What do you mean?
Well, I have to admit, I didn’t believe Bo Michaels was on the up and up, but you did, and you didn’t let up until you’d gotten the real story from him. Although, let’s be fair, it’s a pretty unbelievable story. And he did almost get your son on the suspect list for a murder.
Annie eyed him cautiously. You mean you absolutely don’t think he killed his father?
I did, at one point. But, you never have, and so far, as long as I’ve known you, your instinct has been right about people. So, I guess I’m going to have to go with your gut on this one.
But Bobby LaRue? What do you think about him? Annie didn’t trust Bobby as far as she could throw him, which, by his size and her puny upper body strength, wasn’t very far.
I don’t know. Do I like him? Heck, no. He’s scummy. Gives me the creeps. But, do I think he killed his uncle? Well, I’m not sure about that one.
Annie sighed. It feels like there’s something missing from the situation. Like there’s some pertinent bit of information that we’re missing.
You mean a smoking gun? I guess sometimes bad people do bad things and get away with it. I hate to say it, but really, who didn’t want Frances LaRue dead? If the police made a list of everyone the old guy had ever ticked off, well, I’d venture to say it would be a pretty long list.
That whole family is kinda messed up, I guess. I mean, I wonder what Samuel LaRue is like? According to Emmett, he’d been out of his brother’s life for a while. I wonder if he’s as unfriendly as his brother was? She shuddered to think about the life Adrian LaRue had lived after his mother had died. With no kind relatives to turn to, was it any wonder he’d chosen to disappear and ‘die’?
"Well, Emmett told me that Samuel didn’t seem too heartbroken about his brother’s death. Emmett says
Samuel was surprised that the old man hadn’t wound up killing himself earlier because he was ‘not quite all there.’"
You mean, like delusional or infirm? Annie raised one eyebrow. He seemed to know something was going on with Bobby and the lawyer, she replied. And he might have seemed crazy, chasing everyone away with that shotgun, but I doubt he was frail enough to have to go into a nursing home. I mean, for goodness sake, he traipsed all the way through the woods to our place and back carrying a dead chicken. That’s not something a feeble old man would do, is it?
Yeah, you’ve got a point there. Still, you know how people can be when they get tired of looking after their relatives. Might have been easier for the LaRues to just shove the old man into a nursing home and wait it out until he died, leaving them with his prime piece of real estate in return for all their love and support. He said this last part with no small amount of sarcasm.
Well, that’s just it though--now they won’t be getting that land, will they? I mean, Adrian LaRue is the rightful heir, and he’s certainly alive and kicking. All he has to do is come forward and claim it, right?
Rory nodded. Yeah, but he says he doesn’t want anything to do with the property.
But surely he doesn’t want those horrible people getting it? Annie threw her hands up in exasperation. He just needs to come forward and tell them that he’s alive. Then he can just sell the property and walk away.
Yeah, his uncle and cousin would be totally cool with that, Rory replied, rolling his eyes. Bobby LaRue would blow his stack if he thought he wasn’t getting his hands on that land.
He would be pretty mad, wouldn’t he? Annie asked slowly. Mad enough to kill somebody?
Rory pondered this for a minute. I guess there’s only one way to find out. We need to let the world know that Adrian LaRue is back in town, and he wants his daddy’s farm back.
Is it our place to tell the world that? Annie asked pointedly. I mean, you heard him. He wants to stay dead to the world, forget his past, and just go on with his life.
And is it our place to let a murderer go free? Do you really want to live next door to someone who might have killed an old man just for the privilege of taking his land? Rory’s eyes flashed with anger. I couldn’t care less about the LaRues and their family problems, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a murderer move in next door to you.
Well, what do you expect me to do about it? I can’t make Bo come forward and tell his family that he’s still alive. He made it clear that he wants to leave his past behind him.
