Chapter 4

Dwayne had left early after a quick breakfast which he’d eaten standing at the kitchen table.
He wanted to be at the forefront of the development in the investigation of the latest arson, and besides that he was expecting a visit from his friend and colleague from the City’s homicide department.
Hank Morrison had called the night before to announce his arrival, saying that he’d just pop by Petersville police station and then follow Dwayne home when he got off duty.
Hank intended to stay the weekend, as well as Abby, who’d arrive at the log house late afternoon.
Emma had quick shower and then dried Mark’s clothes in the tumble dryer, folding them and placing them on the table in the bathroom next to the sink.
She’d then prepared breakfast for herself as well as for Stella, and the cat had then been off on the morning’s first hunting session. She’d placed the result, a single mouse, on the stairs at the front door before she returned inside the house.
Stella always took good care of her herd in the mouse-supply department. In the cat’s opinion, mice seemed to be an indispensable subsidy to the daily meals.
Emma, with the same never-failing certainty, had been outside to remove the deceased rodent after Stella had gone for a rest on the top of ‘her’ cupboard.
Emma hadn’t the heart to let the little cat know what happened to her well-intentioned and loving gift, and therefore always removed the mice, while Stella was elsewhere engaged.
Emma carried the small corpse to the edge of the wood on a shovel, mumbling an apology for the abruptly ended life, before flinging the dead rodent into the chaparral.
Returning to the warmth of the house, she smiled to herself while thinking of her little furred roommate. She’d adopted Stella when she was still a tiny motherless and, to be honest, not very pretty kitten.
Emma knew, when she first saw her at the animal shelter, that this cat was meant just for her.
She’d bottle fed the small animal with cat’s breast milk substitute for kittens, and Stella had thrived and grown big and beautiful.
She was very protective of her owner, and later her flock, which now included Abby as well as Dwayne and Hank.
Stella had peculiar habits, for instance she rarely expressed herself like other cats with meows.
She was very dignified, and her way of communicating was generally, beside purring to show satisfaction, limited to facial expressions combined with different moves of her long tail. These communication efforts were on the other hand extremely efficient and never left members of her flock in any doubt of her wishes.
Another peculiar habit of Stella’s was the fact that she totally refused to use her cat flap. She found it only fair that her human fellows, who unlike herself were in possession of thumbs, saw to it that she was let in and out the door when she wanted it.
It was on very few occasions that she’d demeaned herself to make use of the cat flap. It took almost a catastrophe to make that happen – like upcoming visits to the vet and other nasty stuff.
Emma crossed the yard and put the shovel back in place before walking up to the door.
She wondered when Mark might wake up – and how he was…
She’d persuaded Dwayne to let their guest sleep in until he woke up naturally.
Dwayne had wanted Mark to follow him to the police station for a necessary interview concerning the arson that had destroyed his home and killed Bill Jones.
Mark knew nothing of this – or hadn’t been told yet. The night before he’d seemed prepared for the fact that Bill didn’t make it out before the fire had consumed the farm, of which the firemen only succeeded in saving the barn.
Emma would leave it with Dwayne in his capacity of representative for the police to tell Mark that he unfortunately had proved to be right: Bill didn’t get out.
She’d agreed to give Mark a lift to the police station when he woke up and was ready. But of course, it couldn’t wait all day, so she might have to wake him up.
This turned out to be unnecessary as she was met by her guest as soon as she entered the door.
Mark was fully dressed, standing between the kitchen and the living room, his eyes flickering. He was the vivid image of worry and anxiety.
“Good morning! Did you have a decent sleep?” Emma asked with a soothing smile.
“Thank you, yes I slept rather heavily. I didn’t expect to, considering…” He moved one hand vaguely without finishing the sentence.
“No, of course.” Emma looked at him with compassion. “Luckily valerian is a rather effective remedy when it comes to relaxing. Also, your body’s reacting to the exhaustion in connection to all that happened.”
She turned to the kitchen and asked across her shoulder: “What would you like for breakfast?”
“Actually, I’m not hungry. I don’t always have breakfast,” Mark answered, following her to the kitchen.
“Maybe so. But today you do. You simply must have something to rebuild your strength, so fasting is a no go!” Emma gave him a fixed glance while she fetched out bread and butter to at least make toast to start the day.
There was still plenty of fresh coffee left from Dwayne’s rapid breakfast, and Emma quickly arranged a tray and carried it to the table where she and Mark then sat down.
