Death Climbs a Tree Read online

  Did Andrew?

  Later, at home, she still hadn’t seen him by the time she had to leave for rehearsal, but she left him a note offering to drive the next time he went. Not that he and Sylvia would be likely to change their minds because of Cindy Thickstun’s daughter or Diane Barnhart’s need for work. She already knew what Sylvia would say: low-income housing would be fine, but not there.

  Still, they should hear about it from someone other than Mr. Walcher.

  * * *

  The tension in the orchestra put a mere tree sitter out of her head. Alex Campbell, pointing her baton like a dagger, descended on Joan the minute she lugged the box of music onto the stage.

  “You knew she wouldn’t be here and you didn’t tell me! How could you do that to me? How can I play this concert with so few firsts? Where do you expect me to find another violin at this late date? The board won’t let me hire one!”

  Trying to stop Alex in mid-rant would only prolong it. Joan waited her out.

  “I have a couple of leads, Alex. Haven’t heard back yet.”

  “And you’re just sitting on your backside waiting for them to call you?” She was off again.

  “I’ll let you know the minute I know more.”

  Birdie Eads, now sitting in Sylvia’s chair, next to Nicholas Zeller, looked as if she’d lost her best friend, as indeed she had. For the near future, anyhow.

  While they were rehearsing the Britten, Nicholas pounced on her more than once, increasing Birdie’s obvious misery. Once, Joan could see, it was because Birdie didn’t turn a page quickly enough for him. Usually on the outside chair of the second stand, she was used to having the player next to her do that job. To make matters worse, Alex drilled the violins mercilessly in the segment of the piece that illustrated what their instruments could do. Birdie was near tears when Alex exploded at all of them for less than absolute clarity in the rapid, very high runs at the end. Joan thought the flutes and piccolo passage had sounded much more jumbled, but they had escaped. Not that she wanted to hear them raked over the coals in the same way.

  Jim Chandler’s smiles in Birdie’s direction as he introduced the violins again and again when Alex made them go back over their bit didn’t seem to help at all. Nor did the rest Birdie got while the violas worked to maintain a full tone on the long legato lines in their part. Finally, the whole orchestra struggled to hang together in the fugue at the end. It would be easier, Joan suspected, if they all practiced the theme at home until they could play it up to tempo. But she knew the odds were against that. Too many players, herself among them, lived busy lives and trusted the notes to sink into their brains and fingers in just two hours a week.

  During the break, Birdie was still sitting in her seat, shrunk into herself. Joan made a point of speaking to her.

  “You holding up all right without Sylvia?”

  “I hate him!” Birdie burst out, and then covered her mouth with her hand and looked around as if to check whether Nicholas had noticed.

  “He didn’t hear you. He’s back there eating cookies. Look, Birdie, if it’s that bad, I can arrange with Alex to move someone else up here and let you go back to your old seat.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” But her face screamed the opposite of her quiet words.

  “You sure?”

  Birdie nodded.

  “All right. But if you change your mind, you tell me, and I’ll do it. He doesn’t scare me a bit. I have children his age.”

  A little smile. “Thanks.”

  “Good. Bad enough we have to do without Sylvia. You’re just as important.”

  At the end of the rehearsal, the substitute oboe player snagged Joan to beg a ride home, and for the moment she forgot about the violins’ woes.

  Finally, having dropped off the oboist, she pulled up in front of her own little house.

  Fred came out in his old jeans to meet her and carry in the box of unneeded music folders. At one time, the manager and librarian jobs had been separate, but Joan had already been orchestra librarian when she’d stepped in to fill the manager’s shoes, and she’d needed the extra income, small as it was. She still was glad to have it. Besides, finding and training a new librarian was one more job she didn’t want to face. Hauling the music folders back and forth and returning all the rented parts seemed a small price to pay in comparison. But she welcomed Fred’s help.

  Arms full, he bent to kiss her. “How was rehearsal?”

  “Pretty good. No major explosions, but some small ones. And I still don’t have a replacement for Sylvia.”

