“I can’t,” she said.
“Man, this is killing me,” Mark said.
“I know.”
“I mean, how does us seeing each other make one of us the killer?”
“It doesn’t,” she said. “It just doesn’t help.”
“But we need each other now.”
I needed you before.
“I know, Mark.”
“This just sucks. I want to help, Margo. You need someone to look after you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, wincing again. “I’ve got Jessie.”
“Oh, for craps sake--”
“Mark, it doesn’t look good. It only throws suspicion on the both of us, now, please--”
“You mean, when it’s all over and they’ve nabbed the killer...?”
“Yes...I...” Margo rubbed her eyes with a shaky hand. Had she taken that morning’s pain medication? She couldn’t remember. “Yes, of course, that would be great.”
“You mean it? Because, honestly, Margo, I’ve always wanted to...you know. I’ve always felt it was you and me, you know?”
“Yeah, me, too, Mark, really,” she said.
It’s too late, it’s too late.
“So, when it’s over?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” A motion out of her large picture window caught her eye and Margo turned to see Jessie and Best-Boy galloping full-speed along the trees that lined the perimeter of the pasture. She could see Jessie’s pony-tail streaming out behind her in a horizontal line, matching Best-Boy’s big broom of a tail. Jessie looked like a little doll on the huge horse. Best-Boy looked so heavy and mammoth, yet he flew down the line of woods like Pegasus, his legs churning the air in powerful rhythm. As Margo watched, allowing Mark to become a blur of background noise, she suddenly found herself possessed by a strange and compelling joy.
Almost a revelation.
4
“You bitch! I can’t believe you told them!”
Portia looked unhappy. She frowned at her husband as she spoke into the phone. Can’t you do something? she seemed to say to him.
“Just hang up on her,” her husband said, patting his pockets in search of something.
“They made me tell them,” Portia said into the phone receiver.
“Did they also make you call up and ask to change your deposition you fucking traitor?!”
Portia looked at her husband again and this time he smiled and shook his head.
“Portia, hang up on her,” he said. “Oh, here they are.” He picked up his car keys and held them up for her to see.
“I’m not good at lying,” Portia said into the receiver.
“Are you good at being friend-less?!”
Portia looked at her husband and frowned.
“She hung up on me,” she said.
Her husband laughed and walked over to Portia and kissed her.
Tess slammed down the phone and whipped a large Lladro figurine to the floor in the next second.
“Bitch!” she screamed.
The phone rang. She snatched it up.
“I’ll never forgive you, never! You deliberately made it look like I had something to do with Jilly’s death!”
“Well, did you?”
Tess caught her breath so sharply she began coughing. Finally, she took a long breath. She sat down on the couch, her shoulders collapsing about her like an old woman’s.
“I didn’t kill Jilly,” she said miserably.
“I don’t think you did either,” Burton said.
Tess lifted her head.
“Then why did you...why was I...?”
“That was standard, Tess. We got new information, we had to bring you downtown to flesh it out...”
“But you didn’t even warn me! Just yanked me from the memorial service...I didn’t even know...I was completely unprepared!”
“Telling the truth doesn’t take much preparation.”
“Oh, yes it does! It does when the truth, on the face of it, can be so easily misconstrued. You know it does!”
“I want to see you.”
“Oh, Jack.” Tess wanted to weep.
“I want to see you.”
“Professionally?”
“That’s inevitable, but no. That’s not how I want to see you.”
“When?”
“This evening? I thought we’d take a trail ride together.”
“So, it’s business.”
“I told you, Tess, that’s inevitable. But I don’t think you killed Jilly and I do want to see you. So, what do you say?”
Tess paused.
“You can ride Beckett,” she said. “Margo won’t mind and he needs the exercise.”
5
Kathy Sue pulled the hem of her jacket to drape more fully across her chubby knees. The two detectives sat in the flowered loveseat she and Ned had made love in that first night. She found herself looking around her own apartment, as if seeing it for the first time. She’d known they were coming; had known it from the moment she’d received word about Jilly’s disappearance. She was ready for them.
“And so you worked closely with Jilly Travers?” The big, burly one asked her. Detective Kaz-azinsky, or something.
“The shop’s not that big,” she answered. “We all work closely together.”
“Some of the other employees have said that you did not get along with Jilly,” the other detective asked. She wondered if he was the boss of the two. He was good-looking in an older-guy kind of way.
“Who said that?” she asked with as much innocence and surprise as she could muster, considering she was starting to sweat between her thighs.
Kazmaroff flipped through his notebook. He looked up and smiled.
“Just about everybody,” he said pleasantly.
“Well, I...no, I liked her okay,” she said.
“Really?” Again, the big detective smiled at her.
“Well, I mean, we weren’t best friends or anything,” she said.
Shit! Where was Ned? He was supposed to be here with her for this!
“No, I guess not,” the older guy said. “Especially since the rumor in the office is that your fiancé slept with Jilly a few months back.”
