by Celia Jerome
Fred Sinese was the only one there, the only one who didn’t mind the snakes, so everyone naturally called him Sinese the Snake. I didn’t call him anything because I never spoke to him.
On my night of infamy, he’d been right there, near the lake. Maybe having a date of his own. Maybe watching summer kids doing the dirty. Maybe letting a snake out of a sack, for fun.
Without going into personal details, I told Connor about the ranch and its sneaky, slimy caretaker. “And he drinks, besides.”
“Does he have a talent?”
“Other than frightening children? People used to whisper that he talked to the snakes. Like my mother and her dogs and Ty and the horses. Even Emil and the gemstones.”
“Snakes are deaf.”
“Harry Potter did it. What did they call him, a parselmouth?”
“That was a movie.”
“And a book. But there are snakes up there. And Fred Sinese.”
“And a lot of places to hide a horse. Especially if no one goes near the ranch.”
Reluctantly, I turned the car and headed in the direction of Bayview. “I bet he won’t let us search.”
“Unless we say Ty is interested in buying it for his rescued horses. He’s been talking about expanding to the east.”
I had to admit that might work. Snake might let us look around. “Or he might lie and say we need to talk to the owners first.”
I hit the brakes so hard Connor’s head snapped back on the neck rest and his sunglasses went flying. When I made a quick u-turn on a narrow street, he said, “Never ask to ride my horse.”
I sped through the village and skidded into Kelvin’s Auto Body Repair.
“What the hell . . . ?”
“A lie detector.”
Like a couple of other Paumanok Harbor residents who could trace their lines back to the Royce-Harmon-Stamfield English lines, Kelvin could distinguish truth from lies. Our local judge could do it, but they’d moved him to state court, he was so good at administering justice. The police chief could sometimes, besides finding lost objects, but he was too busy. Grant could, but he was several continents away.
That left Kelvin, who had the added advantage of being big and strong. You could never have enough muscle when facing down snakes.
Unfortunately, Kelvin couldn’t come with us. He’d promised to have a Mercedes done by four. He volunteered his son, Kelvin Junior, instead.
I looked at Junior and was not encouraged. The kid was about nine or ten, but almost my height and overweight. I guess that’s why they call him K2. He had chocolate smeared on his face and strawberry ice cream smeared on his NY Giants T-shirt.
“I’m not sure . . .”
Kelvin was. “You’re dealing with Snake; you need to know when he’s lying, even if you can assume it’s every time he opens his mouth.”
I knew Kelvin’s big toe itched at a falsehood, so I asked about K2’s telltale signal.
“His nose drips.” Kelvin handed the boy a box of tissues, told him to mind his manners, and wear his seat belt.
“I guess he’s seen your driving,” Connor muttered.
K2 found the bag of potato chips we’d bought for later, but that didn’t shut him up. “Are you a real Indian? Can Mr. Farraday really talk to the horses? Will he let me ride one? Can we get some ice cream? Do you think Mrs. Terwilliger will shoot me for losing my library card? Are we really going up to Bayview? Can I bring a snake back home with me?”
Heaven help us.
“And you can’t lie to me, ’cause I’ll drip snot all over your car.”
Oh, God, he was worse than Little Red.
Connor went back to being a silent statue. I tried to answer the questions. At least that got my mind off the snakes.
When we drove up the hill, I warned K2 that we were going to speculate. All right, we were going to lie about our reasons for being here. He stuffed some tissues in his jeans pocket.
Snake met us at the top of the hill, before we could park the car. He was set to snarl at whoever was trespassing, until he saw me driving. He grinned. “Well, if it ain’t Missy Tate. Ready to put on another show? How long’s it been now?”
I didn’t reply, but I put the car in park. Snake looked older than when I’d seen him last, but his denim coveralls looked—and smelled—the same. His complexion was still bad, only now it had age spots and maybe skin cancer on top of the acne scars, with an unhealthy yellowish cast. His grin showed a missing tooth, but his eyes were what I remembered most: small, black, darting from side to side.
