Jodi Thomas: Twisted Creek

He laughed as he stepped onto the porch of his one-room log cabin. His theory didn’t hold water. Nana and Allie didn’t fit any profile of any kind of criminals. Allie didn’t seem the type to murder and he couldn’t imagine Nana driving the getaway van.

But that didn’t clear the fact that something was going on out here at the lake. Luke had seen signs. If someone had killed Jefferson, they might have done so because he noticed something he shouldn’t have seen. When he’d circled the lake on foot yesterday, Luke swore he smelled meth cooking, even if he couldn’t find it. Half the cabins out here, including his own, weren’t on any map anywhere.

A chilling thought crossed his mind. If someone killed Jefferson Platt, he might go after Allie and Nana next.

Luke locked his door, then walked past his couch and swung up to a tiny loft in the rafters of his cabin. He’d slept there as a kid and now the space barely accommodated his six-foot height, but if someone came through the door, he’d be wide awake before they could spot him.

In his line of work it paid to be where people did not expect him to be.

Sometime after dawn, I smelled biscuits baking. Without bothering to open my eyes, I took a deep breath knowing the aroma was just a hangover from my dreams. I wanted to enjoy it as long as possible. Last night I’d planned to stay awake and worry about which bed Uncle Jefferson spent his last night on, but I’d fallen asleep before I could get all my worries organized.

Between no job, little hope of money coming in, and a nude man jumping off my dock to chase the moon across the lake, I felt like I had my quota of problems. The lake house hadn’t been what I’d hoped for in Garrison D. Walker’s letter, but then nothing in my life ever measured up to the mountain of hope I always managed to come up with. If they gave awards for pointless dreaming, I’d have a room full of trophies.

Opening one eye, I noticed Nana had raised all the windows in our two-room apartment. The morning had a chill to it that the bright sunshine would burn away long before noon. The breeze smelled of the lake. Nothing bad. Just that earthy odor of fish and water.

I stood, pulled on my grandpa’s old flannel shirt I’d used as a robe since college, and headed downstairs following the hope of biscuits. The main room at the bottom of the steps smelled cellarlike with the windows still boarded up. To my left were the empty shelves that had once been a tiny store. To my right sat the little café with round tables, wire chairs, and a long bar. I’d passed the rooms too many times yesterday for them not to feel familiar to me.

Tiptoeing across the floor, I forced myself not to look at the dead animal heads on the wall, but their shadows crossed my path. Deer, antelope, wild sheep, and some kind of ugly pig I’d glanced at yesterday and been afraid to face again. When I pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen, I let out a breath as if I’d just run the gauntlet.

Nana swayed as she hummed “Amazing Grace.” I slipped into the sunny little room that already looked like it belonged to her. My grandmother must have been up for hours, for she’d removed the burlap curtains and polished the two windows over the sink. She’d stacked her rooster-painted tins of staples along the sill. She’d also opened the back door, letting in long beams of sunlight to dance over a worn brick floor. Her gray hair bounced slightly as she kept time to her humming with little nods of her head.

A cookie sheet of fresh biscuits cooled on the table. “Where?” was all I managed to mumble. I raked one hand through my tangled hair and tried again. “Where did these biscuits come from?”

Nana turned and winked at me. “A nice man in a white truck stopped by about an hour ago. He said he always delivered dairy to Jefferson and wondered if I wanted any. I told him I needed pretty near one of everything.”

I opened the old refrigerator. Milk, butter, cheese, and eggs filled the top shelves.

“I got you something in the freezer.” She turned back to the gravy she’d been stirring.

“Cherry Popsicles.” I laughed and pulled one out. Slamming the middle of the treat on the edge of the counter, I broke it in half and slid an icicle into my mouth.

I hadn’t had a Popsicle since I’d been in grade school and was surprised my grandmother remembered how dearly I once loved them. I curled into one of the wingback chairs and let the icy treat freeze my tongue while I waited for the frozen juice to melt just enough to bite into.

Pulling my feet up to the seat of the chair, I hugged my legs, trying to keep warm as I ate. The sweet flavor sliding down my throat was worth every shiver.

Finally, I asked, “How’d you pay the man in the white truck?” I’d stashed my purse, with the last of the traveling money, under my bed, but I knew Nana wouldn’t have opened it even if I’d left it in the kitchen.

Nana shrugged. “He said he’d put it on the account and that he’d see me next week.” She never worried about money, probably because she’d never had any.

Shoving the warm pan toward me, she laughed. “I put a little cheese in the biscuits just like we used to do when I cooked at the grade school. Those kids always loved my recipes. I had one boy ask if his mother could come up and watch me cook. Another wanted to take me home for show-and-tell.”

Picking at one biscuit, I worried. We had enough to pay for the groceries and the bills on this place for a few months, but the money would run out soon. The money always ran out. I thought of telling Nana to be careful, but she was having so much fun cooking with real supplies and remembering and, I didn’t want to spoil it. Besides, there was a good chance I’d find a job before we got down to zero.

The problem was, any work would be back in Lubbock and that would mean leaving Nana out here alone for long hours.

She handed me a cup of coffee and I pushed aside problems with a smile. “What do you think we should do first?”

Nana frowned. “I’d like to get rid of all those heads in the front room. I think one of them winked at me.”

I couldn’t agree more. An hour later, we’d managed to take them down and line all the animal heads and stuffed fish up on the fence by the road. Nana wanted to put a FOR SALE sign out, but I just hoped someone would take them.

She shrugged her thin shoulders almost to her ears. “Maybe someone will steal them if we don’t watch too close.”

“That’s about as likely as one of these critters running off. But we can always hope.”

We went back to the house and started cleaning the area that had been a store. To my surprise, beneath the cash register I found a wide ledger filled with neat entries, each dated and balanced to the right. The totals showed Uncle Jefferson made a small profit most days. If so, what did he spend his money on? The lawyer said he had none at the time of his death except for what he wanted mailed to me for traveling expenses and lawyer’s fees. There was no sign he’d bought anything, from clothes to furnishings, for thirty years. But if there was income, somewhere there had to be money going out. The only thing on the place that looked younger than me was the final ten feet of dock planks.

I shoved the ledger back under the register and pushed the “no sale” button. The drawer sprang open. Empty except for ten pennies and two nickels. I returned to dusting, plugging in the twinkle lights along the back wall.

Next to a potbelly stove old enough for Ben Franklin himself to have delivered, I found a small safe covered in dust. Most of the lettering on the two-by-two door had worn off and mud was caked to the sides. I rattled the handle, but it didn’t open. If I strained, I could push it a few inches, but after a few minutes of effort I decided the safe would make a fine footstool to sit on when winter came and I lit the stove.