by Lisa Wingate
Nick wandered off with the puppy’s rear end tucked under his arm. When he came back, he wasn’t alone. He had my phone, the stuffed puppy, and a real one. Pecos was trailing behind. “Nick, Pecos is an outside dog,” I said.
Nick looked at me with those big, sweet eyes, and I knew it was hopeless. I let the dog stay. He sat politely beside the bed, gracing the room with the scent of creek water and cattle pens, while I called Daniel and got the report on Jack’s condition. No change, basically. Mason had been in with Jack during the night as much as the nurses would allow. He thanked us for bringing him clean clothes.
I didn’t ask Daniel any more questions. It didn’t seem like a good idea to talk about it with Nick listening, and I wondered if Mason might be somewhere nearby Daniel. If any of my suspicions were valid, the last thing I wanted was for Mason to know that we had doubts about him.
“Are you coming home this morning?” I wanted Daniel to say yes. Outside, the early sun was dimming, clouds sliding over Chinquapin Peaks. A storm was on the way. I didn’t want to spend the day alone. I needed to talk things through with Daniel, to see if, between the two of us, we could make some sense of this. I wanted to tell him about the dream and have him chuckle and say it didn’t mean anything.
“Until Jack wakes up, I plan to stay here.” There was a change in his voice. I sensed that Mason was there with him.
“Nick wants to talk to you,” I said and handed the phone over.
Slipping from the bed, I stood looking at Grandma Louisa’s Bible on the night table. The dream, the Scripture, the warning repeated in my mind, a strange contrast to Nick’s innocent questions about Jack’s accident. Nick thought he could rescue Jack’s truck and put it back together like one of his Hot Wheels cars.
He wandered into the dining room, and I went to the kitchen and poured the cereal, absently listening to snatches of conversation. Daniel and Nick were discussing the fact that, with Jack in the hospital and Daniel gone, Nick was head-man-in-charge at home. Nick, standing by the window in his T-shirt and Toy Story undies, gazed at the lawn and scratched his rear end as he discussed whether he might need to take care of the mowing. “I gotted my mow-air.” Holding his hands in front of himself, he pantomimed pushing his little plastic mower, as if Daniel could see. “I gotta milk my cow, too, Daddy …”
Ohhh, the cow … The poor thing was probably out there suffering right now. Keren would already be on her way to school to prepare for her summer enrichment kids. I’d have to call Al. How much different could milking a cow and milking a goat be, really?
I’d just started to smile, felt a little, private laugh, when the questions about Jack’s accident rushed in like a cloud shadow, covering everything with a watercolor wash of gray. The laughter fell away, out of place now.
What in the world were Daniel and I going to do about all this? Should I share our suspicions with anyone? Normally, I might have told Al, gotten her advice, but even Al was perhaps not who she seemed to be. What was she hiding, and why did I feel like that name, Alex Beck, should mean something to me?
What was I missing here? What was just beyond my fingertips?
I knew that name. I did …
I moved Nick’s cereal and the milk to the dining room, set everything on the table, then flipped open my laptop and entered a name into the browser window. Alex Beck. Over six million entries came back—everything from genealogy and family tree makers, to stories about a new teen singing sensation and unfortunate web ads for a porn star by the same name. None of it seemed to have anything to do with Al Beckenbauer. After five pages of entries, I gave up and closed the computer. Whatever was going on with Al really wasn’t the most pressing issue right now. The real issue was Jack, and the accident, and whether Mason had anything to do with it.
When Nick finished chatting, I picked up the phone and paged through the contacts, then dialed Corbin while pouring milk on Nick’s cereal. How much did Corbin know about the case against Jack West, twenty-five years ago?
My brother-in-law’s voice registered surprise when he answered the phone. “Hey, Mallory, what’s going on?” The question came with an underlying note of concern. It wasn’t normal for me to call Corbin—especially not first thing in the morning on a work day.
“Nothing … well, there is something, but … Okay, let me stop and start over. I’m not calling because there’s a family emergency or anything. Don’t queue up any panic-mail to Carol, okay?” If Carol or Mom heard that a ranch truck had just gone off a cliff with a passenger in it, they’d be ordering up a moving van and cleaning out the rumpus room by noon today.