Kathy Sue stared at the detective. Her knees gaped and she didn’t try to pull her jacket down to cover them. She felt a distinct buzzing in her ears as the detectives continued to talk at her but she no longer heard the specific words. One of them, the big guy, kept asking her something. His voice kept spiraling upward at the end of his sentence. Same sentence. Same spiral. Same question.
“....going to ask you, Miss Rappaport?”
Kathy Sue closed her eyes.
“I hated her,” she said.
The room was quiet. Then,
“What happened, Miss Rappaport?”
“It’s bullshit that Ned slept with her,” Kathy Sue said. She looked at the big one. “It’s the kind of nasty bullshit that she would have spread around the office, to try to hurt me, humiliate me. But it didn’t happen.”
“You admit you hated her.”
“I was glad to hear she was dead.”
“We don’t know that she is, for sure,” the Detective Kaz-guy said.
Kathy Sue saw the unkind look that the older guy gave his partner.
“Let’s assume for our purposes that she is,” the older guy said to her.
“I hope she is,” Kathy Sue said.
Suddenly the door opened and a man, thirtyish, stood poised in the door frame. He was balding, short and pale. He was wearing jeans but gave the impression of being somehow formal and tailored. His eyes, behind round, John-Lennon spectacles, were probing and anxious.
“Kathy Sue?” he said.
“Oh, Ned, you’re here!” Kathy Sue jumped up and folded herself into the young man’s arms.
“I’m sorry I’m late, babe,” Ned murmured. “Are these the guys?”
Burton stood up.
“You’re Ned Potzak?” he asked.
Ned nodded and help
ed Kathy Sue back to her chair.
“That’s right,” he said, seating himself next to her.
“You ever sleep with Jilly Travers?”
Kathy Sue shook her head vehemently, but watched her fiancé.
Ned looked astonished. He looked from one detective to the other.
“I never even met the lady!” he said.
Kathy Sue let out a long, agonized breath.
“So, the answer is no?” Kazmaroff asked him.
“No, I never slept with her.”
“I told you!” Kathy Sue said. She clutched Ned’s arm and he patted her knee.
Kazmaroff turned to Kathy Sue.
“Where were you at three o’clock last Wednesday afternoon?”
Kathy Sue opened her mouth and looked unhappily at her fiancé.
“I was home, sick,” she said.
“Can anyone verify that?” Burton asked.
Kathy Sue shook her head.
“I can verify it!” Ned said.
“Oh, Ned...” Kathy Sue said unhappily.
“I talked to her half the afternoon,” he said.
Burton turned to Kazmaroff.
“Check the phone records, see if anyone was talking to anyone around three o’clock.”
“I’m almost sure I did,” Ned said.
“Oh, Ned,” Kathy Sue said. She looked at the detectives. “I napped most of the afternoon.”
Kazmaroff closed his notebook and stood up to stretch his legs. Slowly, Burton did the same.
“Not good,” he said.
6
Tess cinched the girth and gave it a tug. Her long blonde hair was plaited in back with the ends folded in a bun at the nape of her neck. Golden tendrils framed her face. She wore a simple navy-blue cotton sweater over dark jodhpurs and black riding boots to her knees. Burton thought she looked stunning.
“Let’s be wild tonight and ride hatless,” she said, handing him the reins of his mount.
“Suits me,” he said. They’d arrived in separate cars at just before seven in the evening. The days were much shorter now, but the full moon would allow them plenty of light for their hack.
“Beckett’s a sweetheart,” she said, swinging up onto her appaloosa. “You’ll love him. He’s very responsive. Not a pig like this guy.” She patted her horse lovingly on the neck. “How much riding did you say you’ve done?”
Burton faced the horse and gripped the saddle. He slipped his foot into the stirrup and swung effortlessly into the saddle. Beckett waited patiently at a standstill.
“Enough,” he said. “Although never in an English saddle. It’s like riding bareback.”
Tess laughed, and Burton thought this was the first time he’d seen her relaxed.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s see what the moonlight looks like on the Chattahoochee.”
“You’ve got a trail along the river? Is it the same one you and Jilly took last week?”
Tess walked her horse in front of Burton for a moment without answering.
“Is that where you want to go?” she asked, finally.
“Not necessarily.”
“Good.”
Burton trotted up alongside her. The two rode through a large fenced cow pasture, careful to avoid a group of muddy bovine eyeing them suspiciously, and entered a copse of trees on the other side of the pasture. Burton pointed out a trio of sandhill cranes to Tess as they flew overhead. He watched her eyes as she studied the birds and appeared to appreciate the rarity of their appearance. Out here, she didn’t seem any less poised to him, but there was a relaxed quality to her body, her facial expression, a naturalness that he hadn’t seen in her before. As he watched her scratch her horse between its ears with her riding crop, he found himself thinking Tess was the most unexpected concoction of society maven and tomboy. A whole different type of person he had no idea existed.
Or perhaps existed only in Tess?
“So, tell me,” he said. “What’s the point of all this?” They were stopped on the trail, deciding between a fork of two paths, one that would take them along the river and one that wound deeper into the woods. “I mean, grown women, giving up their precious time and money to jog around in circles on horseback? What’s the attraction?”
