Private Sins

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Mom’s bringing in the herd with Uncle Clyde,’ Jen said. ‘Did you see the foal yet?’

  Miss Pink went across to inspect the new arrival. ‘I hadn’t realised your mother was breeding horses,’ she observed, smiling as the creature stopped suckling and collapsed in a tangle of legs.

  ‘If you have a good mare, you breed. No sense in wasting the opportunity. It means that Val has one less animal for the pack-trips but of course she can have her pick of the others.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Mine. I find it difficult to come to terms with: that all Glenaffric’s stock belongs to me, barring the colts Sophie chooses. Ali is worth a fortune on his own.’

  ‘And the animals are only a part of it,’ Miss Pink murmured as the foal’s mother stepped delicately across the loose box to nuzzle her shoulder. ‘How does it feel: being fabulously rich?’

  ‘It’s a hassle, deciding what to do now that we can do anything. I mean, what do we do about Glenaffric — and this place?’ She gestured at the old cabin. ‘I’ll give Mom the land but she has to let me build her a proper house. She’s being awkward.’

  ‘She inherits too,’ Miss Pink pointed out.

  ‘I shall have far more — and I owe her.’

  ‘I imagine she thinks it’s enough to have you back.’

  ‘That’s what Sam says.’

  ‘What does she say?’

  ‘We don’t talk about that. We carry on as if none of it happened. I guess we’re both embarrassed. Do you think there’s any harm in it… not talking about the past?’

  ‘Not in the circumstances. You both have confidants, you see; you can talk to Bret and Sam, she can talk to Sophie’ — Miss Pink’s eyebrows rose — ‘and to Sam, of course, so your feelings will permeate as it were.’

  Jen looked puzzled. ‘Neither of you is hiding anything,’ Miss Pink insisted. ‘And you’re both fond of each other, right?’

  ‘I’d die for her,’ Jen said, and her eyes widened as they did when she was startled, or she startled herself. She turned jerkily and Miss Pink followed her over the dusty floor to the head of the ramp.

  They looked down the track towards the canyon. ‘Hilton’s a drag,’ Jen said, sounding curiously petulant. ‘He keeps badgering us about Erik Byer. How would we know where the guy is?’

  ‘It’s because of the new development.’

  ‘What? What development?’

  ‘The theft of your grandmother’s antiques.’

  ‘Oh, that. Yes, they told me. Byer always was a pain…’ She seemed to be waiting for more.

  ‘And he could have been involved in your grandfather’s death,’ Miss Pink said calmly. ‘If he was shot. Perhaps he wasn’t.’

  Jen swallowed. ‘Are you saying he wasn’t shot? So what do the police think happened?’

  Miss Pink looked vacuous. ‘A murder rigged to look like an accident? One person to hold Ali, the other to lift an unconscious man and fix his leg in the stirrup?’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  Miss Pink appeared not to have heard. There was no retraction, no apology; there was denial, then deep thought, visualising possibilities. ‘Byer?’ Jen ventured. ‘But then who — oh, Skinner!’ More thought. ‘What would the motive be?’

  ‘Charlie had discovered the thefts, but there would be revenge as well in the case of Skinner: for the lie about your parentage.’

  The colour drained from the younger woman’s face. She took a step and leaned against the door jamb.

  Miss Pink glanced at her. ‘All in the past now,’ she said comfortably. ‘You’re reconciled with your mother —’

  ‘She didn’t know. I didn’t know until after he was dead. How could she have known? I told you a couple of days ago: Sam told me part of it, Edna told me the rest — but only afterwards. There’s no way it could have been rigged: even with one of them holding his head, even Mom couldn’t have made him stand while Uncle Clyde worked the foot into the stirrup, and Mom can do anything with a horse. I know it couldn’t have been like that, anyone would know. If Hilton’s saying that he’s got some ulterior motive.’

  ‘No one’s saying it. I was presenting an hypothesis: considering how Byer and Skinner might have worked it. Your mother’s in the clear, Jen. She was trying to incriminate herself but that was only to protect you.’

