Dead Blow

by Lisa Preston

  She looked embarrassed and it all made me recollect the way Vince Pritchard sneered at her for still living with her folks. Now I felt like I was as big a jerk as he was, looking down at her. Because there was nothing in her, really nothing, to think she’d sneak into my bed while I was gone.

  She swung up from her car and came to lean on Ol’ Blue’s open window. “It was a ten mil round.” Her lowered voice seemed to indicate we were talking some top secret shit. Oops, I mean, top secret stuff.

  “How about that,” I said.

  “Do you know anything about ballistic profiling?”

  “Nope.” I shook my head, not having had to spend any time on her question.

  “Well, that was a ten millimeter round inside the tire and it’s in pretty good shape. If we had the pistol that fired it, we might be able to match it to the gun, provided the gun still has the same extractor and firing pin, which it probably does. After all, who changes that kind of thing?”

  Who indeed? I had a better question. “Who’s going to check every ten millimeter pistol in the world?” I wondered if old Suit Fellow had shared with her that he now had a ten millimeter shell casing that came from the Buckeye.

  “When you hear hoof beats in Oregon don’t look for zebras,” Melinda said.

  First of all, let’s not be having a gal so new to horses she probably doesn’t know which end to bridle go around mouthing off big horse analogies, like she’s born to it. It’s unbecoming. And B, what the heckfire did she mean? Just lately though, Melinda Kellan was getting as good as Guy at figuring out when I was going to hold up her end of the Clearness Quota and when she ought to get busy and do it herself, ’cause she explained her meaning.

  “I bet that someone shooting at Chevigny or at the tractor or whatever, well, it was someone from around here, not some hobo in the night, you know?”

  Borrowing from Guy isn’t something I do too much of, but now was a time to start. I said, “Well, fine.” After all, if she had a point, maybe she’d get to it someday.

  Melinda thrust her lower jaw forward, looking smug. She knew a bit about rifles and was ready to let me know, I figured. What I hadn’t known was that she knew who had this special shooter.

  “Ten millimeters aren’t all that common. They’re not rare, but they’re not super super common either. Everything unusual has to be reconsidered.”

  I spread my hands wide, since my mind doesn’t go that way. Not that I’m narrow-minded, it’s just sort of a two-lane dirt road-type brain in my skull, and it peters out into a single-track trail. Definitely not a multi-lane interstate.

  “Okay,” I said, “how would you ever figure out who’s got a ten mil pistol and who doesn’t? Even if you checked with stores, I mean, people can buy them privately and could have had them for a long time. You wouldn’t be able to trace it down.”

  She looked at Ol’ Blue’s door, warming up in the sun. My truck needed a washing.

  “Vince Pritchard has one.”

  Looking this way and that, then doing some squinting and boot scuffing didn’t get my question any closer to asked, so finally my mouth moved. “How do you know he has a ten millimeter pistol?”

  “Because he’s a jackass,” she explained.

  Sure, I thought. If a guy’s a donkey’s dooby, it follows he’d have a ten millimeter pistol, particularly one that spit a shell out behind the Buckeye ranch. Absolutely. Makes sense.

  To let her know she actually made no sense at all or at least a lot less sense than a shod hog, I said, “Huh?”

  “Vince thought the Sheriff’s Department should get away from forty-fives and go to carrying ten mils.” She sniffed as she said this piece of wisdom, like it was just so silly or hoity-toity or something. We’d need to talk horse feet if she planned on making herself understandable to me.

  “What’s the big deal?” I asked. “After all, it’s just a bullet-thrower and who cares what caliber the thing is?”

  “Oh, there’s more to it. Pritchard says that the Department should carry tens because they have better penetration. Says you can’t shoot effectively through cars at bad guys with forty-fives.”

  That needed several seconds of thinking from me before I found the obvious reply. “Deputies around here do a lot of shooting people through cars, do they?”

  Melinda sniffed again and turned away like I was talking down at her, headed into the strip mall office to file papers or something.

  Funny, she and I could basically agree on a thing—that Magoutsen had his deputies outfitted just fine—but we could still scrap about it. Melinda’s just cantankerous, I reckon. She can be however she wants to be.

