Goose in the Pond

by Earlene Fowler

  “No,” I confessed, pulling away and looking up at him. “I picked up the Freedom Press when I was having lunch with Rita, but I only read Elvia’s book review and the Tattler’s column.”

  He gave a disgusted “hmmph” and sat down in his chair. “That column is nothing but cheap, yellow journalism. I don’t know why you read it.”

  I shrugged. “Curiosity, I suppose. Just like everyone else.”

  “And as long as people keep reading it, that junk will keep being printed.”

  “I gave my statement,” I said, changing the subject because he obviously was feeling grumpy, and a gossip column in a local paper wasn’t the cause. “Maggie’s typing it up now.”

  “Good.”

  I opened my purse and pulled out the sheets of paper from the tablet at Eudora’s. “And here’s those names you asked for last night.”

  He read down the list quickly. “Thanks. I’ll give them to Jim at the update meeting this afternoon.”

  “Any leads?”

  He looked back down at the list in his hand. “Anything else you want to tell me about these people?”

  I didn’t answer for a moment, letting him know his attempt at avoiding my question didn’t work. “Peter Grant and I had an argument today.”

  He looked up at me, his face intent. “Really? What about?”

  “Same old thing. Private property rights and the common good. And I guess there’s some trouble between him and Roy. I think they’re both going to try and turn this festival into a political battleground, but they’ll have to go through me to do it. I’ll toss both their butts out without thinking twice.”

  Gabe leaned back in his chair, his mustache twitching in amusement. “I have no doubt about that. Should I beef up security Friday night?”

  “Nah, I can handle it. They won’t backtalk me too much. Everyone knows I have high connections in local law enforcement.”

  “Not to mention a very protective husband.”

  “Now, an update from the home front.” I spent the next twenty minutes telling him about my lunch with Rita. By the end of my story, I actually had him smiling.

  Maggie knocked and opened the door. “All done, kids.”

  I signed the statement, and Gabe walked me out to the parking lot. “We’ll talk more about your storytellers tonight,” he said. “Just don’t go asking them any questions, okay? That’s my job.”

  I made a cross over my heart and held up three fingers.

  “I know for a fact you were never a Girl Scout,” he said. He leaned against his dad’s truck and stroked the fender. “How’s it running?”

  “Fine. And don’t worry.” I poked him in the chest. “I’m taking very good care of it. Are you going to make it home for dinner?”

  His eyes lit up. “Are you cooking again?”

  “No, but there will be a home-cooked meal waiting for you.”

  “Your cousin Rita?” he asked dubiously.

  I laughed out loud. “That was a joke, wasn’t it? Actually your son is cooking us dinner. I think he’s trying to say he’s sorry. Think you can make it home by six o’clock?”

  He turned and inspected an imaginary spot on the truck’s fender. “Depends on what’s happening with the Cooper case.”

  I didn’t press it, though I was itching to. “Well, don’t work too hard.” I stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly. He pulled me close in a tight hug, then turned back toward the station. After a few steps, he stopped and turned around. The wind softly ruffled the top of his black hair. In his gray Brooks Brothers suit he appeared the consummate professional, but I saw through it to a lanky, pain-racked sixteen-year-old boy whose father died before he could teach his son all he needed to know about being a father.

  “Be careful,” he said, his face still. “I mean it.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said solemnly, giving him a small salute, then mouthed the words I love you.

  “Yo tambien, querida.”

  A short while later I felt a surge of anticipation when I turned right at the redwood Methodist church and drove down the gravel driveway to Grace’s stables. Less than fifteen minutes away from both my house and the museum on a back road that eventually led to Montana de Oro State Park and Morro Bay, it had, over the last five or six months, become my semisecret place of retreat. Though I tried to make it out to the Ramsey Ranch at least once a week, I missed the satisfying routine of caring for animals on a daily basis, working in a garden, and living far enough away from civilization that when you sat on your front porch at night, the screeching you heard came from an owl and not your teenage neighbor’s tires taking a fast corner.

