The Wrong Stuff (16 page)

When she got to the back of the barn, she looked at the back door. It was hardly noticeable as an exit or entrance because on the inside it didn't open up to the main work area. It was at the foot of the backstairs, the ones that led down from the gallery and offices. It was the one she had left by yesterday—was it only yesterday?—when she'd wandered down to the stream and found Rick Moore. Was it possible that the police didn't even realize that this door existed? There was no guard.

Jane was ten feet away from the door when it opened. She froze, hoping that the man exiting the barn would not turn her way. He did not turn at all but walked quickly down the path. Jane followed at what she hoped was a safe distance.

Just before the trail that led up to Annie's place, he turned off the path and went into a heavily wooded area. He knew where he was going, turning left then right until Jane was quite confused about what direction she was going. When he stopped, she stopped and watched him open a door to a large metal shed. It was so cleverly concealed within the trees that one could walk by it a dozen times and not see it. However, it was so far off the path that Jane doubted anyone would happen upon it by accident. She could see at the other end of the shed that there was a roughly cleared access road leading to a kind of loading-dock door. Jane was too turned around to know whether it was the same road where Rick Moore parked his truck, and the one he used for his secret trips in and out of Campbell and LaSalle.

The man had disappeared inside the door but left it open. He wore a baggy barn jacket, a fishing hat pulled down low, and what looked to Jane like large, blue-tinted safety goggles. There were no windows, so Jane crept up to the door and peeked in. There were several pieces of stunning antique furniture in the room. Jane scanned the space quickly to see if she could spot the real Westman Sunflower Chest. Perhaps this was where they had hidden it when they swapped it for the forgery delivered to Claire Oh. She stopped her inventory when the man pulled out a lovely butterfly table. He pulled out the delicately shaped supports that gave it its name and rubbed an appreciative hand over its surface. He knelt to feel the exquisitely turned legs. Jane noticed there was an open toolbox near his feet, and she leaned farther into the doorway to see what he was bending down to retrieve from it. When he again stood over the table, he had in his hand an old wooden mallet. Jane thought perhaps there was a peg he had to gently tap into place and she smiled, enjoying her peek at a master craftsman fine-tuning his work.

When he brought down the mallet on the table with all his might, Jane involuntarily screamed. The smashing of the tabletop was so loud that he went on with it, not hearing Jane react as if it were she being struck. Jane watched in horror as he continued to dent and pound the once-perfect wooden surface. Has he gone insane?

Jane was almost ready to go embrace him, make him put down the tool he was brandishing as a weapon, when she smelled something. It was sweet at first, then she took a stronger whiff and every bit of space in her throat was filled. It was if her head and body were made up of many rooms, and she actually heard the doors slamming shut. Eyes, ears closed off, clear thinking was now definitely closed for business.

Everything was this smell, which, she realized for just a moment then forgot, was coming from a drenched cloth that had been draped over her head from behind. The cloth was not tightened. It didn't need to be. The chemical fumes became vaporous hands that choked off every bit of air and life. She staggered backward. Air, she needed air, and water to get this out of her eyes.

The cloth fell off, or at least she thought it did. She tried to run and maybe she was running, but she couldn't tell. She was blinded, but she didn't know if she was truly blind or if her eyes had closed so tightly against the fumes that she simply had forgotten how to command them to open again. Was someone following her? She couldn't tell. She couldn't breathe. She needed something cool, something clean. She would like someone to teach her how to breathe again. She was quite certain she used to know how, but the talent was now clearly and completely gone.

She heard a raspy, choking sound. Was that the person following her? Horrible noise. It must be some kind of monster chasing her. She heard giant gasping. Who was this bearing down on her, retching and gulping? She heard the gurgle and sucking and death rattle and then wished desperately that she hadn't realized that the horrifying sounds were coming from her.

This was not fair, this breath being taken from her. She willed her lungs to fill, but they were clearly behind one of those closed doors inside of her. She wanted to breathe for Nick and for Charley; she had to breathe for Nick and Charley. She managed one tiny intake of air that did not cause her chest to cave in and felt a small bubble of hope. As quickly as it rose, it popped and disappeared when she felt two hands holding on to one of her elbows, propelling her forward. “We have to get you to the stream,” she thought she heard someone say, but the voice was so far away, far behind one of those closed doors.

