Serpent's Tooth. Michael R. Collings
must admit that my heart thumped a bit faster for an instant when I recognized Carver Ellis.
Not that there is anything between us...romantically, I mean. Even if I were in the market for a boyfriend—much less a “significant other” (how I hate that phrase)—there would be nothing between us. Chronologically, he’s still pretty much just a kid, nearly a decade younger than my own twenty-nine years, but at times he seems even younger than that. I think there may be something developmentally not-quite-right. He’s not slow mentally, nothing like that, but occasionally there is the sense about him that he’s not as mature, not as adaptable to change or challenges, not as..., well, not as adult as his years would suggest.
He’s often more child-like than I expect, frequently surprising me.
Not childish. Just child-like. Innocent.
Well, I suppose that innocent is not exactly the right word. But perhaps you know what I mean.
Still, my heart flipped over one or two beats when I saw him standing there, waiting for us.
Because Carver Ellis is beautiful.
I know I shouldn’t use that word for a young man, but it is the only one that truly fits. Muscular in the all the right ways, the ways that suggest hard work, and lots of it, rather than narcissistic afternoon visits to a gym. Add to that a perfectly chiseled face. Startlingly blue eyes. Blond hair bleached almost white by daily exposure to the sun. Deep, even tan—I knew what his torso looked like because I had seen him once or twice shirtless as he worked around Victoria’s place, but I strongly suspected that not too far south of his waistline the tan would suddenly vanish.
Not that I ever expected, or in fact wanted, to actually verify that by personal observation, but I knew that he supported his widowed mother and that there were more than enough calls for his skill as a handyman to keep him too busy to lounge around in the sun working on a tan.
Yes, the boy was beautiful, but as I drove closer I noted something else.
This morning, underneath his tan, his skin was almost deathly pallid. His face seemed drawn and his hair was disheveled, as if he had jumped out of bed and finger-combed it on his way out rather than spending any time in front of a mirror.
And, closer yet, I could see that his hands were trembling.
“Victoria,” I said, keeping my eyes on Carver’s distraught face, “what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know for sure. Carver can be...well, scattered when he’s worried. And right now, I think he’s plenty worried.”
She was out of the car before I turned the engine off, standing next to Carver with her hand on his shoulder...a bit of a reach, actually, since he was a good head taller than she was.
I didn’t hear what she asked him, but by the time he answered I was almost even with Victoria and I heard him.
I heard him just fine.
“It’s Rick Johansson. From next door.
“He’s dead.”
1. Devil’s Plague: A Mystery Novel, by Michael R. Collings / Driving Hell’s Highway: A Crime Novel, by Gary Lovisi (Borgo Press, 2011); Devil’s Plague: A Mystery Novel (Borgo Press, 2011, ebook).
CHAPTER TWO
“Dead! Oh, Carver, no.” Victoria’s voice sounded as distressed as I felt.
She might have added, “Not again!” but she didn’t.
I didn’t know anything about Rick Johansson, had never even heard his name until that moment, so news of his death, while sad, didn’t touch me very deeply. But I knew Carver, and I knew from first-hand experience how he responded to death.
I even knew how he reacted when he was charged with causing a death.
I had seen him accused of murder.
He didn’t deserve to go through that again.
“Are you sure?” Victoria was asking.
Carver simply nodded, his eyes wide with...with what? Sorrow? Loss? Fear? Dread?
I couldn’t read him.
“Where is Greta?”
“Inside, with Mom,” Carver said, gesturing with his head over his shoulder. “Mom didn’t want her alone in their house with...with Rick’s...with Rick.”
Victoria squeezed Carver’s shoulder lightly and went on into the house. I heard her call out “Janet? Greta?” and then the door banged shut.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Carver said, as if he had to explain himself to me. “It just seemed automatic to call Miz Sears. I figured she would know....”
“I’m sure that was exactly the right thing to do,” I said. My heart went out to him. “Was...uh, Rick, was it?”
Carver nodded again.
“Was Rick a close friend? Somebody you knew from school?”
He shook his head this time.
“I didn’t really know him that well. He’s only lived with Miz Johan...with his grandma for about a year. He was pretty much a loner. But sometimes we worked together on jobs.
“We were helping Mr. Nielson—Tom Nielson, that is—put up his grain yesterday. And he called me last night from Land’s End to come pick him up. Said he didn’t feel well.”
Carver seemed to shudder.
“Let’s go on in, shall we?”
He looked up and blinked, as if seeing me for the first time.
“Right. I should be in there to help Mom. And Miz Johansson .”
He led the way to through the door, which opened onto the kitchen. In the next room—probably the living room—I could hear the low murmur of women’s voices, the kind of sounds that warn of illness or death or other tragedy.
By the time we entered, Victoria had clearly taken charge. She was standing near a low sofa on which two women were sitting. One held a fragile tea cup that occasionally clinked against the saucer in her other hand. She looked to be about fifty. From the blond hair, blue eyes, and strong features, I could tell that this must be Janet Ellis, Carver’s mother.
The other woman was much older. She looked even older than Victoria, but that impression might have been wrong since, where Victoria even in her seventies was a fountain of energy and activity, this woman—Mrs. Johansson—looked washed out, drained, as fragile as the china tea cup and saucer sitting untouched on the low table in front of her. In fact, I think the tea cup would have survived a sharp blow more easily that this woman would have.
Her hair was wispy, almost like a halo-effect, and that odd yellow-white that sometimes happens with old people and that makes them look faded and ill even if they are in the best of health. Her eyes were red-rimmed and watery, and her lips, pursed and tight, nonetheless quivered with each thin breath she drew.
She was wearing a worn chenille robe that had to have been as old as I was. I wouldn’t even have begun to guess what color it might have started out life as, or if it had ever been printed with a bright, cheerful pattern. Her feet were thrust into shapeless scuffs that had likewise long since lost any hint of color.
Victoria had knelt beside her and laid her hand on the other woman’s knee.
“Can you talk now, Greta? Can you tell us anything?”
Greta Johansson put a lace-edged handkerchief to her eyes and dabbed before nodding.
“Victoria? Is that you?” The voice quavered and the hand that she laid over Victoria’s shook violently.
“Yes, dear, it’s me. Janet called me.”
“Janet?”