“Oh … kayyy …” The line crackled with Corbin’s expectation as I moved to the bedroom and closed the door.
I took a breath, then spilled the whole, strange story of the last few weeks—Mason’s arrival, the change in Jack’s demeanor, his state of near euphoria, all the money spending and gift-giving, and then the accident, the sheriff’s deputy talking with Mason, Daniel’s suspicions, the fact that he’d chosen to stay nearby Jack at the hospital, and the old letter I’d found in the cookbook.
“It’s just … like, a gut feeling. We don’t have any proof, except that early on, Jack told Daniel not to ever park the truck so that it was pointed toward the cliffs. Apparently, Jack’s second wife and his stepson made that mistake when they were out Christmas tree hunting on the ranch decades ago. The truck started rolling and careened into the lake. They weren’t in it, but it almost ran them over. It seems like a lesson you wouldn’t forget, doesn’t it? Now I wonder if that’s what the letter in the cookbook was about. Maybe she was running from Mason, not Jack.”
“That’s certainly a valid question,” Corbin agreed. “So, how can I help?”
Outside, a peacock called, and I jumped, then checked the room around me, looked out the window, had the strange feeling that someone might be watching from the shadows. “Hang on a minute, Corbin.” I peered into the yard, moved to the kitchen and leaned close to the window, scanned the driveway for any signs of human activity. I walked through the house and located Nick. He’d finished his cereal and settled himself in the front room, watching PBS and playing with the toys that had come from Jack’s house. Pecos lay beside him, his ears perked with interest as Nick carried on imaginary conversations between the characters in his pretend ranch drama. He’d included everyone—his dad, Jack, Tag and Chrissy, all the ranch hands. Even the loyal pickup-riding cowboy dogs were part of the story.
For an instant, I forgot about the phone call, the hospital, the questions. I slipped into Nick’s imaginary world, took in the squeak-squeak of tiny axles as his hands propelled the toy trucks, the purr of his lips making motor sounds, the thinner look of his fingers, changing daily it seemed as the last baby dimples faded from his knuckles …
The child who’d once owned those toys became real in my mind again. The little boy, who for reasons we could only guess at, never had the chance to grow up. Could Mason possibly be involved in something so heinous? Could he have been there the day their truck rolled over the cliffs? Could he have made another attempt as they vacationed in Mexico, and been successful that time?
The question haunted me as I retreated to the bedroom and shut the door again. “Corbin, how much do you know about Mason West? I mean, what’s the scuttlebutt on The Hill? I know he’s connected on the federal level, that he has aspirations in national politics. Have you heard anything?”
“Well, the name’s not unfamiliar to me… . Let me think a minute.” Corbin paused contemplatively. “You’re asking in relation to the accident? As in, you really do think he had something to do with it?” Corbin’s interest level was perking up, his reporter-nose sniffing out a story.
“Corbin, this has to stay between us.”
“Of course, of course. You know I’m stuck spending ninety percent of my time on local stuff in this rathole, anyway.”
I was reminded again of Corbin’s burning desire for that one big story that would get the New York
Times, USA Today, or the Washington Post to look his way. “I mean it, Corbin.”
“I know. I know. I’ve heard the name, but that’s about all I can tell you off the top of my head. I’m not sure if I remember any mention of him in the double murder case against Jack West all those years ago, but I do feel like there’s something more recent. Can’t quite bring it to mind, but some kind of coverage with his name attached. Let me do a little poking around, see if I can find anything on the research service and whatnot. I’ll call you back in a few.”
“Thanks, Corbin.”
“What’s a brother-in-law for?”
Nick rattled the bedroom doorknob, and I jumped like a spy caught in the throes of a secret mission. “Corbin, I’d better go. Nick needs me.”
“All right, Mallory. Listen, keep these questions to yourself until I have a chance to do some digging. You’re dealing with powerful people here, you know? And when little people dig around in the hidden business of big people … well, accidents seem to run rampant around there, don’t they? Players like the Wests like to keep their secrets buried.”
