“Gross.” Meg sat down at the counter and asked, “Well, since you brought it up—how old were you when you had sex for the first time?”
Rich thought back to Susy Parker in the back seat of his mom’s station wagon. “Can’t remember back that far.”
“Right.” Meg laughed. “I believe that. Mom sleeping?”
Rich waved his hand toward the upstairs. “Yeah, she went to bed about three hours ago. She’s pretty tanked on painkillers. I got her to eat something, then put her to bed. She’s actually pretty cute when she gets high.”
“She going to be okay?”
“I think she’ll be fine soon. And probably cranky as anything. It’s frustrating having only one good arm. She won’t like it.”
“Can’t imagine.” Meg looked at Rich. “I’ve never broken anything so far in my life. Have you?”
“Broke my leg when I was twenty riding a cow. Stupidest thing I ever did. The cow didn’t like it either. It started running and I slid off the tail end and landed wrong on my left leg. Impossible to drive a stick shift with a broken leg.”
“You’re staying here tonight, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I think I better. I have a feeling your mom needs me.”
Meg snorted, then laughed. “Duh, Rich. Like she always does.”
W
hen Claire woke up in the morning, she felt like she had had the best night’s sleep in ages. The sun was pouring through the window, higher in the sky than she was used to seeing it from bed. What time was it?
Then she tried to move and almost clubbed herself with her cast. Her arm ached, her shoulder felt like it had come unhinged. She needed a pain pill, but not the amount she had taken yesterday. She couldn’t continue to be as snowed under by the pain meds as she was yesterday, not if she wanted to get any work done.
Claire clutched her cast to her chest and tried to roll gently off the bed, without jarring anything. Her feet found the floor and she stood up, then fell back on the bed. Her head was reeling.
“You up?” Rich shouted from downstairs.
“I think so.”
“You need some help?”
Claire looked down at what she was wearing. Somehow Rich had taken her uniform off of her last night and tied a
bathrobe around her to wear to bed. She didn’t think she could get dressed by herself. “I’m afraid so.”
Rich walked into the room and asked, “I think putting a bra on is going to be difficult. Do you need to wear one today?”
“I think I better.”
“It might be painful.”
“I know. Just be gentle.”
Rich brought her a bra. “This one okay?”
“As good as any.”
First he eased the broken arm under the strap, then she slipped the other one in, then he pulled it tight around her back and started to fasten it.
She smiled at him. “You did it perfectly.”
“I’m better at taking them off,” he said.
“Ha-ha.”
“Oh, your sense of humor has returned.” He went into her drawer and found a large short-sleeved shirt. Again, they started with him managing the broken limb.
After the shirt was on, he rummaged through her drawers and threw her a pair of underpants, which she caught with one hand.
“See if you can get those on by yourself.”
After no insignificant effort, she got them around her feet. “What are you, some kind of sadist? Help.”
“Stand up,” he ordered, then pulled the underpants up.
In her top drawer, he found a pair of baggy pants that had elastic at the top. Together they managed to pull those on, then Claire flopped back down on the bed and said, “I’m exhausted.”
“It’s after ten o’clock.”
“No way.”
“If you don’t get some coffee into your system soon, you’ll probably go into severe withdrawal. I’ve got a pot waiting for you downstairs.”
Claire stood up slowly. Rich was watching her. “I’m fine,” she said as she took her first steps across the room.
“I’m right here.” He put an arm under her shoulder. “You need to take it easy today.”
“I don’t think I’m up to driving today so I was wondering if you could take me over to Chet’s.”
“Claire, I talked to the sheriff. He said he didn’t want to see your face down there today. Can’t you just take a day off?”
Even though the urge to snap back at him was strong, Claire held it in. “I know that I should crawl back in bed and rest. I know that. You don’t need to tell me.” A little crankiness leaked out there so she reined it in. “Sorry. I mean I get it. And I will crawl back in bed. But when we were at Chet’s I didn’t get all their personal papers. At the time I didn’t think I needed them. But now I feel like there’s something I’m not getting about what happened over there. I want to try to understand what was going on in their lives. They were my friends too, Rich. I want to figure this out. If you would just take me over there for a few minutes, that’s all I’d need.”
