“That makes three times I’ve seen that guy slinking around, and we still don’t know who he is.”
Chapter 13
The shouting match was already in progress when Kent entered the diner. Owner-manager Eugene was leaning on his elbows, face to face with a youngster across the counter. They snapped insults back and forth at the urging of several patrons who obviously considered it wonderfully entertaining. The boy who had gotten the proprietor’s hackles up was Barry Fairbanks.
“Have you ever seen the Chicago stockyards?”
“No-o-o-o!” Eugene said.
“Well, I have. Cows crammed in pens so tight they can’t move. No food. No water. They get stuck with electric shockers by big gorillas like you who think it’s funny to see one get trampled when it falls down.”
“Listen, kid. All I know is meat tastes good, and it’s good for you.”
“Right. Tell that to the parents of the kids in Oregon who died of E. coli after they ate at some fast-food dump a couple of years ago.”
The veins surfaced on Eugene’s forehead like snakes. “That was an exception.”
“Exception. Bad meat kills hundreds of Americans every year and puts thousands in the hospital.”
When Kent eased up behind Barry and put a hand on his shoulder, the boy whirled, fists up and balled.
“How about joining me over at a table?”
Barry relaxed when he recognized Kent. “Hi. I didn’t see you come in. Sure, Dr. Stephenson, I’d like that.” He nodded toward his adversary. “Beats talking to this knothead.”
The remark brought a round of laughter.
“Knothead, is it?” Eugene said and reached to grab Barry, but the boy was too quick and sidled out of reach without much effort.
Kent held up his hand. “I can handle him, Eugene.” He turned Barry away from the counter. “You aren’t going to win any popularity contests around here if you keep up like that.”
“Like I care.”
Kent guided Barry to one side of a booth. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s gone for a couple of days.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah. She’s holding a rally at some rodeo in San Diego.”
“Rodeo?” It took Kent a second to catch on. “Right. FOAM doesn’t go for them either, huh?”
“Grown-ups whose mental development arrested at the cowboy stage. Snapping calves’ necks with a rope fascinates them.”
“Uh-huh.” Kent picked a plastic menu from behind a bowl of sugar packets. “You staying by yourself at the hotel?”
“Yeah.” Barry flashed a defiant look. “But before you flip out, I’ve got the number of the hotel she’s staying at. She left me enough money and a pile of homework to do. I’ve done it lots of times. I’m fine.”
“I wasn’t worried in the least.”
“I get good grades, you know. I still have to take tests even if I don’t go to regular school.”
“Anyone can tell you’re a smart kid, Barry.”
“Homeschooling is harder than most people think.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute. Did you eat yet or just get right into that pissing contest with Eugene?”
Barry cast a scowl toward the diner’s owner, who happened to be looking their way. “No.”
“Good. I’m buying.” Kent replaced the menu and turned to the daily specials board.
It was then he noticed another boy sitting at the end of the counter, near the kitchen door, a half dozen stools from where Barry had confronted Eugene. He was hunched over a soda, sucking on a straw casually, and watching the waitresses. AC/DC T-shirt, baggy black jeans, chain looping from belt to wallet, and thick-heeled boots. Some of his hair was long, and in some places it was shaved to his scalp. His face boasted several piercings, his arms several tattoos.
“Nathan,” Kent said loud enough for the boy to hear across the room.
Nathan turned and gave him a keen-eyed look. A smile tried to surface, but it would have been uncool.
Kent waved him over.
The boy slid off the stool, bent, grabbed a skateboard that had been braced on the foot ledge. He sauntered over, board in one hand, drink in the other. James Dean couldn’t have done it better.
“Nathan, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Kent gestured toward his table companion. “This is Barry Fairbanks. Barry, Nathan Gaines.”
Nathan inspected Barry openly. “I caught him in action with Eugene. The antimeat guy.” There was approval in his voice.
Barry extended his hand. Nathan hesitated for an instant then took it. They shook firmly. Manly.
Kent slid further into the booth. “We’re about to order. How about joining us?”
Nathan eased himself into the booth. He looked across at Barry again but didn’t speak. Then he nodded up toward the counter and the manager. “You’re right about one thing. Eugene is a knothead.” The faintest of smiles flickered around his mouth, lit his eyes, and then disappeared.
“The world is full of them.”
“You got that right.”
Kent glanced toward Eugene. “I don’t know. He’s not so bad.”
“He’s a control-freak dork,” Nathan said. “Pushes everybody around.”
Kent knew Nathan was referring to Tammy Mays, his mother. He scanned the room and found her serving a table in the corner. Changed the subject.
“Barry’s new in town. Thought maybe you might show him around. ‘Hang out’ is the term, right? Listen to some music. Maybe do some skateboarding.”
Both boys looked at the veterinarian and then at each other. Rolled their eyes.
“You a skater?”
“I have a board.” Barry noticed the scimitar on Nathan’s wrist. “Awesome tattoo.”
Nathan held it closer for him. “Check out the blood. I had the guy do it red to look real.”
“My mom won’t let me get one,” Barry said, his words dripping with envy.
