by Anna Castle
I paused at the bend in the road, looking and listening. The car site appeared undisturbed, the yellow tape glistening with fresh dew. I smelled nothing but wet grass and cool rock, no lingering odor of exhaust or stirred-up dust from a passing truck. All I could hear was the faint click of insects and an occasional snatch of bird song. No engines, no voices. I was alone out here on this peaceful summer morning.
I walked around the bend and up the hill. The stone house looked peaceful too, with its door closed and the old truck rusting placidly under the trees. I took a deep breath and went inside. The door swung shut behind me.
“Penny, do come in.”
I startled, caught in mid-stride. Carson knelt in front of the fireplace with a box of kitchen matches. He gave me that shiny politician’s smile, then struck a match and tossed it on the stack of tinder. It burst into flames with a whomp. He must have made liberal use of the lighter fluid.
“You’re at the bank.” I said, stupidly. “I saw your car.”
“We have more than one Rover, Penny. Skip’s taking care of Hank. He’s had plenty of practice bailing his brother out of jail. I figured I’d better get things cleaned up out here before Deputy Penateka gets his warrant. Judge Bogusch can’t keep making excuses forever. And I had an inkling you’d dig up something, sooner or later.”
I stood by the door and studied the room. The whole place wasn’t much bigger than my living room. Light came from the fire and from two small windows high on the walls. A glass-fronted cabinet full of rifles stood against the right wall. Sacks of deer corn were stacked neatly in the corner.
A wide and well-worn sofa dominated the center of the room, overstuffed and covered with fading chintz. A cowboy coffee table stood between the sofa and two sturdy oak armchairs. A pink internet tablet sat on the table next to a small plastic tray with a razor blade, a tightly rolled dollar bill, and a pile of white powder. Next to that lay a small, black handgun.
Under the window on the left was what looked like a camp kitchen: a long wooden worktable with a portable stove and a wide metal washing pan. The top was littered with Sterno cans, Mason jars, cans of paint thinner and Drano, and a heap of colorful packages of cold medicine. On the floor stood rows of red and blue plastic gas cans and a couple of propane tanks.
That must be Hank’s Kountry Kitchen, where he cooked up his methamphetamine for the unmotivated masses.
I fingered my lens cap and took a step forward. What would happen if I started snapping pictures? On the other hand, maybe I should come back later, with a few well-armed friends. I took a step back.
Carson watched my little dance routine with a wry smile. He picked up the handgun. “I’m sorry you’re here, although I’m not all that surprised. But I like you. I had hoped we would become better friends after Ty went to prison.”
“How did you get here?”
“You are quite the stickler for details, aren’t you? Didn’t you see the truck outside?”
I had seen, but had not observed. I should’ve put my hands on the hood to test for heat, like Ben had made me do.
Carson added some sticks to the fire and then sat in one of the armchairs. He used his left hand to swipe the tablet to wake it up, keeping the gun aimed in my direction with his right.
I glanced at the gun cabinet. The rifles were probably not loaded, but they could be swung like clubs. I shifted my weight on to my right foot. Could I edge a few feet toward the cabinet without alarming Carson?
Better yet would be to dash back out the door. Could I get clear before he shot me in the back? Would he shoot me in the back? Fear prickled up my spine and I shifted my weight back to neutral.
If I ran, even if I didn’t get shot, I’d leave with nothing and he would get away with killing Roger and trying to frame Ty. Then he’d be out there every day, driving through town, smiling down from billboards on every county road.
How could I live with that?
Carson grinned at me. “It is a poser, isn’t it? What’s a girl to do in a situation like this? Why don’t you sit down while you think about it?”
He gestured at the sofa with the gun. It didn’t look very sanitary—I was sure it had been used for sweaty purposes without benefit of sheets—but I had bigger problems than germs at the moment.
I sat and pointed my chin at the tablet. “Is that Diana’s?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Is that how you got into her account?”
