Murder Takes to the Hills (11 page)

I felt myself drifting as she continued.

“At the foot of the mountain is a sizeable lake where boats are limited to sails or small electric trolling motors, slow and barely audible. The lake is loaded with various bass and bluegill. The inn there will even clean and cook your own catch for your dinner. And at the top of the mountain
 
is a small icy tarn, loaded with crappie that are the most tender, sweetest fish you ever tasted, and water so clear that when you look into it, you aren’t sure whether the clouds are above you or beneath. I’m sure you’ll want to make the hike up to it.” She gave me a sweet, totally sarcastic smile.

“And,” she added, “you hear the clop of horseshoes and look up to see riders on tall mounts with kind eyes and long, delicate legs, moving at a rapid, even pace they can continue for hours with no strain on them or you. Most comfortable ride in the world.
 
Give ’em an apple and they’re yours for life. They’re Tennessee Walking Horses.”

“My God,” I breathed. “Cindy, are you suggesting suicide because you’ve made reservations for us in heaven?”

“Not quite.” I heard her pouring more coffee and opened my eyes, rubbing them and peering between my fingers like a child who has had a dream too good to be true.

She spoke briskly now. “Remember my cousin Ken and his wife Frances?”

“Yeah, I met them at your parents’ house once. He was something in politics and she was something in horses. Nice people, I thought.”

“You thought right. He’s in the Tennessee Legislature—probably governor in the next election. And between you and me, I think the two of them are practicing a fancy waltz for the Presidential Inaugural Ball down the road a piece.”

“Wow!” I sat up straight. “He asked me for a signed print of the picture of Fargo on the beach, leaping for a seagull. I sent it to him. You think he might hang it in the Oval Office?”
                                                                                                 
“No. But it may be in his log cabin.”

“He’s got a log cabin? He’s bound to be elected. These guys with a condo in Aspen, and a mansion at Westhampton, and a modernistic abortion at Malibu…they’re a dime a dozen. Ain’t nobody got a log cabin no more! Where is it?”

“It’s in Tennessee, you idiot. He’s smart enough to keep that local boy image—just a simple mountaineer. It’s near
Beulaland
.”

“
Beulaland
. Is that a town or the Promised Land?” I asked.

“Sort of both. The nearest real town is Elizabethton.”

“Elizabethton,
er
…that’s exactly…where?”

“It makes kind of a triangle between Kingsport and Johnson City.” She was grinning openly at my discomfort.

“Kingsport, of course! Oh, yes, on the…uh, river! I’ve got it now.”

“Sure you do, darling. When you drag out a map tomorrow, find Knoxville and go kind of northeast.”

I didn’t deign to answer that. And her thoughts fortunately took another tack.

“What I’m trying to get to is this: Ken and Frances have been after me for ages to come down and use the cabin—now that he’s in Nashville so much, they rarely use it except in July and August, but they hate to see it just sit there empty. And their two kids are not quite old enough to let them go there alone. I don’t think I’ve been there in almost fifteen years, but it’s unforgettably beautiful and peaceful and fun in a bucolic sort of way. Should I call Ken and see if it’s not in use for a week or so?”

I got up and returned with the phone. “
Here.
Call.”

“Get my address book out of my purse while you’re up, please.” I was delighted to comply.

It was all settled in about two minutes. We would vacation in Tennessee.

After that it turned into a lengthy family gossip session and I took the animals out, trying not to yell
hot damn!
loud enough to startle the neighbors.

We finally got to bed, feeling as if large weights had been removed. Cindy struck a seductive pose.

“If we’re going into the woods, I’ll have to learn to be foxy.”

I put my arms around her. “Get a load of my bear hug.”

“I’m a big mouth bass; now where should I nibble?”

We carried on this rustic silliness into more and more graphic suggestions and the obvious conclusion.

Personally, I think it was a lot more fun than pretending Cindy was a rubber ducky in the bathtub.

CHAPTER TEN

Our getaway would have been a credit in speed to Scarface Al Capone with Elliot Ness in hot pursuit.

Cindy got Choate Ellis’s
 
hearty permission to take two weeks off, and did everything ahead of time at work that could possibly be done in three days. And in the evenings, of course, she house-cleaned. “So we won’t come home to a mess.” I wondered if she had looked at the yard recently. It was my firm contention that Hadrian’s Wall had been a simpler endeavor.

I got Harvey Weinberg to cover my accounts and informed my insurance companies of that fact. I dropped off a bunch of clothes for our dry cleaner’s offer of
Special 24Hour Service.
They lived up to their ad, but it was the biggest scalping party since the Mohawks calmed down. We had decided to take Fargo, and the vet provided a booklet listing motels that accepted pets. Wells would go to Aunt Mae’s the night before we left, to begin a posh vacation of her own.

Cassie had an absolute library of maps and helped me plot our course. We wanted to avoid all large cities if possible; we wanted the most direct route available, but we wanted some of the lovely scenery we had been told lay along the way.

At first I thought it worked out rather well. We would take the Massachusetts Turnpike to its end, clip off a small corner of New York state, drop down to Scranton and pick up Interstate 81. From there we just stayed on I-81 in a more or less straight south-westerly shot across Pennsylvania, took a tiny bite out of Maryland and West Virginia, crossed the suddenly enormous-looking State of Virginia…and were in Tennessee.

