by Lakota Grace
He placed himself within her field of vision.
“Thorn,” he said. “Get up off that bed and tell me what’s going on.”
She jerked out the earbuds. “Dad, I—”
This talk didn’t belong in her bedroom.
“I’ll be waiting in the living room for you. I expect you out there in two minutes.” He whirled on his heel and left, breathing heavily.
Thorn padded out a few moments later. She perched in a chair, swinging one leg, a slipper dangling off her toes. She looked about five, and Shepherd almost expected to see that scruffy teddy bear she had carried around with her everywhere.
He felt himself softening, and inside he stiffened, the way he had to when questioning a subject. Don’t believe anything they had to say, instead, work the angles. Shepherd was a skilled interrogator, but never thought he’d be using that ability on his own flesh-and-blood.
He waited a moment, hoping she’d say something.
“Start at the beginning,” he said.
“Beginning?”
“Like at work, how were things going there?” Always start with the easy questions.
“All right, I guess.”
She looked to the left and down. Thorn always did that as a child when she was ready to lie. Apparently, that hadn’t changed.
She started to speak, and he interrupted her.
“I expect the truth. That’s the least you can give me.”
“I haven’t said a word, and you think I’m guilty.” Her face twisted in accusation.
“That’s not true. But why haven’t you been at work recently? It wasn’t because of a lay-off, was it?”
Inside, he realized this was the question he should have asked a week ago. Too late now, always too late.
“I got fired.” She slumped in the chair.
“Fired! Why?” Shepherd hadn’t expected that.
“I suppose I didn’t present the ‘proper image.’” She put air quotes around the last words.
“Well, you don’t, with those piercings and tattoos. What happened?”
Thorn shrugged. “When I went out to the Briar Patch Inn this morning, my boss used the meeting as an excuse to yell at me. She didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain what?”
“There was money missing from petty cash, and she accused me of taking it. We’d argued about it before.”
“Well, did you take it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Damn it, Thorn. She had every right to fire you if you were stealing from her.” Inside, Shepherd’s brain was screaming, motive for murder. He calmed with effort.
“Ten lousy dollars!” Thorn’s voice rose. “She didn’t let me explain. And then she fired me. Just like that.”
Shepherd shook his head. He’d come back to it. Tackle the critical stuff first.
“Start at the beginning. Walk me through today.”
“You got me up at seven before you left.”
“After that,” Shepherd said impatiently.
“Okay, Ben picked me up on his motorcycle and we went out to Jil-Clair and Harriet Weaver, Jill’s assistant, gave me a list of stuff to do.”
“Like?” he said.
“First, I went to the bank with a deposit, then I had to visit the florist with some last-minute changes.”
“Couldn’t they just call them in?”
“You don’t know my boss, Jill,” Thorn said.
“That it?”
“Almost. I had to take this letter to Jill. She was staying at the Briar Patch Inn on retreat. The letter came in during the night and Harriet said Jill had to have it, right away. And I took it to her, Dad, I did!”
“And that’s when you got in the argument,” Shepherd said.
Thorn was quiet.
“Any idea what was in the letter?”
“No. But Jill seemed pretty upset. That’s when she started ragging on me. I just couldn’t stand it!” Thorn exclaimed. “I left and walked up to the main road to wait for Peg.”
“So she picked you up, and you went on the hike. Jill was okay when you left her?”
“Jill was fine. I was fired. Doesn’t that mean anything?” Her voice was stiff with indignation.
Shepherd ignored it.
“What happened then?”
“Then stupid Pegasus Quincy deserted me because her dog got lost.”
“Peg’s not stupid.” Shepherd contradicted. “She took time out of her day to be with you.”
His eyebrow twitched.
“Whatever.” Thorn shrugged. “So I took off on my own, and then I got lost, too.”
“How’d you get lost? There’s only one trail in and out of that canyon.”
“Well, I did. And then I found the body, of course,” Thorn said sarcastically as if he fit into the stupid category along with Peg. “With the knife sticking out of it. My dead boss!”
Her voice raised with teenage drama, and the hair on the back of his neck rose.
“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady. This is serious.”
And then, in spite of himself, he turned into a cop. “Are you sure that you and Jill didn’t continue that argument you’d had earlier, and it got out of control?”
“No, that’s not it at all.” She leaned closer and sniffed. “Have you been drinking? I smell whiskey on your breath. Like you’d come home drunk when mom and I lived with you.”
“I haven’t been drinking in years.”
“So you say.”
Now she was calling him a liar.
Shepherd had always backed off in the past, afraid of the anger that might be unleashed. Well, no more. If it was his fault that she’d been uncontrolled enough to get into real trouble, then it stopped right here, right now.
“Thorn, I—”
“Eff you!”
Shepherd grabbed her arm, and she jerked back.
Thorn yanked out her cellphone and punched 911, each stab an act of anger.
“Hello? I want to report an incident of domestic violence.” She recited his address. “You need to come soon.”
Rubbing her arm she glared at Shepherd.
“I’m done talking to you,” she said and stalked back into her bedroom. The door lock clicked with finality.
