A Cop and a Coop

by Hillary Avis

  “Perfect. We’ll need to assemble a casserole crew, too. It’s tough to eat when you’re grieving, but it’s nice to have food on hand when you can stomach it.”

  “I’m in. I can take her something tomorrow.”

  Ruth shook her head. “Yelena already said she’s bringing something over tomorrow. You can do the next day. We’ll set up a schedule for everyone else to sign up.”

  My forehead creased, thinking of the suspicions we’d voiced earlier. “Yelena’s going to visit Anne tomorrow? Is that really a good idea, given what she might have done to Walt?”

  Ruth stood up abruptly. “You know as well as I do that Yelena didn’t kill anyone. I just felt we had to pass along any possibilities to Eli. You were right—we don’t know Yelena as well as other folks who have lived here longer. We can’t be sure she’s trustworthy. The sheriff’s department needs to be looking at all the possibilities. All the outsiders.”

  I swallowed. “Outsiders like me?”

  “Of course not. You’re from here.” She rolled her eyes and held out her hand to help me up, but I struggled to my feet on my own.

  “I live next door to Walt and Anne,” I reminded her. “I could have killed him.”

  “You were in town with me and Tambra,” she said stubbornly. “I was with you.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know what I was doing before noon. Actually, Tambra could have done it, too.”

  “She was at the back-to-school picnic!” Ruth crossed her arms, her expression bewildered.

  “Was she?” I arched an eyebrow and stepped toward her. “You weren’t there. We didn’t take the guitar to the park until after two o’clock.”

  Ruth backed up so quickly, she hit her shoulder on the door frame. “Eli saw her! As soon as he dropped you off, he went over to the picnic.”

  “Did he? Or did he drive over to the Sutherlands’ and exact a little vigilante justice?”

  Ruth’s chin began to wobble. “What are you trying to do, Leona? I don’t understand why you’re accusing everyone we know!”

  I rubbed my forehead. I honestly didn’t know why I was badgering Ruth like this. Maybe it was her comment about outsiders that had rubbed me the wrong way. “Sorry. I just think we shouldn’t rule out possibilities. Nobody should get a pass when it’s something so serious. Not even me. Not even Anne, for goodness sake! Wouldn’t you want to kill Walt if he was your husband?”

  Ruth rolled her eyes and tossed up her hands. “Now you’ve gone too far. One second you’re bringing her casseroles, the next you’re saying lock her up because she had an unhappy marriage.”

  “No, hear me out. Maybe Anne and Joe were having an actual affair and Walt caught them doing more than kissing. That’d explain why Walt was so angry—maybe it was more than a first kiss. The day after their relationship is exposed, Joe just disappears. For twenty years, Anne thinks he left her without saying goodbye. He abandoned her. But then when I dug up his skeleton, she realizes Walt murdered him. Her lover’s body has been right under her nose for decades. She’d be angry. I know I would be.”

  Ruth nodded. “More than angry. I’d be livid. It all falls apart when you think about Anne as a person though, doesn’t it? I can believe Walt is a killer, but Anne? Her own husband? She just doesn’t have it in her.” Ruth squinted into the distance as though she could see the Sutherland farmhouse through the cottage wall.

  “Believe me, I could kill my ex easier than just about anybody on planet Earth,” I muttered. “The fact that Walt is her husband makes it more plausible, not less. Did you know he’s been beating up on her for years?”

  Ruth’s frown deepened. “How do you know that? Walt’s a bit of a curmudgeon and not someone I’d want to marry, but so is pretty much every other man of his generation around here. I’ve never seen him act violent.”

  “I saw the bruises on her neck last night. She said as much.”

  “Huh.” Ruth’s tone was skeptical. “How’d you notice something after living here three weeks that I didn’t see in thirty years?”

  I shrugged. “I guess you never know what’s going on inside someone else’s marriage unless you see it really close up. My relationship with Peterson looked perfect on the outside, right? TV-perfect. Like a shiny red apple with unblemished skin that’s all rotten on the inside. You wouldn’t know anything was wrong. Even Andrea didn’t know—she’s still mad at me because she thinks I didn’t try hard enough to repair things after the America Today incident. She didn’t realize that I’d been struggling to fix our relationship for at least a decade.” I sighed, thinking of those grandbabies.

