Want to know what I found out, Old Man?!
“Want to know what I found out, Old Man?!” Elvis opened the door to Sierra’s screeching. Vesta came up behind him, and he felt like he should protect her from the emaciated anger. Sierra pushed past him, not waiting for an invitation inside. She stomped past Vesta into the kitchen, slamming a thick folder onto the table.
Elvis stood at the doorway of the kitchen unsure what to do. “Vesta, darlin’. Why dontcha go over to the Bowen House and tell Randy his wife is ragin’ up a storm in our kitchen?” He sighed with relief when she hurried off. Forty-three years with that woman and she could still bring a wave of love to him that would nearly knock him down. With her safe, he could focus on the raging stick figure in his kitchen.
“Don’t quite know whatcher talkin’ ’bout, but you got my attention.” He carefully sat down at the table. The manila folder was thick with photocopies and yellow pads. Sierra screeched at him, “NOTHING! I found NOTHING!” She flung open the folder and two papers flew out onto the floor. “Absolutely nothing!” She scrambled after the stray sheets, holding them out to him.
“You and Artimus sign the deed, landlocking the house and TWO WEEKS later, Artimus dies!” Elvis was going to answer that Artimus had been so sick that it was a wonder he lasted as long as he did, but Sierra continued without even a breath taken between. “Then the property was sold to a Judith Lightfeather. Before that, she had bought TWENTY homes, rennovated them and flipped them for a profit. She lived in the homes so she wouldn’t have to pay state investment taxes.”
Sierra took a breath, leaned over the table and hissed, “Want to know what happened to her?” Elvis didn’t have time to tell Sierra what he knew because she continued the screaming rant, “It took me a while to find her. She decided to sell the house and move to the Blackfoot Reservation.” She slammed her hand on the table. “She sells beaded souvenirs in Fort Hall!”
Elvis remembered seeing Judy last time he took Vesta to the Fort Hall Casino. “She was pretty damn happy when I saw ‘er there.” Sierra stomped her foot and swung around, facing the sink. She threw her hands up and yelled, “I KNOW! I interviewed her!” She turned again, facing Elvis. “But she said that she was so glad she sold the house.” She scrambled for one of the yellow pads, flipping the papers until she found her place. “She said, ‘Living in the Bowen House felt like wading in a pond covered with algae.’” Sierra smacked the table with the pad. “ALGAE!”
At that moment, Elvis saw Randy peek around the kitchen doorway. “What’s going on?” Elvis watched the man unconsciously flinch when Sierra picked up her folder. “I have been spending the last two weeks tracking down every person who has owned this house since Artimus died! And it all started with HIM!” Elvis felt grateful that Vesta was shying away from Sierra’s angry movements.
Randy tried his best to calm his wife, but Elvis could tell that his gentle words would only make her angrier, so he took matters in his own hand. He stood up and pointed at his chair. “Sit down right this minute, missy!” He mustered up his “Angry Dad” voice and directed it at her. “You sit down!”
Instead of meekly sitting in silence like his children would have, she threw the folder of papers at his head and screeched, “I will NOT sit down! You are going to tell me what you did to that house to make it so fucked up!!” The corner of the folder hit right above Elvis’ right eye and the papers floated around his head like a snowstorm in January. He could smell the ink and the glue in the pad bindings in a flash of insight.
“What did you DO?!” Her screaming froze in mid-throat. Elvis held his hand up to his right eye in reaction to the blow. It was Randy who first noticed there was something wrong with her and he caught her before she dropped to the floor like the sickly bag of bones that she was.