“We’re not friends, Jack,” Tess said a little too emphatically.
“No one’s asking you to loan her your hairbrush, Tess,” Jack said. “I’m wondering why you’re over-reacting.”
“Me, over-reacting?” Tess dropped Wizard’s foot and reached for another.
“Yeah, any normal boarder would pop in and see how she’s doing. You are making a point of not doing that.”
Tess finished scraping out the hoof and eased it back to the ground.
“I’m avoiding her,” she said.
“That’s why they call me a detective,” Burton said, still listening to the raised voices coming from Margo’s office.
Tess grinned.
“And a damned good one, too,” she said. “Don’t ask me why.”
“Why I’m a good detective or why you’re avoiding her?”
Suddenly the door to Margo’s office flung open and Margo hobbled out of it.
“Just get out!” she screamed. “Get out before I throw you out with my bare hands!”
An instant later, Justin Travers appeared in the doorway, brandishing what looked like a large club over his head. He swung the club wildly, chipping away splinters of wood from the door jamb directly over Margo’s head.
“I will kill you!” he screamed at her, raising the club once more. “I will kill all of you!”
Chapter Seven
1
Justin froze in position as he watched Burton dash up to him and snatch away the polo mallet. Without thinking, Burton smacked the boy against the head with the flat of his hand, dropping him to the dirt floor of the barn with a hard thud. Justin sat there, dazed.
Burton turned to Margo and held her by the elbow.
“Miss Sherman?” he said, giving her a gentle shake. “How you doin’? Let’s go in and sit down, huh?”
Tess took Margo’s other arm and the three of them stepped over Justin in the doorway and returned to Margo’s office.
“Don’t even think of going anywhere,” Burton said to him.
They settled Margo in her chair and Tess rummaged in the book shelves for a bottle of water.
“She always keeps water in here,” she murmured. Finding the bottle, she uncapped it and held it to Margo’s lips.
Margo stared at Tess, her eyes filling with tears.
“Oh, Tess...” she started, weakly.
“Oh, stop it, Margo,” Tess said without conviction. “Drink this and tell us what happened.”
Justin stood in the door, his right cheek red with Burton’s slap. Burton gave him a sharp look and Justin scowled down at his own feet.
“So, what happened?” Burton repeated.
“He wants Best-Boy destroyed,” Margo said, her voice rising shrilly. “The little bastard wants to kill Jilly’s horse! Says he’s got authority to--”
“And I do, too!” Justin shouted. “She left everything to me, so he’s mine to do what I--”
“Shut-up,” Burton said. He turned back to Margo, who was openly weeping now, and allowing Tess to hold her. “I’d be happy to drag his ass downtown if you want to press charges, Miss Sherman.” He looked back at Justin, who jerked his head up at Burton’s words.
“Oh, Jack,” Tess looked at Justin and frowned. “Do you think that’s necessary? I mean they were both just upset about--”
“That’s up to Margo,” Burton said.
“No, no, no charges,” Margo said. “Unless he tries to move Best-Boy! Then I will! You can’t have him! Detective, he can’t take him, can he?”
“I have no idea,” Jack sighed. He looked at Tess and they shared a sad smile. Some ending to the night, huh? he telegraphed. She nodded. What did we expect?
“Come on, asshole,” he said to Justin. “Let me finish brushing down the horses and I’ll drive you back to your barracks. Where’d you get the alcohol, anyway?”
Justin blushed angrily but didn’t speak.
“Yeah, never mind.” Jack touched Margo’s shoulder. “You gonna be okay here?” She nodded and looked at Tess.
“I’ll hang around awhile,” Tess said to him.
“Okay, good.” He pushed to his feet. “Listen, I enjoyed the ride.”
“Yeah, me, too,” she said, her voice tired and sad.
“Come on, Justin,” he said. “And I’ll show you what horse-shit looks like when it’s not falling out of your mouth. Sorry, ladies.”
