.

“We’ll be fine. Besides, you better get used to the idea. Once you have this Van Hauser job, you’ll be a traveling man.” She grinned at John, her confidence in him unflappable.

“I suppose that’s true, but I still won’t like leaving you.” He held out his hands and took Johnny from Bonnie’s hip. “Listen up, little man. I need you to take care of your mama. Can you do that?”

Johnny nodded, pulling a wet thumb from his mouth.

“Good.” John kissed him and set him on his feet. “I’ll be at the Holiday Inn. The numbers on…”

“The fridge. I know, honey. I know where you will be and who you will be with and where we keep the cheese and how to lock the doors at night.”

John chuckled. “Where we keep the cheese?”

“In case we get hungry while our big strong man is away.”

“All right. All right. I’m going.” He kissed his wife, then with his broad palm on the small of her back dipped her. She laughed with surprise as John set her right again.

“Dip me! Dip me!” Johnny jumped up and down, flapping his hands like the wings of a baby chick.

John scooped him up and held him upside down by the ankles, then swung him up and grabbed him to his chest. Johnny laughed and laughed, his tiny boy’s voice rising to the rooftop. John lifted Johnny’s shirt and blew a raspberry on his tummy while he giggled and squealed.

“John, you’ll wrinkle your shirt,” Bonnie complained. “Or he’ll get sick on you like he did last week.”

“All right, darling. All right.” He set their son upright and Johnny stumbled before regaining his equilibrium, clutching at his mother’s knee for support.

Bonnie and Johnny waved John away from the porch until his Ford Maverick was out of site. He made a fuss of leaving the, but she knew enjoyed a night to himself now and again. She had decided if she had a day to herself, she might as well enjoy it, and she’d planned accordingly. She and Johnny spent a quiet morning around the house, with Bonnie wondering aloud every hour or so where John was and if he was in his interview yet and how it was all going. Finally, about 4:00 the phone rang. Bonnie ran into the office to answer it.

“John?”

He chuckled. “Yes, honey. Is that how you always answer the phone?” He sounded far away through all the wires connecting them.

“Oh you! Don’t keep me in suspense. You know I’ve been on pins and needles all day.”

Bonnie stood next to John’s desk, coiling the cord around her finger, looking out the window at the old sugar maple and smokehouse without really seeing either of them. Johnny followed her into the office and discovered a sheet of carbon paper in the wastepaper basket. John began his recitation of the drive from Skoghall to Madison. Johnny picked up the carbon paper and by the time Bonnie noticed, his hands were black.

“Johnny, no-no.” Bonnie shook the paper free of his little hands. “Now don’t touch anything.”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, darling, Johnny found some carbon paper in your trash. His hands are covered in it.”

“All right. I’ll get to it so you can go wash him up.”

“I’m sorry. I want to hear every detail. I do. But he’s all black now…oh! He just got it on his shirt. See?”

John chuckled. “So this is what you two do all day when I’m working.”

“You don’t know the half of it, John.”

“Johnny’s not that bad.”

“No, he’s wonderful. Now tell me about the interview. I swear you’re stalling just to make me more anxious.”

John’s laughter came over the line crackling with mirth. “I guess you’re right, honey. I like making good news last.”

“Good news?” Bonnie had Johnny by the wrist so he couldn’t wander off and get the ink all over her furniture or walls.

“The interview went well. Really well. I’m to have dinner with the regional sales manager tonight to see if we hit it off. He’d be my direct boss. He’ll make sure I know all the job entails and that I’ll be a good fit for his sales force. I think it’s a formality. I don’t think the company would buy a guy dinner if they weren’t serious about hiring him.”