Unbridled Murder

by Leigh Hearon

  Country music poured out of the shop when Annie pulled up a few minutes later. Andy saw her drive in this time and had the good courtesy to lower the volume as Annie’s truck rolled to a stop.

  The trailer was now outside on the lawn and looked considerably more presentable than it had the previous day. The ugly graffiti had been scrubbed off, leaving abrasions in the aluminum finish, but that was far better than the alternative. The tires were fully inflated. And the number of dents had considerably lessened. Annie began to hope that she and Marcus might actually be able to leave tomorrow, after all.

  “It looks great!” she exclaimed to Marcus.

  “Cosmetically, yes,” he replied, opening his passenger door. “I’m more concerned how it handles on the road.”

  Annie was halfway out her own door when she suddenly remembered the small fibs she’d told Andy about how the trailer became so damaged. Thinking about Colin as a potential killer had completely wiped this little detail from her mind.

  Jogging around to join Marcus, she grabbed his arm.

  “You need to know something. Andy thinks I’m on my way to Ellensburg to pick up some horses. He knows nothing about the feedlot business. And he thinks I’m a professional hauler. You’re going to have to be—” Annie wracked her brain. “You can be my boss, who came over just to make sure the job was done right.”

  Marcus assimilated new facts quickly, Annie noticed. It probably was what made him so successful in his own business.

  “Are we using the same names?”

  “Sure. I’m using mine. If he finds out why we’re really here, we’ll be a hundred miles down the road. If he even cares.”

  “Sounds good to me. As your boss, however, I have to say that although I understand why you refrained from telling Andy your real reason for being here, it appears Maria isn’t the only person spreading stories in this town.”

  “Shush! Oh—and people at the motel did the damage. You know, visitors from out of town.”

  “Why’d they do it?”

  “I told them to hold down the noise.”

  “Was this with or without your shotgun?”

  “It’s a rifle. Very funny.”

  * * *

  Andy was waiting for them by the trailer, a broad smile on his face. It was clear he was extremely pleased with the outcome of his rush job.

  “Andy, I can’t believe the transformation,” Annie said admiringly. “It looks like the trailer I came into town with again.”

  The praise made Andy’s eyes light up. “It was quite a job, let me tell you, and I got one or two things left to do. But nothing I can’t finish by tomorrow morning. And I called my buddy in Ellensburg. He’s already ordered the glass for you and says he’ll be able to install it on Tuesday, if that still fits your schedule.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Annie intended to whiz by every single Ellensburg exit tomorrow. She’d have to make amends with Andy’s glass doctor later.

  “Andy, I’d like you to meet Marcus Colbert, my boss. M—Mr. Colbert, this is Andy, the mechanic who’s done all this work.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Marcus shook Andy’s hand. Annie noticed he loomed a good six inches over the mechanic. And, of course, he was considerably more handsome.

  “Mr. Colbert, is that right? I couldn’t believe what your gal here had me haul in a few days ago. This trailer looked like it was headed to the junkyard. I don’t know what she said to those noisy neighbors of hers at her motel, but it sure must’ve ticked them off.”

  “Ms. Carson has a habit of sometimes speaking before she thinks. We’re working on that, aren’t we, Ms. Carson?”

  Annie wanted to kick him but managed to sweetly smile back.

  “Sometimes it’s just better to let things go.”

  “That’s right. Well, Andy—if I may call you that—”

  Andy eagerly nodded.

  “I’d like to go over what you’ve done, if you don’t mind. I’m sure everything’s in order, but I’m afraid Ms. Carson was unable to tell me the full scope of the damage. This is mostly for insurance purposes, you understand.”

  “I sure do. Um—” Andy seemed to fumble for the right words. “Ms. Carson told me she’d be paying for my work up front and getting reimbursed by your insurance later. Is that still the plan?” He sounded a bit anxious.

  “Sure thing. I can write you a check or give you a card. Your choice.”

  Andy beamed once more, and he and Marcus walked to the front of the trailer, where the mechanic began describing how he’d realigned the hitch. Annie followed, but it was clear the two men were talking to each other and not particularly including her in their discussion.

  Fine. She decided to check out the horse’s quarters inside, which was really her domain, anyway. Annie wanted to be sure the horses would be as safe and comfortable as if the trailer had just rolled off the lot, which, she realized morosely, it had, only a few months before.

  She pulled out the ramp and was pleased to watch it fall plumb with the ground. This was essential, since she had no idea how the horses would load, and any uneven jiggle they experienced stepping up might persuade them not to enter the big, scary box. Thankfully, the mats had proved impervious to any damage; they had been built to last and looked good as new. Andy had hosed out the interior from top to bottom, and at least the inside siding looked fairly pristine. The two oscillating fans were a bit bent, but they switched on and off just fine. The protective bars on the missing windows had been straightened and sat tight in their fixtures, all the head ties were in place, and every latch worked perfectly. Only the dome light still needed work; the stripped wires overhead attested to this one job that still need Andy’s attention. Aside from this, the interior looked perfect and ready for horse loading. She stepped out, relief washing over her. It was going to be all right. Finally.

