She closed the phone and busied herself near the bridles.
“How are you doing?” Malcolm asked.
He managed to convey more than one meaning with his question—how was I doing with what had happened the night before? How was I doing with Brooke and Nicky there?
“Okay,” I said. “Keeping busy.”
He tried to see past me into the tack room. “What are you doing?”
I moved to block his view. “Getting ready to exercise Anna.” I held the phone behind my back. I was poured into riding tights, so there was nowhere to hide the thing.
I looked over his shoulder in case Dex was ready, and also to see if Brooke was loitering nearby. She stood outside Barbie’s stall, staring at her horse. Dex led Miss Bong through the door and waved to me.
“You look guilty as hell,” Malcolm said.
“You don’t know me well enough to know that.”
He leaned close. “Yes I do,” he whispered. “You’re up to something, but I’ll let it go for now because you smell good enough to eat.”
My mid-morning snack had been half a can of chocolate whipped cream. I leaned away from him a little and cut my eyes into the tack room where Nicky watched us with great interest. “Hold that thought,” I said.
He followed my gaze, then smiled at me. “I will.”
I hurried to finish getting Anna ready. I wanted out of the barn and into the sunlight. I liked Malcolm—okay, I more than liked him—but the channel between my head and heart was jumpy with interference from Norman’s unsolved murder, Malcolm’s pending divorce, and JJ’s violence. I just plain didn’t want to be around Brooke. She radiated bad vibes.
After he was single again, Malcolm and I would discuss the partnership —and who knows what else—but for now, I needed air.
“What happened to my horse?” Brooke snapped in Malcolm’s direction.
I started to lead Anna past her.
“And who the hell is that?” She pointed at me.
I kept moving. Out under the sun’s warmth, I took a deep, deep breath. Dex smiled at me, but said nothing. I swung into the saddle.
“Get rid of her,” I heard from inside. “Just get rid of the ugly thing.”
I couldn’t help wondering if she meant Barbie, or me.
- 23 -
Dex Two and I rode to the river and let our mounts stand in the cool water.
A dark gray sheet began to hide the western horizon, embroidered occasionally with a delicate thread of lightning. The storm was hours away, but I expected it would hit by nightfall and anticipated a quiet evening cuddled with my dog and a good book, rain pelting the windows.
“It’s not too late to press charges, Miss Parker. You were assaulted.”
I’d been through this with the sheriff and Malcolm. I didn’t have the courage to press charges against JJ. He deserved it, if not for what he did to me, then what he’d probably done to others—particularly women—maybe even Sandy.
“No thanks.”
“I respect your choice in this, but as an attorney—”
Malcolm wanted me to press charges and get an order of protection.
“I appreciate your concern. Shall we ride?”
We rode in silence, but it took an effort on his part.
Before he left the farm, he pressed his card into my hand.
“Call me at any time for anything, Miss Parker. I mean it.”
I put his card upstairs near the phone along with Dex One’s.
~~~
Supper with Hank and Clara consisted of grilled sirloin steaks, au-gratin potatoes, green beans, and cheesecake. That was a pie I could sink my teeth into.
“I suppose this meat was walking around here not too long ago?” I asked.
“Not for a couple of months,” Hank said.
“Did you grow the beans and potatoes?”
“Of course,” Clara said, clearly miffed at the suggestion she might use store-bought.
“I suppose you made the cheese for the cheesecake?”
She put her hands on her wide hips. “Do I look like a milkmaid to you?”
I shook my head. “Far from it.” Not that I know what a milkmaid looks like. “Nice to know where you draw the line.”
Hank sawed his meat into little pieces and cut in the potatoes and beans to make a lumpy hash. “Heard you had a little run-in with our neighbor,” he said.
Clara took a seat. “JJ,” she clarified.
“You could say that.” I shoveled a large bite of the cheesy potatoes into my mouth. I hadn’t eaten so many fats and carbs all at once in a long time. I’d forgotten what I’d been missing. If I overloaded fast enough, I’d faint and avoid the coming conversation. I suppose I could say I didn’t want to talk about it, and they’d probably respect that. They’d be hurt, too, so I decided to go with the flow.
