Grave Danger, page 5
Once Cody stopped laughing, he said with an overly innocent tone, “What are you talking about, Eileen? What’s this about the mayor’s body?”
“Don’t give me that sweet and clueless act, Cody,” Eileen said. She squinted one bright green eye as if she were working on a cigarette at the moment and the smoke was drifting into her face. From the way she tapped her fingers on the arm of the couch, Demetrius figured she was itching to go outside and light one up. “You’re pretty, but you’re not an actor.”
Cody looked offended. “You think I’m acting?”
“I heard from Wanda that you two paid a visit to the cemetery this morning,” Eileen said.
“Wanda Butler?” Amelia asked.
“No, Wanda Stone,” Eileen said.
“There are two women named Wanda in Parson’s Hollow?” Demetrius asked.
Eileen ignored him. “And then I heard from Margie that Vicki Downing chatted up Sandra Webb over breakfast. Sandra is a police dispatcher, and she told Vicki she took a call from a very distraught motorist the night before. Margie said Vicki and Sandra talked a lot about this caller because it was someone Sandra had dated and been dumped by years ago, and a guy Vicki had always been wanting to date but never got the chance.” Eileen raised her eyebrows as she fixed Cody with a look. “Ring any bells, Romeo?”
Cody snapped his fingers as an expression of glee erupted on his face. “Sandra Webb, yes! I knew I recognized her voice. No wonder she was so cold when I told her my name.”
“Um, Cody?” Demetrius said.
“Yeah?” Cody looked at him, still smiling.
“You’re walking a dangerous line here.” Demetrius tipped his head toward Eileen and Amelia, who had taken a seat on the couch. Both women sat on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward with elbows on their knees.
“Oh.” Cody blushed and cleared his throat. “Um, I called in about hitting a deer.”
“That’s funny,” Eileen said, her eye closing even more. “Margie heard Sandra tell Vicki you said you hit a man.”
“Oh, weeping willows!” Amelia shot to her feet. “Is that true?”
“It’s all right,” Demetrius said, holding up both hands as if in surrender. Which, when he thought about it, might be easier than tap dancing around the situation with the mayor’s body. “Nobody was hurt.”
“Nobody was hurt?” Amelia waved a hand toward Cody. “He hit someone with his truck!”
“But he got up and walked away,” Cody said. “I was really freaked out by it and called it in. Once Deputy Zellmer got there, the guy had walked off on his own two feet.”
Demetrius had to force himself not to look at Cody. He was actually impressed with how Cody had told the truth about the situation while leaving out specifics.
“Well, who was it?” Amelia’s voice was calmer as she took her seat again, and Demetrius let out a slow, cautious breath.
“It was the mayor,” Eileen said, lifting her chin with certainty. “Wasn’t it?”
“Eileen, my third favorite senior citizen after my grandmother and Amelia,” Cody said, “I hate to tell you this, but the mayor died about not too long ago.”
She gave him a playful sneer, but underneath it, Demetrius could see a small flicker of happiness that she had made Cody’s top three. Cody could still charm women and men alike, and, while they were married and had promised to be true, Demetrius had to admit to himself he was happy for it. Cody without his charm would be a much different man than the one Demetrius had married.
“I know that, smart ass,” Eileen said. “So tell me why April Mitchell told Margie that Lucia Durant and Ryan Zellmer took the two of you out to see the mayor’s grave after Horace Chapman called in a report of destruction of private property?”
“Dammit, Margie’s her own news channel,” Demetrius said.
Cody sighed. “Fine, you caught us.”
Eileen sat back and crossed her arms. She wore a big smile that more than gave away how pleased she was with herself.
“What are you saying?” Amelia asked, looking between the three of them.
“I don’t know,” Demetrius said, fixing Cody with a look. “What are you saying, Cody?”
Eileen sat forward again and waved a hand toward Cody. “He’s saying that the mayor is a zombie.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Cody stood up and held out his hands. “I never mentioned the zee word.”
