Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries)

by Laura Crum

  "So, how do you like your new horse?" I asked Lonny, changing the subject.

  Instantly his wide grin creased his face. "Just fine," he said happily. "I'm glad you talked me into that. I roped half a dozen practice steers on him this morning, and we're getting along great."

  I smiled back at him. To my satisfaction, he had made a deal to buy Chester from Glen. "That horse is a good one," I'd told him.

  Lonny opened his mouth to say something and then shut it suddenly. All the light seemed to die out of his eyes. I turned my head to follow his gaze, which had fixed on the entrance to the bar.

  A woman in a white dress walked through the archway. She had smooth, shiny brown hair, and she was followed by a tall man in a gray suit. My eyes swung back to her, and my heart jumped. It was Sara.

  The two of them came walking along the bar in our direction. When they were opposite our table, Lonny cleared his throat and stood up. "Hello, Sara," he said.

  Sara glanced at us, at first casually, then with sudden intensity. Her chin lifted and she turned her face a fraction, enough that her eyes missed mine and rested directly on Lonny.

  "Hello," she said.

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Then the tall man behind Sara stepped forward and held out his hand. "I'm Alan Todd," he said. He looked as relaxed as Sara was tense.

  Lonny shook the man's hand. "Lonny Peterson. This is Gail McCarthy," he replied, gesturing at me.

  I smiled.

  Sara's back was straight and stiff. "Lonny's my ex-husband," she said briefly. Managing a civil smile at the two of us, she turned to her companion. "Shall we check our reservations?"

  "All right. Nice to meet you." Alan Todd smiled cordially in our direction, and the two of them departed.

  "Whew." Lonny looked at me.

  I smiled. "I don't think she was very glad to see you."

  "No."

  "She did call you her ex, though."

  "I noticed. And it looks like she might have a new boyfriend. "

  "Yeah, it does. How do you feel about that?"

  "Happy for her."

  I nodded. I was being surprised by how much it wasn't bothering me to see Sara. I'd been jealous of her for years, in the last six months almost pathologically so, and now, it seemed, she made no difference at all.

  "You don't want to be back with her?" I asked Lonny.

  "No," he said. "I've decided to get the divorce."

  "No matter what?"

  "No matter what. It's something I need to do for me."

  "What made you come to that decision?"

  Lonny looked out the window, where dusk was darkening the sky above the tranquil waters of the bay. "She isn't a part of my life," he said at last. "I need to recognize that."

  I took a long swallow of margarita. We both ate a few chips. The silence was the silence of two people thinking hard. Lonny broke it. "How did you know it was Joyce who set up those accidents?"

  I thought a minute. "I didn't know. But it seemed obvious to me that the person who arranged the bulk of the accidents had to live on the ranch. It would have been possible for an outsider to have set up one or two little disasters. But not a whole string. It would have been too risky. So, from almost the beginning, I thought the stalker had to be Tim or Joyce or Al or Janey. For a long time I suspected Tim. It was only after Glen got electrocuted that I really thought about Joyce. She was in the right place at the right time, and you know what they say about a spouse being the number-one suspect. So I followed my hunch.

  "What I think now is that Joyce's affair with Charles was the catalyst that unleashed all the resentment she felt toward Glen. She started acting that resentment out by setting up accidents to make his life miserable, and, eventually, she told Charles what she was doing.

  "Charles hated Glen because he thought Glen was having an affair with Pat. His affair with Joyce was mostly in the nature of revenge on Glen. When Joyce told him about her 'accidents,' he got the idea he could really avenge himself.

  "I think he was the one who came up with the more serious accidents. I think he gave Joyce the shot to give Smoke, and I think he was the one who killed the colt. I'm sure he thought up the 'accident' with the dummy fuse and told Joyce what to do. He meant for Glen to die. But that's where Joyce made a mistake. She got scared. If she'd left the dummy fuse in place and the power switched on, I might have believed it was an accident. It would have been hard to prove that it wasn't. But she tried to be too careful, now that they were actually trying to murder Glen. She hid the fuse in her purse and tuned the power off." I took a long swallow of margarita.

  "How could she do that?" Lonny sounded genuinely uncomprehending.

  "Being married can do some funny things to people. You know that."

  As far as inadequate conclusions went, that one probably took the cake. There just wasn't much else to say. The way people felt when they got close to each other and then came apart-those were the strongest emotions in the world, maybe.

  "But what in the world would Glen have done that caused her to hate him enough to try to kill him?"

