Poison Heart (7 page)

“You need to turn the truck off. That noise is bothering him. It’s too much.”

They turned the truck off.

“Now, open both doors at the end of the trailer. That way the whole trailer won’t seem so claustrophobic to Harvey.”

The two men walked around to the head of the truck and opened the doors on either side of the trailer.

“Wait for me. I’ll be right back. Then I think we can load him.” Meg ran into the house. She found an apple at the bottom of the refrigerator and cut it into four pieces. She stuffed it in her pocket and ran back outside.

Her mother and the two men were waiting. The men seemed impatient. Meg decided she had to do it all herself. The men would not be gentle enough. “I’ll get him now,” she said, and walked into the barn. She showed Harvey the apple, then led him out to the bottom of the ramp.

“I can do it, but why don’t you move a little farther away? Walk away, but don’t make any sudden moves.” Meg stood at the bottom of the ramp and fed Harvey the first piece of apple. While he was eating, she talked to him. She told him he was a good elk. She told him where he was going and how happy he would be to see all his friends again. Then she walked halfway up the ramp and held out another piece.

Harvey took a step up the ramp and stretched out his neck to reach the apple. He ate the second piece. Meg backed up to the top of the ramp, and he followed. She fed him the third piece.

Facing him, she walked backward until she hit the back wall of the trailer. Harvey was watching her. She held out her hand with the last slice of apple. Meg could tell he was trying to decide what to do. But he was already up the ramp and didn’t really want to go back down.

Harvey sniffed the air. Meg held the apple on the palm of her hand as if it were a diamond for him to inspect. She could see his eyes were on the apple slice. This was where patience came in—something she had learned in school when it got too boring. Minutes went by. There was one moment when he turned his head and she thought she had lost him, then she clucked her tongue and he looked at her and the apple again.

Finally he decided. She could tell by the way he shifted his weight on his legs even before he took the step. What he didn’t like, she knew, was entering the enclosure of the trailer.

Suddenly he lunged forward, as if to get it over with, and stepped into the trailer, and she pulled the last piece of apple in closer to her chest. He came all the way into the trailer and put his muzzle on her hand, grabbing the apple.

After he had taken the last piece of apple, she tied his rope to the bar that was next to her head. The smell of the elk surrounded her. She whispered to him, “I won’t forget you,” and then she jumped out one of the doors at the head of the trailer.

Her mother was standing right there and said, “Good job, Meg.”

“How’d you learn to do that?” Jim asked her.

“You need to think like an elk, that’s all,” Meg told him, and then left the men to secure the trailer. She didn’t want to watch them drive away. She ran to the house and went inside.

She went to her room and sat on the floor. She would never have another elk in her life like Harvey. She hated it when she got left behind. A hole where the elk had stood in the barn every day for the last week grew in her mind until it sucked up the whole universe. Tears started leaking out of her eyes and running down her face. The sadness in her was like a stream that wouldn’t stop.

Meg heard her mother come to her doorway. “Meggy, you were great.”

“I was not.” Meg couldn’t keep the sob out of her voice.

Her mother knelt by her and put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s the matter, honey?”

Meg pulled away from her mother’s touch and wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not honey, and you know what the matter is. Another thing gone. Everything I love goes away. I hate it.” Meg couldn’t help herself as the words tore out of her mouth in a mean way.

“It must seem like that sometimes.”

“Mom, leave me alone. I don’t need your words of wisdom. You don’t understand. I need to be by myself right now and do it my own way.”

CHAPTER 7

I just picked up the injunction. I’ll swing by and get you,” Claire Watkins said to Margaret over the phone.

“Thank you so much. I’ll be standing at the end of the driveway, waiting,” Margaret said.

Margaret was finishing up the laundry—folding Mark’s clothes—but all she could think about was the auction. It would have to stop. Margaret just hoped they got there before anything important had been sold.