Nick pounded on the door because he couldn’t turn the handle far enough to open it. “I’ll be careful, I promise.” If there was one thing I’d learned in DC, it was that when you’re dealing with powerful men, you need to be careful whose territory you tread on.
I opened the door, and Nick was on the other side, dressed in an odd combination of shorts, a T-shirt, his Junior Adventurer vest, and cowboy boots. He gave me an expectant look. “Misser Al’s here!” he said and led me to the back room, then pointed at Al, who was sitting on the back porch, patiently scratching Pecos’s head.
“We gonna go milk my cow, ’kay?” Nick jittered in place, excited.
Al waved from the porch as I opened the door and Nick bolted through. “Thought you might need some help with the cow this mornin’. Figured I’d better drop by.” She looked me up and down, taking in my sweats and slippers. “Looks like you’re not ready to go to the barn yet. Nick and I’ll get started on our own.” She held a hand out to Nick, and he pulled her out of her chair.
I thanked her, then stood in the doorway watching them walk toward the gate, and thinking, Alex Beck … Alex … Beck …
By the time I’d dressed and made it to the back door, Corbin was calling my cell again. I juggled the phone while pulling on the rubber boots I’d bought for barn use. “Hey, Corb, did you find anything?”
“Yeah, just a little. Mason West does have some hefty national connections. There’s a long-term relationship with the Reirdon family, as in Senator Reirdon, as in committee-chair-of-anything-that-matters Reirdon. Mason West and Reirdon’s eldest son were college roommates and fraternity brothers, so the connection goes deep. Reirdon helped Mason get his start in politics. There’s a tight relationship there, and these are not people you want to mess with, by the way—I’m assuming you’re aware of that already, having worked in DC. You know that Reirdon had an intern disappear back in the late nineties, and she was found in an alley, murdered after an Internet date? Rumor was that she was meeting a reporter, not a date that night. Her family said she would never go on an Internet date, and that she had a boyfriend back home. You really need to be careful about sniffing around these people, okay?”
“All right. Thanks, Corbin.” This mess was getting more complicated, more ominous by the minute. Powerful connections, murdered interns … Everywhere I turned, there was a new secret. Was any of this related to Jack’s accident? To Mason’s reason for being here?
I stood staring out the window, my fingers drumming on the glass. “By the way, Corbin … does the name Alex Beck ring any bells?”
Corbin chuckled into the phone. “Whoa, now that’s a blast from the past. I’m surprised you don’t remember that one.”
I hesitated, unsure I could handle one more surprise. Maybe I was better off not knowing. “I feel like I should know it… .”
“Your dad couldn’t stand that woman.” Corbin’s tone was lighter now. “Reporter. Bleached blond. Did the DC beat for that Nightcap news show? Eighties, I guess, maybe early nineties. Remember? Hard questions, hard-hitting news.” His tone deepened and took on reverb. I recognized the slogan. It wafted from my memory banks like the scent of high-school cafeteria food, bringing with it snippets of memory.
Corbin was being gentle. My father not only couldn’t stand that show, the blond-haired woman reporter was practically the bane of his existence. She had a penchant for exposing lobbyists and legislators cuddled up together on expensive dinners, trips, golf games, flights on private planes, and other bonding activities. She outted lobbyists guilty of failing to file the proper reports, exposed them to civil penalties, and occasionally uncovered criminal violations of lobbying law. She wrote books exposing Washington’s dirty laundry, past and present. She delighted in such things, and as a result, my father’s blood pressure notched up several points every time her face appeared on his TV screen.
“That’s Alex Beck?” I stammered, still trying to paint the woman’s face in my mind, to reconcile it in any way with the Al I knew. She was roughly the right age, but other than that …
“Mmm-hmm,” Corbin murmured contemplatively. “Can’t remember what ever happened to her. She dropped out of sight for some reason a long time ago. There was something … but I can’t quite tell you what.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “Thanks, Corbin. Listen, I’ve got to go.” I hung up without even waiting for an answer, put a hand on the doorknob, then just stood there, thinking. Could Al possibly be Alex Beck? The Alex Beck? Was that why her past before coming to Moses Lake was such a mystery? Why she never wanted to talk about any of her history?