  The road forked at the end, one gravel road leading to her house and the other to the stables. The house was a square, neat two-story with white trim, gray shingles, and an old chimney. Across the front was a white picket fence laced with pink and yellow tea roses, and to the left grew a hundred-year-old oak tree under which sat a wrought-iron patio set. Pockets, her gray tabby cat, sat in the middle of the glass-topped table and licked one white paw.

  I drove directly to the stables, knowing that was where Grace would likely be this time of day. Two large arenas flanked a wooden breezeway barn that housed approximately thirty horses. Grace’s boarding and training operation was small but exclusive, and as a rancher I teased her quite a bit about the pampering the spoiled city horses received.

  “Some of them dress better than I do,” I’d said, watching her peel a pink paisley blanket and hood off a glossy Morgan owned by a society woman in town who rode dressage. “Daddy’d bust a gut laughing if he saw the outfits some of these horses wear.”

  “And they eat better than all of us,” she’d replied.

  I parked in front of the closest arena. Because school was still in session, only one person was riding this early in the afternoon. By three-thirty, the place would be packed with schoolgirls in skintight breeches and expensive riding boots braiding their horses’ manes, discussing the next competition, and giggling over Grace’s new seventeen-year-old stable hand, Kyle.

  I rested my arms on the metal railing and watched Jillian Sinclair take her huge bay, Flirtatious Fred, through his paces. From inside the barn, I heard Michelle Wright telling all the guys within hearing range that if they wanted her heart they’d have to “take it like a man. . . .”

  Grace’s high, reedy soprano echoed out of the building as she sang along. Above me, eucalyptus leaves whispered in the warm breeze.

  “What do you think?” Jillian asked, riding up to me. She pulled off her helmet and shook out her pale hair. I reached up and ran my hand down the bay’s soft cheek.

  “Lookin’ good,” I said. “You have a competition coming up?”

  “This Sunday in Santa Barbara. I’m going to have to miss the last few hours of the festival on Saturday night because I want to get him down there early to settle in.” She patted the horse’s neck. “He’s going to do me proud this time, no doubt about it.” She swung down, locked the irons in place, and walked Fred over to the gate. I followed and unlatched it from my side.

  “Thanks.” She led the horse over to a tie bar, pulled off the expensive English saddle, and tossed it over the fence. “Hot walker for you today, sweetie,” she said, kissing the horse’s forehead. “I don’t have time to work all that energy out of you.” She pulled off the bridle and handed it to me, haltered Fred, and tied him to the bar. She hefted the saddle and walked toward the tack room in the front of the barn.

  “How was it this morning at the library?” I asked inside the large tack room. She threw the saddle over a wooden saddle rack and pulled off her expensive leather gloves.

  “People are edgy, of course. I tried to reassure everyone as best I could, but there wasn’t much I could say. According to Gabe, there aren’t many leads. But I assume you know that.” She tossed the gloves on top of a small refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of mineral water. “Want one?” Her thin white shirt was glued to her body with perspiration.

  I
shook my head no and hung the bridle on a free hook.

  “If there were any leads, he probably wouldn’t tell me anyway, right?” She took a quick sip from the mineral water and held the dripping bottle to her forehead.

  “Probably not,” I agreed. “Even I have trouble prying information out of him about cases.”

  “Well, I soothed everyone and told them they didn’t have anything to worry about, but that they should use the buddy system when walking to their cars, especially the ones who work late on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  “Good idea anytime, actually.”

  “Yes, it probably is.” She looked at me curiously. “Did you go to see Nick?”

  “This morning. I don’t think he’s doing very well.”

  She nodded in agreement and set her water down on a table crowded with equine medicines and grooming products. “I thought the same thing when I went by yesterday. I told him to take as much time off as he needs. He and Nora were so close, and now he’s all alone.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “I know how he feels.”

  “Yes, he and Nora—”

  “Benni! I thought I heard your voice,” Grace interrupted, stepping into the tack room. “Hey, Jillian. What are you two yapping about?”