She fought being pushed, being led, or thought she did, but she knew that whoever was guiding her was in control. In one plaintive, lucid moment of thought, she wondered why it was that the last image she would have on earth was the bizarre scene she had just witnessed…a Campbell and LaSalle artist destroying an Early American butterfly table.
How very odd,
she was thinking, as she passed out.
How very odd.

Just as Jane had heard and felt the doors within her slam shut, closing her off from the conscious world before she passed out, she now felt them opening one by one. Hearing came back in a rush, a roar, loud voices. An argument? Her eyes had been closed so tightly against whatever toxic cloud had chased her from the warehouse that opening them, actually seeing light filtering through the tree canopy, was painfully bright. She closed them.

“…coming around…too late…what you do…situation…facedown…” Two men were talking, and Jane knew she should keep her eyes closed and listen. If they were trying to decide what to do with her, it might give her the Girl Scout advantage of being prepared. She was pretty certain they wouldn't try to dump her facedown in the stream, since Murkel and his officers might be even more suspicious about the goings-on at Campbell and LaSalle if there were two drownings in two days in ten inches of water.

Jane breathed as deeply as she could without calling attention to the fact that she could now breathe, and it felt damn good. She wanted to drink in the air, gulp it down, but she settled for small sips and tensed her muscles, hoping she would have the strength to strike out as soon as one of the men tried to touch her.

She heard someone walk toward her, the rustle of leaves and twigs much louder she realized, when one is lying on the ground. She felt the sun blocked from her face by someone kneeling next to her, bending over her. As she sensed the face getting closer to her own, she balled up her fist, opened her eyes, and struck Tim Lowry so hard on the side of his head that he fell over backward. Although she had missed his eye, where she might have done some damage at such short range, she had grazed his ear, which he now held, shouting, “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

Jane sat up, still feeling dizzy but more clearheaded with every breath.

“Is that how you always wake up? Jeez…am I bleeding?” Tim asked, turning his ear toward Jane, then toward Bruce Oh, who stood over them both.

“I admire someone who, even at their weakest, prepares to meet her enemy,” said Oh, bending to help Jane, who was now trying to stand.

Jane opened her mouth to say loudly to Tim what she thought of those who cried over a little slap upside the head, but all that came out was a whispered, “Baby.”

Jane's head cleared quickly, and her throat began to feel better after a few sips from Tim's water bottle. She was in such a rush to tell them all she knew that they had to keep stopping her, questioning whether it was something she'd learned from her clandestine visit to Rick Moore's cabin and truck, her lunchtime conversations, her interview with Murkel, or her little adventure straying off the path in the woods.

Bruce Oh and Tim told her that Murkel had been right about everyone having the information about Rick Moore. Word had gotten out rapidly after lunch that Moore was almost certainly responsible for the murder of Horace Cutler. Everyone was shocked or seemed to be. Geoff and Jake were the only residents who hadn't known Cutler personally. Those who had dealt with him called him a fussy, meticulous curmudgeon, who often complained about their prices, but after grumbling, always paid his bills. No one seemed to be aware of any particular argument between Rick Moore and Cutler.

“What about the Westman chest? Has anyone brought it up?” asked Jane.

“Of course not,” said Tim. “Wouldn't that blow our cover? Keep us from getting the inside info?”

“Yeah, because we're getting so much of that now,” said Jane. “I mentioned it,” said Oh, “indirectly. I identified myself, not only as the money behind a new art magazine, but I mentioned that Horace Cutler had recommended that I do an article on Campbell and LaSalle. And I told them that Horace had recently found a special carved American chest for me. I asked if they had worked on it.”

“Who did you talk to?” Jane asked. “What did they say?”

“I mentioned it only to Roxanne when I checked in, and she said she'd have to check the files. She was sure they didn't have anything of his at the moment.”

“It wouldn't be his piece, though. Not on paper anyway. Your wife would be their client,” said Tim.