She checked the clock again: 11:47. It was only two minutes later than the last time she’d looked. The auction was supposed to start at noon. The shirt in her hands was crumpled into a ball instead of folded to be put away. She snapped it out straight and then started to smooth it with her hands.

Having been to a couple of hundred farm auctions in her life, she knew the schedule by heart. The first two hours—from ten to noon—would be devoted to letting the crowd mill around all the stuff. The farm implements and machinery would be out in the barnyard, and some of the big pieces of furniture would be left in the house, but since it was a nice day a lot would have been carted outside. Most of the small items would be boxed and sold as a lot—the linens, the silver, the china, the geegaws.

She could picture it so clearly. Her neighbors would be walking around her parents’ farm, poking and pawing all the trappings of her family’s life together. Margaret wanted to throw up.

Mark was worrying her. He had gone out to the barn to finish milking the goats. He didn’t even want to talk about what was going on. He seemed ready to snap at any moment.

She could tell the problems with Patty Jo were eating Mark up inside. He was drinking a bit more than she had ever noticed him doing before. During the day he threw himself into work, but at night he was restless. That’s when he would start to drink. She wouldn’t have minded so much if it would calm him down, but often it made him worse. He would get belligerent with her and then often leave. She didn’t know where he was going at night.

She tried to push Mark out of her head. He would be fine when they got this situation resolved.

Margaret couldn’t help thinking about all the little things of her mother’s she would like to have: her sewing kit, the quilt she had made, the old doll that sat in the china cabinet. Come to that, the china cabinet.

She bent the sleeves of the shirt in toward the middle and then folded the shirt in half. She wasn’t half the housekeeper her mother, Florence, had been. Her mother hadn’t made a wasted movement, and she put things back where she found them as soon as she was done with them. Her pies had been the best in the county, and she had the blue ribbons to prove it. She’d sewed a tidy stitch and set a perfect table. Margaret had tried to learn all these important country lessons, but her mind often strayed.

Since she’d begun struggling with menopause, she found it harder than ever to stay constant. In the midst of a chore, she would find herself a million miles away.

Margaret remembered how her mother would say to her when she was young, “Come back here, Margie, before I send the dog to fetch you.”

Now she felt as if she had failed her mother. Not because she couldn’t keep a house as clean, but because she had let all her mother’s valuable keepsakes go to a stranger. She hadn’t been able to save her mother; now she couldn’t even save what was left of the remnants of her life.

Margaret remembered one of the last conversations she had with her mother after moving her to Lakeside Manor. Her mother hadn’t taken to her new residence. Her level of paranoia increased. The doctor said that was part of the Alzheimer’s. She was having trouble remembering who people were. Once or twice she had called Margaret “Angie,” her aunt’s name. Margaret didn’t argue. It only made it worse.

On this particular morning, when Margaret walked into her room, her mother had thrown a carton of milk at her.

“Mom, what’s the matter?”

Her mother looked right at her and said, “That woman is stealing my mind.”

“What woman?” she had asked.

“The one that smiles all the time. The one that’s really a deep monster.”

“A deep monster?”

Her mother pointed out the window. “From the lake. She’s come from the bottom of the lake.”

At the time, Margaret had assumed her mother was fussing about one of the nurses. Now she wondered. Who had her mother meant? What had she thought was happening?

Claire would arrive any minute. Margaret took off her apron, slicked at her hair in the mirror, and ran outside carrying her purse in her arms like a baby. She hollered at Mark, “I’m leaving,” not really caring if he heard.

Running to the end of the driveway, she saw, with relief, the squad car coming down the road, Claire Watkins behind the wheel. Claire slowed, and Margaret hopped in.

Claire handed her a large manila envelope. “You can have the pleasure of delivering it.”

Maybe they’d get there before the auction started. Before one item of her parents’ lives was lost.