“Yeah, what the heck are you even saying?” Demetrius said, trying to laugh but hearing the false notes in it himself. “There are no such things as zombies.”
“Or the Devil of Pinesville, or lake monsters, or werewolves.” Eileen made a face. “I know what you two get involved in. I was there for the Devil of Pinesville, remember? Hell, I told Oliver to call you two up to hunt it down.”
“Yeah, we never really thanked Ollie for that, did we?” Cody said, sitting down again.
“Demetrius,” Amelia said in a quiet voice, and when he saw the fear and uncertainty in her expression, his heart ached for her. “Is it true?”
Demetrius hung his head a moment. Amelia had been through so much during Nicolae’s quiet invasion of Parson’s Hollow. She’d been one of the first people he’d bitten, and she’d spent a year turning into a wolf once a month and not understanding anything that happened to her. It had made her anxious and irritable, nearly costing her everything she and Otis had built together.
Looking up, he gave a single nod. “It’s true.”
“Demmy…”
Demetrius put a hand on Cody’s leg and gave him a squeeze.
“As far as we know, the mayor dug his way out of his own grave and has been walking around town. He’s the one Cody hit with his truck last night.”
“Oh, pine trees,” Amelia whispered, putting a hand to her throat as she looked at Demetrius. “What are you boys going to do?”
CHAPTER FIVE
The raccoon stuck a paw through the wires of the live trap and fiddled with the latch. Cody gently tapped the slender, nimble fingers, and the paw retreated. With a quick, fluid move, Cody secured a small padlock on the trap’s door. He and Demmy had learned long ago how to keep a raccoon inside a live trap until it could be released out in the woods.
“I know there are spiders in my hair. Look again.”
The back end of the truck dipped as Jugs sat on the lowered tailgate. Cody tried not to smile as he took in Jugs’s condition. A big guy who was a bit more broad-shouldered than Cody but not quite as tall, Jugs was covered in dust and spiderwebs. Drifts of loose insulation had gathered on his shoulders, and a small tuft of it perched on top of his neatly trimmed afro.
“I keep telling you to wear a hat,” Cody said as he brushed the insulation away.
“That wouldn’t work with my hair,” Jugs said, his voice a rumble. “I don’t care about the dust and other crap, just make sure there aren’t any spiders on me.” He shuddered. “I hate spiders.”
“You were a big strong werewolf, and here you are still scared of spiders.” Cody jumped back as a rather large spider popped up from beneath the loose insulation. “Okay, don’t move.”
Jugs went very still. “What? What is it? It’s a spider, isn’t it? Oh hell, I knew it. Oh sweet Jesus and Mother Mary, pluck this multi-legged monster from my ‘fro. Oh my God, it’s not a centipede is it? Oh my God, I’m going to dip my head in the fry oil at Farrell’s Fish Fry and burn everything down to the skull.” A shiver went through him, but Cody was impressed with how quickly he managed to shut it down. “I can’t handle things with more than four legs. It’s not right. Get it off me, man. You gotta get it off me.”
“All right, it’s all right, just hold still.”
Cody carefully made a furrow in Jugs’s hair. He saw the spider duck away, and Jugs trembled.
“I felt it move. Oh God, I felt its legs on me.”
“Don’t you move, Darnell,” Cody said, using Jugs’s given name and a commanding tone. “Don’t you fucking move.” As he chased the spider through Jugs’s hair, Cody continued talking, encouraging Jugs to stay still. The raccoon sat watching with interest, fingers opening and closing as if in imitation of Cody’s movements. At last Cody managed to snag a leg and yanked his hand back, flinging the spider off into the trees and startling an excited chitter from the raccoon and a long shudder from Jugs.
“It was a tarantula, wasn’t it?” Jugs said as he collapsed on his back in the bed of the truck. “I could see it fly through the air when you plucked it off me. It was huge. Six inches around at least.”
“Dude, that was not a six inch spider. Is that how you measure things with Agatha? You know she’s gone through a lot of college, right? She’s tracked the dilation of cows and horses, so she knows how to measure things.”
“You’re an asshole,” Jugs said without opening his eyes.