Was that why she was always so interested in Jack, and now Mason?
Inside the cowgirl rancher, was the rabid reporter still lurking, just looking for the right story to make a comeback?
Most of us, I suppose, are a little nervous of the sea. No matter what its smiles may be, we doubt its friendship.
—H. M. Tomlinson
(Left by Captain Jake, guiding tours on the lake)
Chapter 22
I watched Nick struggling to carry his bucket, balancing his weight against it as he walked, staggering in the little cowboy boots I’d bought him on one of our trips to the Walmart in Gnadenfeld. He was gazing up at Al with a look of unfettered adoration, chatting away, his forehead lifting in a question.
Al laughed and shifted her bucket from one hand to the other, then roughly tousled his blond curls, causing him to stumble sideways and pop a splash of milk from the bucket.
“Hey!” he protested.
“Little milk’s good for you. It’ll make your skin pretty.” Al shrugged the braid over her shoulder and batted her eyes at him in a maneuver that seemed completely unlike her.
At least, unlike the Al I knew.
Alex Beck must have known how to put on makeup, how to assume a persona. I tried to remember, tried to visualize the face on TV—the one that usually elicited a scathing comment and a disgusted snort from my father. I remembered fluffy blond hair, and that she was pretty, but I couldn’t recall the details of her face. It didn’t matter, really. I couldn’t equate that face with Al’s. How could they be one and the same? How could this sun-browned, no-nonsense, earthy woman have ever been Alex Beck?
“I’m not pwitty!” Nick protested, shaking his head earnestly. “I’m a boy-eee!”
“You are?” Al teased. “All this time, and nobody told me that.”
Nick peered up at her, his face narrowing, lips pursing into a tiny bow of consternation. “I always been-did a boy!” he shrieked, and then laughed, staggered, and sloshed more milk.
“Well, I guess you don’t want to come help me boil up some goat soap this morning, then, do ya? You might get some on you and wind up with pretty skin.” Al rolled out the invitation before I could step into the conversation and stop her. “Guess I’ll just have to see if Birdie can help me today.”
/> “Birdie’s comin’ to you house?” Nick gyrated, milk splashing onto the gravel as he and Al stopped near me.
“I’m going to give this cow’s milk to Birdie’s granddaddy … if it’s okay with your mama.” Al directed the question my way. “I caught up with Len in town this morning, early, and I told him about the cow. He said he’d take the milk and distribute it around in Chinquapin Peaks, if you want. He’s got some families he supplies with fish, deer meat, garden produce, cow’s milk, and that kind of thing. I thought Nick could help me get the milk separated and bottled at my place, and then we’ll work on some soap until Len shows up for the milk. I figured you’d be going up to the hospital again today, and Nick would need someplace to hang out. I stopped by there this morning and saw your husband, by the way. No change, sounds like. Your husband said Mason was right there all night, hovering over the ICU like a good son.” One eye ticked shut, and there was the usual hint of animosity.
“I gotta get my hat!” Nick answered Al’s invitation and promptly set his bucket down in the driveway.
I caught Nick before he could skitter away. “You know what, sweetheart? Why don’t you go in and watch your show for a few minutes? Thomas the Tank Engine just came on. Al and I need to talk.”
I felt Al’s gaze on me as Nick jogged to the house and disappeared inside.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?”
I fought the urge to leave all my questions unspoken. Al’s past really wasn’t any of my business … unless her interest, her willingness to take me under her wing since our arrival in Moses Lake was really a way of getting to Jack, of looking for the kind of story that could break big, bring back a career.
I let out a long breath, then spilled the question, “Who is Alex Beck?”
Al’s chin snapped up, and she eyed me mutely for a moment before setting down her milk bucket. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.” Color burned up her neck and into the shadow of her sweat-stained cowboy hat, underlying the sheen of moisture on her skin.