Nine Lives To Die

A woman walking her golden retriever had found Lou Higham. The dog ran off, refusing to return to her. As Jake was an unusually obedient companion, his human followed her dog, trudging through deep snows. His incessant barking led her to Lou Higham’s corpse.

He had died not far from home. His car had gone off an embankment, and had continued sliding into a narrow ravine. The continuing snowfall had blanketed the car. The treadmarks off the road were also covered.

Folded over the steering wheel, Lou was well preserved, thanks to the cold, although missing for five days. The weight of his head slightly stretched his neck. His lips were pulled back and his gums were white. His right hand showed two bloody stumps, frozen. His index and middle fingers were missing.

A plastic cup with a small slide for drinking remained wedged in the cup holder.

His contorted face bore testimony to the fact that he’d died in pain.

——

The TV news reported that the search for Lou Higham had ended. They did not announce details, such as the mutilated hand or his face’s frightened expression.

Jessica Hexham immediately informed the delivery ladies of St. Cyril’s while her husband called the men of Silver Linings. As they had done when Pete died, each adult male called five boys in the group.

Jessica also called Father O’Connor.

When these folks arrived at Arden’s to help, they were surprised to see Charlene, Jarrad, and Alex already there.

Charlene simply stated, “We know how it feels.”

The following morning, December 19, Fair and Harry prepared for their day. Last night, Harry had recapped the day’s events to Fair. “Forgot to ask you,” he said now. “How’s Tyler?”

“Tyler’s a mess,” Harry replied.

Fair sympathetically said, “Dealing with your father’s death is tough, especially at that age. Plus, he’s not the easiest kid. I hope he can come through all this without being filled up with psychotropic drugs.”

“Arden has enough to face right now,” Harry replied. “But, really, Fair, maybe a temporary regime of calming drugs isn’t so bad.”

“Honey, I’m very suspicious of prescribing drugs to developing brains and bodies. But who will listen to a vet?” Then he added, “Let’s count our blessings.”

“I am a blessing, I am a big one.” Pewter rubbed on Fair’s legs.

“I think I’ll throw up.” Mrs. Murphy grimaced.

“Hairball,” Pewter tormented her friend.

Mrs. Murphy lunged for the fat gray cat, who jumped sideways. They were off and running. Tucker sat tight. Everyone heard a smash.

“Damn them.” Harry hurried in the direction of the noise. “Fair, help me.”

Fair ran into the living room, where a lamp was in pieces, scattered over the rug. The Christmas tree swayed as though in a high wind. A very fat cat hung on at the top, bending the trunk over while, lower down, Mrs. Murphy, claws deep in the spruce tree, lashed out with one paw. Fragile Christmas balls swung.

Fair quickly reached into the tree, grabbing the trunk.

“You get out of there,” Harry demanded.

“She has to back down first!” Pewter, eyes wide, shouted.

“Ha! I’ll turn your fat butt into hamburger.” Mrs. Murphy sank claws into the large target.

“She’s killing me!” Pewter cried, ever the drama queen.

“You hold the tree up. I think I have the answer.” Harry dashed into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, returned. She pried open the plastic lid on a small can of catnip. This she held it up as far as she could. The fighting stopped. Mrs. Murphy backed down, jumped off, pine needles sprinkling over the rug as she did.

Harry crushed catnip in her fingers, away from the Christmas tree.

“Pig!” Pewter hollered from her perch.

“You can stay up there all day.” Mrs. Murphy rolled in her herb. “This is good stuff.”

“I hate her.” Pewter cursed as she backed down, Fair still holding the tree, for there was a lot of cat. “I hate her more than anything on this earth.”

As she jumped off, she knocked off a brilliant green ball, which Harry caught.

“Good save.” Fair finally let go of the tree, after making sure it was secure.

“They are mental,” said Harry. “Look at my china lamp. I really liked that lamp.”

Fair knelt down beside her to pick up the pieces. “If I knew for one second what goes through a cat’s mind, I’d be scared.”

“That’s an insult,” a glassy-eyed Pewter managed to slur. The two cats now rolled in the catnip, purred, and batted at each other harmlessly.

Carefully depositing the broken lamp in a cardboard box, closing the top, Harry set it outside on the porch.

“Guess I know what to get you for Christmas,” Fair said.

“You mean I’m not getting my pearl necklace from Keller and George?” For years, Harry had visited a lustrous pearl necklace, the pearls about nine millimeters big.

“When I win the lottery, you get your pearls.” He smiled at her, but he did want to buy them for her.

