Butter Off Dead Page 17

  The Merc smelled heavenly. Like coffee, but our bags of fresh-roasted beans are delivered on Fridays.

  Like pie. Pumpkin pie.

  “Mom? What are you doing here? This isn’t your day in the kitchen.” Wednesday mornings, a woman treks in from the edge of the wilderness to stir up soup and salad dressing mixes, but the afternoon slot is open. Add filling that to my list.

  “This morning over coffee, I remembered that blend you sent me when you lived in Seattle. From Fancy Jim’s, or whatever it’s called. Thought I’d try making my own.”

  “Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee,” I said. “You hated it.”

  “No. Well, maybe at first.” She slid a mug across the counter. “Try this.”

  I sniffed, then sipped. “Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.” All the pie spices and none of the overly sweet pseudo-pumpkin flavors often added to coffee drinks. “And a dash of cardamom.”

  She beamed. “I knew I raised you right. We can add it to your new drink line.”

  Customers would love the blend. Adam would hate it. He could eat pizza every night—and often did, before he started hanging out with me. But when it comes to coffee, he is a purist. Cream and sugar he acknowledges as acceptable additions—but none for him, thank you. Add even a hint of vanilla or chocolate, and he rolls his eyes. “Spoils the fun.”

  Or so he says. I can never tell when he’s teasing me about my foodie ways.

  I perched on a red-topped stool and warmed my hands on the heavy china mug. “So what prompted the kitchen session?”

  She picked up her own coffee. “I needed a distraction from all this . . . gossip about your brother. It’s hard enough to see him grieving. On top of that, the finger-pointing, the questions—I remember it all too well.”

  The front door chimed and I heard Tracy greet the mail carrier.

  “I’m torn between wishing you’d stay out of it and praying you’ll identify the killer before something else happens.”

  My hands froze, mug halfway to my mouth. My mother had refused to acknowledge my unofficial investigations over the last few months, let alone encourage them.

  “Erin, there’s mail for Nick, but he’s out.” Tracy said.

  “Thanks. I’ll take it.” I glanced at my mother, but she’d returned to her spices and bowls, and the yellow pad where she’d scribbled measurements.

  I hung up my coat and set my bag on the loft stairs. Nick had used the Merc as a mail drop for years. I scooped up the delivery and trotted downstairs.

  For a guy who claims to love fieldwork and hate academia, his winter den is as chaotic as any professor’s office I’ve ever seen. Stacks of books and journals covered the desk, the floor, the chair. I scooted a pile of scientific journals aside to clear a space for the mail.

  And there, underneath The Journal of Wildlife Management lay a stone chop. I reached out, tentatively, and picked it up. About the size of a granola bar—a flat slab, a carved lion’s head on top, Chinese characters carved along one flat side, and more characters carved on the narrow bottom. Heavy, but it fit in the hand beautifully, as it was meant to do, so the owner could stamp his signature on a document or drawing.

  Was the basement always this cold?

  One hand out, I groped for Nick’s chair, shoving the stack of papers back and perching on the edge.

  Oh, Nick. You knew—and you never said. The “shop,” she’d told me with her dying breath. Or so I’d thought.

  Had he told Ike and Kim what Christine meant? Had he taken this from the church studio, or from her house?

  Images raced through my brain, a PowerPoint presentation on fast-forward. Christine on the altar, eyes wide, skin pale, the color seeming to leak out of her red hair as I watched. The trickle of blood. Zayda, crumpled against the wall. The shock and anger mingled on Nick’s dear face.

  Was this chop what the killer—and the burglar—was searching for?

  What was it doing here?

  Above me, the floorboards in the back hall creaked. The brass doorknob rattled in its fittings and the hinge on the heavy basement door squeaked.

  My fingers gripped the chop.

  “What are you doing, messing with my things?”

  “Why do you have this, Nick? The last thing a dying woman thought about?”

  “Stay out of it, Erin.”

  Nick reached for the chop, but I jerked it away. “I’m already in it, Nick. Neck deep. And if the killer suspects you have this, we’re all in it.”