  Jen grinned. ‘Actually I’m the obvious choice — all that money I inherit. That’ll be why Hilton pulled Bret in. The only reason he hasn’t questioned me is that he’s frightened of the money. Wild, isn’t it: Charlie’s money protecting me against an accusation of Charlie’s murder? But Hilton has to be careful; he’s not going to come up against the kind of heavyweight lawyer I can afford — for myself or anyone else.’ She sounded vicious now, looking past Miss Pink, focused on something beyond the corrals.

  Sounds became audible: the drumming of hoofs, people’s cries; in the barn the mare neighed.

  They moved down the ramp as the horse herd jostled through an open gate into a corral. Behind them Val stared at Miss Pink, slid down from her horse and slammed the gate shut. She strode towards them, pulling her mount, glowering from Jen to Miss Pink. ‘What’s going on?’ she barked.

  ‘I’m just back from the store,’ Miss Pink said, with only a trace of surprise. ‘We’ve been looking at the new foal.’

  ‘What have you —’ Val began, turning on Jen.

  ‘Where’s Uncle Clyde?’ the girl asked wildly.

  Val stared at her and blinked. ‘He’s fixing a fence,’ she said distractedly. ‘The horses got into the woods. It’s why we took so long…’ She was trying to smooth out her expression. ‘Who’s with Grandma?’

  ‘Bret. I gave the mare a bran mash, Mom. She took it all and the foal’s feeding like he was starved.’

  Val nodded. Belatedly she remembered her manners. ‘Thank you for going to town,’ she told Miss Pink gruffly. ‘Now’ — to Jen — ‘if you can help me package this stuff —’

  She hitched her horse and mother and daughter started across the yard. Miss Pink followed, intending to offer assistance, although she’d not been asked.

  The telephone rang as Val reached the steps. She dived into the kitchen followed by Jen and Miss Pink. They started to unpack the shopping, listening to Val’s raised voice in the living-room.

  She wasn’t long on the phone. ‘That was Bret,’ she said, returning. ‘Hilton’s fussing about Byer. Now he wants to know where the guy drinks in Ballard.’

  ‘Why?’ Jen asked.

  Miss Pink was still, holding a box of eggs. She opened it and stared, not seeing eggs. ‘Has he found something?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘His pick-up?’

  ‘Bret didn’t say. What’s on your mind?’

  ‘If Hilton’s interested in Ballard it looks as if he thinks Byer isn’t far away.’

  After a moment Val gave a gasp of angry laughter. ‘Oh, come on! Byer’s done a runner and Hilton’s trying to trace his movements just. The only friends that guy has apart from Skinner will be in the bars in Ballard: drinking buddies. Nothing sinister about it. And, by the way, can I ask another favour of you? Bret needs to come down here, help shoe some horses for tomorrow. Will you go up and sit with Edna a while? Jen can relieve you after she’s helped me here.’

  On her way to Glenaffric Miss Pink saw a pick-up approaching. This would be Bret and it occurred to her that she had had no conversation with Jen’s husband. They had been in the same party on the search for Charlie and she had been a witness to that scene when he had come to the homestead thinking to take the stallion back to Benefit. She had observed him but he was no more than an image: a man who sat his horse well and dressed like an old-timer. What she knew of him was hearsay, but this man was important. He was married to a very rich woman and in view of that the police had seen fit to question him. Her mind alert for nuances, Miss Pink went into excited, slightly-batty-old-lady mode. She was already talking as they slowed to pass, their windows down, neither wearing shades but the
ir eyes shadowed by hat brims.

  ‘… morning, Mr Ryan; I’m so glad they released you, glad for Jen, I mean; she’s been talking to me.’

  He glanced down the track. ‘I don’t think she was that worried, ma’am.’

  ‘She had to be…’ Miss Pink smiled benignly. ‘Mr Hilton is working on the money motive so she is the most obvious suspect.’

  He looked straight at her. ‘Jen’s not bothered about the money.’ He sounded surprised, as if this were a fact that was evident to anyone.

  ‘The family knows that,’ Miss Pink said. ‘You know it, but Hilton doesn’t. And then there’s the personal angle. Charlie had it coming —’ A deliberate pause, leaving room for him to protest. When he didn’t she went on, flustered, ‘That’s police thinking, anyway. It was a cruel joke of Charlie’s — that is, if he intended it as a joke and not malice. It could have been both, of course.’