He looked completely depleted, and Cody wondered how long he was going to have to stand around and wait for Jugs to recover. He had things to do that didn’t involve babysitting Jugs. To distract himself, Cody leaned against the side of the truck bed and sent some suggestive texts to Demmy, who was obviously busy handing a critter case of his own because he wasn’t responding. That took the fun out of it.
The raccoon finally got Jugs moving. The big critter had sat watching Jugs as he tried to deep-breathe himself down from what he called a “spider molestation” with some kind of self-affirmation mantra. In one quick move, the raccoon hunkered down, stuck a front leg through the wire cage, and grabbed Jugs by the nose.
Cody laughed. Jugs let out a scream that freaked the raccoon out and caused it to scrunch up into a tight ball in the back corner of the cage. Moving faster than Cody had seen him manage in the years since they’d played on opposing high school football teams—and even back then Jugs had been too big to be very fast—Jugs launched himself out of the bed of the truck and, without a look back, stomped toward his own truck.
“I am not paid enough to deal with shit like this!”
“You okay to drive?” Cody called to Jugs’s back.
Jugs responded with a very prominent middle finger held up over his shoulder. He yanked open the door to his preowned Chevy Silverado pickup, prompting a round of startled barking from Enid Helen, the Yorkie Jugs had rescued a few years prior while working a critter catching job. With Enid Helen’s yips Dopplering away, Jugs sped past Cody who was trying to hide his laughter. Once the truck had turned a corner, Cody slammed the tailgate of his own truck and gave the raccoon a thumbs up.
“Nice work, Trash Panda.”
He collected a check from the client and drove off, taking Route 118 to Morley Trail. It had once been a logging road used by a long gone lumber mill, and now it was a dirt and sand trail that made a circuitous route through hard wood and pine trees around Parson’s Pond. The pond was, in actuality, a small and rather deep lake, but nobody called it Parson’s Lake. Cody guessed alliteration won out over facts. No matter the size of the body of water, the woods surrounding it were the area he and Demmy most often came to release the critters they evicted from people’s homes.
After driving a good distance into the woods, Cody pulled off into a space between trees and got out. Sunlight shone through the new green leaves, and birds chirped and called, claiming their territories and trolling for mates. It reminded him of his time years ago when he’d go out to the bars to meet women, just with less chirping.
“What a difference a few years make, eh buddy?” Cody unhooked the bungee cord securing the trap in place and pulled the cage to the edge of the bed. He lifted it out of the truck, and groaned. “Oof, you need to eat better. You’ve put on a little weight.”
He walked out into the trees a short distance, then put the cage on the ground and sat beside it, looking in through the wires. The raccoon looked out at him, wringing its hands as he studied Cody.
“Lots for you to do out here. Just stay away from the road, okay? And watch out for hawks. There’s fish in the pond, and I know you’ll find a lot of worms and grubs and things to eat. You ready?”
Getting to his feet, Cody unlocked the padlock and opened the latch. He walked back to the truck and leaned against the front, arms crossed as he watched. The raccoon pushed the door open and peered around, nose twitching as it scented the air. After a few sniffs, it waddled out of the cage and headed right for him. Cody straightened up, alert and worried about a possible attack. But the raccoon trundled past him without a second look, disappearing along the passenger side of the truck. Cody stepped out and watched as the raccoon jumped up, scrambling onto the tailgate and then into the bed of the truck.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Cody walked to the back of the truck and, hands on hips, gave the raccoon a stern look. It sat in the back corner where the cage had been secured, wringing its front paws and blinking at him. “No, no way. We’re not keeping you as a pet. Come on.” He pointed to the ground. The raccoon blinked and wrung its paws some more. “Absolutely not. This is not happening.” Cody took a step back and spread his arms. “Look at this place. Trees for miles and miles. I know you like trees. Lots of dirt for you to dig into and find rocks to fondle and bugs and insects and gross things you like to eat. Come on, I’ve got stuff to do, so stop screwing around and get out of my truck.”
The raccoon stayed put.