“My mom’s pretty cool about it. My stepdad is the one who’s the pain in the ass. Says it looks like I’m trying to be a tough guy.”
Kent turned from the specials board. “Not much for a vegan up there, Barry.”
“I’ll just have a salad.”
Kent gave Nathan a conspiratorial glance but directed a question to Barry. “Did you ever eat a hamburger?”
“No.”
Kent took up his menu again and scanned it. “Doesn’t mean much when someone argues against something he knows nothing about.”
“Mom would cut my head off.”
Kent contemplated for a few seconds more. “What the heck.” He waved Tammy Mays over from behind the counter.
When she was close enough, she looked from her son to Barry to Kent. “You taking in all the strays now-a-days, Kent?”
“How about one of these cheeseburgers with everything for me and a plain hamburger for Lucinda. Barry here’s trying to decide if he wants to take the plunge. Nathan, you order what you want. I’m buying.”
“Oh. The rich uncle,” Tammy said with mock surprise.
Nathan ordered a burger and fries.
Tammy tapped a pencil on her pad. When Barry took too long, she made an executive decision. “For you, son, our deluxe double burger is on the house.”
“There you go. Opportunity knocks,” Kent said.
Nathan’s shoulders rose and fell in a chuckle that made no sound.
Barry didn’t move.
“Go ahead and get it for him, Tammy. If he doesn’t eat it, Lucinda will.”
Minutes later, Tammy returned with their orders. She placed a massive burger in front of each of the boys. “And a plain one for our girl outside,” she said handing a bag to Kent.
She pointed at Barry’s deluxe burger and waited impatiently. “That baby’s dripping with everythi
ng any kid ever wanted.”
Barry stared nervously at his plate.
Tammy took advantage of the lull. “Kent,” she said in a quiet voice, “I guess you’ve noticed all the pets missing around town lately.”
Nathan flashed her a wary look.
Kent snapped his attention from Barry but moved carefully. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Well, it would pay to follow up on it.”
“Meaning what?”
Tension rose in Tammy’s voice as Kent forced her to put it in words. She spit them in an angry whisper. “Meaning the only reason I’m telling you this is because I’ve known you all my life, and you’ve always been fair with me. I can trust you. I think. And I hate to see the animals suffer.”
Nathan scowled at Tammy. “Ma. Give it a rest!”
“What animal suffering?” Barry asked.
“Never mind,” she fired at both boys. “Kent, take a ride out to our place sometime. Be careful. And I didn’t tell you a thing.” She gave Nathan a defiant look, tore off a slip for their lunches. She slapped it on the table and headed back behind the counter.
“What was she talking about, Dr. Stephenson?” Barry asked.
“Forget her,” Nathan said. “She’s being a jerk today.”
Kent stared thoughtfully in Tammy’s direction. “I’m not sure, Barry. And would you do me a favor? Call me Kent or Doc, maybe, not Dr. Stephenson, please?”
“Sure, uh, Doc.”
“And Nathan.” His eyes still followed Tammy. “Whatever your mother is, a jerk isn’t one of them.”
Barry picked up the burger with both hands and took a bite. For a moment he chewed equivocally, then broke into a bulged-cheek smile.
“Pretty good, huh?”
“Great, actually.”
Kent glanced at Nathan. “See, I told you.”
Barry took several more mouthfuls without stopping to make conversation. Lucinda was not going to get that burger.
“Better than a spicy bean burger?”
“Much,” Barry said, a little confused at the discovery.
Kent got another idea. If he’d had a handlebar mustache, he would have twirled it. “What are you doing tonight, Barry?”
“Nothing. Homework, probably, and some TV.”
“Want to go coon hunting with me and Lucinda?”
Nathan buried his face in his hands and smothered a laugh. “Oh, man. No. Doc, you definitely have brass balls.”
Barry froze, burger poised inches from his mouth “Hunting?”
“Raccoons.”
It was as if Kent had invited him to Mars. “I’ve never been hunting.”
“I figured as much. Want to try?” Kent motioned at the burger. “You never know what you’ll like till you try it.”
“Hunting. Raccoons,” Barry said slowly. “I guess so.”
“Nathan. How about you coming along too? If May-May will let you. I mean chores and all that stuff.”
“He doesn’t have any say in what I do.”
“Okay. You want to come along?”
“Sure. I’m in.”
“Good! I’ll pick up the two of you around eight in front of the Red Horse. Wear good footgear. I’ll have everything else.”
After the boys left, Kent worked his way to the cash register. As the cashier dropped change into his hand, he made eye contact with Tammy across the room. Her expression reminded him of the frightened rabbits he and Merrill used to find in their box traps.
On his way to the nursing home, Kent stopped at the pharmacy and bought a card and a bottle of Chanel No. 5.
He pulled into the visitor’s lot just as a group of nurses came out of the building. They were chatting merrily and sucking cigarettes the way miners suck air after being trapped for a week.
Their father had smoked. He had died of throat cancer when Merrill was seventeen and Kent was fourteen. Twenty-two years he ran the Jefferson Lumber Company. June handled the books and the two boys helped out after school and summers in the lumberyard. Good memories.