Someday.

“Honey, what I want for Christmas is continued good health for both of us, laughter, work we enjoy, and time with our friends. The rest is fluff.”

“It is. Before I forget, tomorrow is December twentieth—the big delivery day. Tell me tonight after checking with Susan how many of the husbands you need. I know all of the church ladies have had unexpected labors and have been delivering early, but I expect tomorrow will be over the top.”

“It will. Susan has done a great job.”

“She usually does.” Fair, like everyone, recognized Susan Tucker’s organizing abilities.

He kissed his wife on the cheek. “Thanks. I’ll call in. Looks like an okay day.”

“They always start that way.” She watched as he walked out the door, thinking about the last time Arden and Charlene had seen their husbands, never dreaming they would never see them walk through the door again.

Once both humans left, Mrs. Murphy, coming to her senses after the catnip hit, said, “It’s daytime. Let’s try and find those bones. We’ll be safe. Coyotes usually hunt at night, and the snow has packed down. Let’s do this before another snow.”

“I am not going out in the cold,” said Pewter. “And I don’t care about human bones. They don’t do us any good.”

“Speak for yourself,” Tucker replied.

“You aren’t going to chew on dried-out bones with dirt all over them. You live too good for that.” The gray cat had a point.

“I’m going whether you come with me or not,” said Mrs. Murphy. “That bracelet is expensive, it belonged to whoever is up there.” With that, she pushed through the animal door in the kitchen, followed by Tucker. Pewter pointedly did not move.

Following the farm road where the snow packed down in the ruts, the two loped past the back pastures, past the sunflower plots, the quarter acre of grapes, stakes and wire in place. Beyond that, another lone and wide pasture bordered the forest.

The snow crunched as they trotted over the pastures, the creek running strong on their left. With its beaver dam, this rocky creek divided Harry’s land from the farm that Deputy Cooper rented.

The temperature at thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit felt as though it wouldn’t budge throughout the day. The sun shone precariously through a light cloud cover that promised to thicken. The animals could smell heavier weather approaching.

Every now and then, one of them would blunder into a snowdrift. The crust disguised the snow depth. They’d flounder, then swim their way out.

Reaching the edge of the forest, the base of the eastern slope of the mountains, Tucker sat for a moment. “Take a breath.”

Mrs. Murphy parked next to her. “Odin said to go up the old farm road and where the deer trail crosses to turn left.”

“The good thing about the trotting, and now the climb, is it will keep us warm.”

“Right.”

They started upward, the grade at first not terribly steep. Higher up, switchbacks had been cut into the side of the mountain to offset the steep grade. Onward, they puffed. About a half mile up, they hit the deer trail.

“This is farther up than that coyote said,” said Tucker.

“It’s hard to judge distance in this kind of terrain. Everything takes longer.” The cat breathed in. “This huge old walnut stand, the black bark against the snow, it’s almost spooky.”

The hollies, dotted here and there, provided rich, glossy dark green color enlivened with bright red berries. Heading left on the deer trail, they traveled about two football fields in length. They now saw the uprooted tree.

Reaching it, both animals sat down. The skeleton had roots piercing the rib cage, one root snaked through an open jaw. The bones lifted out of the earth, suspended in the air, whitened with age. They were missing the left arm from the elbow down.

Tucker raised her head and sniffed. “Coyote!”

“Tucker, climb into the hole from the uprooted tree. The thick roots will protect you from him. We won’t be able to outrun him. I’ll climb up the tree.”

Paws crunched on the snow and Odin appeared. He smiled, fangs prominent. “Mrs. Murphy and the dog.”

“Tucker.”

“You can come out of there. I won’t eat you.”

“I don’t believe you.” Tucker growled. “Coyotes eat everything.”

On his haunches, the wild animal stared up at Mrs. Murphy now. “You’re just out of reach. I won’t eat you either.”

Mrs. Murphy didn’t budge. “I’d like to believe that.”

“M-m-m.” He didn’t budge either.

“How many other coyotes live up here?” Tucker’s nose stuck through the snow-covered roots.

“Two families. One at the edge of the high meadow. Another at the Pinnacles.”

Odin named the jutting rock outcropping near the spine of the mountain. “I can walk down to the farm with you and keep anyone else away. Although I don’t think they’ll be down here.”

“Odin, you’d snap my neck in a skinny minute,” Mrs. Murphy called down.

The coyote lay down, head on paws. “You’re going to get very cold. My fur is thicker than yours because I’m never in a really warm place.”