  “People making these noble gestures don’t think of the folks they discombobulate.”

  “You sound like my old ladies.” She held the door for him.

  “Those old ladies are pretty smart.” He parked the box of folders between the end of the sofa and the wall, and Joan laid her viola case on top of it. The box was an eyesore. From time to time she flirted with the idea of coming up with some kind of lid and using the box as an end table, but she never quite got around to it.

  “Andrew home yet?” she asked. She curled up on the sofa.

  “Haven’t seen him.” Fred’s voice was mild. He and Andrew must have reached something like a truce. “Move over, woman.” He sat down beside her, tucked her into his arms, and began nuzzling her ear.

  Andrew picked that moment to arrive home, banging the back door and coming through the kitchen into the living room as usual. Joan stifled the impulse to jump away like a guilty teenager. Fred’s muscles didn’t even tense.

  “Hi, Mom, Fred.” Cool, that was Andrew. Even with what looked like a box of tampons in his hand. Whether to Sylvia or the cause, that was devotion. “I saw your note, Mom. She needs some stuff tomorrow morning. Want to go along?”

  “Sure.”

  Fred didn’t say anything. A few minutes later, though, he took himself off to bed.

  Joan sighed. She supposed it could be worse.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, the second trip to the woods seemed shorter than the first. Joan was still getting up the gumption to say something to Andrew about what she’d heard at the center when he pointed to the turnoff. But she really wanted to tell those stories to Sylvia. It’s not as if Andrew were up there delaying the construction himself, she thought. He’s only bringing her food—and tampons.

  Andrew touched the keys of his phone as he walked across the clearing ahead of her, bags over his back. “Got your stuff, Sylvia,” he said into it.

  Joan stared up into the oak. Bright sunshine blinded her, but she could see the basket easing its slow way down. She soaked in the sunshine, grateful for an excuse to enjoy it out in these beautiful woods. Loudmouth cardinals filled the air with song.

  Andrew was chatting with Sylvia and reaching up for the basket when it crashed at his feet.

  And Sylvia crashed down on top of it.

  4

  At first, Joan didn’t know it was Sylvia. At first she didn’t know what had happened.

  One moment, she was looking up into a tree, worrying about nothing more urgent than trying to persuade Sylvia to consider the people who needed the low-cost apartments. The next, she was staring stupidly at the body crumpled on the ground. Soft as the layers of leaves had felt when she’d walked on them, they hadn’t been able to cushion Sylvia against such a terrible fall.

  Andrew was already on his knees beside her. “Sylvia? Sylvia? Mom, call 911! I think she’s alive!”

  Jerked into action, Joan remembered seeing the phone fly out of his hand when Sylvia hit the ground. Dropping to her own knees and scrabbling where she thought it had landed, she was hugely relieved to spot the little screen still glowing green through the brown leaves. She ended Andrew’s call and dialed 911. “Send an ambulance to Yocum’s Woods! A woman just fell out of a tall tree.” She listened to the dispatcher. “Yes, the tree sitter. Please, send help right away. She’s badly hurt.… Joan Spencer.… No, I don’t live here. Nobody lives here!”

  The dispatcher
was insistent that she needed Joan’s address and phone number. What possible difference could that make? Joan wanted to scream at her. But she gave them.

  “Yes, I’ll stay on the line, but that won’t help you find us—I’m on a cell phone.… Right, those woods. From the turnoff it’s a few hundred yards to the clearing.… Thank you. And would you tell Lieutenant Fred Lundquist, please? Tell him his wife called it in.”

  “Mom! What did they say?”

  “They’re on the way. They know where we are.” Still on her knees, Joan held the phone to her ear.

  “Don’t hang up,” the dispatcher was saying.

  “I won’t. What should we do for her?”

  “Don’t move her. Check that she’s breathing.”

  “Is she breathing?” Joan asked Andrew. Through the heavy jacket, she couldn’t tell.

  He put his cheek to Sylvia’s face. “Yes.”

  “Is she conscious?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Can you get a pulse?”

