Death Climbs a Tree Read online

  “I don’t doubt that you could play it with only one rehearsal,” she told one, though she was stretching the truth, “but it’s not just the performance. We need you to support the others during rehearsal as well.” That part was absolutely true. The other violinists were already demoralized by Sylvia’s absence, even before she fell. They didn’t need a last-minute sub showing them up at the concert without bothering to turn up for the work sessions. Crossing off one more name, she broke the point of the pencil.

  Finally she got a tentative yes from a woman who had played with the orchestra in the past and so didn’t expect to be paid. “Trouble is, I can’t be sure I’ll make the concert,” the woman said. “My baby is due a week later. And I’ll need a babysitter during rehearsals for my two-year-old. Can you get me one?”

  How hard would it be to find a sitter compared to a first violin? Joan promised without blinking, even though the woman hadn’t been entirely clear about who would pay the sitter. Hugely relieved even to have a possibility, she relaxed.

  Now she couldn’t keep the vivid memory of Sylvia’s fall in the back of her mind or block out the unreasonable certainty that Andrew would be horribly injured in the same way.

  She could no longer suppress the urge to check on him. She called his cell phone number, and he answered immediately.

  “You all right? I didn’t startle you up there?”

  “I’m not going to fall, Mom. I’m not in the tree yet, anyway.” He sounded breathless.

  Joan breathed more easily, at least for the moment. “Have you been running? You sound like it.”

  “We’re still working on the rope.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We borrowed one, that’s not the problem, but getting it up there is. We thought we could throw a cord over the lowest branch to haul it up, but it’s way too high. So now we’re shooting the cord up there with my Wrist-Rocket. Remember my Wrist-Rocket?”

  “That slingshot you broke windows with?” She remembered all too well. At about twelve, he’d bought one with his own money and done serious damage to two neighbors’ windows before she’d confiscated it. According to him, he’d been aiming at tin cans on a fence post.

  “Yeah.” She could almost hear him blush.

  “But I hid it!” She didn’t remember where, much less packing it when they moved to Oliver.

  “You couldn’t hide stuff from me for long, Mom. I found it right away and hid it in my room, but I didn’t dare practice with the thing. I think it’s going to do the job if I ever get my aim back.”

  What else had he found? Did any parent have true privacy with kids in the house? She wasn’t going to think about it. Not now, anyway.

  As if he could read her mind, he said, “I never poked in your stuff. Only my own.”

  “Uh-huh.” A dim memory was returning of that Wrist-Rocket buried in her underwear drawer.

  “Gotta go, Mom.”

  She supposed she ought to wish him good luck, but of course he’d hear it as meaning that she wanted him to be able to climb onto Sylvia’s platform. Actually she wanted him safe on the ground.

  “Good-bye, Andrew.” Hot tears threatened. She would not cry.

  “Bye, Mom.” And he disconnected.

  The day dragged after that. She ate lunch at the center, and when someone asked her about Sylvia, she didn’t know how much she could say. It’s not like a murder, she decided, where the next of kin has to know first. And she didn’t have access to protected medical information.

  “Sylvia’s had a bad accident,” she told them, and after that, they hung on to every word. “She fell out of the tree this morning.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “She was when the ambulance came.”

  “You were there?” they chorused.

  “Yes.”

  “Poor thing,” Annie said. “I can’t imagine surviving a fall like that.”

  “It would smash every bone in your body,” said a retired nurse. “She’s in for a long haul.”

  “Fool kids,” said a man named Ed something. “They go out there with stars in their eyes, and then they see what happens. That’ll be the end of that!”

  “Cindy will be relieved if it is,” Mabel Dunn said. “Now maybe they’ll build the place, and her daughter can move all those grandbabies out of her house.”

  “And Diane Barnhart will get the work,” said Annie. “Only she wouldn’t want to get it that way.”

  “Bert might,” Vernon Pusey said. “He’s a hot-tempered son of a gun.” Bert was Diane Barnhart’s unemployed husband, Joan remembered. “But you’re dead wrong, Ed, and so’d Bert be if he tried a stunt like that. This ain’t gonna be the end of it. Some other fool kid is bound to take her place.”