Cody banged on the side of the truck but only managed to scare a creepy and intense growl and irritated chatter from the thing as it shifted to the opposite corner.
“Fine. You wanna dance? Let’s dance.”
He got the net off the hooks across the back window of the cab and, after numerous near misses and quick escapes, finally snagged the raccoon. The handle of the net bowed under the weight of his captive as Cody carried the wriggling, irritated critter away from the truck and deeper into the trees. He grunted and huffed with exertion as he power walked farther into the woods. After a short struggle to turn the thing out of the net, he finally managed it, then sprinted back to the truck, grabbing the cage as he went and tossing it and the net into the back end. He jumped into the cab and started the engine, but before he could back out, the raccoon had clambered into the bed and settled in the back corner once again.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Come on!”
Leaving the truck running, Cody grabbed the net and repeated the catch and release. This time he had backed out onto the trail before the raccoon’s claws scrabbled along the side while it climbed into the back.
“This is fucking nuts! No one’s ever gone through this much to stay with me.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Demmy had gone through a lot before they’d become a couple. A lot.
Cody sighed. He kept the truck on the trail and shifted into park. Leaving the engine running, he got out and once again picked up the net.
“This is the last fucking time we’re doing this, got it?”
The raccoon squeaked and chittered at him, dark eyes watching him closely.
“I’m serious.”
More squeaks and chirps, along with some faster paw wringing.
It took longer for him to snag the damn thing this time. He ran side to side, swiping and swooping and cursing a blue streak. When he had finally caught the fucking thing, Cody grunted and perspired and swore some more as he hefted the heavy beast even deeper into the trees. He dropped the net on the ground at the base of a big tree and, leaving it and the raccoon behind, ran full tilt back to the truck and jumped inside. He kicked up a rooster tail of dirt and gravel as he sped toward the road. Once, he thought he caught a glimpse of a gray and black bowling ball-sized bundle of fur loping through the dust after him, but he couldn’t be certain.
With that task done, he made a mental note to go back in a day or two and retrieve the net, then turned toward town. It was midafternoon, and the sidewalks were busy with shoppers and people who worked in the small businesses lining Main Street. But Cody didn’t stop anywhere. He continued through town along the rough asphalt of Main Street that soon switched back to Route 118. Trees replaced the businesses on either side of him, and he passed a billboard advertising the Hollow Leg bar, “just up the road a piece,” as well as a sign that let him know it was eight miles to get to Harriettville.
But he wasn’t headed for either of those places. A couple of miles out of Parson’s Hollow’s business district, he slowed and sat up taller, inspecting the opposite lane. There wasn’t much traffic, just a few pickup trucks headed into Parson’s Hollow, and nobody behind him, so he was able to slow down quite a bit.
Then he saw it. His stomach did a slow roll, threatening to send Amelia’s pot roast sandwich back up on him. He slowed to a stop and stared down at the dark smear across the asphalt near the opposite gravel shoulder.
He’d hit someone last night, all right.
He did a three point turn and slowly approached the spot, angling off onto the shoulder. His tires on the gravel sounded like bones snapping. With the truck in park, he shut off the engine and sat with his hands on top of the wheel, looking at the stain and trying to slow his pounding heart.
A semi sped past, the wind rocking the truck and making his heart race even faster.
“This is a bad fucking idea,” Cody told himself, even as he got out and approached the spot.
The mayor. He’d hit the mayor last night, not just any man.
With slow, careful steps, Cody walked up and down the gravel. He kept his eyes cast down, looking for something, anything, that would help prove he wasn’t crazy. Or at least hadn’t imagined everything that had happened the night before. The stain on the road was one thing, but some other kind of physical evidence he could touch and hold in his palm would add even more weight to his findings. The sun was hot on the back of his neck, igniting a headache as it paired with the stagnant smell of the water and muck in the bottom of the drainage ditch.
He found nothing but gravel, a plastic bag from Parson’s Pharmacy, and the glitter of glass fragments from past accidents. Cody looked across the drainage ditch into the woods. Where the hell had the mayor staggered off to last night once deputy Zellmer had arrived?
