Strange Country Read Free

to take a breath, to get what she wanted to tell him straight in her head.
    She blinked when he clicked his pen, looked at the notebook in his left hand, at the pen in his right, then looked at him. “Yes,” she said. Another brief pause. “Well, yes.” She made a gesture toward the hall. “Let’s go back to the kitchen, Deputy…” She paused again.
    “Davies.”
    “Davies,” she repeated. The word sounded rich, the way she said it, as if it described azure skies, mountain meadows, the faint sweet scent of clover in late spring, and the lazy hum of bumblebees. Boyd looked at her more closely. “I’ll make coffee,” she said. As if this were a social call, as if whatever the danger was, whoever the prowler was, it was over.
    Or she wanted to believe it was.
    The kitchen was a sharp contrast to the living room, bright and warm, the walls pale yellow, the trim bright white, accessorized in sage green and brick red with stainless-steel appliances, granite countertops, and a stone tile floor. Boyd removed his jacket, hung it on a chair, and sat.
    One of the lights over the stove buzzed. The room smelled of nutmeg and freshly turned soil. The door to the cellar was wide open, though Prue had to walk awkwardly around it when she went to the counter. The back door was closed and locked, chained. There were locked dead bolts below and above the doorknob. Both looked brand-new. Not a usual thing—triple locks—for West Prairie City, South Dakota.
    Prue’s next words seemed to echo Boyd’s thoughts. “I don’t lock my doors. Usually. No one does around here. But lately, there’s been … well, it’s seemed like a good idea. When I got home tonight, the light was on by the garage. I didn’t think a lot of it. It comes on when there’s a storm, when the wind is strong, or a raccoon wanders through.” She put the filter in the coffeemaker, added water from the tap, and turned it on. She took two white cups with a chased silver design and matching saucers from the cupboard. When she set the cups and saucers on the table, her right hand shook and one of the cups jumped sideways. Boyd caught it before it fell and set it back on the saucer. “Thank you,” Prue said. For a moment, there was just the sound of the coffeemaker and the sharp odor of brewing coffee.
    Prue sat down across from Boyd. She took hold of one of the cups by the handle and moved it back and forth as if to watch the silver catch the light. Boyd’s radio crackled. When the coffee finished brewing, Prue retrieved the pot. She poured coffee into each of the cups and slid one toward Boyd. She didn’t ask if he wanted cream or sugar, and he didn’t know if it didn’t occur to her or if she already knew he didn’t.
    Boyd put his arm on the table and looked at her, though she wasn’t looking at him. “The prowler,” he said.
    “I came in the back door,” she said, as if she’d simply been waiting for him to ask before she continued. “It was closed, but I realized when I grasped the doorknob that it wasn’t latched. That was the first thing. The light over the sink was on, as I’d left it. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. Then I heard it. A noise from upstairs.” She looked at him then, which she hadn’t done since she’d sat down, had told him the story while looking down at the coffee in her cup, like secrets had been written there. Or she was writing them as she spoke. “That’s when I called you.”
    Boyd didn’t say, Why didn’t you tell me you heard a noise upstairs when I walked in the door? Why did you tell me the prowler was outside when you already knew he wasn’t? Because she hadn’t and they couldn’t go back and do it over.
    Instead, he crossed to the back door and checked that it really was locked even though there were three locks and it was obvious that it was. “Stay here,” he said.
    Prue raised the coffee cup to her lips and took a sip as she watched him. He couldn’t get a gauge on her and that bothered him,