Heather Gudenkauf - Not A Sound

I pause, waiting for David to ask me if I’m okay, if I’ve been injured but no words appear on the screen. He is probably just relieved that I messed up before I even got the job—saves the trouble of Dr. Huntley having to fire me later and saves David some embarrassment. I ignore the twinge of hurt and plunge forward, determined to at least get my side of the story out. “I can’t say anymore right now, David. It’s a police matter.”

“Fine, then.” The words finally appear on the display. “I hope you get a second chance.”

“Me too,” I answer, and I think we both know I’m talking about much more than a chance at a clerical job. “How’s Nora?” I ask.

“She’s great.” I imagine his voice rising with pride. “Parent-teacher conferences are next week. She can’t wait to show off her classroom,” he goes on to say. I want so badly to ask if I can come too. After all, for most of Nora’s almost eight years, I was the one who organized and coordinated nearly every single event of her young life. I was the one who took Nora to her first day of kindergarten when David was stuck in a difficult delivery. I was the one who organized her birthday celebrations, baked each cake, wrapped each gift. I read her books before bed each night, put cartoon Band-Aids on her cuts and scrapes, held her when she woke up shaking from bad dreams. Of course I did. I’m her mother.

David doesn’t invite me to teacher conferences any longer and I don’t dare push it. I don’t have any rights when it comes to Nora. Her birth mother, selfish, flighty and indifferent to her daughter, refused to give up parental rights even though David begged her to so that I could adopt her as my own and give Nora a real mother. But that’s just how Trista is. She doesn’t want the inconvenience of having a daughter but to be spiteful she says no to the one person who was thrilled to step into that role.

David, to his credit, after I promised him I had stopped drinking, has grudgingly allowed me to spend some time with Nora. Always in his presence, always in public.

“Can I call her later?” I ask. “I want to hear all about trick-or-treating and her costume.”

“Yeah. How about around eight? We’ll be back home by then.”

“Thank you,” I say, and then as an afterthought, add, “Watch the news tonight, David. It will explain a lot.”

He doesn’t say that he will or won’t, but simply says goodbye and disconnects.

As I heat the kettle for tea, I toss a few pieces of kindling into the wood-burning stove. I have electric heat, but rarely have to turn it on. Twice a year I call an old friend of my dad’s and he brings me enough wood to warm my home through the longest of winters. He stacks it behind the house and even covers it with a tarp to keep it dry. I settle into my mink-brown wide-wale corduroy–covered love seat and without invitation, Stitch squeezes in next to me and lays his whiskered chin on my lap. I leave my steaming mug of tea untouched on the side table next to me. I don’t want to take the chance of spilling the scalding liquid on Stitch’s head. Instead, I run my hand across his flank, my fingers catching on the burrs that have entwined themselves in his coat. Later, I will gently remove each, being extra careful not to yank the hair in the sensitive area around his scar. It wasn’t until Stitch lived with me for a full year before he would fully expose his belly to me.

To the left of me, through another of my many windows, I have a clear line of sight to the four-wheeler I parked outside Evan Okada’s outfitters. He must not have returned yet and I wonder if the officer has found any more articles of clothing that could possibly belong to Gwen.

I don’t worry about missing the phone call from Dr. Huntley. I know the moment it rings, Stitch will alert me, as he has been trained to do. There is a narrow crack in the clouds that I know won’t last long. I close my eyes, and the sun floods through the window so that instead of darkness behind my eyelids I see a warm amber glow and I can sleep.

4

Stitch wakes me with a poke and I immediately sit up and look to the telephone, but see no red flashing light to let me know it’s ringing. Disoriented, I try to get my bearings. In the time I’ve been sleeping the sky has cleared and the sun has lowered but not quite dipped below the horizon, turning the sky a melancholy shade of blue. It must be nearing five o’clock. I’ve been asleep for hours. From the floor Stitch watches expectantly and when he’s sure he has my attention he moves to the back door, and I startle when I see the hulking figure of a man standing there, hands shoved in his pockets. Right away I recognize that it is Jake, still dressed in his suit, and I blush, wondering how long he’s been standing there watching me sleep.

I switch on a lamp, and he smiles smugly at me through the glass as I bend down to remove the wooden rod, then slide open the door. He steps inside, pauses to pet Stitch and slips off his dress shoes, thick with mud.

With a grin, Jake points to me and makes the sign for tired and I self-consciously fluff up my sleep-flattened hair. I don’t know what it is about Jake but somehow I always revert back to that goofy kid who wants to impress her brother’s best friend. He cuffs me on the shoulder and looks me in the eye. “How are you doing, Earhart?” he says, using the nickname he gave me back when I was eight and he was twelve and making the sign for plane crash. A gesture that is strikingly similar to the sign for I love you. I dressed up one Halloween as Amelia Earhart, the famed and ill-fated pilot, and the nickname stuck.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m a nurse, Jake, I’ve seen dead people before.”

“Yeah, but they usually don’t pop up when you’re casually paddling by.”

“True,” I admit. “But I really am okay. Were you able to get ahold of Gwen’s husband?” I ask.

Jake’s face sobers and he shakes his head.

“Do you think he did it?” I ask.

“It’s usually the husband. So, yeah, chances are he did it, but we need to gather a hell of a lot more evidence before we settle on him.”

I pick up my now room-temperature cup of tea and move to the sink to dump it out. “Want some coffee or tea?” I ask.

“Anything with caffeine would be great,” he says when I turn back to face him. “I have a feeling I’m going to be up all night with this one.” He follows me to the kitchen area and leans against the counter while I make the coffee.

“Do you think the shoe Stitch found belongs to Gwen?” I ask. I start the coffeemaker, hoping that the answer is no. It’s bad enough knowing that Gwen died just a few miles away from me, but the thought that she might have been on the very trail that runs right up to my front door sends a chill through me. “It’s an odd place to find a shoe,” I say.

“It’s an odd place to find a body,” Jake says.

I tell him about seeing the beer bottle.

“Yeah, we saw that. We’ll see if we can find any fingerprints, but it was probably just left there by some kids.”

“What about footprints?” I ask. “I saw four sets. Mine, the DNR guy’s, Stitch’s paw prints and one more.”

Jake taps the countertop with his fingers. “It was a muddy mess up there. But we tried to get casts of the prints. We’ll see what comes of it. It could mean nothing. I guess whoever did this could have come by a different route.”

I shake my head. “I’ve been through that area a thousand times. It’d be tough to force someone or carry them a different way. It’s pretty rocky and woodsy.”

“What are you thinking?” Jake asks, giving me his full attention. This is another thing I think is both great and confusing about Jake. Every once in a while he forgets that I’m his best friend’s little sister and actually talks to me like I’m an intelligent human being. Other times he dismisses me as if I’m still an annoying kid.