“Easy as pie. I didn’t even have to log in. And did you know you can find step by step instructions for spoofing an email address? I had to do a little searching, but once you know how, it’s nothing.”
He seemed to be in a chatty mood. What the heck, we’d chat. Maybe I could get him to tell me exactly what happened. Maybe I could kick the coffee table hard enough to crack his shins, make him drop the gun, and buy myself time to get out the door. Once I got outside, he’d never catch me.
“Where is Diana, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Carson said. “Not for certain. She said something about being sick of us men and needing some place quiet where she could get her head straight. I assume that means her rehab center.” He wrinkled his nose at me. “It’s more of a luxury spa with strict rules. They take your phone away when you check in.”
“That explains why nobody’s heard from her. I’m glad she’s okay.” I should have thought of that, or Ty should have. I’d bet Dare had called the place to check and had been too much of an uptight son of a beast to tell us. Or maybe he’d told Ty and told Ty not to tell me.
Suddenly, I felt very tired of this whole stupid mess.
Evidently it didn’t show, because Carson rattled on. “You really are an amazing woman, Penny. If only you weren’t so damned persistent. Ty might get off without your help, you know. He can afford a whole team of expert defense lawyers. Even if he’s convicted, the penalty for manslaughter isn’t that great. If he behaved himself like the model citizen he is, he’d get out in a few years.”
“And come home to what? Everybody would believe he’d killed a man and tried to cover it up by blaming someone else. No one would trust him again.”
“Maybe not.” Carson smiled, not nicely. “He’d still be rich, don’t forget. It might put an end to his fantasy spa project, though, and that is such a good idea. Someone else really ought to do it. I wonder who?” He grinned playfully, his eyes glittering from whatever he’d been snorting.
How had that angle escaped me? There wasn’t room for two eco-spas in Long County. “That’s why you tried to frame Ty. With him in prison, you’d have a free hand to manipulate Diana. You might even be able to trick her into selling you her half of the ranch.”
“Bright girl! Now explain the part about making it look like Ty was trying to frame me.”
I didn’t like this game, but talking was better than being shot. “I guess because that way if anything turned up that implicated you, it would look like part of Ty’s set up?”
“Very good! Although, mostly, it was for the fun. And because I don’t like seeing a Hawkins get above his station.” He tapped his chest. “Caines are the rich family in this county. Hawkins make good servants or mistresses, but we call the shots.” He mugged a grin at the gun. “Pardon the pun!”
“Very funny. Except for the part where you killed a human being for a piece of real estate.”
Anger flashed across Carson’s face. “I did not kill Roger. It was an accident. A stupid argument, which he started, I’ll have you know. I would have preferred not to have to do any of this. It’s taken a lot of work.”
The man actually felt sorry for himself, like the guy that kills his parents and then claims special consideration for being an orphan.
“It must have been a tough situation,” I said, keeping my eyes on the gun. Was the safety on? How long did it take to release it, aim, and fire? Longer than it would take me to dive across the table, probably.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to shoot you. Bullets are so traceable. I’ll think of so
mething else, while I’m telling you my tragic tale. That’s traditional at this point, I believe.”
“You could let me go. By the time I got back to town, you’ll have destroyed whatever evidence there is in here. My credibility is nothing compared to yours. You could easily face me down.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ve gone beyond that. Your credibility is better than you think. And now, thanks to you, they’ve got Hank. He was here that night, you see. He helped me with the clean-up. That will be quite the bargaining chip, when his drug case comes to trial.” He rubbed his chin with the barrel of the gun. “What I really need is to get rid of both of you in one neat stroke.”
That did not sound good at all. Although, if he wasn’t going to shoot me, sooner or later he’d have to put the gun down and then I might have a chance to do something. I planted my feet firmly on the floor, ready to jump if an opportunity arose. “I know part of the story, I think. It hardly qualifies as tragic.”
“High drama, I assure you. Well, I was high, anyway.” He giggled. He was definitely high now. I recognized the symptoms from Nick’s bad old days: the grandiose gestures, the glittering eyes, the rapid speech.