“He was a sweet boy,” Clara said.
“Yeah,” Hank said. “Then he growed up.”
“What would you be like if your pa just up and disappeared one day?” Clara asked.
“Pass the salt,” Hank said in answer.
I braced myself, but Clara didn’t go for her carving knife.
“Robert and John Jr. grew up together,” she said to me.
“You mean Malcolm and JJ?”
“After the Malcolms moved out here full time,” Hank said. “Me and John Sr. took care of the farm for ’em afore that. Best piece of land around.”
“Be a terrible shame to lose it,” Clara said. “But everbody’s got to do what they thinks best, I guess.”
“Ain’t best to build a hunderd houses on it. What’d we do? We’d have to sell most the herd.”
“We’d manage.”
“He ain’t asked me, anyway,” Hank groused. “Never did care what anybody else thought.”
“Malcolm’s father?” He gestured with his fork and grunted. I took this as a yes. “Did JJ’s family have a farm around here?”
“Their place is south of here, near the river,” Clara said.
So close. “That’s where he lives?”
“Ain’t nothin’ there no more ‘cept the old trailer,” Hank said. “Clara, I need some bread.”
She thunked down a plate of homemade bread in front of him.
“Just a little spit of timber, anyways,” Hank said as he buttered a thick slice. “His ma moved to town. He stays with her when he c’ain’t find some girl to put up with him.”
“His ma weren’t never the same after John Sr. went away,” Clara said. “But she was always fond of Robert. Used to bake him cookies.”
“That was a big help with JJ, wasn’t it?” Hank asked.
“You leave her alone, Hank Davis. She’s been through enough. John Sr. was no better than JJ. But there wasn’t nothin’ nobody could do with JJ.”
Hank muttered something that I swore sounded like a bullet to the head would do it, but I didn’t dare ask him to repeat it. He sopped up the mess on his plate with another piece of bread. “Somebody’ll do us all a favor and kill him afore long. C’ain’t believe the Laird ain’t done it already.”
“Doesn’t JJ have any job skills? What does he do for a living?”
“Odd jobs,” Clara said.
“He’s a fair mechanic,” Hank said, “but he don’t want to do nothin’.”
“He’s took or ruined everything of Robert’s he could. Ever since they was kids,” Clara said with a shake of her head. “They’s like night and day. Robert’s an angel and JJ’s the devil himself. I don’t know why Robert tries to help him.”
“I’m sure Malcolm isn’t perfect,” I said.
Hank snorted. “If JJ ain’t careful, he’ll be seein’ another side of the Laird. I ain’t never seen him really mad, and I ain’t in no hurry to, neither.”
“You think?” I asked. I was pretty sure I’d seen a hint of that other side of Malcolm, and I was damn sure I didn’t want to see the full force of it. At least, not directed at me.
Clara laid a reassuring hand on m
y arm. “Ain’t nobody’s perfect, that’s for sure. Everbody’s got their limit.”
~~~
Later, from the privacy of Hank and Clara’s tiny guest room, I called Penny. She’d left a message on my birthday, and I hadn’t returned her call. Malcolm and Nicky were at their house having pizza and a princess movie marathon. They’d invited me, but I’d already accepted Clara’s offer, and princesses, whether singing, swimming, or dancing, are not my cup of tea. I couldn’t help admiring Malcolm for being such a good daddy, though.
“You’re going to press charges against that SOB, right?” Penny said.
“No. How can you say that?”
She’d had to do it to an ex-boyfriend-stalker once. I knew exactly what she went through with the unending hearings and court dates because I’d been her only witness. In the end, the prick’d gotten off. He defied the restraining order and came after her with a stolen gun. By then she was with Frank, and Frank, being a plumber, whacked the guy over the head with a pipe wrench, and he’d bled to death all over their new carpet. That had pissed her off more than anything.