  I hurried my tail home for redemption. I can be the way I want to be, I’d decided, but I had to want to be better.

  In the kitchen, I spread out my special groceries, wishing I’d made good on an effort for Guy days, weeks, and months ago.

  Pretty soon, I had lots of things bubbling away, pretty well convinced that this cooking thing, in addition to smelling better than shoeing, was a pretty loose way to work. All good. The peanut butter was melting and the marshmallows were real interesting in their saucepot, but not melty enough. I sped things along into the microwave, so I wouldn’t be late to shoe.

  Big hero, that’s what I was going to be.

  The thing with melting a bunch of stuff, it actually takes time. And I’m not one for staring at a saucepot when I can be standing in the front door, sending Charley to gather the geese, calling to Red and The Kid, and thinking about the horses I’d be shoeing for my nice client, Jean Thurman.

  * * *

  How best to tell the betrothed that I blew up the kitchen, that became the question before me.

  That whole deal about metal in the microwave, well, apparently it’s a for-sure, no-joking kind of thing. And yeah, stuff that you wouldn’t even think can catch fire, well, it can. But I know enough about fire to know that you don’t give air to one you don’t want. So I left the microwave’s plastic door closed even as it started to melt.

  Plastic fires reek, too. I resolved to never again put something with foil in one of those magic boxes called a microwave.

  And I’d do whatever I had to do to get this stench out of my poor put-upon fiancé’s kitchen.

  Guy had been a lot more patient with me than I deserved.

  I’d marry that man.

  If he’d still have me.

  Chapter 23

  WHEN I WAS YOUNG, NOT LIKE I am now, but real young, I thought about how life would be, when I’m old, near half through my twenties, like now.

  I was way off.

  Not wanting to crud up Guy’s kitchen towels wiping up the sweet, sticky black mess that will happen in anybody’s kitchen when flaming marshmallows make the range-hood microwave door melt enough to fall off and knock the pan of burnt peanut butter off the stove, I went out to Ol’ Blue for salvation.

  Stuff I don’t use too often in my daily work calls is stored way up at the front of the truck bed. It takes some undignified crawling over my bar stock, shoe inventory, pads, hoof packing, and extra tools to reach that beat-up cardboard box of super-absorbable disposable diapers. The didies are for wrapping hooves, but it’s got to be said, when sopping up a microwave situation that includes a melted and blown off door, diapers are the tool of choice.

  The chore let my mind work up a brilliant notion. The clock said I barely had enough time to buy The Western on my way to the shoeing appointment.

  “Charley, let’s go.” Lots of times, he seems happy to stay home when I’m driving from one appointment to another, but right now, I needed his moral support.

  I got the paper then drove one-handed, paging to the ads and calling the Cascade with the other. The Gris Loup appliance and furniture store’s advertisement was right above the gun store’s ad. No ten-millimeter pistols on sale, but some nines and a couple rifles.

  I wondered if Stan Yates had a ten millimeter, a working one, amongst his replicas. Wondered where he bought all those
guns.

  Charley looked concerned with the paper spread over the front seat, rattling, and he didn’t care for my lane swerving either. I told my good dog, “Sorry,” and straightened out.

  Smooth, is what I was when Guy answered.

  “Hey,” I said, “if you scoop up the newspaper you’ll see an appliance ad on the back page. I’m buying a new microwave.”

  He sighed, didn’t even summon the question of why we needed a new microwave. He didn’t summon any words at all.

  “I like the one on the upper left of the ad,” I told him. It was on sale and had the right features.

  Guy sounded mighty unimpressed but maybe that’s just the way he is with me on anything having anything to do with a kitchen.

  Makes my ponytail need a twisting and I got busy with it.

  He finally asked, “Why?”

  It sounded like The Big Why, like the man was having more thoughts than merited chewing. I needed to get him on point.

  “It’s got a button for potato and another for popcorn.” That about covered things for me.

  He still wasn’t talking. He wasn’t Guy. Brilliant idea number two had showed up.

  We wouldn’t be buying a microwave at all.

