Читать книгу The Paper Detective - E. Joan Sims - Страница 8

Chapter Five

The next time I woke up, the fuzzy feeling in my head was almost completely gone. The strength was back in my arms and legs, and I no longer felt shaky. I was ready to get dressed and go in search of Watson.

“Sorry,” said Bert firmly when I informed him of my intentions.

“What do you mean, sorry?” I asked as I gave him the benefit of my haughtiest look.

His response was another deep and hearty laugh. I was getting pretty sick of being his stand-up comic, and I told him so, although something somewhere inside was pleased that he was laughing. I had always thought of him as a very angry and morose man. This Bert Atkins, the man with the steel-wool beard and the laughing blue eyes was not the taciturn cop who stormed the fortress of our home last year and wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. This was a man who was happy, or at least gave a good impression of it. And I was beginning to realize that he was very attractive.

“I’ve got to go home. Mother’s expecting me for dinner,” I decided abruptly.

“No she’s not. Danny told her you might not get back for two or maybe three days.”

“Watson! I can’t abandon Watson.”

“Your jeep is fine. I walked down this morning early to check on things. I locked the door and turned off the engine…”

I was horrified at my stupidity.

“I…I left the engine on?”

I sank back on the old sofa wishing the soft cushions would swallow me up.

“Paisley, you have a slight concussion. You did nothing to be ashamed of.”

He came over and sat down beside me.

“As a matter of fact, few men I know would have been tough enough to do what you did.”

“I was stupid,” I answered in a voice that was smaller than I wished. “I left the warmth and safety of the car and started walking in the freezing cold like a dummy.”

“And a good thing that you did. The exhaust pipe was embedded in the snow bank. If you hadn’t gotten out, you might have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

My new-found strength vanished as I realized how close I had come to never seeing my beautiful Cassie again, and I started crying. Bert put his arms around me as the gentle tears turned into great hiccoughing sobs. When I was spent, he tucked the blankets back around me and urged me to sleep again. This time I didn’t fight it.

I finally got dressed late that afternoon right before Bert fixed dinner. He let me sit on a stool by the dry sink and peel potatoes while he gave a hilarious account of his running battle with a family of thieving raccoons who lived in a hollow tree nearby.

I cried again, but this time they were tears of laughter. After dinner we played gin rummy while listening to a soft jazz station out of New Orleans. It had been a long time since I had so much fun and I told him so.

“Me, too, Paisley,” he said softly.

“You’re very different from the way I imagined. You’re obviously not that uncomfortable with your hearing loss. Why did you come out here by yourself? Why leave Danny alone?”

He smiled. “Wow, just like a woman. So many questions.”

“Forget that ‘just like a woman’ crap. This is a question from me to you, as friends.”

“Are we friends, Paisley?”

“Well, sure, of course,” I answered brightly, avoiding the intent look in those deep blue eyes.

“I have to confess I’ve thought a lot about you since we first met,” he said. “I’ve wanted to call you a half a dozen times.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” I sputtered, trying to defuse the situation. “Why didn’t you come to dinner when Mother and I invited you? We thought you were angry about something. I know Danny and Cassie have an on-again off-again relationship, but that shouldn’t keep the rest of us from being friends.”

Bert’s seemed suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation, yet determined to have his say.

“I like your mother, Paisley. She’s a very admirable woman, but I’m not talking about a relationship with her. It’s you who’s been on my mind for the last few months. I know this must seem very sudden to you, but I’ve wanted to be close enough to say these things to you for a long time, and I can’t waste this opportunity.”

Bert reached across the table and took the cards out of my hand. He covered my smaller palm with his big one. My backbone melted like sweet, warm beeswax. I had never felt so delicate in my life. And I was terrified. I wasn’t ready for this.

“Is there a chance that we could be more than friends?” he asked with a crooked smile.

I jumped up and practically ran to the window. The night outside was clear, with a bright, ice-cold moon shining on the snow. I could see his dog’s tracks around the cabin and his own big footprints leading out to the woodpile.

I turned around and faced him.

“This is not why I came out here. I…I don’t need this kind of complication in my life right now.”

I was close to tears again. I hated crying. I hadn’t cried this much in the last twenty years. Damn concussion, I thought.

I watched Bert’s face close off. His lips narrowed and the light left his eyes. His irises turned from sky blue to the color of steel as he turned in on himself. I wanted to crawl in a hole and hide.

“Look, Bert, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. My mistake,” he said abruptly.

He stood up and put on his jacket. He called the dog, and they went out into the winter night.

I sat in front of the fire for what seemed like hours until the man and his dog came back home. I heard him stomping his feet to shake off the snow and ran to open the door. At that moment I think I would have done almost anything to return to our previous state of growing intimacy, but one look at Bert’s face told me that opportunity had gone for good. I sank back down on the sofa feeling like I had killed something young and innocent and infinitely promising.

He hung his coat up and fed the dog before he joined me in front of the fire.