“It’s the right thing to do, Vi. At least a restraining order.”
“That’s a useless piece of paper, and you know it.”
“You should get a gun.”
“I hate guns.”
Penny kept a handgun in her bedside table. Frank kept the pipe wrench between the mattresses on his side of the bed.
My gaze fell on my sleeping dog “Anyway, I have Noire.”
“Forget the dog. You got Willy with you, right?”
“Willy’s right by my pillow where he always is.” Willy’s my baseball bat. Penny and I played softball all through high school. I was a lousy fielder, but hit a homer almost every time I connected with the ball. If I’d been able to get to Willy the night before, JJ wouldn’t have had a chance.
“You’ll keep Willy close if you need to go to the barn at night, right?”
“Yes, Penny.”
“You going to Mass in the morning?”
“Are you kidding?” Sundays, if I wasn’t gone by four a.m. for a horse show, or due to feed, I slept in. The couple of times I’d gone with her in the last few years, she’d had to elbow me awake during the homily.
“Would I kid about that? It’d be good for you. Light a candle for yourself. God listens.”
Not to me. “Gimme a break, Pen.”
“But don’t go to communion, Vi. Not without going to confession, first. You haven’t been in years.”
“How do you know?” I asked on a yawn. “Me and God talk all the time.”
The dubious minute of silence that followed was answer enough. She was a stickler for the rules. She broke them, too, if it suited her purposes.
“Listen Vi, I know you need to keep this job and all, but are you sure you want to stay? We’d make room for you here, you know what I mean?”
I knew what she meant. On the couch. With a screaming puking baby up all hours of the night. “Thanks Pen, but—”
“You already got something going on with him?”
“Who?” As if I didn’t know.
“You haven’t shut up about him for twenty minutes.”
“There’s nothing going on, Pen. At least, I don’t think so.”
“Not yet, you mean.”
“I don’t know what I mean. Except…he’s just so freaking nice.” And nice, I realized, was something I’d had precious little of in my life. That made him perilously alluring and seductive. His physical attributes added to his appeal, but pretty is as pretty does in my book.
Penny didn’t attempt to hide the sarcasm when she said, “You’re going to stay there for the whole year.”
“I’m flattered by your confidence.”
“It’s not that.” She hesitated. I could tell she was cupping her hand over the phone to make sure Frank couldn’t hear her end of the conversation. “He’s that good, huh?” she whispered.
God love her. “Let’s just say it’s the right thing to do.”
She let loose a snort of laughter. “Sis, you got it bad.”
After we hung up, I lay in bed thinking. If I’d been willing to consider what I didn’t know, I would have been up all night. And I wouldn’t be thinking at all if Wastrel weren’t invading my sleep. As it was, someone had killed Norman and disposed of the body in Malcolm’s manure pile.
Convenience or intention? Either way, it looked bad. The next day the horses had gotten loose. Sandy suggested someone did that on purpose, and Malcolm confirmed the fence looked like it had been cut. I couldn’t exactly connect that dot with Norman’s murder, but between the two, Winterlight was closed.
Dex One said to concentrate on why, not who.
Motive.
Did someone benefit from things being messed up at Winterlight? Or was this only about Norman? How could I learn more about Norman? Sandy.
Of course, I wanted JJ to be guilty, the rat bastard. He was surely guilty of something, that was certain. And plenty capable of violence. He had a grudge against the Malcolms and a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood. Everyone agreed he was bad news. And there was something going on between him and Sandy. He’d hit her, just like he’d hit me. I was sure of it. But did I want to try and find out more about him?
Not really.
Then there was Brooke. How did she fit into the equation? She obviously had no use for Malcolm, the stupid woman. So far, stupidity wasn’t a crime. Which was a shame if you asked me.