  She met up with Andy and Marcus in his commercial garage.

  “I was just telling Marcus here that it was lucky those tires were deflated with nothing more than a nail. That made ’em easy to repair. I didn’t even have to use the spare. If someone had slashed them—” Andy shook his head.

  “Yes, that was a lucky break,” agreed Marcus. “I wish they’d slashed the wires, though. It looked like most of them were ripped out. Must have been difficult to put those back together again.”

  “It was, it was. Fortunately, I got a lifetime supply of just about every kind of wire you’ll ever need. Boat, plane, helicopter, truck, you name it, I can wire it.”

  “How extraordinary, Andy. Where’d you learn to work on such a wide breadth of engines?”

  “Mostly Alaska. Lived there for nearly twenty years, and most of the time I was two hours by plane from the nearest hardware store. You learned to do everything and to make everything do.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Enough of this bromance chatter, Annie thought, and looked squarely at Marcus.

  “You know, in the ten years I’ve worked for you, you’ve never let me call you by your first name,” she said to him, doing her best to look hurt. “But Andy here gets to call you Marcus the first time he meets you.”

  Marcus got up from the stool he’d been sitting on.

  “True.” He looked critically at her as he said it. “But then, I’ve never called you anything but Ms. Carson.”

  Andy laughed. “Looks like the two of you get along all right, no matter what you call each other. Well, Annie, did you see anything inside the trailer that still needs fixing? Aside from the dome light, which I already told your boss about?”

  Of course he had told Marcus instead of her. Who else needed to know besides him? Annie was beginning to regret the character she’d created. Maybe she should have made Marcus a journeyman truck driver instead.

  “Nope, it all looks fine.” Annie decided not to hold back. After all, Andy had done a superlative job with what he’d been given. “Actually, it looks more than fine. It looks terrific. I can’t thank you enough for going the extra mile on my—ou
r—behalf. It means a great deal to know my schedule won’t suffer because of your hard work.”

  “Aw, it was just the kind of challenge I like,” Andy replied. “As I said, it’ll be ready to go by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “I may not be with Ms. Carson when she comes by,” Marcus interjected. “Why don’t we take care of the bill now? That is, if you can guesstimate the time you’ve got left.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about the dome light, Marcus. I’ll just throw that in for free.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Andy.”

  “Might want to wait until you see the bill before you say that. It’s in the house. Be right back.”

  Andy left, and Annie flew over to Marcus, throwing her arms around him.

  “Well, Mr. Colbert,” she said coyly, exaggerating each word. “Let me know when you’re ready to be called by your first name.”

  Marcus laughed but gently pulled her arms away from him.

  “We’re still in character, Ms. Carson. Try to hold off until we’re out of the driveway.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The screen door on the main house slammed, and Annie was glad she was demurely sitting on a stool instead of on Marcus’s knee when Andy returned to the garage.

  “Here it is.” Andy handed Marcus the invoice, which Annie noticed ran to more than two pages.

  Marcus quickly scanned it and nodded briskly.

  “Looks in order to me. Do you prefer credit card or check?”

  “Check would be fine.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t bring my business checks with me—Ms. Carson called me while I was on vacation. Will a personal one do?”

  “Sure. As long as there’s money backing it, I don’t care where it comes from.”

  “Whom should I make it out to?”

  “Andy Johnson Auto Repair will do ’er.”

  Marcus dutifully wrote out the check while Annie’s brain reluctantly set aside thoughts of kissing Marcus. Another thought had taken hold: The mechanic’s name was Andy Johnson? Short for AJ? As in AJ who lived in Alaska and followed Danny Trevor to eastern Washington?

  “Did you know Danny Trevor?” She’d blurted it out before remembering, as Marcus had just reminded her, she was still in character.

  Andy’s face suddenly changed. It closed down, and to further the effect, the mechanic turned away from her so she could no longer see it.

  “Yeah, I knew Danny.” All the joviality in his voice had vanished. “Why? Why do you want to know?”

  Annie thought hard and fast.

  “Oh, Dave mentioned it. You know, the guy who recommended I call you. He mentioned something about a recent plane crash and said the pilot’s name was Danny Trevor. Dave said he didn’t know how it could have happened, since his mechanic, AJ, had looked at the plane right before takeoff. When I saw your name, I just made the connection.”

  Her heart was beating fast, and she dared not look at Marcus, whose face she was sure would be expressing his displeasure over her major gaffe.

  “Dave said that?” Andy turned and looked at her. A mask had come over his face, and Annie couldn’t read what it was.

  She dumbly nodded.

  “Well, what do you know. Yeah, I was Danny’s mechanic, both here and back in Alaska. I already talked to the boys at the NTSB all about it. Why? Something else you want to know?”

  “No,” Annie said lamely. “I was just curious, that’s all.”

  “Well,” Marcus said with false heartiness. “We don’t want to take any more of your time, Andy. Thanks again for all your hard work. Ms. Carson will see you tomorrow morning.”

  Andy picked up the check, looked at it, and set it on the counter.

  “Pleasure doing business with you, Marcus.”