“Please, eat something,” she urged him.
He took a sip of coffee before he hesitantly started to spread butter on the toasted bread.
“You and I are going to Petersville when you’re ready,” she told him. “I’ve promised Dwayne that we won’t be too late. He meant to take you with him when he left earlier on, but we agreed to let you sleep in, considering everything you’ve been through.”
“To the police station… why?” Mark gave her an insecure look. “I don’t really know anything. Did they find…” he broke off and looked down his plate.
“Well, partly it’s so they can tell you of the findings connected to the fire.” Emma looked down for a moment. “And partly it’s important that you tell the police of your own movements prior to the fire.” She looked at him.
There was something completely helpless in his facial expression. He lifted a piece of bread slowly up toward his mouth, but his hand sunk down before he’d taken even one bite.
“I just simply don’t know what to do. I have no place to live, and I have no money at all to pay for lodging.” The hand, holding the bread, trembled.
“Do you think… would it in any way be possible to stay here with you, just temporarily till I find something?”
Emma felt her heart writhe with compassion but resisted the urge to help with what he asked.
She remembered how Bill had lately, with regret, talked of his roomer, who seemed to have made his stay on the farm permanent without showing any initiative to become self-sufficient.
The last thing she needed in her life was a permanent lodger in her small log house, a lodger that it would be impossible to ever throw out because his situation seemed so hopeless. She wished she could help but realized the impossibility of helping someone who wasn’t able to help himself, and who’d grown accustomed to his surroundings taking care of what needs he might have.
She’d certainly no desire to become a sort of mother-substitute for Mark, who was just a few years younger than herself. And who on top of everything else seemed to be an alcoholic. Or at least strongly addicted to alcohol.
“No, unfortunately,” she now answered while forcing herself to look him straight in the eye.
“There’s simply not enough room. I have guests staying over on a regular basis, friends who often visit from the City and stay the night due to the long journey.”
She paused for a moment before adding: “But I’ll try to help you out in another way: When you’ve finished at the police station, I can drive you to the shelter for homeless people in Petersville. They might be able to help you in several ways, supply you with more clothes for instance, and maybe even help you to get a job. I take it you have no insurance?” The question was purely rhetorical as she knew the answer beforehand.
“No. Nothing at all.” Mark looked down the table.
“But – don’t you have any family, relatives who might be able to help out? Parents, siblings?”
“Nah. No chance of that.”
Emma was puzzled for a moment at the answer, as she found it a bit grim. Well, it wasn’t any of her business anyway, nothing she could interfere in.
“I just think I’ve been very unfortunate during the last couple of years, and I don’t really understand why. It was so nice of Bill to take me in, helping me, and we got along really well. But now…”
“Unfortunate – in what way?” Emma asked compassionately.
“Well, I’m a musician as you probably know, and I compose my own music and write song lyrics, which is the only thing I’m really good at – and the only thing I really feel like doing,” Mark added.
“But of course, I’ve gotten small jobs now and again beside the music, as I have no ideas that my composing will make me rich or anything like that. But then, the employment I’ve had during the last few years has all been rather short termed.  I’ve been fired from one job after the other rather quickly, as my employers have suddenly been forced to cut down their costs, and well, being the last one hired I was the first one fired.” Mark rubbed his hands, moving uneasily on his chair.
“And you have no idea what caused this… unfortunate period of your life?”
“No. I’m just 26 years old, but I feel like an ageing old man. It’s as if everything in my life is bound to go the wrong way.”
He looked at her across the table, and suddenly a thought seemed to make him lighten up a bit.“Bill told me, you were an astrologer. Maybe you could…?”
Then the light in his eyes seemed to dim, and he added: “No, suppose not. I have no money to pay you.”
“Well, that particular bump we’ll be able to get over. We could call it pro bono – you know like the big law firms who sometimes give free consultations for people without means.” Emma smiled.
“Still, I have to tell you that an astrological consultation might not give you the answer you’re looking for.” She looked at him tentatively.
“Well, there’s bound to be some answers, I guess. Would you try?” Mark looked at her, hopefully.
Emma hesitated for a moment, then said: “Yeah, well, it can’t be a full interpretation at the moment, as we have to set off for Petersville very soon. But let’s have a peek…” She tidied the table just in front of her and then fetched her computer.
