Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49

W hen we got to the bench, I sat down. Maggs started up the stairs and then turned to look at me, and I poured water into the thermos cup and put it on the ground for her. When she came back and drank, I gave her one of Coral's dog cookies, and she settled down happily in the sun, crunching away. I started on one of Coral's amazing little meat pies, something she called Bierocks , full of beef and onion and cabbage in a sweet roll. It was all pretty much perfect, the winter sun beaming weakly down, the Little Melvin burbling happily over its treacherous rocks, the trees rustling in the winter breeze . . .

Actually, it was kind of chilly. Well, it was November, an unseasonably warm November, but still, winter was staring us in the face.

We'd be warmer in the cottage.

I thought about resisting temptation and walking away, but I still had a thermos of tea and some butterkuchen , and there was another cookie in the bag for Maggs.

The thing about temptation is, it's tempting. And I was so tired of resisting it, of being careful to do and say the right thing. The cottage was the wrong thing, it didn't belong to me, just one more thing I wanted that didn't belong to me.

So I packed up the bag again and went up those steps.

When we got to the cottage, the pile of junk stuff was gone. All that furniture, the trash bags full of junk, vanished. I looked around to see if anybody was there, but Maggs was happily investigating the perimeter, so I figured I was alone. I half expected a note on the door saying "Keep the hell out of my house," but there was nothing there, so I picked the lock and went in. I figured Max had come out here, maybe with Luke, the morning before he went into the river again, and cleared the stuff out. And really, Betty had said it was abandoned. I had to stop being so paranoid.

Then again, I lived in a town full of zebras and Harvey Ware. I had two pepper sprays now, Coral having loaded me up with another one so I could use two hands. I didn't argue.

Nothing inside was changed. My cleaning stuff was still on the table, my broom leaned against the wall. Okay, it was a little creepy, but maybe the Phantom Owner was happy I'd cleared out the ground floor. And in that case, it was practically a moral imperative that I go upstairs and clear that out, too.

I swept the first half of the stairs and bagged the leaves and dirt I found there. That first run of steps ended at a half landing with a wide casement window, the whole thing tucked into the gable on that side. Then I went up the other side to the second floor, a wide window in the opposite gable illuminating the whole staircase. I kept sweeping into the room on the right, a small room with a lot of light and no furniture. The room on the other side was the same: small with peeling drywall, a sagging ceiling, no furniture. But oh, if you put a lot of money into those rooms, one a sunny bedroom and one a great bathroom with a big soaking tub, you'd have a perfect house for one person.

Or two if the other guy wasn't going to hit the Trail sooner rather than later.

That was an odd thought in itself. Max settling down? But the thing was, this place was so far into the woods, backed up on what I knew was the National Forest, that it would be almost like walking the Trail. He could still pee on bushes whenever he wanted. And then come home to me.

Of course, the place wasn't mine, and I didn't have the money to make it mine—chickpeas and jackets notwithstanding—and if I did, I wouldn't have the money to fix it. Like that bathroom I was imagining? I'd probably have to pay for new plumbing and a septic tank, and . . .

It would be a fucking fortune.

I bagged up all the floor sweepings and dragged the bags down the stairs and out the door to my previous dump site, feeling depressed as all hell. That upstairs could be a haven if you were a rich person who preferred to avoid people.

I was keeping a sharp lookout, but there was nobody anywhere near, so I went back to thinking about the cottage.

Which really wasn't a possibility. I was a poor person who had to deal with people in order to feed my kid. I'd found two-hundred and fifty grand, true, but if I didn't find any more, that was going to have to last a long time since Ozzie certainly hadn't done a 401k. I'd have to get Lian to invest it for me in something that earned me monthly interest. One thing about being a fugitive is you don't get social security or Medicare.

Stop coming here, I told myself. You're just torturing yourself.

Maggs looked at me, and I realized I'd said that aloud.

"Tomorrow, we'll bring a picnic to the table on the other side of the river," I told her. "We are not coming back here."

Then I locked the door and headed back where we belonged, or at least where we could afford to be.

* * *

I stopped when I reached the forest road, my heart pounding. The one-lane bridge back to the main paved road was blocked by Harvey Ware's panel truck. I didn't see Harvey behind the wheel. I looked down at Maggs, but she didn't seem concerned.

Then I heard gunshots coming from Betty Baumgarten's place, so I ran over there. As I got closer, each shot was followed by the sound of breaking glass.

Fernanda was in the yard, looking calm, and Maggs paused so the two animals could give each other the once-over. They evidently remembered their pact from before and were perfectly civil to each other when I opened the gate in Betty's fence and crossed the bridge over the moat designed to keep Fernanda in. The shots were coming from the back of the cottage. No screams, so I slowed down.

I walked around and there was Betty, a pistol with a bulky barrel in her hand, firing at a row of teacups set on a long board a good long way away, at the other end of the lot where it went up a mountainside. She had rose-colored shooting glasses on and ear protection. There was a pile of broken cups on the ground below the board.

I'd always wondered why she bought so many ugly teacups. As we approached, she turned, weapon at the ready, then lowered it as she recognized us.

She pulled up the ear protection. "Good morning, dear."

She smiled, just a fluffy-haired old lady. I'm not sure she even knew she did that act anymore, but the sharp predator was always there underneath once you'd seen her at work. I thought again that she was like a sweet white owl. Fluffy, wise, beautiful, and dangerous.

"What's wrong?" she said, her voice sharpening.

"Harvey Ware's truck is parked on the trail," I said. "I think he followed me out to the old stone cottage again. I don't want him leaping at me out of the bushes."

"No, that's Fernanda's job." Betty shed her ear and eye equipment and checked the magazine in the pistol. "Let's go see what he's up to." She strode around the house, Maggs and me following, Fernanda behind us.

"How is Maggs?" she asked as we got closer to the van.

"She's fine," I said, confused.

"Is she on alert?" Betty clarified, her eyes shifting back and forth.

"Oh." I looked down. "No. Nothing unusual."

"Good. Wait here." She sidled up to the van. Glanced in the passenger window. Moved around to the back and out of sight. I got a little nervous when she didn't reappear for thirty seconds, then she came around the other side, the gun down at her side.

She gestured for me to come forward. Maggs and I joined her.

"You won't have to worry about Harvey anymore," she said as she slid the side door on the van open.

Harvey Ware was sprawled in the back, the nozzle of one of his bug sprayers shoved into his mouth. A bunch of the poison was spread out on his lips and had stained his undershirt, and I had a feeling his stomach was full of it.

"Oh, God ," I said, sickened by the sight.

"Oh, it's not so bad," Betty said. "No one is going to miss him. Saves Max doing it." She closed the van door. "This is where we call Pike." She raised her eyebrows at me. "Or do we call Max and Luke?"

"He wasn't wearing a shirt," I said. Flamingos.

"Is that important?"

"We call Max and Luke," I said.