Jane recovered fully enough to insist that they try to find the warehouse where she had witnessed such strange behavior. Tim suggested that she might have already been attacked with the chemicals and hallucinated. “No one here would knowingly damage a good piece of furniture,” he said, when Jane described the utter destruction of the tabletop. “It had to be the rag you got smoked with.” Oh had said nothing. He shushed them silently with a finger to his lips when he parted a branch and pointed out the warehouse. The door was closed. This time they all stayed back. Listening intently, they heard a rhythmic beat. Hammer on table. Jane arched her eyebrows at Tim and nodded. “He's still at it,” she whispered.

As soon as she said it, the noise stopped. They heard what sounded like a garage door open in the distance.

“Come on, it's the door on the other end,” said Jane.

Under cover of the trees, they circled to the back of the shed. The large door was up, and a battered pickup was parked in front of it. Two old rusty window-unit air conditioners sat in back of the truck, along with a doorless refrigerator, a few old mattresses, and some broken chairs. It was an alley picker's truck, filled with the trash that people hope and pray someone will haul away when they get it from their house to the back. An old man wearing a filthy plaid shirt stood next to the table, which now had one beautifully turned leg cracked. Jane also saw that some kind of paint or solvent had been spilled over the entire surface. She hadn't noticed it before, but from this angle, she could see the discoloration.

“If you're sure nobody here wants it?” they heard the old man say.

They couldn't hear a response or see the mad hammerer from where they stood, but he must have thanked the old man for taking it because he responded with a “No, thank
you
. I'll sure find somebody who wants it, can use it.”

“
TOM'S TRASH AND TREASURES
,” Oh read aloud from the side of the truck. “Do either of you know Tom?”

Tim and Jane both shook their heads.

They waited for their man to come back out the door and onto the path. Jane came out from behind the bushes when she heard two car doors slam shut. “He's leaving with him, with Tom.” She moved around to the end of the building in time to see the truck drive around the curve in the road that led back to the main entrance of Campbell and LaSalle.

“Whoever it is is going to be back at the lodge long before we can get there on foot,” said Jane.

“Do you think he saw you at the door? Did he see or hear you get attacked?” asked Oh.

“Not necessarily,” Jane said. “I was all the way back at the door, and it was really loud in there. As soon as I had my first whiff of the stuff, I staggered backward and tried to run toward where I thought the path would be.”

“Someone's coming down the path. That way,” Tim said, pointing beyond the warehouse.

Quickly they walked back to their hidden spot around the other side of the building just in time to see Mickey and Annie. She was shaking her head and wiping her eyes, and Mickey was speaking nonstop into her ear.

Without one word, Oh put his finger to his lips and signaled them to take two steps backward and stand perfectly still.

“We are trees,” Jane heard him say, almost silently. It was less than a whisper, slightly more than a pantomime. They stood perfectly still. Mickey and Annie walked past them, close enough that Jane could have plucked the handkerchief out of Annie's hand. They remained silent, watching them as they disappeared from view.

Jane looked admiringly at Oh. He had saved them, bailed them out. She and Tim would have bumbled their way in front of them and would have had to make up some ridiculous story. What kind of ancient wisdom did Oh draw on? What could she say to him that wouldn't sound stupid and coy?

“Brilliant strategy. ‘We are trees.' Is it from tai chi or something? I mean, it was almost mystical,” Jane said. She walked ahead without waiting for an answer.

“What? What did you say about trees?” asked Tim, turning to Oh, who lifted his shoulders slightly and shook his head.

“Nothing. I said I don't think they'll see us.”

 

Back at her cabin, Jane realized that what she wanted more than anything at that moment, more than answers, more than the identity of the person who had almost poisoned her with lethal chemicals, more than a Grey Goose on the rocks, which was something she wanted pretty badly, was more clothes. She wanted a great big suitcase with lots of shirts and sweaters and more socks. Yes, she had been reading a page here and a page there of Belinda St. Germain's Bible, and she even felt like some of it made sense, but this six-item packing challenge was a crock, at least when you're in the middle of the woods being gassed and rolling around in pine needles. She needed a bath and clean clothes.

She started the tub, pouring in the lavish rosemary mint bubble bath provided by Campbell and LaSalle, and walked into Tim's cabin next door without knocking.

“I don't want any lip; I just want some clothes. Nice clean clothes,” she announced.

