“I know, Bob. Me, too.”
“Yeah, great. Great.” He drank his wine.
The server came by and refilled their water glasses. She caught his eye to silently inquire about another bottle of wine. He nodded, adding a wink. Beautiful eyes, he thought, still watching her as she moved to the next table. Beautiful everything else, too. He’d have to ask Barry who she was. Barry hired all the waitstaff.
“I’ve had enough, Bob.”
“Huh?”
“Wine. I don’t know why you ordered more. I’ve had enough.”
“Never enough, babe.” Shue licked his lips. “It’s Thanksgiving.”
4
It looked edible. But Burton knew the contents of his refrigerator when Dana was out of town could be, and frequently were, deceiving.
He closed the refrigerator door without taking anything out, and stood for a moment looking at all the magnets and little notes stuck to it. Pizza deliveries, reminders on library books that had been returned weeks ago, newspaper clippings. He touched one of the clippings and read the headline: “Atlanta Humane Society Destroys 20,000 Companion Animals Each Month.” Why would Dana have this on the refrigerator, he wondered? Did she want a dog? He shook his head and tugged the clipping off its magnet. He scanned the article standing in his stocking feet in the small galley kitchen, then tossed it on the counter.
He opened the refrigerator again, had no better luck in finding something edible, and went to the kitchen pantry. After sorting through open cracker boxes and a couple jars of rice and beans, he found a few ancient Poptarts which he inserted into a wide-slotted bagel toaster he found under the sink. While he was waiting for the pastries to toast, he stared out the front window of the house. He watched one of his neighbors walking his dog. The man edged along Burton’s small, scraggly lawn with his animal--a small, fuzzy thing, looking to Burton like a cross between a diseased lamb and a Tasmanian devil. Burton found himself wondering if it were a foundling or if his neighbor had actually paid money for it.
The toaster popped up his Thanksgiving Day dinner and he turned his attention from the street back to the kitchen.
Kaz had said that Portia admitted that a man had been in the clearing with Tess at the time of the murder. She told Kaz that she had heard a man’s voice. But she’d never said she’d heard Lint’s voice. Wouldn’t she have recognized Lint’s voice? If it had been him?
Burton put his hand on the kitchen phone. For a moment, he seemed unsure of whom he intended to call. An image of his wife’s face flashed in his mind. He pictured her laughing, sitting down to dinner with her family in Florida. He tried to remember the last time he saw her laugh in Atlanta. He glanced at the clock, wondering if his in-laws were still dining or had finished. He punched in a phone number.
“Yeah?”
“You always answer the phone like that?”
“I do on Thanksgiving Day. Fucking telemarketers never take a holiday. What’s up?”
“Portia never said the voice she heard was Lint’s?”
There was a pause on the line before Kazmaroff answered.
“She just said a man’s voice.”
“Is it weird she wouldn’t have recognized his voice? The guy had a voice like a strangled chicken. I don’t think it was Lint she heard in the clearing.”
“We got the collar--”
“Screw the collar, man! If we can’t make the pieces fit, we can’t make ‘em fit! It’s not his print, it’s not his voice! Someone else was there in the clearing...”
“But Lint is the one holding the goodie bag! If he didn’t kill her, what was he doing serving high tea to her, naked, in his trailer, a week later?”
“He could’ve just found the body. The clearing’s not a hundred yards from his trailer. Then, every time we got close, he’d hide her in the muck heap. Which explains why the dogs couldn’t pick up her scent to find her.”
“Because by then she had acquired all kinds of lovely new scents. Like horse shit.”
They were silent for a moment.
“You alone?” Burton asked.
“On Thanksgiving?” Kazmaroff laughed. “Yeah, I’m alone.”
“I’ll call you back.” Burton hung up the phone. He dug out his notebook and redialed, reading from it.
“Stephens residence.
“This is Detective Jack Burton. I’m sorry to disturb you. May I please speak with Mrs. Stephens?”
“I’m sure I needn’t remind you that this is Thanksgiving Day, Detective.”
“Is this Mr. Stephens? No, sir. If you don’t mind, I’d just like to ask your wife a quick question.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Stephens spoke with weariness in his voice. “She’s not here.”
“Where may I find her?” Burton asked, patiently.
“You may find her where you would any other day of the year, but where, one would have thought you might not have on Thanksgiving Day. She’s at the barn, seeing her horse.”
“She’s riding today?”
“The barn manager called about an hour ago,” Portia’s husband said. “Something about Zanzibar being lame or sick or something. Portia tore out of here without obviously needing to know many details.”
“Is the vet at the barn?”
“The barn manager said the vet would meet Portia at the barn.”
“Did Portia talk to the barn manager?”
“No, I took the call. Rude son of a bitch, if you ask me,” Stephens said. “Practically ordered me to inform Portia of Zanzibar’s condition, and then hung up! As if he has anything else to do but keep tab on the horses and wander around--”
“The voice was a man’s?” Burton felt a prick of alarm.
“What?”
“The barn manager’s voice. It was definitely male?”