  “I’m sorry,” Ruth said quietly. “I mean, sorry that you had to go through that. That you still are going through it. I’m sure Andrea will come around with some time.” She paused, and then said hesitantly, “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you’re projecting your personal feelings about marriage onto Anne a little bit? I mean—you’ve always had a lot of fire, Leona. And even you didn’t kill Peterson when you probably should have.”

  “Ha!” My laugh startled the puddle of sleeping chicks, who peeped and ran around the tub before settling back down again.

  Ruth grinned as she watched the babies nod off again. “Anne’s not that kind of woman. I know her, and she’s a decent human being.”

  “Even decent humans have a breaking point.” I raised an eyebrow.

  “But I know her. This is a small town!”

  “You know her, but you don’t know her,” I said.

  “Rusty does, though,” Ruth said stubbornly. “He’s spent his whole life working on this farm right next door to the Sutherlands, and he and Walt were real friends.”

  I stopped short. “Let’s ask him, then.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s ask Rusty about Joe and Anne’s relationship. He knew the Sutherlands well and he worked side-by-side with Joe. He saw them both up close. He’d be the one to know if they had an affair back then—if it was more than just a one-sided crush. Come on.”

  Chapter 26

  I moved past Ruth, through the tiny living room toward the front door.

  Ruth followed me out of the bedroom. “And what if Joe and Anne did have an affair? What would that prove, anyway?”

  “It wouldn’t prove anything, but it might explain why Anne snapped and killed Walt when she realized he was Joe’s murderer.” I opened the front door and squinted out. Rusty was steering the tractor carefully back toward the barn. I started down the steps toward him.

  “She’s not a killer!” Ruth yelped as she trotted after me. “You can’t just say stuff like that about people without a whole lot of caveats just because you have a wild hair. The poor woman just lost her husband! Don’t get Rusty to say something he’ll regret.”

  “Rusty!” I hollered, waving my arms to get his attention. He turned down the throttle when he saw me and waved back. I jogged ahead of Ruth. “Hey, I have a question!”

  “Oh yeah?” He turned the tractor all the way off and ran a hand through his bushy hair so it stood straight up. “What’s up? What do you think of my progress? The tractor’s running good, right?”

  “I’m impressed. I was wondering—you worked on the Sutherland place quite a bit over the years, didn’t you?”

  “Sure I did,” he said, looking wary.

  Ruth drew up next to me, panting and holding an arm across her chest. “You gotta warn me at least twenty-four hours in advance that we’re going to run. I’m wearing the wrong bra for this nonsense.”

  “Nobody told you to chase me across the yard.”

  “I’m just trying to keep my brother out of trouble,” she said, shooting Rusty a meaningful look.

  “Trouble? What kind of trouble?” Rusty looked back and forth between us.

  I rolled my eyes. “Imaginary trouble. I just want to know—was Anne sleeping with Hobo Joe? Be honest.”

  His jaw dropped. “No!”

  “Do you think they could have been doing it in s
ecret? Did he talk about her a lot or meet with her alone?”

  Rusty’s face crumpled. “No! What? Why would you ask something like that?”

  “See?” Ruth said, grabbing my arm. “Leave him out of it.”

  I shook off Ruth’s hand and ignored her, addressing Rusty. “Joe never mentioned Anne in all the hours you worked together? You never guessed all his bonfire songs were written for her?”

  “I mean—he mentioned her name,” Rusty mumbled. “We talked about the Sutherlands because we did jobs over there. But Anne would never stoop to sleep with someone like Joe. You shouldn’t say stuff like that.” He grimaced at the thought.

  “That’s what I said.” Ruth pursed her lips at me. “It’s not a good idea to cast aspersions, Leona.”

  For some reason their reluctance to talk about it made me even more determined to get answers. “What do you mean, ‘someone like Joe’? A Canadian? A musician? I thought everyone liked him.”