“Did Diana come up here after her argument with Ty? She must have still been angry, huh? Looking for a way to blow off steam?”
“Oh, she was boiling mad, the little vixen. Gorgeous. She marched in here and declared that she was tired of men jerking her around and treating her like an accessory.”
“Accessory to what?”
Carson nodded. “That’s what I said. You have to think like Diana. She meant ‘accessory’ like a scarf or a hat.”
“Or a charm bracelet.”
He gave me a sly look. “That confused everyone, didn’t it? I mean, who would do such a thing?”
“Why did you?”
“It seemed so funny at the time. Diana threw it at me during the general blow-up. She almost hit me with it, the little minx!” He painted a pious expression on his face. “There’s a warning in that for you. Drugs and alcohol exacerbate even minor disputes. Tempers run higher when you’re high.” He giggled again. That sound sent shivers up my spine.
I stuck to it, though. Asking questions was all I had. “Did Diana call Roger? Had they been meeting here?”
“Heavens, no! Do you think I’d give that sleaze ball a place to screw my mistress? No, no, and no. Besides, she was playing with the old Dodger to get Ty’s goat. I’m the only one she really loves, you know. She dates her darling deputy and even I can see that he’s good for her. She may even marry him, one of these days. But she and I go way back—all the way to her seventeenth birthday. I was her first. And I’m still the only one who can scratch all the itches in just the right way.”
Brag, brag. If I weren’t so scared, I’d be bored. “Then how did Roger get into it? Did he come up to buy drugs?”
Carson snapped his fingers at me. “Close, very close. He came to trade, or rather, share. He had a nice bottle of bourbon. He came up shortly after his much observed argument with Ty, also mad as a hatter and looking for relief.” Carson paused and nodded, shaking his finger at nothing. “You know, ultimately, Ty is responsible for this whole situation. If he weren’t so irritating, so pompous and self-righteous, I wouldn’t have had to deal with two enraged individuals that night. Diana wouldn’t have pressured me, Roger wouldn’t have insulted her, and none of this would have happened.”
“What did happen? You still haven’t gotten to the main part.”
“And whose fault is that? You keep digressing. All right, let’s see. Diana came storming in here with fire in her eyes, threatening to tell my wife everything. She wanted me to get a divorce and marry her, if you can believe it. Sheerest fantasy.”
“Why didn’t you marry her in the first place, if she was the love of your life?”
“One doesn’t marry a Hawkins, my dear.” He made a sour face, like spitting out a bitter seed. “They’re barely a step up from trailer trash, or they were until Ty turned himself into a millionaire. Such a hard-working boy. No doubt that’s why you love him.”
“That’s not why I love him.” I leaned forward and put my hands on the coffee table, pushing it slightly to test its weight.
“Hands in the lap, please. And stop interrupting. I’m a very good storyteller when I’m not interrupted every few sentences. Unfortunately, my wife is the one with the money. All I own is this ranch, which is worth nothing unless I sell it, which of course I would never do. And Queen Anorexia threatened to take half of it if we ever got within spitting distance of a divorce. Besides, I liked things the way they were.”
“So you said no. Sounds simple enough. Then why kill Roger?”
“I told you, I didn’t kill him. The stupid man felt the need to insert himself in our little domestic quarrel. Apparently, he had not realized that we meant more to one another than potential development partners. He had the gargantuan ego to imagine that Diana actually gave a crap about him. He thought he was winning her over.” Carson gaped at me to underscore the enormity of Roger’s self-delusion.
“So, she threw the bracelet at you, you tried to hit her and got him instead?”
“Absolutely not! I would never strike Diana. I love her. No, she threw the bracelet, nearly striking me in the face, I might add, and delivered her rant. Then she strutted out with her head held high, slamming the door behind her. I remember a deep silence following that thunderstorm. Then Roger, the vulgar brute, made a remark so crude about my Lady Di, that something went snap and I hauled off and hit him. I suppose it was the meth on top of the anger I’d absorbed from Diana.” He smiled and drew in a breath. “It felt good. Really good. So I waited for him to get to his feet and did it again, twice. The second time his head cracked back against the mantle there.” He pointed with the gun. “Right there in the middle. There are probably still traces of blood. Yet another thing for me to deal with this morning.”