“Well, of course it was male. I just--”
“Thanks, Mr. Stephens.” Burton hung up. He pulled on his running shoes, and snatched up his car keys. He waited only until he was in his car and backing out of the driveway before he punched in Detective Kazmaroff’s home number.
5
Portia ran her hands down the horse’s flank to his ankles. She felt for heat, for lumps, for a reaction from the horse. She stood back and looked at the animal. Her silk drawstring slacks had already gathered dirt around the hems. She’d been in such a hurry she hadn’t bothered to change shoes, either, so her neat little Chanel flats were ruined, too, with tiny clumps of red clay wedged into the soles and crusted along the instep.
Has Margo flipped? There’s nothing wrong with Zanzibar! Is she just lonely? Or what?
Portia patted her horse’s neck, trying to keep her annoyance out of the gesture.
“Not your fault, beauty,” she murmured to the horse. “I’m happy you’re okay. It’s just that our barn manager has gone a little nutsy and that has Mommy worried.”
Portia looked around the barn. She had led her horse from his stall to the area everyone used to tack up their horses. It was a large room at the end of the barn, adjacent to the tackroom where boarders’ feed and saddles were kept. The tacking up area was open on two sides, both openings large enough for three horses to walk abreast in or out of the barn. Another side shared a common wall with the last of the stalls, and the final wall featured a large opening leading to the tack room itself.
Portia snapped the knot out of the horse’s lead rope and led him back into the corridor bisecting the two rows of twenty-four stalls. She lost her footing for a moment on the slippery floor straw, and leaned against Zanzibar for support.
These were definitely not the shoes for this, she thought, her annoyance rising.
She put Zanzibar into his stall and latched the gate. It was then that she noticed that none of the other gates, except Beckett’s, were locked.
Boy, that’s slack! Margo must’ve fed them and then just walked away without bothering to check their stalls! The woman was hopeless.
Busy with thoughts of strong complaint to the barn o
wners, Portia picked her way back to the sunny tacking-up area of the barn to collect her handbag.
As she shouldered her bag and positioned her Gucci sunglasses on her face, she squinted across the parking lot to see two figures slowly making their way to the barn.
Good. Saves me the trouble of tracking her idea. What in the world was Margo thinking of? Calling me out here for no good reason?
Portia crossed her arms and waited for the pair to reach her, her annoyance and self-righteous indignation mounting with every approaching step. It wasn’t until Margo and her companion were ten yards away that Portia thought to wonder who the man might be. And finally--and in just as much confusion--why he was walking behind Margo, pointing a gun at her back.
6
“Just tell me you bothered to check his alibi.” Burton drove too fast down Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. The normally tortured street was blessedly free of traffic today.
Kazmaroff braced his arms against the dash board.
“Don’t kill us, Jack,” he said. “Yes, I checked it.”
“And it was a zero, right? It collapsed, right?”
“Yes, but what with us nailing Lint--”
“I know, I know.” Burton jammed his foot hard against the accelerator pedal. “It didn’t seem important at the time.”
“Shouldn’t I call for back-up?” Kazmaroff found himself working a nonexistent brake pedal on the passenger’s side of the car.
“Not yet,” Burton said. “Let’s see what we find first.”
7
Ned sat primly on the bale of hay in the tacking-up room, Margo’s Beretta semi-automatic resting on his knees. Portia and Margo huddled together by the entrance to the stalls. One of the horse’s heads poked out of the halfdoor of his stall as if curious. Portia was crying.
“So, you see,” Ned said, chewing on a thread of straw. “Things have gotten way out of hand. I really don’t know how they got so out of hand.” He wore thin plastic gloves.
“You’re crazy,” Margo said.
“Maybe. But crazy with a plan. And crazy with a gun, too. Which beats your not-crazy with nothing.” Ned giggled.
“He killed Jilly,” Portia whispered loudly to Margo. “I heard his voice in the clearing.”
Margo patted her shoulder.
“I know, Portia.”
Ned looked around the barn, then stood up.
“We better get started on this. I imagine we have all day what with it being the holiday and all, but I got a late dinner I’m expected at.”
“Where are we going?” Margo asked.
“Oh, you’re not going anywhere, sweetheart,” Ned said, producing a pad of notepaper and a pen. “Just a little writing assignment, is all.”
“You want me to write something?”
“That’s right.” Ned tossed the paper and pen to Margo. “I’ll dictate, you write.”
Margo picked up the pad and pen.
“I killed Jilly Travers,” Ned said.
Margo and Portia just stared at him.
“You’re not writing,” he said.
“You want me to take down your confession?”
Ned laughed.
“I guess I should explain,” he said, with a grin. “We are creating your written confession to the murders of Jilly Travers and Tess Andersen.”
“My--?” Margo shook her head in confusion.
Portia looked at Margo and edged slightly away.
“Margo? You killed Tess and Jilly?” she asked breathlessly.
“Even if I write it,” Margo said as Ned raised his gun. “It wouldn’t stand up. There’s no evidence to support it. I’d just say you made me do it. It would be worthless.”
“Oh, why don’t you let me worry about that?”
Margo dropped the pad in the straw and dirt floor of the barn.
“No,” she said.
Ned approached and pointed the gun to Portia’s head.
“Permit me to change your mind,” he said.