  “They did,” Rusty said darkly. “Too much if you ask me. But he was a hobo, a train-hopper. He didn’t understand loyalty. He could disappear overnight, anytime—and he did. Who wants a relationship with someone like that? Not a woman like Anne.”

  “Rusty,” Ruth said slowly, her forehead creasing deeply. “You do realize that Joe disappeared overnight because he was killed, right? Not because of his flawed character. For all we know, Joe might have settled down in Honeytree if someone hadn’t ended his life.”

  “Of course I know that now. But I didn’t know back then, when I filled in the duck pond.” Rusty’s shoulders sagged as he motioned to the broken earth nearby where Joe’s skeleton had been buried. “I just thought he took off and left us all behind.”

  Ruth clucked her tongue sympathetically and reached out to squeeze Rusty’s shoulder. My heart, which had been beating a mile a minute, stilled. Of course, filling in this hole in my front yard would be like déjà vu for Rusty. He’d unknowingly filled in a grave in this exact location twenty years ago. How could I have been so insensitive to ask him to do the same task?

  “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. Ruth looked at me with I told you so written all over her face. She knew exactly why I was feeling chagrined. “I guess I got ahead of myself. I thought if Anne and Joe were having an affair, that could explain why Walt was angry enough to kill him—and why Anne might take revenge twenty years later. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you.”

  Rather than its intended effect, my apology made Rusty’s face turned redder than a rooster’s comb, and I thought he might burst into tears. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped himself, then blurted out angrily, “First Anne’s hooking up with hobos, and now she’s a murderer?”

  “It’s just a theory...” I trailed off when I saw Ruth’s face crumple in disappointment.

  “You can’t say things like that, Leona. You could really hurt someone.”

  “What are you talking about?” I held out my hands toward her, bewildered. “A few minutes ago, you called Eli because you were suspicious of Yelena, and now you’re getting mad at me for being suspicious of Anne? When did you become such a hypocrite?”

  “There’s a big difference between telling the sheriff a piece of information that might be relevant in a case and spreading malicious rumors.”

  “That’s a laugh—half the rumors in town come straight out of the Do or Dye,” I said, stung by her accusation.

  Ruth paused, shaking her head sadly as she backed away from me toward where her car was parked. “You’re not the person I thought you were.” She whirled and, without a backward glance, got into her car and sped down the driveway, pausing only for a split-second before turning onto the highway and barreling back toward Honeytree.

  My heart felt like stone, sinking from my chest to somewhere deep in my belly. My only true friend left in the world, Ruth was the last person I wanted to alienate. Before I opened my big fat mouth and accused my neighbor of murder, I should have remembered that town loyalties run deep—and so do town grudges. I needed to make amends, and fast, if I wanted to have any hope of recovering from my gaffe.

  “I didn’t mean it,” I said to Rusty, embarrassed to make eye contact with him. “I was just talking and not thinking. I won’t hold it against you if you can’t finish the project, though. Come on in the house while I write you a check for the magic you worked today on the tractor.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Rusty kicked a clod of dirt, the deep red color in his cheeks fading to pink. “Doesn’t take magic to tinker a little bit.”

  “Only a wizard could get that old tractor up and running in less than a half-hour, though.” I was gratified to see the corner of his mouth turn up and his shoulders straighten. “Let me pay you for your trouble.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t take a check for a job left undone. Granddad wouldn’t have it. I’ll be back in the morning to help you fill in the hole after the county boys leave. You can pay me then.”

  Gratitude for his generosity flooded my chest, buoying my heart back up where it belonged. “I appreciate it, Rusty. And I appreciate all your advice about the apples, too—I didn’t want to hear it, but I swear I’m listening.”

  He nodded absentmindedly, his attention already back on the tractor as he fired up the engine.

  “You’ll tell Ruth that I’m sorry?”

  He looked up momentarily. “You better tell her yourself. She doesn’t believe anything ’less it comes from the source.”