  He was frowning. ‘Not malice against Jen; he’d give her anything she wanted. You didn’t know Charlie; he liked to play jokes on his family. He’d think it was funny to tell Jen Skinner was her father.’

  Miss Pink gaped. ‘When she’d already told him she was pregnant? He must have guessed who was responsible. You’re telling me Charlie thought it amusing to let Jen think she was pregnant by her own father?’

  ‘He didn’t tell her —’

  ‘The implication was there. She tumbled to it immediately. You have to be —’ She broke off; she’d been about to say ‘weak-minded not to see the connection’. Aware that she had dropped the batty-old-lady role she collected herself and said coldly, ‘You saw the connection.’

  ‘No, ma’am. It were a coincidence. Charlie were joking when he told her Skinner was her daddy. He had no idea the guy had made a play for her.’ Miss Pink’s eyebrows shot up; how far could one go with euphemisms? ‘If he had,’ Bret was saying, ‘you think Charlie wouldn’t have taken it up with the guy?’

  She studied his face. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said flatly. ‘Charlie was astute… and cruel, from all I’ve heard — and what I saw of him, because I did meet him, you know. He guessed.’

  ‘No way. If he thought it was Skinner’s baby, would he ever have told her Skinner was her own father?’

  ‘Why not? It made the joke diabolical. From what —’

  ‘You can’t believe it was a joke!’

  ‘I believe Charlie thought of it that way.’

  ‘Never.’ He was adamant and fierce. ‘You been talking to my wife like this?’

  She shook her head. ‘I thought you knew already. I can see why she didn’t tell you, however. She knew you’d be outraged, ask questions, probe for details maybe; she wants to forget the past and start a new life. I take it the police have no idea that Charlie could have been killed for anything other than money?’

  He was looking down the track towards the old homestead, his hands tight on the steering wheel. He said absently, ‘They couldn’t let me forget how rich Jen is now, how poor we were before.’

  ‘That riles you?’

  His eyes came back to her. ‘Why should it? I didn’t know Jen was to inherit everything — well, ‘most everything.’ He smiled. ‘I want Ali, but that’s different; I don’t want him because of his cash value — we’ll never sell him — but because he’s a great horse. I want to see his foals, I mean after we take over.’

  ‘The money doesn’t mean anything?’

  ‘Of course it does.’ He was amazed. ‘This rig’s only fit for the scrap heap; I can have a new truck and Jen can have a proper car so we don’t have to share an old pick-up —’ He stopped suddenly, thinking, then went on shyly, ‘I’d prefer to stay at Benefit but I can see it makes sense to move into the big house, where the land is.’ He looked morose at the thought.

  ‘And there’s Edna,’ Miss Pink murmured. ‘She can’t live alone.’

  ‘Edna’s all right but she can’t run the ranch and I wouldn’t trust Byer further than I could throw him. Anyways, he’s split so she’d be on her own even today without me and Sam. You got to hand it to this family: they stick together. Charlie were the only problem, he made like a dictator.’

  ‘How did you get on with him?’

  ‘I didn’t know him, ma’am.’

  ‘But you visited him at hunting camp.’

  ‘You know that? I didn’t stay. I’d seen a bear and he went after it.’

  ‘Did he tell you why he wanted to see Jen?’

  ‘It were the other way round. She wanted to see him because she’d started to wonder if after all Skinner wasn’t her daddy. I tell her she takes after Sam but she can’t see it. Any road she wanted to see one of the grandparents, find out the truth, but Charlie put her off going to Glenaffric, told her to meet him at hunting camp. I went instead, thinking to get the truth out of him somehow. But when I told him Jen and me was married he didn’t want to talk about the family. I’d told him there was a bear up in the rocks and it put everything else out of his mind. He said he’d be over to Benefit next day, then we could talk, and off he went, up the meadow after that bear, which was the last I saw of him.’ He looked amused. ‘Guess I was the last to see him alive.’

  ‘Does Hilton believe you?’

  ‘He has to. No way can he prove I followed Charlie up to the rocks.’

  ‘No proof doesn’t have to mean you didn’t follow him.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Charlie.’ He sounded relaxed and quite confident.