Rory walked to the barn’s entrance and pointed towards Bobby’s truck. You think Bo wouldn’t come forward if he thought that he’d be sending young Joshua to live with that? I don’t exactly see Bobby LaRue being a kind and patient father, do you?
Annie chewed her lip, biting so hard she could almost taste blood. No, she thought emphatically, there’sno way that sweet little boy can go and live with a killer.
I’ll go and talk to him, right now. He needs to realize that there’s more than just him at stake here. Annie started towards the house, but Rory called out to her.
Let me know how things go, he told her. Come get me if you need support. I have a feeling that he trusts you more than just about anybody, but I’m here if you need me.
Knowing that those were more than just words, Annie felt a little more self-assured as she headed into the house to find Bo and hopefully convince him that it was finally time for Adrian LaRue to come home.
24
Going Back to the Scene of the Crime
Sometime just after three o’clock, Annie found herself traipsing through the woods again. Despite swearing to Rory that she’d stay behind and wait patiently, she’d followed him through the clustered pines and occasional birch trees. She’d simply been following her instinct--something that Rory had often advised her to do--when she took off after him only ten minutes after promising to stay put.
Rory had been trusting his own instincts when he followed Bobby LaRue and Bo Michaels into the woods. Annie almost wished she’d kept her mouth shut and not encouraged Bo to come forward to his cousin about his true identity. The resulting domino effect had rippled through the house.
When Bo disclosed his real identity to Melody, warning her about Bobby’s mean-spirited nature, she didn’t seem too surprised, Annie thought. If she did, she was hiding it stoically behind her steady resignation to her fate. However, when Bo approached Bobby, there had been notably more tension in the air.
Annie wasn’t in the room for the actual revelation of Bo’s true identity, but when she arrived a few minutes later, carrying drinks for everyone as a sly way of checking on her friend, she couldn’t help but notice that Bobby seemed less than genuinely pleased about his cousin’s existence.
Did you know? Bobby asked her pointedly. Did you know that he was my cousin?
No, Bo replied before Annie could speak. No one knew until today. I wasn’t going to say anything at all, but after dad was killed--
"You mean after he died, Bobby corrected him. The police told us it was a blow to the head, that he probably slipped in some water in the kitchen and hit his head. Isn’t that right?"
Well, Annie interjected, The Chief of Police suspects that there may have been foul play involved, isn’t that right, Bo?
Why are you calling him Bo? He just told us he’s really cousin Adrian.
Bo/Adrian took a deep breath in. I’ve left that person behind, Bobby. The world knows me as Bo Michaels, country music songwriter and lonely bachelor. I like it that way. I’ve got no intentions of changing that, at least, not right now.
Bobby’s face darkened. But what about your daddy’s land? What about the house?
I’ll keep it, I guess. I mean, I don’t want anything to do with the house, but it’s pretty much falling apart anyway. I might tear it down and rebuild something nicer, someplace I can have better memories. Whatever I do with it, it won’t involve a chicken farm. He looked directly at Bobby as he said this next part. You don’t really think Annie here would like her inn located downwind from a dadgum chicken farm, do you?
Annie had felt pleased that Bo had stood up to his cousin o
n her behalf, but even more glad that he was standing up for himself. After their chat, Bobby had gone to use the restroom and had returned with the suggestion that he and his cousin take a walk over to the old house to continue their chat.
Something hadn’t felt right about this to Annie, and she’d told Bo as much, but he promised her that he would be fine. Probably he was right, but still, Annie had told Rory about their plan. He’d told her that she should have trusted her gut (if she’d had a nickel for every time she’d heard that…) and after a brief discussion, it was decided, mostly by Rory, that he should follow the two men at a short distance just to make sure everything was okay.
We’re not being nosy, he’d told her, We’re being careful. Besides, if they question my reason for being on the LaRue property, I’ll just say I lost my watch sometime today and I’m retracing my steps.
Annie had pointed out that Rory wasn’t wearing a watch. That’s exactly why they’ll believe me, he had assured her just before slipping away into the mini-forest.