  I had never seen my brother afraid. I’ve seen him elated, angry, grieving, worried. Nervous. Hopeful. Anxious. Annoyed.

  But never frightened.

  “Erin, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know who killed Christine, or what that old Chinese relic has to do with it.” He gestured with a trembling hand. His voice shook.

  I stood. “Where were you Saturday, Nick? That’s got to be part of this.”

  “What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with the—with Christine.”

  “Then tell me where you were.” There were connections, somewhere.

  “Erin. I can’t. I’ve made promises.”

  I slammed the chop down on the desk. The stack of journals slid onto the floor. “Fine. Keep your secrets. Get arrested and charged with murder and who knows what else. You’re so determined to do things yourself, you get out of jail yourself.”

  And then I did what I, Erin Margaret Murphy, would have sworn mere minutes ago that I would never, ever do. I walked out on family.

  * * *

  My boots crunched on the cold dry snow of the Nature Trail, aka the River Road. Hard to imagine now that this dirt path, eight feet at its widest, was once the loggers’ and homesteaders’ wagon trail into town. Replaced eons ago by the state highway on the south side of the Jewel River—the Cutoff Road—it had been an overgrown tangle when my grandfather Murphy and his sons led the volunteer effort to establish an easement and reclaim it for the community.

  Hard to imagine Jewel Bay without it.

  When my mother needs to work out her emotions, she cooks. My sister paints. Kathy quilts, and thanks her lucky stars that other women find their refuge in knitting and sewing.

  I drive. Or walk.

  In summer, the calm waters of the Jewel River slip over the concrete dam built more than a century ago, then rush over rocks and fallen logs, through twists and turns and underwater cliffs, creating Class IV rapids that summon whitewater maniacs from all across the West to try their luck and test their pluck on the Wild Mile.

  In summer, baby osprey watch the crazy humans from their nests, from platforms built by the power company to keep them alive and off the lines. They learn to fly over the river and to chirp and shriek and whistle.

  In summer, children race bikes down the trail, laughing and shouting. Parents push cooing babies in sturdy strollers. Old friends chit and chat and call hello to neighbors they haven’t seen since last winter, or yesterday. Black Labs and Golden Retrievers splash in the shallows, bark at unsuspecting geese, and spray river water on their people. Bill Schmidt leads folks on herb walks. Birders raise their binoculars and tourists hope to spot a bear and wonder what will happen if they do.

  But in winter, the River Road falls nearly silent. At the top of the first rise, a gray squirrel dashed across the trail, then perched on an algae-stained rock warmed by the sun, chattering like an old pal. Seeking company, or warning me off his cone stash?

  A little farther on, a tree branch creaked under the weight of ice and snow, and the grinding of a semi shifting gears on the highway echoed across the river canyon.

  But mainly, it was me, my footfalls, and the committee inside my head. Lively debate is healthy, good for the soul. It clarifies one’s thinking. It’s good to hear to all points of view, consider all the possibilities.

  It was driving me nuts
. What if I didn’t do what I said I’d do, what everyone expected? Save the Festival, track down the missing movie, plan an alternate program, make sure this got done and that showed up and this person was where they needed to be and this and that and that and this.

  If just this once, I kept my mouth shut and my hand in my pocket, would the village, and the Merc, and my family fall apart?

  I stomped down the trail, swinging my arms, hoping the increased blood flow would go to my brain.

  Other employers might draw the line when a salesclerk needs time off for her sick dog. They might not create a job for a young vendor desperate for cash.

  What if I didn’t stick my neck out, put my head on the line, put my right foot in and left foot out? What if I weren’t always trying to be the perfect sister and the perfect daughter, boss, building manager, volunteer coordinator, blah blah blah?

  What if I did what I wanted to do, and the heck with everybody else?

  A shadow flew across the white trail and I raised my face, shielding my eyes from the sun. A raven, wings four feet across, circled slowly overhead. “What do you want, Grandfather?” I said, using the Indian title my own grandfather had taught us when the majestic scavengers cruised the orchard.