  He was right—as much as Ruth gossiped with her hairdressing clients, I’d never heard her share a rumor that wasn’t true. Certainly not one that was malicious or hurtful. I pulled my phone out and sent her a text, even though I knew she was probably still driving.

  “I’m sorry,” I wrote. “Forgive me?”

  I waited there a minute or two, standing there in the driveway with her brother, but no answer came.

  Chapter 27

  That night, I tossed and turned in my attic bedroom, jumping at every little creak and cricket chirp. The background hum of the generator powering the crime scene lights outside buzzed louder and louder in my ears until I stuffed my pillow over my head and moaned. But even after I heard the techs shut off the generator and their vehicles crunch down the driveway when their shift ended, I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was the hurt look on Ruth’s face when she left my house.

  I checked my phone. Still no reply from her.

  After staring at the ceiling for another solid five minutes, I gave up and got out of bed. There was no point in wasting wakeful hours—I might as well go check on the chickens. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants under my short nightgown even though I didn’t expect anyone to see me, mostly because the sweatpants had pockets that could hold my phone. First I stopped by Boots’ bin and then, seeing all the chicks snuggled peacefully under the mama heating pad, headed out to the barn, nightgown flapping.

  I winced as the barn door squealed open. A gentle chorus of sleepy clucks came from the stock tank in the back of the barn. It was a good sound, the sound of a peacefully sleeping hen and rooster who were only slightly disturbed. Apparently I was the only one on this farm who couldn’t get a good night of sleep. I almost wished Eli was parked out in the driveway so I could wake him up and have someone to talk to.

  Not really. Really I wished I could call Ruth. She was the kind of friend who wouldn’t get upset if you called her late at night. The kind of friend I couldn’t really afford to lose. My head started to ache. I leaned against the tarp-covered Porsche and rubbed my forehead as I wracked my brain trying to figure out how I could I get Ruth to forgive me. I’d accused her of malicious gossip and hypocrisy, accused her friends of adultery and murder. No wonder she was done with me. But obviously she wasn’t accepting a simple apology.

  I checked my phone again, but it didn’t have any text notifications—just the time, two o’clock in the morning, the double-zeroes glaring at me from the screen. Nobody should be awake at this hour. Even h
ighway patrol was off duty at two a.m., according to Eli.

  I jerked my head up. Highway patrol was off duty. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? There was no better way to clear my mind than a drive. Whisking the tarp off the Porsche, I admired the sleek lines of the little convertible. Poor girl, she hadn’t had a good run since the move. I’d been starting her up to keep the battery charged every so often, but she hadn’t been out on the highway and stretched her legs—and she had long legs.

  The driver’s seat felt like an embrace from an old friend, almost as good as one of Ruth’s hugs. The car started up and purred like a kitten, and I backed out of the barn right away to let her warm up in the driveway, so the exhaust wouldn’t affect the sensitive little chicks. A few minutes later, and I was out on the open road, the wind twisting my bedhead into crazy corkscrews as I accelerated down the Flats.

  As the car slipped past the Sutherland place, I caught a glimpse of spotlights still on near the blueberry shed. The forensics team must be working through the night. Was Eli there? Is that why he hadn’t camped out in my driveway? Or had I finally run him off?

  Oh, who cared. I shook my head and let the car go full-out. She didn’t let me down—she gripped the highway and a few seconds later I was pressed against my seat. I only had a few seconds to enjoy the straightaway before I spotted the Curves ahead. I let off the gas a little and focused on what came next—steering into the turn at just the right moment, adjusting the speed using the accelerator instead of the brake. My mind settled, anxiety lifting as I prepared for the challenge. Ruth had her incense and crystals, but this was my meditation, taking these shadowed turns with pure focus on the pavement.

  Meditation was supposed to be lonely, right?

  The moon the only witness to my driving prowess, I slowed as I came into town and pulled into the parking lot of the sawmill. Plenty of cars were there for the graveyard shift, but otherwise the town was deserted. Nobody saw me turn around and head back, eager to regain the focus and momentum I’d felt in the Curves.