  Joan pushed back her chair. “Excuse me,” she managed before escaping to the restroom.

  “Let her go,” she heard Annie say behind her. “I think her son cares about Sylvia. He’s probably pretty torn up over this.”

  Remembering Sylvia’s broken body, Joan shuddered. She splashed cold water on her eyes and avoided looking at her face.

  Pull yourself together, she told herself firmly. This could be a long haul. You don’t worry like this when Andrew goes out in traffic on a bike or when he borrows the car, for that matter. They’re probably both more dangerous than what he’s doing now.

  In a few minutes she returned to the table.

  “We weren’t sure you were coming back,” Mabel said.

  “You all right, honey?” Annie asked.

  “I’m fine, thanks.” But the remains of her meal had no appeal. “Anybody want my apple pie?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said the man who thought Bert Barnhart had a hot temper, and for a moment she couldn’t remember his name. Vernon Pusey, that was it. Some days Joan wished for name tags. Did Vernon think Bert Barnhart would actually do something to make Sylvia fall? But she just fell. I was there. I know. Or do I?

  * * *

  Fred and Ketcham had no trouble finding Sylvia’s place. She lived in an old house that had seen better days, on one of the tree-lined streets near the campus. In its glory, the peeling frame house had probably belonged to a professor or maybe a doctor. Its generous front porch still featured an old-fashioned porch swing. Now, though, its five or six bedrooms had been broken up into apartments, each with its own entrance and mailbox on the porch.

  Running his finger down the row of doorbells, Ketcham said, “Purcell, number three. Must be over here.” He led the way around the wraparound porch to a side entrance.

  Sylvia’s apartment turned out to be three rooms on the first floor. Windows on the east, south, and west sides of the house drenched it in sunshine, though a huge maple tree about to leaf out soon would shade her kitchen and living room.

  Her violin case stood in one corner of the living room near a music stand and a stack of music in a brick and board bookshelf. A shabby sofa and old carved oak rocking chair faced each other. Bright rag rugs warmed the floor. No desk, and no sign of anything likely to hold the information they needed to find.

  In the kitchen, clean dishes stood in the drainer, and a dishrag had been draped over the faucet to dry. Limp macramé plant hangers hung empty in the windows. “She must have someone else looking after her plants,” Ketcham said. There was no phone or notes, not so much as a refrigerator magnet.

  “Let’s try the bedroom,” Fred said. Somehow he hadn’t expected this woman to be so tidy. He could only hope it meant she was methodical about her record keeping.

  “Here we go,” Ketcham said. Beside the water bed, which took up most of the floor space in the bedroom, stood a huge oak rolltop desk. He rolled it up to expose a laptop plugged in through a hole in the back of the desk. “Ought to be fully charged, if she left the electricity on. Maybe if we get lucky we can figure out her password.”

  “Give it a try, but maybe we won’t need it.”

  While Ketcham sat down and waited for the laptop to boot up, Fred opened the file
drawer of the desk. He pulled out a fat manila folder marked simply “Linda” and flipped it open. It was filled with letters, photos of Linda and her family, and drawings her children had made, with notes on the back in their mother’s handwriting from the children to Aunt Sylvia. Linda’s name and phone number, both of which they already had, were printed neatly inside the folder itself, along with her e-mail address, which Ketcham copied onto a piece of scrap paper from one of the rolltop’s cubbyholes. Nothing else new, except that now they’d recognize Linda when they saw her. She resembled her sister slightly but wore her hair short and tended toward blue jeans rather than the flowing skirts Joan said Sylvia wore. They both studied Linda’s laughing face but didn’t remove any pictures.

  Another folder was labeled “Medical Insurance.” Good. Linda would be able to take that to the hospital when she finally arrived, but Birdie Eads had promised to call with the information before then. But no doctor bills or record of a personal physician.