Yes, unwanted stains were the worst of it. Revulsion must have showed on my face.
“You disapprove,” Carson said. “I told you I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted to teach him a lesson in humility. My grandfather used to beat the holy crap out of me and I survived. It made me the man I am today.”
“An egotistical murderer?”
“Manslaughter, please.” He barked a laugh. “Oh! You mean you!”
Come to think of it, yeah. “You won’t get away with it, you know. I told the whole story to Marion. She knows I’m here, right now. And I can prove Ty’s innocent, really prove it, in court. I’ve got photographs proving the Escalade was moved during the time he was in jail.”
Carson winced. “That wasn’t terribly well thought out. I should have put it there in the first place, but there was so much to do that night, and we were so stoned.” He shook his head at the memory. “My first thought was to implicate Diana, pay her back for throwing that bracelet at me, if the body was ever found, which I honestly didn’t think it would be. Ty and his plans, always tripping me up! When he got arrested, it seemed like a gift. So I decided to try to build a case against him by staging the car scene.”
“How did you get the arrowhead?”
“Oh, for pity’s sake! You’re an artist, have you so little imagination? From Ty’s desk, of course. Hank slipped through the dog door and let me in. We were careful not to rearrange anything, and of course we wore gloves. We had all the time in the world. They have no staff. Ty was in jail and Diana in rehab, true to Hawkins family tradition.”
Both conditions had been his fault, but of course he would never admit that. “It doesn’t really matter. I can prove Ty didn’t move the car, which lets him out for the rest of it. He’ll be free in less than an hour.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, my dear. Once those photographs get into the sheriff’s offices, they’re as good as mine. I’ve got Hap Hopper in my back pocket.”
“Is he armed?” I inquired. “Because I doubt he would put up with this.”
�
�Cheeky wench.” He looked at me with a touch of admiration. “Why aren’t you quaking with fear?”
“I quake on the inside. Keeps from wrinkling my clothes.”
“As if you cared. You usually look like you stumbled out of a bread line. Where do you get that stuff, Goodwill?”
I resented that. You could get lots of good stuff at the G-Store, if you were a savvy shopper like me.
He swiped the tablet to wake it up and clucked his tongue. “Much as I’m enjoying this fireside chat, we do have a time factor to consider. They’ll be getting out of court soon and I’ve still got things to do.”
He double-tapped something. “The Internet really is the most amazing resource for the criminally minded. I also found instructions for preventing a propane tank from exploding. All I have to do is work backward and voila! When Hank comes back to play with his chemistry set, everything will go boom.”
Boom? Was he seriously planning to blow up the whole house? “Assuming he gets out and assuming he’s stupid enough to come fool with this stuff again.”
“Oh, he’ll get out. I authorized Skip to post however much they asked. I can’t have Hank in jail, jonesing for nicotine and eager to talk. As for the stupidity, that should not be underestimated. He won’t be able to resist making one more batch. Waste these ingredients?” He wagged his finger. “I think not. Ephedrine is not easy to come by in quantity these days.”
He got up and walked over to the kitchen area, pacing back and forth, looking at me, scanning the room. “What I really want is for Hank to kill you, but I can’t be certain he would. And you’d warn him about my sabotage gambit, wouldn’t you?”
“No, sir, not me. Mum’s the word.” I mimed locking my lips. “You can leave me right here. I’ll give that mantelpiece a good scrubbing for you.”
“You’re quite the wisenheimer, Penny. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Pretty much everyone I know.”
He regarded me with his hands on his hips. “I could knock you out, tie you up and gag you, and then stuff you under the sofa. You’re fairly trim. Then Hank would never see you and you’d be blown up along with him.”