  Jillian and I glanced at each other guiltily. She picked up her water and took another quick sip. I picked at a hangnail on my thumb.

  Grace’s freckled face scanned both our faces, then scowled. “As if I didn’t know. I can’t tell you how sick I am of hearing about Nora Cooper. When she was alive, I couldn’t go ten minutes without hearing Nora this, Nora that. I guess it’s not going to be any different now that she’s dead.” She grabbed a large plastic feed bucket full of grain and stomped out.

  “Well,” Jillian said after a few uncomfortable minutes, “I guess she’s made her position clear.” She tucked a loose section of her thin white blouse into her khaki breeches. “Someone should mention to her that it doesn’t look very good, her going on like that about someone just murdered. Especially since she’s living with the deceased’s soon-to-be ex-husband.”

  I smiled wanly, getting her point. “And that someone would be me?”

  Jillian gave an apologetic shrug. “You do seem to be her only friend.”

  “I’ll try and talk to her. I don’t want her making things tougher on herself than necessary.”

  “She probably is one of the more obvious suspects, isn’t she?”

  My mouth opened in surprise. “Jillian, I can’t believe you said that.”

  She tossed her empty water bottle in the small waste-basket. “I bet I’m not the only one who’s thinking it. Don’t you think that Gabe has her high on his list of suspects?”

  “You know I can’t talk about that.”

  Her sharp, tiny features wrinkled in chagrin. “I know. Please, forgive me for my speculations. I guess I’ve got a bit of the Tattler’s blood in me. Maybe that’s why that column is so addictive.” She gave my shoulder a quick pat as she walked out. “Call me if you hear anything.”

  “Bye,” I called after her. Her flippant accusation of Grace irritated me, though what she said was true. But her admission about liking the Tattler’s column neutralized my anger somewhat. I was just as guilty as her. I actually looked forward to reading the gossip column every week, which was starting to really prick at my conscience. What was it in us human beings that caused us to enjoy reading or hearing about the mortification of other people?

  I found Grace at the wash racks scraping water off a sorrel Arabian with a white blaze on his forehead. I stood to the side and watched her for a moment without speaking.

  “Miz Jillian all through playing horsewoman?” Grace finally asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, leaning against the metal post of the rack. “Look, we weren’t talking about you, Grace, but we were talking about Nora’s murder. I don’t know how else to say this, but you’re going to have to get used to that over the next few weeks. You know we don’t have many murders here in San Celina, so it’s bound to be big news.”

  She flicked the water off the scraping blade and continued to run it down the horse’s flank. He shook his head, spraying water in my direction. “I know, it’s just that I’m already tired of the weird looks people are giving me.” She wiped the back of a wet hand across her forehead. Sun-bleached ringlets of copper and gold had escaped from her braided hair and feathered her oval face. “When I stopped off at the feed supply this morning to pick up my order, the two girls behind the registers actually whispered ‘that’s her’ behind my back when I was looking at some new halters. I feel like I’m wearing a big scarlet A.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She threw the scraper into a nearby bucket and untied the Arabian. “I know a lot of this is my own fault. Shoot, I’m living with her husband. I slept with him when their son was dying. She was holding up their divorce so we couldn’t be together. Honestly, if I was looking for a suspect in this, the first one I’d pick would be me.”

  “Or Roy,” I said, then regretted it.

  She looked at me blankly. “Yes, I guess he would be just as obvious as me. But he didn’t do it. And neither did I.” She led the horse toward the hot walker, where Fred was already meandering in a circle. “We are each other’s alibis that night. Did Gabe tell you that?”

  “He doesn’t talk about his cases at home, you know that.” She and I had discussed our men’s lack of communication many times over glasses of lemonade and bags of Doritos in her large country kitchen. She clipped the Arabian to the walker and gave him an affectionate pat on the haunch. Then she turned and faced me. “I know you never approved of my relationship with Roy, but I appreciate the fact that you never preached at me.”

