“Feel like taking a side trip?” I said.
“SIDE TRIP WHERE?”
“I want to take a look around your barn again.”
“YOU THINK HAP MISSED SOMETHING?”
“We’ll see, I guess. If you’re up for it.”
“I’M UP FOR IT.”
I climbed into the driver’s seat with a grunt of pain. Shot Khanh a quick text and put the phone back in my pocket. “What did you think of the sheriff’s theory?”
“THAT I’M A SERIAL KILLER? NOT MUCH.”
“And Gerardo? Is he capable of that?”
The DynaVox was silent.
“Zane?”
“I DON’T THINK SO.”
“But you aren’t sure. Carlin wouldn’t tell me his story yesterday, but maybe it’s time somebody did. What do you know about him?”
In the rearview mirror, I saw him bend over his keyboard. “I KNOW HE’S IN LOVE WITH MY WIFE.”
It wasn’t a surprise, but hearing it made it seem more real. “How does she feel about that? About him?”
“HOW DO YOU THINK SHE FEELS? HE’S HANDSOME. HEALTHY. WHOLE.”
“It’s pretty clear she loves you.”
“I KNOW SHE DOES, BUT IT’S NOT THE SAME.” His hand hovered over the board. “I’M NOT THE SAME.”
There were a dozen platitudes I might have quoted. You’ll get through this. Love overcomes all. You are more than your scars. They were all trite and superficial, and none of them would have helped.
I said, “Have you talked to her about it?”
“NO. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I WISH I DIDN’T KNOW.”
“You think they’re having an affair? My line of work, I know a lot about these things, and I’m pretty sure they’re not.”
“NOT YET.” He took a long breath, then typed, “FOR A LONG TIME AFTER THE ACCIDENT, I WANTED TO DIE. I STILL THINK ABOUT IT A LOT. PLAN HOW I COULD DO IT. IT WOULD SAVE EVERYONE A LOT OF TROUBLE. CLEAR THE WAY FOR THEM TO BE TOGETHER. I THOUGHT IT WAS THE BEST THING. MAYBE I STILL DO. BUT THEN LAST NIGHT. WHEN I FELT THAT PILLOW OVER MY FACE. I FOUGHT SO HARD TO LIVE. WHY DIDN’T I JUST LET HIM KILL ME?”
“Maybe you aren’t done yet.”
He thumped the arm of his chair. “LOOKS TO ME LIKE I’M DONE.”
I said, “I watched that video of you training that colt in front of the crowd. You had something. It wasn’t just the way you moved or the way you talked. They were hanging on your every word.”
“I WAS A GOOD-LOOKING GUY WITH A GOOD SMILE,” he said. “PEOPLE LIKE THAT.”
“It was more than that. It was style, charisma, confidence. That thing nobody can define. It’s who you are, which means you still have it. You just have to find it again.”
“MAYBE, MAYBE NOT,” he said. “BUT YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GERARDO. HE’S FROM MEXICO. A SMALL VILLAGE. LOTS OF TROUBLE WITH THE CARTELS.”
I nodded. So far it was a familiar story.
“SOME OF THE VILLAGERS FOUGHT THEM. LIKE FREEDOM FIGHTERS. GUERRILLA FIGHTERS. GERARDO WAS ONE OF THOSE.”
While Zane typed, I took the main road out of Hidden Hollow, then followed a ten-mile stretch of winding roads that led to the Underwood farm. The story unfolded in the metallic voice of the DynaVox.
“HE WAS ENGAGED TO A WOMAN IN THE VILLAGE. ROSA WAS HER NAME. BUT THE LEADER OF THE CARTEL WANTED HER, AND WHAT HE WANTED HE TOOK. GERARDO SWORE HE’D GET HER BACK. IT TOOK HIM FOUR YEARS, TRAINING HARD, GETTING BETTER AND BETTER AT COMBAT, FINDING GUNS AND MEN. IN THE END, HE CUT THROUGH THEM LIKE THEY WERE BUTTER AND TOOK HER, LEFT THE LEADER OF THE CARTEL CHOKING TO DEATH ON HIS OWN BLOOD.”
“Which made him a fugitive.”
“THE CARTEL PASSED TO THE LEADER’S SON. HE PUT A BOUNTY ON GERARDO’S HEAD. ROSA’S TOO.”