  It’d make a lovely wedding present from someone.

  “See you tonight,” I told Guy. “And, I love you.”

  * * *

  The usual mess of critters and kids cluttered my client’s place. Those Thurman kids are a wonder, from the snot-nosed hair-puller up to the biggest one, a near teenager with a jaw set at the world like his daddy’s. Mr. Thurman’s scary to look at, but a nice man. Anyways, I always deal with Jean.

  She had more on her plate than many moms. The Thurman kids, for sure and for certain the boys anyways, are Shetland ponies, prone to orneriness and straight hocks. If Jean Thurman doesn’t boil that youngest boy-child of hers in oil before he makes ten, it’ll be news.

  “Hey, Rainy.” Jean was a little breathless. “Glad you’re here. The pony chipped a front a couple of days ago. Dunbar needs new shoes all the way around.”

  I’d already checked my notes. The whole Thurman family rides, filling up their six horse trailer. “Dunny’s were new last time, right? Not re-sets?”

  She nodded. “Yeah and I’ve put some good miles on him in the last few weeks. Been getting in some riding yourself?”

  “Not enough,” I admitted. Red’s shoes are needing some wear.

  “Darby said you were asking about the Winter Outfitters. Shame you just missed our summer event. We had all-day trail rides from the camp every day.”

  I gave that a face wiggle of no commitment or comment, and looked out to where there should have been a horse tied up and waiting for me. Really, really, clients ought to have their horses ready for me. I’m pretty good about being on time and it’s hard to be that way if I have to spend extra minutes at an appointment while either the client or—curse them—I catch their horses for shoeing. Jean’s usually got it together though, so I just looked serious instead of scowling like a badger.

  She muttered something about the kids trying her pretty hard today and she’d grab the horse quick as she could, sorry.

  As Jean trotted off, her youngest boy got a set of orders from Bad Kid Planet, which I reckon is in the same solar system as Horse Planet. The kid went after one of the barn cats, managing just one quick grab at a tail. Hard on cats, that boy. Barn kitty needs to get a lot harder on little boys, if anyone’s asking my opinion. All the tabby did was scoot for a high beam in the overhang of the barn and blink down at the boy.

  The kid was not without a plan. Straight to a fresh pile of green horse apples he went, digging in with both hands, packing enough ammo in his fists to have several tries at hitting the cat.

  Zing. Thwack on the wall, high and near the beam. Then with his other hand. Zing. Thwack. For a tyke, he had a couple of pretty good arms on him. Zing, thwack on the bottom of the beam. Getting closer. The kid’s tongue was out in concentration and he wiped the back of one manure-crusted hand across his forehead and grunted on his next heave.

  “Stop that,” I said. “Why you throwing horse pucky at the cat?” I wasn’t asking just to make conversation.

  “I ain’t s’posed to throw rocks,” he said, like that explained it.

  Morning wore into afternoon as I squared away the Thurman herd. I love feeling a slight flare in the toe wall, reducing it with my rasp, then stroking that smooth, straight alignment I’ve returned to the hoof.

  Jean was putting away the second to last horse when the little thrower got back at it.

  “Your mom’s gonna see,” I warned while hoping he’d get what he had coming.

  We both heard Jean picking up speed, gravel scattering as she hustled down the barn driveway. The kid and I both knew a talking-to was coming on but only one of us was looking forward to it.

  “Joby!”

  It was like one of those commands some people can give their dogs to drop the ball or bone or whatever. With priceless speed, the boy’s hands opened and the last of the manure dropped like he was standing over a pocket of Super Gravity. Then his feet woke up, and he seemed to remember a pile of pucky elsewhere that needed his urgent attention.

  Interrupted by needing to give her boy a killing, Jean’d stormed back from her pasture still packing an empty halter and lead rope.

  “So,” I said, “not supposed to throw rocks, is he?” I couldn’t help grinning. Most times, this youngest boy of the Thurmans pesters the daylights out of his sister who gets tasked with keeping him in check while his mama writes me a check.

  His mama looked like thunder now. “I saw him throwing something. Did he throw a rock? I will skin that child alive and feed him the hide.”