Patty Jo had set up a chair for herself in a prime location, about fifteen feet in front of the auctioneer’s podium. She wanted to be able to watch every item be sold. That way she could keep track of the money. She had planned a long time for this moment, and she was going to enjoy every second of it. As each piece of furniture and each lace doily was sold, she would feel herself become freer. Nothing to hold her down. More money to do what she wanted.

She had put her umbrella on a folding chair to save the seat for herself. It was a warm day for September, in the high seventies. While everyone else was looking around at all the stuff to be auctioned off, she had wandered around looking at the people. She found it easier to be pleasant to all her neighors since she knew she’d soon be leaving them behind.

Lucille Clowder stopped her by the floral-print sofa. “This looks like such a nice sofa, Patty Jo. Why are you selling it?”

“I want to start over.”

“I suppose it has sad memories,” Lucille murmured.

Patty Jo didn’t bother to correct her. These last few months, she had played the dutiful wife with as much dignity as she could muster. Let them think what they would; she would be gone soon.

“I hear you already have an offer on the house?” Lucille pushed.

“It looks that way.”

“I wonder what that Reiner man intends to do with your land. It’ll be a shame if Walter’s house gets torn down. Beautiful old place like this. One of the nicest houses in the county.”

“That ain’t saying much.”

Lucille flinched at Patty Jo’s words, and Patty Jo felt the impulse to tell her more, to really shake the old woman up. She knew damn well that Lucille was just at the auction to get all the latest gossip and visit with everyone. She would probably buy some old glass vase for fifty cents, worth about five dollars new. She’d be proud of her bargain, take it home and stick it in the back of a cupboard where it would gather dust until she died. She’d spend all day wandering around looking at everything and maybe have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. It would be her entertainment for the day.

Patty Jo felt like telling Lucille a few things she wouldn’t forget, but then shrugged it off. What was the use? Patty Jo was planning to enjoy the day, so why not let Lucille enjoy it too?

“You looking for anything special, Lucille?”

The older woman colored at the attention being paid her. “Oh, you know, I don’t need much anymore. I only buy something if it catches my eye.” Then the woman added, “I would like something to remember Florence by. I do miss her. She was such a good woman.”

The highest accolade in this little county—to be a good woman. It had never been said of Patty Jo, and she never wanted it to be.

Holding her tongue, she moved away from Lucille. The auctioneer looked ready to start. She walked over to her chair, opened up the umbrella, and lifted it over her head.

After the auctioneer welcomed everyone and exclaimed how lucky they were to have an utterly perfect day, he lifted an old lamp and said, “Let’s start with this. I’m looking for an opening bid of five dollars. Can anyone give me five dollar? I’m looking for five dollar. I got a hand there, five, do I see ten, do I see ten. . . .” The sound of the auctioneer’s chant was a song in her ears. He rolled suggestive prices for the lamp off his tongue like the trillings of a bird.

Another hand flew in the air and the auctioneer spieled out more numbers. Patty Jo felt a glow in her stomach. She was on her way.

Then she noticed a commotion behind the auctioneer. A woman in a deputy’s uniform was talking to a partner in the auction business. Patty Jo recognized the woman. She was the deputy who had come to the house with Margaret. Why was she at the auction in uniform?

Patty Jo got a real bad feeling when she saw Margaret was there too, holding some sort of letter. She had been sure that Margaret would not come to the auction. She hadn’t thought Margaret would be able to handle watching all her family heirlooms being sold out from under her. What was she doing here?

The lamp sold for $25 to Clarence Johnson’s wife. What did she want with an old lamp? But $25 wasn’t too bad. Twice what she would have paid for it. After the bid was accepted, the auctioneer turned and started talking to the deputy. He was shaking his head and waving his arm. Then he stepped down from the podium.

Patty Jo stood and snapped shut her umbrella. Whatever was happening, she would have to put a stop to it.

Claire described the scene at the auction to Rich as he stood outside, grilling chicken for their dinner. “You wouldn’t have believed it. I’ve never seen anyone so mad. Patty Jo came walking up to the auctioneer and started screaming. Her face turned red. She took a lamp that had just sold and smashed it right there. Threw it on the ground and smashed it.”