“So they came here.”
“AND FOUND WORK WITH SAMUEL TREHORNE. GERARDO WORKED IN THE STABLES. SHE WORKED IN THE KITCHEN.”
There’d been no woman but Carlin at the Underwood farm. I said, “I take it things went bad.”
“SHE DIED IN CHILDBIRTH. THEY WERE ILLEGAL, SO THEY HAD NO INSURANCE, NOT MUCH MONEY. TREHORNE AND HIS WIFE CONVINCED HIM THEY COULD GIVE THE CHILD A BETTER LIFE. A LITTLE GIRL.”
“Esmerelda.”
“YES.”
“Why’d he leave there to work for you?”
“IT HURT TOO MUCH TO STAY. EVERYTHING REMINDED HIM OF ROSA. BUT HE WANTED TO STAY CLOSE BECAUSE OF ESMERELDA. AND—.”
“And?”
“TREHORNE WAS SORING BACK THEN. GERARDO HATED IT. BUT WHAT COULD HE DO? HE WAS AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT AND THEY HAD HIS DAUGHTER.”
“Does she know he’s her father?”
“I DOUBT IT.”
I tried to imagine watching Paulie grow up, having no say in his upbringing, missing his first words and his first steps, him never knowing he was mine. I couldn’t have stood it.
Then the sign that marked the Underwoods’ driveway loomed up, and I turned the van onto the gravel drive and pulled it to a stop. I turned the headlights toward the charred ruins of the barn, found a flashlight in the glove compartment. “Wait here,” I said.
For the first time since I’d met him, he laughed. “WHERE WOULD I GO? AND HOW WOULD I GET THERE?”
Sweeping the flashlight beam in front of me, I crunched across the gravel, crossed the circle of parched grass, and stepped into the rubble that had once been the stables. I climbed over a fallen beam, careful of my injured ribs, and found the place where I’d discovered the fragments of bone.
I knelt in the ashes and began to dig with my hands. Trehorne’s people had done a better job this time, and I found no more teeth or bones. Sifting through the ashes, I found splintered wood, melted metal bits, and finally, a misshapen metal oval.
In the glove box of the Silverado, I’d had latex gloves and plastic baggies. Since the van was lacking in forensic investigation supplies, I held the tarnished oval by the edges and blew the soot off, then looked at it in the pale beam of the flashlight. It was a silver filigree belt buckle. The engraved letters read: 1969 Bull Riding Champion.
Owen Bodeen.
I felt a pang of guilt for misjudging him, then a crushing sadness that was less for the dead man than for the one who’d loved him like a father.
I trudged back to the van and punched on the overhead light. Held the buckle up for Zane to see.
An animal moan came from his throat.
“Owen?” I said.
He nodded, then turned his head away, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
32.
The courthouse was dark when we passed through Hidden Hollow. The flagpole was bare, the cannon a black glint in the moonlight. We passed the place where Khanh had wrecked the Silverado. In the headlight beams, the damage the grille had done to the tree was a pale wound against the bark. I gave myself a moment to grieve, then turned my thoughts back to the case, this new development.
We passed the steakhouse, which was closed, and then the bar. The parking lot at Jake’s was still packed, and tinny music leaked from the doors and windows. The band must be on break.
I turned into the main gate of the showground and wound back through the trucks and trailers. Rolled to a stop beside the Underwoods’ trailer, where Carlin and Gerardo were waiting for us by the fire pit. He had a beer in his hand, and when we pulled up, he put it down and came to operate the lift.
“I guess you don’t have to kill me,” I said, trying to unfasten the chair from its moorings without bending in the middle.
Looking at Zane’s tear-streaked face, Gerardo said, “That remains to be seen. What happened to him?”
I took the buckle from my shirt pocket, still holding it by the edges, and showed him the embossed letters. Carlin came and looked over his shoulder.
“Oh no,” she said. And then to Zane, “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”
I put it back into my pocket. Thought of calling the sheriff again but decided it could wait. It was late, and I was tired an
d sore, and if his people had been better, he would have had the buckle already.