  I smiled. “Except once or twice.”

  She smiled back. “Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I do respect yours. I’m not proud of the way he and I got together, but that’s water under the bridge now.” Her face sobered. “I just want you to know that I didn’t have anything to do with Nora’s death, but I’m not sorry she’s dead. She wasn’t as sweet and innocent as she led everyone to believe.”

  I didn’t answer, not knowing quite what to say. Grace’s stories about Nora were colored with the prejudice of a woman in love with a man in the midst of a bitter divorce. How much could I believe?

  “I didn’t kill her,” Grace repeated. “And Roy didn’t either. You believe me, don’t you?” Her face tensed as she waited for my reply.

  “Of course I do,” I said, flinching inwardly at the tiny lie. Did I think she killed Nora? Though she was quiet and easygoing most of the time, I’d seen Grace lose her temper before. It was as quick and volatile as an illegal firecracker and just about as predictable. Once Roy had to physically hold her back when she took a pitchfork and went after a teenage boy who’d jerked the mouth of one of her horses so hard it broke skin. If Roy hadn’t caught her, I have no idea what would have happened. Could that protective instinct toward her animals carry over to her lover? Though I hated admitting it, both she and Roy had the motive, means, and opportunity to kill Nora. They both had bad tempers, a reason to want Nora dead, access to ropes....

  She looked past me to the thick oak groves that bordered her property. “Thanks for the lie, but like I said, I’d suspect me, too.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. I toed the ground with my boot tip. “Need any help today?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Thanks, I’ve got things pretty much under control. Want to have a ride? Tony can always use the exercise.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was close to three-thirty, and in the next half hour the arenas, small rings, and hot walkers would be as crowded as rush-hour traffic in Orange County. “I’ll take a rain check. I’m really just avoiding work, but I needed a quick animal fix.”

  She grinned. “Then stick around. I’m giving the Three Amigos a flea bath this afternoon. They’re about ready to drive me nuts.”

  I automatically scratched t
he back of my neck at the thought. “No, thanks, I don’t miss them that much.” As if on cue, Dos, the second of her three male Kelpies named Uno, Dos, and Tres nudged my leg, wanting to be petted. I bent down and vigorously scrubbed behind one upright brown ear. He smiled his little dingo smile. “You shameless old beggar, I’m going to take you home with me.” He yelped in answer, blinking his golden eyes.

  “Please, take them all,” Grace said.

  “After their flea dip,” I answered.

  “Coward.”

  “We sold three of your wreaths over the weekend,” I told her as she walked me out to Gabe’s truck. As a sideline, Grace made bay leaf wreaths out of leaves she gathered off the Ramsey Ranch. Decorated with dried native flowers and cleverly laced thin satin ribbon, they’d become a popular gift item in the museum’s gift shop.

  “Great, we need the money. Roy’s doing okay now that he’s got regular customers, but that can change in a heartbeat.” She bit down on the corner of her lip, her face worried.

  I hadn’t even thought about Roy’s connection with the murder affecting his farrier business. Horse people were particular and fickle about who took care of their babies. There were quite a few good farriers practicing their trade in San Celina County, so Roy did have something to worry about. I touched Grace’s hand. “I’m sure Gabe will find who did this fast, and things can get back to normal.”

  “Whatever that is,” she said, then laughed uneasily. She ran her hand down the old Chevy’s shiny blue fender. “Why’re you driving this old thing? Or more accurately, why is Gabe letting you drive it?”

  “That’s right, we haven’t had time to talk about my problems. You aren’t going to believe it.” I quickly told her about Sam and Rita’s spontaneous arrivals and the aftermath. “And I won’t even go into my great-aunt Garnet’s marital problems,” I added.

  “I’ll stick to being a murder suspect, thank you, ma’am,” she said. “Less stressful. With this storytelling festival coming up, sounds like you’ve really got your hands full.”

  “No kidding.” Her mention of the festival reminded me of Peter’s complaint about Roy’s story. “Have you heard Roy’s story for the festival?”