Annie Richards had been accused of being many things in her lifetime, but patient wasn’t one of them. The fact that she made it over ten minutes before bolting after Rory should have been seen as quite the accomplishment. She was particularly proud of herself for remembering to silence her cell phone before heading into the woods.
When she’d lived in New York City, Annie had walked everywhere. Her legs had remained strong and shapely simply due to the fact that walking was quicker, in many cases, than trying to battle traffic in a cab or bus. Subways were crowded and her own car was great for out of town ventures, but in the city, a strong pair of legs was the best
mode of transportation a gal could get.
Since she’d been back in Coopersville, her legs were a little less-used than they’d been in the Big Apple. This second jaunt through the woods, over slippery pine needles and protruding boulders that peeked out from between sinewy tree roots, was tiresome. Her legs were starting to feel the burn of the uneven terrain, but despite her mild discomfort, Annie pressed on as quickly as possible.
Her gut was trying to tell her something--exactly what, she wasn’t sure--but she knew that whatever was about to go down at the old LaRue place, she needed to be there.
Some things, Annie realized, just came with age. Like crow’s feet and a less-than-perky bottom, Annie’s intuition seemed to only show up once she hit her forties. It was like her gut had been too busy doing other things for the first half of her life, but now that she was older, it deemed her worthy of its messages. Maybe life experience had sharpened that blade of intuition, or maybe it simply was something she had to grow into, but whatever the reason, these days, Annie’s hunches were often right.
After what felt like ages, but was actually only around ten or fifteen minutes, the LaRue place came into view. Because of the angle of the house in relation to the trees, it always felt like a surprise to see the shabby, two-story structure. Because the woods were quite overgrown and thick with vegetation, despite it being such a small patch of forest, it was easy to imagine that there was nothing else in the world when you were walking through them. Seeing the house was a sudden and stark reminder that the woods weren’t as solitary as one might think.
Annie expected to find Rory outside the house, perhaps chatting with Bo and Bobby. She did not expect to find a shiny red SUV parked outside the house. The window of the SUV was opened slightly, so she peered inside. Nothing that she could see gave her any clue about its owner, but a sickly sweet smell lingered in the car’s interior. She ran her hand gently along the hood--the engine was still warm.
Annie pulled out her cell phone and dialled Emmett’s number. When he answered, she told him only that there was a strange car parked at the LaRue property and briefly explained that Bobby LaRue now knew his cousin was alive and well. Emmett didn’t waste time asking her any more questions, but after advising her to go back home and wait for him to visit, and assuring her that a car would be at the LaRue place directly, he ended the call.
Annie could see that the police tape from earlier that morning had been torn down and tossed aside. She doubted either Rory or Bo would have done such a thing, but she could imagine Bobby being so defiant. She edged up the rickety front steps, avoiding the loose board that would certainly break someone’s ankle if it wasn’t fixed soon.
The front door was barely ajar. She pressed her ear to the crack and listened, but heard nothing. She pressed her hand to the door and pushed gently, dreading the creak of the rusty hinges. Her instinct was telling her that she wanted to be as quiet as death when she entered this place. Her heart was pounding in her ears, threatening to break the silence with its thud, thud, thudding.
As the door opened, Annie was hit with the same sweet scent that had filled the SUV. She realized with some surprise that it was a scent that she associated with this place, but it was one that had been conspicuously absent earlier that morning. Her mind turned back to the dreadful morning when she’d found Frances LaRue’s cold, dead body in his filthy kitchen. The whole house had a sickly sweet scent that she’d likened to incense or perfume, but as she peered around the corner into the living room, she realized that she was wrong.
It was the scent of a pipe, filled with tobacco of some sort, and it was perched between the lips of a man who looked an awful lot like the late Frances LaRue. This all-too-familiar-looking stranger rested one hand under his pipe and the other on a tall wooden walking stick. He was perched stiffly on one arm of an easy chair, and across his lap lay a shotgun.