Connor and K2 got out of the car. I had to force myself to unbuckle my seat belt.
Then I remembered something else: the voice on my answering machine asking about a reward. Snake’s voice. I forgot about the script we’d planned. “Did you call about information on the missing colt?”
“Might have. Just to find what you were offering. See if it was worth my effort to go looking.”
K2 sniffed.
“Do you know anything about it?”
“Just what I heard in town. Saw the posters.”
K2 wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Now Connor took over. He walked toward Snake, held his hand out, and introduced himself. He so rarely offered to shake with anyone I wondered why. Then I decided he voluntarily offered to touch people he already didn’t like. He didn’t care what he found out.
“You really ought to cut out the booze, you know.”
“Yeah, I heard that somewhere. So what do you want? You’re wasting your time looking for a horse up here, and I’d lay odds you’re wasting your time trying to get missy out of her drawers in the grass. Then again, you wouldn’t have brought Porky over there along on a lovers’ picnic.”
“Hey, who’re you calling Porky, snake-eyes?”
I quickly put my hand on K2’s shoulder. This interview was not going the way we planned, not at all. Snake would be throwing us off the property in another minute. Or throwing snakes at us. “We’re still looking for the colt, but Connor here is acting for Ty Farraday in inspecting real estate for sale.”
“The sideshow cowboy?”
Connor’s lips thinned. I hurried on: “He’s a horseman, yes. He is thinking of establishing another sanctuary for rescued equines. There’s more need now, with people tightening their belts and giving up their horses.”
K2 wasn’t blowing his nose, so maybe Ty really was considering buying a second ranch. “Is it okay if we look around?”
Snake spit into the overgrown grass. “No rhinestone cowboy’s got enough cash to buy this place.”
“Ty Farraday does.” Connor had his arms crossed over his chest, as if daring Snake to contradict him.
I looked at K2. He was kicking at the tall weeds, most likely hoping to scare up a boa constrictor.
“Not much left standing. Place’d need a fortune to make it fit for keeping a herd of ponies here.”
“He’s got it,” Connor said, starting to walk toward the remaining stable building.
Snake didn’t try to stop him. Instead, he asked if I wanted to look at the bunkhouse, see if he was hiding a horse under his mattress.
I didn’t want to see anything over, under, or near his mattress. I didn’t want to walk through the grasses in Connor’s wake. I didn’t want to stay here chatting with Snake either. Talk about a rock and a hard place, with quicksand. I grabbed the back of K2’s T-shirt before he could follow Connor. At least I wouldn’t be alone with the viper.
His eyes darting from me to the stable to the road leading up to the ranch, Snake asked, “So how much do you think a white colt is worth?”
The one I wanted was priceless. How could you put a value on magic, or on peace of mind for an entire herd, an entire village? “I have no way of knowing. A lot, I suppose.”
Snake stroked his chin and spit again. “You sure there’s any such animal? I’ve heard the females can disappear in thin air. Don’t sound right to me.”
I thought about my dream, the alphabet soup,
the bracelet Margaret made for me. “I think they’re all real. If you know anything about them, you ought to tell me. If we find out you withheld information, you’ll be in big trouble.”
“You threatening me, missy?”
Who, me? “No, not at all. Just offering a suggestion.”
“Might be I can ask my little friends to look around. For a price. And maybe for a taste of what you’re giving away free. That fancy-pants foreigner, and now the candy-ass cowboy. Why not me?”
Let me count the ways. I stepped back and pulled K2 with me toward the car, glad to see Connor come out of the stable, even if he was shaking his head. With my escorts around me, I felt braver. “You call if you have any information, then we can talk about a finder’s fee. In money. But know this, Mr. Sinese, we will find the colt, with or without your help.”
K2 didn’t even sniffle.
CHAPTER 19
“WHAT DID YOU SEE? Were there any snakes?
Did you find the white horse?”
That was K2. I was more circumspect. “Well?”