After he died, the memories got grim. June struggled to keep the family together and the business going. It was a losing battle. By the time she finally resigned herself to selling the lumber company, there was just enough equity to fund Merrill and Kent’s college educations.
Eventually, June remarried. The lucky guy was Clifton Mays, a hill farmer from one town over who was more oxlike than anything in his barn. He managed to get one son out of her—Maylon, a.k.a. May-May.
Clifton complained bitterly about money wasted on college. Never considered that route for May-May. He did his best to drive a wedge between the three boys. And succeeded.
May-May hated both his half brothers, though he focused his animosity mostly on Kent. Kent was a veterinarian and May-May considered himself to be an animal expert.
After June went to the nursing home—expenses paid by Merrill and Kent—May-May took over his parents’ farm. Clifton was last known to be living out his golden years in a trailer park in central Florida. No way would he remember his wife’s birthday.
“Happy birthday, Mom!” Kent said as he entered her room.
She was in her wheelchair, ready to go to the dining room. The nurses had dressed her even nicer than usual. On her white blouse was an enormous pink corsage. It covered half her chest.
“Thanks, honey,” June said, twisting her head to look up at him. “It’s nice of you to remember. I heard you’ve been busy.”
He adjusted the tiny plastic oxygen tube taped in place beneath her nose. “What have you heard?”
June’s eyes twinkled with a mischievousness he loved to see.
“I read the paper, and I get visitors, you know.” She caught her breath. “I heard about the Copithorn fire.”
“You never miss a trick.”
“You bet I don’t.” She glanced down, giving her condition an appraisal, and then released a laugh that sounded like a songbird. “It just takes me a little longer now.” She rested a minute. “You find out anything more about Aaron?”
Kent remembered the tattered picture of his mother in Aaron’s desk and its amorous note. He considered asking her about it but decided not to do it on her birthday.
“Not yet. Merrill and I are working on it.”
“There isn’t a shred of truth in what they’re saying.” She reached for his hand and clinched. It felt like a chickadee gripping a perch. “I’m telling you, Aaron Whitmore did not kill himself!”
“I guess we’re all surprised, Mom, but how else would you explain it?”
“Murder!”
“Murder? Why? Who would kill Aaron?”
“I don’t know, but I do know he didn’t shoot himself.”
“Mom, it was Aaron’s own gun on a lonesome lake where he used to like to fish. Maybe he just got tired of being alone.”
“Don’t tell me about being alone. I know all about it, and Aaron wasn’t. He had friends. Lots of them. He was busy hunting and fishing and writing. Sure, Claire is gone, but he wasn’t lonely.”
“So why then? Who?”
“I said I don’t know. That’s up to you and Merrill to find out.” Her eyes burned with conviction. “You’ve got to.”
“Okay, Mom,” he said, trying to sound confident. “We’re looking into it.” He touched her corsage lightly. “Let’s not let it ruin your birthday.”
“Hold on. I’ve got one more piece of business before I forget.”
Kent shook his head. Chuckled. “What’s that?”
“The Copithorn fire. And all that animal experimenting protest.”
The humor went out of Kent’s expression. “What about it?”
“I’m glad you’re working with Merrill and Stef.”
“The old crew. Like high school again.”
“They n
eed your help.”
“Did Merrill say that?”
“Heavens no. He came by today.” She raised her corsage lovingly, tried as best she could to catch its scent. “Brought me this. But you know he’d never ask for help. That’s why I’m glad you’re there for him.”
“So that’s how you know so much.” Kent was relieved that his brother had remembered their mother’s birthday.
“He only told me what he wanted me to hear.” Her eyes squinted into slits. “He told me about how interested you seem to be in that Aubrey Fairbanks.”
“Professionally.”
“I hope more than just professionally! She’s gorgeous. You deserve gorgeous.”
“Mom, please.”
“Nobody’s trying to marry you off, Kent. We just want to see you enjoying life again.”
“I live among a tribe of matchmakers.”
June smiled broadly.
A nurse’s aide entered and announced dinner. Kent wheeled his mother to the dining room while the aide walked beside her. June was given the place of honor in front, where all birthday celebrants were placed. Lights were dimmed, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” A cake with candles was brought out. June seemed genuinely pleased to be remembered. She ate well. Kent picked at the tray of food they had brought for him.
He handed her his gift while they were finishing the cake and ice cream. “Happy birthday, Mom.”
The next few minutes were occupied with opening first the card and then the perfume, which June raved about as if it was the first time she had ever received such a novel present. They chatted about family and friends, his daughter Emily’s plans, how things were going at the home. Eventually the small talk waned. Thoughts of current events in Jefferson seeped back into their minds.
“Did Merrill mention anything about May-May?”
June’s surprised expression was an answer. “Is that boy of mine in trouble again?”
Kent shrugged, angry with himself for ruining the moment. “We don’t know just yet. But his name came up in the Copithorn investigation.”
June struggled to straighten herself. “How?”
“Aubrey Fairbanks. The gorgeous one? Says he approached her before the fire and indicated he might be willing to help her burn the place.”
Taking On Lucinda Page 11