25
Family Is Everything
Annie wasn’t the type of girl who was scared of guns. Her own father had kept a hunting rifle locked up in a case in his bedroom for most of her life. She’d even fired it once, as an eager teen, hoping to accompany her father on one of his hunting trips. Her dad’s shotgun had been a Winchester that was designed for turkey hunting. Its recoil hadn’t been inordinately strong, but it still left a bruise on her young shoulder.
This shotgun looked a lot meaner than her father’s had been. Of course, the fact that its owner was also smoking a villainous looking pipe and looked remarkably like the dead man that she’d discovered in the house the previous week did nothing to put her at ease.
She decided to wait and watch, since the man didn’t appear to have seen her just yet. Within seconds, she was glad she did.
What are we going to do with them, dad? Bobby’s voice was shaky, uncertain. This was not the cocky faux-cowboy who’d left her inn just a while ago.
I’m thinking, son. This would have been a whole lot easier if you hadn’t brought the neighbor with you. The old man tapped the side of his pipe impatiently. Sorry about your head, mister. You shouldn’t have scared me like that.
Uncle Samuel, what is wrong with you? Bo’s voice carried on the air loud and clear. He had to be on the other side of the wall, from Annie’s memory of that morning, he was probably sitting on the filthy old couch. And the neighbor had to be Rory. Her heart leapt to her throat as she realized that she hadn’t heard Rory’s reply. Was he hurt?
What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong with me?’ What’s wrong with you, boy? Disappearing all those years ago, running out on your family like that--what kind of scumbag does that? Samuel LaRue pointed his pipe towards Bo. And here you come, crawling out of the woodwork like a worm the minute your daddy dies, coming to snatch up what doesn’t even belong to you.
That’s not what happened. Bobby, tell your daddy what I told you, about coming to make peace with my dad. Tell him how he spat in my face and told me to go away.
Bobby moved to stand beside his father. Nuh uh. I don’t buy that, either. How about you tell me why you’re really here? Did your daddy try and sell you some story about how we were trying to get his land from him?
Samuel took Bo’s silence for an affirmation. Look at you. You have no idea--you don’t know what real family is, he spat. Your daddy could have just signed those papers my lawyer drew up. He could h
ave spent his last few months getting sponge baths from pretty blonde nurses, but he refused. He always had to do things his way, but look where that got him.
Months? Bo seemed confused. He seemed fine to me.
Doctor said it was cancer in his brain. Said it couldn’t be operated on and your daddy wouldn’t go in for any kinds of treatment. He would have been dead in six months, a year, topps. Samuel didn’t say this with any kind of pity, but rather as a fact. Annie got the distinct impression that Samuel and Frances had not been close as siblings.
Uncle Samuel, what happened? Bo’s question was so vague, Annie had no idea what kind of answer the older man would give, if he’d give any at all.
I don’t guess it matters if I tell you, since Adrian LaRue is dead and all. Samuel spat the last six words at his nephew. "You never did know a thing about family. And neither did your sorry old man. I told him you weren’t coming back. For all we knew you’d died years ago, but he was so darned stubborn.
Bobby tried to take care of him, brought him food, even hired him one of those fancy nurses aides, but Frances didn’t appreciate any of it. My Bobby was the son he should have had, and he still turned his back on him. Turned his back on all of us. Bobby was here the day the realtor came by, talking about how much this land was worth. Frances just flat out refused to even consider giving the land to my boy after he died. He even threatened to leave it to the state instead of letting it come to us. Samuel wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Some brother he was.
But I don’t want the land, Bo replied. I told Bobby I didn’t care what happened to it.
No, you told me you didn’t know what you were going to do with it. You got all high and mighty talking about how you wouldn’t put a chicken farm up next to your fancy friend’s big old plantation house. You are such a phony snob, Bobby whined.
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