Connor reported a lot of disappointment. He’d seen piles of stuff in the loose boxes. He explained those were big stalls for breeding mares, so they could lie down and give birth, and the vets and grooms had room to help. There were six of them, no number nine, and he couldn’t see behind all the junk: furniture salvaged from the house, some extra lumber, moldy saddles. There was no light to see the back of the stalls, and I never gave him the flashlight from the car. Who thought he’d need it? There’d been a light bulb hanging from an overhead wire in my dream.
“There was no sign a horse had been there any time this decade. No spilled grain, no straw. I did a quick walk around the outside without spotting a manure pile.”
“He could dump it in the lake. I bet Snake wouldn’t care about polluting his own well water.”
“Unless magic horses don’t poop.” That was from K2, and wasn’t impossible.
“There was a lock on an equipment room door. I called out, but didn’t get any response, not so much as a whicker.”
Of course not. The colt thought all men were monsters. “I should have gone with you.”
“Why? You had to keep Snake talking, find out what he knew.”
We both turned to look at K2 in the back seat.
“He was lying, like my dad said. Most times. Or not telling the whole truth. That’s harder to tell. You should have gone with him to the bunkhouse, Willow, when he invited you to look there.”
Yeck. “Why?”
“Because he knew you wouldn’t go. That’s why he asked you. I bet the horse is there. He’s got electric and everything.”
That made sense, in a way. So the kid wasn’t as dumb as he looked. But what if I had taken Snake up on the dare, with the intent of snooping? Snake couldn’t take the chance, not if he was holding out for a ransom like it sounded. “I don’t think our baby is in Snake’s house, but you’re right. It’s worth a search.”
“What’d he mean about you and the cowboy, Willow?”
“Nothing.”
K2 wiped his nose with the back of his wrist. Which reminded me to ask Connor why he shook Snake’s hand.
“There were signs. I wanted to be sure. His liver is shot from the alcohol. He’ll be dead within six months, maybe less.”
“Does he know he’s dying, do you think?”
“His body does. There’s no way of telling if his mind accepts it. He’ll have to, soon.”
“So what does he want with the money? A lot of money, by the sound of it, and only when he’s good and ready. I think he’s stringing us along, hoping we’ll get desperate enough to pay some exorbitant price. But a dying man wouldn’t need a fortune, and I never heard of any family for him to leave it to.” I thought about that while K2 rattled off charities, a secret girlfriend, a last chance to see Disneyland.
Snake in Disneyland? I had a good imagination, but that one boggled my mind. “No, I bet he’s hoping to pay for a liver transplant.”
Connor shook his head. “No one would give an alky a donor liver. He’d kill it in a month. Except . . .”
“Except what?” K2 and I both demanded.
“Except no legitimate hospital would do the transplant. Some foreign countries aren’t as scrupulous about who gets the organs. A lot of people in those places are so poor they’ll do anything for the money, sell off one kidney or part of their liver. That’s all you need, not the whole thing, for a transplant. There are even places where you can buy convicts’ parts, or organs from kidnapped victims.”
“Where? What countries?” K2 swore he’d never go to any of them.
I decided Snake had motive enough. All we needed was a more thorough investigation of the ranch. “I doubt the police will get us a search warrant without any hard evidence. And Snake will never let us go poking around again.” Not that I’d done any poking.
“Ty can go look. Maybe bring a real estate agent so it looks good.”
“Great. My friend Martha will come. With flashlights. And maybe a couple of engineers and surveyors.”
Connor grunted. “It’s a sweet prospect. Cool place for horses, once it’s cleaned up.”
“What about the snakes?”
“I didn’t see any.”
“I did.” K2 reached into his pocket; I saw him in the rearview mirror.
I screamed, stopped the car, and jumped out.
He pulled out a tissue to blot his dripping nose. “I lied.”
I got rid of the kid as fast as I could, then had one of the auto body guys vacuum out his cooties. After, I drove Connor to pick up some stuff he needed at the drugstore; I wondered if Walter was going to put condoms in his bag, too.