Then I examined the length of the route Cassie had highlighted on the map, and looked up at her in considerable dismay.

“We thought we could make this in two days’ driving. This looks more like a week,” I groaned.

“Sure you don’t want me to fly you down? You can always rent a car, or maybe a pickup, at whatever airport we may find down there. Lit or unlit.”

“Plowed or unplowed is more likely. Anyway, we both want to see the country. I’ve never been in that part of the world. The last time Cindy was there she was about fifteen, and her father was still teaching at University of Chattanooga, so it was a fairly easy day’s drive—from the other direction. And if we fly, Fargo can’t go. He’s scared of airplanes, as you know.”

“Yeah.” She pulled out a pair of calipers and walked them from
Ptown
to Elizabethton. “Close to a thousand miles. You can make it in two days if you don’t linger. You’ll be over the worst of it when you clear Scranton.”

“Fine. That just leaves most of the Appalachian chain to negotiate, and probably cows and pigs all over the road,” I grumbled.

Cassie laughed. “Interstates are not designed to have steep grades or sharp curves…that’s both their beauty and their eventual boredom. You may see the occasional deer or little critter, but I doubt you’ll get cows and
piggies
in the road until you get off of I-81 and over to…what was the name again?”

“
Beulaland
, and if you laugh I’ll clock you. And don’t ask me again if I know what a big patch of land called
Kettlefoot
Wild Animal Management Area means—although you might think of retiring there.”
 

I pushed my coffee mug toward her. “Get me a beer. What the hell has Cindy gotten us into?”

Cindy had gotten us into a vertical position at approximately three thirty a.m. We were hoping to leave a half hour later. Wells had been taken to Aunt Mae’s the night before. I had loaded Cindy’s two suitcases and my one into my car trunk while she was gone. I had also loaded dog food, doggy blanket and two favorite doggy toys plus a tennis ball.

This morning I had—I hoped—concluded the loading process. Our two gym bags holding cosmetics and other small necessities were now in the trunk.

In the car proper was a jug of water for Fargo, a small cooler holding ice and fruit and soft drinks for us, a bag of cookies for us and a smaller bag of cookies for Fargo. He wasn’t certain he was going, so he sat in the driver’s seat to make sure.

Mom would be over later to clean out the fridge.

Cindy concentrated on her morning health cereal while I washed down two of yesterday’s croissants with a cup of coffee. We cleaned up the kitchen and left. The Orrick crew would presumably lock up every night.

I took the first driving shift, expecting some excited commentary from Cindy along the way and perhaps some nuzzles and tail wags from Fargo in the backseat. It didn’t work quite that way.

Just before we left I had booted Fargo over to the front passenger’s seat, assuming Cindy would see to getting him out and into the back. Instead, she climbed into the backseat herself with a cheery, “Okay, darling, up, up and away! Let me know when you want to swap driving. Anytime, love.” She thereby stretched across the seat, turned on the little overhead light and opened the morning paper. Well, she was on vacation.

It was, of course, still dark, but I knew every inch of Route 6. Traffic was light at that hour and as Cassie had recommended, I didn’t linger. After a few miles of staring at darkened trees and buildings, Fargo had curled up beside me and began to snore lightly. Cindy had switched off the little backseat light and let the paper fall across her chest. Maybe she was snoring lightly too. I was beginning to get that I-am-the-last-person-in-the-world feeling.

It began to get light, turning from black to an ever-lightening gray, finally tinged with pink. It wasn’t a bad time to be alone. You felt not only relieved, but also triumphant that you had again achieved victory over the forces of the evil blackness and lived to fight another day.

I yawned and stretched, although I wasn’t sleepy; I was just greeting the day. But I awoke my passengers.
 
Fargo mimicked my stretch and yawn and resumed looking for something of interest.

The other felt guilty and began apologizing, but I was generous.

“Vacation means never having to say, ‘I’m sorry I fell asleep,’” I forgave my penitent partner.

“You’re a love. Do you want me to drive? Where are we?”

“I’m fine. We’re coming up on the
Sagamore
Bridge. It’s still early and a little foggy down low along the canal. This is when I dream I may look down and see FDR in the stern of the old presidential yacht, wearing a big straw hat and holding a fishing rod.”

“What a wonderful image! Have you ever seen it?”

“Once or twice, when it was thick fog I think I got a glimpse. Apparently he really used to come through the canal often. The canal was one of the feats of his administration. I think perhaps somewhere he is still proud of it.”

“I should think he would be. I shall look closely as we cross.”

“Alex. Sweetheart. Are you awake?”

“More or less.” I had been slouched in the front seat, not exactly asleep, but far away somewhere. I straightened and rolled my head around to get the neck muscles back in line. “What’s up?”

“We’ve been making really good time. If we detoured about twenty miles east, we’d be in Pennsylvania Dutch territory. Maybe we could find a restaurant that serves some of their wonderful food. The turnoff is coming up.”

“Take it.”

Fifteen minutes later we were in a clean little town, dotted with the famous black buggies, pulled by a single muscular horse, reins handled by a black-clad man with a flat black hat, or perhaps by a woman in a long gray gown, with a hat looking to me like an old-fashioned nightcap.