The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) (6 page)

“I didn’t mean, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ I meant, ‘Oh, it’s you,’” his inflection changing from negative to positive. “Got your lights sorted out?”

“No. I need some recommendations. And some paint. And do you know anyone who could help me move an old iron stove?”

“Got plenty to recommend. Paint is aisle two. Move it from where to where?”

Jess paused to consider if she was being imitated, and if so, whether she had sounded that brusque. “Um, the stove. I want to move it from an old smokehouse into my office.”

A small table and chairs sat in the corner of the store near the window. Beckett motioned Jess over to it. He opened the orange juice for himself and took a swig before sitting. Jess sat facing a new display of bird baths and feeders in the window.

“Now,” he said, “are you removing an old stove from the office?”

“No.”

He arched an eyebrow and Jess was again caught off-guard by the blue of his eyes. “Is there a hearth? A fireplace? A chimney?”

Jess put her hands to her head and shook it. “Ah. I’m being dumb. Again.” She looked at Beckett and decided he was being nice—however he rubbed her, this was him being helpful. “I guess I need to figure out that stuff first.”

“The good news is you can get everything you need right here. Including a mason. I built my own kiln. Laying brick is only a little harder than building with Legos. We have chimney pipe, too. You should hire someone to vent it to the outside, but the rest is pretty easy.”

Jess was nodding at everything Beckett said. She looked up to meet his eyes. “So, did you just offer to build my brick hearth?”

“Yeah, I guess I did. You have to buy the materials here and I get a case of beer, the kind to be decided by me. And it won’t be cheap beer.”

“Deal.” Jess extended her hand. Beckett’s hand felt firm and warm, despite just being inside a cooler. His face softened with their touch, his cheeks dimpling when he smiled in a genuine way. Jess noticed a wash of light freckles across his nose and cheeks. “Well,” she cleared her throat and they released each other’s hands. “Um…I need something else, too. I have to move a desk and bookshelves. I’m willing to hire help. I mean, I don’t want to be presumptuous.”

“Don’t worry,” Beckett said. “We’ll get it done.”

“Really?” She couldn’t help smiling in relief.

“I know what it’s like to move on your own.”

Beckett returned to filling the cooler while Jess pored over the rack of paint chips. She left Skoghall with a bird feeder and seed, paint samples, a padlock for the smokehouse door, the name of an electrician, Beckett’s offer to help her, and Tyler’s phone number. She sang as she drove home, feeling infinitely better about everything. As she navigated her long driveway, being careful to avoid the worst of the ruts, she realized that she had forgotten to send Chandra an email while in town. Hopefully the Wi-Fi would be working. And the phone. And her computer.

Jess opened the front door and called hello to Shakti. The puppy whined and scrambled to her feet, her claws scratching the plastic tray of her crate. Shakti stood at the door, wagging her tail expectantly, the stink of urine making Jess pull back before opening the crate.

“Oh, Bear!” She couldn’t help sounding disgusted. She’d only been gone a couple of hours. As soon as the door was open, Shakti leapt out, knocking Jess over in her desperate need to be comforted. Jess carried her upstairs, grimacing at the feel of damp fur against her bare arms. “You stink.” Shakti raised her head and licked Jess’s face. “Yeah, great,” she said.

The rest of the day, Shakti shadowed Jess from room to room, and she remained irritated, despite reminding herself the puppy couldn’t help it.

At bedtime, Jess checked the doors to make sure they were all soundly locked, then scooped up the dog and carried her up to the front bedroom. Jess was excited Beckett had agreed to help her move her furniture. She liked the idea of facing the front of her property and writing with the morning light. She pictured it furnished with her desk, the bookcases, and maybe the stove from the smokehouse. She turned to leave, her hand on the light switch, when she stopped. There was something sitting on top of the television, something that had not been there before: the little cowboy from out in the yard.

Chapter Three

The early evening sun shone through the kitchen windows, lighting everything with a warm glow. The sunflower curtains over the sink were parted so that Bonnie could look out at the woods. She had asked John to put a birdhouse on one of the big ash trees this spring, and yellow-rumped warblers had taken up residence. Bonnie couldn’t wait to see the young emerge. She stood at the sink, peeling carrots into her scrap bucket. John and Johnny played together in the living room, pushing dump trucks around the braided rug in front of the television. She cut the carrots into large chunks and laid them in the roasting pan around the chicken, then began peeling the potatoes. Her hands moved on their own while she gazed out the window, watching for the warblers. They liked the evenings. When the potatoes where cut and in the pan, Bonnie carried her scrap bucket out the back door and emptied it into an old pie tin sitting on the ground.

As she was rinsing out the bucket, John came in from the living room, walking softly on bare feet. Bonnie smiled to herself as she watched his reflection grow in the window over the sink. He slipped his arms around her small waist and kissed her neck. She reached a hand up to cradle the back of his head.

“How come you’re never surprised?” he asked.

“That’s my secret.” She turned to face him, staying in his embrace. She had to tilt her head toward the ceiling to kiss her tall husband. Bonnie reached a hand up and ran it through his short sandy-colored hair. They kissed each other’s mouths, keeping their eyes open, while John spun them around and leaned Bonnie against the kitchen table. It was a heavy pine thing with legs as sturdy as a milkmaid’s. As far as Bonnie knew, it had always been in that exact spot. Probably the house was built around the table since there was no way to fit it through one of these doors. Not without sawing it into pieces. She laughed when John’s breath tickled a spot behind her ear and she swatted him playfully. “What’s Johnny doing?”