  I sighed. "I don't know, of course. But pride was a big part of what Glen was. Pride in himself, in what he stood for. I don't think he really had much else. His relationship with Joyce was empty; Glen wasn't himself; he was performing a role, all based on his pride. I think Joyce grew to hate him for that. I know Tim resented him deeply."

  "So now what?"

  "I don't know." It was repetitive but true. "Glen probably feels like a complete failure. His pride in that image of himself that he held up for so long is all torn down. That pride was his strength. I've come to understand it probably isn't a good kind of strength, but I admired Glen for it for years."

  Lonny nodded.

  "Maybe Glen will get more in touch with who he really is through all this. I don't know. Maybe, in the end, he'll be a happier person."

  Outside, I could see wisps of fog starting to drift in over the bay. Reflexively, I shivered, and Lonny put his arm around me. "Will you stay at my house tonight?" he said quietly. "I want to hold you."

  I looked at him. His steady green eyes met mine without a flicker.

  "Yes," I said. "I will." I took his hand and held it. "Thank you," I told him.

  "For what?" He sounded genuinely puzzled.

  "For being you."

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Three months later, Lonny and I sat on the grassy south-facing slope in front of my new house in Corralitos while I explained my plans for the two-and-a-half-acre property. Every few minutes this explanation was interrupted as we were attacked by a small, furry ball of energy-my eight-week-old puppy, Roey.

  Everything seemed to have happened with amazing speed. My old house sold quickly; miraculously, during the escrow period I found this property, which fitted all my needs and was within my budget. And moving into my new place coincided with the date when Lisa's puppies were ready to leave their mother.

  True to her word, Lisa had given me the pick of the litter; I'd chosen a red female pup, neither the largest nor the smallest of the seven siblings, but one who seemed to have a sweet disposition and a bright eye. At eight weeks, she looked like a fluffy baby bear cub, in miniature. I'd named her Roey in honor of her parents, and she was already doing a lot to fill the gap Blue had left.

  At the moment, she was chewing on Lonny's boot, while he made laughing efforts to repulse her. "I liked it better when you had an old dog," he told me.

  "Things change," I said lightly.

  The understatement of the century. Things had changed a hell of a lot, lately.

  "I had dinner with Lisa last night," I said. "She says Glen seems to be pulling out of his depression. He's off his crutches and he's riding again. Al's helped a lot, according to Lisa. She can hardly believe how supportive he's been of Glen."

  "What about Tim?"

  "He left to go work for a horse trainer. I think he finally realized it was time for him to leave home and try life on his own."


  "Good." Lonny's nod was emphatic.

  "Lisa said Pat's been over a few times; she thinks that maybe Glen will start seeing Pat openly, eventually."

  "When's Charles's trial?"

  "Another month. Since they're holding him without bail, it's not too big of an issue. He won't get out of jail for a long time. There's plenty of evidence to convict him of second-degree murder, at least, if nothing else."

  Lonny said nothing; I knew he, like me, was contemplating the pure unreality of the devastation Charles had wrought on the outwardly tranquil world of Lone Oak.

  "Of course, it wasn't peaceful before, not really," I said out loud. "All that hatred and unhappiness was there, under the surface. It's just out in the open now."

  "It's probably better this way." Lonny said it reluctantly; I wasn't sure he really meant it. Lonny had a strong interest in keeping things stable and serene.

  "In a lot of ways I think it is better," I said. "But Joyce is dead. And so are three good horses."

  "And Charles is in jail, probably for life," Lonny added.

  "I'm sorry, but I can't feel much regret about that. I don't even think I'd feel regret if Charles were dead. I don't see one redeeming human quality in Charles."

  We were both silent. I was thinking of that long afternoon in Glen's back pasture when Charles had stalked me with his rifle. If I had moved too soon, I wouldn't be here now. Uncontrollably, I shuddered a little.

  Lonny put his arm around me. "So," he said, "are we going to get married?" His tone was friendly, casual, but I heard the underlying sincerity and hope. It made it harder to say what I knew I had to say.

  "I don't want to get married," I said. "Not yet, anyway."

  Lonny absorbed this, his face quiet. He plucked a stalk of wild oats and picked the seed heads off one by one. When the last grain was gone, he asked, "Do you still love me?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "What does that mean?"

  I studied the familiar fifty-year-old countenance. Not handsome, no longer mysteriously unknown, but kind and intelligent. "I think loving a person is a lot like loving a dog or a horse,"

  I told him.

  "So what does that mean?"

  "It means," I said, "not quitting."

  "So we go on loving each other?"

  I took his hand and held it. "Yes," I said. "Always."