Tim nodded. He took out an olive green T-shirt and a maroon cashmere V-neck from the chest by the bed. Rummaging in his closet, he pulled out a pair of olive linen drawstring pants. She took them all in her arms without a word. He dangled a pair of silk boxers, and she tried to give him a withering smile.

The bath was really helping. Especially since Tim went all the way up to the lodge, poured her a drink, put in six olives, and stumbled into her bathroom with one hand over his eyes to put it on the side of the tub.

“Is this Grey Goose?”

“Right country. It's Ciroc. From France, multiply distilled from grapes instead of grain. Smooth. More like grappa, yes?” Tim said, holding up his own glass.

“Grappa, shmappa. Don't go all yuppie wine tasting on me. It's good,” she took another taste, “very, very good.”

“Are you relaxed enough to hear something without freaking out?” Tim asked, standing by the door, his eyes still closed.

“Maybe,” said Jane, sipping her Ciroc.

“I found your phone near where you fell. It was off, dead battery, and I know how you like to always be in touch. It's plugged in, recharging now. I figure you've only been unreachable for about two hours,” he said.

“It's okay,” said Jane. “Nick's with the good parent, so he wouldn't be upset if I didn't pick up the phone. He wouldn't even be trying to call me.”

“Janie, stop being so hard on yourself. It was a permission slip for a field trip for god's sake. You didn't abandon him in a basket in the bullrushes. He got to go on a better trip with Charley, and you get to solve a mystery.”

“Oh, I'm doing a bang-up job of that. Do you have a clue as to what's going on here? Besides the fact that I almost got”—Jane said, thinking how to describe what had happened to her—“ragged to death?”

Jane and Tim both started laughing. They were so loud in fact that at first they didn't hear the faint “Jingle Bells” coming from the bedside table.

“Phone's charged,” said Tim, as he went to get it. Checking the caller ID as he brought it to Jane, he smiled, forgetting that he was supposed to be covering his eyes, “It's Nellie.”

“Oh great. Now I
do
get ragged to death,” said Jane, setting them both off again.

“Yeah?” said Nellie, responding to Jane's hello.

“You called
me,
Mom,” Jane said, unable to stop giggling.

“What the hell's going on?” asked Nellie.

“Well, I'm in the bathtub drinking vodka and Tim is lending me some clothes and I can't come home from Michigan because I found somebody who was murdered here and I almost got killed today by a rag soaked in some kind of chemicals. How's the toe?”

“What the hell is Tim doing in the bathroom with you?” shouted Nellie.

“Not looking,” said Jane.

“I am too looking,” said Tim, raising his voice. “I'm looking, Nellie. I'm looking right at her. All my scheming pretending to be gay has finally paid off.”

“Now you listen to me, both of you!” yelled Nellie, loud enough that they both could hear her. “It's dangerous to drink in the bathtub. You can goddamn drown or worse. Tim Lowry, you just stay homosexual, you hear me? You're fine the way you are. Jane, you leave him alone. Where's Charley?”

“Oh great, now it's me trying to seduce you,” said Jane. “Mom, Charley and Nick are in Rockford. They'll be back home tonight, but I won't. Maybe tomorrow. How's your foot?”

“I told you, Don, she's still at some furniture farm somewhere with Tim. Oh hell, you can't fit a square peg in a round…oh damn, I don't know what I mean either. I just think she shouldn't be taking a bath with him. I suppose you think that's all right?”

Jane held the phone over the water.

Tim reached over and took it from her, made a quasi-believable static noise from the back of his throat, and said in a high-pitched whisper, “You're breaking up, Mom. Call you back later from a real phone.” He pushed the “end” button.

“How'd you learn to make that noise?” Jane asked.

“Three years of Sunday night calls to my dad in his Florida condo and then to my mom in hers. The only compelling reason I can think of that they should have stayed married is that it would have saved me one phone call per week—156 phone calls. Static imitation has saved me many a time,” said Tim.

“Is it about time for Oh's meeting with Blake to be over? I'm dying to hear what he comes up with,” Jane said, then stopped when the bathroom door creaked slowly open.

Tim and Jane both froze.

Slowly peeking around the door was a very dirty, very tall woman wearing elegant high-heeled boots.