  The bird perched high on a snag, not moving a feather.

  “Okay, you’re right.” I pulled off my glove and wiped my runny nose on the back of my hand. “Truth is, I want to help people. But it gets to be too much sometimes, you know? Things were settling down nicely, and then Iggy died. I got used to that, and then Christine gets killed. And now the anniversary is coming up. After fifteen years, I thought I was okay with it, but every time somebody else dies, it’s like my skin gets ripped open, you know?

  “And Adam’s not here, and I don’t know if I could tell him all this anyway. He’d probably think I’m a blubbering idiot.

  “I can’t solve everybody’s problems,” I told the empty trail. “I can recommend jam and cheese, and suggest the perfect hostess gift. I can help a husband pick out scented lotion or wine and chocolates for Valentine’s Day, but I can’t fill every void in the village. I can’t even find a home for the darned cat.”

  Grandfather Raven remained silent. Only I could answer my own questions.

  And, I realized as I headed back toward town, only the individuals involved could solve their problems. It wasn’t up to me to take on their grief, their guilt, their fears and anxieties. I could listen, make suggestions, offer to help. But I had to let Nick, Tracy, and Luci decide what to do.

  That didn’t mean turning my back on them. It just meant remembering their problems were theirs. I always want things to go smoothly, thinking that if I dive in, if everyone does what I say, all will be peaches and cream.

  I could almost hear my mother saying, Darling, don’t be so sensitive.

  Or in my sister’s words, Don’t be such a bossy pants.

  The raven circled three times, let out a single caw, and flew down the canyon, wings wide, riding the currents of air.

  “Next festival,” I said to a particularly attentive Douglas fir, scarlet mahonia leaves peeking out of the snow at its roots. “I’m saying the Merc will contribute food or cash, but I’m busy. Call someone else.”

  My little buddy sat in the road, holding a cone in his tiny pink hands. Bright brown eyes stared up at me.

  “As squirrel is my witness.”

  • Twenty-one •

  A mini run hit the Merc mid-afternoon.

  “Storm coming?” I asked Tracy, both of us nearly breathless after a surge of customers wiped us out of eggs, cheese, and meat. Not to mention we’d gotten requests for twice as many freshly butchered chickens as our poultry supplier had delivered.

  She rolled her eyes and blew out a breath. “They’re saying another six inches of snow tonight, blustery winds, gusts up to forty miles an hour. Ten below.”

  I thanked my stars for good insulation and a gas fireplace. Most days, being caretaker requires little of me, but I’d have to check the Pinskys’ house tonight. “The winter that won’t quit.”

  But the late afternoon trade we owed to Valentine’s Day. Some poor woman out there hoping for a diamond bracelet might be disappointed with a pasta sampler or a pound of organic Montana popcorn and a trio of seasonings. Not my fault. I tried mightily to steer all the men toward wine and chocolates, or suggest adding wild rose bath gel to their purchases, but even my persuasive powers have their limits.

  “Erin, a moment?”

  Nick watched me intently, the skin around his eyes dark and pinched. Look up anguish and grief in the dictionary and you’d see my brother’s face at that moment.

  “Go. I got this.” Voice low, Tracy angled her head toward the sole customer, a woman browsing the pastas and sauces.

  In the back hall, Nick handed me a compact notebook with a black binding and thick, dark green cardboard covers. It felt like the weight of a life.

  “Go on,” he said. “I’ll wait.” He sank onto my office steps, one knee bent, one long leg outstretched.

  Silently, I carried his logbook upstairs. Did I really want to know Nick’s secrets?

  I steadied myself and opened the field notes. On the upper left of each page, he’d written “N. Murphy” and the year in clear block printing. Saturday’s entry, dates and times noted in the left margin, began with the location, underlined: “Three-eighths mile west of Rainbow Lake Road and Redaway Lane, Timberlake County, Montana.” I heard myself gasp.