While Gerardo wrangled Zane’s chair out of the van, I motioned Carlin aside. I brought her up to speed about Zane’s memory and the trip to the barn. Then I said, “There’s something else. It’s not my business, but you probably ought to know.”
She gave a wary nod. “Go on.”
“He knows there’s something between you and Gerardo.”
A wash of pink crept up her neck. “There’s nothing going on with me and Gerardo.”
“Just because you haven’t acted on it doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on. And don’t look at me like that. I’m just the messenger.”
She closed her eyes and laced her fingers behind her head, as if she could unhear what I’d said. “I love Zane,” she said. “I really do.”
“I know you do,” I said. “You need to talk this out with him. Figure out what you want.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.” She brought her hands down to the nape of her neck, rubbing out the tension. “I’m his wife. I took a vow, for better or worse. This thing with Gerardo . . . We’re trying to do the right thing. Maybe it’s wrong to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. I don’t know. But I don’t know what else to do. I can’t leave Zane, not now, not like this.”
“Just talk to him,” I said.
“Last night when you called to tell me you’d saved him, you know what I thought? I thought things would have been easier if you hadn’t. I hate myself for thinking that. I wish I could unthink it, but I can’t. Am I supposed to tell him that?”
“That’s not for me to decide,” I said. “It would hurt him, for sure. But I don’t think he’d be surprised. I’m pretty sure he thought it too.”
I left her with her problems and walked back through the maze of trailers. The night smelled of grilled meat with undertones of sawdust and pine. Most of the trailers were dark, but I could see the glow of an occasional campfire. I heard a low grumble, turned to see Mace Ewing staring at me. He was standing by a campfire, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand. The trailer behind him was about the size of mine. A magnetic sign on the side gave a phone number, website, and the simple message Horses Broke and Trained.
He swayed on his feet, blinked at me with glassy eyes. The bruising around them was shiny and purple, the splint on his nose a metallic glint. “What’re you looking at?”
“You tell me. A guilty conscience?”
“Asshole.” His words were already slurred. “You don’t know anything about me.”
I’d misstepped with the smartass comment. It had felt good to say it, but it wouldn’t get me what I needed. It had only served to make him more defensive.
“Where’s your bandana?” I said, and watched his face for a reaction.
“My what?”
“Harley Davidson, got skulls all over it.”
He swayed on his feet, thinking about it. “Around, I guess. Don’t matter. They’re a dime a dozen.”
I decided to let it go for now. “I owe you an apology for yesterday. The thing with your mare.”
He took a swig of Jack. There wasn’t much left.
I said, “I shouldn’t have barged in. I should have come and talked to you about it.”
“You should have minded your own business.” He waved the bottle in my general direction. “I’m a good trainer.”
“So I hear.”
“Been trainin’ since I was fourteen. Never sored, neither. Never have, never will.”
Trudy had told me as much. His pride in that fact made me feel just a hair better about him. Unless, of course, he’d been the one who’d attacked Zane.
“I’ve done a little training myself,” I said. “Maybe we could compare notes sometime.”
“Don’t need to compare notes. I got all the notes I need.”
“What if I bought her from you? The mare.”
“Not for sale.”
“Not for sale, or not for sale to me?”
“Take your pick. Then take yourself out of my sight.” He tipped back the bottle, found it empty. “Shit.”
He looked at it as if it had betrayed him.
“I hear you’re a big outdoorsman,” I said. “Fishing, hunting, horseback riding.”
“All of the above.” He swayed again, then stumbled forward and caught himself inches from the fire. “I know what you’re doing there.”
“What am I doing?”
“You want me to tell you what a hotshot hunter I am, how I bagged my first deer when I was eleven. Bet you never shot a deer in your whole life.”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Pansy. My grandmother’s tougher ’n you.”
“Your grandmother is a deer hunter?”
“Damn straight she is. But you leave Grandma out of this.” He staggered to a red and white Igloo cooler and rooted around inside. Handed a beer to me and took another for himself.
Southern hospitality. He wanted to kick my ass, but damned if he could drink a beer without offering me one.
He took a long swig, wiped his mouth with his wrist.
I said, “How full was that bottle of Jack when you started?”
“Full enough,” he said. “What’s it to you?”
“Just wondering if I should worry about alcohol poisoning.”
He laughed. “Don’t you worry about me. I got the constitution of a bull buffalo.”