  “I’ll check,” Joan said. “Just send the ambulance!”

  “It’s on the way. I need more information from you.”

  “Tell them to hurry—she isn’t moving.” Without breaking the connection, Joan stuck the phone in her jacket pocket, scrambled to her feet, and walked back to Andrew. “How is she?”

  “Still breathing.”

  Eyes closed, Sylvia moaned.

  “Sylvia?” he tried. When she didn’t answer, he reached out but then pulled his hand back. “I’m afraid to touch her. She’s all broken up.”

  Joan could see impossible bends of Sylvia’s arms and legs through her coat sleeves and sweatpants. She hated even to think about internal injuries.

  Sylvia looked pale. Shocky. “Run back to the car, Andrew. Get Fred’s old blanket.” Too bad we don’t have her sleeping bag. But we have her clean laundry!

  Joan pulled sweaters, shirts, and underwear out of the bag at her feet to spread over the still body on the ground. Sylvia had landed belly-down, but Joan could see the left side of her face. A red spot on her temple was already beginning to swell. A thin line of bright blood ran down from the corner of her ear to join another from her mouth and stain the clean long johns draped around her neck and shoulders.

  Andrew stood over them now, unfolding the worn blanket. “It’s dirty.”

  “Better than nothing.”

  Together, careful not to disturb her injured limbs, they cocooned Sylvia in it. Then Joan heard the siren.

  “Hang on, Sylvia,” she said. “Help’s coming.” Could she hear?

  “I’ll go.” Andrew ran toward the sound.

  Joan fished the phone out of her pocket. “We can hear the siren. My son has gone to meet them.”

  “I’ve been calling you.” The dispatcher sounded testy.

  “I was covering her. She’s very pale. Bleeding from the ear and mouth now, too.”

  “They can see your son. And your husband’s on his way. He says to wait for him. That’s all. You can hang up now.”

  Joan did and pocketed the phone. Was Sylvia still breathing? Even leaning close, she couldn’t tell through the blanket.

  The siren wailed through the trees and cut off suddenly, but it was a fire engine, not an ambulance, that rounded the last curve into the clearing. Two uniformed EMTs ran over with a backboard. Andrew was close behind them.

  “Okay, lady, we’ll take it from here.” The man didn’t shove Joan out of the way, but he might as well have.

  Fighting the urge to tell him to be careful, she backed off and stood by Andrew, whose eyes were fixed on Sylvia.

  The men worked quickly and professionally, monitoring Sylvia’s vital signs as they flung aside the blanket and laundry, collared her neck, splinted her poor arms and legs, rolled her onto the board, and strapped her to it.

  Another siren, and the ambulance pulled into the clearing. Two more EMTs ran to the tree, pulling a collapsible gurney. They conferred briefly with the first pair. When they picked Sylvia up and loaded her onto the gurney, she cried out. Then, after covering her with a spotless white blanket, they slid her silently into the ambulance.

  * * *

  Fred pulled off the narrow road to let the ambulance pass. It was running with lights and siren, a good sign that they hadn’t given up on her yet.

  When he rolled up to the clearing, Joan and Andrew were sitting under the tree. Andrew, hunched over his own long legs, looked forlorn. His relationship with Sylvia mystified Fred. Andrew had said very little about her, but his actions spoke devotion. Or was he suddenly concerned about the environment? Just because he didn’t talk about it at home … But if pushed, Fred would put his money on the woman.

  His own woman looked up at him. She started to get to her feet but then patted the leaves beside her. He dropped down on the damp ground.

  “You all right?”

  She shook her head.

  He raised her chin and kissed her before she could answer. Were those tears on her eyelashes? He tasted the salt.

  “Oh, Fred!”

  He held her to him. “Bad?”

  She nodded against his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s beginning to sink in.” He felt her shivering, in spite of the warm sun shining down into the clearing, and wrapped his arms around her.

  “What happened?” He looked over her to include Andrew.

  “She fell,” Joan said.