“Don’t give me that sweet and clueless act, Cody,” Eileen said. She squinted one bright green eye as if she were working on a cigarette at the moment and the smoke was drifting into her face. From the way she tapped her fingers on the arm of the couch, Demetrius figured she was itching to go outside and light one up. “You’re pretty, but you’re not an actor.”
Cody looked offended. “You think I’m acting?”
“I heard from Wanda that you two paid a visit to the cemetery this morning,” Eileen said.
“Wanda Butler?” Amelia asked.
“No, Wanda Stone,” Eileen said.
“There are two women named Wanda in Parson’s Hollow?” Demetrius asked.
Eileen ignored him. “And then I heard from Margie that Vicki Downing chatted up Sandra Webb over breakfast. Sandra is a police dispatcher, and she told Vicki she took a call from a very distraught motorist the night before. Margie said Vicki and Sandra talked a lot about this caller because it was someone Sandra had dated and been dumped by years ago, and a guy Vicki had always been wanting to date but never got the chance.” Eileen raised her eyebrows as she fixed Cody with a look. “Ring any bells, Romeo?”
Cody snapped his fingers as an expression of glee erupted on his face. “Sandra Webb, yes! I knew I recognized her voice. No wonder she was so cold when I told her my name.”
“Um, Cody?” Demetrius said.
“Yeah?” Cody looked at him, still smiling.
“You’re walking a dangerous line here.” Demetrius tipped his head toward Eileen and Amelia, who had taken a seat on the couch. Both women sat on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward with elbows on their knees.
“Oh.” Cody blushed and cleared his throat. “Um, I called in about hitting a deer.”
“That’s funny,” Eileen said, her eye closing even more. “Margie heard Sandra tell Vicki you said you hit a man.”
“Oh, weeping willows!” Amelia shot to her feet. “Is that true?”
“It’s all right,” Demetrius said, holding up both hands as if in surrender. Which, when he thought about it, might be easier than tap dancing around the situation with the mayor’s body. “Nobody was hurt.”
“Nobody was hurt?” Amelia waved a hand toward Cody. “He hit someone with his truck!”
“But he got up and walked away,” Cody said. “I was really freaked out by it and called it in. Once Deputy Zellmer got there, the guy had walked off on his own two feet.”
Demetrius had to force himself not to look at Cody. He was actually impressed with how Cody had told the truth about the situation while leaving out specifics.
“Well, who was it?” Amelia’s voice was calmer as she took her seat again, and Demetrius let out a slow, cautious breath.
“It was the mayor,” Eileen said, lifting her chin with certainty. “Wasn’t it?”
“Eileen, my third favorite senior citizen after my grandmother and Amelia,” Cody said, “I hate to tell you this, but the mayor died about not too long ago.”
She gave him a playful sneer, but underneath it, Demetrius could see a small flicker of happiness that she had made Cody’s top three. Cody could still charm women and men alike, and, while they were married and had promised to be true, Demetrius had to admit to himself he was happy for it. Cody without his charm would be a much different man than the one Demetrius had married.
“I know that, smart ass,” Eileen said. “So tell me why April Mitchell told Margie that Lucia Durant and Ryan Zellmer took the two of you out to see the mayor’s grave after Horace Chapman called in a report of destruction of private property?”
“Dammit, Margie’s her own news channel,” Demetrius said.
Cody sighed. “Fine, you caught us.”
Eileen sat back and crossed her arms. She wore a big smile that more than gave away how pleased she was with herself.
“What are you saying?” Amelia asked, looking between the three of them.
“I don’t know,” Demetrius said, fixing Cody with a look. “What are you saying, Cody?”
Eileen sat forward again and waved a hand toward Cody. “He’s saying that the mayor is a zombie.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Cody stood up and held out his hands. “I never mentioned the zee word.”
“Yeah, what the heck are you even saying?” Demetrius said, trying to laugh but hearing the false notes in it himself. “There are no such things as zombies.”