  I waved my hands to stop her. Bet that child of hers never knew I saved his life. “No, no, he was chucking pucky at the cat. He sort of explained why. No rock throwing.”

  She rolled her eyes and checked the rafters for the barn cat, set her eyeballs on green smudges where the throws had caught timber and scowled. Then she gave a holler for the boy that there was no way he could later say he just hadn’t heard. Charley, waiting for me in Ol’ Blue, heard that bellow. I could see Jean was of a mind to chase the boy down, but she saw me standing there, antsy to be getting my work done.

  “New rule, no rock throwing,” she nodded, her glare finally rewarded with seeing the boy coming up to turn himself in. “Well, not that new. It came up during one of the Winter Outfitter camps. His buddies hatched a little plan to prove themselves tough by throwing rocks at the Buckeye bull, of all things. Mercy me.” She shook her head, admitting she’d birthed the most trying child the world’s ever known. Joby was kicking the ground all the way back to us, his lower lip sucked in.

  “The Buckeye bull,” I said, slowly.

  “Oh, I could have strung him up by his toes when he got back. And it was after dark, too. He’d been all over camp, and Jim thought he was with me, while I thought he was with Jim and all the boys told their folks something different but it turns out Joby was the only one who kept this stupid dare to hit the bull’s eye—”

  “Do what?”

  “They wanted to hit the Buckeye bull in the eye. Can you believe it? They thought they were hilarious. Being mean to an animal, provoking a dangerous animal, sneaking off, lying, out after dark.” Jean Thurman ran out of fingers listing her boy’s crimes on the incident.

  It was worth saying twice, and I did, eyebrows up. “They wanted to sneak from your Outfitters camp over to the back of the Buckeye ranch and throw rocks at Dragoon, the Buckeye bull.”

  Jean rubbed her head. “I know, right? I could have killed him. Joby went in on this dare and snuck out there. His friends didn’t even get there. He says he did, but then he came up with a story.”

  “A story?” I asked.

  “Something about seeing someone out at some shed, stuffing something by a water trough or something like that.” Jean sighed and shook her head again like she was b
oth surprised and grateful to my stepping forward with interest. Maybe we both knew I’d usually be looking stiff on account of Jean still not having her horse front and center for my attention. Maybe I’d best lighten up a scoach.

  “It was last year?” I asked.

  “It was the year before,” Joby said, looking from his mama to me and back again with hope. He seemed awful ready to have something to talk about other than his pucky-throwing crime of the last three minutes.

  With the fall equinox only weeks away, Spring Outfitters was not much more than six months ago, so maybe Joby wasn’t talking about the Outfitters that happened around the time Cameron Chevigny died under that tractor.

  “So, this was two years ago?” I said, just to make sure. Pretty good memory for a little kid.

  Jean shook and nodded her head. “He meant the spring before last, so a year and a half ago.” Meeting eyeballs, we understood each other. Little kids think the year begins with school, in the fall. I know, ’cause I still think of it that way my own self.

  Which meant that Joby Thurman had a story about seeing something strange around the time Cameron Chevigny died.

  Anything unusual’s got to be looked at, that’s what Donna said the Suit Fellow told her. That’s what Melinda told me, too.

  The sheriff’s investigator hadn’t looked far enough.

  He hadn’t looked at who-all wasn’t staying in their own beds and leaving calling cards and maybe leaving a man to die under the slow crush of a farm tractor.

  If Jean Thurman’s little tail-pulling, sister-bothering, horse-apple-throwing, two-legged beast had seen something, maybe Melinda could shine with finding it out. Maybe it was high time for the law to pay attention to my being able to put the Pritchards’ Paso throwing a shoe at some point on the Buckeye ranch, about Donna having found that shell casing there, too. It wasn’t too tough to believe that the shell and that bullet found inside the tractor tire were from the same pistol.

  Most likely, the shell casing and bullet came from the exact same pull of the trigger.

  I checked my little phone and sighed. A Guy-quality sigh, it was. No cell service out at the Thurmans. “Can I make a call ’fore I set to shoeing?”