I wondered what their divorce settlement looked like. The farm was paid for, but it was Malcolm senior who owned it, so she wouldn’t be getting a piece of that. Malcolm junior made good money by the looks of things, and Brooke had expensive taste, if the Caddy and riding togs were any indication. She looked the type to suck him dry in alimony and child support and every other asset she could get her claws into. Could he buy the farm, keep it afloat, pay her, and take care of Nicky? What about custody?
What did I know about any of these people? Malcolm seemed to inspire devotion or loathing. Although more were in favor of devotion. The only two I knew who didn’t like him were JJ and Brooke.
JJ and Brooke? Could there be a connection there?
What had he been looking for in the apartment?
I sat up, switched on the light, found a pad of paper in the bedside table drawer and dug a pen out of my purse. There were too many questions to keep track of, so I wrote them down. I made a note of everyone I’d met in the past week—Jesus, had it been only a week? I added what connections and motives I could until the page looked like one of those flight maps for a major airline.
It was possible I was thinking about this backwards. Maybe Norman hadn’t been killed so that Winterlight would fail but to shut him up about something so that Winterlight would succeed. Besides Malcolm’s personal desires, Dex One and Two both had a stake in keeping the farm undeveloped. Dex One loved Malcolm like a brother, so he’d probably do anything to help him. He’d been not-too-subtly persuasive about getting me on board with helping Malcolm.
Dex Two had made it clear he had a rabid love of all pristine nature. He’d even made passing mention of people like Norman who destroyed the river banks and beds with their four-wheelers.
I didn’t know about Renee, but Hank and Clara certainly didn’t want to see anything happen to the farm, especially because they lived next door. They hadn’t mentioned any children or grandchildren, but it was possible they had heirs who were keeping their eyes on the local property values.
Then, there was Malcolm himself. He was too nice to believe. Maybe I shouldn’t let myself be charmed. I’d had a glimpse of his other side, the not-so-patient-and-kind part.
I tossed the pad and pen down and lay back against the pillows. Why was I torturing myself about this? There was too much I didn’t know.
A minute later, I snapped on the light again. I picked up the pen and added to my list the names of those I’d heard of but not met.
Like Malcolm senior
.
He wanted to sell the land to developers for a butt-load of money. Money, I knew, could be a powerful motivator. But murdering an innocent bystander to make your own son look bad so you could pocket some cash?
That was evil.
And falling asleep with evil on your mind is a bad idea.
- 24 -
First thing after feeding the horses—which I did while squirting a can of plain whipped cream down my throat—I called Clara to ask where the church was and if she knew when they held their services. The whipped cream helped relieve the worst of the tension left from my dreams, but I needed a higher power that morning.
While I dialed her number, I thumbed the local phone book. It consisted of precisely thirty-four, five-by-eight-sized pages from A to Z and was little more than a quarter-inch thick. I was used to something the size of a restaurant booster seat.
“You want Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, or what?”
“Oh, I’m Catholic,” I said.
“That’s okay, honey, some of my best friends is Catholic.”
She gave me the name and number but said I’d have to call to find out the time.
I did, and learned I had less then twenty minutes to finish the minimum in the barn, get a shower, and drive ten miles. The apartment was clean as a whistle, not a sign anyone had been there. Except for my empty underwear drawer, I thought I could stay there that night. Henrietta had even brought her kittens back.
I was in my truck in eight minutes, a record, but my hair was still wet. If I drove with the window open, at least one side would be dry by the time I got there. I’d sit in a back pew. It’s not like I was going to communion.
I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Dead.
I leaned my head on the steering wheel, thinking I’d have been better off having a second cup of coffee and another can of whipped cream then rushing out here like this.
But Wastrel’d been at me all night. First the manure pile, then frantic digging at leaves in the forest. We’d galloped through heavy rain, my cheek against his neck, his wet mane clinging to my skin. I’d felt a driving sense of urgency, as if we were being chased. We’d clattered through the city, though whether St. Louis or New York, I couldn’t say. There had been a house. Two stories, brick, white trim. Wastrel left me there. I needed to go inside, but bones had drifted out of the dark windows, and I ran away.
Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle Page 16