He stood outside in the hall.
“Thorn, I’m sorry. Please, open the door.” His tone turned placating like it had with his ex-wife, Tabatha. “Thorn?”
There was only silence from the bedroom. Fine, then. Let the cops come. He’d explain to them how it really was, and they’d listen.
Or would they?
Shepherd sat numbly on the couch. He knew the drill. When the patrol arrived, they’d separate the combatants to slow down the action. Hell, they were already separated. He held himself in a rigid calm, anger frozen, as the black dragon retreated into his cave. And always, the regret, the aftermath of the rage.
He thought he’d mastered it in the years since the divorce. Zen, meditation, working with the police dogs—the incredible patience that took—and yet here he’d blown it with his own daughter. He didn’t deserve to be a father, shouting at her when what she needed was patience and understanding. Yes, and what if she had done it, what then?
When the patrol arrived a few moments later, he had his retired cop’s ID ready and a story to hand them.
“You know how it is,” he said, with an embarrassed shrug.
They laughed along with him, saying they had teenagers themselves and knew how volatile they could be. But Shepherd could see the scorn behind their words, judging his lack of control. He’d blown it. Not only had he alienated his daughter, but he’d be the laughingstock of the station.
“You can handle the situation without us,” one suggested.
“Actually, I can’t,” Shepherd admitted. He told them the rest of the story, how Thorn was due to be questioned in the death of Jill Rustaine.
“You might as well take her now,” he said. “Maybe a night in jail is what she needs, to i
mpress her with the seriousness of what she’s done.”
“You sure?”
Shepherd tightened his jaw in frustration. “Yeah, I’m sure. Book her.”
Thorn didn’t look at him, not once, as they left the house.
Shepherd got another tumbler of whiskey and went out to sit on the back porch. The wind knife-edged around the corner, and the drink was bitter on his tongue. He took one sip and threw the balance into the yard. Then he went inside and poured the rest of the bottle down the drain.
Before he went to bed, he left a message for the detective Peg had said was in charge of the murder investigation.
“This is Shepherd Malone.” There was a frog in his throat for some reason, and he harrumphed to clear it.
“Your prisoner, Thorn Malone, will be available for your transport in the morning. She’s being taken to the Sedona sheriff’s annex.”
Tomorrow he’d start again. He’d need a clear head to free the daughter who now hated his guts. It didn’t matter if she had done it or not. He’d get her off. He had to.
CHAPTER 8
After I left Shepherd’s house, my intention was to drive straight to my cabin. But my steering wheel turned right instead, up the hill to Mingus proper. The Jetta stopped in front of HT’s old house, like an obedient horse taking its owner home.
The three-story clapboard-covered structure had been a miners’ boardinghouse in the boom days of the town. Each floor had a wrap-around balcony and an outside stairway. HT had the first floor, his housekeeper Isabel had the second, and the loft was reserved for guests.
Maybe HT would be up. He suffered from insomnia sometimes. At any rate, I could rock for a bit in his porch swing to calm my nerves. It had been a day.
I hadn’t but got settled, with Reckless at my feet, when the outside door to HT’s bedroom opened.
“That you, Peg?”
“Out here, in the porch swing.”
A few moments later he joined me. He wrapped something warm around my shoulders.
“Cold out here, girl.”
“It this grandma’s old green-and-orange afghan?”
“The same.” He chuckled. “The yarn was on sale, and you know your grandmother’s thrifty nature.”
“I miss her.”
“I do, too, honey. What brings you over this time of night?”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Who else would it be?” he asked.
My grandfather always had an uncanny sense of my whereabouts. I leaned into his welcome warmth and told him about the day. From picking up Thorn, through Jill’s murder and the subsequent confrontation with Cooper Davis, the Flagstaff detective.
“He’s after the quick solution,” I said.
“So he’s closing off any other options except Thorn Malone.”
“Right. And that makes it hard for Shepherd to defend his daughter. If Cooper doesn’t let me in on the case, I may have to investigate unofficially.”
“Sort of coloring outside the lines? You always liked to do that as a little girl.”
I poked him in the ribs, and Reckless shifted his weight onto my foot.
“Shepherd’s my friend,” I said, “and it’s my fault that Thorn was there, in West Fork. If I’d been a little quicker, it might not have happened at all.”
“You’re being pretty hard on yourself,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It feels like it. I’ve got to find another suspect or two to drop in front of Cooper so he doesn’t concentrate on Thorn.”
“Sounds like a good route to take. Right now, go home and get some sleep. Things will look better, come daylight. Take Ellie’s afghan to keep you warm.”
“Thanks, HT. I love you.”
“I love you, too, baby girl.”
We stood there for a moment in a hug that warmed my soul. I draped the afghan across my shoulders and walked down the steps. Maybe HT was right. Things would look better with some sleep.
* * *
Visions of blood and rising creek water punctuated a series of nightmares that seemed to go on forever. Finally, I got up before dawn and wandered into the kitchen to put on the morning coffee. Then I wrapped my grandmother’s afghan around me and walked out on the porch.
“You coming or not?" I asked my coonhound.