  Nothing about the tree sit. He wasn’t surprised. If it was in writing at all, Sylvia would be more likely to keep that information in her computer, protected by her password. Ketcham was typing in several sets of letters and numbers, with no luck so far.

  “I don’t know enough about her to make good guesses,” he said.

  Fred almost missed a slender “Family” folder. Tucked out of alphabetical order at the back of the drawer, it hid behind “Rent” and “Utilities.”

  Inside, he found a single sheet of paper. It listed Sylvia’s parents, with their birth and death dates, and three daughters: Linda, Martha, and Sylvia. Martha was now Martha Rutledge, in Sydney, Australia. There was an address, but no phone or e-mail. And no family pictures.

  No sign of a love life, either. No letters or pictures, old or new. And Ketcham hadn’t mentioned anyone.

  Fred shoved the paper over to Ketcham. “This is it,” he said. “We’re not going to find anything more here. Nothing we have any business finding, anyway.” It wasn’t as if she were a victim, whose whole life would be fair game.

  Ketcham shut down the computer, and they locked up behind them and left. After making one more attempt to reach Linda, Fred phoned the hospital. The nurse he’d spoken to before was still on duty.

  “She’s hanging on by a hair, Lieutenant. Did you reach her family?”

  “No. I’ve left my cell phone number, but you might want to call yourself.” He gave her the number and Linda’s name. “One of us will get through eventually. I’ll send her an e-mail, too, soon as I get back to my desk.”

  “I always hate it when the family doesn’t arrive in time. I’m not sure how much difference it will make to this patient, though. She’s comatose.”

  7

  They should have been going back to the station, but Fred couldn’t resist checking on Andrew. “Take us out to Yocum’s Woods, would you? I want to look at the scene one more time,” he told Ketcham.

  “You worried about him?” Ketcham was nobody’s fool.

  “Yeah.” Fatherhood had come late to Fred, when he’d married Joan. With her two children already technically adults, he seldom felt fatherly toward either of them. But he and Andrew had connected. Irked as Fred was at Andrew for doing it, this tree-sit business was eating at him more than just as a cop. The thought of Andrew lying comatose in the hospital hurt.

  As if going out to see him could make any difference.

  They bounced along the washboard gravel road. When they could see the clearing, it was empty. Only the ruts made by the EMTs and ambulance showed that anything had happened there at all. Fred didn’t know what he’d expected to see. Maybe the kid hadn’t made it back, after all.

  Leaving Ketcham in the car, he walked over the rutted ground into the woods and squinted up the oak’s tall, straight trunk, unbroken by branches. “Andrew? You up there?”

  A dark, curly head popped up from the platform. “Fred?” It was faint, but he heard it.

  Then his cell phone rang. With luck, it would be Linda Smith, answering his call. He put it to his ear.

  “Fred, it’s me, Andrew.” The head poked over the edge again, and Andrew waved at him.

  “How did you know my number?”

  “I don’t know. Guess you gave it to me for something.”

  “You all right?”

  “Sure. You ought to try it. I’ve got all kinds of conveniences.”

  “Anything out of place? Anything that looks wrong?”

  Andrew paused. “Kind of hard to tell, since I was never here before, but it’s pretty much what I expected.”

  “Be my eyes. What do you see?”

  “It’s beautiful up here. I can see so much farther than when I’m on the ground, especially with my binoculars. Way into the woods, and across the creek over there.” He pointed, but he didn’t stand up to do it.

  Kid had some sense. Good. “And on the platform?”

  “It smells from all the rain we’ve had. Her tarp didn’t keep her dry, but we got a better one. And there are wooden walls about a foot high on three sides. That helps. If it blows in or if I want privacy, I can let the tarp down outside the walls. Anyhow, Sylvia’s sleeping bag was really gross. I sent that and the rest of her clothes down with Skirv, the guy who was helping me.”

  Skirv? Fred didn’t push it, but he filed the name away in his mind. “What’s up there now?”

