Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2000

Fall came and the rains and the good logging weather, and still Kramer did not go back to the woods. Gowen met Barber coming off their front porch one day in October and asked him, “He going back?” Barber had looked down and up and back down, as if he were about to make a major pronouncement, but then just said, “I don’t know what to tell ya.”

A few days before Christmas, Deputy Julius Maksymic pulled Gowen over for a loud muffler as he was cruising down Highway 26 on his way to Seaside. Jule only gave him a warning and didn’t even bother to ask him to step out of the truck. He said, “Hey, maybe you can do me a little favor, Gowen. You probably owe me a favor or two, don’t you?”

“Yeah, probably so.”

“We’re looking for a guy maybe you seen or heard about up your way. Meth cook named Lawrence Fisher. Goes by the name of Rex Fisher also. Got a little gal with him. No? Sure?”

“You know I ain’t into that, Jule.”

“Yeah, yeah. But you would also know, wouldn’t you, if he was in the neighborhood.”

“Hey, I mind my own business.”

“Please don’t b.s. me around, Gow.”

“No, seriously, listen, Jule, if the dude shows up or I even hear anything, I know who to call.”

“The feds got warrants out for both of them. The female is wanted in California and Idaho as a material witness to two murders. Seems she likes the bad boys, goes from one to the other.”

Gowen continued on to Seaside so Jule wouldn’t get suspicious but finished his shopping in a hurry and returned home. He couldn’t wait to tell Kramer. But when he got back to the house, Kramer was not there, and when Kramer finally did come in late that night, he lumbered drunkenly up the stairs and fell into his bed. In the morning when Kramer finally crawled out Gowen still hesitated, unwilling to squander his piece of news on Kramer’s morning funk.

“What’s the matter with you?” Kramer demanded at supper that night.

“Nothing.”

January passed. In February the Neslolo finally did roll up out of her channel and into the pasture. Across her flat, tan surge Gowen watched through the binoculars the wolves in their kennels and Wes Greenly coming and going.

“I don’t think she’s over there,” he said to Kramer.

“She’s there,” Kramer said.

“I got information on her,” he said.

“You shut your goddamn filthy lying mouth!”

One night in March Gowen challenged his brother, attempting to separate him from his bottle, and Kramer beat him brutally. The next day Kramer refused to apologize. Gowen packed and left, removing himself to his framed tent on Long Andrew. It was cold and wet, and he was being stupid not just clearing out and letting Kramer go completely crazy all by himself. But then, even if he couldn’t change anything, he had to stay to see how it would end.

Consequently he was in position to spot her in his binoculars, late in the afternoon of a changeable April day, as she crossed the river in an aluminum canoe, tied up at the Kramers’ floating dock, and made her way across the wet pasture to the back yard and up onto the back porch to be let in the back door.

He came down then. He circled around behind the barn and ran along the highway to the front of the house. He saw her shadow pass across the windowshade. He crept onto the porch and peered in the window between the edge of the shade and the sash. He saw Kramer holding a cup in front of her, extending it to her with both hands and her hands atop his so that it was together that they delivered the first hot sip to her lips. Then Gowen, who had never in his life knocked on that door, knocked.

From Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

The Farm is seven miles of bad roads from anywhere and has occupied sixty-three acres of scrub pine and rock-laden pasture since Teddy Roosevelt was thrashing around the White House. Now, at the other end of the century, it is home to eighty or ninety senior citizens, several aging cows, a few semiferal chickens, and a handicapped cat.

The majority of the senior citizens ended up at The Farm because they were living their lives on the two-hundred-year plan and handled their money accordingly. The animals, like most domesticated critters, had little choice in the matter.

The animals make do with a large shed, and the barn houses most of the humans. Those who don’t live in the barn reside in a motley collection of trailers and RVs that squat like disgruntled sows in the pastures surrounding the barn.

Except for me and the cat. We live in a thirty-six foot mahogany sloop cradled in the middle of a windblown grove of hardwoods in the north pasture.

Annie Kokar, closet misanthrope, Renaissance woman, and retired veterinarian, is the owner of The Farm and keeper of the purse. It is by her efforts that The Farm stays solvent and the residents warm, fed, and relatively free of despair and errant behavior.

I am very attached to the boat. We suit each other, for we are both old drifters, sharing a propensity for solitary wanderings and a desire to keep our distance from others and walk our own path.

Several weeks ago I walked a path.

A path that put Duncan, Annie’s son, in prison for more years than he is probably capable of enduring and plunged Annie into a quagmire of despair and anger.

I was told to leave The Farm.

The number of dollars I presently control do not allow for more than a corner room in Teller’s Hotel, a dim, crowded slum catering to nearly destitute seniors. Two ancient suitcases and a bulging duffel rested quietly beside several stacks of books, waiting.

I sighed, pulled the last of the Lancers out of the refrigerator, filled a yellow plastic mug, and slumped in the settee.

Cat, always astute, was aware that something profound was happening and, having the feline distaste for disruption and change, was coping by spending most of her time in the cavelike berth under the cockpit. Hearing me fill the mug, she decided to join me, limped out of her nest, and pulled on the cuff of my pants with her good paw. I picked her up, set her on the table, and between sips massaged the scarred tissues of her small, frail body.

I upended the bottle and watched the last drops of wine splash into the mug. I wondered if it would be worth the effort to hike to the barn and snag a bottle from one of the old refrigerators lining the wall in the makeshift kitchen. Thunderstorms were imminent, and Cat, who insists on accompanying me on every journey, does not tolerate thunderstorms well. She clamps herself to my chest, pants like an exhausted puppy, and drools profusely.

I peered out the window to check the weather.

And probably performed a classic double take.

Dressed in bright yellow rain gear a Gloucester lobsterman would envy, gripping a long walking staff, and clutching a plastic bag to her chest, Annie marched across the clearing to the boat. I listened to her climb the stairs, drop into the cockpit, and hammer on the hatch with the staff.

She was undoubtedly here to deliver an ultimatum. I had told her I would be gone by the end of April, and that bitter day was fast approaching. I struggled to my feet and pushed open the hatch.

She lowered an arm, and I grabbed it and helped her down the four steps into the cabin. Annie is somewhere in her seventies, looks it in a handsome way, and stares at the world through hard, flat eyes that calm hurt, frightened animals and make humans squirm. It was Annie who labored over Cat after I appeared at her door with Cat’s maimed, blood-soaked body in my arms.

She nodded curtly, handed me the bag, which obviously held a large bottle, shucked out of her rain gear, and let it drop to the floor. Then she leaned her staff against the steps and, with a critical eye, surveyed the stacks of books, the two suitcases, the packed duffel, and muttered, “Going somewhere?”