“Or the Devil of Pinesville, or lake monsters, or werewolves.” Eileen made a face. “I know what you two get involved in. I was there for the Devil of Pinesville, remember? Hell, I told Oliver to call you two up to hunt it down.”
“Yeah, we never really thanked Ollie for that, did we?” Cody said, sitting down again.
“Demetrius,” Amelia said in a quiet voice, and when he saw the fear and uncertainty in her expression, his heart ached for her. “Is it true?”
Demetrius hung his head a moment. Amelia had been through so much during Nicolae’s quiet invasion of Parson’s Hollow. She’d been one of the first people he’d bitten, and she’d spent a year turning into a wolf once a month and not understanding anything that happened to her. It had made her anxious and irritable, nearly costing her everything she and Otis had built together.
Looking up, he gave a single nod. “It’s true.”
“Demmy…”
Demetrius put a hand on Cody’s leg and gave him a squeeze.
“As far as we know, the mayor dug his way out of his own grave and has been walking around town. He’s the one Cody hit with his truck last night.”
“Oh, pine trees,” Amelia whispered, putting a hand to her throat as she looked at Demetrius. “What are you boys going to do?”
CHAPTER FIVE
The raccoon stuck a paw through the wires of the live trap and fiddled with the latch. Cody gently tapped the slender, nimble fingers, and the paw retreated. With a quick, fluid move, Cody secured a small padlock on the trap’s door. He and Demmy had learned long ago how to keep a raccoon inside a live trap until it could be released out in the woods.
“I know there are spiders in my hair. Look again.”
The back end of the truck dipped as Jugs sat on the lowered tailgate. Cody tried not to smile as he took in Jugs’s condition. A big guy who was a bit more broad-shouldered than Cody but not quite as tall, Jugs was covered in dust and spiderwebs. Drifts of loose insulation had gathered on his shoulders, and a small tuft of it perched on top of his neatly trimmed afro.
“I keep telling you to wear a hat,” Cody said as he brushed the insulation away.
“That wouldn’t work with my hair,” Jugs said, his voice a rumble. “I don’t care about the dust and other crap, just make sure there aren’t any spiders on me.” He shuddered. “I hate spiders.”
“You were a big strong werewolf, and here you are still scared of spiders.” Cody jumped back as a rather large spider popped up from beneath the loose insulation. “Okay, don’t move.”
Jugs went very still. “What? What is it? It’s a spider, isn’t it? Oh hell, I knew it. Oh sweet Jesus and Mother Mary, pluck this multi-legged monster from my ‘fro. Oh my God, it’s not a centipede is it? Oh my God, I’m going to dip my head in the fry oil at Farrell’s Fish Fry and burn everything down to the skull.” A shiver went through him, but Cody was impressed with how quickly he managed to shut it down. “I can’t handle things with more than four legs. It’s not right. Get it off me, man. You gotta get it off me.”
“All right, it’s all right, just hold still.”
Cody carefully made a furrow in Jugs’s hair. He saw the spider duck away, and Jugs trembled.
“I felt it move. Oh God, I felt its legs on me.”
“Don’t you move, Darnell,” Cody said, using Jugs’s given name and a commanding tone. “Don’t you fucking move.” As he chased the spider through Jugs’s hair, Cody continued talking, encouraging Jugs to stay still. The raccoon sat watching with interest, fingers opening and closing as if in imitation of Cody’s movements. At last Cody managed to snag a leg and yanked his hand back, flinging the spider off into the trees and startling an excited chitter from the raccoon and a long shudder from Jugs.
“It was a tarantula, wasn’t it?” Jugs said as he collapsed on his back in the bed of the truck. “I could see it fly through the air when you plucked it off me. It was huge. Six inches around at least.”
“Dude, that was not a six inch spider. Is that how you measure things with Agatha? You know she’s gone through a lot of college, right? She’s tracked the dilation of cows and horses, so she knows how to measure things.”
“You’re an asshole,” Jugs said without opening his eyes.