“No, wait up!” Mark’s face showed a sudden eagerness, and he quickly got up from the table.
“I’ve just thought: There is actually a way I can pay you for your work, if not with money, then by giving you something, I can do. One moment…”
He disappeared rapidly into the guest room and returned immediately, carrying his slightly scarred guitar.
“Thank God, my guitar wasn’t broken, even though it had rough treatment yesterday.” Mark had taken a seat at the table again, pushing his chair a bit away from the table to make room for his instrument.
He tuned the guitar, looking down on it with loving eyes.
“The two of us have been through a lot together, haven’t we?” he said softly.
“Really, you don’t have to…” Emma tried, but was at once interrupted.
“Of course, I do. I insist! Quid pro quo!”
Emma leaned back in her chair, casting a sidelong glance at the clock on the wall behind Mark.
Well, it had to be what it was. There was no use stressing. She might as well relax and enjoy the music.
“The song I’ll play is one I wrote myself,” Mark announced ceremoniously, casting her a glance before concentrating fully on his instrument.
The strings were suddenly strummed, and the vibrations echoed through the small room. In this second Mark uttered a loud scream, making Emma jump.
She quickly realized, though, that the scream was not of pain, but part of the music Mark insisted on entertaining her with.
This first scream, accompanied by some very harsh guitar playing, was followed by several roars, each one rougher than the next. The vocal power seemed inconsistent with the thin body that produced them.
Mark hammered on the guitar strings while letting out these prolonged sounds that made it impossible to decide what the lyric was about. She did get the impression, though, that it seemed to be about the singer’s distress and misery, caused by ignorant surroundings.
Mark’s face was twisted in pain and rage while roaring out his feelings to the unmelodious accompaniment.
Emma had never heard anything like it. It was awful, almost unbearable.
The violent sound hammered against her eardrums, giving nothing back in form of rhythm or other compensation.
She felt trapped. She couldn’t risk putting her fingers in her ears to moderate the awful noise. That would be too hurtful a gesture to the man sitting there with his painful wrecked face at the table opposite her, fully absorbed in himself and his music.
She registered that Stella on top of the cupboard startled at the first violent sounds, lay her ears flat back to her head, before, as a little black shadow, she jumped to the floor. The thud from her long bound was lost in the incredible noise, and Emma saw to her astonishment the little animal racing to the front door – and pushing through the cat flap!
This fully confirmed that Stella saw their guest’s art as being in line with catastrophes like visiting the vet, and other cruelties.
Emma just wished she could follow Stella – even if it had to be through the cat flap!
But, being the polite hostess and compassionate person she was, she had to suffer through the piece of music, which it seemed would never end.
At long last, just as she’d almost given up hope of staying sane – not to mention maintaining normal hearing – Mark struck one last violent chord, accompanied by a lengthy wail, before he indulgently let the echo fade away.
He sat up in his chair, placed the guitar on the floor, then leaning on the table, gave her an expectant look.
“I played this song to an old fisherman down the harbor. He cried! Think about it, an old, stout fisherman with tears running down his cheeks – because of my music.”
Mark gave her a triumphant look.
“Yes. I can see why.” Emma chose her words with great care.
On one hand she wouldn’t exactly lie. On the other hand, she wouldn’t hurt Mark either.
At the same time, she wanted at any cost to avoid him thinking her words to be a praise so high, he’d feel forced to insist on a da capo.
“It’s been a really long time since I’ve sung this way without taking care of my voice. I’ve had some troubles with hoarseness through the last half year or so. The leftover from a cold dragging on, I guess. And so, I’ve been forced to spare my voice, but it was fantastic to just give in for once.” Mark’s eyes beamed with joy.
“Well, that’s easy to understand. And thank you for the song, by the way, but now we’d better move on if you are to receive the ware you’ve bought with your music, right?” Emma smiled carefully.
“We must be off for Petersville quite soon, you see, and we should make time for at least casting an eye over your horoscope, right? Now, you’ve paid up front, so to speak.”
She smiled at her guest, a fully honest smile – of relief now her ordeal seemed to have come to an end.
Mark nodded willingly, and she tapped the computer’s keyboard, bringing up her astrology program to the screen.
“Do you know the exact time of your birth? Also, I must know the day and the place of your birth.”
Mark provided the relevant information while Emma fed her computer with the data and pressed enter.
In the instant Mark’s horoscope circle showed on the screen, something immediately caught her eye.