“Promise you’ll come back here and take it easy?” he asked.
“Yes, I absolutely promise.”
On the ride over, they were both quiet in the car. Claire was surprised how the pain meds emptied her mind of trivialities. She had taken a half dose, which meant she could still feel the ache of her arm, but she could also see the world outside the
car window, the pattern of the trees moving through the forest, the sumac showing a tinge of their fall color in the tips of their leaves, the heat making her drowsy and content. It wasn’t unpleasant, this slightly drugged feeling. In an odd way, it made some things clearer, what was really important in life stood out in stark relief against all the petty things she worried about.
Claire turned and looked at Rich. He was more solid than the bluffs. “Please don’t stay over there anymore.” “What?”
“I don’t want you to stay at Chet’s.” “But I thought you wanted me there in case he came home.” “It’s not that important. I want you with me.” He slid his hand over and stroked the tip of her fingers that stuck out of the end of her cast. “You got it.”
* * *
Bentley and Rich had definitely come to an understanding about how a dog should behave. The dog walked out to meet the car. No jumping up, which was good. It meant Rich didn’t have to worry that Bentley might jump up on Claire. Once Rich ushered Claire into the house, he went to take care of the rest of the chores.
Bentley followed him around the farm, helping him let the horses out to pasture, watching as he made sure there was enough water for them on these hot days. He observed with intense interest Rich filling his food bowl, but didn’t touch it until Rich said he could. While the dog ate, Rich mucked out the horses’ stalls, not his favorite job. Then the two of them walked
out to the garden together. Cucumbers, green beans, zucchini were ripening faster than he could pick them.
Rich picked some tomatoes that were so ripe they were almost splitting. They filled his hand with their deep redness. He couldn’t resist—he bit into one and the sweet juice ran down his chin. He swore there was nothing as good as a fresh-picked, sun-bursting tomato.
But the red juice reminded him, unfortunately, of the recent scene in the house.
“Bentley, what the hell happened here? Who killed Anne?”
The dog perked up his ears and wagged his tail, but said nothing.
“He said you went for a walk with him that night. I wish you could talk, you old mutt.”
Bentley pulled back his lips in an odd mimic of a grin. Rich reached down and ruffled his fur. “You’re a good dog. You keep an eye out for your master. He might be heading this way.”
Then Rich went to the cabin and gathered up his gear.
When he walked into Chet’s house to see how Claire was doing, it was the first time he had been inside since the night Anne died. It smelled stale and he wondered if he should come back and empty out the refrigerator. They had left the airconditioning set fairly high so it wasn’t too hot in the house, but it just felt all closed up.
Claire was digging through some drawers in the kitchen under the counter.
“How’re you doing? I’m all done with the animals.”
“I think I’ve got most of what I need. Anne’s purse, their checkbooks, most recent bills.” She looked down at the box she
had filled with papers. “No one took any of this yesterday because we were waiting to talk to Chet. I kept thinking I’d get over here. If I could have talked to him, I might not need to be digging through his life.”
“Don’t you need a search warrant for that stuff?”
“Not for a crime scene.”
“You find anything?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m about ready to go.”
“Hey, I have something I think you need to know about.” He held up a baggy.
“What’s in there?”
“A condom.”
“Where’d you find it?”
“In the cabin.” He hesitated. “I know Anne was on birth control. Chet mentioned it once in passing. They didn’t want to have kids. So he didn’t need to use a condom when he was with her.”
Claire took the baggy and stared at the item. “And you’re sure this belongs to Chet?”
* * *
Chet had spent the night in an old hunting cabin. His friend who owned the place came down from Chicago once or twice a year and used the cabin for deer hunting. The key was over the door jamb. No reason for any real security, nothing much to steal. More critters inside the house than out, but they didn’t bother him.
When he got up in the morning he found a box of old saltine crackers with not much crunch left to them, but the salt
and flour mixed in his mouth and made his stomach feel not so empty. He got some water out of the old cistern, hoped it wouldn’t give him any bad disease. But not a big concern since he wasn’t planning on being around that long.