  “Just like that?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Andrew said suddenly. “She knew we were here. She was standing there letting her basket down, and then it was as if someone shot her, you know? She kind of flew out of the tree. All of a sudden.”

  “You hear a shot?”

  “No,” they both said.

  “No sense at all.” Andrew shook his head.

  “You ever know her to faint?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Was she depressed?”

  “No!”

  Where was that anger coming from? Fred wondered. “There’s no shame in it, son.”

  “She wasn’t trying to kill herself.” Andrew said it flatly.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “She’s devoted to this protest. If she wanted to commit suicide, she’d arrange for someone to take her place. She wouldn’t give anyone an excuse to stop it.”

  Fred thought of suicides he had worked. Some had been concerned enough about someone else to try to minimize the pain they caused. Others hadn’t looked beyond their own pain.

  He looked at the clothes littered on the ground. “All this stuff fall out of the tree?”

  “No,” Joan said. “It’s the clean laundry Andrew was bringing back to her. We covered her with it. And your grungy blanket. For once I was glad it was there.” She pointed at the plaid thing his ex-wife had kept threatening to throw away. Maybe that’s why he’d hung on to it. Joan wasn’t fond of it, he knew, but she’d never said anything resembling a threat.

  “So what did fall?”

  They looked at each other and then around them.

  “Sylvia and the basket she was sending down. She landed on it.” Andrew pointed. The wicker splinters had poked holes in the plastic bags protruding through the basket’s remains, which smelled like only one thing.

  Fred wondered whether the splinters had poked holes in Sylvia, too. The EMTs must have noticed, but just in case, he pulled his cell phone out and called the dispatcher. “Warn the ER there may be human feces in her wounds.”

  “I’d better bury it.” Andrew got to his feet. “There’s a shovel in the car.”

  Fred saw what looked like a piece of old clothesline. “She used that rope?”

  “Yeah. To let the basket down.”

  “You been digging holes around here?” They’d hear from the property owners about that.

  Andrew shot him a look. “No. But I can’t put this in Mom’s car.”

  “You better believe it!” Joan sat bolt upright, her shivers gone.


  Andrew laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “If you could see your face…” He started toward the car.

  Fred stood. “Hold off.”

  “Why? You’re not protecting a crime scene.”

  Why indeed? Why would a woman who had been holding her own up on that platform for a week suddenly fly off it?

  “She ever complain of dizzy spells?”

  “No,” Andrew said. “She walked around up there like a steelworker on a skyscraper.”

  Joan nodded.

  “And she didn’t roll off in her sleep,” Fred said. “Not when she was letting the basket down to you.”

  “And talking to me. She slept up in that hammock, so she wouldn’t fall.” Andrew pointed to where it swung above the platform.

  “So why now?”

  They had no answer. But Andrew was right. There was no obvious crime. A woman had simply fallen out of a tree. Her bad luck to be seventy feet up when she did it.

  “What did she say before she fell?” Fred asked. Maybe when she came to, she’d be able to tell them what happened. He wasn’t counting on it, though. Odds were good the injury that left her unconscious would have erased her memory of the fall.

  Andrew thought a moment. “Something about a bird she was worried about.”

  “That’s one of the reasons she was up there,” Joan said. “She didn’t want the birds to be driven away by the construction. She mentioned hawks and one I can’t remember. A red one.”

  “And the land,” Andrew said. “This is the wrong kind of land for what they want to do.”

  “I’ll report it as an accidental fall,” Fred said. “Anyone can trip. The whole business is just plain dangerous. Go ahead and clean up.”

  “She didn’t trip.” Andrew shook his head. “Do I need permission to dig a hole?”

  “I suspect Mr. Walcher would prefer it to the alternative.” Joan stood and brushed the worst of the leaves and dirt off her slacks. Her knees were smeared, as was her face.

  “Walcher?” Fred asked.

  “The construction boss. He was giving Andrew a hard time yesterday. Threatened us with the cops. I told him we had one in the family.” For the first time since he’d arrived, her smile lit up her face.