Meg sat on the porch railing and listened. Claire didn’t know how her daughter could balance on there so easily, looking like a bird on a wire.

Meg piped in, “Did you arrest her?”

“Arrest her?”

“Because of the lamp. Destruction of property.”

Claire resisted laughing at her daughter’s use of cop jargon. “No, I couldn’t. Since no money had changed hands, it was technically still her lamp. She could do with it what she wanted.”

“Although, really technically, it wasn’t her lamp anymore. It might have been Margaret’s with this new injunction. According to you, Margaret inherits the farm, right?” Rich pointed out.

“That’s true. But Margaret is aimed at bigger fish than suing Patty Jo for the value of a lamp. After her behavior today, I’m not even sure the woman should be allowed to stay on the farm. I don’t trust her to leave everything alone. I’m afraid she might do something drastic. I’m thinking Margaret should push to have her asked to vacate the premises. What do you think?”

“Maybe the house will fall on her and her feet will curl up,” Meg suggested.

“And Margaret will get the red shoes,” Rich added. Then he looked at Claire and saw how serious she was. “Can Margaret do that? It sounds awful drastic. Where would the poor woman stay?”

“Patty Jo is no poor woman. You should have seen her this afternoon. She’s not afraid to create a scene. The woman went ballistic. I’m afraid if she’d had a gun, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Mom, don’t say things like that. Not when I’m listening,” Meg said, jumping down off the railing. She leaned over the grill to peer at the meat, poking at it with her finger. Rich gently rapped her hand with his tongs.

“Little pitchers have big ears. Why don’t you go in and set the table?” Claire pushed her daughter toward the house so she could talk with Rich.

Rich leaned back against the railing. “I still say it seems a little drastic, asking Patty Jo to leave her own home.”

“I suppose. I just have a bad feeling about that woman.”

“Don’t get so involved, Claire. Margaret needs to figure this out.”

“I’m already involved. The one good thing is, because of the auction, we have a complete list of all the items in the house. So Patty Jo can’t sell anything without us knowing about it. I don’t trust her at all.”

“What ended up happening with the auction? Did Patty Jo have to pay them for their time?”

“I’m not sure how that’s going to settle out. I can tell you the auctioneers were not happy. Nobody was happy. All the people who were there were ready to buy things, and they were pretty upset, although most of them have a lot of sympathy for what Margaret’s going through.”

“How did she take it?”

“Margaret? She’s an odd one. I can’t imagine what she’s feeling. When my dad died, my sister and I had to divvy up all the family stuff, but we did it very easily. This is like the worst thing that could happen. Having all the family stuff yanked away. And her father isn’t even dead yet.”

“How did you leave the place?”

“Well, that turned out okay. The auctioneer said they weren’t going to put any of the furniture or other things back into the house. They said they’d already done enough work for no money. They took off in a huff. Patty Jo said the stuff could sit out for as long as the judgment took. She didn’t care what happened to any of it. Margaret asked me to help her start to put some of it back into the house. A couple of guys who had come for the auction helped us haul a bunch of the bigger pieces inside.”

“Well, Patty Jo might be doing herself in. If she doesn’t take care of the furniture, it makes it easy to prove that she isn’t watching out for Walter’s best interests.”

“Right. I like the way your mind works.”

“Isn’t she legally bound to take care of the estate?”

“Probably. She got into her car and drove off. Actually, that was the best thing that happened. Margaret’s husband, Mark, arrived, and we got most everything back into the house.”

“What does Margaret want to do? Or Mark?”

“They seem shell-shocked. I think they still can’t believe that they might lose the farm. They seemed uncomfortable even touching any of the furniture. As if someone would accuse them of something.”

“I can understand that. Like they’ve been dispossessed in full view of the community.” Rich started to pile the chicken onto the platter she held out for him. “Good thing you got there before anything was sold.”