Tess smiled and shook her head.
2
“I hate that horse!” Justin whined in the car ride home. “She spent more time with that stupid animal than--”
“Oh, shut-up about the fucking horse,” Jack said. “Why did you come to the barn tonight? Threats over the phone not convenient enough for you?”
“I...I wanted to tell Margo, personally.”
“Weren’t thinking about killing the horse yourself, were you?”
“Are you serious?” Justin blinked. “It’s as big as Godzilla. I’d be afraid to touch it.”
“You’re acting like an idiot.”
“Maybe I’m in mourning,” the boy said, unsuccessfully fighting back tears. “Have you ever thought of that?”
Burton couldn’t help laughing.
“Yeah, maybe you are,” he said, watching the boy huddled up on the passenger side door handle. He felt a flood of pity for the kid, but there was something else too. The more time he spent with him, Burton got the feeling that underneath it all, Justin wasn’t really such a pain in the ass as he tried to prove.
“It’s hard to lose a parent,” Burton said.
“I don’t have anybody!” Justin whined.
“Yeah, and I’m saying that’s rough.” Burton turned into the parking lot of a local restaurant. He parked the car and turned in his seat to face the boy. “But you can decide to make it just as bad as it can be,” he said. “Or you can decide not to let it turn you into the kind of nasty little shit nobody wants to have anything to do with.”
Justin stared straight ahead through the windshield. The unspoken words hung in the air between them.
Like your mother.
“There’s all kinds of reasons why people turn into assholes,” Burton continued. “Believe me, sooner or later, I see ‘em all. There's a whole jail-full of people downtown who had bad shit happen to them. And I mean really bad shit. But they’re still in jail. Their life sucks just as bad, and in fact, worse, because of how they decided to handle their misfortunes.”
“I won’t end up a felon, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Justin muttered.
“Glad to hear it,” Burton said. He opened his car door. “Now let’s concentrate on not ending up a dick-head, too. You hungry?”
Jack pulled off his shirt and threw it into a corner of the room. His wife lay immobile but awake in the Queen-sized bed. He sat on the edge of the bed in his Dockers and socks and looked out the small bedroom window to the spaghetti tangle of electric and telephone lines spun out between the utility poles in his yard.
After he’d dropped Justin off, Jack had checked in briefly to his office and then come home. Now, as he sat in the dark on the edge of the bed, he tried to remember if he’d eaten dinner. He didn’t feel hungry. He slipped out of his pants and was pulling off his socks when his cell rang. Quickly, he picked up, glancing over at his wife. He noticed that there was no sound of deep breathing that might signal she was asleep.
“Yeah?” he said into the phone.
“It’s me,” said Kazmaroff.
Burton waited.
“One of the art directors at the agency says he overheard Kathy Sue Rappaport threaten to kill Jilly the day before she disappeared.”
“Yeah, okay,” Burton said. “Bring her in.” He paused. “Is that all?”
“Unless you have something you want to tell me.”
Burton disconnected, then slipped into bed next to his wife, careful not to touch her.
3
“I didn’t do it! I wanted her dead, but I didn’t do it!” Kathy Sue sobbed noisily into he
r folded arms on top of the table in the interrogation room.
Kazmaroff looked at his notes.
“This guy, Mike, at your office says you told him you were going to kill Jilly...”
“I never said that!” Kathy Sue jerked her red, wet face up and shouted at Kazmaroff. She’d only been in the room for fifteen minutes; she looked like she’d spent the night there. “He misunderstood me!”
Still looking at his notes, Kazmaroff said: “He said: ‘She told me she was gonna put out the bitch’s lights for good--’”
“He made it up! I’d no more say something so stupid and...trite...than walk naked down Peachtree. ‘Put out her lights!’ Can’t you see he made it up?”
“Why would he do that, Miss Rappaport?”
“I don’t know!” Kathy Sue looked around the room as if expecting someone to back her up. “Where’s Ned? Has he called?”