Reckless yawned, stretched, and padded down the stairs into the darkness. I curled up in a porch chair warming my hands on the coffee mug. The pre-dawn air was biting, and I pulled the afghan tight.
Reckless patrolled the new fence I’d installed and his deep coonhound bay hit up the early morning like a siren from hellish depths.
“Dog, to me!”
I never could get him to obey the way an old lover of mine had. The man deserted me when the Feds got too close. Said he could never go to prison. I wondered how Thorn Malone might face up to that reality if she was convicted.
The silent darkness draped like stiff velvet on the hillside. The big dipper was descending, with only the tail visible. Reckless came back and dropped panting on the porch next to my chair. I blew on my coffee and took a sip.
The episode in West Fork seemed surreal at this point. It had begun as a simple fall outing to one of my favorite places in the whole world. Now I wouldn’t be think about the Mayhew Lodge ruins without that woman’s death superimposed on that peaceful scene.
Why did Thorn have to pull the knife out of the body like that? Shock, possibly. But a dumb move. And yes, teenagers did stupid things; I wasn’t that far away from those days. But if she had killed the woman? My mind zigzagged between the two alternatives: guilty, innocent, innocent, guilty.
Gradually the sky lightened to shades of gray that illuminated the sage green hillsides below. Then the heavens glowed a vivid orange that faded to pink-tinged clouds. Time to start the day, and I was no further ahead than when I awoke.
My cellphone buzzed as I got out of the shower. It was a text from Shepherd.
“I’m at my office. Meet me here as soon as you can.”
It wasn’t even six o’clock. What was he doing there and not home with Thorn?
I pulled on jeans and a turtleneck T-shirt and then took a hasty swipe through my hair with a brush. Finally, I added socks, boots, and a sheepskin coat that buttoned high at my throat.
Fully dressed, I looked at the clock. Four minutes. Days when I was on my game, I could do it in three.
I pushed Reckless back into the house when he started to follow me and cranked up the Jetta. It turned over reluctantly in the foggy mountain air. The car tilted one way and then the other as I drove the dirt road out of Deception Gulch downhill to the paved highway into town.
When I got to Shepherd’s office, I opened the door to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. My old partner usually had green tea, so I knew this was an apology for bringing me in so early.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Where’s Thorn?”
Shepherd rose and poured coffee for me using his favorite mug, a Japanese glaze with an inscribed poem about the changing seasons. Now I knew something was up.
I draped my frame over the chair in front of his desk and waited.
“Thorn’s in jail,” he said.
“You were scheduled to take her in this morning,” I started. Then it hit me. “That idiot detective Cooper Davis. He took her in early? I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him.”
For the first time since I’d known him, Shepherd looked ashamed. Ashamed, and scared.
“It wasn’t Davis. I turned her over to the authorities myself last night.” Shepherd ran a hand through his graying military-short crew cut.
“I touched my daughter in anger.” Tears glinted in his eyes.
Shepherd, crying? Shepherd had never shed a tear in the entire time I’d known him. My heart contracted with a tight squeeze. And at that moment, my world shifted, without my knowing or intending for it to happen.
I made no comment as Shepherd confessed to drinking, to not listening to Thorn’s side of the story, to
grabbing her, and then betraying her as the cops came to check her distress call. The words gushed out like spring waters, wild and tumbling.
“I called the jail this morning,” he said, “and she won’t even speak to me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t either. What were you thinking, Shepherd?”
He stared at the clenched fists in his lap.
“I’ve never asked anybody for help before, Peg. Never had to. But I’m asking now.”
What to say when your best friend makes a request like that? You can’t hesitate and I didn’t.
“What can I do?”
“Call Myra Banks.”
I nodded. Myra was the finest defense attorney in the valley. Feisty, even mean, when she had to be. A good person to have on your side of the courtroom. Because we lived in such a small community, she could be both a trial and a divorce attorney, which suited her just fine, she said.
If he was willing to offer an olive branch to Myra, I knew he was serious. Myra had represented Tabatha Malone in the bitter divorce proceedings, and Shepherd’s relationship with the attorney had been rocky since.
“Bail?” I asked.
“See what they’re asking.” He swallowed hard.
“Maybe Myra can negotiate a lower amount.” I tried to sound reassuring.
“I’ve got some of my pension left, after the collateral for the business. Hopefully, there’s enough there. It’s all I have.”
I kept my fingers crossed. This jail extraction wasn’t going to be easy.
“Look, I’ve put together clothes and things for Thorn.” He gestured to a bag. “If you can give her that. And tell her I’m sorry.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. Then I pulled out my cell and made the call.
It was seven o’clock. Myra’s secretary wouldn’t be there since it was the weekend, but I bet Myra would be. She worked long hours, and that included Saturday and Sunday. I was right. She answered on the first ring.
“What’s up, Peg? That cabin still working out for you?”
I put the call on speaker so Shepherd could listen in.
Myra was the property manager for the old woman who owned the cabin that I called home. Another advantage or disadvantage, depending on how you looked at it, of living in a small town. Everyone knew your business.