While Connor was shopping, I went to see Uncle Henry at the police station.
He couldn’t send a search party up to Bayview Ranch, not without permission from the corporation that had its name on the deed. Tracking down their lawyers would take days, but the Preservation Fund people might have a phone number. They’d want to come, as an interested party. As I thought, Uncle Henry didn’t have enough just cause to get a criminal warrant. And no one popped in on Snake out of friendship. The asp didn’t have any friends.
But maybe the chief could drive up, neighborly like, saying he’d heard Snake was feeling poorly, asking if he needed a ride to a doctor or something. While he was away from the ranch . . .
“You could get arrested for trespassing, that’s what.”
Unsatisfied, I drove around the commons and fetched Connor, who had a grin on his face. Yup, I figured he got condoms and the word that he’d need them soon.
When we got to Rosehill, I drove around to the back to drop Con off. Ty was in the new paddock, with Paloma Blanca circling around him on a lunge line, Connor said they called it. I watched while the white horse changed direction, changed gait, changed how she carried her head or her tail—all without a word I could hear from Ty, or a movement of his hands on the line. Maybe he could talk to her. Or maybe the routine was so well memorized, the brilliant horse didn’t need any direction. And maybe I was spending too much time staring at Ty’s tight butt in his tight jeans.
I cleared my throat.
Ty unclipped the mare from the line and came over to the fence. “Any luck?”
Connor gave one of his rare smiles. “Maybe soon, according to the wacky pharmacist they’ve got here.”
I frowned at the younger man and told Ty, “We think we have motive, and the place, but no, we didn’t find the colt. We thought you could go up with a real estate agent and pretend to be interested in purchasing the property.”
“I’ll go tomorrow. We’re all invited out to your cousin’s uncle’s restaurant tonight. Is everyone in this place related?”
“Not everyone, and not always by blood, only by familiarity. Who’s invited to the Breakaway?”
“Mrs. Garland, Doc, Susan’s parents, you, me, and Connor.”
Connor opened the gate to the paddock and walked toward the hors
e. “I’m not going.”
Ty raised his brow. “Folks mean well by us. And it’s Miss Lily’s night off. No one’s cooking here.”
I could understand Connor’s reluctance to go out with the group. He’d be rubbing shoulders with an old man who’d had a stroke, another who had a rare tick-borne disease, Susan with her recent history, and a witch. Not easy for a kid who can sense illness or incipient death.
“Susan will be in the kitchen,” I told him, “and Doc is the nicest man you’ll ever meet.”
He still looked mulish. “I’m not wearing a suit and tie.”
“This is Paumanok Harbor. Half the men don’t own a suit or a tie. Or they save them for funerals and court appearances. You’ll love Susan’s cooking. Everyone does.”
Maybe out of a young man’s pride, or just because he wanted to cut out early, Connor insisted he’d take the motorbike. He knew his way around the town and could find the restaurant easily.
Ty said he’d pick me up in Rosehill’s SUV. No question, no suggestion. No argument from me.
Black shirt, black ironed jeans, black cowboy hat. Damn, I was driving with Johnny Cash. Only Ty was a lot younger and a lot better looking. And Johnny Cash never made my pulse rate increase with a smile and a “Looking good, blondie.” I guess racing home to get Little Red, then begging Janie for a haircut and blonder highlights was worth it.
He left his hat in the car. I left my sense of self-preservation behind and took his hand to walk into the restaurant. Half the Breakaway’s patrons must have thought he was a country music star or something, too, because they all stared as we looked around for our party. Or maybe they were just watching Willow Tate making a fool of herself again.
Connor came in right behind us. I’d bet he waited in the parking lot for reinforcements. I would have. Then again, he performed in front of hundreds of strangers, thousands even. Sure he didn’t have to touch any of the audience, and he had his horse under him, but no one was going to bother him here. Not with Ty and me on either side of him. I wanted to take his hand, but that was the last thing he’d want. I squeezed Ty’s hand harder, instead.