“So you’re saying you never threatened to kill Jilly Travers?”
“Well, God! I might have said...you know, ‘I’d like to kill the bitch’ or something like that, but people say that kind of thing, you know? It doesn’t mean I was going to kill her!”
Kathy Sue deposited her red face back into her folded arms and Kazmaroff sighed and left the room. Burton stood outside in the hall, smoking.
“I thought you gave those things up,” Kazmaroff said.
“She’s denying it, of course,” Burton said, dusting ashes off the front of his shirt.
Kazmaroff said nothing.
“Let her go,” Burton said. “We can always pick her up later if something more substantial crops up. Meanwhile, the Chief wants to see us.”
The Chief was not happy.
The owners of La Bon Chance Farms wanted the last of the police off their property, they wanted some confirmation that future riders would not discover a partially-decomposed body in the middle of a pleasant afternoon’s ride, and they wanted all boarders to have unlimited access to the riding facilities again.
The Chief wanted a body. Dragged across and deposited upon his desk before the end of the upcoming weekend or both Burton and Kazmaroff would be doing drug busts for the rest of their uninspired, lackluster careers.
Kazmaroff wanted a new partner.
Burton wanted a new life.
4
“You know how sorry I am.”
“Forget it, Portia,” Tess said. “It’s all out in the open now. And it’s fine.”
“So you really like this detective, huh?”
Tess pulled the saddle off her horse and watched the steam rise off his back. It had been a good, fast hack; the kind she liked best, cantering and galloping across the fields of stumpy grass, jumping the coops down by the east pasture. She felt positively weak-kneed.
“He’s gorgeous,” Tess said simply.
“You in love with him?”
“I think so, yes.”
“That’s so cool. Especially the part about his partner wanting to stick you with the murder and him needing to clear your name and all.”
Tess shook her head.
“You’re one of a kind, Portia,” she said good-naturedly.
When would she see him again? Did he really know everything about her from the basic computer print-out one could discover on anyone living in this country, she wondered? Sure, he knew how she got her money and how she paid her mortgage, what stocks and bonds she had and what her last ten tax returns were. But did he know she was an Air Force brat and had traveled the world with her parents as a child? Would he be surprised to know she played in crumbling castles and bombed-out houses in post-war Germany as a girl, and, with her friends, dragged home undetonated bombs and grenades from World War II? Did he know she was more comfortable in riding clothes and blue jeans than Versace? Was he beginning to really know her? Would he get a chance to?
Tess sponged off the saddle area on her horse, watching the dirt stream down his sides in wet rivulets. Portia brushed her own horse’s tail placidly.
“And you know, Tess. I never said a word about, you know...the other thing. The guy that was with you and Jilly in the clearing?”
Tess froze.
“What are you talking about?” she said, her words stunted and breathless.
“I heard his voice, Tess. I heard the guy you were talking to with Jilly.”
Tess turned and stared at Portia, then felt a sudden and desperate need to run to the barn bathroom.
5
They drove in silence to the advertising agency of Ryan, Davis & Shue in the Atlanta Financial Center. Kazmaroff flashed his badge at the receptionist.
His favorite part of the job, Burton thought.
They stood in the waiting room which was lined with trophies and plaques of presumably successful advertising campaigns for presumably satisfied clients.
“Detective Burton?” Robert Shue entered the waiting room and stuck out his hand to Burton. He was dressed in an Armani jacket over tight jeans. A piggy little pony-tail in the back did little to vampire attention away from his receding hairline in front. His eyes were piercing and active, his handshake soft and friendly. Burton had the distinct impression he was being given the valued-client-treatment.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Burton said. His voice was flat, intentionally giving no indication as to whether Shue’s charms were effective.
“About Jilly. Of course, of course. In my office. Zukie? Hold my calls, please. Unless it’s my wife, of course.”
Of course, thought Burton. It’s important to let the fuzz know what a priority family is.