He looked completely depleted, and Cody wondered how long he was going to have to stand around and wait for Jugs to recover. He had things to do that didn’t involve babysitting Jugs. To distract himself, Cody leaned against the side of the truck bed and sent some suggestive texts to Demmy, who was obviously busy handing a critter case of his own because he wasn’t responding. That took the fun out of it.
The raccoon finally got Jugs moving. The big critter had sat watching Jugs as he tried to deep-breathe himself down from what he called a “spider molestation” with some kind of self-affirmation mantra. In one quick move, the raccoon hunkered down, stuck a front leg through the wire cage, and grabbed Jugs by the nose.
Cody laughed. Jugs let out a scream that freaked the raccoon out and caused it to scrunch up into a tight ball in the back corner of the cage. Moving faster than Cody had seen him manage in the years since they’d played on opposing high school football teams—and even back then Jugs had been too big to be very fast—Jugs launched himself out of the bed of the truck and, without a look back, stomped toward his own truck.
“I am not paid enough to deal with shit like this!”
“You okay to drive?” Cody called to Jugs’s back.
Jugs responded with a very prominent middle finger held up over his shoulder. He yanked open the door to his preowned Chevy Silverado pickup, prompting a round of startled barking from Enid Helen, the Yorkie Jugs had rescued a few years prior while working a critter catching job. With Enid Helen’s yips Dopplering away, Jugs sped past Cody who was trying to hide his laughter. Once the truck had turned a corner, Cody slammed the tailgate of his own truck and gave the raccoon a thumbs up.
“Nice work, Trash Panda.”
He collected a check from the client and drove off, taking Route 118 to Morley Trail. It had once been a logging road used by a long gone lumber mill, and now it was a dirt and sand trail that made a circuitous route through hard wood and pine trees around Parson’s Pond. The pond was, in actuality, a small and rather deep lake, but nobody called it Parson’s Lake. Cody guessed alliteration won out over facts. No matter the size of the body of water, the woods surrounding it were the area he and Demmy most often came to release the critters they evicted from people’s homes.
After driving a good distance into the woods, Cody pulled off into a space between trees and got out. Sunlight shone through the new green leaves, and birds chirped and called, claiming their territories and trolling for mates. It reminded him of his time years ago when he’d go out to the bars to meet women, just with less chirping.
“What a difference a few years make, eh buddy?” Cody unhooked the bungee cord securing the trap in place and pulled the cage to the edge of the bed. He lifted it out of the truck, and groaned. “Oof, you need to eat better. You’ve put on a little weight.”
He walked out into the trees a short distance, then put the cage on the ground and sat beside it, looking in through the wires. The raccoon looked out at him, wringing its hands as he studied Cody.
“Lots for you to do out here. Just stay away from the road, okay? And watch out for hawks. There’s fish in the pond, and I know you’ll find a lot of worms and grubs and things to eat. You ready?”
Getting to his feet, Cody unlocked the padlock and opened the latch. He walked back to the truck and leaned against the front, arms crossed as he watched. The raccoon pushed the door open and peered around, nose twitching as it scented the air. After a few sniffs, it waddled out of the cage and headed right for him. Cody straightened up, alert and worried about a possible attack. But the raccoon trundled past him without a second look, disappearing along the passenger side of the truck. Cody stepped out and watched as the raccoon jumped up, scrambling onto the tailgate and then into the bed of the truck.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Cody walked to the back of the truck and, hands on hips, gave the raccoon a stern look. It sat in the back corner where the cage had been secured, wringing its front paws and blinking at him. “No, no way. We’re not keeping you as a pet. Come on.” He pointed to the ground. The raccoon blinked and wrung its paws some more. “Absolutely not. This is not happening.” Cody took a step back and spread his arms. “Look at this place. Trees for miles and miles. I know you like trees. Lots of dirt for you to dig into and find rocks to fondle and bugs and insects and gross things you like to eat. Come on, I’ve got stuff to do, so stop screwing around and get out of my truck.”
The raccoon stayed put.
Cody banged on the side of the truck but only managed to scare a creepy and intense growl and irritated chatter from the thing as it shifted to the opposite corner.