Margo hesitated, watching the man’s eyes.
“Don’t think I’m serious?” Ned said, his voice becoming angry. He took a step closer, then turned and pointed the gun to the head of the chestnut gelding peering out over the gate of his stall. “How ‘bout now?” he said, smiling.
Margo bent down and picked up the pad.
8
The sky had turned a pewter gray with ugly streaks of copper in it. The twenty horses grazing in the pasture seemed to react at once, as if to an unseen presence. They lifted their heads from their mindless nibbling, and twitched their tails nervously. The mounting wind carried a silent message to them, along with a scattering of leaves and dust. One horse, a young bay, whirled and started. He stood, as if stunned, his eyes wide and white. Another horse screamed shrilly. They moved amongst each other in agitation now, the calm of the afternoon gone. When the sky dimmed and a silent flash of lightning flickered on the horizon, they all bolted at once. They ran in a trampling stampede of fear across the meadow and away from the terrible light, the dangerous thing, that threatened them all.
9
Ned smiled as he re-read the note.
“Very nice,” he said.
“It won’t do you any good,” Margo said. She and Portia remained standing by the entrance to the horses’ stalls.
“Well, thanks for humoring me, then,” he said, smiling broadly.
“It’ll be my word against yours,” she said.
“I never really thought you killed the girls, Margo,” Portia said quietly.
“Thanks, Portia,” Margo said, with a sigh. She shifted her weight off her damaged ribs and cradled her broken right arm close to her chest.
“Well, actually, the only word of yours the authorities will have to go on will be this.” Ned wagged the confession gaily in the air.
Margo took a step forward and Ned hastily aimed the gun in her direction.
“Yes, ladies,” he said. “As I said, things had gotten out of hand. The Jilly thing I had nailed, so to speak. But when I had to do Tess Andersen too, well, my alibi couldn’t keep pace.” He giggled.
“You’re an idiot,” Margo said.
“An idiot who still has many hot meals ahead of him, unlike you.”
“The police thought they got their murderer last night.”
“What are you talking about?”
Margo took another step closer.
“They found Jilly’s body in our groundsman’s trailer yesterday. They shot and killed him. They thought...we all thought... that Bill killed Jilly.”
Ned seemed ruffled now.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
Margo waved her hand.
“All this was for nothing. You were safe, man!”
“I’m still safe!” Ned said, raising his voice. “Once I kill the two of you with your own gun, your fingerprints all over it!” He was shouting now and waving the gun at them both. Margo felt her breakfast try to come up at Ned’s words. She was aware of the horses in the barn beginning to move around. She could smell a storm in the air.
“It’ll look like murder-suicide,” he continued. “Your note will be the finishing touch. I’ll be damn safe, then. You can bet on it!”
Quickly, Margo tossed the handful of dirt into his eyes.
Ned flailed his arms and fired blindly.
The sound of the explosion ripped into the interior of the barn, igniting the restless horses.
Ned clawed the dirt from his eyes and tried to re-aim.
The horses charged down the center corridor of the barn towards the three people in a surge of several tons of terrified, thundering horseflesh.
10
Burton grabbed Kazmaroff and shoved him hard. The two fell in a painful tangle of arms and legs behind a skinny pine tree as the panicked hoard of thirty horses hurtled from the opening of the lower barn and careened wildly across the barn grounds.
Kazmaroff rolled off Burton and got to his feet.
“Shit!” he said, watching the h
orses disappear in a cloud of dust down the dirt road. “Is that normal?”
Burton yanked his partner back behind the tree and pulled his weapon.
“Now you can call for back-up,” he said.
11
“Where are you, you bitches?!” Ned screamed, clutching the gun and pointing it everywhere his eyes darted. He ran down the middle of the stall corridor, kicking open stall doors. The dust from the stampede hadn’t settled yet. It floated in small choking puffs just above the straw floor. He heard a muffled cough and whirled around.
“I’ve got Portia, Miss Barn Manager,” he shouted. “Come out or I shoot her right now.”
He heard the rustling of straw to his left and ran in the direction of the noise.
Margo picked herself up from the floor of the empty stall. Straw clung to her hair and her sling. Ned entered the stall and pointed his gun at her head. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her out.
“Oh, sorry about the fib. I guess I didn’t have Portia after all. But if it’s any consolation,” he said, yanking her by her hair as the two stumbled down the corridor, “I’m sure I soon will.”
12
“So, what do you think’s going on in there?” Kazmaroff had drawn his own weapon. They were in front of the barn, crouched behind a tree.
Burton shook his head.
“I don’t know. It was definitely a gunshot we heard. And we know Portia’s in there.” He nodded in the direction of Portia’s Mercedes in the parking lot.
“And the horses definitely aren’t, that’s for sure,” Kazmaroff said.
Burton looked at him.
“Don’t look at me like that, man” Kazmaroff said. “I’m just running down the situation. A hundred fucking horses come barreling down my ass--”
“You just gave me an idea,” Burton said, with surprise in his voice.
13
Ned found Portia huddled in terror at the back of the tack room. He considered tying them up but realized it wouldn’t look much like suicide if their hands were bound.
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