Shue ushered them into a large corner office. The desk faced an expansive window which looked out over Peachtree Road. Shue indicated they were to sit in a cozy seating arrangement of two color-coordinated loveseats bookending a large glass coffee table.
“We’ll sit in our brainstorming corner, I think,” Shue said as they seated themselves. “Can I get you anything to drink? I think I--”
“How long were you sleeping with Jilly Travers, Mr. Shue?” Burton asked.
“I...uh...” Shue involuntarily looked at the large leather-framed portrait on his desk of a pretty woman and a little girl.
“Your family?” Kazmaroff said, picking up the picture frame to get a closer look. “Nice people. How old’s your kid?”
“Uh,...that was taken...uh...”
“Dates would be good,” Burton said. “When the affair began...when it ended.”
“If it ended,” Kazmaroff said as he replaced the photograph.
“Good point,” Burton said. “Had it ended, Mr. Shue? Before Jilly was killed? Or did her getting killed...end it?”
“I...we....oh, Christ.”
“Take your time, sir,” Burton said, easing back into the plush cushions on the sofa. “In fact, why don’t we use this time to do a little brainstorming?”
5
Shue watched the policemen from his window as they walked to the parking lot. He’d had no idea the interview would be so threatening, so uncomfortable. The two of them worked him like they could read his mind.
Just when he started to think the big detective was sympathetic to him, he’d asked him how many other employees he had slept with! Who was he talking about? Zukie? Kathy Sue? Maybe Catherine? God, Catherine had to be fifty years old with more hair on her top lip than her head. And when he’d protested, the other cop, the bastard! asked if he also screwed clients! Christ! And then that stupid bitch on the front desk rang through with a call from his fucking wife in the middle of it! Is the bitch totally stupid?
He turned away from the window and stared down at the picture that Kazmaroff had handled earlier. He picked it up and gently eased out the smaller photograph tucked behind the displayed one. Jilly grinned at him malevolently. Her hands held her tits out to the photographer like she was offering him a deal on mangoes. Her pubic hair was hazy, out of focus, against her pale, peach skin.
Am I going to be able to pull this off? Or am I already dead?
6
“Did you get Travers in?” Burton asked as they drove down Peachtree Road away from Buckhead and the Financial Center.
Kazmaroff nodded.
“They said he squawked the whole way downtown. He’s been coolin’ his heels in a room for the last hour.”
“Let ‘im wait,” Burton said. “Want lunch?”
Kazmaroff looked at him.
“You mean, as in, sit-down-with-you-lunch?” he said, “Or as in drop me off at Wendy’s drive-thru while you go off and do something meaningful?”
Burton ignored him.
“Yeah, I could eat,” Kazmaroff said.
Burton pulled the car up to a sandwich shop curb.
“Nothing for me, thanks,” he said. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“Fuck you, man.”
Burton drove away.
7
“I hate this.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Burton peeled back the corner on a little plastic cup of creamer. He smiled at Tess as if to belie his words.
“Are we dating? Is this a something?” She asked, not smiling back at him.
“You know it is.”
The noise of the fast-food restaurant picked up.
“I used to live at McDonald’s as a kid,” Burton said, musing. “If I wasn’t eating here, I was working here.”
“Really.”
“Is something wrong, Tess? You seem a little quiet today. Margo was okay last night, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, fine. No, I’m just a little tired is all. Tell me more about when you were a kid in Florida. That’s a dream come true to us Yankees, you know.”
“Not much to tell,” Burton said, obviously winding up for a story. “As kids, we were always aware that where we lived was a tourist place, you know? And this was even before Disney showed up. My brother and I used to fish off this little bridge not far from the beach and our house, and we’d sell what we caught to the tourists.”
“That’s enterprising.”
“That’s one word for it. We’d sell ‘em a fish called whitey because they always looked so nice and fat. They were nice and fat because they were full of worms.”
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