The phone rang. The real phone, not Claire’s work cellphone. Rich grabbed it before it could ring again and wake up Claire. He assumed it was Meg with some explanation as to why she couldn’t make it home in the next five minutes. Even though it was her birthday, he was going to have to be strict with her. Claire thought that he was way too lenient with Meg. He just found it hard to say no to her, and she didn’t ask for much.
“Hello,” he said quietly as he slid out of bed and headed toward the bedroom door so he wouldn’t wake up Claire.
At first there was no sound, then heavy breathing rasped on the other end of the phone line.
“I think you’ve got the wrong number,” Rich said once he stepped out into the hallway and closed the bedroom door. He was ready to read whoever was on the other end the riot act. How stupid do you have to be to call a deputy sheriff’s number and make an obscene phone call?
“Rich,” a deep male voice gasped.
He recognized the voice immediately. His old friend, Chet Baldwin. Hadn’t heard from him in a while. What was he doing calling so late? “Chet?”
“Rich, I need some help.” Chet’s voice sounded awful, like someone had shot it full of holes. He was wheezing and breathing hard.
“What’s going on, Chet? Are you okay?”
“No, I just don’t know.” Then he started to cry, a sound like wood being torn into shreds. Awful.
Rich had never heard Chet cry before, in all their many years of being friends, really since grade school. They had played softball together. Chet had been a hell of a pitcher. Even the time that Chet got slammed in the face by a solid hit by Sammy Schultz and it broke his cheek bone, even then he hadn’t cried.
“Chet, what’s the matter? Tell me what’s going on.”
Chet managed to say, “I don’t know what to do. It’s just a big mess over here. Could you come over?”
“Isn’t Anne there?” Rich asked.
Chet had married about ten years ago to a younger
woman—about fifteen years younger than Chet’s fifty-five years. Chet had met Anne at a square dance in Red Wing, Minnesota. She had danced him off his feet and vice versa.
Chet started to cry. “She’s part of the problem.”
“Anne?” Rich asked. But who else could the “she” be? They had no children. At least none that Rich knew of. Chet’s mother had died years ago. As far as Rich knew there was no other woman in Chet’s life but Anne.
“Yes. I don’t know how it happened.”
Rich hadn’t heard anything about Anne being sick. In fact, he had seen her a few weeks ago when the woodcarvers had met over at Chet’s house. She had looked lovely and seemed in good spirits. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. I was gone. Went for a walk.”
“Chet, has there been an accident?”
“I can’t say it.” Chet’s voice was growing fainter as if he were holding the phone farther away from his mouth.
“What happened, Chet?”
Muffled sounds. Rich couldn’t tell if Chet was crying or if he was trying to say something.
“Talk to me,” Rich gripped the receiver hard.
“This is too hard. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Chet finally replied. “I need you, buddy.”
I
have to go,” Meg said, gently extricating herself from Curt’s arms, legs, and mouth.
“You don’t want a little more of your birthday present?” he asked her, touching the side of her face.
She felt her innards start to quiver, but didn’t give in.
Meg kissed him and let that be her answer, however he would take it, but she didn’t fall back into his arms. “Hey, they’re just starting to trust us again. I don’t want to ruin that.”
Curt nodded his head. Meg knew he understood. For the first few months of their relationship, Meg had been under house arrest after a friend of theirs had died under dubious circumstances. It had taken Claire and Rich many trial at-home dates to feel okay about the two of them going any place together. Meg wasn’t about to go backwards.
“It’s almost time,” she said, while adjusting her clothes. They weren’t far from her house. She’d be home pretty close to her curfew.
Curt leaned in close to her, held her eyes, and announced in a clear voice, “I love you.”
Meg dropped her eyes and stammered, “You do?”
“Sure. It’s easy.”
Meg knew she couldn’t leave his declaration unanswered. “Curt, I think I love you too.”
Curt laughed and rubbed her head. “That’s your problem. You think too much, my Meglet.”
“Well, I wasn’t prepared.”
“What’s there to be prepared about?” he asked, sounding put out, his voice deeper than usual.
“I don’t know. I’ve always thought of it as a special kind of moment. I could have used more time, you know, to think about how to do it right. I figured we’d discuss it or something, like we do everything.”