“So,” he said, “why did you come all the way out here looking for me?”

His voice was steady and very calm, almost without inflection or feeling, just tinged with a mild curiosity.

“Leonard, I needed a Leonard,” I answered miserably. “But that was a stupid idea. Forget about it.”

“Leonard. He’s the one who’s supposed to be writing your books, isn’t that so?”

“Yeah, he’s the one, all right.”

“Well, go on.”

I was getting questioned now, by the police. My new best friend had gone outside and the ex-cop had come back in his place.

“My agent called,” I sighed. “There’s a very important magazine in New York, and they want to do a feature story on Leonard Paisley. Pam wanted me to find him, and you came to mind.”

“Why?”

“Why not? You look just like him, or almost. And you’re familiar with murders and criminals, and…well, Leonard’s kind of thing,” I explained. “I thought you would be perfect. I didn’t know you had turned into jolly ole Paul Bunyan.”

Bert laughed for the first time since dinner, but it had a different sound. There was an edge to his humor now. The softness was gone

“So Raggedy Ann is calling me Paul Bunyan!”

“Raggedy…why, that?”

“That mop of funny looking hair, that’s why. That’s how I knew it was you in the snow. I held my gun sight on you for two hundred feet before you fell to your knees. I was getting ready to fire a warning shot when your hood slipped off and all that curly red hair spilled out. Lucky for you, too, otherwise I might have left you to cool off in the snow some more.”

“You wouldn’t!” I protested. “I could have frozen to death.”

“Maybe just a little frostbite,” he grinned.

“But why?”

He gazed into the crackling fire for a long time before he answered me.

“Not everyone is a friend.”

“Look, I said I was sorry…”

He cut me off with a slash of his hand.

“I have quite a few enemies, real enemies—the kind who would like to see me dead. You asked me why I left Danny and came out here by myself. Well, that’s the reason. I don’t want any innocent bystanders getting in the way if somebody with an old grudge comes looking for me.”

I tried to see his face, but like a good cop he had arranged it so he was in the shadows and I was in the light of the fire.

“Does Danny know?”

“Of course not. And I don’t want him to. Understand?” he demanded gruffly.

I nodded in agreement as I pondered the vast range of human emotions. I had gone from giddy happiness, to bleak misery, and now cold fear in the space of less than two hours. It was exhausting.

“What’s in it for me?” he asked after a long moment.

“Being Leonard? Well, the magazine is offering ten thousand. Pam gets fifteen percent. You can have the rest,” I offered meekly.

He turned angry blazing eyes on me.

“I don’t need the whole damned thing. You didn’t come out here with that offer in mind, did you?”

“No,” I admitted humbly. “I was going to split it with you.”

“That’s more like it!”

In spite of the fire, I was cold. I shivered and pulled one of the quilts up around my shoulders. Bert noticed and put another log on the fire. I was grateful for his kindness and told him so. He acknowledged my thanks with a curt nod. I knew we would never be able to talk as easily as we had before, but I was still curious.

“Have you taken any precautions to protect yourself? I mean, do you have any surveillance cameras, or…”

Bert dropped his head back and laughed. This time it was the same deep, truly genuine laugh he’d had before. I smiled tentatively in return. When he finished, he wiped his eyes and answered me.

“My God, woman,” he said still chuckling, “haven’t you noticed my rather primitive lifestyle? Where do you think I would get the power to juice up those cameras? Train the raccoons to run a generator?”

He walked back to the kitchen still chuckling to himself.

“Want some fresh coffee?” he asked, turning to watch for my answer.

“Sure. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep again, anyway.”

When his eyes sharpened, I hastened to add, “I’ve slept so much, I mean. I guess the blow on my head,” I finished lamely.

He came back with two mugs of hot coffee laced with cream and sugar.

“I would have added a little Jack Daniels, but I don’t think a doctor would approve so soon after a head injury.”

We sipped our coffee in silence. He was much better than I at adjusting to the new distance between us. I think he was more at ease with himself, and maybe more honest.

“You’ve changed a lot out here in the woods,” I ventured.

He was back in the shadows again, and I couldn’t tell much from the tone of his voice.

“Maybe.”

“Don’t you get lonesome?”

“I have Murphy. He’s all the company I need. My cigars and my books are a dividend.”

The dog heard his name and thumped his tail on the floor in sleepy acknowledgment.

“I’ve read all your mysteries,” he continued. “You made a few mistakes, but they’re amusing. By the way, Leonard’s an asshole.”

“Then you are more like him than I thought,” I retorted angrily.

Again his laughter was genuine and wholehearted. I felt like a naughty schoolgirl. I turned over on my side and pulled the covers up.

“I am sleepy, after all,” I muttered. “Good night.”

He sat there in silence until I almost screamed. At long last, he got up and put another log on the fire.

I lay awake long after I heard the steady breathing coming from his bed in the far corner of the cabin.