“I talked to Trudy earlier,” I said.
“You stay away from her.” He emphasized each word with a little jab of the bottle. “She’s a good woman.”
“Her honor’s safe with me.”
“Yeah, you’re a real gentleman, sniffing around Rhonda Lister.”
“Let’s leave Rhonda out of this. She took me to see Doc, gave me a ride when I needed one. That’s all.”
He smirked. “I bet she gave you a ride.”
“Trudy said you were a decent guy. You’re making that hard to believe.”
“You looking to be my new best friend? I’m not a good guy to be friends with.” He knocked back the beer, went back for another. “You want one?”
“I’m good.”
He fumbled the lid back onto the cooler, then sank down beside it, scratching at the pop top. He stared at it as if it were engaged in an act of calculated resistance. “Fuck.”
A tear rolled down his cheek and caught in the stubble on his jaw.
I eased onto the ground beside him, leaned my back against the cooler. My side ached, but it was bearable. “You passed happy drunk a long time ago.”
He growled, a primal sound. “What do you know about it?”
I said, “A blind man could see something’s eating you up. Your friend Dan?”
A sob tore from his throat. “You aren’t my friend,” he said. “You want me to say I killed him.”
“You did kill him,” I said.
“I did,” he said softly. His gaze was unfocused with alcohol and memory. “Yes, indeed I did.”
The need to talk rolled off of him like steam. You could look at him and tell he was burning up with it. I looked away from him, watching the flames in the fire pit leap and dance, and said, “How did it happen?”
A silence stretched between us. Stretched and filled with all the words he wanted to say but was afraid to, and when it had taken in all it could, it burst open like a rain cloud.
It had poured for three days before the hunting trip, but the morning they met, the rain had slackened to a drizzle. There were five of them, best friends and fathers and cousins, all guys who’d been hunting and fishing together since Mace was a kid. At thirty-two, Mace was the youngest of the group. Dan, twenty years older, was the oldest, but they’d formed a bond over the years, whispering in deer blinds, frying catfish over campfires, drinking beers and talking about NASCAR while the fire crackled and the wind rustled the leaves and blew sweet cedar smoke into their eyes.
There was tension between them now, though, because while Mace sympathized with
Dan’s antisoring stance, Dan had brought bad publicity down on all of them, and Mace’s bottom line had suffered as much as anyone’s. Junior Trehorne had been vocal about it, and tempers had flared and then subsided to a simmer.
The day of the accident, they’d set up their campsite, then hiked up toward Eagle Creek, Mace in the lead with his Remington .30/06, Dan with his lighter Sako Finnlight following behind. They planned to split up later, two to a blind and Junior alone in a tree stand. Mace and Dan were a team, and for the first time in years, Mace wasn’t happy about it.
He was halfway across the creek, placing his feet carefully on the slippery rocks, when Junior, third in line, muttered something that made Dan turn around. “What did you say?”
Junior smirked. “I said, if I were Mace, I wouldn’t turn my back on you like that. Might find a knife in it.”
Dan’s fist tightened on his rifle. “I did the right thing, turning that guy in. Hotshot trainer, raking in the bucks by hurting horses. Guys like that, they give us all a bad name.”
“No, guys like you give us a bad name. Why didn’t you just come to us, let us take care of it from the inside?”
“Because,” Dan said quietly, “you wouldn’t have. Don’t tell me you didn’t all know what he was doing.”
Junior said, “Our profits dropped 50 percent last month. Two different reporters came sniffing around our farm. How about you, Mace? I know you’ve lost business.”
Mace didn’t answer. It was true, he had lost business, and God knew it wasn’t fair, because he didn’t sore. No one cared about that though. When they saw he did the Big Lick, they just tarred him with the same brush.
“What do you want from me?” Dan said. “It hurt my business too.”
Mace spun around midstream. That was your choice, not ours, he started to say, but then his foot slid sideways off the rock, and he was falling, falling, his finger tightening on the trigger of the Remington.
The rifle barked and bucked in his hand.
Dan staggered sideways, a red bloom staining the front of his shirt. His mouth dropped open, and he slumped into the water in slow motion, a look of surprise and betrayal on his face.
A Taste of Blood and Ashes Page 17