  “Presence of young adult male and female gray wolf confirmed by tracking and visual observation. Digital photos taken, images 00204—224. Pre-denning activity observed. Will attempt to locate tracks safely away from suspected den site for possible impressions, and obtain sign for further analysis.” Sign, aka poop. The notes gave GPS coordinates and a detailed description of each wolf, including estimated size, and its travels.

  I flipped back to earlier entries. For ten days, he’d been tracking, observing, searching for the den site. Two entries stood out: “Informant/observer reports howling potentially indicative of mating, midnight to two a.m. Advised him to record.” And the next: “Listened to informant’s recording; copied to my phone. Confirmed as suspected.”

  Biologist speak, but I knew what it meant. Following a tip from a resident, Nick had discovered a previously unknown wolf pair near Rainbow Lake, hot for each other and setting up house. New in the neighborhood, after leaving an established pack. Critical as it is to confirm and document all packs, it’s equally critical to not alarm the public or announce a discovery prematurely. While most people have a healthy respect for the majestic carnivore, Jack Frost was not alone in his venom, and the wolves’ presence so close by could trigger itchy fingers.

  Over and over, I had asked myself why my brother would lie. Now I knew.

  Nick always insists that humans have little to fear from wolves, but they do attack livestock and wild game. I wasn’t sure whether hunting and trapping were in season, but no matter: Poachers driven by irrational fears could wipe out a pack before it became established. Or kill a pregnant female, or orphan helpless pups.

  I pored back over the notes. The informant/observer was not named or otherwise identified. No contact information. Nick was protecting someone.

  And I knew who. Ned Redaway lives along the river close to town, but he owns a large parcel out that direction—forty acres and a homestead-era cabin. Perfect for a grandson in his mid-twenties, who wouldn’t mind the isolation. Might even appreciate it, after all the hub and bub of tending bar.

  That isolation explained why the young wolves’ appearance hadn’t sparked rumors—and might protect them. But wasn’t Nick required to report the sightings at some point?

  The notes went on to say “Confirmed informant has no domestic animals or livestock, and advised on avoiding contact. Nearest year-round residence roughly one mile from suspected den site.
”

  I closed the logbook and held it in my lap. Had Nick contacted the informant in person on Saturday, he would have a human witness. But the notes didn’t indicate any conversation—I imagined J.D. had worked late Friday, slept in, and spent all his waking hours Saturday in the village.

  Nick sat up quickly at the sound of my feet on the creaky floorboards.

  “You have to share this, Nick. It’s your alibi.”

  “I won’t put the wolves in danger, Erin. Who’s going to speak for them, if not me?”

  “You can’t speak for anyone from a jail cell.”

  Despite my harsh tone, he was unconvinced. “They’ll make it public. They’ll have to. The wolves will be sitting ducks.”

  I resisted smiling at the metaphor. “They must have a procedure for keeping an investigation confidential. Once they see this evidence”—I held up the logbook—“and talk to J.D., they’ll understand you’re innocent.”

  He glanced up sharply. “I promised him anonymity.”

  “Before the wolves he spotted became your alibi for murder.” But even then, would the nightmare end? Ike Hoover might swear from the top of Mount Aeneas that Nick was no longer a suspect, but people would demand to know why. The whispers would continue until the prison doors clanged shut on the real killer.

  Who that might be, I had no idea.

  And Christine would still be dead.

  “Stay.” I headed out front. “Put that down and no one will get hurt,” I told Tracy, who’d been about to empty the coffee. She held up her hands in mock surrender. I sprinkled Fresca’s spice mix into two mugs and poured hot coffee. “Call me if you need help closing up.”

  The front door chimed and in walked Dylan Washington, dragging an orange dolly. Its hard black wheels left two narrow white trails of snow.

  “The cookbooks,” I said. “I completely forgot.”

  “No worries.” But his face said otherwise.

  I led the way downstairs and Nick carried the first load up. Dylan bent for a box and I stopped him. “How’s Zayda? She back at school yet?”