The three animals remained there as clouds moved in, the wind picked up. Hours passed. Tucker felt stiff, and Mrs. Murphy shivered. Odin watched them with his glittering yellow eyes.

As what little light there was shifted, the skeleton seemed to smile, then the light faded, the clouds turning Prussian blue.

In the far distance, Mrs. Murphy heard Harry’s truck. Her uncommonly good ears would astonish a human being.

“Tucker, Mom’s home. Start barking.”

Tucker barked and barked.

Harry paid little attention, for the barking was far away. She walked into the house, laid packages on the kitchen table. She took off her coat, seeing only Pewter, thinking the other two were asleep.

“Mom, Murphy and Tucker are up on the mountain,” said Pewter.

“You’re chatty.”

“This is serious,” the cat screeched.

A half hour passed; Harry finally checked each room. No cat or dog. She threw on her coat, walked out to the barn. They weren’t there either. Just then, Fair drove in, and as she was telling him, they both stopped. They heard their corgi barking.

“Tucker?” Fair wondered, then froze, for he heard Odin howl.

Harry hopped behind the wheel.

Fair did the same in the truck’s passenger seat.

“Wait a minute.” Fair quickly got out, opened his big vet truck door, then climbed back in. A .22 revolver rested on his lap. Ratshot could scare off animals.

Harry drove behind the barn on the farm road, keeping on it until the edge of the forest. She stopped, rolled down her window.

They listened intently. Again, they heard Tucker bark. Odin howled too, much closer now.

“This baby might be old, but she’s four-wheel drive,” said Harry. “You ready?” She looked at her husband.

“Yeah, I don’t worry about my body bouncing around. It’s my head hitting the roof.”

“Get ready.” She’d turned the small dials on the old hubcaps to drive through the snow when she came home.

Now she shifted into the lowest gear—the tires were winter tires—then hit the gas, and the rear end fishtailed. They climbed up the side of the mountain on the old road. It had deeper ruts than the farm road.

Each time the wheel slid into a rut, Harry gunned the motor to get out. Poor Fair bounced up, even with the seatbelt on. Finally, he put his hand on top of his head.

They reached a small turnaround.

“You’d better turn this around, keep her in gear, cut the motor. We can’t risk going higher, especially now.” Fair noticed snowflakes in the beams of the headlights.

She did as told, also yanking on the emergency brake. The turnaround was level enough, but she worried about sliding in the snow, even with the truck parked. It might give a little when they climbed out. Both of them, raised in the country, knew dumb things happen.

She cut the lights, pulled her scarf tighter around her neck. Fair stepped out, slid the revolver in his belt, pulled on his gloves.

Tucker was clearly close and to their left, so they walked through the walnuts, brushed by some hollies, tripped on uneven ground covered by the snow.

“We’re here!” Mrs. Murphy yelled.

“Come on.” Tucker yowled as she could see the flashlight swinging right and left.

Odin let out one howl before hurrying off into the darkness, calling over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t have eaten you. My call is louder than yours. I’ll see you tomorrow at the barn.”

Neither animal knew whether or not to believe him. Tucker took no chances. She wasn’t emerging until Harry and Fair reached them. The two animals had forgotten about the skeleton.

Close enough now for Tucker to smell her and Fair, Harry couldn’t see much for the darkness.

Fair, beside her, shined the light right where Tucker still barked. The dog’s eyes glowed in the flashlight. Fair flicked the light upward. There was Mrs. Murphy, whose eyes shone, too.

“What the—” Harry froze.

Fair now focused on the macabre sight.

Both just stood there as the cat backed down the tree and the dog lifted herself out from the roots, brushing by a dangling leg bone, which rattled.

Mrs. Murphy reached onto Harry’s pants leg. Harry bent over and picked her up.

Tucker came next to Fair, who now shined the flashlight over the entire skeleton.

“I’m really cold,” the dog whined as a snowflake landed on her nose.

“Me, too.” Mrs. Murphy rested her face against Harry’s.

Already a half mile distant, Odin belted out one more howl, which added to the fright.

“Let’s get back to the truck,” Fair said.

Thicker now, the snow dropped onto bare tree limbs, making a soft noise as it did so.

They all got into the truck. Harry turned on the motor. The heater, already warm from the trip up, emitted welcome heat. “Do you have your cell?” she asked her husband.

He pulled it from his inside coat pocket and dialed Cooper’s number. “No service up here.”

“We’re in a dead spot.” Harry eased the vehicle back down the mountain road.

“Literally,” quipped Fair.