  “My bag of extra clothes is hanging by the hammock. Here on the platform I have room to take a few steps, and there are enough ropes to hang on to. But mostly I sit or lie down. Trust me, Fred, I’m the cautious type.”

  “I hope so. What else?”

  “There’s a propane stove and one cooking pot with a lid, if I want to fix something hot, but someone’s bringing me supper tonight. I’ve got a box of all kinds of food, trail mix and beef jerky, ramen noodles and stuff, and a knife, fork, and spoon. A plastic plate and cup. A bucket lined with a plastic garbage bag I can close with twist ties and cover with a lid, to keep the stink down. I won’t need to use it as much as she did.”

  “Right.” A built-in advantage to being male. It wasn’t as if he needed to hide his scent from deer or other game, as he would if he were hunting.

  “Toilet paper rolls on a stick. Soap and gallon jugs of water. A rope to hang up wet towels or whatever. A new basket to replace the one I buried. My books. A notebook and pens. I kept Sylvia’s books, too, in case I get bored. She only had a few. Her bookmark was in Legacy of Luna. That’s the one by Julia Butterfly Hill, about sitting in a tree for two whole years. A battery radio. And she had candles and matches.”

  “You be careful with those, and the stove.” A forest fire—that’s all they’d need.

  “I will. I don’t expect to use it or the candles. People bring food and water, and I brought my flashlight and extra batteries for it and the radio and phone. That’s about it, except for a new basket and plenty of rope.”

  “How smooth is the surface of the platform?”

  “You mean could she have stubbed her toe on something? I don’t see anything. It’s pretty smooth. And all the stuff is hanging up, not on the platform.”

  “Thanks, Andrew.” Fred’s neck was getting tired from staring up. It was time to go.

  “Fred? Tell Mom I’m okay, would you?”

  “I will. Unless I have to bring you down. Then all bets are off. Why are you doing it, son?”

  No answer. Finally, “Fred, will the hospital talk to you? I’ve been trying to find out about Sylvia, but they won’t tell me anything.”

  “It’s not good.”

  “She died?” Andrew’s voice rose. Maybe it was finally hitting him that they weren’t immortal.

  “Not yet. She’s in a coma.”

  “Oh, God.” With what sounded like real feeling.

  “Andrew, do you know anything about her family? We’re trying to reach somebody to be there for her. Or did she keep her emergency contact information up there? Someone local would be good, even if it wasn’t her family.”
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  “She never told me about her family, and I didn’t notice anything like that. I’ll ask Skirv. Don’t know when I’ll get through to him—he’s kind of weird. A little wild-eyed, you know? But I’ll try.”

  “Good. I have a call in to her sister, so I’d better get off this phone.”

  “Thanks, Fred.”

  “Sure.” He walked back to the car, enjoying the crunchy cushion of the many layers of leaves under his feet until he hit the bare soil of the clearing. Although the trees weren’t leafed out yet and even the oaks had dropped their last stubborn hangers-on, he could feel the temperature rise between the woods and the bright sun.

  Ketcham was snoozing in the car, but he woke when Fred touched the passenger door. “He okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You ask him about Sylvia’s family?”

  “He doesn’t know anything. He’ll ask the man who took her clothes away, but I don’t think he’s likely to get much help from that direction. If you’re looking for a password again, you might try butterfly or luna. But I’m thinking we found all there was to find about her family.” His cell phone rang while he was fastening his seat belt. “Lundquist.”

  “I’ve been calling and calling! What’s the matter with Sylvia?”

  “Linda Smith?” He met Ketcham’s eyes. Ketcham, who had reached for the ignition key, sat back.

  “Yes. Who are you? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m Lieutenant Fred Lundquist, of the Oliver Police Department. Your sister’s in the hospital, and they want you to come right away.”

  “What happened? An accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not fair! She’s such a careful driver.”

  “It wasn’t that kind of accident. You know what she’s been doing, don’t you?”

  “No, what?”

  So he had to tell her about the tree sit as well as Sylvia’s plunge to the ground. “It’s not a police matter,” he ended. “But we’re all worried about her. How soon can you come?”