“Hey, it’s your birthday. I’d call that a special moment.” Curt pulled away from her and sounded mad. “Plus, we’ve been seeing each other for almost a year. I don’t think I’m saying anything rash.”
“No, you’re right.”
“I’m not asking you to marry me,” he said, sounding even a little more put out.
“I hope not.” Marriage, she hoped with anyone, was a good ten years off.
“Why? Wouldn’t you?” Curt pulled back from her.
“Curt, you know what I mean. Not now.” Meg knew she had to make it up to him. “But that was really nice to hear and especially on my birthday.” She touched the peregrine falcon pin that she was wearing on the collar of her shirt. “You’re the best boyfriend a girl could ever have.”
Curt seemed somewhat appeased as he started the car. “I’ll get you home before you turn into a pumpkin.”
“I’m not the pumpkin. But your clunky vehicle might turn into a vegetable at any moment.”
“First I can’t say I love you and now you’re picking on my car.” Curt drove out of the wayside rest.
“No, I just meant, wrong allusion. It isn’t Cinderella who turns into the pumpkin, it’s her carriage.”
“Well, I guess it’s wrong all the way around. I know you can’t be Cinderella, cuz I’m obviously not Prince Charming.”
Meg giggled. “No, you’re more like the Prince Symbolina.”
Curt started singing “Purple Rain” at the top of his lungs, a not entirely unpleasant sound, although his falsetto sounded mainly like screeching. If he hadn’t been driving, Meg would have kissed him to make him stop.
When they pulled into the farm’s driveway, Meg was surprised to see the outside lights were on. Then her mom came out the door with Rich right behind her. She had hoped they’d be in bed.
Geez, Meg thought, they really don’t trust me yet. They’ve been waiting up and now they’re the welcoming party.
But as she got out of the car, she could hear them talking and it wasn’t about her curfew.
“He called me. I don’t know what’s happened over there. He sounded terrible. That’s all I know. I’m going over there.” Rich sounded upset.
Rich was rarely upset. Usually at machines that didn’t work. Meg wondered what they were talking about.
“Rich, do you want me to come with you?” Claire said back in a low and steady voice. “If something bad’s happened, maybe I should come along.”
“I got the feeling that Anne has left him. He didn’t come right out and say it, but that’s my feeling. In which case, it’d be better if you weren’t there.”
Meg could tell that comment got to Claire as her voice lifted and intensified. “Okay, just thought I’d offer.”
“Much appreciated.”
Meg looked at Curt, who was standing next to the car. He shrugged. Meg thought it might be wise to just slip into the house. She quickly gave Curt a light good night kiss and motioned him back into the car. He followed her cue and backed out of the driveway.
“Hi, I’m home,” Meg said as she walked to the deck where her mom and Rich were standing.
“Hey, honey. You have a nice time?” her mother said, squeezing her shoulders.
“Yeah, we just hung out. Nothing much to do around here. What’s going on, Mom?” Meg asked, curious how much they’d tell her. Who would need Rich in the middle of the night?
“Just something Rich needs to check on.”
Rich spoke up. “It’s just Chet, Meg. He’s having a hard time and asked me to come over. Not sure what it’s about.”
With her arm still around Meg’s shoulders, Claire started to walk into the house, then turned back to Rich. “Call me and let me know what’s going on if you have a chance.”
* * *
Rich felt like he had known Chet Baldwin all his life. In fact, they had met when they were five years old.
One of Rich’s earliest memories of Chet was sitting next to him in the lunch room. Rich had been so impressed because for lunch Chet had two hard-boiled eggs and a store-bought set of miniature salt and pepper shakers. He thought that little set was one of the coolest things he had ever seen. He asked Chet if he could use them and Chet had been rather hesitant to hand them over, but finally he did, carefully supervising the amount of salt that Rich had sprinkled on his sandwich.
“You know, salt makes you strong,” Chet had said. “Really?” Rich had asked. “Yup, that’s what my grandpa told me. Comes from the ocean. So I eat a lot of salt.” Later at home, when Rich’s mom had noticed him dumping salt into his hand and licking it, she asked him why he was doing that. He had explained and she had laughed at him. All she had said was, “A little goes a long way. As they say, I’d take what Chet Baldwin tells you with a grain of salt.” Then she laughed again.