“Fine. You wanna dance? Let’s dance.”
He got the net off the hooks across the back window of the cab and, after numerous near misses and quick escapes, finally snagged the raccoon. The handle of the net bowed under the weight of his captive as Cody carried the wriggling, irritated critter away from the truck and deeper into the trees. He grunted and huffed with exertion as he power walked farther into the woods. After a short struggle to turn the thing out of the net, he finally managed it, then sprinted back to the truck, grabbing the cage as he went and tossing it and the net into the back end. He jumped into the cab and started the engine, but before he could back out, the raccoon had clambered into the bed and settled in the back corner once again.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Come on!”
Leaving the truck running, Cody grabbed the net and repeated the catch and release. This time he had backed out onto the trail before the raccoon’s claws scrabbled along the side while it climbed into the back.
“This is fucking nuts! No one’s ever gone through this much to stay with me.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Demmy had gone through a lot before they’d become a couple. A lot.
Cody sighed. He kept the truck on the trail and shifted into park. Leaving the engine running, he got out and once again picked up the net.
“This is the last fucking time we’re doing this, got it?”
The raccoon squeaked and chittered at him, dark eyes watching him closely.
“I’m serious.”
More squeaks and chirps, along with some faster paw wringing.
It took longer for him to snag the damn thing this time. He ran side to side, swiping and swooping and cursing a blue streak. When he had finally caught the fucking thing, Cody grunted and perspired and swore some more as he hefted the heavy beast even deeper into the trees. He dropped the net on the ground at the base of a big tree and, leaving it and the raccoon behind, ran full tilt back to the truck and jumped inside. He kicked up a rooster tail of dirt and gravel as he sped toward the road. Once, he thought he caught a glimpse of a gray and black bowling ball-sized bundle of fur loping through the dust after him, but he couldn’t be certain.
With that task done, he made a mental note to go back in a day or two and retrieve the net, then turned toward town. It was midafternoon, and the sidewalks were busy with shoppers and people who worked in the small businesses lining Main Street. But Cody didn’t stop anywhere. He continued through town along the rough asphalt of Main Street that soon switched back to Route 118. Trees replaced the businesses on either side of him, and he passed a billboard advertising the Hollow Leg bar, “just up the road a piece,” as well as a sign that let him know it was eight miles to get to Harriettville.
But he wasn’t headed for either of those places. A couple of miles out of Parson’s Hollow’s business district, he slowed and sat up taller, inspecting the opposite lane. There wasn’t much traffic, just a few pickup trucks headed into Parson’s Hollow, and nobody behind him, so he was able to slow down quite a bit.
Then he saw it. His stomach did a slow roll, threatening to send Amelia’s pot roast sandwich back up on him. He slowed to a stop and stared down at the dark smear across the asphalt near the opposite gravel shoulder.
He’d hit someone last night, all right.
He did a three point turn and slowly approached the spot, angling off onto the shoulder. His tires on the gravel sounded like bones snapping. With the truck in park, he shut off the engine and sat with his hands on top of the wheel, looking at the stain and trying to slow his pounding heart.
A semi sped past, the wind rocking the truck and making his heart race even faster.
“This is a bad fucking idea,” Cody told himself, even as he got out and approached the spot.
The mayor. He’d hit the mayor last night, not just any man.
With slow, careful steps, Cody walked up and down the gravel. He kept his eyes cast down, looking for something, anything, that would help prove he wasn’t crazy. Or at least hadn’t imagined everything that had happened the night before. The stain on the road was one thing, but some other kind of physical evidence he could touch and hold in his palm would add even more weight to his findings. The sun was hot on the back of his neck, igniting a headache as it paired with the stagnant smell of the water and muck in the bottom of the drainage ditch.
He found nothing but gravel, a plastic bag from Parson’s Pharmacy, and the glitter of glass fragments from past accidents. Cody looked across the drainage ditch into the woods. Where the hell had the mayor staggered off to last night once deputy Zellmer had arrived?