  He said not a word to Annie as she and Marcus walked back to the truck. All Annie could think about was what her boss, Mr. Colbert, had said. Sometimes she did speak before thinking, and she was furious at herself for so stupidly doing so now.

  But miraculously, Marcus did not scold, criticize, or in any other way bring up Annie’s gross blunder. As she turned right to exit Andy’s suburban enclave, all he said was, “What do you think, Annie? Time to shake the dust off this old town?”

  She turned gratefully to him and smiled. She couldn’t have agreed more.

  CHAPTER 25

  MONDAY MORNING, AUGUST 15

  Despite Marcus’s generosity of spirit in not mentioning her gaffe, he was beginning to irk Annie. Just a bit. It started when they returned to the motel and, after dinner, he declined her invitation to join her in a walk with Wolf. It was a beautiful night. The temperature was actually bearable. And it was their last night together in this miserable town. But Marcus had demurred, telling her he had several business calls to make, and it would be an excellent time to make them while she and Wolf went on a nice constitutional.

  When she’d returned an hour later, Marcus had still been on the phone, but had quickly hung up when she and Wolf entered the room. She’d had no quarrel with their nighttime activities—quite the opposite—but this morning, Marcus had again begged off from accompanying her, this time to Andy’s to pick up the trailer, pleading more urgent business to attend to by phone.

  Really, Annie thought. If this was what life with Marcus was going to be like once they returned to the Olympic Peninsula, he might as well fly back to San Jose, don one of his Armani suits, and make phone calls from his office. She was deeply appreciative of his gallantry in coming to her aid, but frankly, his attention span, at least toward her, had lasted approximately twenty-four hours before it had reverted to its usual all-business mode. This did not bode well for a long-term relationship. Had she spent hours a day talking to Lisa about her horses and flock of sheep? No, she had not. Was it too much to ask that he, too, suspend his business affairs for just a few days, for her sake?

  Then again, who had willingly paid for her attorney, not to mention made an extravagant flight to eastern Washington after arriving from a week in London, just to be at her side? She resolved to try to be more understanding. But she was still just a teensy bit irked.

  Annie was also more than a little ticked at her own self. Because Marcus had not brought up the subject of what to do, if anything, when she saw Andy, Annie was unsure whether she should apologize to the mechanic for bringing up Danny Trevor or if doing so would just rouse his curiosity more than it already had been.

  She was pondering the consequences of both actions as she drove to the mechanic’s shop when her phone buzzed. It was Alvin Gilman, returning her voice message from last night. Marcus had insisted that she make the call, over her very strong objections.

  “I’m not trying to get Colin into trouble,” he’d assured Annie for the third time. “I just think you need to know the legal ramifications of what your photos show. It’s the prudent thing to do, Annie, and in your heart, you know it.”

  She did. But she’d felt like a turncoat as she had left a message with Alvin’s answering service, asking him to please call her the following morning. And when morning arrived, Annie had come to her own private decision. She would describe the photos as purely hypothetical evidence to Alvin. She felt quite clever. She was sure no other client of Alvin’s had ever thought of this angle before.

  “Annie! How are you? Please assure me you’re not calling to report another run-in with the locals.”

  “No, no, I’m fine. And so is the trailer, more or less. I’m actually on my way to collect it right now. It’s been at a local mechanic’s shop for the past two days, and Marcus and I have deemed it roadworthy enough to haul.”

  “Oh, is Mr. Colbert with you now? Glad to hear it. We had a nice chat about you several days ago.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  Alvin laughed. “Not in that sense. We were both deeply concerned about your status in our local justice system.”

  “That’s a relief. Well, I called for two reasons. First, since Marcus is now with me, we intend to pic
k up the horses this morning and head out this afternoon. We are not sending out a press release or informing the local constabulary of our imminent departure. We’re just leaving.”

  “Fine. If there’s any backlash, I’ll handle it. But there’s no need to tell me exactly where you’ll land. That way I can honestly say I don’t know where you are.”

  “Got it. And you never know—we might decide to take a tour of all the major national parks along the way. Unlikely, but possible.”

  “If asked, I’ll say you’re considering a longish vacation to no place in particular.”

  “Which I always am. The second reason I called you was to ask you a kind of ‘what-if’ question.”

  “You mean a hypothetical? Shoot.”

  Annie felt a bit deflated realizing her ingenious idea had been floated by her criminal defense attorney before.

  “Yes. Well, suppose someone took photos of a murder scene, including the victim, and later found out the photos showed someone else at the scene that they hadn’t noticed when they were there?”

  “You mean, the person who took the photos didn’t realize the other person was present until he or she showed up in the roll?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “If the photographer has a pretty good idea of who’s in the picture, does she have to turn over the photos to anyone, like an attorney, or law enforcement?”

  “Is the photographer a possible suspect in this murder?”

  “You could say that.”

  “And is the photographer represented by counsel?”

  “Thankfully, yes.”

  “Well, it’s entirely the photographer’s call. But if she does decide to share them with anyone, it should be with her attorney. But she can choose not to share them at all, if she wants. Although she should think carefully about how the other person in the photos might help resolve her own suspect status.”