Rich had taken his mother’s advice and often tempered what Chet said. He knew that Chet exaggerated when he thought it would make the story better, but Rich had never known him to lie.
When Rich reached the Baldwin home, the front door was standing wide open and most of the lights were on. Rich stepped into the living room and saw no one. He heard nothing. No television, or radio. No talking. No noise of anyone moving around anywhere.
This silence bothered him more than a screaming fight would have. Where was everyone?
He hollered, “Chet?”
No answer.
Rich took another step or two into the living room and then stopped to look around. Growing up, he had spent a lot of time in this house. Chet had lived in it his whole life. The living room had always struck him as a pleasant, cozy place where you could settle in to read and think. An old iron wood-stove was its centerpiece, with a faded couch that was long enough to stretch out on and a set of matching Amish rocking chairs. The Red Wing newspaper was spread out on the coffee table, but other than that, everything seemed in its place.
He went to the hallway. “Where are you?”
Still no answer, but Rich thought he heard a noise. He followed it.
Pushing the bedroom door open, he stood back and looked in.
A lamp glowed on the bedside table. Two people were lying on the bed. At first glance, an intimate scene: the woman was stretched out straight and the man was curled up next to her. Anne and Chet Baldwin. Anne was wearing a sheer nightgown. She was a lovely woman and her form showed through the gauzy material just as it was meant to.
But there was a dark hole in the middle of her forehead and a red halo around her head as if someone had painted it on the pink-flowered bedspread.
Chet was so still that for a moment, Rich worried that his friend might be dead too. Then he heard a whisper of a cry.
Rich stepped back from the doorway and walked down the hallway. This was as bad as it gets. He found the phone in the kitchen and called Claire. She answered on the first ring and
when he said, “Get over here,” she didn’t ask any questions. She just said, “I’m coming.”
When Rich went back to the bedroom, he found Chet clutching Anne’s right arm and softly keening. Something dark was smeared on his hands and on his face.
“Chet, we need to get you out of here.” Rich stepped toward him, but stopped a few feet from the bed.
Chet didn’t respond to him.
“Chet, Claire’s coming over now. You need to pull it together. Get off the bed.” Rich forced himself to reach down and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. At his touch, Chet turned his head toward Rich and looked at him as if he was trying to place him.
“Come on, Chet. Get up.”
“I can’t leave her,” Chet whispered.
“Just get off the bed. It’ll be all right. We’ll stay right here.”
“You won’t make me leave her?”
“No,” Rich took Chet’s arm and got him to sit on the edge of the bed. “What happened here, buddy?”
Whatever had happened that night had aged Chet a good twenty years. His gray hair was sodden with sweat, his skin sallow and collapsed in on his face. He looked feverish and weak from the force of the recent trauma.
Chet glanced at Rich, his eyes uneasy and twitchy, and then turned back to his wife. “Anne’s gone.”
Rich didn’t know what more to say. He didn’t want to ask any questions for fear of what Chet might say. He kneeled down by the bed and mourned whatever had happened to Anne.
Fifteen minutes later, he heard someone at the front so he yelled, “Claire, back here. In the bedroom.”
She stepped cautiously into the room and stopped when she saw Rich kneeling by Chet. “Oh.” The sound whistled out of her like a soft scream.
She took a step closer, scanning the scene, then focusing on Anne’s still body. “Is she dead? Is he okay? Who shot her?”
Before Rich could answer her, Chet stood up as if he was about to say something, but no words came out.
The gun he’d been cradling fell to the floor with a thud.
* * *
Claire slipped her hand into the pocket of her uniform and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves before she bent down and picked up the gun, not sure of the make, but noting that it was a .38 revolver, a nice little pistol that was especially effective at close range, didn’t tend to send bullets through walls.
“Is this your gun, Chet?” She asked an easy question, trying to get him ready to talk. Chet had a full arsenal of firearms. He was known to be a hunter and an excellent marksman; he often gave them venison in the fall.
“No, it was Anne’s,” he said with his head sunk down between his shoulders. He looked as if he would topple over. Rich stood right next to him, ready to catch his friend if he passed out. “I bought it for her on her birthday two years ago. I taught her how to use it. She named it after Annie Oakley. Called it Oakley.”