Tess grinned at him.
“You really don’t know?”
“Ah, now, don’t give me that domination theory stuff...the idea of holding something big and powerful between your knees that you women can control...”
“I hate to spoil the ultimate male fantasy for you!” Tess laughed.
“Well, then, what?”
Tess shrugged and leaned down and patted her horse again.
“There’s no one answer, Jack,” she said softly. “It’s about love, mostly.”
“Like the love of golf? Or the Braves? That kind of love?”
Tess made a face.
“No, it’s about friendship kind of love. Come on, let’s ride along the river. It’s pretty in the moonlight.
“This horse has seen some incredible sunsets with me. He’s carried me over fences that are taller than I am. We once galloped down a hill so fast, my head was resting on his butt the whole way...I thought we’d both be going home in bodybags...how can I explain? We’ve done brave things together, scary things. Very intimate and tender things. When life sucks, I come out here and ride with Wizard and I’m transformed. He does that for me.”
“There’s an argument to be made that golf could do that for you, too.”
“Golf?” Tess shook her head. “I also feed him, clean out his not-so-little footies, brush him all over, sponge-bathe him, baby-talk to him, outfit him in the most expensive leather goodies, scratch him in all his favorite spots--”
“Hold on, I’m starting to feel threatened here.”
Tess laughed and leaned over and touched Burton on his jacket sleeve.
“It’s damn near like that!” She said. “I’ve got married friends whose husbands are jealous of their wives’ horses. I’m serious!”
“I can see it.”
“Oh, no.” Tess shook her head at him. ”I can’t imagine you all insecure and stupid like that. Impossible.”
Burton enjoyed the brief touch of her hand on his arm.
“What about you?” she asked. “Got a hobby when you’re not arresting the bad guys?”
“It’s funny,” Burton said. “I totally forgot about something I used to love as a kid. And since I’ve had to be out at Bon Chance, it’s come back to me.”
“You’re not going to say tractor-pulls, are you?”
Burton laughed.
“Oh, I wish I’d thought of that! No, it’s birding. I used to be obsessed with it when I was a boy.”
Tess smiled.
“Birding? You mean, bird-watching? Really? You know all their names?”
“Yeah, I do. I really do. Isn’t that wild? My Dad and I were really into it together. We were passionate about it.”
“Your father still alive?”
“Nah. He passed away about ten years ago. My mother’s still kicking, though.”
“Any brothers and sisters?”
Burton grinned at her.
“This is the full dossier-part of the relationship, I guess.”
“Only I suppose you don’t need to ask me the same kind of questions.”
“I’ve had the benefit of police computers,” he admitted. “I learned your background the boring way, not the saunter-down-the-bridle-path-in-the-moonlight-way. My loss.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“One of each. We’re fairly close. I was raised in Cocoa Beach, and my family is still there.”
“Wow. You grew up with the moon launches?”
“Yeah, my old man worked at the Cape. He was the safety engineer on all the Apollo launches. We got to see a lot of them close up. It was fairly cool.”
“It must have been paradise growing up right on the ocean, with everything going on that was happening back then.”
Burton l
ooked at her to see if she was teasing him. She didn’t seem to be.
“It was,” he said. “I was lucky.”
“And how is it you came to be a cop?”
“That is another long and boring story,” he answered. “For another time. And the whoa-ing part of the program is still done by pulling back on the reins?” he asked.
“You want to stop?”
“Just checking out my equipment.”
“Yes, just pull back. And sit, sort of down into Beckett’s back, too.”
“You mean as opposed to how I’m sitting sort of not down on his back right now?”
Tess laughed.
“It’s a little different. Guess I’d make a bad teacher. I can’t explain it.”
“Maybe instinct will take over,” Burton said. He leaned over and kissed Tess on the mouth. Whether by unconscious command or willing accomplice, their mounts stopped for the duration of the kiss. When Burton pulled away, Tess continued to rest her hand on his thigh. The natural light had died but the moon illuminated the path before them.
“I’ve fallen in love with you, Jack.”
“It’s only fair.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’ll do whatever is natural and right.”
“I’m afraid those are contradictory issues for us.”
Jack smiled and brushed aside one of Tess’ loose curls.
“Don’t worry about it, little girl,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about anything right now.” They kissed again. Burton clenched his knees tightly into the horse to keep from falling off.
The rest of the ride was slow and pleasant. The unseasonable heat of the day had dissolved into a cool, autumnal evening. The flies were long gone and the mosquitoes were hanging out down by the pasture pond. Burton and Tess rode in single-file along the Chattahoochee, each with their own thoughts, watching the moon draw long jiggling trails in its black surface.
Later, as they were untacking their mounts in the main barn, they heard loud voices coming from Margo’s office.
Burton raised an eyebrow at Tess, who shrugged.
“I haven’t seen her since she’s been out of the hospital,” Tess said, scraping packed dirt out of her appaloosa’s hoof.
“Not even to stop in and say hello?”
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