“Playing.” John’s lips brushed her earlobe and he put his hand to her hair, moving her strawberry blonde curls away from her face.

“Really, John. I don’t like him alone for so long.”

“I know, but I haven’t seen you all day.”

“There will be time for that once Johnny’s asleep.” Bonnie listened for their son, for any sounds coming from the living room. She put her palm against John’s chest and pushed him away, her head turned toward the doorway.

John stepped back from his wife and got down a glass. He turned on the faucet and looked out the window. “You know you’re attracting raccoons and such tossing those scraps out there.”

“I happen to like raccoons, Mr. Sykes. Besides, if you’d buy me a little piggy I could feed the scraps to her.”

“A little piggy, huh?”

“Or…we could start a big garden out there,” Bonnie pointed through the dining room and out a southern window, “and I could compost. That’s what my granny did with her scraps.”

“Well, Mrs. Sykes, I will take the piggy and compost ideas under consideration.”

Bonnie made a little curtsy, holding out the ruffled edges of her yellow apron. She wore pale blue pants and a white cotton tunic with three-quarter sleeves, a V notched into the neckline and long ties that nobody ever tied. The sound of the television drifted into the room, carrying the serious voice of a newscaster and the sound of choppers. She hated that sound. It always preceded bad news. Even when the report was meant to encourage the folks at home, Bonnie could only think of death and destruction. She didn’t care what side you were on or whether you lived in a high rise apartment or a little grass hut, nobody should be stuck in the middle of a war. She hurried into the living room and John followed her.

Johnny sat in the middle of the braided rug, his hand on his dump truck but his eyes on the television. They were showing a Vietnamese town of some affluence, Bonnie supposed. Instead of jungle and grass huts, rectangular houses with sloping corrugated tin roofs were packed close together. Laundry flapped from fence rails and clotheslines. Little boys in their shorts and pajama tops stopped walking when they saw the camera and affected strongman poses, making fists and kicking their scrawny legs. The newscaster was talking about our allies, how the people of South Vietnam love the Americans and how “our boys” were helping them build their city on the China Sea. The footage showed some American soldiers carrying long planks on their shoulders through the town of Tien Sha, part of the Da Nang seaport. Two women wearing those conical straw hats zipped in front of the camera on a moped.

Bonnie glanced away from the television to look at Johnny. He was frozen with an almost mystical fascination. She reached out to snap off the television. “What is it about little boys and guns?”

“Hey now,” John said. “That wasn’t even fighting. It was just…villagers in pajamas and soldiers with…” he gestured toward the wooden console, “lumber.”

“You know I don’t want him exposed to that stuff, John. He’s only two.” Bonnie lifted Johnny from the floor and his legs automatically wrapped around her hips. She kissed the top of his head and tousled his towhead white hair. His thumb went to his mouth. “Pictures get into our heads. Why, I can still see that car wreck plain as if it was today…”

“I know, honey. You’ve told me.”

“Well,” Bonnie huffed a little at being reminded that her story was old news. “I was only five, you know.”

“I know.” John reached out to Johnny and he leaned away from his mother, into his father’s arms. “Are cowboys and Indians permissible?”

“As long as they don’t k-i-l-l each other.”

“I’ll make sure it’s all peace pipes and Pony Express.” John winked at her. He was a good sport, though Bonnie knew there was truth to the adage “boys will be boys” and she supposed it wouldn’t be long before they were reenacting the shootout at the OK Corral, or some other violent nonsense.

Bonnie watched John carry Johnny across the room to the shelves in the corner beside the fireplace. John kept his father’s cigar box on their bookcase and he opened it, whispering something to their son.

“Cowbit,” Johnny said.

“Cow-
boy
,” John enunciated carefully.

“Cowbit,” Johnny said again.

John took from the cigar box a handful of small painted cowboys and Indians. The lead figurines were all that remained of John’s own childhood pastime of casting and painting a once large collection of toy soldiers, Romans, and Wild West figures. Bonnie thought Johnny was too young, but John was so eager to pass them down. He would have put them in the crib with baby Johnny if she’d let him. Bonnie left her men to play together and returned to the kitchen.

She slid the roasting pan into the oven and looked again out the window. A pair of cedar waxwings picked through her kitchen scraps. They were beautiful with their yellow-tipped tails and black eye masks, like winged bandits. The pile of scraps would also bring jays, robins, and the other insect-eaters who picked off the ants and flies that came to feed. Bonnie could stand at the sink for hours watching her birds, and given the amount of time cooking and cleaning required she spend right there, she was awfully grateful for the entertainment the birds provided.

Bonnie came out of the market with a bag of groceries in one arm, Johnny toddling beside her, his small hand grasping her index finger. She took the steps to the sidewalk extra slowly, making sure Johnny didn’t stumble. Mike Timmons, a pimply boy on the wrestling team, working extra hours at his uncle’s market so he could save up for something—a car or college, with teenagers it was always something to get out of town—followed Bonnie out with two more bags. Bonnie set her bag on the sidewalk so she could open the back door of her wagon.