  She drove on. No hidden depths there, she thought. An honest fellow, obtuse, sincere, unworldly — either that or a skilled actor, and a man who could dissemble so expertly would never have been content with a hand-to-mouth existence in the backwoods of Montana. True, great wealth had come his way, but he’d had no reason to think that Jen would inherit a fortune and even if he had, he showed every sign of caring for his wife. Money to Bret meant a new pick-up and she believed him when he said there was a downside to Jen’s inheritance: he had to leave his cabin at Benefit. He would be regretting the loss of his freedom: from ranch hand to, at the very least, manager of a great estate. Noblesse oblige. Miss Pink smiled smugly; he had been a shadowy figure, two-dimensional. The conversation had revealed his substance, filled out the image, rendered him solid. She liked what she saw.

  The Bronco crept into Glenaffric’s yard like a cat and she cut the engine. If Edna were sleeping she didn’t want to wake her. There were two pick-ups in the yard and she remembered that Bret had mentioned Sam. He would be out with the horses.

  The kitchen was empty, the Wedgwood scraps gone, the table clear. Not wanting to frighten the old lady if she were encountered wandering through the dim rooms, Miss Pink retreated outside and turned towards the corrals. There wasn’t much to look at. In a paddock to the side a couple of mares stood nose-to-tail under a cottonwood, their foals flattened like dead dogs at their feet. A Sunday afternoon atmosphere, she thought, as if there was any difference in days on a ranch. A flutter of movement caught her eye, past the corrals: something pale in a pasture.

  She strolled through the corrals until she had a clear view of the field and the stationary group in the middle of it. Ali stood as if for his portrait: sleek, alert, daunting in his muscular power: Alexander’s Bucephalus. He was saddled and bridled; Sam Jardine was at his head while Edna ran a hand down the near foreleg before standing up and turning to Sam. They looked like experts in earnest discussion. Miss Pink leaned against a solid post and watched.

  Edna walked to the fence and climbed clumsily to the top rail. What was going on? Sam brought the stallion forward, moved to his flank and pushed him towards the rail. Miss Pink had the impression that there was communication between the three of them, not just Sam and Edna; it was a picture without sound, a picture in slow motion, fraught with suspense. She saw Edna’s plump leg in a shabby trainer come over the saddle, the little round body settle down and suddenly Edna was no longer an old lady but someone who fitted right there, on the back of a good horse.

  Sam stood back. Ali stepped fo
rward — and bucked. Miss Pink’s hand flew to her mouth. Edna sat like a rock. The stallion started to walk: stiffly, not relaxed. Sam moved out to the middle of the small field. Ali circled him, walking. As he relaxed, stepping nicely now, he looked as if he were enjoying his own movement. Edna sat like part of the horse, never seeming to move, as far as Miss Pink could see, but then with those fat thighs what would she see? She felt a giggle rise hysterically and checked it as Ali started to weave in figures of eight about Sam. Sam said something. ‘Just once,’ Miss Pink heard from Edna. Back at the fence Ali broke into a gentle trot, got into the swing of it, went round once and stopped. Edna knotted the reins round the horn and, without hands, repeated the whole process until, taking up the reins again, she brought the horse to Sam and backed him. Ali responded like a ballet dancer.

  They came walking towards her, unaware of her presence. Miss Pink saw what could happen when Ali caught sight of her. She turned and tried to retreat but too late. Behind her Edna spoke rather too loudly, there was a snort, a scuffle in the dust and she looked back to see the stallion in the air, unbelievably high, coming down — Sam’s terrified face behind and Edna, still in the saddle, patting the powerful neck, soothing him.

  *

  She sat in the kitchen, overwhelmed by embarrassment. She’d filled the kettle, put it on the stove and now she waited, like a pupil sent to the headmistress, uncertain how Edna would behave, uncertain of herself.

  Edna came in, very quiet in her old trainers. She smiled at Miss Pink.

  ‘I can only apologise —’

  ‘Yes, dear? Where are the women?’

  ‘What —? Who?’

  Edna was staring at the kettle. ‘The maids.’ She looked lost.

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ Miss Pink said weakly. ‘I don’t think the maids come on a Sunday. I put the kettle on.’