Back at the farm, Harry flipped open her cellphone again. The snow fell harder. “I’m not getting anywhere. I’ll use the landline.”

Once in the kitchen, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker recounted everything to Pewter.

“See what you missed,” Tucker gloated.

“Freezing my butt off, that’s what I missed. You two are lucky to be alive. What if Odin called down other coyotes? They’d have dug you out. As for you, Murphy, you would have been trapped up there for days. And maybe you wouldn’t have lived either.”

As the animals argued about whether Odin was or was not trustworthy, Harry dialed Cooper and the lights went out, the phone with it.

Fair pulled a flashlight from the drawer by the sink. “Bet someone ran off the road and hit a pole.”

“I’m going to drive over.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, and Pewter started for the door.

“Stay,” Harry commanded.

“Bother,” Pewter said and pouted.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, now really put out, as they were exhausted, crawled into their special fleece beds.

Fair drove this time. He had respect for bad driving conditions.

They reached Cooper’s house within fifteen minutes, whereas it usually took five. A pinpoint of light shone from the living room window; smoke rose from the chimney, then flattened out.

Out of the truck, they walked to her back door and knocked. Within a few minutes, Cooper—holding a flashlight, as were Harry and Fair—opened the door.

“Come on in. It’s the usual.”

“Coop, I’ve been trying to call you on my cell, but the service isn’t working.”

“Come on into the living room. The fire helps. That and the fact that the power just went off, so it’s not cold inside yet.”

“Pain in the you-know-what.” Harry followed her neighbor into the living room, as did Fair.

“Coop, let me get to the point,” Fair said. “We found a skeleton up in the walnut grove.”

Now on the edge of her chair, the blonde woman asked, “In what condition?”

“Bleached, tree roots growing through it,” Harry matter-of-factly reported.

“It was missing the left arm from the elbow down, but that could be in the ground,” said Fair. “Most of the skeleton is suspended,” he added.

They told her how they heard the howls of Tucker and the coyote, of their shock at seeing the bones.

“This snow will complicate matters.” Cooper checked the weather report on her Droid. “It will be mostly light, with a few heavy periods tapering off tomorrow afternoon.” She looked up at her two friends. “And tomorrow is the big delivery day. I’m in charge for the department. Everyone off duty will be helping. ’Course, I really don’t know who will be off duty tomorrow, thanks to finding Lou.”

“A wonderful thought, but it is four days before Christmas.” Fair lifted his feet to put them on the hassock, then thought better of it.

“Go ahead. I don’t care if your boots are wet.” Cooper didn’t either. “I’ll be at St. Luke’s. Actually, the department is pretty well divided up among the churches. If someone attends a church, it made sense for them to help with deliveries that day. Tomorrow is going to be a long, long day, and there’s no way we can get back up there without you two.”

“True. GPS is no help.” Fair nodded.

“Neither is the weather,” said Harry. “The mountain road is treacherous even when it’s dry. Plus, you can’t reach the switchbacks.”

“Why not?”

“Trees down.” Harry knew the mountains. “Those fall windstorms, and now all this snow. You know, trees have to be blocking the switchbacks. They are closer to the top, more wind.”

“It’s good to have open access from a few directions, in case there’s trouble,” Cooper prudently mentioned. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it for now.”

“The killer isn’t coming back anytime soon, I expect,” Harry flatly stated. “I mean, this has to be a murder victim. People don’t get buried at the base of trees.”

“I actually enjoy cold cases.” Cooper inhaled the aroma of hardwood. “Makes me think.”

“You’ve got so many more tools now,” said Fair. “Things like DNA.”

“DNA helps, but we’d need to find a living relative of the deceased to be sure. And if a body has been long buried and can’t be identified, then you have a problem.”

“Dental records?” Fair queried.

“We send out the information, pictures of the teeth and jaw, and hope local dentists will check their records. And we hope whoever the dentist was for the victim isn’t retired or dead. Even today, there are unclaimed corpses in every morgue in every city. No one knows who they are. Some of those people most certainly have been murdered.”

“No matter how bad it is here, imagine living in Argentina, years ago—all those people who just went poof,” said Harry. “Never to be found and no records.” She thought this incredibly sad.

A flicker, and the lights came back on. The refrigerator hummed.

“That’s a record.” Fair grinned.

“It really is,” Cooper agreed. “I’ll call the boss. We’ll get up there after tomorrow’s delivery day, and once the weather cooperates. It’s important, but it’s not pressing. We will get up there, though, with your help.”

“That skeleton isn’t going anywhere,” Harry remarked.