He was doing penance. He hadn’t run away from Claire to free himself; he had run so that he would have a moment to think and remember who he was. Before everything had gone wrong. So very wrong.
His clothes, which had been wet from the river, were bone-dry in the heat of the day. It had taken Chet a long time to fall asleep. Finally he had dropped off in the early morning quiet, right before sunrise, and hadn’t woken up until past mid-day. The heat was coming on strong, he needed to move. Another good reason to keep to the trees when he continued his walk.
He knew where he was going. He was going home.
Chet had never walked to the cabin from his farm but he figured it was probably about eight miles as the crow flies and since he would be trying to keep to the woods, it would probably take him a good four to five hours. He’d get there just about sundown.
The woods were thick this time of year. Too hot for ticks but the flies buzzed the back of his neck as he walked through the understory of the forest. The gooseberries were green, not ready to pick yet, but the black caps were plentiful and he stopped when he saw a good batch and picked a handful or two.
As he walked he went over his path in his mind: he could take Bear Pen Road over to D, then cut through the woods to Porcupine Lane. Stick near Elk Creek Road, then catch up to Goat Back. That would take him right close to home: Baldwin
Lane. His own road and everything. Anne had loved that he had a road named after him. At first, it had been so easy to please her.
He had hunted around his property and knew all the deer paths and farm roads that he could use to avoid walking on the main roads, not that they even got much traffic back up on the bluffs.
He wondered what he was walking into, if the cops would be there waiting for him. He’d have to take that chance. For the last time in his life, he was walking as a free man in the world, eating berries, feeling sweat pour down the back of his neck. Everything he had always taken for granted.
But then that’s what started all this. Something he had always taken for granted. They say you never know what you got ’til it’s gone and couldn’t be truer words said, or sung for that matter.
He felt his neck. Still sore from his attempt to leave the world. Dumb thing to do, but, at the time, seemed like the only option.
He remembered a fairy tale he had loved as a kid: This guy goes fishing and catches a magic fish who can grant him three wishes. The guy is all happy but he makes the big mistake of letting his selfish wife in on the deal. She just wants bigger and bigger palaces until they all come crumbling down and then he and his wife are both back, happy to be in their own little house and he goes fishing again. Or something like that.
If he had one wish, all he would want is to see Anne leaning over the kitchen sink again, washing up some dishes, her hands all soapy, turning to look at him as he walked in the door. Kissing
him, touching him with her soapy hands, saying, You are forgiven, you are forgiven.
Not possible, so there was only one thing left for him to do.
C
laire found there was no way she could stay in bed and work on the Baldwin papers. It was a nice idea, but completely uncomfortable. The bills and records kept sliding off the bedcovers; she couldn’t keep track of anything. Plus it made her arm hurt even more.
Making a couple trips, she carted everything back downstairs and set herself up at the kitchen table. She was able to rest her arm on the table and take the weight off her shoulder. Much better. She used a couple of small cast-iron frying pans to prop various items open: the Baldwin’s three checkbooks—his, hers, and theirs—the calendars, the telephone books.
She had decided to go back over the last year and comb through all the bills, the receipts, every document. After that she would try to get on the Baldwin’s computer and check their email. She would have to call on either Bill or Jeremy to do that. They were the resident experts.
But first the checkbooks. She decided to start with Anne’s. Claire liked reading through checkbooks. The entries told the story of someone’s life—where they shopped for food, how often they serviced their car, what they spent their money on. From the handwriting alone, delicate and crisp, Claire would
have guessed that this was Anne’s checkbook. From the entries, she saw that Anne paid the household bills: Schaul gas, Century-Tel, Xcel energy.
Anne shopped at Paul and Fran’s in Pepin, with occasional splurges at the Nelson Cheese Factory and the Smiling Pelican bakery. She dropped a bundle up at DSW in the cities on shoes in April. About once a month, there would be a check made out to the Harbor View Cafe; they were regular customers—no surprise there. And she supported the wonderful art and craft shops in the area.